ENDGAME: Blueprint For Global Enslavement

Watch the official trailer for Alex Jones' new documentary film:


Official ENDGAME website: endgamethemovie.com

Saddam Accepted Exile Deal, But The War Happened Anyway

Former Leader Was Willing To Step Down For $1Billion

[By Paul Joseph Watson, Prison Planet |Thursday, 27 September, 2007.]
Neo-Cons could have saved a trillion dollars, spared over a million lives and prevented tens of thousands of dead and injured U.S. soldiers but decided to unleash carnage anyway, after it was revealed last night that Saddam Hussein offered to step down and go into exile one month before the invasion of Iraq.

"Fearing defeat, Saddam was prepared to go peacefully in return for £500million ($1billion)," reports the Daily Mail. "The extraordinary offer was revealed yesterday in a transcript of talks in February 2003 between George Bush and the then Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar at the President's Texas ranch. The White House refused to comment on the report last night. But, if verified, it is certain to raise questions in Washington and London over whether the costly four-year war could have been averted." According to the tapes, Bush told Aznar that whether Saddam was still in Iraq or not, "We'll be in Baghdad by the end of March."

Why didn't the Neo-Cons take Saddam's offer? After all, the invasion was about "weapons of mass destruction" and "spreading freedom", we were told. With the dictator gone, the U.N. and American forces were free to roam the country in search of the non-existent weapons while setting up the "utopian democracy" that Iraqis now live under. The Neo-Cons didn't take the offer because the invasion of Iraq was not about Saddam Hussein, it was about making fat profits for the military-industrial complex by bombing the country back into the stone age, slaughtering countless innocents in the process, seizing control of oil factories, and setting up military bases as a means of launching the Empire's next jaunt into Iran. (Full story here.)

Iraqi Leader Rejects Division of Nation

"It is an Iraqi affair dealing with Iraqis."


[By Qassim Abdul-Zahra, Associated Press | Friday, 28 September, 2007.]
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Friday rejected a Senate proposal calling for the decentralization of Iraq's government and giving more control to the country's ethnically divided regions, calling it a "catastrophe." The measure, whose primary sponsors included presidential hopeful Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., calls for Iraq to be divided into federal regions for the country's Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish communities in a power-sharing agreement similar to Bosnia in the 1990s.

In his first comments since the measure passed Wednesday, al-Maliki strongly rejected the idea, echoing the earlier sentiments of his vice president. "It is an Iraqi affair dealing with Iraqis," he told The Associated Press while on a return flight to Baghdad after appearing at the U.N. General Assembly in New York. "Iraqis are eager for Iraq's unity. ... Dividing Iraq is a problem and a decision like that would be a catastrophe."

On Thursday, Vice President Adel Abdul-Mahdi said decisions about Iraq must remain in the hands of its citizens and the spokesman for the supporters of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr agreed. "We demand the Iraqi government to stand against such project and to condemn it officially," Liwa Semeism told the AP. "Such a decision does not represent the aspirations of all Iraqi people and it is considered an interference in Iraq's internal affairs."

A spokesman for Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the Shiite spiritual leader, dismissed the proposal during Friday prayers in Karbala. "The division plan is against Iraqi's interests and against peaceful living in one united Iraq," Sheik Abdul Mahdi al Karbalaei told worshippers. "Any neighboring country supporting this project will pay the price of instability in the region." (Full story here.)

Population Control Is The Next Big Thing In Green Culture

Reminiscent of Communist China's one-child policy, Daniel Engber, from the online journal Slate, proffers a solution to global-warming for fellow greenies and the rest of us: one child per couple for several generations in order to begin depopulating the earth.


[By Ann Shibler, JBS | Tuesday, 18 September, 2007.]
Piqued by Alan Weisman's The World Without Us, a morbid book speculating on Earth's return to its pre-inhabited primeval state if humans left the planet, comes Slate's Daniel Engber's call for reducing the population by 5 billion people over the next century.

Yes, you read that right: 5,000,000,000.

The movement is labeled population-based environmentalism. Admittedly the environmentalists know that switching to wind and solar power won't make a dent in one's carbon footprint. So these anti-life planet-savers have theoretically equated the size of families/population with global-warming which they attribute to CO2 emissions, and they intend to do something about it. Steve Schneider, editor of Climatic Change and himself a climate alarmist, Brian C. O’Neill of Brown University's Watson Institute for International Studies, and Lee Wexler of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis initially calculated the negative value of a newborn child in a published report from November 2000. Yes, negative value.

Environmentally, the "externalities" which they define as "costs or benefits associated with the birth of a child that fall on society but are not considered in the parents' fertility decisions," amount to about $28,200 negative value per child in developed countries. So, they want parents to decide on their own, or with negative monetary incentives imposed by government, to have fewer children. They advocate a type of social planning that calls for imposing taxes on live births and forcing parents to bear the full brunt of educating those children in punishment for having given them life — negative monetary incentives in action.

Engber also cites a frighteningly selfish movement called "The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement," dedicated to "phasing out the human race by voluntarily ceasing to breed." Their motto is "May we live well and die out." Note how they don't volunteer themselves first, but just prevent others from entering the world. (Full story here.)

Original source article: Global Swarming - Is It Time For Americans To Start Cutting Our Baby Emissions?

The U.S. Plan To Disintegrate Iraq

Senate To Vote On Proposal To Divide Iraq Into Three Separate States

[Press TV | Tuesday, 25 September, 2007.]
The U.S. Senate is planning to vote on a proposal backed by Democratic Senator Joseph Biden to divide war-torn Iraq based on ethnic lines. Advocates of the plan, which is to be voted as soon as Tuesday, claim that the plan would allow U.S. troops to eventually go home without leaving chaos behind. The Plan, which calls for an autonomous federation of Kurdish, Shia and Sunni regions has come under fire by critics, who say Iraq's ethnic groups who live side-by-side in cities and inter-marry are not divided by lines on a map. The bipartisan Iraq Study Group, which delivered recommendations in December, warned division could trigger mass population flows, the collapse of the Iraqi security forces and ethnic cleansing by strengthened militias. (Link.)

Editor's note: Just as the invasion of Iraq was planned well before 9/11 (see previous post: "Iraq Invasion Planned Long Before 9/11,") this proposal is nothing new. Read the original October, 2002 plan, which advocates huge chunks of Iraq being annexed by Jordan and Kuwait, here. Remember also that it was Kuwait who instigated the first Gulf War by stealing Iraqi oil via slant-drilling, as reported here.

Bush Advising Hillary On How To Keep Iraq War Going

Says Hillary Must Position Herself To "Sustain A Legitimate Presence There.”

[By Bill Sammon, The Examiner | Monday, 24 September, 2007.]
President Bush is quietly providing back-channel advice to Hillary Rodham Clinton, urging her to modulate her rhetoric so she can effectively prosecute the war in Iraq if elected president. In an interview for the new book “The Evangelical President,” White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten said Bush has “been urging candidates: ‘Don’t get yourself too locked in where you stand right now. If you end up sitting where I sit, things could change dramatically.’”

Bolten said Bush wants enough continuity in his Iraq policy that “even a Democratic president would be in a position to sustain a legitimate presence there.” “Especially if it’s a Democrat,” the chief of staff told The Examiner in his West Wing office. “He wants to create the conditions where a Democrat not only will have the leeway, but the obligation to see it out.” To that end, the president has been sending advice, mostly through aides, aimed at preventing an abrupt withdrawal from Iraq in the event of a Democratic victory in November 2008. (Full story here.)

U.S. Focus On Ahmadinejad Puzzles Iranians

“He is not that consequential.”


[By Michael Slackman, New York Times | Monday, 24 September, 2007.]
When Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was first elected president, he said Iran had more important issues to worry about than how women dress. He even called for allowing women into soccer games, a revolutionary idea for revolutionary Iran. Today, Iran is experiencing the most severe crackdown on social behavior and dress in years, and women are often barred from smoking in public, let alone attending a stadium event.

Since his inauguration two years ago, Mr. Ahmadinejad has grabbed headlines around the world, and in Iran, for outrageous statements that often have no more likelihood of being put into practice than his plan for women to attend soccer games. He has generated controversy in New York in recent days by asking to visit ground zero — a request that was denied — and his scheduled appearance at Columbia University has drawn protests. But it is because of his provocative remarks, like [supposedly] denying the Holocaust and [his mistakenly translated] calling for Israel to be wiped off the map, that the United States and Europe have never known quite how to handle him.

In demonizing Mr. Ahmadinejad, the West has served him well, elevating his status at home and in the region at a time when he is increasingly isolated politically because of his go-it-alone style and ineffective economic policies, according to Iranian politicians, officials and political experts. Political analysts here say they are surprised at the degree to which the West focuses on their president, saying that it reflects a general misunderstanding of their system. Unlike in the United States, in Iran the president is not the head of state nor the commander in chief. That status is held by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, whose role combines civil and religious authority. At the moment, this president’s power comes from two sources, they say: the unqualified support of the supreme leader, and the international condemnation he manages to generate when he speaks up.

“The United States pays too much attention to Ahmadinejad,” said an Iranian political scientist who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal. “He is not that consequential.” (Full story here.)

Bush Declares: Hillary Will Win Nomination

President Breaks Vow Not To Play “Pundit-In-Chief”


[Drudge Report | Sunday, 23 September, 2007.]
President Bush, for the first time, is predicting that Barack Obama will be defeated in the Democratic presidential primaries by Hillary Rodham Clinton. “She's got a national presence and this is becoming a national primary,” Bush tells author Bill Sammon in the bombshell book, "Evangelical President," set for release Monday. “And therefore the person with the national presence, who has got the ability to raise enough money to sustain an effort in a multiplicity of sites, has got a good chance to be nominated.”

Breaking his vow not to play “pundit-in-chief” in the 2008 presidential race, Bush tells Sammon that Clinton ultimately will be defeated in the general election by the Republican nominee. “I think our candidate can beat her, but it's going to be a tough race,” the president predicted in an Oval Office interview. “I will work to see to it that a Republican wins, and therefore don't accept the premise that a Democrat will win. I truly think the Republicans will hold the White House.”

Current and former Bush advisers sounded less certain. “It's going to be a very close election,” said Karl Rove, who until this month was the president's top political strategist. “We are at this very narrow divide in politics.” The election “could go either way,” Vice President Cheney told Sammon, senior White House correspondent for the Washington Examiner, which will begin running excerpts from the book Monday. “Right now, we're sort of in the area where we're pretty evenly balanced on both sides.”

As for Obama, a senior White House official said the freshman senator from Illinois was “capable” of the intellectual rigor needed to win the presidency but instead relies too heavily on his easy charm. “It's sort of like, 'that's all I need to get by,' which bespeaks sort of a condescending attitude towards the voters,” said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity. “And a laziness, an intellectual laziness.” (Link.)

Iraq's Dilemma: No Blackwater = No Security

Government Backpedals On Immediate Expulsion Of Private Army


[By Dominic Evans and Paul Tait, Reuters | Sunday, 23 September, 2007.]
Iraq will not rush to expel U.S. firm Blackwater, under investigation over a shooting which killed 11 Iraqis, because it would leave a "security vacuum" in Baghdad, a government official said on Sunday. The shooting in western Baghdad last Sunday incensed Iraqis and Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki vowed to freeze the work of Blackwater, which employs about 1,000 people and guards the U.S. embassy in Baghdad. But five days later it was back at work. Instead, the Iraqi government and U.S. officials have agreed to set up a joint inquiry into the work of private security companies like U.S.-based Blackwater, which many Iraqis see as private armies acting with impunity.

A senior Iraqi police source close to the investigation said the Interior Ministry and special forces police were examining a videotape of victims taken in the aftermath of the shooting. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said she had ordered a full "review of how we are conducting our security details" but added that dangerous diplomatic missions in Iraq had to go on because they were critical to U.S. goals there. In what appeared to be a further softening of Iraq's response to the shooting, a government spokesman for Baghdad security said Blackwater and other private security companies were doing important work guarding foreign diplomats. (Full story: here.)

One Generation Is All They Need

One day we will all happily be implanted with microchips, and our every move will be monitored. The technology exists; the only barrier is society's resistance to the loss of privacy.


[By Kevin Haggerty, The Star.com | Sunday, 10 December, 2006]
By the time my four-year-old son is swathed in the soft flesh of old age, he will likely find it unremarkable that he and almost everyone he knows will be permanently implanted with a microchip. Automatically tracking his location in real time, it will connect him with databases monitoring and recording his smallest behavioural traits.

Most people anticipate such a prospect with a sense of horrified disbelief, dismissing it as a science-fiction fantasy. The technology, however, already exists. For years humane societies have implanted all the pets that leave their premises with a small identifying microchip. As well, millions of consumer goods are now traced with tiny radio frequency identification chips that allow satellites to reveal their exact location.

A select group of people are already "chipped" with devices that automatically open doors, turn on lights, and perform other low-level miracles. Prominent among such individuals is researcher Kevin Warwick of Reading University in England; Warwick is a leading proponent of the almost limitless potential uses for such chips.


Other users include the patrons of the Baja Beach Club in Barcelona, many of whom have paid about $150 (U.S.) for the privilege of being implanted with an identifying chip that allows them to bypass lengthy club queues and purchase drinks by being scanned (see photo above.) These individuals are the advance guard of an effort to expand the technology as widely as possible.

From this point forward, microchips will become progressively smaller, less invasive, and easier to deploy. Thus, any realistic barrier to the wholesale "chipping" of Western citizens is not technological but cultural. It relies upon the visceral reaction against the prospect of being personally marked as one component in a massive human inventory.


Today we might strongly hold such beliefs, but sensibilities can, and probably will, change. How this remarkable attitudinal transformation is likely to occur is clear to anyone who has paid attention to privacy issues over the past quarter-century. There will be no 3 a.m. knock on the door by storm troopers come to force implants into our bodies. The process will be more subtle and cumulative, couched in the unassailable language of progress and social betterment, and mimicking many of the processes that have contributed to the expansion of closed-circuit television cameras and the corporate market in personal data.

A series of tried and tested strategies will be marshalled to familiarize citizens with the technology. These will be coupled with efforts to pressure tainted social groups and entice the remainder of the population into being chipped.

This, then, is how the next generation will come to be microchipped.

(Full story here.)

Activists Confront Turncoat Greenspan

Former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan, who once set out to expose the fraudulence of the private Federal Reserve Bank, is publicly shamed not only for his traitorous bad-mouthing of the dollar and his crimes against working and middle class Americans, but also for his defection to the New World Order. This is the best video i've seen so far from the courageous patriots at We Are Change.

KEEP FIGHTING, MY BROTHERS!


Video posted by natetruth @ YouTube.
(Running time: 6m:21s)

$9 Trillion In Debt Is Not Enough

Paulson Tells Congress The Current Debt Ceiling Will Be Hit On Oct. 1


[By Martin Crutsinger, Associated Press | Wednesday, 19 September, 2007.]
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson told Congress on Wednesday the government will hit the current debt ceiling on Oct. 1. He sought quick action to increase the limit, saying it was essential to protect the "full faith and credit" of the country, especially at a time of financial market turmoil. The limit is $8.965 trillion. Unless Congress votes to raise it, the country would be unable to borrow more money to keep the government operating and to pay debt obligations coming due.

The United States has never defaulted on a debt payment but the decision on whether to raise the debt ceiling often means a prolonged battle in Congress. Paulson wrote congressional leaders that according to data now available, the Treasury expects to reach the ceiling on Oct. 1 - the first day of the new budget year. That projection does not take into account moves the government often has to use, such as withdrawing investments from certain trust funds to create room for extra borrowing until Congress finally approves a debt increase.

This month, the Senate Finance Committee approved increasing the limit on the debt to $9.82 trillion. That boost of $850 billion would be the fifth since President Bush took office in 2001. The House approved an increase in May. The full Senate has not acted yet. (Full story here.)

World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army, Used In Aftermath Of Katrina, Now Banned From Iraq

Revocation Of Blackwater's License Means Withdrawal Of Tens Of Thousands Of Armed Mercenaries From Conflict


[By Steve Watson, Infowars.net | Wednesday, 19 September, 2007.]
After years of running riot in Iraq with impunity, the license of private contractor company Blackwater USA has been revoked by the Iraqi government, and the company has been banned from operating in the country all together according to reports, a move that will see the withdrawal of tens of thousands of armed mercenaries from Iraq.

CNN reports: "Iraq's Interior Ministry has revoked the license of Blackwater USA, an American security firm whose contractors are blamed for a Sunday gunbattle in Baghdad that left eight civilians dead. The U.S. State Department said it plans to investigate what it calls a 'terrible incident.'"

In addition to the hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops in Iraq, The Bush administration has deployed a shadow army of private contractors. Earlier this summer it was reported that the number of U.S.-paid private contractors in Iraq now exceeds that of American combat troops, with more than 180,000 civilians - including Americans, foreigners and Iraqis - working in Iraq under U.S. contracts, according to State and Defense Department figures obtained by the Los Angeles Times. Blackwater USA, which has a 6,000 acre training facility as part of its headquarters in North Carolina, is one such company that currently has tens of thousands of heavily armed mercenaries stationed in Iraq who are accountable to no one and have hit the headlines on multiple occasions.


In March 2004, four Blackwater personnel died in a grisly attack in Iraq in Falluja, west of Baghdad. The Four, all of whom were military veterans, were ambushed, killed, mutilated and had their charred remains strung from a bridge overlooking the Euphrates River in an incident that sparked shock and outrage. However, after Blackwater refused to share information about why and how they were killed, and callously told the families of the men that they would need to sue to get any information, a lawsuit was filed, marking the first time a company has been sued for deaths in the line of work. Blackwater has since attempted to reverse the situation and sue the families for $10 million to silence them and keep them out of court.

By the end of 2004 Blackwater's president, Gary Jackson, was bragging to the press of "staggering" 600 percent growth. "This is a billion-dollar industry," Jackson said in October 2004. "And Blackwater has only scratched the surface of it.". This prompted outrage that security in Iraq is partly (and we now know mostly) in the hands of private companies who profit from the continuation of conflict and chaos.

Blackwater contractors were also used by the Department of Homeland Security in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. They were authorized to carry loaded automatic assault weapons, make arrests and use lethal force if it was deemed necessary, a fact that had Constitutionalists up in arms: "This vigilantism demonstrates the utter breakdown of the government," says Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights. "These private security forces have behaved brutally, with impunity, in Iraq. To have them now on the streets of New Orleans is frightening and possibly illegal."

(Full story here.)

For more information on Blackwater watch the short piece below from Jeremy Scahill, who has also authored a book titled "Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army."

Video posted by VideoNation @ YouTube.
(Running time: 4m:25s)

U.S. Sovereignty Threatened By U.N. Treaty?

“I doubt any of these new supporters has actually read the entire treaty. If they read this Marxist document, the issue would be dead.” -Former Reagan Defense Official Frank Gaffney


[By Chris Gonsalves, NewsMax.com | Sunday, 16 September, 2007.]
The U.S. is poised to turn much of its authority on the high seas over to international arbiters by ratifying a long-controversial United Nations sea treaty. Approval of the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), a 25-year-old international treaty regulating use of the world’s oceans, is steaming full speed ahead in the Senate, where committee hearings are set to begin Sept. 27. The full Senate is likely to ratify the treaty - which would link U.S. naval actions to those of 155 other member nations - by year's end.

For decades, critics have derided the 182-page Law of the Sea pact as a threat to U.S. sovereignty and naval independence. They add that it would create a massive new U.N. bureaucracy (the International Seabed Authority); would give environmentalists a back door to greater regulation; and would hinder the U.S. military's efforts to capture terrorists on the high seas. “This is nothing less than a raid on our sovereignty,” Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., warns Newsmax. “I objected to it when it resurfaced in 2004, and I object to it now as I see it sneaking up on us again. What is this obsession we have for surrendering our jurisdiction to this international body? Nobody can give me a reasonable answer.”

Despite those concerns, however, support for the measure has never been stronger. The treaty has garnered a letter of support from President Bush, favorable testimony from the Navy and Coast Guard, and the backing of at least a dozen oil, gas, and environmental groups. (Full story here.)

Mystery Trader To Collect On Financial Meltdown?

Suspicion Increases About So-Called "bin Laden Trades" As Markets Tumble After Bank Run


[By Paul Joseph Watson, Prison Planet | Monday, 17 September, 2007.]
A run on the Northern Rock bank in Britain has increased the possibility that a mystery trader could stand to collect around $2 billion should a panic send markets tumbling during the course of this week, as investors have predicted. Last month, we reported on the mystery trader who risks losing around $1 billion dollars after placing 245,000 put options on the Dow Jones Eurostoxx 50 index, which led many analysts to speculate that a stock market crash preceded by a new 9/11 style attack or another catastrophe could take place before or during the third week of September. The anonymous trader only stands to make money if the market crashes by a third to a half before September 21st, which is when the put options expire.

Following the run on the Northern Rock bank in Britain, specialist investors are now warning of an imminent and severe correction in the markets. “The credit cycle has turned, bad debts are soaring, banks will go bust and stock markets will fall much further,” Ken Murray, the founder and chief executive of Blue Planet Investment Management, told the Financial Times today, shortly after selling half the equities in his portfolio. The Northern Rock crisis was followed by Alan Greenspan's warning that both the U.S. and U.K. housing markets are on the verge of a major downturn as Prime Minister Gordon Brown holds an emergency meeting with U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson today. Thousands of people around Britain queued for hours at Northern Rock branches throughout Friday and Saturday attempting to withdraw their money as the global credit crunch sunk its teeth in again following the sub-prime mortgage fallout in the U.S.

Analysts from TheStreet.com dismissed last month's so-called "bin Laden trades" as nothing out of the ordinary, but still noted that the transactions outstrip anything else seen in a year. Though the current climate will undoubtedly send stocks tumbling, to see a downturn of a full third within a week is unlikely bar a catalyzing outside event like the announcement of military operations against Iran or a terror attack in the west on the scale of 9/11.

Iraq Invasion Planned Long Before 9/11

This story from "60 Minutes" was never aired. Why?
Video posted by Golden Equity @ YouTube.
(running time: 7m:03s)

U.S. Marines Ordered To Execute Unarmed Women And Children In Haditha

"Kill Everybody In The Vicinity"


[Reuters | Saturday, 1 September, 2007.]
The U.S. Marine sergeant accused of leading a 2005 massacre of Iraqi civilians in Haditha gunned down five unarmed men who were standing next to a car after a roadside bombing, a Marine from his squad told a military court on Friday. Sgt. Sanick Dela Cruz also testified that, about a week before the incident at Haditha, another bombing prompted Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich to say the squad should "kill everybody in the vicinity" if they were hit again. Dela Cruz took the witness stand against his former squad leader at a hearing to determine if Wuterich, 27, should face court-martial over the November 19, 2005, events at Haditha. Iraqi witnesses say U.S. troops massacred two dozen unarmed men, women and children at Haditha in retaliation for the death of Lance Cpl. Miguel "T.J." Terrazas in the roadside bomb. Defense lawyers say the civilians died during a chaotic house-to-house battle in the western Iraqi town.


(Photo: Sergeant Frank D. Wuterich)

The hearing into Wuterich's conduct was expected to last several more days. Dela Cruz, granted immunity from prosecution in the case after murder charges against him were dismissed in April, told the court that after the bomb exploded under a Humvee in their four-vehicle convoy he saw the five Iraqi men standing near a white car across the street. In a matter of seconds one of the men dropped dead on the ground, Dela Cruz said, and he looked around to see Wuterich kneeling and firing on the group. By the time he reached the white car, Dela Cruz said, all of the Iraqis had been killed. "They were in a pile, sir, laying dead, sir," said Dela Cruz, whose right forearm is tattooed with the Grim Reaper and his left with the Marine eagle, globe and anchor emblem. Dela Cruz said he then opened fire on the men "to make sure" they were dead and Wuterich walked among the bodies, firing shots into each. Later that day, he said, Wuterich told him to lie about the incident, an agreement he said the two Marines kept for several months. "He told me, if anybody asks ... they were running away and Iraqi Army shot them," Dela Cruz said. (Full story here.)

Pope Declares "Save Creation Day" At Eco-Friendly Festival

Ratzinger Steering Catholics Toward New Religion Of Environmentalism


[BBC News | Sunday, 2 September, 2007.]
The Catholic Church has declared Sunday "Save Creation Day" as Pope Benedict joins about 300,000 young Roman Catholics for an eco-friendly festival. The youth festival is being held at the shrine of Loreto, in Italy. In his main homily the Pope is expected to concentrate on the Vatican's new emphasis on eco-friendly teaching. The gathering, which began on Saturday, is a run-up to Catholic World Youth Day celebrations in Sydney, Australia, next year, which the Pope plans to attend.


The BBC's David Willey in Rome says the emphasis is on teaching young people to protect the environment. Each participant in the Loreto festival is receiving a free knapsack made out of recycled plastic. It contains a hand-cranked battery charger, plates and cutlery made from bio-degradable plastic and bags for tying up their rubbish when they leave.

The Pope is also practising what he preaches, our correspondent adds. He is installing solar panels on the roof of the main audience hall at the Vatican and is paying for a forestry project to offset the Vatican's carbon emissions. (Full story here.)