Reading between the lines, and thinking outside the box . . .
On his first visit to France as pontiff, Pope Benedict XVI arrived today after saying he was "a messenger of peace and brotherhood" in this country that has long drawn sharp distinctions between the affairs of church and state.
His 4-day stay here will bridge the rational and the miraculous with a speech later today to members of academic institutions before he travels to Lourdes in southwestern France where ailing pilgrims seek cures.
(And: Stats for church in France)
Referring to France as the Catholic Church's "eldest daughter," Pope Benedict began his 4-day visit to the nation by calling upon the French to rethink the separation of religion and state.
An Italian comedienne who said that Pope Benedict XVI would go to Hell and be tormented by homosexual demons is facing a prison term of up to 5 years. She is facing prosecution for "offending the honour of the sacred and inviolable person" of Benedict XVI.
The Rome prosecutor, is invoking the 1929 Lateran Treaty between Italy and the Vatican, which stipulates that an insult to the Pope carries the same penalty as an insult to the Italian President.
The incident has strong political overtones as Mr Berlusconi has been at pains to court the Vatican — and the Catholic vote.
The change of leadership took the form of an internal party coup. Not even the leading SPD members meeting last weekend in a conference were involved. They were presented with a fait accompli and were taken completely by surprise. A tiny circle around Steinmeier and Müntefering acted in the style of a conspiracy.
There is yet another aspect that must be considered in evaluating the putsch carried out by the SPD right wing, although it receives scarce mention in the media: the intensification of the international situation in light of the crisis in Georgia.
Europe, and above all Germany, is pursuing its own energy policy and geo-strategic interests in the region, doing this both in competition and in cooperation with the US government while also seeking to preserve relations with Russia.
Press review...
Deutsche Bank's planned takeover of rival Postbank is a defensive move aimed primarily at keeping foreign predators out of the German banking market, say media commentators.
(And: Culture clash)
Prince Hans-Adam II of Liechtenstein has dubbed Germany a "4th" Reich, drawing fire from Jewish groups who accused him of trivializing Nazi crimes, and stoking already-tense relations between the 2 countries.
"As far as German-Liechtenstein relations are concerned, we are waiting for better times, which I am hopeful for, as we have already survived 3 German Reichs in the past 200 years and I hope we will also survive a 4th one."
Germany is at high risk from attack by al-Qaeda terrorists, according to a new report prepared by the head of the Federal Criminal Office, Bild newspaper said. In his report to parliament, the BKA chief said the decision to target Germany has been made "at the highest level" of al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups.
German spies in Iraq sent coordinates of targets in Baghdad to the US military, according to a report by a German newsmagazine. The revelations by Stern put Foreign Minister Steinmeier under severe pressure.
During a visit from Chinese vice-premier Dejiang, Foreign Minister Steinmeier stressed the need for maintaining dialogue between their countries in the quest for a new world order.
The Foreign Ministry presented an official protest to the US embassy in Berlin, expressing annoyance at comments by the US ambassador to Sweden that criticized a joint German-Russian Baltic Sea gas pipeline.
MEPs have decided to revive symbols of the European Union like the flag and the anthem in an attempt to foster greater pride in the institution.
"I was on vacation. They say, Russia was preparing for war – that's a lie! The Defence Minister called me at 1 a.m. and said, the Georgians have told the Ossetians that they were starting a war.
And while all those troops were moving towards South Ossetia, I took no decision and hoped those dimwits would have enough brains to stop. They didn't!
We held ourselves until they started firing rockets, shelling residential blocks, and shooting at peacekeepers. Even then we didn't respond.
I'll never forget that night. It was very hard to order the use of force, while knowing the consequences. We did everything right. And I'm proud of it. Our response was symmetrical and proportional...
For Russia, August 8 is like 9/11 for America...
The Georgian head of state is not just a man we won't do business with. He's an unpredictable pathological and mentally unstable drug abuser. Western journalists know it!"
Vladimir Putin said his country no longer had any 'imperial ambitions' and he saw no substance in fears of a new Cold War with the West. "We have none of the imperialist ambitions of which we are accused."
You probably didn't know that CNN censored Putin for being just too darn sensible. Yep, it's true.
About 2 weeks ago, Putin gave the network an exclusive 30-minute interview. And you know what happened? Nothing. It was never allowed to air.
CNN doesn't know it yet, but that decision might have cost them their Russian broadcasting rights.
Turkey was traditionally adept at maintaining good relations with both Russia and the West -- until the Georgian crisis came along. Now both sides are making demands on Turkey. Has the time come for Ankara to choose sides?
Prime Minister Olmert said he would resign immediately after his Kadima party chooses a new leader in an election scheduled for next week.
"Immediately after a new leader is chosen for Kadima, I plan on resigning my post and will tell the president that the person who will be elected is the one worthy of establishing a new government."
The US is planning to issue a letter guaranteeing the country will back agreements reached during current Israeli-Palestinian negotiations aimed at creating a Palestinian state before President Bush leaves office.
Sources also said the US recently floated a plan to divide Jerusalem. One US plan for Jerusalem was divided into timed phases and, among other things, called for Israel eventually to consider forfeiting parts of the Temple Mount.
Pakistan's leaders have pledged to defend their national territory if America launches further cross-border attacks.
"The sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country will be defended at all cost. (There is no) agreement or understanding with the coalition forces whereby they are allowed to conduct operations on our side of the border".
Well known figures in Pakistani politics claimed that the global war on terror is actually a war on resources.
Afghanistan's insurgent Taliban movement said on Thursday that the US was at the "edge of historical defeat" in Afghanistan. It had not realised that there were "so many guardians of Islam who will guard God's religion and its values."
Nuclear experts responsible for monitoring Iran's nuclear programme have discovered that enough enriched uranium, which if processed to weapons grade level could be used to make up to 6 atom bombs, has disappeared from the main production facility at Isfahan.
American spy satellites have identified a number of suspicious sites, which the Iranians have not declared to nuclear inspectors, that intelligence officials believe are being used for covert research.
The new discoveries emerged as it was revealed that Israel had asked America for military supplies, including "bunker buster" bombs and re-fuelling planes, suitable for an attack on Iranian nuclear installations.
Iran has protested to the UN over an Israeli minister's suggestion that President Ahmadinejad be abducted and dragged before international justice. "The threat of force and committing crimes such as abducting a member of the United Nations is a clear violation of international rights and is contrary to the UN charter."
The security aid package the US has refused to give Israel for the past few months out of concern that Israel would use it to attack nuclear facilities in Iran included a large number of "bunker-buster" bombs, permission to use an air corridor to Iran, an advanced technological system and refueling planes.
Officials from both countries have been discussing the Israeli requests over the past few months. Their rejection would make it very difficult for Israel to attack Iran, if such a decision is made.
Sarah Palin on Thursday said the US shouldn't "second guess" steps taken by Israel to secure itself, adding that a nuclear weapon in the hands of Iran is dangerous and the US must "put the pressure" on the Islamic Republic.
President Medvedev says he will not accept military action or new sanctions against Iran over its nuclear activities.
In a video released Monday Al Qaeda leaders slammed Teheran accusing Iran of giving way to the US, by allowing it invade Afghanistan and Iraq.
Some experts believe the terrorist organization is trying to undermine support for Iran amidst continued speculation about possible military operations against it, by the US. Yakuba believes Al Qaeda's goals in Iran coincide with those of the Bush administration.
There's also the issue of a religious divide. "Al Qaeda are Salafists, 'purist Muslims' who consider Shiites heretics," he said, claiming that Shiite-controlled governments in both Iraq and Iran are thwarting the organisation's efforts in the region.
In his new book "The War Within," Bob Woodward details a telling White House meeting on Iran in spring 2007 (p. 334):
"I think we need to do something to get engaged with these guys," Adm. William Fallon said. "Well," Bush said, "these are assholes." Fallon was stunned. Declaring them "assholes" was not a strategy.
In a thinly veiled dig at George Bush, Vladimir Putin today suggested that the US President was not in charge of American affairs, saying that it was "the court that makes the king".
Amid heightened tensions with the US in the wake of the war in Georgia, the Russian Prime Minister insisted that the US leader was a man of honour and integrity, but blamed members of the administration for the sharp deterioration of relations with Russia.
How 50 years of conservatism has undermined US security.
America's mental health problems may be more than a matter of some "unadjusted" individuals. The entire culture might well need adjusting.
The individualist description of human nature seems to be wrong. Over the past 30 years, there has been a tide of research in many fields, all underlining one old truth - that we are intensely social creatures, deeply interconnected with one another, and that the idea of the lone individual rationally and willfully steering his own life course is often an illusion.
If Republicans are going to fully modernize, they're probably going to have to follow the route the British Conservatives have already trod and project a conservatism that emphasizes society as well as individuals, security as well as freedom, a social revival and not just an economic one and the community as opposed to the state.
These stories have 2 things in common: They're all claims recently made by the McCain campaign - and they're all out-and-out lies.
Dishonesty is nothing new in politics. But I can't think of any precedent, at least in America, for the blizzard of lies since the Republican convention. The McCain campaign keeps making assertions that anyone with an Internet connection can disprove in a minute, and repeating these assertions over and over again.
Why do the McCain people think they can get away with this stuff?
McCain appears to have used his Senate staff to cover up his wife's drug use, and possibly to prevent the DEA from investigating her.
In the early to mid-1990s, Cindy McCain was addicted to prescription painkillers, taking between 30 and 50 pills a day of Vicodin and/or Percocet. She had doctors writing out prescriptions in other people's names.
Sarah Palin's Pentacostalist past explains a lot about what she says in public, but the McCain campaign wants to play it down. Can a gas pipeline really be a manifestation of God's will?
(And: Palin's Christian theocracy)
(Op-ed: Palin the devil in disguise)
Palin might be popular, she might be able to field dress a moose, she might live in a small town, she might enjoy delivering "news flashes" to media elites, she might even become vice president -- but none of this makes her a populist.
(And: The power of one)
(Cartoons: Lipstick on a pig)
Pravda's exclusive interview with the chairperson of the Alaska Independence Party. The Palin family is directly involved with the Alaskan independence movement.
Sarah Palin's secessionist sympathies sparked minor hysteria last week. Her crime was hailing with round praise the work of the cranky Alaskan Independence Party, which advocates a statewide plebiscite on the secession of Alaska from the Union.
Palin's husband was a member of the AIP for seven years, and Sarah herself has courted the AIP for more than a decade. In an address to the party convention this spring, wearing a ski parka and looking like she was about to decamp into the back country, Palin told the secessionists, "Keep up the good work."
The thing is, it's not just residents of the Last Frontier who favor breaking away from the Union. According to a Zogby poll conducted in July, more than 20% of US adults -- 1 in 5, about the same number of American Colonists who supported revolt against England in 1775 -- agreed that "any state or region has the right to peaceably secede from the United States and become an independent republic." Some 18% "would support a secessionist effort in my state."
The motivation of these quiet revolutionaries? As many as 44% of those polled agreed that "the United States' system is broken and cannot be fixed by traditional 2-party politics and elections."
A conspiracy theory documentary about the events of September 11 2001, suggesting the twin towers were taken down in a controlled demolition.
(And: Parts 2-10)
US refiners are speeding up plant closures as Hurricane Ike gathers strength toward the Texas Gulf Coast, home to 23% of domestic oil-processing capacity. About 19% of US refining capacity is being shut before Ike makes landfall today.
Wholesale gasoline prices in the US Gulf topped $5 a gallon on Thursday as the region's oil refineries began closing down ahead of Hurricane Ike, adding to fears that US drivers could see pump prices rise again.
Lehman Brothers is actively searching for a white knight to buy the bank with the help of the US government after investors rejected chairman Dick Fuld's plan to split Lehman in two, sending its shares down as much as 42%.
Bank of America, the sprawling retail banking conglomerate which has already rescued mortgage bank Countrywide, was last night seen as the most likely buyer of Lehman as the chances of the bank retaining its 158-year independence dwindled.
The fragility of the US banking system puts the country in a more dire position than many people realize according to CNBC "Mad Money" host Jim Cramer.
In his Thursday's "Stop Trading" segment on CNBC's "Street Signs", he told host Erin Burnett the situation puts the US in danger of "Great Depression, No. 2."
The end result of the global economic slowdown may be the US announcing national bankruptcy as the government cannot afford the bailouts that it promised and the market will not bail out the government, Martin Hennecke, senior manager of private clients at Tyche, told CNBC on Thursday.
"We expect a depression in the United States. We expect a depression, very possibly, also in Europe."
Depressions only become "great" when normal to severe depressions are used as excuses for massive increases in government intervention.
The year 2008 marks the beginning of the next recession, correction, or depression. All the statistical indicators are pointing in that direction. All market indicators point in that direction as well.
Since the Bush administration announced the largest corporate bailout in American history, developments have underscored the profound and systemic nature of the crisis that precipitated the action.
A week of wild gyrations on US stock markets, fueled by fears of an impending collapse of the Wall Street investment bank Lehman Brothers and the country's largest savings and loan bank, Washington Mutual, demonstrates that the rescue of the government-sponsored mortgage companies is a stop-gap measure that does not begin to resolve the underlying crisis of American capitalism.
On the contrary, the bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac sets the stage for an intensification of the crisis in the coming months.
The Great Depression was a crisis manufactured and prolonged by the attempts to stop an inevitable downturn.
An historic turning point has been reached: the West is ditching its faith in free markets and private enterprise.
And now, the downturn is global -- and it will be longer, and harder, than practically anyone imagines.
Freddie and Fannie are now nationalized, mortgage issuance will continue as usual, details of the mortgage bank failure, new threats for fiat currencies and new reasons to buy precious metals...
Even as China's total pile of American assets grows with its massive export machine, the value of the individual dollars in Chinese hands has been dwindling as the dollar has weakened against other currencies.
So far, China has been able to grin and bear it, calculating that the best way to continue the export boom was to lend Americans the dollars they need to carry on consuming beyond their means.
That's fine, but it cannot last forever, and at some point it has to stop.
One such moment seems to have come in the first week of this month, when China began selling some of its large stocks of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac holdings, one of the factors that triggered the weekend bailout by the Bush administration.
The cushion of China's massive dollar holdings may be comforting, but any decision by Beijing to use a significant part of it to help the Chinese economy could have an alarming effect on the US and thus on the global economy.
Russia could be forced to use its $32bn national wealth fund to prop up the country's financial markets, the country's finance minister has admitted. Russia's stock market has tumbled almost 50pc since May and investors have pulled out billions of dollars since the invasion of Georgia.
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President Hugo Chavez has thrown out the US ambassador to Venezuela and threatened to cut off oil supplies, further escalating tensions with Washington just two days after Russia sent 2 strategic bombers to Caracas in a move unseen since the Cold War.
"Starting at this moment the Yankee ambassador in Caracas has 72 hours to leave Venezuela. If there is any aggression towards Venezuela, there would be no oil for the people of the United States. Go to hell, Yankees!"
(And: No nukes on Russian bombers)
Scientists began the world's largest science experiment hoping to unlock some of the secrets of the universe.
(And: No Big Bang)
(But: Link to Iran quake?)
Boys who never feel they have been accepted and affirmed by a male authority figure may spend the rest of their lives proving to themselves and others that they are worthy of approval, says author and teen-health expert Dr. Meg Meeker.
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