Reading between the lines, and thinking outside the box . . .
In his general audience, held this morning in St. Peter's Square, the Pope turned his attention to St. Paul's eschatological teaching.
Barack Obama telephoned Pope Benedict XVI to thank the pope for his message of congratulations on his election victory.
The press office for Obama's presidential transition team said all conversations with world leaders are private and no details would be released on this conversation or any conversation with world leaders.
Here is the statement Cardinal George, the president of the US episcopal conference, published on the economic crisis.
Titled "Solidarity at a Time of Economic Crisis," the text was approved today by the bishops during their 3-day fall assembly, under way in Baltimore through Thursday.
Germany has renounced any claim to leadership in shaping Europe's response to the financial and economic crises and is acting purely nationally, Joschka Fischer, the country's former foreign minister, said on Monday.
In an interview, Fischer said the government of Angela Merkel had played too passive a role in the debate over Europe's response to the financial storm and was underestimating the severity of the coming economic crisis, "the like of which none of us has seen in our lifetimes."
Fischer's criticism echoes concern across Europe that Germany, once the most influential EU member state in shaping policies, has become introverted and acted selfishly by initially blocking French calls for a co-ordinated European response to the financial crisis.
"Through its crisis management, Germany has given the impression that Europe's largest economy is now acting purely nationally. This is a big concern because the economic crisis will put the European project, including the euro, at risk."
Political extremism could result if managers with high incomes do not curb capitalism's excesses, Germany's finance minister said.
The German government on Tuesday rejected a plea from General Motors for targeted aid for its German factories.
The so-called wise men group, the council of economic advisers, are demanding a stimulus programme.
Germany has ordered its ambassador to Rwanda to return to Berlin within 48 hours at the request of the Rwandan government.
A European political force opposed to the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty and to further EU integration will emerge today after a visit to Ireland by eurosceptic Czech President Klaus.
His controversial visit to Dublin is expected to culminate later today with a gathering of prominent eurosceptics.
The Czech Republic will assume the EU's 6-month rotating presidency from France in January, prompting nervousness in Brussels and other capitals over the country's European agenda.
The Czech Republic could be "a bigger problem than Ireland" for the ratification of the Lisbon treaty.
A group of "hardliners in the Senate" and Czech President Klaus are playing a "postponing game" on Lisbon, and has already ensured Lisbon will not be ratified by the time the Czech republic takes over the EU presidency on 1 January 2009.
The Czech republic and Ireland are the biggest obstacles to Lisbon ratification, although the German and Polish presidents have also refused to sign off on the text for now.
Extreme right parties, from anti-immigrant and xenophobic populists to outright neo-fascists, are almost certain to increase their presence in the European Parliament after the 2009 elections unless the EU and mainstream parties wake up to the threat and take action, long-time monitors of far right activities are warning.
Kosovo again dismissed a revised plan for a EU mission proposed by Brussels and the UN, worrying that it would threaten its sovereignty over the restive Serb territory.
Russia has rejected US proposals aimed at easing Moscow's concerns over a planned missile shield in central Europe, a Kremlin source has said.
The source said the proposals by the Bush administration were "insufficient" and would put Barack Obama "in a dead-end situation."
As if to counter the mood of democratic change in the US, President Medvedev yesterday launched a constitutional amendment that would allow him and Prime Minister Putin to remain the legal leaders of Russia, with little chance for challenge, through the next 2 decades.
Palestinian President Abbas said that during peace talks over the past year, Israel had proposed concessions to him regarding Jerusalem, but he rejected them because they were partial.
"We either get all 6 points - Jerusalem, settlements, borders, refugees, water and security - or nothing at all."
Outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Olmert warned on Tuesday of a looming confrontation with the Islamist Hamas movement which controls the Gaza Strip.
"I have no doubt that the situation between us and Hamas is an unavoidable pre-confrontation situation. It's only a question of time and not a question of if."
A group of European lawmakers said Tuesday they will petition the EU to suspend a preferential trade agreement with Israel because of what they described as its "cruel" blockade of Gaza.
"Israel is contravening international law ... that's the real issue."
Jerusalem's new mayor, Nir Barkat, is the great hope of the city's secular Jewish community. The well-dressed, smooth-tongued former high-tech business executive has said he is "determined to save the city."
Prime Minister Olmert used a Jerusalem memorial ceremony for former prime minister Rabin to reiterate that Israel must be willing to cede parts of the capital.
"If we want to keep Israel Jewish and democratic, we need to give up parts of the homeland we have dreamed about for generations and [mentioned] in our prayers, even Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem, and to return to a 1967 Israel with certain amendments. The decision must be made now. The moment of truth has arrived."
Three weeks after Obama is sworn into office, Israel will choose a new Knesset, which will then attempt to create from within it a new cabinet, headed by either Tzipi Livni or Benjamin Netanyahu.
It is critical for Israeli voters to know now, as part of the information with which they calculate how to vote, whether the candidates for prime minister are on a course for collision or discussion with Obama.
The traffic reports say Livni is driving alongside Obama, and Netanyahu is approaching him head-on.
Shortly before his "suicide" in 1955, Henry H. Klein, a righteous Jew, uttered these prophetic words:
"Zionism is a political program for the conquest of the world…Zionism destroyed Russia by violence as a warning to other nations. It is destroying the United States through bankruptcy, as Lenin advised.
"Zionism wants another world war if necessary to enslave the people. Our manpower is scattered over the world. Will we be destroyed from within or will we wake up in time to prevent it?"
The election of Obama will polarize Liberal and Conservative. We will see the typical Zionist Communist practice of censoring information, dissent and free speech in the name of curbing "bigotry" and anti-Semitism.
The UN nuclear watchdog criticised on Tuesday diplomatic disclosures that it had found uranium traces at a Syrian site under investigation, saying this was an effort to prejudge the agency's conclusions.
Obama is planning to involve Iran in a major shift in US policy on the war in Afghanistan.
Without firing a shot, dozens of militants along the Khyber Pass border between Pakistan and Afghanistan managed to hijack a convoy of trucks bound for NATO forces in Afghanistan.
The hijacking threatens the only practical supply route for international troops in the landlocked nation.
Sudanese President al-Bashir has announced a unilateral ceasefire by government forces in the devastated Darfur region and is calling for rebels to join in peace negotiations.
The leader of a Sudanese rebel group has criticised Arab nations for not giving enough attention to the violence and political turmoil in Sudan and Somalia.
North Korea has said it will shut all land borders with South Korea from the beginning of December and accused its neighbour of provocation "beyond the danger level".
President Ahmadinejad said today that any act of aggression against Iran will receive a crushing response.
Iran said it test-fired a new generation of surface-to-surface missile today and that the Islamic Republic was ready to defend itself against any attacker.
Iran's Defense Minister said it had a range of close to 1,200 miles. That would enable it to reach Israel and US bases in the Gulf.
"It will only land on the heads of those enemies ... who want to make an aggression and invade the Islamic Republic."
Israeli Foreign Minister Livni has warned the US vice president-elect against changing the Bush White House policies toward Iran.
North American Aerospace Defense Command and US Northern Command will participate in Exercise Vigilant Shield 09 Nov. 12-18. The focus of VS09 is on homeland defense and civil support.
VS09 will run concurrent with other Department of Defense-sponsored and international exercises to more realistically test the synchronized response of federal, state, local and international mission partners in preparation for homeland defense, homeland security and civil support missions in the United States and abroad.
Worshippers at a Bible-teaching church in Lansing, Michigan, were stunned Sunday when members of a pro-homosexual, pro-anarchy organization named Bash Back interrupted their service to fling propaganda and condoms around the sanctuary, drape a profane banner from the balcony and feature 2 lesbians making out at the pulpit.
To the dismay of many Christians, John McCain was not elected president. How shallow and how pathetic are these McChristians. They can be counted on to enthusiastically and unconditionally support the next litter of yellow dog Republican candidates.
We live in 2 Americas.
One America, now the minority, functions in a print-based, literate world. It can cope with complexity and has the intellectual tools to separate illusion from truth.
The other America, which constitutes the majority, exists in a non-reality-based belief system. This America, dependent on skillfully manipulated images for information, has severed itself from the literate, print-based culture.
It cannot differentiate between lies and truth. It is informed by simplistic, childish narratives and cliches. It is thrown into confusion by ambiguity, nuance and self-reflection.
This divide, more than race, class or gender, more than rural or urban, believer or nonbeliever, red state or blue state, has split the country into radically distinct, unbridgeable and antagonistic entities.
The Imam who came forward to assist in the search of Barack Obama's identity left Kenya secretly, and will arrive in the UK.
He will meet with a US contact person who will assist him in recording an asylum statement in the UK after handing over the documents that caused the blessing of Obama when he was born and to confirm the origin of the name Hussein.
He will join relatives in the UK because his life will be in danger if he were to return to Kenya after removing the documents from the Mosque's archives and taking them out of the country.
He is the grandson of the late Imam who blessed Barack Obama when he was born in Mombasa on the 4th of august 1961.
WILL CONGRESS CEDE ITS POWERS TO OBAMA?
Obama intends to use unilaterally issued, unchecked Executive Orders, rather than acts of Congress, to dictate outcomes on a whole range of politically controversial policy debates that are so plainly the province of the Congress to legislate.
Obama intends to use unilaterally issued, unchecked Executive Orders, rather than acts of Congress, to dictate outcomes on a whole range of politically controversial policy debates that are so plainly the province of the Congress to legislate.
The challenges facing Barack Obama are enormous, and the first African-American president would be well advised to remain focused, modest and realistic.
The enormity of the crises he must address are clear to his country and the world. Is he up to the task?
Improved relations with Russia are critical to the change toward a more peaceful world that Obama has promised, but it is disquieting in the extreme that some of his closest advisers are inveterate hawks with a history of needlessly provoking tension with the Russians during the Cold War days.
The grip that the Israeli lobby has over both political parties means that any real shift in US Middle Eastern policy is unlikely.
It might also be argued that no change in policy outside the Middle East is likely either, except that Obama might talk before he bombs.
But what is really scary about a possible Obama administration is Dennis Ross. Do not expect too much from Obama, as he is surrounded by people who already have agendas.
Barack, my brother, what is going through your head? Rahm Israel Emmanuel for White House Chief of Staff? I mean, just look in that guy's eyes, scary. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.
The best and the brightest think you're hanging with the worst and the weirdest. And the train ain't out of the station, my man.
While much of the world and many of his US supporters are expecting a sharp break with his predecessor's foreign policy after Obama takes office, they may be surprised by the degree of continuity between the 2 administrations.
That continuity – which would be made more concrete if, as expected, Pentagon chief Robert Gates is asked to remain at his post – has less to do with Obama's hesitation in following through on his more sweeping campaign promises than with the fact that President Bush, has quietly – if grudgingly – moved key US policies in directions that are largely compatible with Obama's own intentions.
Obama's transistion team has fuelled speculation that he will appoint a number of senior Republicans to his administration in January. Aides have said that he is considering asking Robert Gates, the current Defence Secretary, to stay on an extra year.
The nation's top 2 telligence officers expect to be replaced by Obama early in his administration, according to senior intelligence officials.
The Obama bandwagon is moving fast and furious, rolling over the few remaining pockets of dissent even as it prepares to take power.
The mainstream media, particularly on television, has lost all sense of objectivity and proportion.
New American presidents traditionally get what journalists and pundits call a honeymoon.
There's a period sometimes lasting up to 18 months when whatever goodwill remains from the pomp and circumstance of installing a president evokes deep patriotic feelings, creating an atmosphere in which even some members of the "opposition" party are inclined to cooperate with the new administration.
I suspect that Barack Obama, despite the historic character of his election, will have a shorter honeymoon than many.
A large segment of the black community faces enormous problems. But as I have argued, most of today's problems have little or nothing to do with racial discrimination.
Tragically, many black politicians and a civil rights industry have a vested interest in portraying the poor socioeconomic outcomes for many blacks as problems rooted in racial discrimination.
One of the reasons they are able to get away with such deception is because there are so many guilt-ridden white people
Led by guilt, college administrators, employers and others in leadership positions, in the name of diversity, buy into nonsense such as lowering standards, racial preferences and acceptance of behavior standards they wouldn't accept from whites.
Maybe the election of a black president will help white people over their guilt feelings so they can stop acting like fools in their relationships with black people.
We can now predict with considerable confidence several of the important developments that will emerge from next weekend's Group of 20 summit on the financial crisis in Washington.
All the recent Obamamania aside, the storm warnings are out for the world financial system.
If the G-20 summit on Nov. 15 in Washington fails to decide on a new financial system in the tradition of the Bretton Woods System, then we will be facing the immediate threat of even more destructive waves of financial tsunamis, which will sweep away ever greater chunks of the real economy.
We are quickly running out of time to avert the greatest catastrophe mankind has inflicted upon itself since at least the Dark Age of the 14th Century.
It does not have to happen, but it will, unless we wise up pretty damn quickly.
The world as we know it is breaking apart, economically, politically, culturally, and morally, as the financiers of the Anglo-Dutch Liberal empire scramble to steal all they can as their global financial system dies, leaving the vast majority of the population to fend for itself.
These imperial financiers have launched a concerted push to stampede nations into capitulating to their demands for a global corporatist dictatorship.
This is a confidential strategy paper for the November 15 G-20 summit in Washington DC.
This is not a new Bretton Woods in any sense, but rather a British-steered attempt to impose the dictatorship of the International Monetary Fund on the entire planet, wiping out all hope of economic recovery, the modernization of the developing countries, and national sovereignty at the same time.
Under this plan, the IMF would dictate the economic policies of all states.
The dreaded "D" word. Unmentioned and unconsidered in the mainstream but not off the table given the severity of today's crisis.
The US may be on course to lose its 'AAA' rating due to the large amount of debt it has accumulated.
"The US might really have to look at a default on the bankruptcy reorganization of the present financial system" and the bankruptcy of the government is not out of the realm of possibility.
The US government plans to sell bonds worth $55bn next week in an effort to finance its bank rescue programme.
US Treasury Secretary says the government has abandoned plans to buy up toxic mortgages and troubled assets as part of a massive bailout plan.
Paulson said today that the government was backing away from appending a $700 bailout fund to buy troubled mortgage assets and would now focus on continued capital injections to struggling banks.
Finally there is a 100% consensus between economists, experts, journalists, and government officials that restoring interbank lending will restore the stability of the financial system and will reignite economic growth.
Too bad, the consensus has gotten again all wrong. This is a pure myth and nothing can be further from the truth. The grim reality is very different and already forgotten.
The reality is that most markets for the majority of financial instruments have collapsed completely and reviving interbank lending will not resurrect any of those markets.
American Express Co. is seeking $3.5 billion in funds under the government's plan to directly invest in financial firms, according to a report today in The Wall Street Journal citing unnamed sources.
According to a report from financial news agency Bloomberg, Goldman Sachs has set aside $6.8 billion for bonuses, and Morgan Stanley, $6.4 billion.
Russia's central bank has raised interest rates a full percentage point to 12% to prevent a collapse of the rouble following a day of mayhem on the Moscow markets, prompting concerns that the financial crisis may be spiraling out of control.
"The devaluation has begun. The rouble has fallen out of its basket against the euro and the dollar. Russia is facing a serious confidence crisis and this could set off a self-fulfilling panic. What is clear is that economy is slowing drastically."
For those of us who want to believe we nearing the bottom of this crisis, a report Standard & Poor's offers a nasty reminder why there many be more violent pulses to come.
Entitled "Gaping Refunding Pipeline in Europe", it warns that $2.1 trillion of debt is coming due in Western Europe and Britain over the next 3 years. And a big chunk has to be repaid over the next 12 months.
When the US government said it would spend $700 billion to rescue the American financial industry, it seemed to be an ocean of money.
But after one of the biggest lobbying free-for-alls in memory, it suddenly looks like a dwindling pool.
The shrinking pie — and the growing uncertainty over who qualifies — has thrown Washington's legal and lobbying establishment into a mad scramble.
We all know in the backs of our minds that Obama's incredible victory will eventually be followed by disappointment. But does it have to come so soon, and hit so hard?
The answer will be yes, if Lawrence Summers is named treasury secretary in the president-elect's cabinet, as many observers believe will be the case.
Summers was one of the key architects of our financial crisis -- hiring him to fix the economy makes as much sense as appointing Paul Wolfowitz to oversee the Iraq withdrawal.
And when you look at the trail of economic destruction Summers left behind in other crisis-stricken countries who sought his advice in the past, then "terror" might be a more appropriate word than "disappointment."
Bad news kept piling up for General Motors as its shares plunged to their lowest point in 60 years and some industry analysts predicted the automaker would collapse without a government bailout.
"Without government assistance, we believe that GM's collapse would be inevitable, and that it would precipitate systemic risk that would be difficult to overcome for automakers, suppliers, retailers and sectors of the US economy."
Just as one crisis of confidence may be ending, another may be coming.
The panic on Wall Street has eased in the last few weeks, and banks have become somewhat more willing to make loans.
But in those same few weeks, American households appear to have fallen into their own defensive crouch.
Suddenly, the American consumer society is doing a lot less consuming.
[CFR Opinion Roundup][Newseum][Global Incident Map][Earthweek][Day-Night Map][Tonight's Sky][Moon phase]
In a Spiegel interview, British historian Niall Ferguson discusses Barack Obama's historical election, Europe's hopes for the new president, the consequences of the economic crisis and his idea of "Chimerica" -- the economic alliance between Beijing and Washington.
The internet is under threat from increasingly aggressive and sophisticated attempts by hackers to shut down large parts of the network, according to a new report.
Around sunset tonight, it's an almost full moon that appears low in the eastern sky.
Another fixture of late autumn – the Pleiades star cluster – shines all night long near tonight's moon. The cluster is also called the Seven Sisters, but most people can only spot 6 Pleiades stars.
[WAR: Just like one of the Pleiades' stars died, so did/has one of the churches: "In his right hand he held 7 stars . . . 'To the angel of the church in Sardis write: These are the words of him who holds the seven spirits of God and the 7 stars. I know your deeds; you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead. (Rev 1:16,20 / 3:1)]
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