Sunday

The Daily WAR (01-13)

Reading between the lines, and thinking outside the box . . .
 
 
 
    Pope Benedict XVI has spoken out for the first time about growing up under the "monster" of Nazism. Speaking at a youth rally in New York, he said his teenage years had been "marred by a sinister regime".
    He told the crowd his own years as a teenager had been "marred by a sinister regime that thought it had all the answers". "Its influence grew, infiltrating schools and civic bodies, as well as politics and even religion, before it was fully recognised for the monster it was. It banished God and thus became impervious to anything true and good."
 
    Pope Benedict XVI visited ground zero on Sunday, blessing the site of the World Trade Center terrorist attacks and asking God to bring "peace to our violent world." After praying, the pope greeted the 9/11 survivors and their relatives.
 
    In trying times, in changing circumstances, what does a visit by the leader of the 76.9 million US Catholics mean? Pope Benedict XVI, since his election in 2005, has left his policies firmly ensconced in traditional Catholic values, while at the same time making some practical updates to deal with the modern eras's new challenges. Yet the American Catholic Church, the largest church in the country, is awash with problems.
 
 
 
    Everyone is saying that the new coalition between the conservative Christian Democrats and the Green Party in Hamburg sets an important new precedent for German politics. Everyone, that is, except for the parties themselves.
 
 
[Europress]    [Russopress]
 
    After a short stay in America some decades ago I told a German friend how glad I was to be back in Europe. He wagged his finger and said, "Ah, you Americans, you speak of Europe as if it were one place. Europeans think in terms of nations, of Germany or France or Italy."
    In those times I was a supporter of the still dreamy idea of European unity. But today I'm repenting. I miss those old borders and nationalities each with its own culture, its own economy and I often wish that Europe was still a continent of separate, variegated and distinct lands and peoples instead of the globalized multinationalandia it is becoming … or has become.
    But Europe is not the European Union its dreamers-founders imagined. Not at all. I fear the best of United Europe is in the past and that the worst is yet to come. For the present union is not the "Europe of peoples" dreamers dreamed of, but a union of multinationals and Eurocrats.
    Now, Europeanist leaders striving for unity and Europeans of diverse political shades and nationalities, of differing levels of economic and social-political development are engaged in a search of an identity.
    What divides the diverse peoples of the 27 member states of the EU is clear to everyone. It's the common denominator that is so elusive. That has always been elusive.
 
    Il Cavaliere gets a 3rd term as prime minister. But he is unlikely to change his ways, or bring Italy out of economic decline.
 
    Germany's Agriculture Minister has called for a drastic rise in European agricultural production, in a reverse of the bloc's previous agricultural policy, to counter rising world food prices and shortages.
 
    Two leaked memos suggest that the Irish government and Brussels are going to great lengths to suppress bad news that might encourage a No vote - a result that would delight Eurosceptics everywhere, since if Ireland does not ratify the treaty it cannot come into force anywhere in Europe.
 
If the EU wants a big hitter as president, it should go for Tony Blair
    Europeans are as fascinated as the rest of the world by this year's American presidential election. Rather fewer are aware that this autumn the European Union will choose a president of its own.
    The job being created by the new Lisbon treaty is that of the first permanent president of the European Council, the body that brings together all 27 heads of EU governments. The president may well turn into the EU's public face in dealing with, among others, his American counterpart.
    Unfortunately, the EU has a history of dreadful rows over top jobs. Speculation over candidates to be European Council president is rife even though the functions of the job remain fuzzy, as does its relationship to governments that still hold the rotating EU presidency.
 
    Moscow has questioned the viability of the EU-backed Nabucco energy corridor, a pipeline designed to lessen the bloc's dependency on Russia. "The only way to fill the Nabucco pipeline is to rely on Iranian gas. But then, it's up to the West, I would not tell the EU, to make up its mind how to deal with Iran. Either bomb Iran or buy its gas."
 
    Pity Dmitry Medvedev. He is just 3 weeks from becoming president, and the man he is meant to replace keeps stealing his limelight—and his power.
    Vladimir Putin formally steps down on May 7th. But he has already ensured that he will stay on as prime minister, and on April 15th he accepted the "invitation" to become leader of the ruling United Russia party, a political movement created by the Kremlin.
 
 
 
    Experts are worried that Turkey will soon be hit by an al-Qaida-orchestrated terror attack. Attacks are hard to predict, mainly because the terror situation in Turkey is rather obscure. Turkey, with its 80 million Muslims at the border with Europe, plays an important role for militant Islamists determined to create a "global caliphate."
 
    Israeli police rushed into Jerusalem's Church of the Holy Sepulchre to break up fist fights between dozens of Greek and Armenian worshippers on Orthodox Palm Sunday, witnesses said. Some 20 officers intervened after Armenian worshippers threw a Greek Orthodox priest out of the church, sparking a free-for-all, they said.
    Brawls are not uncommon at the church, which is shared by various branches of Christianity, each of which controls and jealously guards part of site -- considered one of the holiest in Christianity. Precisely in order to prevent such disturbances, 2 Muslim families have been entrusted for the past 800 years with opening and closing the gates of the church.
    Orthodox Christians celebrate Palm Sunday according to a different calendar from Catholics and other Christians in the west, who marked the day on March 16.
 
    Jimmy Carter held a controversial meeting yesterday with the exiled leader of Hamas. He said that he wanted to include the movement in talks on settling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
 
    Jimmy Carter's trip is a reminder that there's still a way out of this mess that doesn't involve slaughtering each others children.
 
    Welcome to America's parallel reality on Israel and Palestine, bare-faced in its defying the notions of common sense, equality and justice, ever-insistent on peeking at the Arab- Israeli conflict through a looking glass manufactured jointly in the church, in Congress and in the newsroom, where the world is reduced to characters interacting in a Hollywood-like movie set: good guys, well groomed and often white-skinned versus bad guys bearing opposite qualities.
 
    The spectre of war has remerged in the Middle East. Syrian President Al-Assad revealed that his country is uneasy and prepared for the worst once again. Despite Tehran's position that the US would not dare launch a war against Iran, the Iranian military is on standby. The Lebanese military and Hezbollah have also been placed on alert.
    It is clear to the Pentagon, NATO, and Tel Aviv that the Levant stands to ignite a Mediterranean battle-front in the event of a war against Iran. To this end, the marshaling of a relatively invisible NATO war fleet in the Eastern Mediterranean is rigidly tied to war plans against Tehran.
    The naval build-ups in the Persian Gulf and the Eastern Mediterranean have been ongoing since 2001 with the strategic aim of preparing the logisitical framework for war against Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Palestinian resistance, Syria, and Iran.
 
    Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr on Saturday threatened "open war" with the government unless it chose what he called the "path of peace". "I'm giving the last warning and the last word to the Iraqi government -- either it comes to its senses and takes the path of peace ... or it will be the same as the previous government. If they don't come to their senses and curb the infiltrated militias, then we will declare an open war until liberation."
 
    Fifty years ago the decolonisation of Africa began. The next half-century may see the continent recolonised. But the new imperialism will be less benign. Great powers aren't interested in administering wild places any more, still less in settling them: just raping them.
    European imperial powers lost the will rather than the capacity to own and govern overseas resources. A world in which all could buy and sell on the global market was arriving. It is a world, however, which is now feeling the pinch in the natural resources with which Africa is richly endowed.
 
    German business leaders are warning that Western criticism of China's policy in Tibet could have nasty repercussions. With over 200,000 jobs in Germany directly dependent on exports to the Asian powerhouse economy, industry leaders argue that calm dialogue is preferrable to calls for boycotts and sanctions.
 
 
 
    Germany's reduction in trade with Iran as part of sanctions imposed by the West is not hurting the country as competitors from Asia step in to fill the gaps, Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister said. Trade with Germany - for decades one of Iran's most important trading partners - and with other European nations has shrunk.
 
    Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister for European Affairs called for expansion of economic and industrial relations with Germany. Iran and Germany should utilize all their potentials in developing ties especially in economic and industrial sectors, he stated at a meeting with the State secretary of Germany's Federal Foreign Office.
 
    Iran today rejected claims presented to the UN atomic watchdog that it may have been studying how to develop a nuclear weapon, a day ahead of a visit by a top International Atomic Energy Agency official.
    "These are nothing but baseless and unfounded allegations," the foreign ministry spokesman told reporters. "The peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear programme has already been proven."
 
    Al-Qaeda's 2nd in command, Ayman al-Zawahri, said in an audio message to mark 5 years since the US-led invasion of Iraq that Washington's war had met with nothing but failure and defeat.
    He also warned the US against considering any agreement with Iran. "Iran's objectives are clear: the inclusion of southern Iraq and the east of the (Arabian) peninsula and spreading to join its followers in southern Lebanon."
 
 
 
    Today is the 40th anniversary of perhaps the most significant speech made in British politics since WW2: Enoch Powell's "Rivers of Blood" speech.
 
    Europe and the United States must forge new alliances to help solve global problems such as terrorism, the environment, hunger and poverty, Prime Minister Brown said Friday. "We urgently need to step out of the mind-set of competing interests and instead find our common interests - and we must summon up the best instincts and efforts of humanity in a cooperative effort to build new international rules and institutions for the new global era."
    He said the world needed "a new deal" much like the Marshall Plan, and superpowers like the US and Britain must work to stabilize volatile countries to prevent crimes against humanity and terrorism.
    Brown praised President Bush for "leading the world" in the fight against terrorism, and reaffirmed his support for a unified response that includes asset freezes, tightening international law and travel bans, as he and Bush discussed at the White House on Thursday. "He and I agree terrorism will ultimately be defeated only when it is isolated and abandoned."
    But more must be done, Brown said, to intervene in countries shaken by conflict and stamp out atrocities. "Instability in one country will affect stability in all countries; an injustice anywhere is not a threat to justice everywhere. At that is how we must respond: not walking away as we did in Rwanda at the cost of thousands of lives, but by engaging as hard-headed internationalists. ... For the first time in human history we have the opportunity to come together around a global covenant, to re-frame the international architecture and build the truly global society."
 
Now compare what Brown said to what B16 said (especially the words in red), on the same day...
    Pope Benedict XVI warned diplomats at the United Nations on Friday that international cooperation needed to solve urgent problems is "in crisis" because decisions rest in the hands of a few powerful nations. He also said that respect for human rights, not violence, was the key to solving many of the world's problems.
    While he didn't identify the countries that have a stranglehold on global power, the pope addressed long-standing Vatican concerns about the struggle to achieve world peace and the development of the poorest regions.
    On the one hand, he said, collective action by the international community is needed to solve the planet's greatest challenges. On the other, "we experience the obvious paradox of a multilateral consensus that continues to be in crisis because it is still subordinated to the decisions of a few."
 
    "Which one is the dude in the dress?" My aide checks his clipboard. "That would be the Pope, sir. And it's not a dress."
    "Kilt," I say, correcting myself. "Because he's the King of Scotland." "No, sir," says my aide. "You may be thinking of Gordon Brown, the Scottish Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. The Pope is from the Vatican."
    I nod. "The Vatican. In South Korea?" "Again no," says the aide. "President Bak is coming from South Korea. He is our 3rd guest this week. Japanese-born, I believe. The Vatican is in Italy. Although Pope Benedict is from Bavaria."
    "Hold on," I say. "We've got a Scot from England, a German from Italy and a Jap from Korea? Hot damn. And they're all in dresses?"
 
    Reports from 3rd Army Headquarters of the Russian Space Command, located in Solnechnogorsk, are reporting that a 'nuclear fueled' explosion has occurred in Illinois after the downing of an American B-52 Bomber by, presumed, other elements of the US Air Force operating in that region.
    These reports further state that this was the 2nd attempt by a US B-52 Nuclear Bomber to penetrate the North American Command Air Defenses surrounding the dissident US Scott Air Force Base, located in Illinois, from which these aircraft seeking to bomb Iranian atomic facilities are based.
    On Tuesday, citizens in Indiana reported numerous 'booms' and 'flashes' in their night skies which some attributed to fireball meteorites crashing into the atmosphere, but which the US Air Force reported was caused by F-16 jet fighters 'sonic booms' and their use of 'military flares'.
    The Russian reports, however, state that this incident turned back the first abortive attempt by dissident American Forces to secret their plundered nuclear weapons out of that country for their intended use against Iran.
    Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman further report that the American War Leaders were warned this past week by the British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, and by Pope Benedict XVI, both of whom traveled to the US this week, against the attempts by the US to escalate their conflicts into another World War, but which by these latest events these War Leaders appear not to have listened to.
    For the final outcome of these events we, perhaps, will have little warning, but, and surely anyone with open eyes can see, the storm clouds gathering on the horizon...
 
    Oklahomans paused Saturday morning at the Oklahoma City National Memorial to remember the 168 people who died 13 years ago in the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building.
 
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in '96...
    Last week an Oklahoma couple, Glenn and Kathy Wilburn, announced that they were going to name Andreas Strassmeir in a lawsuit as a "US federal informant with material knowledge of the bombing". They say that Strassmeir became involved with the far-Right underworld.
    They have accumulated evidence which they claim indicates Strassmeir was an undercover US agent who, while based at Elohim City, penetrated the white separatist movement.
    "The FBI asked where I was on the day of the bombing. They wanted to help debunk the rumours spread about me," said Strassmeir -- who had once been a lieutenant in the Panzer Grenadiers. He told The Sunday Telegraph that he had received military intelligence training. Part of his work was to detect infiltration by Warsaw Pact agents, he explained, and then feed them disinformation.
    "The Right-wing in the US is incredibly easy to penetrate if you know how to talk to them," he said. "Of course it's easier for a foreigner with an accent; nobody would ever suspect a German of working for the federal government."
    In February 1992 Strassmeir's maroon station wagon was impounded by the Oklahoma highway patrol for a traffic violation. The police found in his briefcase a collection of documents, some of them in German.
    According to the tow-truck driver, Kenny Pence, Strassmeir soon brought heavy pressure to bear. "Boy, we caught hell over that one. The phone calls came in from the State Department, the Governor's office, and someone called and said he had diplomatic immunity."
    Asked if he thought the alleged informant would ever speak out, Strassmeir replied with passion: "How can he? What happens if it was a sting operation from the very beginning? What happens if it comes out that the plant was a provocateur? What then? The relatives of the victims are going to go crazy, and he's going to be held responsible for the murder of 168 people? Of course the informant can't come forward. He's scared stiff right now."
(WAR theory: The BND in OKC?)
 
Must see video!...
    Rep. Tom Tancredo suggested in a House speech yesterday that Pope Benedict XVI is encouraging Latin Americans to come to the US to bolster flagging membership in the Catholic Church.
    Tancredo, a former Catholic, told House colleagues: "most Americans might be surprised the pope isn't here just to minister to his flock. He's also here to lobby for amnesty for illegal aliens."
    "I'm not taking issue with the pope's moral authority. I respect his views on the threats of Islam and the sanctity of human life, but I don't think it's in his job description to engage in American political activity."
    "I suspect the pope's immigration comments may have less to do with spreading the gospel than they do about recruiting new members of the church. This isn't preaching, it is faith-based marketing."
 
    The US presidential candidates have raised more than $3 million in campaign contributions from Americans who live overseas, an unprecedented courtship of a slice of the US electorate that was largely ignored in previous elections.
    The number of Americans living overseas is commonly estimated at about 6 million -- twice the population of Chicago and greater than that of 33 US states. Britain is home to about 300,000 Americans, nearly the population of Pittsburgh.
 
    It has been more than 2 weeks since Texas Rangers raided the Yearning for Zion Ranch, seizing more than 400 children on vague evidence of polygamy and child abuse. But, after carefully reading all the news reports covering activities of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, I am left wondering if the action by the state was excessive.
 
    To the public, these men are members of a familiar fraternity, presented tens of thousands of times on television and radio as "military analysts" whose long service has equipped them to give authoritative and unfettered judgments about the most pressing issues of the post-9/11 world.
    Hidden behind that appearance of objectivity, though, is a Pentagon information apparatus that has used those analysts in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration's wartime performance.
 
 
 
    Keynesian policy instruments remain, but Keynesian policy goals have been abandoned. Both Democrats and Republicans are quick to push for Keynesian stimulus policies when financial stability is threatened, but most (including too many Democrats) are silent when the economy fails to deliver shared prosperity.
 
    Banking and other financial firms in the US continue to report enormous financial losses, inevitably accompanied by mass layoffs. While present and former executives of these companies are well insulated from the disaster over which they have presided, tens of thousands of their employees are not so fortunate.
    There is no end in sight to the financial and employment bloodletting.
 
    Many regulators, academics, and financial analysts are increasingly concerned that the new regulations will end up making today's financial crisis worse rather than better.
    Basel 2 is intended to keep banks safe by requiring them to match the size of their capital cushion to the riskiness of their loans and securities. The higher the odds of default, the less they can lend, all else equal.
    Here's the problem. Today, many banks already face so many risks that implementing Basel 2 as written will put them in a capital squeeze. They will either have to reduce risk by cutting back on lending, or sell more shares to give themselves a bigger capital buffer, or both.
    If the banks do lend less, it could cause an even steeper economic decline, which would lead to more defaults and cause banks to ratchet back even more, and so on in a downward spiral. In other words, the bureaucratic machinery of Basel 2 could become a classic case of the law of unintended consequences.
 
    An international early warning system should be established to ensure that future credit squeezes are identified and dealt with before the effects become widespread, says Gordon Brown. In a foreign policy speech in Boston, he urged America to join him in pushing for reform of the major international institutions including the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.
 
    Families are having to cut back on groceries, eating out and holidays as the credit crisis starts to have a profound effect on household spending.
 
    Reports issued by the International Monetary Fund and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development warn that the US is entering into a recession and reject all claims that Europe will be able to avoid severe economic dislocations as a result of America's worsening situation.
    Britain has long been recognised as the European country most exposed to the economic turmoil unleashed in the US and most heavily dependent on world financial markets. London's role as a financial centre will translate into a massive and relatively immediate impact from a global economic downturn.
    Europe's economic powerhouse, Germany, does not at first appear to be in such a precarious position. Its exports continue to rise, even though the euro has dramatically risen in relation to the dollar. But there are clear signs of troubles ahead.
 
    Recent rally has negative effects, metals probably suppressed, liquidity drained away, waves of bad news yet to come for the markets, Bear market set to come out of hibernation soon enough ...
 
    Iran's president declared that crude oil prices, now above $115 a barrel, are too low, state media reported Saturday. He told an oil and gas exhibition in Tehran on Friday that he thought the commodity still had to "discover its real value."
    "The oil price of $115 a barrel in today's global markets is a deceiving figure. Oil is a strategic commodity that needs to discover its real value. While the price of other commodities have increased, the economic value of the current oil price is even less than 1980."
 
    Rising global food prices have plunged Egyptians into a desparate daily struggle for survival. Many are unable to feed their families, and the hungry have taken to the streets. Is more violent unrest to come?
 
Food prices are causing misery and strife around the world. Radical solutions are needed
    A wave of food-price inflation is moving through the world, leaving riots and shaken governments in its wake. For the first time in 30 years, food protests are erupting in many places at once.
    Famine traditionally means mass starvation. The measures of today's crisis are misery and malnutrition. Because food markets are in turmoil, civil strife is growing; and because trade and openness itself could be undermined, the food crisis of 2008 may become a challenge to globalisation.
 
 
 
    The 4th outing of Steven Spielberg's fictional archaeologist Indiana Jones has generated renewed interest in the enigmatic crystal skulls at the centre of his latest adventure. In Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - global release date May 22 - Harrison Ford's grizzled archaeologist tracks down several crystal skulls purportedly crafted in pre-Columbus South America.
    According to lore, when placed together in their ancient temple, the skulls unlock vast knowledge and unlimited power. The plot draws on the mysterious provenance of numerous real crystal skulls held in private collections and museums around the world.
 
Today/night in Scripture
    "It was just before the (Feast of Unleavened Bread, only 2 days away)... [and] the evening meal was being served..." (John 13:1 - 18:27 / Mark 14:1,2, 12-72 / Luke 22:7-65 / Mat 26:17-75).
    [WAR: On the night between the 13th and 14th day (the 14th night of the month), was when this regular/non-Passover meal was eaten.]
 
 
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