The German publication Der Spiegel was leaked a copy of the draft, and concluded: “Berlin is serious about taking the lead as the euro zone struggles with a suddenly weak currency.” Germany wanted a Europe where the European Commission had the power to suspend the voting rights of nations for violating the eurozone’s debt and spending laws, including plans for managing the bankruptcy of a member nation. “Europe,” said Angela Merkel, “needs a new culture of stability.” But that culture would be enforced through the destabilizing power of financial market crises.

The German bet was that the EU could outrun financial markets, using the crisis as an opportunity to advance fiscal and political integration and impose their demands upon the rest of Europe, while simultaneously preventing markets from creating a crisis so severe that it threatened the euro or the economies of the more powerful nations. Without the pressure of financial markets, the EU could not force its member nations to restructure their economies and societies. Chancellor Merkel would frequently describe the European debt crisis to her colleagues as a “poker game” between financial markets and politicians. The first to flinch would lose.

Brussels has now convened a full emergency summit of all 28 European leaders on Sunday to thrash out a deal to keep Greece in the single currency. "I have no doubt that this is the most critical moment in the history of the European Union," said Mr Tusk. He dismissed any notion that letting Greece leave the euro would not have irreparable geopolitical consequences for the continent. "If someone has any illusion that it will not be so, they are naive."

The hard Left government is also fast running out of time and patience among its last remaining allies. Mr Tsipras could not “put a gun to our head or a knife at our throats", said Belgium's Prime Minister Charles Michel. Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said it was for the government to ultimately decide “whether they want to stay in euro or not”. “In order to stay in euro, rules need to be followed,” said Mr Renzi, who has been considered as one of the Greeks' few backers. “We have very little time,” said Jeroen Dijssebloem, head of the bloc’s finance ministers.

Germany’s political strategy was to allow the debt crisis to spread, creating the pressure required to force eurozone nations to accept German demands of restructuring their economies in return for financial aid from the EU. The German magazine Der Spiegel described Frau Merkel’s overall European strategy: “the aim was to solve the debt crisis in a step-by-step fashion.”

It may still remain between citizens of both countries, but not between their governments. Perhaps it has always been an illusion, perhaps the United States pulled away over the course of time. But what binds these two nations today cannot be considered friendship. Openness and fairness are part of the essence of friendship, which is about mutual respect and trust. A quarter century after the United States helped the German people restore their national unity, little remains of this friendship.

As new documents from WikiLeaks and reporting by SPIEGEL show, the NSA has been systematically spying on much of the German government. America's spies not only listened in on Chancellor Angela Merkel's private conversations about sensitive political issues. The NSA also bugged ministries, ministerial offices and other government agencies. Not even journalism is sacred to the Americans - at least not in Germany. American spies monitored at least one SPIEGEL colleague in Berlin - spies who represent a country that considers itself a guarantor of freedom of the press, one of the cornerstones of a liberal democracy.

Today we know: The friendly smile worn by Angela Merkel's hosts in Washington all these years has been insincere at best.

The chancellor must show Washington a clear sign of resistance. Germany must free itself from this pact with the NSA. In the future, it must write the rules for its cooperation with intelligence agencies itself - which may mean that certain information will no longer be shared. It would not be the end of cooperation between the two countries, particularly not on the issues of trade and foreign policy. Germany and America will have shared interests in certain matters. But currently, there's little room in the relationship for more than that.

With many of the Chancellor’s colleagues and electors urging her to hold firm, despite the fact that Greece’s banking system is teetering on the edge of collapse, Merkel might be tempted to play it safe, allowing the arguments of the continent’s finance ministries, central bankers, and tabloid newspapers to prevail. It is likely (although by no means certain) that Wolfgang Schäuble, Merkel’s hardline finance minister, is right when he suggests that a Greek exit from the eurozone, even a disorderly one, would not have a major economic impact on the rest of Europe. Why not wash her hands of the entire thing?

The answer, as Merkel herself has acknowledged in the past, is that a failure to resolve the crisis through mutual agreement wouldn’t merely be a rebuke to the Greeks and a failure of the eurozone: it would violate the ethos of commonality and solidarity on which the EU was built. To any European of Merkel’s generation, that would be a monumental failure.

After the Berlin Wall came down, the European Union, as it came to be known in 1993, provided a beacon and, eventually, a home for many former members of the Warsaw Pact, including the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia. Today, the EU has twenty-eight member states, nineteen of which are also members of the eurozone. Not since the days of the Holy Roman Empire has Europe seen such a multinational, multiethnic assemblage. And this one is a collection of democracies.

As a result, the systems, consisting of six launchers and two radars, reportedly carried out “unexplained” orders, the publication claimed, providing no further information on the kind of commands. Last month, Germany announced that it planned to replace Patriot missiles with MEADS (Medium Extended Air Defense System), a new air defense system developed by the USA, Italy and Germany. The cost of the move is estimated at more than €4 billion.

“Who actually has their finger on the trigger? This is a basic problem for partners of the US. If they buy US software, if they buy US military hardware, do they really have control of it?” Annie Machon, a former MI5 agent and whistleblower, wondered. “Now, any country that is serious about its national security, its national interests should surely be building its own weaponry. And it should be making sure it’s developing its own population knowledge base, its skills base – to be able to do that, too.”

A video released last week by ISIS in Libya and published by the Arabic-language Asharq al-Awsat shows the two perpetrators of a deadly attack on the Corinthia Hotel in January threatening that ISIS's newly-established presence in the country would be used as a springboard to invade Europe.

A top Libyan general was warning that ISIS could use Libya as a jumping-off point for a European invasion. General Khalifa Haftar, head of the Libyan army, warned that Islamic State (ISIS) terrorists running rampant in the north African state are set to infiltrate Europe and expand their reign of terror into the West.

During a meeting in Bonn, Germany, the World Heritage Committee criticized Israel for allegedly engaging in “illegal excavations” in the Old City; causing damage to structures on the Temple Mount; impeding restoration work on the Temple Mount; and damaging the “visual integrity” of the Old City with the construction of Jerusalem light rail.

The committee also cited a number of Israeli projects in and around the Old City and the Western Wall Plaza, which it called the “Buraq Plaza.” Israeli Foreign Ministry director-general Dore Gold said the UNESCO resolution ignores any Jewish connection to Jerusalem, and also fails to acknowledge Christianity’s ties to the city.

“In fact, the Jewish attachment to Jerusalem has survived from ancient to modern times,” Gold said. “The Jewish people restored their majority in Jerusalem in the mid-19th century. Their ancient synagogues were destroyed and desecrated by a coalition of invading armies in 1948, who ethnically cleansed the Old City of any Jewish presence.” Gold said Israel was all but standing alone “against the tide of intolerance” sweeping the Middle East.

“As the historical heritage sites of this area are being systematically destroyed by jihadist forces, such as the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, UNESCO’s adoption of utterly false allegations about Israeli archaeological practices is misplaced and hypocritical, at best,” he said. “The resolution is full of distortions and is totally disconnected from reality on the ground.”

Be Sociable, Share!

In the letter, the Temple organisations and groups said: “Due to the closure of Temple Mount [the Israeli name for Al-Aqsa Mosque], the Muslims’ prevention of Jewish entry, and their inability to protect the holy site, the citizens of Israel propose that Temple Mount be opened only to Jews during the Jewish holiday and closed to the Muslims who riot at the Jewish entrance”.

The letter came as a response to the Israeli police’s closure of al-Mughrabi Gate to settlers for the final ten nights of Ramadan, as a large number of Muslim worshipers flood the mosque compound. The police said that they closed the gate to avoid altercations arising as a result of settler incursions. Temple activists said in their letter to Netanyahu that “Your response to our demand will show that you have fulfilled your pre-election promise in front of everyone to build mechanisms allowing for Jews to pray at the Temple”.

So, instead of piling into sovereign debt of developed nations, traders are pulling their money out of those places as the Greek economy teeters on the brink of collapse, Puerto Rico talks about delaying some debt payments and China’s stock market suffers its biggest selloff since 1992.

Investors yanked $2.9 billion from European government bond funds last week, more than ever before, and pulled $699 million from short-term investment-grade US bond funds, Bank of America Corp and Wells Fargo & Co data show. While these assets have traditionally been havens during rocky periods, they look less appealing now after more than six years of unprecedented monetary stimulus that pushed yields to record lows.

Why is that a problem? Well, the European Central Bank’s bond-purchasing program this year sent yields so low (negative, in fact) that investors revolted, selling German debt in the face of some signs of economic growth and causing unprecedented volatility. In the US, the economy has improved enough that the Federal Reserve is planning to raise interest rates this year from virtually zero, where they’ve been since 2008.

So for now, markets have been relatively sanguine Monday as the ECB expanded the assets it would purchase as part of its stimulus, China’s government pledged further measures to support the region’s stock market and Puerto Rico stayed out of default for another day. After all, where will investors run? The government debt that used to be their safety net looks more and more treacherous.

Governor Alejandro García Padilla of Puerto Rico dropped a bombshell on debt holders a week ago by saying he wanted to restructure debt and postpone bond payments. He urged changes to US bankruptcy laws that currently exclude Puerto Rico.

Like US states, Puerto Rico cannot file for bankruptcy protection [Puerto Rico is a United States territory]. But Puerto Rico’s public entities do not have the ability of US municipalities to enlist Chapter 9 of the US bankruptcy code to restructure their debt. “As a first step, Congress should provide Puerto Rico the same authority that states already have to enable severely distressed government entities, including municipalities and public corporations, to restructure their debts under Chapter 9,” Clinton said in a statement given to Reuters.

Encyclicals are much more formal and significant than remarks made during mass. They are letters written by a pope and sent to bishops all around the world. In turn, the bishops are meant to disseminate the encyclical’s ideas to all the priests and churches in their jurisdiction, so that the pope’s teaching reaches every church-attending Catholic.

All this leads to the following question:

Where is Pope Francis’ encyclical concerning the rampant persecution that Christian — including many Catholics — are experiencing around the world in general, the Islamic world in particular?

To be sure, the pope has acknowledged it. On April 21, during mass held at Casa Santa Marta, Francis said that today’s church is a “church of martyrs.” He even referenced several of the recent attacks on Christians by Muslims (without of course mentioning the latter’s religious identity). The pope is acquainted with the reality of Christian persecution around the world. So why isn’t he issuing an encyclical about it? Such an encyclical would be very useful.

The pope could instruct bishops to acknowledge the truth about Christian persecution and to have this news spread to every Catholic Church. Perhaps a weekly prayer for the persecuted church could be institutionalized — keeping the plight of those hapless Christians in the spotlight, so Western Catholics and others always remember them, talk about them, and, perhaps most importantly, understand why they are being persecuted.

Once enough people are familiar with the reality of Christian persecution, they could influence US policymakers — for starters, to drop those policies that directly exacerbate the sufferings of Christian minorities in the Middle East. Whatever the effects of such an encyclical — and one can only surmise positive ones — at the very least, the pope would be addressing a topic entrusted to his care and requiring his attention.

Today, indigenous Christians who’ve been in the Middle East before Islam was conceived are being slaughtered, their churches burned to the ground, their women and children, enslaved, raped, and forced to convert. “ISIS” is the tip of the iceberg. Even in the West, statistics indicate that Islam is set to supersede Christianity, at least in numbers.

Yet no encyclical from Pope Francis on any of this. Instead, Francis deems it more fit to issue a proclamation addressing the environment and climate change. Whatever position one holds concerning these topics, it is telling that the pope — the one man in the world best placed and most expected to speak up for millions of persecuted Christians around the world — is more interested in speaking up for “the world” itself.

Yet here we are: if even the Catholic Pope does not deem the ongoing, systematic assault on Christianity and Christians a priority issue in need of its own encyclical, what can be expected from the average secular/atheistic politician in the West? The answer is before us: brutal persecution and slaughter of Christians on the one hand, and absolute indifference from the West on the other.

This treaty is the first legal document negotiated between the Holy See and the Palestinian state and as such, constitutes an official recognition. The trial and judgment will be on September 20th, 2015. If Pope Francis chooses to ignore the summons, he will be judged in absentia. The Sanhedrin sent a letter to Pope Francis in reaction to the Vatican’s recent support of the Palestinian Authority’s unilateral moves to declare themselves a nation, reported the Hebrew magazine Matzav Haruach on June 24.

The letter was signed, “The Secretariat of the Court of Mount Zion”. The authorized representatives of the High Court are Rabbi Yoel Schwartz, Rabbi Dov Levanoni, Rabbi Israel Ariel, Rabbi Daniel Stavsky, Rabbi Yehuda Edri, and Rabbi Dov Meir Shtein. The Sanhedrin has no political or legal status, and clearly has no authority over the Vatican. However, it is comprised of some of the greatest rabbis of the modern Jewish nation, men who have dedicated themselves to Torah, serving God and Israel. One of the main leaders behind the revival of the Sanhedrin is Rabbi Yoel Schwartz, well known for his advocacy in strengthening non-Jewish support for Israel.

The court’s rulings have the highest spiritual significance. The commandment to appoint judges is learned directly from the Bible (Exodus 18:13) and the present Sanhedrin is an effort to reestablish a tradition dating back to Moses.

Most significant, perhaps was a story of the Pope’s visit Caroline Glick told The Jerusalem Post. In a conversation with the Pope, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu mentioned that Jesus spoke Hebrew. Pope Francis corrected him, saying that Jesus spoke Aramaic. A flustered Netanyahu agreed that educated Jews at the time spoke Aramaic, but the language of the common people and the language Jesus preached in was Hebrew.

Reuters wrote of the exchange, noting that, “Modern-day discourse about Jesus is complicated and often political.” The report went on to explain, “Palestinians sometimes describe Jesus as a Palestinian. Israelis object to that.” Pope Francis embraced Arab leaders, but more significantly, he accepted Palestinian national status, precluding any negotiated peace process, and voiding the validity of Israel’s claim to their God-given homeland.

He Criticized the 'Cult of Money' Driving the World Financial System.

Francis’ emphasis on the poor, and a style that is more akin to that of a parish priest, albeit one with a billion parishioners, was transforming perceptions within weeks of his selection. In a speech to diplomats accredited to the Holy See in May 2013, Francis spoke of the need for more ethics in finance. “We have created new idols," he said. "The worship of the golden calf of old has found a new and heartless image in the cult of money and the dictatorship of an economy which is faceless and lacking any truly humane goal.”

He's Not Afraid to Criticize the Church ...

Six months into his papacy, Pope Francis sent shock waves through the Roman Catholic Church with the publication of his remarks that the church had grown “obsessed” with abortion, same-sex marriage and contraception, and that he had chosen not to talk about those issues despite criticism.

... Or to Change Its Structure and Leadership.

Francis took on a Vatican bureaucracy so plagued by intrigue and inertia that it contributed, numerous church officials now believe, to Benedict's resignation.

Francis replaced traditionalists with moderates as the church prepared for important debates about the Vatican's decision-making process and the nature of the family.

He Endorsed the 'State of Palestine'.

Pope Francis put himself directly into the collapsed Middle East peace process in May 2014, issuing an invitation to host the Israeli and Palestinian presidents for a prayer summit meeting at his apartment in the Vatican.

Francis took the unexpected step in Bethlehem, where he became the first pontiff ever to fly directly into the West Bank and to refer to the Israeli-occupied territory as the “State of Palestine.”

He Could Change the Church's Stance on Divorce.

Francis set in motion a high-level debate about whether the church could change its posture toward divorced people without altering a doctrine that declares marriage to be permanent and indissoluble.

It is a hot issue within the church. The battle lines are clear: Some high-level church officials, most notably the conference of German bishops, want the church to relax its rules.

He Is Holding Bishops More Accountable for Sex Abuse.

Francis approved the creation of a Vatican tribunal for judging bishops accused of covering up or failing to act in cases of child sexual abuse by priests, a step long demanded by victims in the more than three decades that the Roman Catholic Church has publicly dealt with the abuse scandal.

He Is Reviving Liberation Theology.

Francis cleared the path for the slain Archbishop Óscar Romero of El Salvador to become a saint. Thousands attended his beatification, the last step before sainthood, in May.

For years, Vatican critics of liberation theology and conservative Latin American bishops helped stall the canonization process for Archbishop Romero, even though many Catholics in the region regard him as a towering moral figure: an outspoken critic of social injustice and political repression who was assassinated during a Mass in 1980.

He Is Pushing for Action on Climate Change.

On June 18, Francis released his second teaching letter, known as an encyclical. Entitled "Laudato Si'," it called for a radical transformation of politics, economics and individual lifestyles to confront climate change. It attributed environmental destruction to apathy, the reckless pursuit of profits, excessive faith in technology and political shortsightedness.

The central bank continued its freeze on emergency liquidity assistance (ELA) after Germany issued a humiliating ultimatum to Greece, warning that the country would be cast adrift and left to go bankrupt unless it agreed to much deeper concessions than anything offered so far. Sigmar Gabriel, the German vice-chancellor, said the landslide rejection of EU austerity demands in the Greek referendum changed nothing, demanding that the Left-wing Syriza government must accept further belt-tightening without any prospect of debt relief if it wishes to remain in the eurozone.

“The final bankruptcy now appears imminent,” he said. The Greek leaders have been told that they have a deadline of Tuesday afternoon to come up with far-reaching proposals. The draconian terms followed Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras' move to rally five political parties behind a national unity declaration.

It called for “substantive talks” on debt relief, an investment blitz to fight mass unemployment and an immediate shot of liquidity for the country’s banking system. The show of unity marked the start of what increasingly looks like a national emergency government, though it may have come too late to prevent an implosion of the banking system and a rapid slide towards "Grexit" over coming days.

The only surprise was that anybody was surprised: a day later, Greece remains a sclerotic, over-regulated economy; it still requires tens of billions of euros in debt write-offs; its banks remain illiquid and shut (now at least until Thursday); the country will run out of essential supplies by the weekend at the very latest; and the eurozone remains torn about whether it should surrender to the Greeks or inflict an exemplary punishment upon them.

The Greek opposition has backed the government on its negotiation, demanding write-offs and debt restructuring as part of any new deal, while the French have been making dovish noises, but other than that we are where we were last week. Even the news that the US wants Greece to stay in the euro, presumably to prevent the country from falling under Russian influence, is merely a restatement of its existing position.

The real day of reckoning has merely been delayed. One of the European Central Bank’s jobs is to provide liquidity to the banking system when it needs it by handing over euros, while requiring this funding be guaranteed against the Bank of Greece’s assets. Given that commercial banks have almost run out of cash, and the run from panicked depositors, Greek banks are desperately reliant on this liquidity support.