KRAKOW, Poland, MARCH 5, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Accusations about espionage surrounding Pope John Paul II are not only false but also an attempt to hinder his canonization, said Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz.

Robert Fisk is a veteran war correspondent and one of the world's most experienced journalists covering the Middle East, interviewed on the New York radio station, "Democracy Now" by Amy Goodman

Extreme poverty in the US has reached its highest point in at least three decades, according to an analysis of Census Bureau figures by McClatchy Newspapers published February 22. The increase reflects the stark reality of declining living standards for the majority of the population in the so-called capitalist recovery of the past five years as well as during the period that preceded it.

The failure to get the new Ombudsman Commission up and running after more than a year since its inception is underlined by the absence of any independent mechanism now to enquire into the extraordinary case concerning the Clondalkin man, Derek O'Toole, who was killed by a car being driven by an off-duty Garda on Sunday morning last (4 March).

Women's rights remain a major issue, although progress has been made in some areas, there is growing inequality world-wide, as the report on the United Nation's Women's Treaty reveals.

• by Anup Shah
• Half the world — nearly three billion people — live on less than two dollars a day.
• The GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of the poorest 48 nations (i.e. a quarter of the world's countries) is less than the wealth of the world's three richest people combined.

World military expenditure in 2005 is estimated to have reached $1001 billion at constant (2003) prices and exchange rates, or $1118 billion in current dollars. This corresponds to 2.5 per cent of world GDP or an average spending of $173 per capita, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute in a report by Petter Stålenheim, Damien Fruchart, Wuyi Omitoogun and Catalina Perdomo

John Waters's neurosis is tedious. The neurosis over the feminisation of our world is drearily familiar. Less familiar, but certainly not novel, is a neurosis over religion, how modern society attempts to sideline religion, thereby marginalising and denigrating religious folk such as himself.

I first met Democratic presidential hopeful Senator Barack Obama almost ten years ago when, as my representative in the Illinois state senate, he came to speak at the University of Chicago. He impressed me as progressive, intelligent and charismatic. I distinctly remember thinking 'if only a man of this calibre could become president one day.'

“Bertie Sinks as house market is going under” roared the Sunday Independent today (Sunday, 4 March), followed by its breathless first paragraph: "A Sunday Independent opinion poll this weekend has shown a crack in the political infallibility of the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, who is adjudged by a large minority to have made a number of crucial tactical errors in recent months”.