Is the Cathlic church returning to its old ways?

Report: Church abuse claims are 'Zionist attack', bishop says

By Haaretz Service

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1162432.html

A retired Italian bishop has sparked a furious row after quotes attributed to him suggested claims of sexual abuse in the Catholic church are a Jewish conspiracy, a British newspaper reported on Monday. A website quoted Giacomo Babini, emeritus bishop of Grosseto, as saying he believed a "Zionist attack" was behind the criticism, considering how "powerful and refined" the criticism is, the Guardian daily reported. Babini has denied the comments, which follow a series of statements from Catholic churchmen alleging the existence of plots to weaken the church and Pope Benedict XVI.

Allegedly speaking to the Catholic website Pontifex, the 81-year-old was quoted as saying: "They do not want the church, they are its natural enemies. Deep down, historically speaking, the Jews are God killers." Italy's Bishops' Conference rushed out a statement quoting Babini denying he had given the interview in the first place. "Statements I have never made about our Jewish brothers have been attributed to me," he said. Babini has previously been quoted on the Pontifex website accusing Jews of exploiting the Holocaust, as well as criticising homosexuality. The American Jewish Committee, which spotted the interview on Friday, said Babini was using "slanderous stereotypes, which sadly evoke the worst Christian and Nazi propaganda prior to world war two". Pope Benedict has come under increasing pressure over his handling of a series of cases involving proven molesters before he became pope in 2005 - most recently in California, where his signature appears on an 1985 letter opposing calls to defrock a pedophile priest.

Far Right Could Gain in Hungary Elections

Personally, taking  look at the world's tendencies throughout the last 15
years , I can't say I am surprised because I am not. What I am surpred of,
and what terrifies me, is the fact that, though Hungary has been manoeuvring
countries one against the other in the their attempt to destabilize the
region and to get back their territories lost (rightfully) during the last
world war, and no one says nothing against this.
David

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/12/world/europe/12hungary.html?pagewanted=1&ref=global-home
Far Right Could Gain in Hungary Elections By DAN BILEFSKY

BUDAPEST — A far-right party whose black-clad paramilitary extremists invoke
1940s Europe was poised to gain new clout in elections here Sunday, a result
that could tarnish Hungary's international image and potentially undermine
its economic recovery.

Analysts said that one of the biggest beneficiaries of the collective angst
of a country hit hard by the global financial crisis could prove to be the
party, Jobbik, which has railed against "Gypsy crime" and Jews, and is
widely expected to enter Parliament for the first time.

Recent polls showed the prospect of Jobbik getting the most votes after
Fidesz, the center-right party of Viktor Orban, a former prime minister, who
is expected to regain that role.

The incumbent Socialist government led by Gordon Bajnai since April 2009 has
been blamed for the country's economic turmoil and is expected to suffer
heavy losses.

Jobbik's leader, Gabor Vona, 32, a former history teacher who has tapped
into a growing nationalism fanned by economic hardship, is a founding member
of the Magyar Garda, an association whose uniforms are reminiscent of those
worn by the Arrow Cross, Hungary's wartime Nazi party. The group, which was
outlawed last year but has not disbanded, has revived dark memories of World
War II, when Jews and Roma were deported to concentration camps.

Analysts said Jobbik's growing popularity illustrates how the economic
crisis was helping to fuel a regional backlash against

President of Poland Killed in Plane Crash in Russia

Sergei Karpukhin/Reuters

An interior ministry officer stood guard near a part of the wreckage.

By ELLEN BARRY, MICHAL PIOTROWSKI and NICHOLAS KULISH

Published: April 10, 2010

MOSCOW — A plane carrying the Polish president, Lech Kaczynski, and dozens of the country’s top political and military leaders crashed in a heavy fog in western Russia on Saturday morning, killing everyone aboard. 

Television showed chunks of flaming fuselage scattered in a bare forest near Smolensk, where the president was arriving for a ceremony commemorating the murder of more than 20,000 Polish officers by the Soviet secret police after the Red Army invaded Poland.  

You an read the full article here

The Biggest Con-Game in the Middle East

The Middle East's Biggest Con-Game: Claiming Israel is the Cause of
the Region's Problems
By Barry Rubin

April 7, 2010

http://www.gloria-center.org/gloria/2010/04/biggest-con-game

A former senior Canadian diplomat, Robert Fowler, made the main
foreign policy speech to the Liberal Party convention there. He
voiced the most common myth about the contemporary Middle East. In
fact, it is a myth now returning to favor in the United States after
many years in the shadows. (The last thing that killed it was the
1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait which indicated there were a few other
problems in the region.)

Regarding Fowler, let me quote from the Ottawa Citizen editorial
about the speech:

"Fowler singled out Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East, as
the primary source of instability in the region. Meanwhile, a country
like Iran -- a totalitarian theocracy bent on obtaining nuclear
weapons, which it has already threatened to use -- didn't get a
mention. Is that Fowler's idea of an "even-handed" approach to the
Middle East?

"By externalizing blame for Arab-Muslim dysfunction--pinning it on
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and on Israeli intransigence in
particular-- Fowler is playing into the hands of all the Muslim
dictators, autocrats and mullahs who use the "Zionist" threat to win
popular legitimacy and to justify their refusal to embrace
modernization, democratization and economic reform.

Read the full article

Living to the Extreme

Don't live a little, live on fire

Hello world!

Hi everyone,

Since this is the first post of what I hope will become a very successful and interesting blog, I would like to, first, establish some of the main objectives of this blog:
1) Openly discuss today’s world issues and problems
2) Counterbalance some of the lies spread in Media
3) I would like this blog to become a meeting point where people might find something they like.
LET’S GIVE IT A START THEN