Reading between the lines, and thinking outside the box . . .
Here is a Vatican translation of the homily Benedict XVI delivered Holy Saturday at the Mass of the Easter Vigil.
Here is a Vatican translation of Benedict XVI's Easter message delivered today at midday before he imparted his blessing "urbi et orbi" (to the city of Rome and the world).
Orthodox Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Russia sent Easter greetings to Benedict XVI. He also addressed messages to the principal exponents of the Protestant confessions. Orthodox Easter in Russia is celebrated, according to the Julian calendar, on April 27.
Senior German energy executives warned yesterday that Europe's biggest economy faces growing blackouts unless it follows the Franco-British lead in promoting new nuclear power stations.
The Christian Social Union of Bavaria is putting forward its own tax concept that would see more money in the pockets of average working citizens and families. The CSU head, Erwin Huber, has openly stated that he has made it a personal mission to increase the party's profile on a national level.
Shareholders are starting to become more vocal and are making their demands in public. German shareholders have more rights than investors in other European countries.
But German shareholders are far less powerful than those in Britain, where investors need only a 10% stake in a public company in order to force an extraordinary general meeting of shareholders to vote on important strategic decisions or remove directors from the company.
Foreign investors tend to lead the charge. Meanwhile corporate Germany is fighting back. Big companies are pressing the government in Berlin and BaFin, the financial watchdog, to strengthen their defences by sharpening the definition of "acting in concert" in Germany's takeover law.
German secret services are concerned that extremists in north Africa are reinforcing Al-Qaeda, the country's intelligence head said in an interview to be published Tuesday.
It is almost official: Germany is Israel's 2nd-best friend. Obviously, Germany counts for less than the US, but its friendship is valuable even so. Few German politicians question the relationship, but some think Merkel confuses friendship with fawning.
Germany is Israel's 2nd-biggest trading partner. The main tension is over Iran: Germany is the largest EU exporter to Iran. Any threat to Israel is a threat to Germany, Merkel declared.
[Europress] [Russopress]
Serbia's Prime Minister accused NATO peacekeepers and UN police of using "snipers and banned ammunition" to quell a Serb riot against Kosovo's independence.
The US gave Moscow guarantees that its proposed anti-missile shield "will be not directed" against Russia, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in a first sign of progress in very hard negotiations between the countries. "The Americans are ready to provide us with a series of measures to give us confidence and reassure us that this system is not directed against us."
President Peres said Sunday that Israel will not make a deal with Syria to return the Golan Heights. "If the Golan is given back, it will boost Iran's influence in Lebanon and the territory will effectively be under Iranian-Syrian control."
The US plans to urge Britain to launch a "surge" in Basra to combat increasing violence in the southern Iraqi region.
"Three big militias are currently engaged in a particularly bloody battle in southern Iraq. US and Iraqi forces are involved in a huge operation to attack an Al-Qaeda stronghold in Mosul. But after that, the plan is to turn the coalition's attention on to Basra and we will be urging the British to surge into the city. If they do not have enough troops, then they will be offered US Marines to help out."
France is tipped to promise 1,000 extra troops for international forces fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan, as President Sarkozy moves his country closer to its NATO allies ahead of a key summit.
Six years since the initial deployment of German troops to Afghanistan, politicians in Berlin have started to speak of a gradual withdrawal. A defence ministry official also says that Germany will not cave to US pressure to expand its presence there.
Dozens of tankers carrying oil for NATO forces were destroyed Sunday in a bomb blast targeting a Pakistani border crossing where they awaited clearance to enter Afghanistan.
In naming its candidate for prime minister Saturday, the party of Benazir Bhutto has taken a further step toward sidelining President Musharraf. His weakening position could certainly affect the way the US battles Al Qaeda and Taliban operatives.
The new ruling coalition has stressed the need for dialogue with militants – a position that reflects public opinion but may not be welcome by Washington.
The US has stepped in to prevent the collapse of the first project to construct a natural gas pipeline that will bypass Russia. It is pressuring the EU and Central Asian countries to complete plans for the construction of the Nabucco pipeline.
Since the beginning of the year, several European countries have abandoned the Nabucco project and defected to the rival South Stream project run by the Russian oil giant, Gazprom.
The Bush administration has reacting with growing impatience to these developments, warning the EU that it must go ahead with building the $6 billion pipeline and reduce its growing dependence on Gazprom.
US diplomats and officials have been touring European and Central Asian countries putting pressure on a number of states to complete plans on a project that was first proposed a decade ago, in 1998.
There is also an important political reason for the relative strengthening of Russia's economic and political role, which is related to the growth of inter-imperialist tensions. The occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan by US imperialism have led to a growing anxiety among the European ruling elites that a US stranglehold over the extraction and transport of the oil and natural gas resources of the Middle East and Central Asia will conflict with their own interests.
These fears and the growing role of China and India have been utilised by the Kremlin to further its interests in Europe. The European powers and Russia find themselves in the contradictory position of growing interdependence and rivalry.
Lacking sufficient energy resources of its own and home to some of the world's largest energy companies, Europe sees Russian oil and gas as a vital geopolitical asset and source of profits. For the Russian elite, expansion in Europe is necessary to secure and advance its political and economic interests in a situation where it is being encircled by a militaristic US.
While Secretary Browne has said that the US and Europe do not want a "pipeline war", this is exactly what threatens. It could be sooner rather than later before the great powers send in their armies to protect their strategic interests in the region.
"You have heard about the Asian tigers. Now, there is an African lion ... and it is beginning to roar!" This is the message sent out by the Sudanese-European Relations Forum, held in Khartoum, Sudan.
Sudan, the largest country in Africa, is literally taking off. Khartoum is beginning to resemble certain Asian capitals, with its luxury hotels, three new bridges spanning the Nile, freshly paved roads, and masses of shiny white Toyotas and three-wheeled vehicles known as "Rickshaws."
This incisive article outlines the relationship of the Dalai Lama and his organization to US intelligence. The Dalai Lama has been on the CIA payroll since the late 1950s and is an instrument of US intelligence.
An understanding of this longstanding relationship to the CIA is essential, particuarly in the light of recent events. In all likelihood US intelligence was behind the protest movement, organized to occur a few months prior to the Beijing Olympic games.
Iran's Foreign Minister says Tehran is prepared to join the intergovernmental Shanghai Cooperation Organization. The SCO has been formed to oppose US interference in Central Asia by developing regional security cooperation between member states - China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Iran currently has observer status in the organization.
Israel's Defence Minister Ehud Barak told visiting Dick Cheney on Sunday that "no option" would be ruled out in Israel's bid to stop Iran developing nuclear weapons.
"Israel considers that (economic) sanctions are still the order of the day, but no option should be ruled out. Iran's weapons programme threatens not only the stability of the region, but of the whole world."
Barak was joined by the armed forces chief Gabi Ashkenazi and the head of military intelligence Amos Yadlin for the meeting with Cheney.
Dick Cheney left Israel today after a visit to the Jewish state and Palestinian territories aimed at pushing the renewed but faltering Middle East peace talks. Before leaving, he accused Iran and Syria of trying to undermined the peace negotiations that the 2 sides revived under US stewardship 4 months ago. Iran and Syria "are doing everything they can to torpedo the peace process."
Vice President Dick Cheney has promised that the White House would do its utmost to counter Iran's 'nuclear threat against Israel'. He later met with Israeli opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu, who also encouraged Cheney to take action against Iran, warning that all options must remain on the table.
The state visit on March 26th and 27th by President Sarkozy to London comes at a time of vastly improved mutual understanding.
The British are pleased that he wants to strengthen France's role in NATO and is considering sending more troops to Afghanistan.
The French, mindful of British Euroscepticism, are taking care not to push Europe's nascent defence project too hard before Britain ratifies the Lisbon treaty this summer.
Economic ties between the two countries are also ubiquitous. France is Britain's third-biggest trading partner. Britain is the biggest foreign investor (by stock) in France. Yet plenty of differences remain. Mr Brown and Mr Sarkozy do not see eye to eye on many economic matters.
(Op-ed: Un Bon Ami)
Senator John McCain never fails to call himself a conservative Republican. What he almost never mentions are 2 extraordinary moments in his political past that are at odds with the candidate of the present:
His discussions in 2001 with Democrats about leaving the Republican Party, and his conversations in 2004 with Senator John Kerry about becoming Kerry's running mate on the Democratic presidential ticket.
An article published by the New York Times raises serious questions about the official explanation given by federal prosecutors for the high-powered investigation into the sexual activities of former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer.
The article sheds additional light on the scope and intrusiveness of the Justice Department investigation into the former New York governor, and makes clear that it was anything but routine.
The information contained in the article confirms the analysis made by a number of legal experts that the investigation of Spitzer was a politically motivated dragnet organized by the Bush administration for reactionary and anti-democratic ends.
The Economist view of last week's events
The marvellous edifice of modern finance took years to build. The world had a weekend to save it from collapsing. On March 16th America's Federal Reserve, by nature hardly impetuous, rewrote its rule-book.
It was a Herculean effort, and it staved off the outright catastrophe of a bank failure that had threatened to split Wall Street asunder. Even so, this week's brush with disaster contained 2 unsettling messages. One is analytical: the world needs new ways of thinking about finance and the risks it entails. The other is a warning: the crisis has opened a new, dangerous chapter.
In our special briefing, we look at how near Wall Street came to systemic collapse last week—and how the financial system will change as a result. We start with how financiers—and their critics—have laboured under a delusion.
The world's central banks are worryingly far apart—especially when it comes to inflation and currencies
"Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice." Robert Frost is rarely quoted when central bankers gather. But wise heads nodded when a Harvard professor and former chief economist of the IMF recited the poet's apocalyptic lines at a recent meeting of monetary policymakers. The Federal Reserve, he said, thinks the world will end in fire. The European Central Bank fears ice.
The Fed is scrambling to douse financial crisis and recession. Other central banks have been doling out liquidity too—the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan and the ECB did so this week—but none has eased monetary policy with anything like the Fed's urgency.
Whereas the Fed fears recession and financial collapse, most central banks elsewhere are more worried about inflation. The gap between the Fed and the rest is having its plainest effects in the currency markets. The dollar has tumbled: against other leading currencies, the greenback is at its weakest since the era of floating exchange rates began in 1973.
The dollar's frailty is making policymakers outside America increasingly nervous. Speculation is rising that central banks may intervene to halt the dollar's slide, especially since the ECB's president called recent moves "disorderly" and "undesirable".
Some worry that the Fed's easing will boost global liquidity and inflation. All told, the fear is that America's activism in fighting financial distress will create dangerous instability in the global monetary system.
The Fed has been bolder than other central banks largely because America's economy is in trouble. It is almost certainly already in recession. There are signs that the Fed's policy is prompting some countries to reconsider their links to the dollar. Speculation is rife, for instance, that Qatar and the United Arab Emirates are about to break their pegs.
The ECB, for all its bluster, may have to loosen sooner than it would wish to in order to stem the euro's rise.
The darkest scenario—that investors panic at the Fed's loose policy, sending the dollar into free-fall—is becoming worryingly plausible. A real dollar crash would force the Fed to raise rates, making America's predicament much worse and even sending the global economy into recession.
The Fed would face ice as well as fire. And the rest of the world would have a far bigger problem.
If the world is going to hell in a handcart, what should you buy? Much depends on what form you expect the apocalypse to take. In a complete meltdown it is hard to find anything that keeps its value.
In his book "Wealth, War and Wisdom", Barton Biggs, a Wall Street veteran, suggests that investors should own, as insurance against the apocalypse, "a farm or a ranch somewhere far off the beaten track but which you can get to quickly and easily."
End of The Economist articles
After the Bear Stearns collapse and takeover, rumours caused another big bank to tremble last week. As trust erodes in the financial system, governments in Europe and the US are considering more radical means.
The biggest problem is that trust has been eroded in the West in financial institutions, and there is also a lack of openness in the real standing of these institutions, thereby making them susceptible to rumours that threaten to be self-fulfilling.
Each week brings new twists and turns in the financial crisis saga of the Western countries.
The current economic slowdown in the US is directly related to the enormous costs of the ongoing occupation of Iraq. Politics keeps this war going, but economics may yet end it – perhaps sooner than anyone thinks.
As storm clouds darken the economic horizon and we start sinking into the Iraq Depression, a subset of this principle will become apparent: don't expect to get bailed out if your name isn't Bear Stearns.
Fancy a game of dominoes? It has been the pursuit of choice on Wall Street for the past week, after Bear Stearns began its death spiral, the one question on everyone's lips. Which bank is next? On different days, there have been different answers.
Across Wall Street, banks have put in place "rapid response" strategies that have echoes of a political campaign machine.
In the week or so since the Federal Reserve Bank of New York pushed Bear Stearns into the arms of JPMorgan Chase, there has been much buzz about why the deal went down precisely as it did.
Its primary purpose, according to regulators, was to forestall a toppling of financial dominoes on Wall Street, in the event that Bear Stearns skidded into bankruptcy and other firms began falling apart as well.
But a closer look at the terms of this shotgun marriage, and its implications for a wide array of market participants, presents another intriguing dimension to the deal.
The JPMorgan-Bear arrangement, and the Bank of America-Countrywide match before it, may offer templates that allow the US Federal Reserve Board to achieve something beyond basic search-and-rescue efforts: taking some air out of the enormous bubble in the credit insurance market and zapping some of the speculators who have caused it to inflate so wildly.
Deutsche Bank was the only big European bank to bid for Bear Stearns in last week's fire sale and it might get another shot as shareholders balk at the takeover by JP Morgan Chase.
British billionaire Joe Lewis, a major shareholder, and former Bear Stearns chief executive James Cayne were now reportedly working to block JP Morgan Chase's takeover and might invite rival bidders to make fresh offers.
JPMorgan Chase was in talks on Sunday night for a deal that would quintuple (to $10) its offer for Bear Stearns, the beleaguered investment bank, in an effort to pacify angry Bear shareholders, according to people involved in the negotiations. The sweetened offer is intended to win over stockholders who vowed to fight the original fire-sale deal.
The Fed, which must approve any new deal, was balking at the new offer price on Sunday night after several days of frantic, secret negotiations, these people said. As a result, it was still possible the renegotiated deal might be postponed or collapse entirely.
On its own initiative the Federal Reserve has been making decisions to bail out the US.financial industry from exposure triggered by the collapse of the housing bubble. The bailouts, which are now extending beyond the traditional regulated banking system to investment banks, involve hundreds of billions of dollars.
With all this going on, no one in any official position has addressed the key question, which is: Whose money is the Fed using for the bailouts?
Let's make one thing clear. Many commentators are saying the Fed is "printing money." Wrong! The Fed is not doing this at all. In fact the Fed should print money, because the economy, while debt-ridden, is cash-starved.
Rather the Fed is lending money, and there's a world of difference. The Fed is lending huge amounts of money, money that has to be paid back and for which interest is charged. And here's the key to the whole situation.
The Fed does not own a printing press. It owns a great big shiny plastic credit card. What the Fed is doing is charging the bailout loans on this credit card, with the men and women within the producing economy ultimately responsible. And if we don't pay for these loans directly, we pay them through inflation or higher taxes, because they can also end up as add-ons to the national debt.
In case you are having trouble following this, let me be a little more blunt. IT IS YOUR MONEY THE FED IS USING TO BAIL OUT THE FINANCIERS!
(And: Teaching banks to fish)
As Congress and the Bush administration struggle to contain the housing and credit crises — and prevent more Wall Street firms from collapsing — a split is forming over how to strengthen oversight of financial institutions after decades of deregulation.
But the 2 sides strongly disagree about whether, after decades of a freewheeling encouragement of exotic new services and new players like hedge funds, the pendulum should swing back to tighter control.
To the drumbeat of signs that seemed to foretell a traditional recession, this (Bear Stearns bailout) added a nightmarish specter—an old-style run on the bank, customers clamoring to pull their cash, a stately Wall Street firm brought to its knees.
Americans are nervously wondering about retirement savings, interest rates, jobs that had seemed safe. They are surveying the economic landscape and asking: Just how bad is it? They are peering over the edge and asking: How far down? And the scariest part of all? No one can say for sure.
Crude oil prices fell to $100.82 as the dollar strengthened and Saudi Arabia said it was working to expand production. Analysts say that speculators, who have helped drive up the price of oil, are taking the opportunity to cash-in on their gains.
As a result...
What started as a small, online grassroots effort now appears to have the potential for something bigger. Dan Little, the owner/operator of a livestock hauling company in Carrollton, Mo., estimated Tuesday that at least 1,000 other truckers from across the US have committed so far to joining him in a strike on April 1.
At issue is the rising cost of diesel fuel, which has reached or exceeded $4 per gallon in at least 17 states.
"What I would personally like to see is our federal and state governments, until our economy recovers, suspend federal and state fuel taxes. The second thing I'd like to see is an oversight committee for truck insurance, which is part of what's taking us down. The average owner/operator is paying $600 to $800 a month for truck insurance. It's based on personal credit, which means the monthly cost is going up for a lot of truckers because their credit is going down. Everything in the world is going up (in price), except for what we do. I lose money if I start my truck, and that truck is paid for — free and clear."
"It might be a good thing if the drivers strike. They can't make payments. Maybe if the oil companies bought all the trucks, things would change. Everything in this country is trucked. If you can't keep up with the trucks, we're all screwed — not just this country, but the world."
Bank of New Zealand economists warned last week that New Zealand was heading for a recession—and that it may already be there. One spokesman said the housing slump and global credit crunch had combined to form an almost "perfect storm".
Britain's richest men and women must curb their greed and begin sharing their wealth to save their souls, one of the Church of England's senior bishops has warned. He said the crisis gripping the world's money markets was "almost certainly" due to amoral forces pursuing their own wealth-creating agenda and warned that without action the less wealthy might suffer disproportionately from the fallout. "What is required is a change of heart, of disposition, of attitude."
(Op-ed: AoC nudges our consciences)
(Cartoon: Clergy has had enough)
Growing use of such crops wheat and corn to make biofuels is putting world food supplies in peril, the head of Nestle, the world's biggest food and beverage company, warned Sunday. "If as predicted we look to use biofuels to satisfy 20% of the growing demand for oil products, there will be nothing left to eat. To grant enormous subsidies for biofuel production is morally unacceptable and irresponsible."
Today in Scripture
"In the 12th year, on the 15th day of the month, the word of YAHWEH came to me..." (Eze 32:17 - 33:20)
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