Reading between the lines, and thinking outside the box . . .
Pope Benedict XVI says he hopes his upcoming trip to the Holy Land will give encouragement to Christians there and also promote peace and reconciliation between Israel and the Palestinians.
As Germany becomes "normal", it looks a bit more national and a bit less European.
The decision to keep labour controls is purely political. Germany faces elections to the European Parliament in June and a national poll in the autumn.
So is Germany now a "normal" (ie, selfish) country, more attuned to national than to European interests?
About a year after becoming Russia's 3rd president, Medvedev remains something of a puzzle, and the financial crisis has only deepened the questions about his intentions.
Israel's ultra-nationalist Foreign Minister Lieberman leaves today on his first official trip abroad, aiming to reassure the Europeans amid rising tensions over the stalled peace process.
His 5-day tour will take him to Rome, Paris, Prague and Berlin.
Hezbollah Chief Hassan Nasrallah charged over the weekend that Israel could have assassinated former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
"Does Israel have an interest in executing this operation? Of course, for Israel wanted a civil war in Lebanon to which the 'resistance' would be a party."
The Iraqi government has launched a project to renovate the interior of the prophet Ezekiel's shrine in the small town of Kifl, south of Baghdad, and the country's Ministry for Tourism and Antiquities says it hopes to eventually repair and renovate other Jewish sites across the country.
The tombs of the prophets Daniel, Ezra, Nahum and Jonah are also purported to be located in Iraq.
The provincial government in Babil has seized control of much of Babylon — unlawfully, according to the State Board of Antiquities and Heritage — and opened a park beside a branch of the Euphrates River, a place that draws visitors by the busload.
Now with the support of some officials in Baghdad, the local government has reopened the excavated ruins of Babylon's ancient core, shuttered ever since the American invasion in 2003.
It has done so despite warnings by archaeologists that the reopening threatens to damage further what remains of one of the world's first great cities before the site can be adequately protected.
Pakistani opposition Leader in the National Assembly, while regretting the statement of Barrack Obama, said on Saturday that the statement had raised concerns about Pakistan's independence and sovereignty.
The Taliban and al Qaeda may not pose enough of a threat to the US to make a long war in Afghanistan worth the costs.
For the past 7 months world news outlets have provided daily coverage on what has been described as escalating piracy off the coast of Somalia in the Gulf of Aden and attempts by international, primarily Western, military vessels to combat it.
Absent from such reporting, as the exigencies of commercial news broadcasting inevitably entail, is how and why the situation in the region reached the impasse it has and what its broader significance is.
Securing the safe passage of vessels in the Gulf of Aden and particularly those delivering UN World Food Programme aid is a legitimate concern.
But plans by the US and NATO to take control of the whole Indian Ocean for military purposes and to insure global energy dominance is not a legitimate concern.
A French weekly reported that Israel may be preparing its air force for possible attacks against Iran.
"Israeli army planes recently performed in-flight refueling exercises between the Hebrew state and Gibraltar," reported l'Express magazine Saturday.
"The 3,800 km amplitude of the airfield could confirm that the Israeli army willconcretely prepare for air-strikes against Iran if Teheran were to persist in refusing to negotiate with the international community on the nuclear issue."
The Israeli Air Force is exercising with rockets capable of reaching Iran preparing for a variety of 'scenarios' in the event of a war with the country.
The IAF has deployed its Arrow and Patriot missile interceptors pitting the apparatuses against different projectiles, The Jerusalem Post reported on Saturday.
Lobbies representing foreign interests have an increasingly powerful -- and often harmful -- impact on how the US formulates its foreign policy, and ultimately hurt US credibility around the world.
Another Catholic?!...
She grew up in a single parent family among the burned out tenements of one of New York's toughest districts.
Now Sonia Sotomayor, who was raised by Puerto Rican immigrants on a Bronx housing project, is set to make history after being tipped to become the US Supreme Court's first Latina justice.
Another Jew?...
The announced retirement of Supreme Court Justice David Souter could result in Obama's nomination of a man who has been an outspoken proponent of tough restriction on gun sales and ownership, a ban on hunting, animal rights and what has been characterized as a "Fairness Doctrine" for the Internet.
Cass Sunstein, a law professor friend of Obama and his current nominee to be regulatory czar, is on a list of 8 possible names, including Hillary Clinton, to replace Souter in an article in Atlantic Monthly.
A senior Republican on the Senate committee that will consider Obama's Supreme Court nominee says he's worried the president might pick a judicial activist instead of someone who bases decisions on the law.
Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah says Obama's comment last week about naming a justice who understands Americans' problems and has empathy for people is "code" for putting in place a person who legislates from the bench.
SPECTER SWITCHES SIDES (Cartoons)
Two weeks before the Department of Homeland Security penned its controversial report warning against "right-wing extremists" in the US, it generated a memo defining dozens of additional groups – animal rights activists, black separatists, tax protesters, even worshippers of the Norse god Odin – as potential "threats."
Apparently, the DHS analyzes the "threat" level of Internet news websites like WorldNetDaily, for the lexicon defines "alternative media" as "a term used to describe various information sources that provide a forum for interpretations of events and issues that differ radically from those presented in mass media products and outlets."
The US is a nation of religious drifters, with about half of adults restlessly switching faith affiliation at least once during their lives, a new survey has found.
The ranks of those unaffiliated with any religion, meanwhile, are growing not so much because of a lack of religious belief but because of disenchantment with religious leaders and institutions.
[WAR: I haven't belonged to any organized group since 1995.]
Sen. Dick Durbin, on a local Chicago radio station this week, blurted out an obvious truth about Congress that, despite being blindingly obvious, is rarely spoken: "And the banks -- hard to believe in a time when we're facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created -- are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place."
The blunt acknowledgment that the same banks that caused the financial crisis "own" Congress demonstrates just how extreme this institutional corruption is.
The ownership of the federal government by banks and other large corporations is effectuated in literally countless ways, none more effective than the endless and increasingly sleazy overlap between government and corporate officials.
The Federal Reserve does not set out to make bumper profits. But its 2008 annual accounts, released on April 23rd, would turn many a hedge-fund manager green with envy.
Warren Buffett told a record crowd at a somber annual meeting of his Berkshire Hathaway Inc that 1st-quarter operating profit fell and the company's book value declined 6%, as the recession weighed on many of the company's businesses and investments.
India's exports fell the most on record in March, extending the longest declining streak in a decade as the worst global recession since WW2 damped demand for the nation's products.
The number of H1N1 cases worldwide now stands at 787 in 17 countries, the World Health Organization announced early today.
The higher number of cases is a result of ongoing tests on previously collected samples; not newly reported and confirmed infections, the WHO said.
(And: WHO: PANDEMIC "STILL LIKELY")
A new influenza virus is spreading across the globe. Our 1st article asks whether the world is ready for the next pandemic. Our 2nd assesses the economic costs.
(And: THE BUTCHER'S BILL)
In a "War of the Worlds" scenario, conspiracy theories over the cause of the swine flu range from a government (usually the US) cover up over a bioterrorism attack, to the testing of a secret military weapon gone wrong, to a dastardly plot by big pharmaceutical companies...even to blaming US Republicans for alleging cutting pandemic funds out of the first Obama budget, the blogosphere has been awash with rumours.
Some have blamed the Mexican drug cartels for the release of the virus while others follow a more predictable "Al-Qaida is responsible" line.
Some have even blamed the pork industry's competitors (presumably beef and chicken) in an scare campaign against the consumption of pig meat.
One particularly pervasive rumour surrounds the fact that the virus seems only to have been lethal to Mexicans. This theory explains that this flu is in fact some form of anti-Hispanic biological warfare.
Amidst the hubbub surrounding the current pandemic threat from swine flu, an epidemiological mystery has been unfolding.
So is so-called swine flu really just another environmental problem associated with factory farming?
After all, such large operations keep the animals in close confinement, dope them with antibiotics to keep them alive in the crowded conditions and create vast pools and piles of waste — all good ways to promote the spread of any disease.
Regional governments can invoke "draconian" powers if the swine flu virus reaches a worst-case scenario, from monitoring people in their own homes to seizing control of entire economies.
The SARS and bird flu scares of recent years have led many countries to develop pandemic action plans which involve sweeping powers aimed at containing the spread of disease among their populations.
Time Magazine's coverage of the swine flu scare has a noticeable subplot - preparing Americans for draconian measures to combat a future pandemic as well as forcing them to accept the idea of mandatory vaccinations.
"EXPOSING THE H1N1 HOAX" (Videos)
[CFR Opinion Roundup][Newseum][Global Incident Map][Earthweek][Day-Night Map][Tonight's Sky][Moon phase]
"You are to do the same on the 7th day of the [1st] month for anyone who sins unintentionally or through ignorance; so you are to make atonement for the temple." (Eze 45:20)
"By the 8th day of the month they reached the portico of YHWH." (2Chr 29:17)
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