Sunday

The Daily WAR (10-27)

Reading between the lines, and thinking outside the box . . .
 
 
 
PuttanaTubo...
    He may not be in with the local Emo cult, and you're unlikely to see him hanging out at a skateboard park. But Benedict XVI moved one step closer to cool Friday when he launched the Vatican's own YouTube site on Google.
 
    Pope Benedict XVI, acceding to the far right of the Catholic Church, has revoked the excommunications of 4 schismatic bishops.
    The decision announced Saturday provided fresh fuel for critics who charge that Benedict's 4-year-old papacy has proven increasingly hostile to moderates and to the sweeping reforms of the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s that sought to create a more modern and open church.
    A theologian resigned to the church's diminished status in a secular world, Benedict has favored a smaller church of more ardent believers over a larger one with looser faith.
(Of course: JEWS ANGERED)
 
The Bavarian beast getting CPR?...
    [WAR translation...]
    The Bavarian Prime Minister, Horst Seehofer, had a private visit with the Bavarian Pope, Benedict XVI, in the Vatican -- and both agreed that the economic crisis should usher in the end of a cynical world view.
    Seehofer quickly found that he and Benedict shared a common theme: the economy and ethics.
    An Seehofer was "surprised to know how informed the Pope is on events in his homeland," and that Benedict is still very interested in everything that goes on in Bavaria -- reading newspapers and keeping up via the Vatican's ambassadors.
    Seehofer (Chairman of the Christian Social Union) is a follower of Catholic social teaching and has been known by his opponents for years as "Herz-Jesu-socialist" geschmaht -- and has strong support from the Pope.
    Benedict is preparing a new Sozialenzyklika (social encyclical), and has previously referred to the "wirrungen of turbo-capitalism."
    The Pope also talked a lot with Seehofer about ethical principles and said that church and politics should work together.
 
    The president of Macedonia visited Benedict XVI in Rome Friday, thanking Vatican officials for the Holy See's attention to the country since its 1991 independence. The nation established diplomatic ties with the Holy See in 1994.
    Almost 65% of its 2 million residents are Orthodox and 33% are Muslim. Other Christian confessions make up just 0.37% of the population.
 
Madre puttana prostituta parlare con le figlie...
    Despite difficulties with the Anglican and Methodist confessions, ecumenical dialogue forges ahead with them as well, confirmed a Vatican aide.
 
 
 
    The German government is desperately trying to find a way to save the country's ailing banking sector. Can a so-called "bad bank" solve the problem by taking over toxic assets?
    German commentators aren't convinced, but they are certain that something needs to be done.
 
    Tom Cruise has become an overnight hero in Germany thanks to his film, Valkyrie, about the plot to kill Hitler — a story the German authorities fear could become a propaganda vehicle for Scientology.
    The German Agency for the Protection of the Constitution, believes that Scientology is an antidemocratic organisation and is keeping it under close observation.
    The organisation recently opened a headquarters in Berlin as its main lobbying centre in Europe.
 
    A short film that has shown up on the YouTube video website threatens terrorist attacks on 3 German cities, the German Interior Ministry confirmed Saturday. But religious expressions in the film were absent.
    "We are going to send an army into the middle of your cities, especially Berlin, Cologne and Bremen. Germany and 4 other nations will be in trouble from February '09."
 
 
 
    After a decade in which breakneck growth made up for political weaknesses, pessimists fear that the post-cold war settlement across eastern Europe may now be at risk.
 
    The worrying social fallout from sharply rising unemployment. The full social impact of the recession will kick in after the summer, when a first wave of jobless run out of unemployment pay and start receiving less generous welfare handouts.
 
    As the financial crisis continues unabated and hardly a day goes by without more news of toxic assets, bank write-downs and credit shortages - the Party of European Socialists feel they have the answer.
 
    The world's most successful military alliance is looking for a new boss.
    On January 26th, NATO ambassadors will start talking about who should replace the secretary-general when he steps down this summer.
    The decision could be made at the 60th-anniversary summit in April, though that may be too soon for America's new administration.
    Some NATO insiders think the best way to stop Berlin from becoming the new Paris might be to appoint a senior German with solid pro-American credentials to NATO's top job — in effect, not Germany's man at NATO, but NATO's man for Germany.
 
    One of the deceptive clichés of Western accounts of post-WW2 history is that NATO was constructed as a defensive arrangement to block the threat of a Soviet attack on Western Europe.
    This is false. The non-German Western European elites were more worried about German revival and a German threat.
    Now the new NATO is pleased to be helping its master project power across the globe. The pitbull is well positioned to help Israel continue its massive law violations, to help the US and Israel threaten and perhaps attack Iran.
    In reality, as an aggressive global arm of US and other local affiliated imperialisms, NATO poses a serious threat to global peace and security.
 
    Russian missile destroyer Admiral Chabanenko left a naval shipyard in the country's Kaliningrad exclave on an urgent mission after having hurried repair work carried out.
    "Admiral Chabanenko urgently left the Baltiisk naval base on January 20 after receiving orders for a mission of state importance."
    Following the statement, a Russian military-diplomatic source told RIA Novosti that the destroyer was heading to the Mediterranean for combat training.
    "The Admiral Chabanenko destroyer has received orders from Navy Headquarters to head for the Mediterranean to accomplish a number of combat training tasks," the source said, adding that it may continue to the Gulf of Aden.
 
 
 
    Over 400 representatives from 80 Jewish communities from all continents attend today in Jerusalem the 13th plenary assembly of the World Jewish Congress, the highest decision-making body of this organization.
    During the 2-day gathering, WJC president Ronald Lauder stands for re-election while the body will also elect the successor of Matthew Bronfman as Chairman of the Governing Board.
 
    Kadima is capitalizing on Washington's new administration in its campaign for the premiership against Likud chairman Benjamin Netanyahu, warning that a Netanyahu government will lead to a clash between Israel and the US.
 
    The 3 leading candidates for prime minister are extremists. Tzipi Livni and Ehud Barak went to war in Gaza and are therefore as radical as can be. Benjamin Netanyahu is more radical in rhetoric only.
    We always used to say, "There aren't any moderates in the Arab world." Now we are the ones who don't have any.
    Vote as you will, but don't fool yourself. Every ballot cast for Kadima, Labor and Likud is an endorsement of the last war and a vote for the next one.
 
    Like the pairs of foxes in the biblical story of Samson, tied together by the tail with a flaming torch between them, we and the Palestinians are dragging each other into disaster -- despite our disparate strength, and even when we try very hard to separate. And as we do, we burn the one who is bound to us, our double, our nemesis, ourselves.
 
    Israel's Gaza offensive has created fractures in the Israeli-Turkish alliance and deepened ties between Ankara and Tehran in what analysts fear could be the start of a major realignment in the region.
 
    Obama will seek to befriend Syria and enlist the rogue state's help in fighting terrorism, in what US officials see as the first test of his plans to talk to America's enemies.
    Obama wants to persuade Syria's leader to cooperate with the West, in the hope that he will loosen his country's close ties to Iran, forcing Tehran to the negotiating table as well.
 
    An American naval taskforce in the Gulf of Aden has been ordered to hunt for suspicious Iranian arms ships heading for the Red Sea as Tehran seeks to re-equip Hamas, its Islamist ally in Gaza.
 
First notches on his belt...
    Pakistan received an early warning of what the era of "smart power" under Barack Obama will look like after 2 remote-controlled US airstrikes killed 22 people at suspected terrorist hideouts in the border area of Waziristan. It is part of a "tough love" policy combining a military crack-down with diplomatic initiatives.
 
    In a series of meetings and public appearances Wednesday and Thursday, and with the first military strikes of his administration, Obama has given a clear signal that he plans intensified bloodshed in Afghanistan and Pakistan as the US escalates its military intervention in Central and South Asia.
 
    The US is slowly shifting its military needs towards Africa and Sudan in particular.
    The main objective of the mission in Darfur and the no-fly zone over the region will be to slowly strangulate Sudan's economy and render it impossible for the Chinese to exploit Sudan's oil.
    With the massive movement of NATO forces across the globe from Afghanistan to Sudan and Israel the world seems to be heading for a massive conflict between the Americans and its allies and the rest of the world which comprises of Russia, China and most of the Muslim states.
 
    Hundreds of millions of Chinese geared up to welcome the Year of the Ox today, packing temple fairs, setting off fireworks and firecrackers and hurrying to train and bus stations to get home for the traditional holiday.
 
 
 
    Tel Aviv has reintroduced the idea of attacking Iran in the wake of a deadly military offensive in Gaza.
    In a Saturday night meeting with Quartet envoy Tony Blair, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak claimed that Iran's nuclear program threaten the stability of the region.
 
Propaganda push...
    Western powers believe that Iran is running short of the raw material required to manufacture nuclear weapons, triggering an international race to prevent it from importing more, The Times has learnt.
    Diplomatic sources believe that Iran's stockpile of yellow cake uranium, produced from uranium ore, is close to running out and could be exhausted within months.
    There were concerns that Tehran could be seeking fresh supplies to support its nuclear programme at a critical juncture — just months before intelligence experts expected it to have accumulated enough enriched material for a bomb.
    While there is no direct evidence that Iran has actively sought to buy uranium from Kazakhstan or Uzbekistan, Western intelligence sources view them as one of a number of potential weak spots in the supply chain.
    Others include the Democratic Republic of Congo, where there have been persistent rumours of illegal exports to countries including Iran. Getting to the truth about such claims is notoriously difficult.
    Reports by British Intelligence of an attempt by Saddam Hussein to acquire substantial quantities of yellow cake from Niger in West Africa for a clandestine nuclear bomb project turned out to be fabricated.
    The very real international effort to choke off supplies of yellow cake to Iran reflect mounting concern that 2009 is likely to be a pivotal year for Iran's nuclear programme.
 
    Surely Obama will soon realize – as does most of the world – that Iran has broken no Nuclear Proliferation Treaty rule and that for at least the past 8 years it is the US that has been the most flagrant violator of NPT rules.
 
Israel won't let it happen...
    US intelligence-designate Dennis Blair says intelligence agencies should help policymakers to work with Muslim states including Iran on mutual interests.
 
 
 
    A theorist is someone who holds and expounds a theory.
    Those trying to vet Obama even post inaugural are not trying to prove a theory, here is why.
    Most of those filing law suits to subpoena Obama's documents are lawyers, politicians and military people none who have ever been known to be conspiracy theorists on any subject.
    Bringing a birth certificate or school records up out of a vault does not require a bit of speculation. All that's needed is a subpoena not a theory.
    Producing a document is in no way comparable to proving a theory.
 
Pissin' off the pope...
    Barack Obama on Friday overturned an 8-year ban on US government funding for family planning organizations which carry out or facilitate abortions overseas.
    The so-called "global gag rule" cut off US funding to overseas family planning clinics which provide any abortion services whatsoever, from the operation itself to counseling, referrals or post-abortion services.
 
    The Center for Constitutional Rights has expressed concern that Obama's executive order banning torture may contain a loophole.
(Cartoons: CLOSIN' GITMO)
 
    Just like the American voters did not elect any of the generals pushing for a continued occupation of Iraq, neither did they elect Robert Gates. His continued presence in the halls of official Washington is an ugly reminder of the destructive, disastrous and disavowed policies of the Bush and Cheney regime now in exile.
 
    Some of the new president's most ardent supporters already feel let down.
 
    Barack Obama is on a collision course with his critics after picking a fight with Rush Limbaugh, America's most influential conservative commentator.
    Obama has told Republicans in Washington to stop listening to the right-wing talk show host Rush Limbaugh, risking a new culture war with conservative voters.
    After less than a week in office, Obama's presidency is already encountering the very partisan bickering he had pledged to stamp out during his first 100 days.
 
    Obama has held his first conversation with Gordon Brown since he took over the American presidency as the first European leader to get a call.
    During the 15-minute discussion they mainly talked about the economy, but they also talked about the Middle East and other international issues.
    At this week's Cabinet meeting Brown told ministers that the Government shares "many of the same values" as Obama and has adopted a similar approach on the global economic downturn.
 
    Michelle Obama will be more than just the first truly fashionable First Lady since Jackie Kennedy – the 'mom in chief' will be a de facto co-president.
    Behind the scenes has been gathering a staff of experienced political operatives. She will not merely be an informal adviser but the power behind the President and on some issues even a leader.
 
    Now that we have a new administration, the question is whether neoconservatism is finished. Their vast network of institutions, publications and wealthy donors remains intact and they are eager to take on Iran and sooner or later even North Korea.
 
    Dick Cheney has slammed his former boss George W. Bush for failing to pardon his former chief of staff Lewis "Scooter" Libby, who was convicted of lying about the outing of a CIA officer.
    Bush's decision not to pardon Libby has angered many of his staunchest supporters and defenders, who have used word like "disgusting" and dishonourable" about the Texan.
 
    Support for Obama among Americans, including many who did not vote for him, is unprecedented.
    Globally, too, there has been deep interest in the election and widespread hope for change in US policy. Practically everyone the world over now wishes Obama success.
    The main reasons for this are the pressures of global economic and political tensions that have been piling up for decades.
    Understandably, Obama will focus first on the economic crisis. But solving America's economic problems without cardinal changes in the world will be impossible.
    The "Washington consensus" that assumed that the global economy could be designed from a single center has been discredited. It was based entirely on the profit motive, over-consumption and failed, outdated institutions.
    A new model must recognize the need for multilateral cooperation.
 
    The Department of Homeland Security has built fewer than 200 miles of fence along the US-Mexican border, not the 526 miles claimed by DHS and the US Customs and Border Patrol, according to the founder of American Border Patrol.
    He claims DHS is including in its 526 miles of fence, some 248 miles of "vehicle fence" that "isn't a fence at all and doesn't even stop vehicles."
 
    The Sequoyah County Sheriff's Office has been flooded with more than 100 calls since Tuesday. On Friday residents in Crawford and Sebastian counties in Arkansas and Adair and LeFlore counties in Oklahoma reported feeling and hearing rumbles.
    "We saw no earthquake activity. This could be some atmospheric condition, could be military aircraft that are being field tested and they could be hundreds of miles away."
 
 
 
    The Obama hysteria is not merely embarrassing to witness, it is itself contributory to the scale of the disaster that is coming.
    What we are experiencing, in the deepening days of a global depression, is the desperate suspension of disbelief by people of intelligence - la trahison des clercs - in a pathetic effort to hypnotise themselves into the delusion that it will be all right on the night. It will not be all right.
    It is frightening to think there is a real possibility that the entire world economy could go into complete meltdown and famine kill millions.
    It is questionable whether the present political system can survive the coming crisis.
 
    The CEO of JPMorgan Chase told the Financial Times that the worst of the economic crisis still lay ahead as hard-hit consumers default on their loans.
    "The worst of the economic situation is not yet behind us. It looks as if it will continue to deteriorate for most of 2009."
 
    President Barack Obama will use his poll shattering popularity to swiftly enact policies that will prove to be among the most costly and potentially destructive in America's history, predicts the director of Trends Research Institute.
    "We are forecasting dramatic measures will soon be taken by the Obama Administration that will worsen the credit crisis and severely damage the nation's economic system."
 
    Whether it was a shot across the bow or a simple restatement of his boss's views, Timothy Geithner's assertion that China "manipulates" its currency has complicated a crucial front in Obama's efforts to improve relations with the world.
    China experts here said there were several other signs that the Obama administration could take a harder line toward Beijing, including Obama's emphasis on climate change and the environment in trade negotiations and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's focus on human rights.
    "The Chinese are probably one of the few people in the world who were sorry to see President Bush go, and are nervous about his successor. They saw the Inaugural Address as having some uncomfortable elements for them. They are uneasy about Hillary Clinton. She has, in their assessment, not been a friend of China."
 
    The United States and the United Kingdom stand on the brink of the largest debt crisis in history.
 
    Britain is heading for economic depression for the first time since the 1930s, economists have warned.
    Families must brace themselves for a slump of far greater severity and longevity than the recessions of the 1980s and 1990s, they warned, saying the current crisis will be of a scale to rival the biggest peace-time crisis in modern history — the Great Depression.
 
    For its entire history the Bank of England has been focused on two jobs: controlling monetary policy and financial stability within the UK.
    However, in a matter of weeks, the Bank will add another weapon to its arsenal.
    The Treasury sketched out the broad details last week, when it unveiled its second banking bail-out package.
    In short, the Bank will start buying up assets from financial investors in the latest bid to bring the financial system back under control.
 
    For countries on the southern and western edges of the euro zone - Greece, Spain, Italy, Portugal and Ireland - this debt-fired dream of endless personal and public consumption has turned into the rudest of nightmares.
    And it is raising the risk that one of the 16 euro-zone countries might even be pushed to declare bankruptcy or abandon the euro.
    The adoption of the euro a decade ago was a historic event meant to pull Europe together economically and politically so as to rival the US and end the fractious disputes over national currency devaluations.
    But in the wake of consecutive ratings downgrades of Greece, Spain and Portugal, a new view is emerging.
    In Europe, after a brief lull, the financial crisis is back with a vengeance.
    Germany, France and the Scandinavian countries, though stronger, if also ailing, are mounting stimulus programs and building fences around their banks.
    The peripheral European economies are being left to twist in the market winds.
 
    There are ways for governments to revitalise banks without taking them over.
 
    Blank cheques, bankruptcy, nationalisation: the options are dire, but governments must choose between them.
 
    Fear of the unknown stalks the banking sector.
 
    Will old-fashioned scrip (local/alternative currencies) make a comeback?
 
    The deep causes of the financial crisis lie in global imbalances — mainly, America's huge current-account deficit and China's huge surplus.
 
    The flows are neither as big nor as scary as they once seemed with Sovereign Wealth Funds.
 
    Why is finance so unstable?
 
    The golden age of finance collapsed under its own contradictions. Edward Carr asks why it went wrong and what to do next.
 
 
 
So this was "created"?...
    The amazing story of a little girl in Zambia with the feet of an unformed twin protruding from her buttocks has gained worldwide attention.
 
    Human behavior is often inexplicably bizarre, destructive and counterintuitive, and yet we've made it this far.
    However, in the past, we haven't had the technological means to cause mass destruction to life on the planet.
    Now we do, says Sir Martin Rees, and he thinks we'll get around to using it to our own detriment sooner or later.
    In fact, the Royal Society Research Professor at Cambridge and Britain's Astronomer Royal says he believes humans have only a 50% chance of making it through just the next century alone.
 
    It's a question that has echoed throughout the ages: what really happens when you die?
    And at the moment of death, does the Bible state believers remain conscious and get immediately transported to a paradise called heaven to spend time with fellow Christians whose physical lives have also come to an end?
    The answers just might floor you.
 
 
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