News of the World
CHILE

Constitutional Court outlaws morning-after pill

SANTIAGO - The Constitutional Court of Chile has voted 5-4 to outlaw the distribution of the morning after pill. The final text of the ruling has yet to be released, as the justices are wrapping up their opinions.
SOUTH AMERICA

Newspaper: Virgin Mary Prevented Colombia War

BOGOTÁ - The Colombian daily El Tiempo has reported that the high tensions between Colombia on the one side and Venezuela and Ecuador on the other de-escalated after President Uribe of Colombia had a rosary said in the chapel of the Presidential Palace. The prayer specifically implored the protection of Mary as patroness of Colombia, Venezuela, and Ecuador.
AUSTRIA

Poll: Austrians desire EU treaty referendum

VIENNA - Sixty percent of Austrians want a referendum on the new EU constitutional treaty according to an OGM poll. 85 percent believe they have not been properly informed about the treaty. 47 percent expressed dissatisfaction with the EU, compared to the 44 percent who are happy with the EU.
ARGENTINA

Shrub fires choke Buenos Aires

BUENOS AIRES - The Argentine capital has been smoke-laden for nearly a week due to intentional fires started by farmers to clear shrubland north of the city.
SOUTH AFRICA

Armed gang raids Johannesburg court

JOHANNESBURG - An armed gang dressed as policemen invaded the office of a senior state prosecutor and stole documents relating to a number of pending high-profile criminal cases.
AUSTRALIA

For First Time, A Lady Viceroy for Australia

CANBERRA - The Prime Minister announced that the current Governor of Queensland, Her Excellency Ms. Quentin Bryce AC, is to be appointed Governor-General of Australia, the Queen’s official representative in the southerly kingdom.
TRANSYLVANIA

Inspired by Kosovo, Szeklers seek autonomy

SEPSISZENTGYÖRGY - A remnant of the Hapsburg empire deep in the heart of Romania, the enclave of Hungarian-speaking Szeklers takes no notice of the Western powers’ insistence that the recognition of Kosovo is a one-off which sets no precedent.
ZIMBABWE

Zim paper: military junta has taken over

HARARE - The Zimbabwean, an independent newspaper based in exile but with reporters on the ground in the troubled African nation, has reported that the ruling ZANU-PF party has effectively staged an auto-coup in association with the Army’s Joint Operations Command.
ARGENTINA

Farmers call truce in fight over taxes

BUENOS AIRES - The leaders of Argentina’s farmers’ unions met with President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner in the Casa Rosada for over three hours to discuss the President’s plans to levy high taxes on the agricultural export market.
HUNGARY

Rail strike hits Hungary

BUDAPEST - A ten-hour national railway strike in Hungary was compounded in the capital city by a subway, bus, and tram strike. The striking workers are seeking an 18% wage increase as well as protesting a 10% cut in services.
ROME

Atheists, Communists back Vatican’s moratorium idea

VATICAN - The Holy See is expanding an Italy-based campaign for a moratorium on abortion to the whole world and has found perhaps unexpected supporters in the cause: Communists, atheists, and others.
PORTUGAL

Doctors defy gov’t over abortion

LISBON - The Portuguese doctor who refused to change the code of medical ethics to allow for abortion has been reelected President of the Portuguese Medical Association against the wishes of the country’s socialist government.
THE NETHERLANDS

Netherlands Primate Installed at Utrecht

UTRECHT - His Excellency the Most Reverend Willem Jacobus Eijk was installed as Archbishop of Utrecht and Primate of the Netherlands in St. Catharine’s Cathedral, Utrecht on January 26, 2008.
VIETNAM

Vietnamese gov’t to give up seized church building

HANOI - A building which once housed the Pope’s representative in Vietnam but was confiscated by the country’s Communist government will be returned to the Church after a decades-long struggle.
BOHEMIA

Klaus is reelected by a slim margin

PRAGUE - Vaclav Klaus, the second (and current) President of the Czech Republic, was reeleected by a slim majority in the Chamber of Deputies.



The Other Modern

While most postwar architecture plunged into the dismal depths of modernism, under Francisco Franco, the architect Luis Moya showed that there is indeed another way: architecture as a continuation of history rather than a rejection of history.
Yet another victory for Italy’s Right as their controversial candidate is victorious in the race for Mayor of Rome.
The Café Central has been a meeting place for Budapest’s literary elite since it opened in 1887.
Editor’s note: It is sometimes said that a thin pope follows a fat one, and with a mere three articles, this edition of Norumbega is thinner than the seven articles of the previous fortnight.

Norumbega Archives


Norumbega No. 1
May 13, 2007


Norumbega No. 2
December 1, 2007


Norumbega No. 3
April 14, 2008


Norumbega No. 4
April 28, 2008


Around the Sphere

Was World War II just as pointless as Iraq?

It makes me feel like a traitor to write this. The Second World War was my religion for most of my life. Brave, alone, bombed, defiant, we, the British, had won it on our own against the most evil and powerful enemy imaginable, writes Peter Hitchens at The Mail on Sunday.

Whatever happened to the good old working man?

He got rubbed out of history as being no longer desirable or fashionable to the modern world. And who rubbed him out? His supposed best “comrade”, the Socialist Left - that’s who! So writes Tribunus at Roman Christendom.

Political myths

The Republicans (and the Democrats) have made the great error of believing their own propaganda, as well as relying on stereotype in stead of reality, writes Daniel Larison at Eunomia.

Spend more on Speaker’s House

Not enough money has been spent on the Speaker’s house at the Palace of Westminster, while whole wings and corridors of rooms have been done up like those of a five-star hotel: dead in feel and execrable in taste. So writes Christopher Howse at the Daily Telegraph.

Immigration: Worse than Powell predicted

Forty years on from his career-killing “Rivers of Blood” speech, it is obvious that Enoch Powell was both right and wrong, writes John Laughland in his “Controversies” column at the Brussels Journal.

How the EU conspires against the people

A leaked diplomatic memo from Dublin to Whitehall shows just how governments are conspiring to rig the deck when Ireland votes on the new EU constitutional treaty, from the Brussels Journal.

Is the idea of constitutional monarchy heretical?

The eighth-century teaching of Pope St. Zacharias gives us pause for thought, writes Aelianus at Ex Laodicea.

Bin Laden’s days are numbered

The conviction is growing in intelligence circles that Osama’s days are numbered, and many within the counterterrorism community are beginning to question some basic assumptions about al-Qaeda and how great a threat it continues to represent, writes Philip Giraldi at @TAC.

Two views of a subject

The Vatican Observatory is getting a much-needed investment in terms of repairing buildings and expanding facilities. Fr. Tim Finigan is astonished at the way the media have managed to spin this one, over at The Hermeneutic of Continuity.

Catholics have abandoned the white working class

A BBC survey suggests that white working-class people feel ignored by politicians . They are certainly ignored by the mainstream churches in this country – and especially by the Catholic Church, writes Damian Thompson at Holy Smoke.

Jefferson Davis, the Pope, and the Crown of Thorns

When the former president of the Confederacy sat imprisoned after the Civil War, the Union treated him shamefully, denying him even basic privacy. One man, however, accorded him due respect: Blessed Pope Pius IX, writes Tribunus at Roman Christendom.

Rebel with a cause

The diaries of Dorothy Day, co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement, are published this month. Her publisher and editor, Robert Ellsberg, recalls her life, with its mix of traditional piety and radical politics in The Tablet.