Reading between the lines, and thinking outside the box . . .
Street battles lasting several hours have gripped the German port city of Hamburg, in what police describe as the worst riots there for years. The violence erupted on Thursday evening, after thousands of protesters had gathered in the city for May Day.
(And: May Day protests turn ugly)
(And: Brief history of May Day)
The German government is failing spectacularly to find a common strategy to address the current global food crisis. Ministers seem to prefer protecting their pet projects and are pointing the finger at each other rather than working together to ease the suffering in developing countries.
When Chancellor Merkel received the 2008 Charlemagne Prize on Thursday, President Sarkozy was on hand to sing her praises. He said he liked her "a lot more" than people say, and that they make a "harmonious couple."
Back to the future...
Six years after German adopted the euro, 50% of Germans say they still haven't got used to the single European currency, and 34% of people still hanker for their former currency. To many, it represented Germany's economic miracle of the post-war years -- and they blame the euro for rising prices.
Psychologists have observed that about half of Germans still convert euro prices into the deutsche mark. "In times of high inflation, people get nostalgic for the deutsche mark. For many, the deutsche mark is the ultimate stable currency."
In the piazzas of North Italy, the Braveheart spirit is back, and stronger than ever. Northern Italians want what Scotland has: their own parliament. Their William Wallace is Umberto Bossi, the leader of the Northern League, who promised earlier this week that he has an army of 300,000 with "smoking rifles" ready to march on Rome and declare independence.
Bossi is a pugnacious firebrand with demands for a separate state which arise from economic, rather than social, concerns. For years, North Italy, one of the world's richest regions, has been drained of its taxes in order to subsidise the criminal and impoverished "mezzogiorno" - a Southern Italy that seems perpetually caught in a midday siesta.
Bossi's party, the Northern League, argues that the hard-working Northerners are descended from the Celts who streamed over the Alps in the 4th century; that they have nothing in common with the Latins of the South and want nothing more to do with them.
It is an ancient battle cry, but one which is resounding with ever greater impetus in the wake of this month's Italian election. Not only did Bossi win huge swathes of the North, including as much as a quarter of the region around Venice, but he also gained ground in the South.
His reward was a post as minister of reform, with a brief to reverse the 1861 unification decree and split Italy into separate states once again. The North would dip as far south as Tuscany, while the South begins at Naples.
The French President nearly upset the EU apple-cart when he proposed a Mediterranean Union including EU and non-EU countries around that sea. How far will the Poles go when they make proposals for a similar Baltic-to-the-Black-Sea Union?
Sometimes countries do argue within the EU as regional blocs, but more often they don't. Tusk's report, to be presented to the other leaders in June, is probably of not much moment in itself but is it the beginning of a trend? And would that trend be a dangerous undermining of EU solidarity, or a realistic recognition of other identities and alliances?
Stuart Wheeler, one of Britain's richest men, has won the 1st round of his battle to force Gordon Brown to hold a referendum on the EU Reform Treaty. The legal challenge could also delay the ratification of the controversial treaty by months if court time is not granted shortly.
A crisis is looming for the international community's effort to oversee Kosovo after independence. The UN, which has administered the province since 1999, had been preparing to move out, while alternative EU missions have already begun moving in.
But a full UN withdrawal is now in doubt, and it is far from clear whether the EU and the UN can work together after 15 June, when Kosovo's declaration of independence is meant to take effect.
Russia's decision to send 1,000 extra troops to Georgia's breakaway region of Abkhazia is part of the Kremlin's policy to thwart the ambitions of the small Caucasus country to join NATO, according to Georgia's foreign minister.
Israeli police questioned Prime Minister Olmert under caution today over money raised by a US citizen for municipal and party elections in 1999 and 2002.
Members of the Middle East Quartet have called on Israel to freeze the construction of further settlements in the West Bank.
One of the important developments in Middle Eastern diplomacy that becomes more obvious with every passing month is the continued marginalization of the US. As the Bush administration and the presidential candidates find themselves focusing most of their Middle East-related attention on the complex challenges the US invasion has created in Iraq, other important regional issues seem to be moving into the hands of local players and mediators.
President Ahmadinejad says world's hegemonic system will soon be demolished, condemning capitalism as a means of plundering other nations' wealth. "Western-oriented democracy and the system of establishing security worldwide through the UN Security Council have failed to resolve global crises."
A top Iranian cleric says the Islamic Republic will deliver a knockout blow to 'Washington maniacs' should they ever attack the country. "If Washington maniacs ever seek an act of aggression against the Islamic Republic, the Iranian nation will deal them a blow so devastating they will not be able to rise from the floor."
Anyone who dares to strike Iranian soil should be aware of the "crushing response" that awaits them before they "play with the lion's tail".
The US and its allies fear that a recent gas deal between Iran and Switzerland may encourage other gas deals between Tehran and Europe. "The worry is that the Swiss deal will lead others, such as the Austrians, to confirm energy investments in Iran, and that companies like [France's] Total could then follow suit and sign contracts of their own," an unnamed western diplomat told the Financial Times.
Israeli leaders marked Holocaust Remembrance day by stridently linking the horrors of Nazi Germany to the gathering storm of the Iranian regime.
(And: What is "Holocaust denial"?)
The dangerous administration game of chicken with Iran in the Persian Gulf and elsewhere once again intensifies. It's a dangerous moment. When you ratchet up the charges and send in the carriers, anything is possible.
What a disaster in the making, and yet, now more than ever, Vice President Cheney's faction in Washington (not to mention John McCain) seems ready to bomb.
The War Party's strategy to sink Obama
The War Party has a reliable strategy when faced with a rising political figure who threatens their monopoly on American politics, one that is time-tested and invariably successful: when all else fails, they bring out the Smear Bund.
This isn't about partisan politics and loyalties: the Smear Bund attacks Republicans as well as Democrats. The essence of the Smear Bund's methodology is the politics of distraction. Look over here, not over there!
(Op-ed: Barak and the boys from his 'hood)
(Op-ed: The "Wright Problem")
(Cartoon: Amen!)
(And: Meet Obama's new pastor)
Washington, DC Madam Deborah Jeane Palfrey predicted she would be "suicided" on several occasions both recently and as far back as 17 years ago - comments that now appear ominous in light of the announcement that the former head of a Washington escort service allegedly killed herself Thursday.
She said that she was at risk of being killed and that authorities would make it look like suicide. She made it clear that she was not suicidal and if she was found dead it would be murder. Palfrey had threatened to release the names of well-known clients of her upscale call girl ring in the nation's capitol, and had indicated that Dick Cheney may be one of them.
Little needs to be said about the first 3 dimensions of power; military, economic and technological. The 4th dimension, culture, is very important and rarely given appropriate attention.
Brzezinski and the elite above and around him are well aware of the power of the creation and manipulation of culture. It is an essential component to convincing the American public to execute the elite designed imperial goals.
The current culture in America is aimed at the ruination of the American society and the empire few Americans realize they are a part of. This process requires many different things, but Brzezinski highlights the major themes; lack of association with empirical accomplishments and goals, lack of social cohesion, individual decadence, etc.
Experts are mystified by a "swarm" of earthquakes hitting Reno, Nevada. Quakes aren't uncommon there, but analysts just do not know what has caused 344 of them in the area in the past week, the strongest of which was magnitude 4.7. No one fault line has been identified as the culprit, and the pattern of the earthquakes also has scientists saying they are confused.
Against the recommendations of most economists and even the Financial Times of London, the Federal Reserve Board yesterday cut its discount rate.
But surely not even the ideologically hide-bound Federal Reserve can still imagine that a structural problem – the looming depression from the Fed's favoritism to the banking sector promoting de-industrialization of the economy – can be solved by lowering interest rates yet again.
While the Fed lowers its rate for lending to banks, these banks have not been passing on the rate cuts to their customers. The banks simply are not lending. What they are doing is speculating, above all against the dollar.
The Federal Reserve announced today that it will expand a series of efforts to deal with the global credit crisis, in coordination with European central banks.
The Fed said it was boosting the amount of emergency reserves it supplies to US banks to $150 billion in May, from the $100 billion it supplied in April. The Fed took this action and several other moves to boost credit in coordination with the European Central Bank and the Swiss National Bank.
The French prime minister, François Fillon, will try to decipher US economic policy and seek support for a common approach to meet growing concerns about market instability and the weak dollar when he meets with top US policy makers in Washington today.
Fillon, who is scheduled to meet the Treasury secretary, Henry Paulson Jr., and the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, said that together, the US and Europe might have more success in persuading China to allow the yuan to appreciate significantly against both the dollar and the euro.
Employment, the single most-important marker of the economy's health, probably fell for the 4th month in a row during April, economists say.
One point of consensus is that economic conditions will worsen. As we work our way through the credit crunch, economic woes will replace funding problems as the main source of anxiety for lenders.
What the Bank of England fears is financial markets not returning to normal in time to withstand the economic storms ahead. "We're at the end of the beginning, not the beginning of the end," says Standard Chartered's chief economist.
The degree to which the credit crunch eases may determine the severity of the slowdown ahead. But the worst is far from over.
Oil prices have rebounded above $113 a barrel on concerns about Turkish air raids against Kurdish targets in Northern Iraq. Worries about the raids appear to have outweighed the strengthening US dollar.
As inflation and shortages expose billions to hunger worldwide, agricultural giant Archer-Daniels-Midland Company revealed a 42% leap in quarterly profits. The announcement follows similarly skyrocketing earnings reports from half a dozen other agribusinesses and suppliers, as well as from major oil companies BP, Shell, and Exxon.
With their huge populations, China and India exert an unparalleled force on world food markets. They are looking abroad as it becomes more difficult for them to be self-sufficient -- and the increasing demand often has disastrous consequences across the globe.
(And: Food crisis looms for Japan)
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