Reading between the lines, and thinking outside the box . . .
This morning Benedict XVI received in audience Silvio Berlusconi, prime minister of the Republic of Italy. In the course of the cordial discussions various questions concerning the situation in Italy and the Catholic Church's contribution to the life of the country were examined, questions upon which the pope had dwelt during his recent discourse to the plenary assembly of the Italian Episcopal Conference.
Attention also turned to certain matters associated with the implementation of the current Agreements between the Holy See and Italy. Finally some aspects of the international situation were considered, such as the situation in the Middle East and the prospects for the spiritual, ethical and social development of the European continent.
(And: Sacredness of life discussed)
When President Bush pays a visit to Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican next Friday, it will be his 6th meeting with a pope, and his 3rd meeting with Benedict in just over a year. Never in US history has a president consulted so often with the leader of the Catholic Church.
For almost as long as anyone can remember, the Social Democrats have been a vital part of Germany's political landscape. Now, though, voters are abandoning the SPD -- and the party has turned its back on itself.
(And: SPD in der krise)
The center-left SPD's decision to put up its own candidate for president has caused new rifts in Germany's grand coalition government. In an interview with Spiegel, the governor of Saarland speaks about his loss of confidence in the SPD and why the coalition should be dissolved.
Finance Minister Peer Steinbrück (CSU) is remaining stubborn even as ministries plead with him to cough up a bit more money. Not a single ministry budget has been agreed upon. Now it's up to Steinbrück himself to come up with a solution.
The Bundesbank has raised its German inflation forecasts for this year to 3.0%. According to its semi-annual forecasts, the German central bank also raised its 2008 growth forecast for Germany to 2.0%.
The German newspaper Die Tageszeitung has a reputation for leftist social sensitivity. All the more bizarre then was its choice of a cover to mark Obama's victory in the race for the Democratic Party nomination: a photo of the White House under the headline "Uncle Barack's Cabin."
With just days to go before Germany and Poland clash on the pitch in Euro 2008, a tabloid war is brewing between the countries. On Wednesday, a Polish paper demands "Bring Us Their Heads." The bloody image shows exactly what the editors have in mind.
Germany has said it may appeal an Italian court ruling to fine the government damages for Italians forced to work in Nazi labour camps during WW2.
The latest poll in Ireland has revealed a shock swing to the "no" side ahead of next week's vote on the EU's Lisbon treaty.
Tony Blair is set to win the support of his friend Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian Prime Minister, in his bid to become the EU's first full-time President.
In an interview with Spiegel Online, acclaimed journalist Nikolai Svanidze discusses Russian President Dimitry Medvedev's first visit to Germany, calling him a "flawless European" who is likely to continue Vladimir Putin's foreign policy.
President Medvedev in Berlin has called for a new EU-US-Russia security treaty in a conciliatory speech, even as EU diplomats landed in Georgia to help avert the risk of armed conflict on Europe's fringe.
The new deal - a "legally-binding European Security Treaty" - should cover arms control, illegal immigration and poverty, on the model of the 1928 multilateral Kellogg-Briand Pact, which renounced war as a foreign policy tool.
The agreement would be negotiated at a European summit including Russia, all of Europe's non-EU states, the US and Canada in order to embrace "the whole Euro-Atlantic space from Vancouver to Vladivostok."
Prime Minister Olmert told reporters on his plane bound for Israel just prior to departure that "it would appear we are very close to a decisive crossroads in Gaza," intimating that a major military operation is in the offing. "The people of Israel have reason to be pleased with the results of the visit to the US in relation to all sensitive security matters concerning the future of the state."
"Israel offered Syria to cede the Golan Heights during the Second Lebanon War in exchange for Damascus cutting its ties with Hizbullah," former Knesset Member Azmi Bishara said in an interview with the Nazareth-based al-Anwan al-Raisy newspaper.
Syria told the UN's atomic watchdog board Thursday that it is ready to cooperate with agency inspectors when they visit an alleged clandestine nuclear facility in the remote Syrian desert, diplomats said.
The US is demanding that Iraq grant it the authority to establish 50 permanent military bases scattered across the country, as well as other sweeping powers that would extend the present US military occupation indefinitely and formalize the country's status as an American semi-colony.
A Turkish TV station is quoting a senior military commander as saying that Turkey and Iran have carried out coordinated strikes against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq.
A group of Pakistani ex-servicemen in the city of Lahore have given their backing to calls for President Musharraf to be tried for treason.
A former US special envoy to Sudan is warning of a renewal of the devastating civil war the nation sustained for decades, because of increasing violence from the Muslim government in the north part of the African nation.
Sudan has said it was banning US companies from working with international peacekeepers in Darfur and would not renew a contract held by a unit of Lockheed Martin Corp.
Iran has announced its interest in joining the Nabucco pipeline project which would bring natural gas from Central Asia into Europe.
Iran said on Thursday it had given UN investigators more than 200 pages of answers to questions about intelligence reports that it secretly researched how to make atom bombs and declared "the matter is over".
An Israeli deputy prime minister today warned that Iran would face attack if it pursues what he said was its nuclear weapons programme.
"If Iran continues its nuclear weapons programme, we will attack it," said Shaul Mofaz, who is also transportation minister. "Other options are disappearing. The sanctions are not effective. There will be no alternative but to attack Iran in order to stop the Iranian nuclear programme."
The White House refuses to clarify its official position on a war with Iran after Israel threatened to strike Tehran's nuclear facilities. While the White House officially denies having plans to bomb Iran, US echelons continue to propagate the idea and have given rise to media speculation that another war in the oil-rich Middle East is imminent.
The top US Navy official in the Persian Gulf warned in an interview with ABC News that war with Iran would be "pretty disastrous," with "echoes and aftershocks" reverberating throughout the region.
"Nobody I've spoken to suggests that going to war with Iran is a good thing," Vice Adm. Kevin Cosgriff told ABC News. "The preferred path by far is the diplomatic path, keep working with the international community to bring the right sort of pressure to bear on the Islamic Republic of Iran."
Trying to stop attack on Iran...
Defense Secretary Robert Gates ousted the Air Force's top military and civilian leaders Thursday, holding them to account in a historic Pentagon shake-up after embarrassing nuclear mix-ups.
Gates announced at a news conference that he had accepted the resignations of Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Michael Moseley and Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne - a highly unusual double firing.
Five persons alleged to have participated in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks made their first appearances before a Military Commission in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba on war crimes charges. Prosecutors, who are asking for the death penalty, have sought a mid-September trial, on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks and just seven weeks before the US presidential election.
The sudden rush to trial stands in contrast to the 5 long years the prisoners have been held incommunicado. During that time they had no access to legal counsel or any other semblance of due process. Most, if not all, were tortured.
(Video: The 3 amigos on 9/11)
Spooks, FBI agents and cops have descended on the Westfields Marriott hotel in Chantilly Virginia to scrutinize Jim Tucker and Alex Jones as the 2008 Bilderberg meeting gets underway yesterday without even being mentioned in the American corporate media.
According to news reports, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton went out of their way to hold their long-awaited private meeting in a very specific location - not at Hillary's mansion in Washington - but in Northern Virginia, which also just happens to be the scene of the 2008 Bilderberg meeting.
(Op-ed: The Divided States of America)
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's visit to the US is part of a concerted effort, by the Israeli government and its American lobbyists, to convince US lawmakers – and, most of all, President Bush – that the time to attack Iran is now.
Don't look to Barack Obama for deliverance from this looming conflict. In his speech to AIPAC, he clearly signed on to the Lobby's latest project, departing from his prepared text to declare: "I will do everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Everything in my power. Everything."
It is almost certain we will be at war with Iran before a new President is inaugurated: now that Obama has capitulated to the Lobby, nothing but Divine Providence can stop it.
I have to say I was wrong – dead wrong – about Obama. In my eagerness to find a bright spot in a rapidly darkening world, I grasped on to his alluring rhetoric and his at-times trenchant critique of the Bush foreign policy, like a sinking man holding on to a life-jacket.
We must face the prospect of a much more terrible conflict than we have ever known, and look it squarely in the face, without flinching or looking for false messiahs. I know many of you are disappointed, and some of you are now exclaiming "I told you so!"
All that we can do now is hope, and pray, that our country – and the Iranian people – will somehow survive the coming catastrophe.
German press
Clinton advisers have said she will bow out of the hard-fought race on Saturday. While the news pleases the millions of Obamanaics here, German commentators don't think Obama is in the clear yet.
Under the guise of urban warfare training the 26th Expeditionary Unit an elite group of US Marines will conduct a martial law training exercise at 26 "surrendered" locations in central Indiana from June 4th thru the 17th.
While state officials and media are doing their best to assure the public that this military takeover of civilian property is somehow a good thing, ignoring the Posse Comitatus Act which fundamentally prohibits these types of exercises.
These 2 weeks of training are also a contradiction of military tradition against deployments among the civilian population dating back to the end of the Civil War. Why then are the citizens of Indianapolis and 6 other Indiana towns being made to take part in 2 weeks of patrols and ambushes?
The real purpose is to condition the civilian population and military personnel to living under martial law. Too many this hypotheses may sound farfetched, that is until you realize the plans for martial law and the detention of US citizens have already been made.
Water has become a key strategic security issue for the US government and that has some very concerned. The Pentagon, as well as various US security think tanks, have decided that water supplies, like energy supplies, must be secured if the US is to maintain its current economic and military power in the world.
A couple of months ago, a financial analyst who sells derivatives told me that fears about a meltdown in the derivatives market were unfounded. Yesterday, he told me - with a very worried look - "THE DERIVATIVES MARKET IS UNWINDING!" What does this mean? What are derivatives and why should you care if the market is unwinding?
The markets opened lower on Friday and then just kept falling, hit by a remarkable rise in the price of crude oil and a spike in the unemployment rate. Wall Street suffered its worst losses in more than 2 months.
The foreclosure hammer is hitting ever harder. People lost their homes at the highest rate on record in the first three months of the year, and late payments soared to a new high, too -- an alarming sign that the housing crisis and its damage to the national economy may only get worse.
Dumping more empty homes on an already glutted market also is likely to put a further drag on home prices -- extending a vicious cycle.
The nation's unemployment rate jumped to 5.5% in May -- the biggest monthly rise since 1986 -- as nervous employers cut 49,000 jobs. The latest snapshot of business conditions showed a deeply troubled economy, with dwindling job opportunities in a time of continuing hardship in the housing, credit and financial sectors.
Readers of Eurointelligence are among the few who are probably not surprised. In our ECB Watch have been saying for some time now that euro area interest rates are more likely to go up than down – as the ECB realises that the present monetary stance is insufficient to bring inflation down to the target.
(And: Euro rises on comment)
Oil prices had their biggest gains ever on Friday, jumping nearly $11 to a new record above $138 a barrel, after a senior Israeli politician raised the specter of an attack on Iran and the dollar fell sharply against the euro.
Eight miles north of the maritime border with Mexico, in waters a mile and a half deep, Shell Oil Co. is constructing the most ambitious offshore oil platform ever attempted in the Gulf of Mexico. Mexicans fear that companies drilling in US waters close to the border will suck Mexican crude into their wells.
The fate of global food production has now become the chief terror of the future. Our food situation is on the precipice of failure. And all it's going to take to get past the tipping point is the slightest of mistakes -- or manipulations.
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