Reading between the lines, and thinking outside the box . . .
The late Pope John Paul was wounded by a knife-wielding priest in 1982, a year after he was shot in St Peter's Square, but the injury was kept secret, his former top aide says in a documentary film.
In his general audience Wednesday celebrated in St. Peter's Square, the Pope continued his catechesis on St. Paul, speaking today about the Apostle and the Church.
(And: Full text of address)
The turmoil in the financial markets has reached Germany's real economy with horrifying speed. It is beginning to affect ordinary people, as both investors and employees, and it is already having an impact on German companies. The only remaining question is: How brutal will it get?
In a speech before parliament, Chancellor Merkel on Thursday made the case for a planned €500 billion financial system bailout. Meanwhile, the EU moved to ease accounting rules for banks and German politicians sought to cut a deal with Iceland over frozen deposits.
There are plans to build several hundred new and often magnificent mosques throughout Europe -- particularly in Germany. Architecture has become the field of a fierce ideological battle about the visibility of Europe's 16 million Muslims.
As Chancellor Merkel and President Sarkozy emerged from their meeting, both were smiling and chatting, even giving the impression of friendship. Nothing could be further from reality.
But relations between later French and German leaders were not always easy.
Mitterrand and Kohl worked for the introduction of the euro, although with different motives. For France, suspicious of Germany becoming even stronger after its reunification in 1989, a euro would do away with the strong Deutsche mark and so restrict Germany's room for maneuver.
So make no mistake about it, the current volatility poses a fundamental threat to the European Union.
If it proves impotent, a vital plank of its legitimacy will have been undercut. More concretely, the danger is that financial meltdown will put excessive stress on the (disparate) group of Eurozone members and its weak coordinating structures.
In brief, this is the biggest crisis the contemporary EU has faced, and (as always) it is both a threat and an opportunity. If it proves useless in resolving this current crisis it will have suffered a grave blow indeed.
European Union leaders were deeply divided today over calls by Poland, Italy and other countries to dilute and delay an ambitious program to fight global warming to take account of the looming economic downturn.
Poland and 6 other Eastern European nations infuriated other EU nations with a surprise demand that the bloc drop a December target for adopting plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20% by 2020.
They say the financial crisis has made it too difficult for European industry to take on the burden of adapting to a clean economy. Italy also threatened to veto the climate change plan unless its industries are given more protection.
The 27 leaders were also divided over how to handle Russia.
France, Italy and Germany want to quickly resume cooperation talks with Russia following the pull back of Russian troops from much of Georgia, but Sweden and many Eastern European nations say Moscow must first give further proof it is sticking to peace deal commitments.
Russia should be allowed to join the European Union in the coming years, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said Wednesday. "I consider Russia to be a Western nation. So my project is that the Russian Federation should become a member of the EU in the coming years."
The first high-level talks between Russia and Georgia since their war in August broke down Wednesday, but international sponsors said the negotiations had only hit a procedural snag and would resume next month.
The war in Georgia has provoked unprecedented levels of patriosm in Russia. The majority of the population supported their army's actions in the Caucasus. And even the fiercest critics of the Kremlin have now become proud Russians.
A group of rabbis, politicians, philanthropists and right-wing activists gathered Sunday in the Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem's Old City to celebrate the reopening of a synagogue located about 100 meters from the Temple Mount. ... closer than any other Jewish house of prayer to the Temple Mount.
"We are here today to mark the return of a Jewish presence to this house of prayer," said the rabbi of the Western Wall and the holy sites. "Any claims leveled at us by Muslim leaders that we are trying to take control of the Temple Mount are downright lies. According to Jewish law, it is forbidden to go up on the Temple Mount because we are all ritually impure."
[WAR: How 'bout that ... this synagogue was reopened on the real Day of Atonement, but everyone just considered it just another average day.]
Thousands of Christians from around the world, waving blue and white Israeli flags, marched Wednesday in a colorful holiday parade in Jerusalem to commemorate a Jewish holiday and show their support for Israel.
The annual parade to mark the week-long holiday of Sukkot, or Feast of the Tabernacles, was the latest display of the growing alliance between evangelical Christians and the Jewish state.
From a purely biblical perspective Zionism has enormous problems. The fact is that almost none of the Jews in modern Israel are descendants of the original Jews of Palestine thousands of years ago. Most of the Jews in Israel today are descendants of Europeans who had converted to Judaism in the Middle Ages (known as Khazar or Ashkenazi Jews).
President Ahmadinejad has hinted that the White House is to blame for the billions of dollars that have gone missing in Iraqi oil revenues. "Several months ago, we heard that an enormous amount of over 100-million barrels of Iraqi crude have gone unaccounted for since the US-led invasion of the country."
The deputy chairman of the foreign affairs committee of the German Parliament has called on western countries to look at Iran as a partner and not an adversary.
The US has new intelligence indicating Iran is reorganizing in an effort to assert its influence inside Iraq and may be behind several recent attacks.
Iran's Air Force is set to test the country's state-of-the-art military equipment and flight tactics in a large-scale aerial maneuver. The show of armed muscle is aimed at demonstrating the country's military offensive capabilities in the wake of escalating war threats against the Islamic Republic.
In further preparation for a possible Israeli attack, Iran's Air Force chief announced in mid-August that the country has revamped its fighter jet fleet to fly distances of 3,000 kilometers without refueling. The upgrade would allow Iranian aircraft to fly to Israel and back without needing to refuel.
A blue-ribbon commission has reported to Congress on what appears to be an Iranian drive to obtain the means to carry out an EMP (electro-magnetic pulse) attack.
While much America's infrastructure is vulnerable to EMP, the nuclear strike force is not. We need to inform Iran that if an EMP attack were unleashed on America, Iran could well be held responsible and suffer massive nuclear retaliation.
[WAR: Is this propaganda for a coming false-flag attack -- a very limited EMP attack, but enough to justify an attack on Iran? Don't rule anything out...]
In a 2nd lawsuit challenging Barack Obama's "natural born" citizenship, a Washington resident is demanding officials review original or certified birth documents for the Democratic Party presidential candidate.
Jacobinism and Marxism were openly revolutionary. They were the ideologies of out-groups challenging existing elites.
What this writer has called neo-Jacobinism is the ideology of people on the inside, members of America's elites, who wish to make the military and other might of the US a more pliant and powerful tool and who are attempting a creeping coup d'état from within.
The handwriting is all over the wall. It is becoming clearer with each passing day that neo-Jacobinism and related currents, which may have seemed innocuous and "merely academic" to some, have provided ideological cover for an ever more grasping and ruthless pursuit of power.
Socialist Venezuelan President Chavez mocked President Bush as a "comrade" on Wednesday, saying he was a hard-line leftist for his government's intervention of major private banks in the US financial crisis.
"Bush is to the left of me now," Chavez told an audience of international intellectuals debating the benefits of socialism. "Comrade Bush announced he will buy shares in private banks."
Chavez called him clueless. He accused him of simply parroting the words of his aides without understanding the new policies that rely on heavy state intervention. "I am convinced he has got no idea what's going on."
A report released Tuesday by the Working Poor Families Project reveals that more than 28% of American families with one or both parents employed are living in poverty. The report, "Still Working Hard, Still Falling Short," is based on data for the period from 2004 through 2006.
[WAR: If this is based on '04-'06, then imagine what the next report will say!]
The rout in global stocks showed no signs of letting up today, with markets in Europe and Asia plunging and crude oil prices tumbling on signs of a serious slowdown in the global economy.
Behind the big sell-offs is a growing recognition that the global economy is headed for harder times than most economists expected just a few months ago.
A comparison of the current Wall Street crash with the events of 1929 shows that the Dow has at least another 27% drop below the bailout bounce before it bottoms out, despite another rout yesterday after which the Dow had lost over 700 points.
As the financial crisis continued to roll through world markets despite massive bailouts, the 2 leading Swiss banks said today they had secured emergency support totalling some $14.1 billion, either from the Swiss authorities or from outside investors including the Qatar Investment Authority.
Merrill Lynch and Citigroup have both reported massive quarterly losses as market turmoil has led to further write-downs.
Accounts of the October 13 meeting between US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and top bank CEOs on the government's bailout of Wall Street — now estimated at $2.5 trillion — paint an extraordinary portrait of class relations in America.
The bailout deal underscores a powerful social reality: There is a ruling class in America, whose interests the government is dedicated to defend, by blatantly unequal treatment if necessary.
All emergency talks have so far focused on a few hundred billions in fiat currencies, but the current nervousness demonstrated by hectic talks of finance ministers and central bankers all over the globe should give everybody a vague idea that something here may blow up any day.
This pool of so far silent derivatives without a major bust can come to life any day with the failure of a multinational financial firm.
A disaster of epic proportions on Wall Street; more band aids for the economy; a round of hyperinflation is coming; the credit default swap counterparty liability monster is about to be set loose; current remedy for the markets is like aspirin for a fatal disease; get out and stay out of the markets...
* The really, really bad news yesterday was the reversal in the money markets. Money market had modestly improved after the bank rescue packages were announced, but this is now reversing again. If the goal of the rescue operations was to relieve the money market, this operation must now be judged as having failed.
* The Bank of Italy has yesterday produced a very grim analysis on the impact of the financial crisis on the Italian economy.
* The Financial Times reports that economists now expect both US and European interest rates to fall significantly.
Nobody can dispute any longer, as I rashly did 2 months ago, that we are living through the worst financial crisis of our lifetimes. Historians can argue about the causes of the near-collapse of almost every bank in the world - a catastrophe never threatened even by the 2 world wars.
As Europe rallies behind a rescue plan for the banking sector and the G8 club of most industrialised states are set to hold global talks on tackling the financial crisis, a fresh slump in stock markets indicates the reaction may have come too late to prevent a worldwide recession.
All 27 EU states broadly support the bank rescue plan proposed for the bloc and the holding of a world finance summit, France's president has said.
Sarkozy said the EU wanted to launch "a new Bretton Woods summit" in November. China and India needed to be involved in the discussions, he said, adding: "We're moving towards a G8 plus - the crisis is so great that it needs to include the whole world."
EU leaders plan to "civilize" capitalism
The European Central Bank has taken dramatic action to unblock the credit markets, flooding the system with $170bn of dollar liquidity and accepting junk bonds as collateral at its lending window.
"The ECB is doing whatever it takes to unclog the interbank market," said Gilles Moec, from Bank of America, who described the move as a "spectacular" volte-face and a belated recognition that the credit crisis is deadly serious.
The monetary blitz was welcomed in Brussels, where EU leaders were meeting yet again, just days after agreeing to the most comprehensive bank bail-out in history. "We are not at the end of the crisis, we are still living in dangerous times," said Jean-Claude Juncker, Luxembourg premier and Eurogroup chair.
He issued a stark reminder that life is going be very different for the banking elite as governments move to restore the lost discipline of the Bretton Woods financial order and attempt to "civilise" capitalism, the code word for clamping down on the City – dubbed "the Casino" in Europe.
The radical shift in policy suggests that the ECB is now deeply alarmed by the crunch facing European banks as a violent unwinding of debt leverage across the world forces them to repay huge sums in dollars.
Goldman Sachs estimates that non-US banks have liabilities of $12 trillion on dollar balance sheets.
Gordon Brown's call for a summit to re-write the rules of global capitalism has left the him vying with President Sarkozy to be Europe's dominant leader. The Prime Minister on Wednesday called for a "new Bretton Woods."
However, Sarkozy holds the presidency of the EU and with it the right to speak for the bloc on the world stage. Sarkozy made his own call for a "new Bretton Woods" earlier this month, arguing that it was time to replace the "Anglo-Saxon" model of unrestrained markets has failed.
Diplomats in Brussels said that Brown had technically breached EU protocol by appearing to assume a leadership role for himself.
Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, backed Brown's call, saying it was time to "rethink the world's financial system and prevent any repetition" of the current crisis.
British magic: it is Gordon Brown, the magician of Anglo-Saxon liberalism, who is giving lessons on state intervention to the continentals.
President Bush is to hold talks on Saturday with President Sarkozy and European Commission President Barroso.
The Illuminati bankers had us where they wanted Friday. Everyone was in a panic, dumping anything of real value — gold, real estate, oil — and rushing into US dollars, a medium of exchange created by the Illuminati bankers out of nothing.
Why the sudden appeal of US dollars? There is a huge shortage of them because the bankers put our money into mortgages and then they crashed the housing market. Trillions disappeared. Now their lackeys in government have to "borrow" trillions to make up the deficit. The result: the bankers are trillions richer.
With nearly $2 trillion worth of foreign currency reserves, China is being touted by some as the potential saviour of the Western banking system. In order to bail out ailing financial firms, Western governments need money - and China seems a good place to get that much-needed cash.
But Chinese economists say that while Beijing is ready to play its part in the rescue efforts, it will not be writing any blank cheques. Senior Chinese officials say they are more focused on their own, internal problems.
Left unmentioned during this week's flurry of announcements from the Federal Reserve, the White House, and other government agencies are the potential perils.
On World Food Day in 2007, the early warning signs that something serious was about to happen to food prices were already apparent. Crop forecasts from big producers at opposite ends of the world last October - Canada and Australia - were disastrous.
After a long era of low food prices, higher prices are here to stay. Demand from the big Asian economies remains high, and although the price of oil has fallen significantly, for a number of technical reasons the effect of that has not translated into lower food prices yet.
In a sombre new warning, the World Bank says that the poorest people worldwide have been pushed to the brink of survival, and the collapse of global financial confidence has made matters worst.
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The story of Enya has all the makings of an ancient Irish legend, involving heroes and villains, sorcery, and at its heart a mystery: how does this publicity-shy singer sell millions of records while hardly ever leaving her castle?
* "Say to the Israelites: 'On the 15th day of the 7th month YAHWEH's Feast of Tabernacles begins, and it lasts for 7 days. The 1st day is a sacred assembly; do no regular work." (Lev 23:34,35 / Num 29:12)
* "During the 7 days of the Feast, which begins in the 7th month on the 15th day..." (Eze 45:25)
* "All the men of Israel came together to King Solomon at the time of the festival in the 7th month." (1Kings 8:2 / 2Chron 5:3)
* "Day after day, from the 1st day to the last, Ezra read from the Book of the Law of God. They celebrated the feast for 7 days, and on the 8th day, in accordance with the regulation, there was an assembly." (Neh 8:18)
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