Nick Pisa | Nov 4

DailyMail UK - Catholic convert Tony Blair is among several world leaders being invited to attend a top level summit with Pope Benedict XVI to discuss the role of the Church in politics.

The two-day summit will be held at the Vatican and will include other Catholic politicians from all over the world, including German chancellor Angela Merkel, U.S. vice president Joe Biden, former Spanish PM Jose Maria Aznar, and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

Church officials have been quietly working on the conference, which will be called 'Witnesses of Christ in the Political Community', for several months.

Last week the Washington Post printed two letters from different sources who had spent time on the ground in Afghanistan that came to very different conclusions about the American presence there.

First, there is the letter from Matthew Hoh, the former Marine captain who had fought in Iraq and had recently taken a temporary foreign service assignment in Zabul province. One State department official referred to this area as, “one of the five or six provinces always vying for the most difficult and neglected.” Hoh had developed great misgivings about the war and had become so disillusioned that he chose to resign. Hoh wote in his resignation letter,

Kelly O'Donnell and Mark Murray | November 3

MSNBC - The House and Senate are together this morning in the House chamber for a joint session, as German Chancellor Angela Merkel addresses Congress.

Note that South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson (R) -- who yelled "You lie" at President Obama during the last joint session -- will be an escort for Merkel. Wilson was selected by the GOP leadership.

Nick Mathiason | Nov 3

The Guardian - New code of conduct could limit aggressive moves by China, South Korea and Gulf states who have been buying vast tracts of agricultural land

Aggressive moves by China, South Korea and Gulf states to buy vast tracts of agricultural land in sub-Saharan Africa could soon be limited by a new global international protocol.

A scramble for African farmland has in recent years seen the equivalent of Italy's entire arable land hoovered up by businesses from emerging economies.

The Food and Agriculture Organisation, the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and the World Bank are now discussing a new code of conduct for land buyers in Africa. Amid increasing concerns over food security, it could include ensuring consent is given prior to selling land from local people as well as ensuring smallholders do not lose out. A first draft is expected to be released next spring.

Alex Wijeratna, Action Aid's food rights campaign officer, said: "There's a new scramble for land in Africa. It's growing at an incredible rate. There's massive secrecy, poor communities can't get information and they're not being consulted. There's an argument for a moratorium on sales until there's a proper framework to assess them. We are concerned that an agreement will not come fast enough."

Earlier this year, legendary hedge fund speculator George Soros highlighted a new farmland buying frenzy caused by growing population, scarce water supplies and climate change. South Korea bought huge areas of Madagasca recently while Chinese interests bought up large swathes of Senegal to supply it with sesame.

goods.

Lahore | October 31

The News(Pakistan) - Advisor to President Asif Zardari, Dr. Qayyum Soomro, has said the United Nations team probing into the assassination of PPP chairperson Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto would submit its report to the government by April or May of the next year.

He was talking to media persons at a lunch hosted in his honor on Friday. Dr. Qayyum Soomro said the government was committed to making public the findings of UN inquiry commission to expose the hidden hand behind BB’s murder.

To a question, he dispelled the impression that the government was displaying slackness regarding the investigation of Mohtarma’s murder, saying that President Zardari was anxious to catch the murderers of BB and bring them before the nation.

The UN commission was being provided with all the help required to make proper investigations in the case, he added.
 

As Agonists may recall, Benazir Bhutto died Dec 28,2007

M K Bhadrakumar | Oct 30

Asia Times - The worsening Afghan war has brought some good news for Uzbekistan. On Tuesday, the European Union announced it was lifting a four-year old arms embargo against Uzbekistan. The EU imposed wide-ranging sanctions in 2005 after Uzbek troops fired on civilians during an uprising in the city of Andizhan in Ferghana Valley, and Tashkent rejected calls by Western countries for an international inquiry into those killings.

Tuesday's decision completes an incremental process stretched over the past year or so on the EU's part to kiss and make up with Tashkent. The EU officials justified their decision with Tashkent's recently release of some political prisoners and abolishment of the death penalty. Amnesty International has promptly contradicted the claim with facts and figures.

Aside from the veracity of the EU claim, the reality is that Europe not only blinked first, it also bent its knees while doing so. Brussels kept a straight face, though, assuring the world audience that it would "closely and continuously observe the human-rights situation in Uzbekistan … [and] assess progress made by the Uzbek authorities."

All the same, the EU decision is a good thing. It underscores a new degree of realism often lacking in Western policy towards the strategic Central Asian region. The West has been far too prescriptive towards a region whose civilization dates back several centuries further than Europe's. Besides, the dogma regarding democracy and "regime change" was alien to the steppes and somewhat irrelevant at this point in time.

Are we seeing the end of the "regime change" ideology? The signals are tentative. Statements made by United States Vice President Joseph Biden during his tour this month of Poland, the Czech Republic and Romania, hark back to the former president George W Bush era. But then, Biden was grandstanding in front of people upset over President Barack Obama's reversal on the Anti-Ballistic Missile system deployment in Central Europe.

....The fact that EU was making an exception that it isn't ready to contemplate yet for China should drive home the fact that the Afghan war is hitting the European capitals where it hurts.

Toby Lester | Oct 28

BBC -

(1) First use of America on map, after explorer Amerigo Vespucci. 2) The Pacific not confirmed until six years after map made. 3) Old World shown as the ancients saw it. 4) New eastern sea route to India. 5) The legendary island of Taprobane. 6) Reference to legendary king Prester John.)

Drawn half a millennium ago and then swiftly forgotten, one map made us see the world as we know it today... and helped name America. But, as Toby Lester has discovered, the most powerful nation on earth also owes its name to a pun.

(click map to enlarge)

Ian Black | Oct 28

The Guardian - Ehud Olmert, Israel's prime minister during the Gaza war, would probably face arrest on war crimes charges if he visited Britain, according to a UK lawyer who is working to expand the application of "universal jurisdiction" for offences involving serious human rights abuses committed anywhere in the world.

Neither Olmert nor Tzipi Livni, the foreign minister during the Cast Lead offensive, and a member of Israel's war cabinet, would enjoy immunity from prosecution for alleged breaches of the Geneva conventions, predicted Daniel Machover, who is involved in intensifying legal work after the controversial Goldstone report on the three-week conflict. Neither are ministers any longer.

Prosecutions of Israeli political and military figures remain likely despite the failure to obtain an arrest warrant for Ehud Barak, the defence minister, when he visited the UK earlier this month, he said. In the Barak case a magistrate accepted advice from the Foreign Office that the minister enjoyed state immunity and rejected an application made on behalf of several residents of the Gaza Strip.

"This needs to be tested at the right time and in the right place," Machover said. "One day one of these people will make a mistake and go to the wrong country and face a criminal process — and then it'll be a matter for the courts of that country to give them a fair trial: that's what the Palestinian victims want."

James Glanz | Maisoncelle, France | Oct 25

NYT - The heavy clay-laced mud behind the cattle pen on Antoine Renault’s farm looks as treacherous as it must have been nearly 600 years ago, when King Henry V rode from a spot near here to lead a sodden and exhausted English Army against a French force that was said to outnumber his by as much as five to one.

No one can ever take away the shocking victory by Henry and his “band of brothers,” as Shakespeare would famously call them, on St. Crispin’s Day, Oct. 25, 1415. They devastated a force of heavily armored French nobles who had gotten bogged down in the region’s sucking mud, riddled by thousands of arrows from English longbowmen and outmaneuvered by common soldiers with much lighter gear. It would become known as the Battle of Agincourt.

But Agincourt’s status as perhaps the greatest victory against overwhelming odds in military history — and a keystone of the English self-image — has been called into doubt by a group of historians in Britain and France who have painstakingly combed an array of military and tax records from that time and now take a skeptical view of the figures handed down by medieval chroniclers.

The historians have concluded that the English could not have been outnumbered by more than about two to one. And depending on how the math is carried out, Henry may well have faced something closer to an even fight, said Anne Curry, a professor at the University of Southampton who is leading the study.

Those cold figures threaten an image of the battle that even professional researchers and academics have been reluctant to challenge in the face of Shakespearean prose and centuries of English pride, Ms. Curry said.

“It’s just a myth, but it’s a myth that’s part of the British psyche,” Ms. Curry said.

Nobel laureate Jose Saramago:

The Bible is a manual of bad morals (which) has a powerful influence on our culture and even our way of life. Without the Bible we would be different, and probably better people

at the at the launch of his new book Cain - an ironic retelling of the Bible story of Cain, Adam and Eve's elder son who kills his brother Abel. AP

Ian Traynor | Oct 15

The Guardian - For a man standing alone between Europe and its future, Vaclav Klaus is playing hard to get. Last week a trip to Albania, this week Russia; the Czech president has performed a vanishing act just when he has the rest of Europe dancing to his tune.

He relishes being at the centre of a showdown. But it appears he is currently more interested in selling copies of his tract on global warming denial.

Last week, as a panicky campaign was launched in Berlin, Paris, Brussels, Stockholm, and Prague to try to force Europe's biggest renegade into line, Klaus was dining by the Adriatic.

For five days he refused to return phone calls from Fredrik Reinfeldt, the Swedish prime minister and current EU president saddled with the Klaus emergency. Jan Fischer, the Czech Republic's caretaker prime minister, has an even less enviable task, as mediator between Klaus and the rest of Europe's leaders. But Klaus won't give him the time of day. Fischer admitted he had managed to get him briefly on the phone, but not to arrange a meeting.

Klaus was in Albania to promote Blue Planet in Green Shackles, his book arguing that the only thing man-made about climate change is that it is a myth. Today he decamped to Moscow, promoting a Russian edition of the book.

It's a fair question whether President Barack Obama really deserved to win the Nobel Peace Prize. It's just that, in the scheme of things, I don't think it's a very interesting question.

I'm still digesting all of this, of course. Talk about a weekend surprise. But if we go by the usual Nobel standards, I can't see, at the moment, how Obama even comes close to deserving the laurels, which generally reward either a life commitment to changing the world (think Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela) or a huge accomplishment in the cause of peace (think Mikhail Gorbachev, pivotal in ending the Cold War, or Woodrow Wilson, instrumental in the Treaty of Versailles). Not that every Nobel Peace Prize winner has that kind of global veneration; recent recipients include former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari and Mohamed Elbaradei of the International Atomic Energy Agency. And anyway, I do think Obama has the potential for greatness in leadership -- if someday soon he would gird his loins to lead his party and his wobbly nation.

Amber Bellaire | Stockholm | October 8

The Globe and Mail - It’s proving to be a banner year for women and the Nobel Prize, marking the first time four women have been named Nobel laureates in a single year.

Today's announcement of Herta Mueller, a little-known Romanian-born German author, as winner of the 2009 Nobel Prize in literature set the record. The winner of the Nobel Peace Prize is set to be announced tomorrow and the economics prize on Monday, leaving the door open for another female win.

Peter Beaumont | October 8

The Guardian - Islam may be most closely associated with the Middle East, where it emerged in Arabia in the seventh century, but today the region is home to only one in five of the world's Muslims, according to a study of the religion's global distribution.

The world's Muslim population stands at 1.57 billion, meaning that nearly one in four people practice Islam, according to the US Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, which published the survey. This compares to 2.25 billion Christians.

The top five Muslim countries in the world include only one in the Middle East ‑ Egypt ‑ behind Indonesia, Pakistan, India and Bangladesh, in that order. Russia, the survey shows, has more Muslims than the populations of Libya and Jordan combined. Germany has more Muslims than Lebanon. China has a bigger Muslim population than Syria.

Brian Cloughley | Daily Times

Exxon Mobil is a classic case of rampant corporate greed. Its executives and shareholders prosper mightily, while citizens of the many countries which the company exploits are kept in direst poverty

On September 4, the US Congressional Research Service published details of US arms’ sales worldwide. It reported that the United States was responsible for 68.4 percent of global sales of arms in 2008, making $37.8 billion, up from the previous year’s former record of $25.4 billion. Weapons deals for the first half of 2009 totalled $27 billion.

That’s an awful lot of weaponry being sold around the world — and enormous profits for America’s arms manufacturers.

On September 14, President Chavez of Venezuela, who distrusts Washington almost to the point of paranoia, but with certain justification, announced the purchase from Russia of weapons worth about $2.2 billion.

And the following day, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in mega-scolding mode, declared that in acquisition of weapons the Venezuelans “outpace all other countries in South America and certainly raise the question as to whether there is going to be an arms race in the region.”

This would be side-splittingly funny were it not indicative of the arrogant mindset of establishment Washington, in spite of the supposedly liberal inclinations of the Obama administration. In 2006-2007 the US sold weapons to 174 of the world’s 195 countries, yet unblushingly castigates a South American nation that buys weapons from Russia.

Michael Casey | Bangkok | Oct 8

AP - There are plenty of needy countries at the U.N. climate talks in Bangkok that make the case they need financial assistance to adapt to the impacts of global warming. Then there are the Saudis.

Saudi Arabia has led a quiet campaign during these and other negotiations -- demanding behind closed doors that oil-producing nations get special financial assistance if a new climate pact calls for substantial reductions in the use of fossil fuels.

just great, more bailing out of the rich and greedy :D

Control the information
One of the reasons for the decline of newspaper readership may be that by trumpeting Baghdad Bush’s lies--a $1.3 trillion tax cut mainly for the rich would not raise the deficit, mushroom cloud as a first warning, Saddam responsible for 9/11, Saddam able to hit the east coast with chemical and biological weapons, Mission Accomplished, spying on Americans made them safer, torture made American safer--they lost credibility themselves.

Hitler wrote about “the Big Lie,” a lie so big that no one would believe it would dare be a lie. Reagan’s idea was so many “big lies” that citizens would lose track of reality. The party committing and/or condoning international crimes would call itself “the law and order party.” The party that was arming both present and future enemies would call itself “the party for a strong national defense.”

bailoutpeople.org

Citizens Respond

PITTSBURGH -- A new world order is emerging at the G-20 Summit in Pittsburgh with a decision by the group to become the premier coordinating body on economic issues. Radio Free Europe, Sep. 26, 2009

Sept 29

BBC - The US government is expected to relax control over how the internet is run when it signs an accord with net regulator Icann on Wednesday.

The "affirmation of commitments" will reportedly give Icann autonomy to run its own affairs for the first time.

Previous agreements gave the US close oversight of Icann - drawing criticism from other countries.

Earlier this year, the EU called on the US to relinquish its control and Icann to become "universally accountable".

"The US government is the only body to have had formal oversight of Icann's policies and activities since its inception in 1998," it said.

"The Commission believes that Icann should become universally accountable, not just to one government but to the global internet community.

"This is particularly relevant given that the next billion of internet users will mainly come from the developing world."

Columnist David Broder thinks so:
President Obama has assembled a highly effective national-security team

I generally agree with Mr. Broder. here's my comment on the reprint of the article in the Seattle Times:

I agree with Mr Broder. I think Obama has done well and chosen his team on their merits, and so far they have all agreed to work together without much infighting. This is exactly what America needed.

He also realizes that the purpose of foreign policy is not simply to increase the profit margin of private defense contractor companies. He seems to get that the global security situation needs to be stabilized, so the world can work on problems like the international economy and climate change. Whereas he has made it clear that he will use force if necesssary to protect American/western interests, he has also made it clear that his foreign policy will not be based on whipping up and creating wars, like Bush's was.

Have at it, Agonistas. What do you think of Obama's foreign policy team? Do you think he is making the right moves on the international scene?

Eli Clifton | Pittsburgh | Sept 27

IPS - World leaders at the two-day G20 Summit in the U.S. city of Pittsburgh agreed to work cooperatively to recover from the global economic crisis and create structural reforms with long-term growth as the goal.

In their end of meeting statement, the heads of the world's biggest economies also vowed to reform banking sectors and raise capital standards, replace the G8 with the G20 as the primary forum for international economic diplomacy, endorse a World Bank-led food security initiative for the world's poorest countries, and commit to phasing out fossil fuel subsidies.

Catching most observers by surprise was the announcement that the G8 would now be supplanted by the G20, a more representative body of the world's most powerful countries but a far cry from the inclusive global governance called for by the world's poorest countries and development NGOs.

The G8 comprises Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Britain, Russia and the United States. The G20 adds Argentina, Australia, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey and the European Union.

"The G20 is more representative than the G8 but there is still no seat at the table for the poorest countries," said Oxfam senior policy adviser Max Lawson. "South Africa is the only African country included in this club. That means when the G20 talks about growth and stability, they are leaving the poorest countries in the cold."

Sept 27

BBC - Film director Roman Polanski has been taken into custody on a 31-year-old US arrest warrant, organisers of the Zurich Film Festival have said.

The organisers say Polanski, 76, was detained by police on Saturday as he travelled to Switzerland from France to collect a lifetime achievement award.

Police in Zurich could not immediately confirm the information.

Mr Polanski admitted unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl in 1977, but fled to France before sentencing.

In recent years, he has tried to have the rape case dismissed, but a US judge formally rejected that request in May.

Judge Peter Espinoza agreed there was misconduct by the judge in the original case, but said Mr Polanski must return to the US to apply for dismissal.

Ivan Watson | Istanbul | September 21

CNN - Most residents are quick to tell visitors Istanbul's transport system is overwhelmed. The "radical system" city planners embarked on five years ago involved construction of a new subway tunnel beneath the Bosphorus Strait.

But, in their rush to modernize Istanbul's transport system, city planners ran into an unforeseen obstacle: history.

In Yenikapi, a neighborhood of textile factories and seedy hotels where one of the main transit stations for Istanbul's new subway and commuter rail system was to be built, archaeologists discovered the lost Byzantine port of Theodosius.

more at the link.  Photo: Barista

Suzanne Goldenberg, | Sept 20

The Observer - Pared-down summit will force heads of rich states to listen to those of third world in hope of kickstarting radical action

The United Nations is planning a form of diplomatic shock therapy for world leaders this week in the hope of injecting badly needed urgency into negotiations for a climate change treaty that, it is now widely acknowledged, are dangerously adrift.

UN chief Ban Ki-Moon and negotiators say that unless they can convert world leaders into committed advocates of radical action, it will be very hard to reach a credible and enforceable agreement to avoid the most devastating consequences of climate change.

As the digital counter ticking off the hours to the Copenhagen summit – which had been supposed to seal the deal on climate change – hit 77 days today, progress at the UN summit in New York is seen as vital. Nearly 100 heads of state and government are to attend the summit, for which a pared-down format has been devised.

"We need these leaders to go outside their usual comfort zones," said one diplomat. "Our sense is that leaders have got a little too cosy and comfortable. They really have to hear from countries that are vulnerable and suffering."