There are some interesting events in the news that seem to tie in with the conjunction of Mars (aggression) and Mercury (communication) which are both in the sign of Libra where they seem to be opening new lines of communication. Venus, the ruler of Libra and the goddess of relationships, is in an exact opposition with Uranus, the planet of surprising developments. A few days ago I posted on the possibility of this Mars in Libra to forge new alliances and the addition of the Venus/Uranus influence brings surprises such as what we have in today’s news:

• The 118 state Non-Aligned Movement, which includes some of the most virulent opponents of the US government, met today in Cuba for two days of talks including of course the brother of Fidel Castro of Cuba and the leaders of avowed enemies of the US such as Iran and Venezuela. Other countries represented there include tepid allies of the US such as Columbia and Saudi Arabia but the topic of the talk so far is the battle against American world domination.
• Bob Ney forged a new alliance with the federal court system as he became the first congressman to plead guilty to accepting tens of thousands of dollars worth of bribes in the Abramoff scandal.
• A new alliance between Democrats and Republicans is being forged over President Bush’s attempt to legalize conduct that can easily be described as torture.

The Mars/Mercury combination heats up (Mars) any discussion (Mercury), and we are seeing that also in the case of the Pope’s medieval comments about “historical Muslim violence” and the heated reaction to those comments. The Sun is approaching a square to Pluto over the next couple of days and I would expect things to heat up a little more before they settle down. Chiron is in a trine to the Mars/Mercury combination which lends hope to the possibility that out of the conflict will come some sort of resolution.