For many, it is beyond established belief and irrational expectation that a Roman Catholic pontiff could say something like this: “If I speak of house, land and work, for some the pope is a Communist.” Speaking to the representatives of peoples’ movements, campesinos, homeless vagrants, cartoneros(pickers of discarded cardboard) and favela dwellers, an unprecedented and striking gathering of poor…
To spy or not to spy? Or rather, how much watchfulness is called for when we can expect that politically motivated loners among us suddenly become terrorists? After the attacks in Canada, there is no longer room for complacency. Although the magnitude of such attacks can hardly be compared with those of 9/11, it is…
It is open season on Christopher Columbus. A posse of would-be historians, human rights advocates, heralds of the politically correct, assorted nativists and native revanchists have found the perfect target in Columbus. Thus, Columbus Day is no longer an American festivity, it is the day of opprobrium that should be remembered for all the pain…
They are calling the fighting in Eastern Ukraine “the invisible war.” Some even talk of that clash as part of the “third world war.” Not long ago, there was a “cold war” but at least in that war there was no fighting and there was a sharp confrontation between two worlds: the West, led by…
There is an old saying that applies to beleaguered Secretary of State John Kerry: no good deed goes unpunished. To listen to his most rabid critics, the majority of them in Israel but quite a few in the U.S. as well, the head of American diplomacy committed the unpardonable sin of trying to arrange a…
At long last, a spokesman of the United Nations Office for Humanitarian Assistance said what his boss, U.N. Secretary General Ban ki-Moon, found so difficult to utter: “There is literally no safe place for civilians (in Gaza)”. More than 600 have been killed by the relentless Israeli bombardment from air, land and sea. Five hundred…
Surprise, surprise. Italy, the European nation that looked the sickest turned in the most balanced pro European result in the European parliamentary elections while France propelled a party, the way out rightist National Front. It spread an anti-European populist message and garnered an exceptional victory with 24.85 per cent of the votes. Its leader, Marine…
Secretary of State Kerry has touched the third rail in the seemingly impossible task of American diplomacy to bring peace to the Middle East. He used the word “apartheid” in an off the record meeting of the Trilateral Commission in trying to warn that without a two state solution Israel risked becoming an “apartheid state”.…
In the unfolding crisis in Ukraine, one thing is certain and Americans will have to live with it: no military solution is possible and the best way forward for the United States and its allies – meaning those in both the European Union and NATO – is to try and stabilize the situation by diplomatic…
The young Ukrainians who overthrew the pro-Russian President Yanukovich and waived the flags of the European Union deserve better than the illusion of European help in lieu of concrete support. But the illusion is still there that tomorrow Ukraine will be admitted to the European Union and that this will solve all the problems of…
Marino de Medici 