 From Moscow to Sofia, Rome to Jerusalem, Christians of the Orthodox and Western faiths celebrated Easter Sunday, prayed for a better future and relished ancient rituals on the same day this year as their religious calendars coincided. The alignment of the Easter calendars, based on equinox and moon phases, occurs every few years, and this year's overlap made the narrow streets in the Holy Land especially crowded. At the Vatican, the Eastern Christian celebrations of Easter resounded across the steps of St. Peter's Basilica when black-robed clerics intoned a long chant from the Byzantine liturgy during Pope Benedict XVI's outdoor Mass for tens of thousands of faithful. St. Peter's Square was ablaze with color from tulips, tiger lilies, hyacinths and azaleas from the Netherlands. ...
http://www.cbsnews.com
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Editor - 13:10:00 04-08-07
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 Iraq PM visits Japan after Iran bars plane |
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has arrived in Japan after a marathon journey during which Iran refused to allow his plane to cross its air space.Maliki's plane landed at 11:30 p.m. (1430 GMT) on Sunday, an official at Haneda airport in Tokyo said, after an unplanned stop in Dubai and another break in Bangkok. Sadiq al-Rikabi, a senior adviser who is accompanying Maliki on a trip to Japan and South Korea, said the Iranian aviation authorities had ordered the plane to turn back after it entered Iranian air space at about 8:30 p.m. on Saturday. "We were obliged to fly to Dubai where we stayed for more than three hours to file a new (flight) plan," Rikabi said by telephone from Bangkok before the plane departed for Tokyo. ...
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=3020538
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Editor - 13:05:00 04-08-07
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| GOP favors police state |
Before any American casts a ballot for a Republican presidential candidate in the 2008 election, know this: from all indications, current potential Republican presidential candidates have little problem with the police state standard of imprisoning anyone – American citizens included – without trace of a charge or opportunity for review. Dubya has exercised it against US citizens & legal residents, including those arrested not on the “battlefield,” but in their homes. The Cato Institute’s President Ed Crane asked Mitt Romney if he believed the president should have the authority to arrest US citizens with no review. Romney said he “would want to hear the pros & cons from smart lawyers before he made up his mind.” Crane said that he had asked Giuliani the same question & the mayor said that he “would want to use this authority infrequently.” Does today’s Republican Party actually believe the president should have powers that not even the pre-revolution British king possessed? ...
http://www.wcmessenger.com/opinion/letters/EEZypuylVkaEXeogWm.php
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Editor - 12:53:00 04-08-07
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| Pope sees 'nothing positive' in Iraq |
In an Easter litany of the world's suffering, Pope Benedict XVI lamented that "nothing positive" is happening in Iraq & decried the unrest in Afghanistan & bloodshed in Africa & Asia. "How many wounds, how much suffering there is in the world," the pontiff told tens of thousands gathered Sunday at St. Peter's Square on what is Christianity's most joyful feast day. Benedict, delivering his traditional "Urbi et Orbi" Easter address from the central balcony of St. Peter's Basilica, read out a long list of troubling current events, saying he was thinking of the "terrorism & kidnapping of people, of the thousand faces of violence which some people attempt to justify in the name of religion, of contempt for life, of the violation of human rights & the exploitation of persons." "Afghanistan is marked by growing unrest and instability," Benedict said. "In the Middle East, besides some signs of hope in the dialogue between Israel & the Palestinian Authority, nothing positive comes from Iraq, ...
http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2007-04-08-pope-easter_N.htm?csp=34
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Editor - 12:42:00 04-08-07
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| Al-Sadr urges Iraqis to drive out U.S. forces |
The renegade cleric Muqtada al-Sadr urged the Iraqi army and police to stop cooperating with the United States and told his guerrilla fighters to concentrate on pushing American forces out of the country, according to a statement issued Sunday.The statement, stamped with al-Sadr's official seal, was distributed in the Shiite holy city of Najaf on Sunday — a day before a large demonstration there, called for by al-Sadr, to mark the fourth anniversary of the fall of Baghdad."You, the Iraqi army and police forces, don't walk alongside the occupiers, because they are your archenemy," the statement said. Its authenticity could not be verified.In the statement, al-Sadr — who commands an enormous following among Iraq's majority Shiites and has close allies in the Shiite-dominated government — also encouraged his followers to attack only American forces, not fellow Iraqis....
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2007-04-08-iraq_N.htm?csp=34
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Editor - 12:36:00 04-08-07
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| Stem cell vote set for Congress this week |
Stem cells will be at the top of the agenda for the U.S. Senate when it returns on Tuesday with supporters of the research hoping they can change the president's mind on the issue and opponents hoping to have a say about their stand.The Senate will consider two bills, one virtually identical to a bill vetoed by President George W. Bush last year that would have expanded and encouraged federal funding of human embryonic stem cell research. The other is a compromise measure worked out by Republicans Sen. Johnny Isakson of Georgia and Norm Coleman of Minnesota. It would encourage stem cell research on embryos that have naturally lost the ability to develop into fetuses, such as those that have died "naturally" during fertility treatments. The compromise bill also would support the creation of a bank of stem cells taken from amniotic fluid and placentas — two recently discovered potential sources. ...
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=3020537
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Editor - 12:34:00 04-08-07
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