Sunday

The Daily WAR (12-07)

Reading between the lines, and thinking outside the box . . .
 
 
 
    Pope Benedict XVI will celebrate mass next month at a brand-new baseball stadium in Washington before some 45,000 Catholics, the archbishop of Washington said Thursday, adding that demand for places has exceeded the church's expectations.
 
    Non-negotiable values, like the dignity of human life and the protection of marriage, should be the criteria for discernment in political arenas, says the president of the Italian bishops' conference. He confirmed the "the policy of the Church, clergy and Church organizations to not be involved in any way with the selection of political sides or parties."
    At the same time, he cited Benedict XVI's speech at the bishops' conference in Verona in order to specify that "the risk of political and legislative choices that contradict the fundamental values and anthropological principles and ethical roots of the nature of human beings" should be countered with determination and clear intentions.
    He then called on those who are elected to pay particular attention to "the impoverishment of the population, the needed increases to the minimum wage, the buying power of pensions, the housing crisis, initiatives to support motherhood, measures to increase job security, and the improvement of some basic infrastructure and services for commuters."
 
 
 
    Despite an upturn in Germany's economy, the man on the street is no better off. New figures from the Finance Ministry show average incomes have failed to keep up with inflation in the last 3 years -- and the drop in purchasing power may be accelerating.
    The bad news comes on the heels of a report by the German Institute for Economic Research that Germany's middle class is continuing to shrink.
 
Press review
    Germany's ongoing talks with its Muslim community continues. In principal, everyone agreed to broaden Islam instruction in German schools. But deep divisions remain among the country's Muslims. German commentators turn their attention toward the Islam Conference.
 
    Germany's ambassador to the United Nations says that momentum is growing to end the impasse that has long blocked the launch of formal negotiations on expanding the body's Security Council.
    Germany has long been arguing its right to a seat. The 3rd largest contributor to the UN regular budgets, it has also become one of the largest contributors of troops. Moreover, German diplomacy plays a constructive role on the international stage.

    But while Germany's bid is supported by Japan, India, Brazil, France, the United Kingdom and Russia, among other countries, Italy, for example, firmly opposes it. Even if negotiations do succeed and the General Assembly agrees to expand the council within the year, experts say it would take up to 3 years for member states to ratify the plan.

 
 
 
Sarkozy and Merkel do not seem to get on. How much does this matter for Europe?
    The Franco-German relationship has been the motor of the European project. It is driven by an interlocking machinery of official meetings, consultations and diplomatic secondments. But it depends heavily on close links at the very top.
    That makes the testy relationship between President Sarkozy and Chancellor Merkel a matter of concern far beyond France and Germany. French thrusts followed by German parries seem to have become the norm.
    Germany has fended off French plans for a summit of euro countries and its push for a fundamental rethink of Europe's security and defence policy. "The Germans' #1 rule is no surprises, and Sarkozy keeps springing surprises."
 
    Europe quietens down somewhat this week, as the European institutions wind down their activities and close (Thursday through Monday) for the Easter holidays, but this does not mean controversy also gets to take a vacation..
 
The Lisbon treaty leaves Europe with a plethora of presidents
    Just ask EU diplomats and politicians as they ponder dozens of questions left unanswered by the Lisbon treaty. Some potential clashes have been obvious for a long time. Thus, 2 new figures created by the treaty have been promised overlapping jobs speaking for Europe: a new foreign minister, and a full-time president of the European Council.
    More recently, governments have woken up to another fudge, described by several officials as "the real problem" with Lisbon, "the really delicate question" or simply "a mess". It too concerns the 2 new posts, but this time how exactly they relate to the rotating 6-month presidency. This is the system under which each EU country takes its turn in charge: its ministers chairs each EU council. Rotating presidents may also emerge sadder and wiser from their stints, because they learn about the selfish, furtive national interests that often block EU policies for years.
    The Lisbon text describing the full-time president's mandate was pared down into gibberish. As a result, his or her role remains unclear: a globe-striding "Mr Europe", a low-profile broker of Brussels deals, or merely a ceremonial figure (German officials talk of their president as one possible model).
 
    President Sarkozy was forced to drastically scale back his plans for a Paris-dominated Mediterranean Union. But even the watered-down plans for closer ties with the bloc's southern neighbors inspired only muted enthusiasm amongst his fellow EU leaders.
 
    As Polish prime minister, Jaroslaw Kaczynski helped to negotiate the EU's Lisbon Treaty and boasted of his success at the time. Now he is trying to block the treaty's ratification in the Polish parliament.
    He has said his party would only back the treaty if the ratification bill included a statement affirming that Poland's constitution takes primacy over EU law and that Poland has the right to leave the union at any time.
    If Poland did hold a referendum on the treaty, then it could inspire calls for similar votes in other countries, delaying the ratification process.
 
 
 
NO!...
    In the most recent edition of its annual "Contemporary Global Anti-Semitism" released Thursday, the State Department moves ever more closely to a long-standing neo-conservative tenet: that criticism of Israel or Israeli policies often, if not always, equals anti-Semitism.
 
NO!...
    As Israel prepares to commemorate its 60th anniversary in May, some academics, scholars and journalists are pausing to reflect on the ambitions and aspirations that fuelled the country's 1948 independence - and whether those reasons still resonate today.
 
    Germany is to host an international conference to support efforts to build an effective judicial system and police force in a future Palestinian state. It will not be a peace conference but a meeting to support the efforts of Tony Blair in his role as a EU coordinator seeking to build a modern Palestinian state.
    Israel, the Palestinians and other Arab states as well as the US, Russia, the UN and EU members will be invited to the gathering, which has been tentatively set for June in Berlin.
 
    A Lebanese newspaper reported that Syria had recently relayed a message to Israel conveying the county's interest in peace talks with Israel, but on the condition that talks be held openly and not under fire.
    In contrast to the Syrian peace overtures, Israel has recently conveyed a stern message to Damascus, via a 3rd party, stating that it would hold Damascus accountable for any Hezbollah attacks, Israeli and European sources said.
 
Despite a short, tantalising lull in Gaza, a wider war may be on the way
    Since Hizbullah's own "divine victory" against Israel in the summer of 2006, its arsenal of rockets is reported to have been more than replenished by its Syrian and Iranian mentors—and beefed up with sophisticated longer-range missiles.
    Since that war, an international buffer force of almost 15,000 peacekeeping soldiers has been installed in southern Lebanon. They, in the private view of many of the providing governments, would become little more than hostages in the event of serious fighting.
    Hizbullah has kept most of its new rockets north of the Litani river, from where they can simply be fired into Israel over the peacekeepers' heads. At most, the peacekeepers would complicate another Israeli effort to defeat Hizbullah by launching another ground invasion of Lebanon.
    Here is where this worst-case scenario turns truly nightmarish. Olmert learnt in Lebanon that a guerrilla army, especially one as well trained and armed as Hizbullah's, is hard to destroy. So there is in Israel a school of thought that advocates counter-attacking not only against Hizbullah but also against Syria.
    The danger in Gaza may explain an acceleration in diplomacy. Hard on the heels of Condoleezza Rice, Dick Cheney is to visit the region. George Bush is talking once again about securing his "vision" of an independent Palestine at peace with Israel before he leaves office.
    Not for the first time, the military clock in the Middle East may be ticking faster than the political one.
 
    Pakistan's capital was on high alert today, and embassies reviewed security measures, after a bomb struck an Italian restaurant crowded with foreigners.
 
    It is hoped that the base for the UN's African Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) will house the largest peacekeeping force in the world: 26,000 soldiers and policemen. The violence is now perpetrated by many more groups, with a tangle of motives. As a UN mediator puts it, the situation is "a mess".
    For one thing, the new force, which officially took over from African Union (AU) peacekeepers on January 1st, is deploying in the middle of a full-blown war that has spilled from West Darfur across the border into Chad.
 
China: The new colonialists
China's hunger for natural resources is causing more problems at home than abroad
    There is no exaggerating China's hunger for commodities. The country accounts for about 20% of the world's population, yet it gobbles up more than 50% of the world's pork, 50% of its cement, 33% of its steel, over 25% of its aluminium, and has swallowed over 80% of the increase in the world's copper supply since 2000.
    What is more, China is getting ever hungrier. Chinese demand for raw materials of all sorts is growing so fast and creating such a bonanza for farmers, miners and oilmen that phrases such as "bull market" or "cyclical expansion" do not seem to do it justice. Instead, bankers have coined a new word: supercycle.
    Not all observers, however, think that China's unstinting appetite for commodities is super. The most common complaint centres on foreign policy. In its drive to secure reliable supplies of raw materials, it is said, China is coddling dictators, despoiling poor countries and undermining Western efforts to spread democracy and prosperity. America and Europe, the shrillest voices say, are "losing" Africa and Latin America.
(And: Quest for resources: A ravenous dragon)

 
 
    Iran's ancient Jewish community has declined by two-thirds since the 1979 Islamic revolution and like many people in the country they can be reluctant to publicly criticize its ruling establishment.
    Those Iranian Jews who spoke to Reuters after voting in Friday's parliamentary election, in which conservatives are expected to retain their grip, said they faced no problems in the Shi'ite Muslim country for their religion.
    "We have been in this country for thousands of years and we will stay. We have no complaints." Such words are likely to please Iranian officials but are at odds with renewed accusations by Washington.
    [WAR: It's not JEWS (race) or JUDAISM (religion) that the Iranians (and Arabs) have a problem with - it's ZIONISM (ideology).]
 
    Iranian election results on Saturday showed conservatives on course to keep control of parliament, but some were expected to join reformists in flaying President Ahmadinejad's handling of the economy.
    Conservatives have taken 120 seats in the 290-member assembly against 46 for reformists so far. Four seats had gone to independents and 30 more would go to run-off votes.
 
    Hardliners in the Iranian regime celebrated victory in parliamentary elections by toughening their stance against the West, firmly rejecting any possibility of talks over the country's controversial nuclear programme.
    Buoyed by results from Friday's parliamentary elections, the government said talks with the group of 5 permanent UN Security Council members and Germany were at an end. The statement will come as a blow to those who believed the group could still broker a diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear crisis.
 
    The US cast doubt on the fairness of Iran's parliamentary elections Friday and said any outcome of the poll would be "cooked." President Ahmadinejad has shrugged off criticism about the poll.
 
    President Ahmadinejad labelled the US "enemies of all humanity" because of Washington's military tactics in the Middle East and support for Israel. "They are not just the enemies of Islam they are enemies of all humanity. ... [And] we believe that as far as the law is concerned the nuclear dispute is finished but that the hostilities with these countries will continue."
 
    The rather sudden resignation of Adm. William Fallon has any number of people worrying that war with Iran will surely follow.
    Then there is Cheney's scheduled "peace trip" to the Mideast, supposedly to boost the stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. Could one of his purposes be to urge Israel to make a first strike, after which the US would just have to enter to support it?
 
    According to the Washington Times, a "former senior Defense official" (SecDef Cheney?) knows "for a fact" that Adm. William J. Fallon "was fired" last week because Iran and Syria were allegedly allowing "foreign fighters" to cross into Iraq and "kill our soldiers" and "Fallon was unwilling to do anything to hold those countries accountable."
    How does this "former senior Defense official" expect Syria and Iran to close their borders with Iraq? The same way the Israelis closed Gaza's border with Egypt? Or the same way Bush intends to close our border with Mexico?
    And, since closing their borders is obviously impossible, what did Bush expect Fallon to do to hold Syria and Iran "accountable"? Nuke 'em?
    The President can legally "introduce United States Armed Forces into hostilities" in Iran because the Senate is on record as demanding that the Iranians stop "foreign fighters" from crossing the border into Iraq and "killing our soldiers."
    And Adm. Fallon has just been "fired," apparently because he doesn't consider the Iranians alleged transgressions to be a sufficient cause to start WW3.
 
 
 
    Sen. Joe Lieberman, the unusual sidekick in recent months to John McCain, is tagging along with the Arizona senator again next week when they go to Iraq together. The trip, which started Saturday night, will also likely include visits to Jordan and Israel, in addition to European stops in London and Paris.
    In addition, Lieberman will stop in Rome and visit Vatican City. He said he'll have a brief opportunity to meet Pope Benedict XVI, which he's "very excited about." He said he's familiar with some of Benedict's writings. "He is a very impressive intellectual force."
 
    Regardless whether the next president is named McCain, Clinton or Obama, POTUS 44 will have a long list of demands for Europe -- especially if the White House goes to the Democrats. In an exclusive interview, a foreign policy expert discusses future US foreign policy and the person he believes Europeans would prefer as president.
 
Divided we fall...
    British diplomats in Washington have quietly dropped the use of the phrase "special relationship" in what some see as a symbol of the drift in relations with the US under Gordon Brown.
    One British diplomat said: "'Special relationship' is just not a term we use any more. It is seen as a bit old hat and parochial. That feeling has grown considerably since Brown took over. It is not exactly a career enhancer to be heard talking about the 'special relationship.'"
    British and American officials have told The Sunday Telegraph that the change in approach by the prime minister has dramatically cooled the close comradeship of the Blair years and left room for President Sarkozy to fill the role of most prominent European ally.
 
    The French and British capitals are linked as never before. By most economic tests, London outstrips Paris. Its stock exchange, by market capitalisation, is two-and-a-half times larger. It is the world's biggest market for global foreign exchange, over-the-counter derivatives and international bonds. As a destination for the funds of foreign investors, it is consistently rated the top city in Europe.
    In haute cuisine, as in haute couture, Paris may still triumph. French publications feature such titles as "Paris is falling asleep" and "Is Paris dying?"
    Indeed, officials at London's City Hall bristle at the idea that their cities can be compared. "We don't think of ourselves as in competition with Paris. We've won that contest. We measure ourselves against New York."
 
    While New York Governor Eliot Spitzer was paying an 'escort' $4,300 in a hotel room in Washington, just down the road, Bernanke was secretly handing over $200 billion in a tryst with mortgage bank industry speculators. Both acts were wanton, wicked and lewd. But there's a BIG difference. The Governor was using his own checkbook. Bernanke was using ours.
    This week, Fed, for the first time in its history, loaned a selected coterie of banks one-fifth of a trillion dollars to guarantee these banks' mortgage-backed junk bonds. The deluge of public loot was an eye-popping windfall to the very banking predators who have brought 2 million families to the brink of foreclosure.
    Up until Wednesday, there was one single, lonely politician who stood in the way of this creepy little assignation at the bankers' bordello: Eliot Spitzer. The very same day the bail-out was decided, the man called, 'The Sheriff of Wall Street' was cuffed. Spitzer was silenced. Who are they kidding? Spitzer's lynching and the bankers' enriching are intimately tied.
 
 
 
    Big American finance houses have collapsed before, but the implosion of Bear Stearns is dangerous. A host of other banks, broker dealers, and hedge funds have played the same game, deploying massive leverage at the top of the credit bubble to eke out extra yield.
    Dozens of them are saddled with the same toxic debt - sub-prime property, credit cards, auto loans, and mountains of unsold paper from the merger boom. This time the market for default insurance is flashing bright red warning signals across the entire spectrum of US finance.
    Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac - that underpin 60% of the $11 trillion mortgage market - had a heart attack on Monday. Their bonds were in free-fall, threatening to set off another cascade of bank writedowns. These are not sub-prime outfits. They sit at the apex of the US mortgage credit industry.
    Hence the dramatic move by the Fed this week to offer a $200bn lifeline, agreeing to accept Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac issues as collateral. Had the Fed delayed, many traders believe Wall Street would have plunged through resistance levels risking a full-fledged crash.
    You have to go back to the banking crisis of the Great Depression to find a moment when the financial system as a whole seemed so close to the precipice.
    "We are now experiencing the first truly major crisis of financial globalisation. Never before have banks seen such destruction of their balance sheets in such a short time. Moreover, there are signs that the problems are spreading."
    What keeps Federal Reserve officials turning at night is fear that the "financial accelerator" will now set off a vicious downward spiral. New means of showering liquidity on the banking system are being devised each week.
 
    Bear Stearns has been forced to ask for emergency central bank funding following an unprecedented run on the Wall Street bank. It is the first time since the 1960s that the US central banking system has been called upon to bail out a major bank, with the severity of the situation sparking fears that Bear's problems may trigger a crisis similar to the one that triggered the Great Depression of 1929.
    (And: "Bear Stearns has a long and proud history - it survived the Wall Street crash, Black Monday in 1987 and any number of crises since. It is unlikely to survive this.")
 
    So who is next? As advisers to Bear Stearns struggle to find a buyer or funding in the next 28 days, Wall Street, the City and the financial district in Tokyo were scrabbling to find out who is the most exposed to Bear Stearns, either through loans or trading positions.
    Traders in all 3 centres were panicking even for those banks not directly exposed to Bear. They feared that the problems experienced at the stricken bank signalled that the credit crisis has deteriorated to a new level.
    Chris Whalen, of the Wall Street consultancy Institutional Risk Analytics, said: "This is going to go all the way up the chain. ... All the other firms are in danger, too. I would not be surprised to see an emergency bank holiday announced. That hasn't happened since Roosevelt."
    During the Depression, 75 years ago almost to the day, Franklin Roosevelt declared a 4-day bank holiday, which stemmed a frantic run on banks.
 
    It was the worst possible news at the worst possible time. But the Fed had no choice. This isn't about one bank caving in from its bad bets. The entire financial system is teetering and a failure at Bear would have taken a wrecking ball to the equities market and sent stocks around the world into a violent death-spiral.
    The Bear bailout is yet another glaring example of a system that lacks all credibility and is quickly self-destructing.
 
    Wall Street is bracing itself for another week of roller-coaster trading after more than $300bn was wiped off the US equity markets on Friday. One UK economist warned that the world is now close to a 1930s-like Great Depression, while New York traders said they had never experienced such fear.
    "Everyone is in a total state of shock, aghast at what is happening. No one wants to talk, let alone deal; we're just standing by waiting. Everyone is nervous about what is going to emerge when trading starts tomorrow."
    A senior market strategist at Lombard, the economics consultancy, said on Friday night: "We have all been talking about a 1970s-style crisis but as each day goes by this looks more like the 1930s. No one has any clue as to where this is going to end; it's a self-feeding disaster." He added that the problems unravelling at Bear Stearns are just the beginning: "There will be more banks and hedge funds heading for collapse."
    On Europe, he said that while the German economy remains strong, others such as Italy's and Spain's are weakening. "You could see a scenario where the eurozone breaks up if economies continue to be so worried about inflation."
 
    With the de facto collapse of Bear Stearns, the housing and credit market collapse has claimed one of the titans of Wall Street. The immediate fear motivating the Federal Reserve, the Treasury Department and Wall Street banks was the danger that an uncontrolled collapse of Bear Stearns would have a domino effect on already turbulent financial markets.
    Were Bear Stearns forced to sell off assets at fire-sale prices to raise cash needed to meet creditors' demands, the value of untold billions in assets held by other financial institutions would drop, leading to more margin calls from creditors, further institutional collapses, more panic selling of debt and securities—a vicious spiral to the bottom with the potential of a breakdown in the entire capitalist financial system.
    The temporary reprieve for Bear Stearns does not eliminate the potential for just such a scenario in the near future.
    The immense fortunes amassed by the uppermost echelons of the US population on the basis of such parasitic financial operations have created, as their consequence, a social and economic disaster of historical proportions, threatening tens of millions of Americans, and hundreds of millions more people around the world, with pauperization.
 
    Of all the nightmares dreamt by finance boffins, this has to rank among their worst. One of the biggest investment banks in the world is now only a fingernail's grip away from going bust. The very firmament of global finance has just ruptured.
    In the coming few weeks, financial markets face their biggest test since the 1930s. This is not hyperbole. The experts and traders who populate Wall Street and the City of London are now realising that this crisis, which only a few months ago they thought might be over by Christmas, is here to stay for quite some time.
    In truth, the story here is not about Bear Stearns itself. Its collapse - and, indeed, the collapse of Northern Rock - are really symptoms of much more deep-seated problems in the economies on both sides of the Atlantic.
    Quite simply, we have borrowed too much over the past decade or so. Individuals and businesses alike are guilty. The consequences are stark. Like it or not, our fate is tied to the Bear Stearns of this world.
 
    These are serious times in financial markets. All banks are running for cover. They are frantically trying to build up their balance sheets and eliminate risk. They are not prepared to lend to each other and the biggest concern they have is not one of liquidity, but solvency.
    Most banks are still sitting on valuable assets, but they cannot sell them at sensible prices and are running out of cash. Some will eventually be forced to sell, and fast.
    There are scare stories aplenty out there about prominent institutions. They are repeatedly denied but if only half the rumours are true, we are looking at a very frightening scenario.
 
    'Be afraid. Be very afraid.' The poster slogan from a cheesy American horror flick feels like an appropriate way to begin this week's column. The Hollywood release of "Bear Stearns - A Nightmare on Wall Street" can be only a matter of time.
    This weekend, as vultures assemble around the carcass of America's 5th-largest investment bank, this financial crisis seem to morph into a larger, more frightening monster almost by the hour.
    To those who argue that Bear's problems are self-contained, think again. The counterparty risks and labyrinthine links to hedge fund trades are tentacles that reach far beyond the confines of the US mortgage market.
 
    Millions of British households face soaring mortgage rates and tumbling house prices after the global financial crisis triggered the near-collapse of one of the world's biggest banks.
    There will be potentially severe knock-on implications for the UK which is already struggling to cope with the credit crunch. British families have already seen their finances squeezed by higher utility bills, food prices and taxes.
 
    Four years ago, an academic economist named Ben Bernanke co-authored a technical paper that could have been titled "Things the Federal Reserve Might Try if It's Desperate."
    Today, the Fed is indeed desperate, and Bernanke is putting some of the paper's suggestions into effect. Unfortunately, however, the Fed's actions -- even though they're unprecedented in their scope -- probably won't be enough to halt the economy's downward spiral.
    And if I'm right about that, there's another implication: the ugly economics of the financial crisis will soon create some ugly politics, too.
    What if this initiative fails? I'm sure that Bernanke and his colleagues are frantically considering other actions that they can take, but there's only so much the Fed -- whose resources are limited, and whose mandate doesn't extend to rescuing the whole financial system -- can do when faced with what looks increasingly like one of history's great financial crises.
 
The Fed tries to flush out the credit markets once again—but the stink lingers
    Third time lucky? The credit markets almost seized up in August, December and again this month and on each occasion the Federal Reserve has led a rescue attempt. But every time the Fed has unblocked the drains somewhere in the credit markets, they have bunged up elsewhere.
    When banks get more nervous about lending, that tends to have wider consequences. Companies will find it more difficult to borrow; weaker ones will accordingly get into trouble. Nor is it likely that the full impact of tighter lending standards on consumer demand has been felt. And the effects of the crisis are showing up in some unexpected places...
 
    The implosion of Carlyle Capital Corporation is a spectacular failure. The risk of similar casualties in other structured credit vehicles and hedge funds is obviously high. Banks are in no mood to sustain similar businesses if they can get out without loss.
    One theory yesterday was that the Federal Reserve's latest move to introduce liquidity into the system this week may actually have made matters worse. The unloved mortgage-backed securities seized from CCC were suitable to be exchanged at the Fed for highly desirable and liquid Treasury bills.
    If that is the case, it could hasten the end for other defaulting borrowers and encourage banks to pull the plug on those teetering on the edge.
    Unfortunately, it is premature to put a final cost on the catastrophe while in the US house prices are falling, job losses are soaring and foreclosures are rocketing. Attempts to draw a line under the crisis look like wishful thinking.
 
    Goldman Sachs, Wall Street's most powerful investment bank, will this week announce asset writedowns worth about $3 billion. Goldman is expected to report a fall in 1st-quarter earnings of about 50%. The writedown will underline how the financial turbulence is now affecting even the most stellar performers.
 
    The Federal Reserve could cut interest rates by more than 1% in a bid to stabilise financial markets in the wake of Bear Stearns' collapse.
 
    Argentina and Brazil are to scrap bilateral commercial transactions in US dollars and start using their own currencies from August, an official in charge of currency settlement at the Argentine Central Bank said here Saturday.
 
    Venezuela has opened some oil contracts in euros to reduce exposure to the plummeting dollar, the oil minister told Reuters on Friday, signaling the OPEC nation is moving away from the greenback.
    Venezuela's president, Hugo Chavez, has often criticized Washington for allowing the dollar to slide and wants fellow OPEC nations to consider switching oil pricing to a basket of currencies to improve their purchasing power.
 
    With dizzying speed -- and rank hypocrisy -- the US is escalating its war of words with Venezuela. On Friday, a group of Republican lawmakers proposed a resolution that calls on the Bush regime to declare Venezuela "a state sponsor of terrorism."
    Were Bush to list Venezuela as a "terrorist sponsor," crippling economic sanctions could be imposed as a prelude to a military intervention to topple the Bolivarian socialist Republic.
    Dangerous times for the capitalist masters call forth desperate measures. Washington is seeking a regional adversary to blame for its own bankrupt policies and Hugo Chávez and the Bolivarian socialist government are being made to fit the frame.
 
    On Monday March 3, the price of crude oil reached $103.95 per barrel on the NYME, surpassing the record set nearly 30 years ago during another moment of chaos in the Middle East.
    While March 3 may have only briefly made the headlines here, it may well be remembered as the true "black Monday" of our new century, the moment when energy costs became the decisive factor in the balance of global economic power.
 
 
 
 
    Syrian archeologists unearthed ruins of a city dating as far back as 6,000 years. It might be the oldest city in the world. The find has actually changed the traditional concept of the city appearance and the civilization on Earth. It makes scientists look at the development of the human civilization in a new light, taking into consideration the earlier time period.
 
Why are we driving ourselves to destruction in trying to do too much too quickly?
    "Remember the 5 simple rules to be happy: free your heart from hatred; free your mind from worries; live simply; give more; expect less."
 
Tonight's sky
    At one time, sailors' livelihoods and survival depended on their lucky stars – most especially, the pointer stars of the Big Dipper. Polaris, the only stable star in the northern sky, is always to your north, lighting your way to the North Pole.
    This sparkling starlit Big Dipper is so wonderfully easy to see that Chet Raymo, in his charming book 365 Starry Nights, suggested that our species is genetically predisposed to recognizing the Big Dipper. The Big Dipper is part of Ursa Major, or the Big Bear constellation.
    [WAR: "He is the Maker of the Bear and Orion, the Pleiades and the constellations of the south. / "Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons or lead out the Bear with its cubs?" (Job 9:9 / 38:32).
    The stars are not only for navigation, but for telling time ("Let there be lights/stars in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years." (Gen 1:14).
    And the constellation's seasons are 20 minutes longer than the Sun's seasons. Two thousand years ago, this was not an issue. But because of the precession of the equinoxes, this 20-minute difference is now causing a problem. The formula is: 2,000y X 20min = 40,000min (27.7 days).
    So that puts those who try to determine the appointed times in a dilemma. Do they use the Sun and Moon, or the stars and Moon? (Oops, forgot the Barley-ites and their "green ears" and Moon!) The answer has been there all along -- right under our noses, and above our heads...]
 
 
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