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Pope Benedict XVI, during his visit to Auschwitz said, "In a place like this, words fail; in the end, there can be only a dread silence, a silence which itself is a heartfelt cry to God: Why, Lord, did you remain silent? How could you tolerate all this? " Over the next few days, months and years -- many are going to write more about what the Pope uttered at Auschwitz. The real meaning, the hidden meaning or the complete nonsense. Benedict, a German himself, has had to use the papal propaganda machinery to sanitise his Nazi Past. There is Darfur and Iraq that should remind the Pope of his Auschwitz helplessness.

How soon will we get to see a far-right extreme Xian bin-Laden? There is a good chance that he will come from Poland. Poland digs in against tide toward secularism BY TOM HUNDLEY Chicago Tribune WARSAW, Poland - Poland could be Europe's first red state. The 25 members of the European Union do not think of themselves in terms of blue states and red states, at least not yet. If they did, the map of Europe would have a decidedly blue hue. Even countries with conservative governments, such as France and Germany, are blue when it comes to the "values" debate. But Poland cuts against the grain. Lech Kaczynski, winner of last October's presidential election, is opposed to abortion and gay marriage. He has instructed his education minister to come up with guidelines for the "proper upbringing of children." And lately, he has been spending a lot of time cozying up to conservative Christian groups. While Christianity appears to be in a steep decline across most of Eur...

Interview with Kerala Chief Minister VS Achuthanandan. The Left Democratic Front has won an enjoyable victory and a lot of people think it was authored by V.S. Achuthanandan on his own terms. Do you also see it as a personal victory, one that could therefore also pose a challenge to the new government in Kerala? A number of important policy initiatives and decisions taken by the United Democratic Front government were against the interests of the State, especially against its economic interests. As the Leader of the Opposition I had intervened personally to expose several such activities meant to rob the State of its scarce resources. This included illegal transfer of forest land, large-scale felling and sale of forest trees, sandalwood smuggling from government land, encroachment of prime beach-front property by hotel owners, and the government's promotion of online lottery agencies at the cost...

Ken Lay Will Get Away with His Real Crimes By GREG PALAST Wednesday, May 24, 2006 -- Al Capone cut throats, machine-gunned people to build his gang and went to jail -- for not filing his taxes properly. Likewise, Ken Lay, buccaneer of the power industry, will go down -- if the jury doesn't buy his alibi -- for not filing his SEC forms properly. And just as Capone went up the river leaving us a permanent legacy of organized crime, so Lay, whether or not he's sent to the slammer, has left us, with the connivance of a few well-placed politicos, an electricity system that is little more than a playground for power-industry predators. We've been here before. In the 1930s, a character named Samuel Insull created the first giant power holding companies. Insull played fast and loose with his account books, fast and loose with cash for politicians and pocketed millions by gouging electricity customers. Insull was indicted, like Lay, for crimes against his stockholders. In 1933, Pre...

The Times and USA Today have Missed the Bigger Story -- Again by Greg Palast For Buzzflash Friday, May 12, 2006 I know you're shocked -- SHOCKED! -- that George Bush is listening in on all your phone calls. Without a warrant. That's nothing. And it's not news. This is: the snooping into your phone bill is just the snout of the pig of a strange, lucrative link-up between the Administration's Homeland Security spy network and private companies operating beyond the reach of the laws meant to protect us from our government. You can call it the privatization of the FBI -- though it is better described as the creation of a private KGB. ******************** For the full story, see "Double Cheese With Fear," in Armed Madhouse: Who's Afraid of Osama Wolf and Other Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Class War." ******************** The leader in the field of what is called "data mining," is a company, formed in 1997, called, "ChoicePoin...

REVOLUTION IN THE ANDES Leader Wednesday May 3, 2006 The Guardian Evo Morales went for a characteristically theatrical gesture when he sent in troops to seize Bolivia's natural gas fields, pipelines and refineries on May Day. As global energy companies struggle to digest the consequences, it is clear that the president of Latin America's highest, poorest and most isolated country intends to keep on trying to redistribute the region's wealth. It is less clear how far he is likely to succeed. Morales's nationalisation coup followed a meeting with Cuba's Fidel Castro and Venzuela's Hugo Chavez, splashing happily in the "pink tide" that is lapping away at US influence. To underline the point, they signed a "People's Trade Agreement" to try to counter attempts by Washington to bolster its plan for a "Free Trade Area of the Americas". Morales, a former coca farmer and the continent's first indigenous president, pledged last year t...

Freedom is a wonderful thing. Call it liberty to live an honourable life. One of the reasons why we are law-abiding citizens. The law which protects and nourishes human rights. The world, it seems, is in real danger of becoming a Guantanamo, a shameful prison for gross human rights violations. This is not the world Abraham Lincoln dreamt of, bor the founding fathers. If Ronald Reagan was alive today, even he wouldn't accept what the current administration in the US is doing to the world. Inflated oil price means inflated cost for energy to produce almost every single thing in this world, transportation too has gone expensive... in a few months inflation will soar sky-high! We have to protest, we need to protest, it is a must that we protest and fight. Fight the honourable fight as Jesus would want us to, as every God, prophet, child, would want to... fight for what is right, just and decent. Fight the terrorists who kill and destroy - yet hide behind the thin veil of religion. Educ...