Reading between the lines;
Thinking outside the box...
A renovated convent in Albano, Italy, is the new home of the Vatican Observatory.
It had been housed in the pontifical palace at Castel Gandolfo, the town south of Rome where the Pope spends the summer months.
The Observatory was founded in 1578 by Pope Gregory XIII as a committee to study the data and implications involved in the reform of the calendar that occurred in 1582.
In 1981, the Observatory founded a 2nd research center. This time the researchers headed to the desert of the US, founding the Vatican Observatory Research Group in Tucson, Arizona.
That location is now one of the world's largest center's for observational astronomy.
[WAR: I can step out on the front porch and see the Sun reflecting off of the building on the top of Mt Graham.]
After its lacklustre showing in the recent European polls, Germany's Left party still hopes to capitalize on the economic recession and its discrediting of mainstream politics during the Bundestag election in September.
He has fought off accusations of corruption and survived a stream of verbal gaffes, but now a perfect storm of sleaze is threatening to topple the formerly unassailable Silvio Berlusconi.
The patience of Berlusconi's supporters is being stretched to breaking point - and they have been joined by the Catholic Church in warning that the lurid allegations are gravely, perhaps fatally, damaging to his standing.
EU leaders will breathe a sigh of relief that the Lisbon Treaty will not - for now at least - get them bogged down in institutional wrangling again.
Legal guarantees given by the European Union to Ireland change the Lisbon treaty, Czech President Klaus said on Saturday -- opening a debate on whether the treaty's ratification process should be renewed.
Government for the bureaucrats, by the bureaucrats.
It is not a very appealing slogan, which may explain why it isn't used by advocates of ever-closer union within the EU.
But it appears increasingly to be the fundamental principle that animates the "European project".
The Eurocrats think politics is far too important for voters.
Bureaucrats know best: only they should be allowed to decide the future of Europe.
The outgoing Czech and incoming Swedish presidencies of the European Union are to hold consultations with all political groups in the European Parliament throughout the coming week -- anxious that the group leaders will place a vote on the candidacy of European Commission President Barroso for a 2nd term in office on the agenda of the first sitting of the parliament later on in the month.
Israel is to allocate $ 250 million to further expand its settlements in the occupied West Bank territories over the next 2 years despite international objections.
Critics said the war was all about the nation's lucrative fuel industry. Are they now being proved right?
On 29 and 30 June, the Iraqi government will award contracts under which international oil companies will take a central role in producing crude oil from Iraq's 6 super-giant oilfields over the next 20-25 years.
By coincidence, 30 June is also the date on which the last American troops will be leaving Iraqi cities.
On the very day that Iraq regains greater physical authority over its territory, it is ceding a measure of control over the oilfields on which the future of the country entirely depends.
The contracts have been heavily criticised inside Iraq as a sell-out to the big oil companies, which are desperate to get back into Iraq.
The address lasted more than an hour and was split into 2 sections. The first was principally a theological monologue. The second dealt largely with the turmoil gripping the country.
Iran's defeated presidential candidate Mousavi on Saturday night told his supporters he was ready for martyrdom, and demanded that the entire disputed election be annulled.
At least 13 people were killed and 20 wounded in post-election violence in the Iranian capital Tehran on Saturday, officials have said.
The casualties occurred after some 'terrorist elements' infiltrated the rallies.
The armed terrorists set fire on a mosque and 2 gas stations and attacked a military post.
A day after police and militia forces used guns, truncheons, tear gas and water cannons to beat back thousands of demonstrators, a tense quiet set over this city today as the standoff between the government and thousands of protestors hardened into a test of wills.
Police officials said they have successfully managed to restore security in the main streets of Tehran.
The terrorist Mujahedin Khalq Organization has reportedly played a major role in intensifying the recent wave of street violence in Iran.
Iranian security officials reported Saturday that they have identified and arrested a large number of MKO members who were involved in recent riots.
According to the security officials, the arrested members had confessed that they were extensively trained in Iraq's camp Ashraf to create post-election mayhem in the country.
They had also revealed that they have been given directions by the MKO command post in Britain.
The MKO is a Marxist guerilla group, which was founded in the 1960s.
Iran's Foreign Minister Mottaki spoke out against Western efforts that seek to dramatize the post-election unrest in the country.
He responded to "irresponsible and intrusive remarks" made by certain Western countries, and focused much of his criticism on France, Germany and Britain -- advising them to "think twice before questioning the democratic process of the recent election."
Iran's Foreign Ministry Spokesman pins the blame for the recent post-election turmoil across the country on US and British media outlets.
"Voice of America and the British Broadcasting Corporation are state-funded channels and not privately-run. Their budgets are ratified in the US Congress, as well as the British Parliament. The 2 channels serve as mouthpieces of their respective governments.
"Any sort of contact with the said channels either through e-mail or telephone runs against national Iranian sovereignty and is considered as an act of enmity towards the Iranian nation. The channels act as command posts engineering the ongoing post-election riots."
The theory that church attendance grows in times of economic crisis seems to be a myth.
Obama's plans for the reform of financial regulation could be generating an unintended turf war.
At the centre of that debate is the role of the Federal Reserve, since 1913 America's independent central bank.
That independence has been threatened, opponents allege, by proposals to place it at the heart of US financial regulation, giving it increased powers as a systemic risk regulator while at the same time increasing its oversight of major banks.
You can just sense and feel that there is now a runaway, hyperinflationary freight train rumbling down the tracks at ever greater speed that is soon going to derail and create a train wreck out of our economy.
After 2 smugglers were stopped last week with what at first appeared to be $134bn in US state bonds, the tension and paranoia surrounding the fate of the dollar hit a new high.
How on Earth did these 2 men, who at first refused to identify themselves, come to be there, trying to ride the train into Switzerland carrying bonds worth more than the gross domestic product of Singapore?
If the bonds were genuine, the pair would have been America's 4th-biggest creditor, ahead of the UK and just behind Russia.
No sooner had the story leaked out from the Italian lakes region last week than it sparked a panoply of conspiracy tales.
But one resounded more than any other: that the men were agents of the Japanese finance ministry, in the country for the G8 meeting, making a surreptitious journey into Switzerland to sell off one small chunk of the massive mountain of US bonds stacked up in the Japanese Treasury vaults.
The story underlines one important point about the world economy at the moment: that the tension and paranoia surrounding the fate of the US dollar has hit a new high.
It went to the heart of the big question: will the central bankers in Japan, China and elsewhere continue to support the greenback even in the wake of the worst financial crisis in modern history, or will they abandon it as America's economic hegemony dissipates?
In a guest article, Christina Romer says policymakers must learn from the errors that prolonged the Depression.
The oil market, born in Texas, is behaving like a bucking bronco again.
Prices that careened from $147 a barrel in mid-2008 to $31 before the end of last year have jumped back to around $70 in recent days.
Mindful that high oil prices could thwart an economic recovery, politicians are again blaming speculators for this unruly behaviour.
While the world seems awash in oil, with a daily production of some 78.9 million barrels, and oil in every imaginable container waiting for consumption and the great oil rally stalled out in the upper $60s, there are several very vicious hot spots that could and will drive up oil prices by threatening supply.
Britain's Chief Medical Officer wrote to health authorities last week urging hospitals to test all patients who show signs of flu-like symptoms.
"Transmission from person to person in this country is increasingly common. There is evidence that sporadic cases are arising with no apparent link either to cases elsewhere in the UK or to travel abroad."
The letter followed an earlier warning from Sir Liam that millions of Britons could fall victim to swine flu in the coming months.
Government officials admitted last night that illness rates from the virus could reach 50%.
Ethiopia's Orthodox Patriarch, Abuna Pauolos, wants to reveal the secret of the millennium and explains: "The time is ripe to tell the truth."
(And: RUMORMILL NEWS)
[WAR: I did the best I could to grasp Google's translation from Italian. Even though there is an English version of this website, this article is not on it for some reason.
I absolutely believe that the Ark is in Ethiopia, but will be shocked if they actually reveal it to the public.]
Pagans and partygoers drummed, danced or gyrated in hula hoops to stay awake through the night, as more than 35,000 people greeted the summer solstice Sunday at the ancient stone circle of Stonehenge.
(And: RECORD CROWD AT STONEHENGE)
(And: SUMMER SOLSTICE)
"By the 27th day of the 2nd month the Earth was completely dry." (Genesis 8:14 - 9:17)
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