Your Source To Everything

VIENNA – Long a thorn in the Vatican’s side, Austrian Catholics have ramped up their quest for a more liberal church in the wake of the global clerical sex abuse scandal.

And while much of the push for change comes from the grassroots, the country’s powerful cardinal recently caused a stir with strong gestures in support of reform, raising the stakes in the confrontation between the Vatican and dissidents pushing to allow priests to marry and women to be ordained.

What is particularly troubling for Rome is that Austria — historically a major symbol of Catholicism in Europe and a bulwark against the Protestant Reformation — is losing worshippers in record numbers as calls for reform grow stronger.

Tens of thousands of Austrian Catholics — many of whom still consider themselves devout believers — are leaving the church each year, disgusted by the priestly sex abuse scandal and frustrated by what they see as the Catholic hierarchy’s outdated ways.

For 76-year-old Erwin Bundschuh, who left the church about six weeks ago, the main problem today is an ivory tower mentality that rejects dialogue and cuts itself off from the realities of the modern day.

"You can’t redesign a religious community every day but you also can’t pretend as if nothing has happened in 2,000 years," said Bundschuh as he strolled past Vienna’s famous St. Stephen’s Cathedral. "There should be an open dialogue about certain things but it’s always choked off."

Earlier this week, the head of the Vienna archdiocese’s church tax office estimated that up to 80,000 of Austria’s roughly 5.5 million Catholics could leave the church this year — a new record. Last year alone, 53,216 people formally had their names removed from church registries, a 31 percent increase compared to 40,654 in 2008.

Read More on yahoo.com

Popularity: 4% [?]

Israeli commandos have attacked a flotilla of aid-carrying ships off the coast of the Gaza Strip, killing up to 10 people on board.

Dozens of others were injured when troops raided the convoy of six ships, dubbed the Freedom Flotilla, early on Monday.

Israel said activists on board attacked its commandos as they boarded the ships, while the flotilla’s organisers said the Israeli forces opened fire first, as soon as they stormed the convoy.

Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, gave his "full backing" to the military forces after the raid.

The raid by Israel troops "was to prevent the infiltration of thousands of rockets, missiles and other arms that could hit our cities, communities or people," he said.

"I give my complete backing to the army, the soldiers and commanders who acted to defend the state and to protect their lives."

He also said Israel regretted the loss of life in the raid.

Israeli media reported that many of the dead were Turkish nationals.

Organisers of the Freedom Flotilla say it was carrying 700 activists and 10,000 tonnes of humanitarian aid with the aim of breaking the Israeli siege of Gaza.

Read More on aljazeera.net

Popularity: 4% [?]

VENICE, La. (Reuters) – Oil from BP’s out-of-control Gulf of Mexico oil spill could threaten the Mississippi and Alabama coasts this week, U.S. forecasters said on Monday, as public anger surged over the nation’s worst environmental disaster.

U.S. government and BP officials are warning that the blown-out deepwater well feeding the catastrophic spill may not be shut off until August as the company begins preparations on a new but uncertain attempt to contain the leaking crude.

The disaster, in its 42nd day on Monday, is already the largest oil spill in U.S. history and officials are treating it it as the country’s biggest environmental catastrophe.

Although Louisiana’s wetlands and fishing grounds have been the worst hit so far by the spill, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said moderate southerly and southwesterly winds this week may start moving oil closer to the Mississippi Delta.

"Model results indicate that oil may move north to threaten the barrier islands off Mississippi and Alabama later in the forecast period," NOAA said in its 72-hour prediction on the expected trajectory of the huge oil slick.

INSIDER TV: http://link.reuters.com/wuw64k

Graphic: http://link.reuters.com/neh56k

Mississippi and Alabama have escaped lightly so far, with only scattered tar balls and "oil debris" reaching its coasts.

Read More on thestar.com

Popularity: 4% [?]

Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN) — A precision air strike has killed one of the two most senior Taliban leaders in Kandahar province and several of his fighters, the U.S. military said Monday.

Officials had been tracking Taliban commander Haji Amir and his fighters for several days and ordered the air strike when the leader stopped at a small mud hut in a rural area Sunday morning, according to a military statement.

Amir escaped from prison in June 2008 and recently was in Pakistan planning Taliban attacks, the statement said.

Read more on CNN.com

Popularity: 2% [?]

VIENNA (Reuters) – Iran outlined to the U.N. nuclear watchdog on Monday a deal to give up some of its enriched uranium, calling it major progress towards defusing international tensions over its atomic aspirations.

But Western powers see the deal, reflecting one Iran backed out of six months ago, as overtaken by events including escalating enrichment by Tehran. Along with Russia and China, they have drafted broader sanctions against the Islamic state.

Tehran has threatened to ditch the plan if it is hit with a fourth U.N. sanctions resolution, envisaged for adoption next month.

Some diplomats say prospects for the deal look bleak unless Iran stops enriching uranium to higher levels, a process it started in February stoking Western fears it ultimately aims to produce bomb-grade material. Iran says its higher enrichment is to produce fuel for the reactor at the centre of the swap deal.

The proposal to swap low-enriched uranium (LEU) for fuel to run an Iranian medical research reactor, aimed at allaying fears Iran is trying to amass fissile material for nuclear weapons, was agreed last week by Tehran with Turkey and Brazil.

Read more on thestar.com

Popularity: 2% [?]

London, England (CNN) — Britain’s Prince Andrew has denied knowing anything about his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson’s alleged offer to an undercover tabloid newspaper reporter to sell access to Queen Elizabeth’s second son for £500,000 ($723,000).

His comments came after News of the World posted a video on its Web site Sunday that appears to show Ferguson accepting money from an undercover reporter in exchange for an introduction to Prince Andrew.

Ferguson is also filmed on hidden camera telling the reporter — who was posing as a wealthy businessman — that a payment of £500,000 "opens doors" to Andrew.

She then shakes hands with the reporter after he accepts the deal.

On Monday the royal family moved quickly to distance itself from Ferguson, who has never been far from the headlines since she married Prince Andrew, the Duke of York, in 1986. The couple separated in 1992 and divorced four years later.

"The Duke of York categorically denies any knowledge of any meeting or conversation between the Duchess of York and the News of the World journalist," Buckingham Palace said.

Prince Andrew has carried out his role as a British trade envoy since 2001 "with complete and absolute propriety and integrity," the palace said.

Read More on CNN.com

Popularity: 1% [?]

Top Vatican officials — including the future Pope Benedict XVI — did not defrock a priest who molested as many as 200 deaf boys, even though several American bishops repeatedly warned them that failure to act on the matter could embarrass the church, according to church files newly unearthed as part of a lawsuit.

The internal correspondence from bishops in Wisconsin directly to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future pope, shows that while church officials tussled over whether the priest should be dismissed, their highest priority was protecting the church from scandal.

The documents emerge as Pope Benedict is facing other accusations that he and direct subordinates often did not alert civilian authorities or discipline priests involved in sexual abuse when he served as an archbishop in Germany and as the Vatican’s chief doctrinal enforcer. 

The Wisconsin case involved an American priest, the Rev. Lawrence C. Murphy, who worked at a renowned school for deaf children from 1950 to 1974. But it is only one of thousands of cases forwarded over decades by bishops to the Vatican office called the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, led from 1981 to 2005 by Cardinal Ratzinger.

It is still the office that decides whether accused priests should be given full canonical trials and defrocked.

Read More

Popularity: 2% [?]

London, England (CNN) — Rare photos of Russian strategic bomber jets purportedly intercepted in British airspace show Moscow’s war machine is becoming increasingly bold, analysts said Thursday as Russia denied any territorial violations.

Britain’s Ministry of Defence released images it said were taken earlier this month of two Russian Tu-160 bombers — known as Blackjacks by NATO forces — as they entered UK airspace near the Outer Hebrides islands off Scotland’s northwest coast.

It said the March 10 incident, which resulted in crystal clear images of the planes against clear blue skies and a dramatic sunset, was one of many intercepts carried out by British Royal Air Force crews in just over 12 months.

"This is not an unusual incident, and many people may be surprised to know that our crews have successfully scrambled to intercept Russian aircraft on more than 20 occasions since the start of 2009," Wing Cdr. Mark Gorringe, of the RAF’s 111 Squadron, said in a statement.

Read More

Popularity: 2% [?]

DOHA/KHARTOUM – Khartoum will offer Darfur’s most powerful rebel group government posts as part of a future peace deal to end conflict in Sudan’s west, according to documents setting out the terms of negotiations seen by Reuters.

The documents were the first concrete sign that Khartoum is prepared to share power with its bitter foe in the western region — a development that could alienate existing allies there and complicate preparations for April elections.

But rebels from the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) played down chances of reaching a final peace pact by March 15, as outlined in a framework deal for peace talks that will be signed later on Tuesday in the Qatari capital Doha.

“We are working to meet the March 15 deadline, but that itself is not a requirement,” chief JEM negotiator Ahmed Tugud told Reuters.

“We are trying to move forward, at least. It has been a long time since we’ve had a direct dialogue (with the government). We believe it is the right time to start,” he added.

Another rebel official said the deadline was unrealistic, and rebels reported fresh violence in Darfur two days after an initial version of the framework peace deal was inked in Chad.

The initial framework included a ceasefire, plans to integrate the JEM into Sudan’s army and a promise to reach a final peace deal by March 15. Tuesday’s event has been billed as the “official signing”.

“Peace will prevail in Darfur before the coming elections,” Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir was quoted as saying by State news agency Suna late on Monday.

According to a French-language copy of the framework agreement, the JEM and Khartoum agreed to “the participation of the Justice and Equality Movement at all levels of government … in a manner to be agreed subsequently between the two parties”.

The deal comes a year after Khartoum and the JEM met in Doha to agree to confidence-building measures designed to pave the way for the framework agreement and then full peace talks.

That process stalled after the JEM accused Khartoum of attacking its positions days after the ceasefire and of failing to carry out agreed measures, including freeing JEM captives.

Read more on khaleejtimes.com

Popularity: 2% [?]

The fields of Marjah are bright green with poppy shoots, while the “poppy palaces” of drug lords stand out a mile. The US Marines leading Operation Moshtarak, however, insist that the drugs are not their problem.

“We haven’t declared war on opium,” the taskforce’s political adviser, John Weston, said on a recent tour. “We’re here to bring in security.”

Nato’s mandate does not include counter-narcotics operations unless there is a clear link to the insurgency. In Marjah those links are all around them. Soldiers have already seized large quantities of opium and heroin alongside bomb-making materials and weapons.

However, Nato forces know that they must tread a delicate line between enforcing the rule of law and appeasing the local people. Under the government rule that it has promised to install, opium-growing is illegal — but many tenant farmers depend on income from the crop.

Read more on timesonline.co.uk

Popularity: 1% [?]