Pope Francis warned Monday that "
humanity risks suicide" with the increased threat of nuclear confrontation between the U.S. and North Korea - a threat that will dominate a Vatican conference gathering 11 Nobel peace laureates, top U.N. and NATO officials and ambassadors from key countries.
The Vatican announced details of the Nov. 10-11 conference Monday, saying it was part of the Vatican's longstanding effort to promote a nuclear weapons-free world. Vatican spokesman Greg Burke denied that the conference, first reported by
La Repubblica newspaper, represented a mediation effort by Francis.
The pope has already urged Washington and Pyongyang to step back from the brink of war and accept mediation efforts by others, telling reporters in April that "a good part of humanity" would be destroyed if tensions on the Korean peninsula escalated.
On Monday, Francis visited staff of the Vatican office organizing the conference and warned that "humanity risks suicide" with nuclear war, Flaminia Giovanelli, undersecretary in the office, told Vatican Radio.
Comment: See also:
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More than a pointed insult to Palestinians, this is a concerted effort to prop up the ideological basis of the current world order, which is dying. Israel is as much British as it is American and 'Jewish'. It's a modern Western 'crusade' in the Middle East. The most successful one in the history of European/Western imperial efforts in fact.
Listen to British foreign secretary Boris Johnson explain that "British values found a home in Israel":
Israel's fate is tied to the fate of the US as world hegemon and the UK's as key enabler. So when powerful interests begin boycotting the US dollar in earnest, that's when we'll see effective boycotting of Israel, forcing regime change there and then, maybe, peace.