Reading between the lines, and thinking outside the box . . .
In today's general audience, held in St. Peter's Square, the Pope focused his remarks on St. Boniface, "apostle of the Germans."
Plans by the Spanish Catholic Church to build a "mini Vatican" in Madrid have left residents furious over the loss of one of the city's best loved views.
Chancellor Merkel dismissed criticism of her style of leadership today and called for unity among her conservative Christian Democrat and Christian Social Union alliance
The worldwide economic downturn has hit German companies like Opel and Hypo Real Estate hard. But Chancellor Merkel is trying to convince worried Germans that the country will be able to weather the storm.
"We have never had this kind of a recession, taking place at the same time in all countries of the world, since WW2. But I'm certain that Germany is better equipped than most countries to master this crisis."
Barack Obama is looking to completely revamp America's strategy in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, Germany prefers not to talk about the conflict.
That reluctance could soon lead to a fundamental misunderstanding between Berlin and Washington.
While distrust of Germany is growing, a German official, of all people, is trying to steer Europe out of the crisis. European Union Industry Commissioner Günter Verheugen is suddenly garnering applause.
Forty-three years after General de Gaulle threw American forces out of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, his political descendant, is expected to explain to a sceptical nation today why he is taking the country back into the core of the US-led NATO alliance.
For years, the Jerusalem District Police "benefited" from the fact that few Jews visited the Temple Mount, sparing the police this "headache." But now the situation is changing.
The halakhic consensus that Jews are forbidden to ascend the mount has been broken. More and more rabbis are permitting Jews to visit, and more and more Jews are seeking to do so.
Not much remains for Jews on the Temple Mount. The Temple is gone. Prayer is forbidden there.
Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, is to hold talks with his Egyptian counterpart Hosni Mubarak and Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah in Riyadh as part of efforts to improve relations between the countries.
The leaders will hold talks in the Saudi capital today, in the run-up to an Arab League summit expected to take part at the end of the month.
The United States in 2003 rejected an unconditional offer from Saddam Hussein -- channeled through Syria -- for disarmament, UN-supervised elections and help in the US war on terror.
At the 11th hour, US intelligence officials brushed aside the Iraqi offer for unconditional terms for peace.
The Obama administration has made clear that its priority is to prevent US imperialism being driven out of Afghanistan.
Implicitly, Obama's Afghanistan policy is based creating a new warlord regime to replace Karzai's.
Providing that factions of the Taliban and other Pashtun powerbrokers accept an ongoing US presence in the country, Obama would sponsor the parcelling out of spheres of influence between them and the Northern Alliance strongmen.
This sordid real politik highlights the reactionary and neo-colonial character of the occupation of Afghanistan.
Tens of thousands of Afghans and hundreds of foreign troops have lost their lives for no other purpose than securing a base of operations for US imperialism as it seeks to extend its domination over the resource-rich regions of Central Asia and the Middle East.
The motivation of the perpetrators of the warrant against Sudanese President Bashir has absolutely nothing to do with the allegations of genocide in Darfur.
It has everything to do with fomenting new outbreaks of war in Sudan and throughout the Horn of Africa, but most especially, establishing a precedent for the violation of national sovereignty.
The US Embassy in Sudan authorized nonessential staff and family to leave the country, saying Tuesday that protests against the International Criminal Court's indictment of the Sudanese president increased the danger of anti-Western violence.
The embassy said it has received information on terrorist threats aimed at American and European interests in Sudan.
(And: UGLY MOOD IN SUDAN)
The West is seriously concerned about a possibility for Russia to conquer African energy resources.
Sunday's incident ratchets up tensions with China – which have been roiled in recent weeks, not only by a series of similar incidents, but also on account of issues broader than China's claims to virtually the whole of the South China Sea.
Yes, the US routinely spies on the Chinese, and fully expects to get away with it.
Iran does not yet have any highly enriched uranium, the fuel needed to make a nuclear warhead, 2 top US intelligence officials told Congress Tuesday, disputing a claim by an Israeli official.
What is clear is that we are prattling on too much about the Iranian threat. If jabbering could kill, no doubt we would have been at war with Iran long ago.
The British Empire has launched an all-out financial and political assault on the United States, and that assault must be defeated if our nation is to survive.
One of the major components of this assault is the criminal monstrosity called the "bank bailout," which is presented to the public as a way to save the American economy, but which in fact is a mechanism to destroy it.
What is being bailed out is the global financial and monetary system run by the British Empire, more precisely the London-centered Anglo-Dutch Liberal system.
This system is not English, but a parasite which has taken over the British Isles as a home base. The empire functions more like a disease than a nation, and it has thoroughly infected Wall Street.
Lyndon LaRouche has issued a declaration of war against the British Empire and its Wall Street assets, who have laid siege to the Obama White House and are fully committed to the destruction of the United States, starting with the institution of the Presidency.
The current assault is being steered, on the homefront, by a Wall Street/London-bankrolled right-wing apparatus, led by the American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute, and political loudmouths.
A lawyer lobbying the US Justice Department and the US Supreme Court for a review of Barack Obama's qualifications to be president says a key conservative justice has hinted that another conservative justice has been voting against hearing the dispute.
Orly Taitz, a California attorney working through her Defend Our Freedoms Foundation on several cases challenging Obama, said she was presented with an opportunity to ask a question of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia yesterday.
She then bought Scalia's book and waited in line to get it autographed. "I gave him the books to sign and asked: 'Tell me what to do, what can I do, those soldiers [her plaintiffs] can be court-martialed for asking a legitimate question, who is the president, is he legitimate.' He said: 'Bring the case, I'll hear it, I don't know about others.'"
In the last few months, dozens of US courts have dismissed legal challenges to Barack Obama's constitutional eligibility to occupy the Oval Office, and even the US Supreme Court has refused to hold a hearing on the evidence – but what have the courts actually cited as reasons for dismissing the concerns of millions of Americans?
Mootness, lack of jurisdiction, lack of responsibility, lack of standing, a series of "no comments" and even the fact the issue has been "twittered."
The one subject that has been avoided to date has been whether or not the president is, in fact, eligible.
Despite Obama's concerted campaign to keep hidden his original birth certificate and other documentation that would verify his qualification for office, members of Congress are confident of his eligibility.
Obama still has the approval of the people, but the establishment is beginning to mumble that the president may not have what it takes.
Congressman Ron Paul has slammed Barack Obama's foreign policy, saying it is identical to that of George W. Bush, proving once again that both parties follow the same agenda on major issues.
"Even though Obama was the so-called peace candidate and was going to bring our troops home from that war in Iraq, I'm afraid there's evidence now that shows he's going to pursue the same foreign policy - which was my argument during the campaign, that no matter what happens, both major parties support the same foreign policy, the same monetary policy, the same welfare policy and there's never really any change."
(Sneak peek: "THE OBAMA DECEPTION")
Ambassador Chas Freeman withdrew from consideration for a top intelligence post in the Obama administration, following a vitriolic battle that pitted Republican lawmakers and pro-Israel hardliners opposed to his appointment against liberals and members of the intelligence and diplomatic communities who had come to his defense.
His withdrawal is likely to be viewed as a significant victory for hardliners within the so-called "Israel lobby," who led the movement to scuttle his appointment, and a blow to hopes for a new approach to Israel-Palestine issues under the Obama administration.
Following widespread outrage from Roman Catholics, Connecticut lawmakers have postponed a highly anticipated public hearing over a state law that would dictate how local parishes must organize their governing structures.
"The [church] shall have a board of directors consisting of not less than 7 nor more than 13 lay members," the bill states, then assigns all financial oversight to the board, specifies the board's governing duties and even dictates how often the boards shall meet.
(Now: PROPOSAL PULLED)
Good for the NE, bad for the SW...
A new study on American religion finds that Catholicism is facing a "stunning" decline in the northeast US as the population center of Catholics shifts towards the southwest.
According to the ARIS report, Catholic numbers and percentages rose in many states in the South and West mainly due to immigration.
And secularism continues to grow in all regions, while mainline Protestant denominations face the most significant population decline.
Can't come soon enough...
An anti-Christian chapter in Western history is about to begin.
We are on the verge – within 10 years – of a major collapse of evangelical Christianity. This breakdown will follow the deterioration of the mainline Protestant world and it will fundamentally alter the religious and cultural environment in the West.
As the recession has deepened, longtime workers who lost their jobs are facing the terror and stigma of homelessness for the first time, including those who have owned or rented for years.
Some show up in shelters and on the streets, but others are the hidden homeless — living doubled up in apartments, in garages or in motels, uncounted in federal homeless data and often receiving little public aid.
America's 5 largest banks, which already have received $145 billion in taxpayer bailout dollars, still face potentially catastrophic losses from exotic investments if economic conditions substantially worsen, their latest financial reports show.
The banks' potentially huge losses shed new light on the hurdles that Obama's economic team must overcome to save institutions it deems too big to fail.
Banks in the US face a new source of write-downs and failures in the coming year, as loans made to developers to finance residential and commercial property development rapidly go bad.
The problem is that the Central Bank's Charter expressly forbids quantitative easing because it would violate the no bail-out provision.
The Bundesbank president and ECB council member Axel Weber has pointedly added his country's seal of disapproval by stating that: "A euro bond would be exactly the wrong road. Common liability for national state finances is not desirable and would not be in agreement with the constitutional framework of the EU – the so-called no bail-out clause. It must be clear that individual nations take responsibility for their fiscal policy."
Hopes for an economic upturn in Europe in 2010 are fading. EU finance ministers now believe it is "highly uncertain" that the economy will start to recover next year, according to a newspaper report. But the EU has rejected US calls for fresh stimulus measures.
The scale of the threat to the global economy and the challenge to world leaders could hardly be greater.
But with 3 weeks to go before the crucial Group of 20 summit in London, the prospects of success for this meeting of the world's leading developed and developing countries are poor and getting poorer.
The most immediate and alarming problem is that the Europeans and Americans do not seem to agree on what is needed.
As the richest nations prepare to meet in April, the World Bank has warned of a $700 billion shortfall in developing countries and the IMF is asking for donations.
German commentators wonder whether the 2 organizations are up to the task of dealing with the crisis.
A rift between Europe and America over the crux of the G20 summit was threatening Gordon Brown's hopes for a deal to rescue the world economy.
The size of the challenge facing the British Government in bringing together world powers was emphasised in a candid admission by Britain's most senior civil servant that it was proving "unbelievably difficult" to liaise with the Obama Administration to prepare for the meeting.
(Op-ed: GORDON TO THE RESCUE)
The US Federal Reserve is printing money. The US government is also spending wildly today so there won't be a depression tomorrow. It sounds like a recipe for currency collapse.
Yet the dollar keeps picking up. And the trend seems unlikely to change soon. What's going on? Well, consider the competition.
A new world currency must be created under the aegis of the United Nations Organization, Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev stated during his speech at the 21st Congress of the Eurasian Association of Universities in Astana.
"We need to switch to an absolutely new global currency system based on a legitimate and, from the point of view of all countries, joint monetary unit. All countries must participate in its issuance and regulation."
Sixteen years ago, 2 economists published a research paper with a delightfully simple title: "Looting."
The investors had borrowed huge amounts of money, made big profits when times were good and then left the government holding the bag for their eventual (and predictable) losses. In a word, the investors looted.
Someone trying to make an honest profit, Professors Akerlof and Romer said, would have operated in a completely different manner.
The investors displayed a "total disregard for even the most basic principles of lending," failing to verify standard information about their borrowers or, in some cases, even to ask for that information.
The investors "acted as if future losses were somebody else's problem," the economists wrote. "They were right."
China's exports fell much more sharply than expected in February, data showed on Wednesday, as the economy finally felt the full force of the global financial crisis.
"China has finally and spectacularly succumbed to world financial crisis on the export side, and it's difficult to see why that would improve in the short term."
President Ahmadinejad says the world monetary system serves the interests of global economic powers in an "unfair" way. "The international economic order is unfair, inefficient and harmful to many countries."
The first 10 days of March have seen no let-up in the destruction of jobs in the US.
Large and small corporations, as well as state and local governments, school districts, public libraries and universities, are laying off workers in the most devastating slump since the Great Depression.
And there is no sign of a let-up in the assault on jobs.
There's nothing more terrifying to corporate America than the prospect of dealing with its workforce on an even playing field, and, along with its allies in Congress, it's pulling out all the stops to keep that from happening.
What does that look like? I thought I'd take Google Sketchup out for a test drive and try to get a sense of what exactly a trillion dollars looks like.
If you thought those cheapskate friends and relatives couldn't pinch pennies any tighter, think again. The recession is making tightwads cut back even more.
The recession is radically changing behavior among many different types of people, from the Wall Street bankers who are now waltzing into Wal-Mart for the first time to buy their groceries to teens who are now thumbing through the piles of status jeans at secondhand shops to save money.
Will the current global financial crisis encourage people to change their spending habits and thereby create a better world in the process?
[WAR: This is a job search site I found the other day -- seems to be quite good.]
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Junk created by the collision of 2 satellites last month is poised to fall into Earth's atmosphere this week. The fragments are small, however, perhaps just a centimeter or so. They should burn up on the way in and pose no threat to anyone on the ground.
BARBIE TURNS 50 (Cartoons)
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