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Surprisingly it was a Boeing 777-300
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As markets have expected, the Bank of England cuts the key interest rate to 0.25, the first cut since 2009.
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Wildfire in seven U.S. states keeping thousands of firefighters at bay.(Fox News)
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Hurricane Earl makes landfall in Belize near Belize City early today
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With more than half the vote counted, the ruling African National Congress (ANC) is ahead on 53.2 percent of the vote which, if this trend continues, will be the first election since the end of apartheid in 1994 that the ANC receives less than 60 percent. The opposition Democratic Alliance, with about 28 percent of the vote nationally, has gained the lead in three major cities: Pretoria, Johannesburg, and Port Elizabeth. Final results are expected Friday.
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Visteon was one of the first automotive companies to exhibit at the Consumer Electronics Show. This year Visteon demonstrated properties that included instrument clusters, head-up displays, information displays, telematics, infotainment and audio products. Visteon is the only company focused on all products areas within the cockpit electronics segment.
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The JFK assassination (The actual footage) Rare / Vintage
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This is only half the story...philobiblos 10/15/2012While the Church officials are human beings, with all the weaknesses that accrue to the species, the institution is the oldest in continuity in the Greek space. The Church, which was to a degree respected even by the predatory Ottomans, became victim to the modern Greek state, when that became administered by Bavarian Germans in the 1830s to 1840s. It was under this Administration that over 90% of Church properties were seized by a succession of Greek governments, which then undertook to support the clergy (i.e. they made them civil servants). The Church can contribute to the crisis by appropriate exploitation of its remaining properties, if only the government mechanisms and para-government mafias keep their hands off. The Church provided the only social safety net in our Greek Christian society for 1700 years. The journalists writing the Spiegel piece clearly know little about our history, and respect it even less, to bother doing even some superficial research. Aristide Caratzas
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The Greek Orthodox Church has managed to cling onto many of its economic privileges, despite austerity stinging nearly all other parts of the country's society. But after numerous scandals have revealed corruption and embezzlement in the Church, more Greeks appear to be demanding sacrifice.
His Eminence, Bishop Anthimos of Thessaloniki, 78, owes the government back-taxes. A two-page letter from the finance ministry rests on his desk, next to a stack of religious texts and images of saints, informing him that he has €1,350 ($1,740) to pay. And, incidentally, his monthly net income will be cut from €2,200 to €1,930.
The bishop is one of the most conservative spiritual leaders in Greece, notorious for his verbal attacks on Muslims, leftists and gays. He feels threatened by creditors who are preying upon his country; illegal immigrants, whom no one can control anymore; and by those who are picking a fight with his church -- intellectuals arguing that the clergy, too, can afford to make some sacrifices amid the crisis.
"We've been doing that for a long time," Athimos says.
For years, many Greeks have been resentful of the fact that the powerful Orthodox Church paid very little in taxes up until 2010. It receives considerable subsidies from the European Union, in addition to support from the Greek government. Salaries for priests and bishops cost taxpayers about €230 million per year. It wasn't until a few months ago that the government started trying to whittle that number down.
Opaque Assets
The many tax benefits the Church receives have not yet been totally dismantled, though. Unleased estates are still tax-free. And only since 2010 has there been a tax on income made from real estate. Before that, the Church was allowed to make considerable money off its numerous properties without paying a thing.
The Orthodox Church is said to be the second-largest property owner in Greece, although it is not known exactly how much land it actually holds. The country has no comprehensive land register. Experts estimate the holdings at more than 130,000 hectares (320,000 acres) of forest and arable land, in addition to real estate in every large Greek city.
Leftist member of parliament Grigorios Psarianos sees the real problem as the lack of a separation between church and state.
"In no other European country are the two so interconnected," he says. "Many politicians are dependent on the blessing of the clergy, and many priests insert themselves into politics."
History offers an insight into why that is. For centuries the Church was the guardian of the Greek identity, language and religion, particularly when the country was occupied by the Ottomans. Many landowners back then transferred their properties to the Church.
After Greek independence, the Orthodox faith became the dominant religion, with some 97 percent of all Greeks subscribing to it today. It is ubiquitous in public life: Pictures of Mary and Jesus hang in every school and parliamentarians take their oath of office in the presence of the Athens archbishop. That's why Psarianos sees Greece's crisis as a crisis of the Church, as well. The institution is no less vulnerable to corruption than the rest of society, he says.
Scandals Galore
Bishop Panteleimon of Attica, for example, was sentenced to six years in prison in 2008 for embezzling some €2.5 million in church assets in the 1990s. He justified it as a reserve fund for his old age. Another bishop allegedly maintained contacts to the drug-peddling mafia.
But the most spectacular scandal must be awarded to the case of the Vatopedi cloister on Mount Athos peninsula, a self-governing state in northern Greece home to 20 Orthodox monasteries. In late 2011, the then-Abbot Ephraim was arrested for fraud and embezzlement and placed under house arrest. With the help of some dubious characters, he allegedly traded a lesser-valued Vatopedi property for much more highly-valued property owned by the state.
The deal was said to have brought the cloister some €100 million. After the scandal first broke in 2008, a government spokesman and minister resigned and the conservative government of Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis was forced to call new elections (which it lost).
The exposé on Vatopedi was a turning point, according to Psarianos, the leftist politician. An increasing number of Greeks began to see the Church as mutually responsible for the crisis. His party, the Democratic Left, which is part of the government, wants to create more separation of Church and state -- even if the larger coalition parties, the Socialists and the conservative New Democracy, don't see that as a priority.
For Bishop Athimos, Psarianos's proposition would constitute a satanic deed.
"There is a holy bond between the Greek people and their Church," he says. "No one should disrupt it."
Translated from the German by Andrew Bowen
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Archimandrite Ephraim is one of Christian Orthodoxy’s leading spiritual figures. Now he face prison for fraud.
Also, the Greek government “ceded” to the Vatopaid monks some 800 hectares of land valuable from the angle of tourism. The area is located near the town of Ouranoupolis in the vicinity of Mount Athos. In exchange, the monks handed to the Greek Government some 8,000 hectares of land in the country‘s north. The attorneys claim the transactions inflicted a damage of USD 100 million as a minimum on the national budget.
The Greek criminal justice system is today in the dock having used extraordinary methods to “capture”.
Abbot Ephraim the leader of the largest monastery on Mount Athos in Greece, and one of Christian Orthodoxy’s leading spiritual figures.
The Russian Government and the Russian Orthodox Church have made strong protests to the Greek Government:
“Such actions on the part of authorities of a country that is Eastern Orthodox under the provisions of its Constitution can only be regarded as an instance of inadmissible politicization of court investigations,” the Foundation of St Andrew the First said in a special statement. The Itar Tass news agency in a report said:
”The foundation urged the Greek judiciary to ensure a fair and unbiased investigation of litigations between the state and the monastery. It also called on the Greek nation to remain committed to the spirit and values of Eastern Orthodox Christianity and to stay away from involvement in the politically motivated court cases:.
“ The statement also said the Foundation officials were quite “astonished upon noting the fact that the court passed a decision on taking archimandrite Ephraim to custody soon after his return to Russia where he escorted the Virgin Mary’s girdle.”
Source: The London Daily News:
https://ivarfjeld.com/2012/01/02/greek-orthodox-leader-caught-in-600-million-usd-fraud/
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Meet Augusto Pinochet, Chilean dictator from 1973-1990. Not a very nice guy.
From the beginning, the government implemented harsh measures against its political opponents. According to various reports and investigations 1,200–3,200 people were killed, up to 80,000 were interned, and up to 30,000 were tortured by his regime including women and children.
And…
By the time of his death on 10 December 2006, about 300 criminal charges were still pending against him in Chile for numerous human rights violations, tax evasion, and embezzlement during his 17-year rule and afterwards. Pinochet was accused of having corruptly amassed a wealth of US$28 million or more.
So here we have a guy who solidified his power by killing and otherwise punishing his opponents and who procured extravagant wealth through corrupt means. Because this is so similar to how the Catholic Church secured its power, you can imagine how they’d want to separate themselves from Pinochet. Which they did publicly…however,thanks to wikileaks, we now know that the Holy See told the State Department and Henry Kissinger that they supported Pinochet.
The Vatican once dismissed reports of massacres by Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet as “Communist propaganda”, according to US diplomatic and intelligence documents from the 1970s leaked on Monday.
One cable dated October 18, 1973 sent to Washington by the US embassy to the Holy See relayed a conversation with the Vatican’s then deputy Secretary of State, Giovanni Benelli, the leak by whistleblowing website WikiLeaks showed.
Benelli expressed “his and the pope’s grave concern over successful international leftist campaign to misconstrue completely realities of Chilean situation,” read the cable to then US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.
“Benelli labelled exaggerated coverage of events as possibly greatest success of Communist propaganda,” it said, adding that the Italian monsignor said this showed “how Communists can influence free world media in future”.
And just as recently as 2010 the Catholic Church in Chile was seeking the release of imprisoned accomplices from Pinochet’s regime.
This is incredibly odd behavior if the Catholic Church is representative of a loving god’s will on earth. Of course, stuff like this is exactly what we’d expect to see if the Catholic Church was a political organization interested primarily in its own power, run by corruptible mortals.
I’d ask Mark Shea or Thomas McDonald for an explanation, but they tend to go quiet about stuff like this.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/wwjtd/2013/04/catholic-church-actually-supported-chilean-dictator/
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He has a lot to pray for:
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Interesting quote above:
The Encyclopedia of Religion says: "'Allah' is a pre-Islamic name . . . corresponding to the Babylonian Bel" (ed. James Hastings, Edinburgh, T. & T. Clark, 1908, I:326).
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Wow! almost at the level of science fiction crazy. Interesting.
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The President of France François Hollande extends a state of emergency against terrorism for three months following the attack which has now claimed over 80 lives. He had previously announced that it would be lifted on 26 July.
Authorities identify the attacker as a 31-year-old Tunisian resident in France, who was killed during the exchange of gunfire with police. The man was known to police in connection with petty crime, but was not on the French intelligence service watch list.
Hillary Clinton "I Am Trying To Understand What Has Driven People To Support Donald Trump"
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Hillary Clinton "I Am Trying To Understand What Has Driven People To Support Donald Trump"