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Toben Wins UK Fight Over Extradition to Germany
The Australian

Australian `Holocaust denier’ Fredrik Toben has won his legal battle with the German government after it ended its attempt to extradite him from Britain. German prosecutors have withdrawn their appeal against a British court's refusal last month to extradite the controversial historian, who was detained at Heathrow airport on a European arrest warrant for denying the extent of Adolf Hitler's crimes against the Jews. Dr Toben's solicitor Kevin Lowry-Mullins said early today that he had signed a consent order with the German government to end the action against his client.



Financial Crisis Tab Already In the Trillions
CNBC

Given the speed at which the federal government is throwing money at the financial crisis, the average taxpayer, never mind member of Congress, might not be faulted for losing track. CNBC, however, has been paying very close attention and keeping a running tally of actual spending as well as the commitments involved. Try $4.28 trillion dollars. That's $4,284,500,000,000 and more than what was spent on World War II, if adjusted for inflation, based on our computations from a variety of estimates and sources.



Prince Charles To Be Known as `Defender of Faith,’ Not `The Faith’
The Telegraph (Britain)

The Prince of Wales, who is 60 today, is planning a symbolic change when he becomes King by taking the title Defender of Faith to reflect Britain's multicultural society. The move would mean the monarch, as Supreme Governor of the Church of England, would no longer be known as Defender of the Faith for the first time since the reign of Henry VIII [1509-1547].



`Cleansing’ German-American Culture
William B. Fischer -- The Oregonian (Portland)

... After America declared war [against Germany in 1917], the pretense of neutrality gave way to outright vilification. The German enemy, even in official pronouncements, was the "Hun." German faces in war-bond posters then looked as monstrous as Arab faces do in today's hate-group caricatures ... Suddenly, even the teaching of German as a high-school foreign language was outlawed in many areas. Churches were pressured to change the language of their services from German to English. Streets with German names were renamed. Sauerkraut became "victory cabbage."



Debate Flares Over Israel’s Access to American Secrets
Forward (New York)

A bestselling author writing about America’s most secretive intelligence agency is raising eyebrows with his claims that Israeli intelligence has potentially gained access to sensitive American communications information. Investigative writer James Bamford contends in his new book, "The Shadow Factory, the Ultra-Secret NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America," that at least two high-tech companies with alleged ties to Israeli intelligence mined American communications data on a mass scale.



White Guilt is Dead
Tom Adkins -- The Philadelphia Inquirer

... There's a massive silver lining in those magical clouds that lofted Barack Obama to the Presidency. For today, without a shred of intellectually legitimate opposition, I can loudly proclaim to America: The Era of White Guilt is over ... If a black man can become President, exactly what significant barrier is left? The election of Barack Obama absolutely destroys the entire validation of liberal white guilt ... No more quotas. No more handouts. No more stealing my money because someone's great-great-great-great grandparents suffered actual pain and misery at the hands of people I have no relation to, and personally revile.



Switzerland Says Israel is Breaking International Law
The Associated Press

Switzerland accused Israel on Thursday of wantonly destroying Palestinian homes in east Jerusalem and near Ramallah in violation of the Geneva Conventions' rules on military occupation. The Swiss Foreign Ministry demanded that Israel immediately halt the demolitions, which Israel has said are aimed at removing illegally constructed shacks ... Switzerland said it lodged a formal protest with the Israeli Foreign Ministry over recent demolitions, which now bring the tally to more than 600 destroyed homes in east Jerusalem and 1,600 altogether in the West Bank since 2000.



UN Envoy Calls for End to Israel’s Illegal Blockade of Gaza
BBC News

The UN's top human rights official has said Israel's blockade of Gaza deprives Palestinians of the "most basic human rights" and should end immediately. High Commissioner Navi Pillay called for "dignity and basic welfare" to be restored to the 1.5 million people affected by the blockade for months ... Ms Pillay, the UN's high commissioner for human right, issued a statement from UN offices in Geneva criticising the blockade: "This is in direct contravention of international human rights and humanitarian law. It must end now," she said.



A New Police Raid on My Home
Robert Faurisson

Today, Thursday, November 13, at 6:15 AM, two investigators from the Police Judiciaire in Paris, having arrived in Vichy yesterday evening, burst into my house accompanied by three uniformed policemen, not without deliberately making a great deal of noise. This caused a severe nervous shock to my wife, who, at 77, suffers from a heart condition ... I refused to answer their questions. For nearly thirty years I've been in the habit of responding to all questions from the police with the words: "No answer", even if the questions are harmless ones. I refuse to collaborate with the French police and justice system in their repression of historical revisionism.



Holocaust's Unholy Hold
Avraham Burg

... The Shoah [Holocaust] is woven, to varying degrees, into almost all of Israel's political arguments; over time, we have taken the Shoah from its position of sanctity and turned it into an instrument of common and even trite politics. It represents a past that is present, maintained, monitored, heard and represented … But the way things are done today -- the absolute monopoly and the dominance of the Shoah on every aspect of our lives -- transforms this holy memory into a ridiculous sacrilege and converts piercing pain into hollowness and kitsch.



America’s Moronic Iraqi Policy
Paul Craig Roberts

According to all accounts the US faces its worse economic crisis since the Great Depression with $2 trillion in near-term financing needs for bailouts and economic stimulus. This is an enormous sum for any country, especially for one that is so heavily indebted that it is close to bankruptcy. If the money can’t be borrowed abroad, it will have to be printed -- a policy that carries the implication of hyper-inflation.



Jews Campaign to Stop Vatican Sainthood Plans for Pope Pius XII
The Associated Press

A New York City-based group of Jewish Holocaust survivors and their descendants has announced a worldwide campaign to lobby the Vatican to suspend plans to make Pope Pius XII a saint. The American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Their Descendants says in Monday's announcement Pius "failed" to "publicly and explicitly" denounce the Holocaust during World War II. The group wants the Vatican to hold off beatifying him until the Vatican releases archives of his record for review. The Vatican hasn't responded publicly to the group's announcement. It has said the pope did all he could to save lives.



Obama's Ambiguity: What it Reveals About Mideast 'Peace'
Ali Abunimah -- The Washington Times

... For Palestinians, long experience suggests that no matter who occupies the White House, their rights and aspirations will always be a distant second to Israel's preferences. The U.S. role as an "honest broker" is in tatters, not just because of Mr. Bush's legacy, but also because the Clinton administration acted, during years of peace negotiations, as "Israel's lawyer," as Aaron David Miller, a former top State Department official, memorably admitted.



Mexican Gangsters Converting America's National Parks Into Gigantic Marijuana Patches
Brenda Walker

Vast tracts of our most treasured public lands, supposedly set aside in perpetuity for Americans, are no longer controlled by the United States government. Instead, they have been invaded and taken over by Mexico’s violent criminal drug organizations to grow marijuana. Even more shocking: Mexican cartels have been growing marijuana for at least ten years in Sequoia National Park, one of the crown jewels of the system. Nature-loving hikers are compelled to accept that parts of Sequoia are "no go zones" during the growing season. These Mexican marijuana messes are an ecological disaster.



Inside Iran's Fury: A Legacy of Foreign Domination
Stephen Kinzer -- Smithsonian magazine

... Few Americans remembered that Iran had descended into dictatorship after the United States overthrew the most democratic government it had ever known. "Mr. President, do you think it was proper for the United States to restore the shah to the throne in 1953 against the popular will within Iran?" a reporter asked President Carter at a news conference during the hostage crisis. "That's ancient history," Carter replied. Not for Iranians. "In the popular mind, the hostage crisis was seen as justified by what had happened in 1953," says Vali Nasr, an Iranian-born professor at Tufts University's Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in Massachusetts.



Why Were There So Many Jews in SDS?
Mark Rudd (2005)

I've been thinking about this subject for a long time, almost forty years ... I got to Columbia University as a freshman, age 18, in September, 1965, a few months after the United States attacked Vietnam with main force troops. There I found a small but vibrant anti-war movement ... All of us were Jewish. It’s hard to remember the names of non-Jewish Columbia SDS’ers; it was as much a Jewish fraternity as Sammie. There were probably a greater proportion of gentile women than guys in SDS, and of course I got to know them.



Israeli Officials Fear Anti-Israel Mood in Germany Growing
Ynet News (Israel)

Foreign Ministry officials [in Israel] have recently voices their concern over the growing anti-Israel mood in Germany. Although German Chancellor Angela Merkel is considered one of the most prominent pro-Israel leaders in the European Union and in the world, the public opinion in her country appears to be completely different. A senior state official told Ynet that although the official Germany remains pro-Israel, the public atmosphere in the country is affecting the Merkel government's attitude, particularly in terms of the Iranian nuclear plan.



Mom Upset Over School’s `Holocaust’ Lessons
WTSP Television (Florida)

Beverly Reynolds says her 11-year-old daughter Shelby enjoyed going to Westlake Christian School [in Palm Harbor, Florida] for seven years. But that changed after a lesson on the Holocaust. Reynolds says 6th grade students wore armbands that said Jude and sat on the floor. "They were told to close their eyes and visualize things that were implications that their family was harmed that they would never see their family again, they were given graphic details on the gas chambers, they were given graphic details on what were done with the bodies," said Reynolds. Reynolds says her daughter was so upset she never wants to go back into that classroom.



In `Eisenhower’s Death Camps’: A U.S. Prison Guard Remembers
Martin Brech

... In Andernach about 50,000 prisoners of all ages were held in an open field surrounded by barbed wire. The women were kept in a separate enclosure that I did not see until later. The men I guarded had no shelter and no blankets. Many had no coats. They slept in the mud, wet and cold, with inadequate slit trenches for excrement ... I encountered a captain on a hill above the Rhine shooting down at a group of German civilian women with his .45 caliber pistol. When I asked, "Why?," he mumbled, "Target practice," and fired until his pistol was empty.



Economic Crisis Is Beyond The Reach of Traditional Solutions
Paul Craig Roberts

... There are no jobs waiting at US manufacturers for a demand stimulus to pull Americans back into work. The problem is not a liquidity problem. To the contrary, there have been many years of too much liquidity. Credit has grown far more than production. Indeed, US production has been moved offshore. Jobs that used to support the growth of American incomes and the tax bases of cities and states have moved, along with US GDP, to China and elsewhere ... The incompetent Clinton and Dubya administrations, unregulated banksters and Wall St criminals, greedy CEOs, and a no-think economics profession have destroyed America’s economy.



Celente Predicts Revolution, Food Riots, Tax Rebellions by 2012
Paul Joseph Watson

The man who predicted the 1987 stock market crash and the fall of the Soviet Union is now forecasting revolution in America, food riots and tax rebellions - all within four years, while cautioning that putting food on the table will be a more pressing concern than buying Christmas gifts by 2012. Gerald Celente, the CEO of Trends Research Institute, is renowned for his accuracy in predicting future world and economic events, which will send a chill down your spine considering what he told Fox News this week. Celente says that by 2012 America will become an undeveloped nation ...



Beware The Obama Hype: What `Change’ Really Means
John Pilger

... Obama's first two crucial appointments represent a denial of the wishes of his supporters on the principal issues on which they voted. The vice-president-elect, Joe Biden, is a proud warmaker and Zionist. Rahm Emanuel, who is to be the all-important White House chief of staff, is a fervent "neoliberal" devoted to the doctrine that led to the present economic collapse and impoverishment of millions. He is also an "Israel-first" Zionist who served in the Israeli army and opposes meaningful justice for the Palestinians -- an injustice that is at the root of Muslim people's loathing of the United States and the spawning of jihadism.



Political Realignment Sparks Debate on Impact for Jewish Power
The Jewish Week (New York)

Last week’s groundbreaking election of Sen. Barack Obama hints of an emerging political realignment that could bolster Jewish power -- or threaten it. The complex shift includes the movement of Hispanics, women and well-educated suburbanites back to the Democrats, the growing activism of young voters, innovative new modes of fundraising and a growing backlash against the Republican "culture wars" focus of the past two decades. Jews are "well positioned" to take advantage of the change because of their longstanding commitment to coalition politics, said Rabbi Marc Schneier ...



World War I British Commander Would Have Let Germany Win, Says Historian
The Times (Britain)

He is the most pilloried military leader in British history, caricatured as a butcher and a bungler who sent hundreds of thousands of men over the top to their deaths. Now a major new biography pins a further damning indictment on Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig. Late into the final year of the First World War, it argues, he was agitating for a compromise peace that would have left Germany as the real winner of the war.



Conned Again
Paul Craig Roberts

... Obama cannot bring change to Washington. There is no one in the Washington crowd that he can appoint who is capable of bringing change. If Obama were to reach outside the usual crowd, anyone suspected of being a bringer of change could not get confirmed by the Senate. Powerful interest groups -- AIPAC, the military-security complex, Wall Street -- use their political influence to block unacceptable appointments.



China’s Path to World Power
Patrick J. Buchanan

... Great nations do not have trade partners. They have trade competitors and rivals. Trade surpluses are superior to trade deficits. Tariffs on foreign goods are preferable to taxes on U.S. producers. Manufacturing, not finance, is the muscle of the nation. Economic independence is vital to political independence ... Chrysler, Ford, perhaps GM, may be dying. Manufacturing has sunk to ten percent of U.S. employment, a level unseen since before the Civil War. Europeans and Asians are to assemble in Washington this week to impose upon the United States a New World Economic Order like the one we imposed on them at Bretton Woods in 1944.



More Obligatory `Holocaust Education’ in British Schools
The Times (Britain)

Every secondary school [in the United Kingdom] is to get a Holocaust specialist to ensure that the subject is taught comprehensively and sensitively. One teacher from every school will be offered a place on a Holocaust education training course to combat racism and intolerance. One in ten of those who take the course will also be able to take a master’s degree module in Holocaust education, as part of a 1.5 million pound scheme run by the Institute of Education.



Holocaust Remembrance: What's Behind the Campaign?
Mark Weber

... Holocaust remembrance is not, as its supporters claim, a noble effort motivated by sincere concern for humanity. Instead, this relentless campaign is an expression of Jewish-Zionist power, and is designed to further Jewish-Zionist interests ... Jewish death and suffering do not deserve to be venerated more than the death and suffering of non-Jews. The Holocaust remembrance campaign deserves scorn, not support, because it is a one-sided effort that serves narrow Jewish and Israeli interests and bolsters Jewish-Zionist power.



Ancient Pyramid Discovered in Egypt
The Associated Press

Archaeologists have discovered a new pyramid under the sands of Saqqara, an ancient burial site that has yielded a string of unearthed pyramids in recent years but remains largely unexplored. The 4,300-year-old monument most likely belonged to the queen mother of the founder of Egypt's 6th Dynasty, and was built several hundred years after the famed Great Pyramids of Giza, antiquities chief Zahi Hawass told reporters in announcing the find Tuesday. The discovery is part of the sprawling necropolis and burial site of the rulers of ancient Memphis, the capital of Egypt's Old Kingdom, about 12 miles south of Giza.



Palestinians Protest `Museum of Tolerance’ on Muslim Cemetery
The Telegraph (Britain)

Hundreds of Palestinians marched through the streets of Jerusalem to protest against a Jewish group's plans to build a Museum of Tolerance atop a centuries-old Muslim cemetery. Last week Israel's Supreme Court ruled the project could go ahead after two years of delay over the fate of the cemetery's 400-year-old graves, saying a parking lot built in the area more than 40 years ago had then raised no objections. "We have come to tell the world, on behalf of all the Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, Israel and the diaspora, we will not put up with this," Sheikh Kamal Khatib, a leader in the Arab-Israeli Islamic Movement, told the crowd.



Secret Order Lets U.S. Raid Al Qaeda in Many Countries
The New York Times

The United States military since 2004 has used broad, secret authority to carry out nearly a dozen previously undisclosed attacks against Al Qaeda and other militants in Syria, Pakistan and elsewhere, according to senior American officials. These military raids, typically carried out by Special Operations forces, were authorized by a classified order that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld signed in the spring of 2004 with the approval of President Bush, the officials said. The secret order gave the military new authority to attack the Qaeda terrorist network anywhere in the world, and a more sweeping mandate to conduct operations in countries not at war with the United States.



Seven Pointless Years in Afghanistan
Robert Skidelsky -- The Guardian (Britain)

Seven years after the beginning of the American-led bombardment of Afghanistan the Taliban are still fighting. Some 50 insurgents died recently in an assault on Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand province. Osama bin Laden is nowhere to be found. Has the time come for NATO to declare victory and leave? ... Barack Obama advocates increasing troop levels in Afghanistan above the levels that the Bush administration has already pledged. Obama has that said he would send troops from Iraq as an urgent priority and made it a campaign issue to criticise the Bush administration for neglecting Afghanistan and diverting resources needed there to the misguided war in Iraq.



Obama, Emanuel and Israel
John V. Whitbeck

In the first major appointment of his administration, President-elect Barack Obama has named as his chief of staff Congressman Rahm Emanuel, an Israeli citizen and Israeli army veteran whose father, according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, was a member of Menachem Begin's Irgun forces during the Nakba and named his son after "a Lehi combatant who was killed" -- i.e., a member of Yitzhak Shamir's terrorist Stern Gang, responsible for, in addition to other atrocities against Palestinians, the more famous bombing of the King David Hotel and assassination of the UN peace envoy Count Folke Bernadotte.



Zionist Group Blasts Greek Newspaper for `Jewish Domination’ Headline
Anti-Defamation League (New York)

A headline in a mainstream Greek newspaper that declared the election of Barack Obama as "the end of Jewish domination" shows that "anti-Semitism remains alive in Greece today" and that political leaders need to take a clear stand against hate, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) said today. The headline, which appeared in the November 4 issue of Avriani, a mainstream daily newspaper, declared: "The anticipated victory of Obama in the U.S. elections signals THE END OF JEWISH DOMINATION. Everything changes in the USA and we hope that it will be more democratic and humane."



Auschwitz Documents Not New, Experts Say
JTA (New York)

Auschwitz documents touted as a sensational find by a German newspaper have been known to historians for years, an expert told JTA. Historian Robert Jan van Pelt, an expert on Auschwitz, said he had checked the "so-called ‘new’ material" on the Web site of Bild, a high-circulation daily, and found that "the drawings that are on their site are all old material, perfectly known" and published by himself and others in the 1990s.



Another Hackneyed Auschwitz `Revelation’
Robert Faurisson

The latest issue of the German mass-circulation daily Bild announces the recent discovery of new documents on Auschwitz, writing, in particular, that one of them seems to prove the existence of a homicidal gas chamber in that camp. In Berlin, Hans-Dieter Kreikamp, head of the Federal Archives, thinks that in this 'discovery" he has found the way to silence the revisionists. In reality, there is strictly nothing new about this type of document, and the building plans of the "gas chamber" in question (Gaskammer, fully spelt out) are those of a simple "delousing facility" (Entlausungsanlage, fully spelt out as well).



Between Hope And Reality: An Open Letter to Obama
Ralph Nader

... To advance change and hope, the presidential persona requires character, courage, integrity -- not expediency, accommodation and short-range opportunism. Take, for example, your transformation from an articulate defender of Palestinian rights in Chicago before your run for the U.S. Senate to an acolyte, a dittoman for the hard-line AIPAC lobby, which bolsters the militaristic oppression, occupation, blockage, colonization and land-water seizures over the years of the Palestinian peoples and their shrunken territories in the West Bank and Gaza.



A Revealing New Study of the Influence of the Neocons
Bill and Kathleen Christison -- Counterpunch

... Stephen Sniegoski has had the persistence to ferret out mountains of impossible-to-challenge evidence that this Israel-U.S. connection is the driving force behind virtually all Middle East decisionmaking over the last eight years, as well as the political courage to write a book about it. Sniegoski’s new book -- The Transparent Cabal: The Neoconservative Agenda, War in the Middle East, and the National Interest of Israel -- demonstrates clearly how U.S. and Israeli policies and actions with respect to Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the other Gulf states, and even most recently Georgia are all tied together in a bundle of interrelated linkages, each of which affects all the others.



China’s Great 15th-Century Navy
The Times (Britain)

During the early years of the Ming dynasty, the Chinese eunuch Zheng He was the commander of the greatest state-directed voyages in the age of sail. Zheng’s seven vast armadas, with crews and soldiers numbering about 27,000, included the largest wooden ships ever built. Beginning in 1405, these voyages were the first projection of Chinese Imperial power by sea over vast distances, reaching across the Indian Ocean to the eastern shores of Africa. They were also the last.



Record Number of Jews Elected to Congress
The Jerusalem Post (Israel)

Democrats strengthened their majorities in both houses of Congress in Tuesday's US elections, picking up five more seats in the Senate and adding at least 18 more seats in the House of Representatives. The next session of Congress will include 45 Jewish lawmakers, a new record, after Democrats Alan Grayson of Florida and John Adler of New Jersey took two House seats from the Republican column. Jared Polis, also a Democrat, was widely expected to win his Colorado House seat to match the previous record, set in the 2006 elections. The House will have 32 Jewish members.



Holocaust is Over, Prominent Israeli Says
The Independent (Britain)

Benjamin Netanyahu, a front-runner for the Israeli premiership, has been severely criticised by a former Speaker of the Knesset and head of the Jewish Agency for comparing the threat posed by Iran to that of pre-war Nazi Germany. Mr Netanyahu, whose Likud Party is running neck and neck in the polls with Kadima, led by Tzipi Livni, has gone further than his rivals in implying he might authorise a unilateral attack on Iranian nuclear installations ... Mr Burg’s book, in part a plea to fellow Israelis more than 60 years after the Holocaust to stop seeing themselves as "a nation of victims", caused furious debate when the Hebrew version became a bestseller in Israel last year.



West's Silence Towards Israel's Racial Discrimination Unacceptable
Adri Nieuwhof

... Israel is one of the few countries that has no constitution, and has instead adopted a set of Basic Laws. The institutionalized racial discrimination of Palestinians in Israel is facilitated by the country's "Law of Return," which "grants every Jew, wherever he may be, the right to come to Israel and become an Israeli citizen." This right has been extended "to include the child and the grandchild of a Jew, the spouse of a child of a Jew and the spouse of the grandchild of a Jew." ... While the Law of Return is generous towards immigration of Jews from around the world, it discriminates against Palestinians who were actually born on the land and their descendants.



Obama Picks Pro-Israel Hardliner For Top Post
Ali Abunimah

During the United States election campaign, racists and pro-Israel hardliners tried to make an issue out of President-elect Barack Obama's middle name, Hussein. Such people might take comfort in another middle name, that of Obama's pick for White House Chief of Staff: Rahm Israel Emanuel ... Rahm Emanuel was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1959, the son of Benjamin Emanuel, a pediatrician who helped smuggle weapons to the Irgun, the Zionist militia of former Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin, in the 1940s. The Irgun carried out numerous terrorist attacks on Palestinian civilians including the bombing of Jerusalem's King David Hotel in 1946.



Obama Picks Israeli as Chief of Staff
Haaretz (Israel)

A day after his historic election to become the first black American president, Barack Obama stepped into the role of president-elect yesterday, inviting Rahm Emanuel to join his administration as White House chief of staff, Democratic officials said. Emanuel, a former Bill Clinton adviser, is the son of a Jerusalem-born pediatrician who was a member of the Irgun (Etzel or IZL), a Zionist [terrorist] group that operated in Palestine between 1931 and 1948.



Emanuel's War Plan: The Book of Rahm
John Walsh -- Counterpunch (2006)

... In terms of retired Senator Fritz Holling's statement that Congress is Israeli occupied territory, Rahm Emanuel must be considered one of the occupying troops. And he certainly is a major cog in the Israel Lobby as defined by Mearsheimer and Walt. Nor is the idea that the Lobby exists and has tremendous influence on Middle East policy any longer a taboo in the minds of the general populace. According to a poll just carried out by Zogby International for CNI (5), 39% of the American public "agree" or "somewhat agree" that "the work of the Israel lobby on Congress and the Bush administration has been a key factor for going to war in Iraq and now confronting Iran."



Audio Slideshow: Volcanic City Remembered
BBC News

Events have begun in southern Italy to mark next year's 300th anniversary of the rediscovery of the ancient Roman city of Herculaneum. The city was buried in mud when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD - and was only rediscovered by chance in 1709, when a farmer started digging a well. More than 150 bronze and marble archaeological exhibits have gone on show in Naples. Take a tour of the exhibition with the director of the excavations, Maria Paola Guidobaldi.



Luther City Revisits the Reformation
Der Spiegel (Germany)

Martin Luther sparked the Protestant Reformation in the German city of Wittenberg 500 years ago. But, today, only ten percent of its population is Protestant. Church leaders have launched a major drive to change that -- but have come up against the city's communist past. It’s impossible to walk through Wittenberg, also known as "Luther City," without stumbling across reminders of Martin Luther.



What About Syria’s and Pakistan’s Sovereignty?
Jacob G. Hornberger -- Future of Freedom Foundation

... In any event, apparently [for President Bush] "the law" and the concept of "sovereignty" don’t apply to Syria and Pakistan. Those are two independent countries that Bush’s military forces have recently attacked, killing scores of Pakistanis and Syrians. Bush says that "the law of self-defense" authorizes his military attacks against these two sovereign and independent countries. He says that people who are trying to evict Bush’s forces from Iraq are using these two countries as bases of operations. There is at least one big problem, however, with Bush’s interpretation of "the law": In Iraq Bush is the aggressor -- the attacker -- not the defender. Iraq is the defender.



The Other Election: Israel’s Decision Will Be Important
William S. Lind

... Those who imagine an Obama victory will see the neo-cons shown the door are in for an unpleasant surprise. Under the guise of neo-libs, they are no less influential in the Democratic establishment than in the Republican. The only way Likud could get shut out of a Democratic administration is if Obama bypasses the whole establishment in choosing his foreign and defense policy appointments. While that is fervently to be wished, it is probably not going to happen.



Hitler’s Austrian `Culture Capital’
BBC News

Adolf Hitler had ambitious plans for Linz, the city where he grew up. He wanted to make the town on the Danube into one of the five Fuehrer cities of the Third Reich, along with Berlin, Hamburg, Nuremberg and Munich. Linz is now examining this page of its past in an exhibition called the Fuehrer's Capital of Culture. Martin Heller, the artistic director of Linz 2009, says there was an obligation to tackle the city's Nazi history. "We want to reflect back and show how cultural and political ambitions went together in the Nazi time," he says.



Australia to Implement Mandatory Internet Censorship
Herald Sun (Australia)

Australia will join China in implementing mandatory censoring of the internet under plans put forward by the Federal Government. The revelations emerge as US tech giants Google, Microsoft and Yahoo, and a coalition of human rights and other groups unveiled a code of conduct aimed at safeguarding online freedom of speech and privacy. The government has declared it will not let internet users opt out of the proposed national internet filter. The plan was first created as a way to combat child pornography and adult content, but could be extended to include controversial websites on euthanasia or anorexia.



Vatican Furious Over Israeli Minister's Remarks About Pope Pius XII
Haaretz (Israel)

Vatican officials are furious over Minister Isaac Herzog's statement in Thursday's Haaretz that the planned beatification of Pope Pius XII, who headed the Catholic Church during the Holocaust, is "unacceptable." Cardinal Andrea Lanza di Montezemolo told the Italian paper Corriere della Serra yesterday that "Israel's interference in the matter of Pius XII must stop. We've had it with this interference. Outside opinions are liable to disrupt [the process], and they look like an attempt to force Pope Benedict XVI to make a decision. The decision to declare someone a saint is an internal decision of the church."



Rethinking Persecution of Holocaust Denial
Isi Leibler -- The Jerusalem Post (Israel)

It may now be timely to rethink the merits of criminalizing Holocaust denial ... By criminalizing those promoting such views, we not only transform them into martyrs posing as champions of free speech, but also enable them to insinuate that "the Jews" are preventing them from demonstrating the truth of their warped and evil doctrines ... Today in democratic countries we face infinitely greater threats than from those promoting the insane proposition that the Holocaust was a fantasy. Prosecuting deniers in court transforms them into victims and diverts us from confronting anti-Semitism, which is still the primary challenge facing us.



The US Empire Will Survive Bush
Arno J. Mayer

The United States may emerge from the Iraq fiasco almost unscathed. Though momentarily disconcerted, the American empire will continue on its way, under bipartisan direction and mega-corporate pressure, and with evangelical blessings.It is a defining characteristic of mature imperial states that they can afford costly blunders, paid for not by the elites but the lower orders. Predictions of the American empire's imminent decline are exaggerated: without a real military rival, it will continue for some time as the world's sole hyperpower.



Is the Sun Setting on U.S. Empire?
Daniel Luban -- Inter Press Service

... Bacevich's new book "The Limits of Power" (Metropolitan, 2008) attempts a deeper historical and theoretical examination of the U.S.'s current woes, suggesting that the excesses of recent foreign policy are far more deeply rooted in the U.S. character than its critics have been willing to acknowledge ... The problems of U.S. foreign policy, he claims, are at root a manifestation of the problems of U.S. identity -- of a notion of freedom defined as ever-increasing consumption and the unlimited satisfaction of desires. This "empire of consumption" both necessitates and undermines an imperial foreign policy.



Biden and Israel
Robert Weitzel

... For all of Obama’s campaign promises of "change," his choice of Joseph Biden as his running mate sends a clear signal to Israel’s lobby in Washington and its right-wing government in Jerusalem that for the next four years there will be no change in the United States’ unconditional support or its annual $6 billion in direct and indirect aid. Predictably, neither will there be a change in the hopelessness and the impotent rage of the Arabs suffering under a U.S.-supported Zionist ideology in Palestine. Senator Biden is the ardently pro-Israel chair of the Foreign Relations Committee.



The Lobby Like No Other Wants a War Like No Other
Michael Scheuer

Having watched John McCain and Barack Obama resolutely pledge their allegiance - and their countrymen's lives and treasure - to the defense of Israel via AIPAC, the media, and personal meetings with Israeli leaders, it is worth asking what could possibly drive these men to so ardently commit America to participation in other people's religious wars. This question is particularly important today as the Bush administration and the Israel-firsters continue to push for an unprovoked U.S. attack on Iran.



Berliners' Love Affair With America Grows Cold
Erik Kirschbaum -- Reuters

There may be no better place in the world to witness the shift in sentiment toward the United States than Berlin. It was hard to imagine a more pro-American city when I first moved here in 1993, yet the wind has changed and the love affair is over. The infatuation with all things American has all but disappeared. Perhaps it will change after the November 4 U.S. presidential election -- even though things will never be the same no matter who wins. As in other countries, America's image has suffered. A June PEW survey found 31 percent of Germans had a favorable view of the United States, down from 78 percent in 2000.



Declassified Papers Shed New Light on Activities of AIPAC Parent
Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy

Papers kept secret for 43 years show that the US Department of Justice attempted to register the parent organization of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, as the foreign agent of Israel. Such a registration could have changed the course of Middle East history by giving the president, State Department and American public more insight and leverage over the Israel lobby during peace negotiations to compensate displaced Palestinians and avert Israel's covert development of nuclear weapons. The 1962 Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) order was approved by Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy (RFK) and senior officials.