Reading between the lines, and thinking outside the box . . .
The first seminar organized by the newly established Catholic-Muslim Forum began today on the theme "Love of God, Love of Neighbor."
According to the Vatican press office, the panel will consider the seminar theme from two main angles: "theological and spiritual fundamentals" and "the dignity of the human person and mutual respect."
The Holy See and Botswana have established diplomatic relations, bringing the number of nations with which the Holy See has relations to 173.
[WAR: "The kings of the earth committed adultery with her" (Rev 18:3)]
Roman Catholics "pray that God may enlighten" Barack Obama so that he can successfully respond to the hope his election has generated, Pope Benedict XVI's spokesman said today.
Two months ago, a Vatican official branded the Democrats the "party of death" because of its pro-choice stand on abortion.
Now, the Vatican will have to deal with the first pro-choice administration since that of former President Clinton, with which it had very scratchy relations.
A rebellion among Social Democrats in the state of Hesse has thwarted the party's plans to form a regional government with the help of the controversial Left Party. It's a blow to the SPD 10 months before the general election and marks a surprise comeback for conservative governor Roland Koch.
Chancellor Merkel is putting up a lot of money to try to quiet hysterical markets. At the same time, though, Germany and Europe appear to be sinking quickly into a recession. Experts believe a massive economic stimulus package is needed to stop the slide.
EU finance ministers failed to endorse significant measures to tackle recession and conflicting positions emerged on global economic governance during their meeting in Brussels Tuesday, which was dominated by internal divisions.
European Union expectations of a "new deal" for the world at a time of global economic crisis and hopes for a more Europe-friendly United States are running high after Obama's sweeping election victory.
Ministers from 43 nations revived the fledgling Union for the Mediterranean on Tuesday, with Arabs and Israelis agreeing to help run the body which aims to boost ties between rich Europe and the poor south.
(And: MU CHOOSES ARCELONA FOR HQ)
Clashes have broken out across Russia on National Unity Day, after ultra-nationalists defied official bans on holding marches.
Russia's President Medvedev today became the first world leader to throw down a gauntlet to Barack Obama, declaring that the Kremlin would station missiles in the tiny Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, which borders Poland, in response to US plans for an anti-missile system in Eastern Europe.
Israel launched an airstrike Tuesday night on southern Gaza after clashing with Hamas militants in central Gaza.
Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip fired more than 35 rockets toward Israel today.
If the opinion polls are right, Israel and the United States are on a collision course.
The prospect of a right-wing government headed by Netanyahu, in an era of global financial crisis in which there is little patience for unsettling events in the Middle East, combined with a new American president determined to follow a different path from Bush, is a depressing thought.
Arab resurgence was born on the heels of European occupation of Arab lands in the 19th century as an anti-European, anti-imperialist struggle.
However instead of Pan-Arabism the awakening spawned Pan-Islam, today reaching from Morocco to Indonesia. Islam's concepts of religious universality and political theocracy overshadow all ideas of nationalism and political democracy espoused by militarized America in Iraq.
The real reasons for the ongoing war in the Congo is described in great detail in several UN Security Council Expert Reports, make clear that war and massive civilian deaths in the Eastern Congo since 1996 have little, if anything to do with "tribalism," "ethnicity," or even the "Rwanda genocide."
But, rather, have everything to do with the rape of the Congo's resources.
Whatever...
UN Ambassador says countries like Iran which deny Shoah, call for Jewish state's destruction are a real threat and must be dealt with firmly.
Iran's military has warned the US army in Iraq that the Islamic Republic will give a crushing response to any violation of its airspace.
"It has been observed that helicopters of the US army were flying a short distance from the Iran-Iraq border. There is the danger of a violation of Iran's airspace because of proximity to the border. Iran's armed forces will forcefully respond to any attempts to violate the Islamic Republic of Iran's airspace."
The "October surprise" delayed...
Washington's incursions into Pakistan and Syria are widely seen as dress rehearsals for military action against Iran.
Observers across the world believe that the recent US air strikes on Pakistan and Syria were mainly aimed at informing Iran that Washington believes in the right to attack states that it considers to be terrorist havens.
Exit polling figures indicate that Obama's campaign, which broke new ground in the use of technology to raise money and mobilise supporters, won over several key groups on its way to victory.
(And: THE YOUNG AND MINORITIES)
(And: POLLS: RACE WAS THE FACTOR!)
(And: ONE NATION...INDIVISIBLE?)
(Cartoons: OBAMA WINS)
World leaders on Wednesday quickly hailed the triumph of Barack Obama as the start of a new era but there were also calls for a new deal with the global superpower. Celebrations erupted in capitals around the world.
(And: REACTION FROM WORLD'S MEDIA)
(And: WORLD REACTS)
(And: EUROPE HAILS OBAMA VICTORY)
(And: A CHANGE FOR THE BETTER?)
But wait-a-minute!...
US Supreme Court Justice David Souter has rejected an emergency appeal for the court to halt the tabulation of the 2008 results until Barack Obama documents his eligibility to run for the office.
However, the issue isn't going away, at least for now, since Souter set a schedule for a response from Obama to the challenge from attorney Philip J. Berg.
The highly probable threat that Barack Obama could be assassinated, is currently a matter of the utmost concern among serious political circles in both political parties.
The British enemies of the US have a history of assassinating American political figures, and they are the only credible force who could and would engineer such an action.
The looming danger is that the British, having succeeded in getting "their man" into the US Presidency, will decide that their objectives will best be accomplished by assassinating him.
On Sunday nights, our pastor has been preaching a series of sermons from the 1st and 2nd books of Kings, which chronicles the decline and ultimate destruction of Old Testament Israel.
There is a consistent theme, and that is the fact that both the Northern and the Southern kingdoms rejected the prophets who tried to bring the message of justice and righteousness.
While I hardly am going to liken Ron Paul to Isaiah or claim that the US is Biblical Israel, nonetheless there is a parallel.
(Cartoon: THAT'S ALL FOLKS!) [Really?!...]
Political leaders urged Obama today to help forge a new economic order to lead the world out of its worst financial crisis since the 1930s.
The dream of heading to the White House will be matched by the nightmare of an imploding economy.
The model of globalisation that depends on the American consumer as a shopper of last resort is finished.
By any conventional measure, the US economy under Bush has been a fool's paradise: a place where consumers believed they could spend more than they were earning, without a final day of reckoning.
That game is over. The new president's challenge will be to restore traditional American values, replacing speculation with enterprise, and profligacy with thrift.
What we are experiencing is no mere recession, but a presently accelerating general financial and physical breakdown of the entirety of this planet, which, unless turned around, now, will accelerate steeply into a planet-wide "new dark age of mankind."
It is already clear to those who actually understand the present US and world situation, that the present pattern of general breakdown of the US economy, an economic-financial breakdown-crisis which erupted at the close of July 2007, is a breakdown crisis with characteristics similar to, but worse than that brought about in mid-14th-Century Europe.
Now, as then, this menace is represented by a pack of financier bandits fully as rapacious as that pack of Anglo-American financier parasites controlling the circles associated with Wall Street champions rallied around Treasury Secretary Paulson.
The dramatic global slowdown will bring the US export boom to a shuddering halt, and knock away the last surviving pillar holding up US corporate profits.
The dollar rally will compound the effect.
So my bet: bear market rally, then we test the down-trend lines on the big indexes, and drop again until this slump really does its awful work.
Enjoy, this bit of sunshine while it lasts...
A severe contraction in physical economic production is underway worldwide, including closing of capacity across all key sectors, not just output.
World agro-industrial capacity is now on its way down below primitive survival levels, to the phase of complete breakdown and social collapse.
The way things stand now, there are grounds to fear that the New Bretton Woods summit which French President Sarkozy has organized to take place on Nov. 15 in Washington, will not lead to an adequate result.
It could easily turn out as one high-ranking banker, quoted in the French newspaper La Tribune, imagines it will: that Nov. 17 will be a "black, black Monday." But there could also be a "black Monday," a "bloody Tuesday," and a "horrendous Wednesday," soon to be followed by a total collapse of the world financial system.
Participants in the Nov. 15 G-20 summit in Washington will be answerable to history, if they pass up this opportunity to put a real New Bretton Woods, in the spirit of Franklin D. Roosevelt, onto the agenda.
The consequences of such a failure would be not only the early collapse of the world economy, with billions of people dying of starvation, but also incalculable social chaos in the G-7 countries — chaos which would be uncheckable even with the Mussolini solutions envisioned by some.
EU finance ministers have backed proposals to reform the world's top financial institutions and end market self-regulation,
The proposals, drafted by current EU President, France, signal a reversal of the Anglo-Saxon light-touch regulatory approach that has dominated financial markets since their "Big Bang" liberalisation in the 1980s.
France's finance minister said the ministers supported all but one point, which encouraged an internationally co-ordinated response to future economic challenges.
This was vetoed by Germany, which does not want a reference to anything that could be interpreted as a European economic government called for by French President Sarkozy.
"It's very important to us that the suspicion does not arise ... that a European economic government is being established," Germany's Finance Minister told reporters, adding he backed the general thrust of the French proposals.
Things are clearly not well in Franco-German relations, and certainly not going well for euro area governance.
Frankfurter Allgemeine reports that Angela Merkel wants to block Nicholas Sarkozy´s proposal to hold regular euro group summits.
Germany appears to react allergically to any proposals that come from France these days.
According to Frankfurter Allgemeine, Germany's finance minister now rejects any form of international macroeconomic co-ordination as nonsensical and unrealistic as European economic governance.
The Bank of England and European Central Bank may have little choice but to cut interest rates to help avoid a long-term recession in Europe.
GM's executive director of global market and industry analysis calls the situation "frightening" and "dire."
If GM is allowed to go bankrupt, the derivative nightmare will unravel in full daylight and bring down any institution that is not anchored with solid gold.
(And: COLLAPSE OF US AUTO SALES)
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Another important reason for the growing probability of nuclear warfare is the deteriorating moral environment.
One measure of the deteriorated moral environment is in fact the open acceptance of aggressive war as an appropriate policy option even in the absence of a military attack or serious threat.
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