A quote from EU Observer, 28 April 2008

Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern has issued a stark warning on the consequences of rejecting the EU [Libon] treaty as the latest poll shows a narrowing gap between the yes and no side. A no vote would have "repercussions that would do immense damage to Ireland," and would be a "disaster for the country," he said on Sunday (27 April), according to the Irish Times.

A quote from LifeSite News, 3 April 2008

In December, Catholic author Frank M. Rega released Francis of Assisi and the Conversion of the Muslims; With Concise Biography of the Saint, a book that has received much praise for its biographical portrait of the renowned saint and its highly pertinent focus on St. Francis's relationship with Muslims of the time.

During the Fifth Crusade to Egypt, St. Francis of Assisi walked into a Muslim camp in order to preach Christianity and convert the sultan. Rega's new book recounts St. Francis's bold encounter with the sultan and other important events from the life of the man from Assisi some claim more closely imitated Jesus Christ than any other saint in history. […]

LifeSiteNews: Why did St. Francis of Assisi support the Fifth Crusade?

Frank Rega: Francis understood that the Fifth Crusade was part of an ongoing just war in response to Muslim invasions of Christian lands, which included many attacks against Italian city-states all along the peninsula over the course of centuries. For example, in the year 846, Rome itself was sacked by 11,000 Muslims, who desecrated the tombs of Sts. Peter and Paul.

A quote from the BBC, 13 February 2008

A project exploring a theory that Celtic was one of the major languages of Europe alongside Greek and Latin has received extra funding. Aberystwyth University's department of Welsh is tracing the roots of Celtic from which Welsh, Gaelic and Irish are derived. […] Professor Patrick Sims-Williams, who is leading the project, said the grant would enable Dr Alexander Falileyev, a scholar from St Petersburg working in Aberystwyth, to investigate Celtic in southern Romania and as far east as Galatia in Turkey.

A quote from Aftenposten, 28 April 2008

A new report by the [Norwegian] justice minister, Knut Storberget, shows that 99.2 percent of all serious robberies on the streets of Oslo are never solved. Last year, 11,033 crimes were reported, but just 80 were solved.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy says he will decide by late 2008 or early 2009 whether France will fully rejoin the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). It is one of the more important issues left unresolved at the recently concluded Bucharest Summit, where Sarkozy proclaimed: “I reaffirm here France’s determination to pursue the process of renovating its relations with NATO.”

General Charles de Gaulle withdrew France from NATO’s military structure in 1966 in protest over American dominance of the Atlantic Alliance. And more than 40 years later, the issue of American influence over European security remains a fundamental stumbling block to improved Franco-US relations.

A quote from The [London] Times, 28 April 2008

A British citizen [Nissar Hussein, 43] who converted to Christianity from Islam and then complained to police when locals threatened to burn his house down was told by officers to “stop being a crusader” [...]. The report says that he was subjected to a number of attacks and, after being told that his house would be burnt down if he did not repent and return to Islam, reported the threat to the police. It says he was told that such threats were rarely carried out and the police officer told him to “stop being a crusader and move to another place”. A few days later the unoccupied house next door was set on fire.

Some bits in the mosaic of our time are overlooked because we look for boulders. This column presents underrated issues/ideas that might deserve attention.
 
1. Allegedly, fair taxes reflect the assumed ability to pay. Generally, the criteria applied are, however, not economic put political. This makes taxation subject to pressures that might be devoid of much economic sense. At the same time, the principle is reversible. The ability to pay depends, ultimately, on the extent of the taxes levied. Therefore, high taxes ultimately reduce tax revenues

There are various drawbacks to an expat's life in Japan, starting with the big task of learning the redundancy-packed language and dealing with the cultural parochialism of the population – a parochialism in the intellectual sense only, for in the material sense the Japanese have mastered the best the West has to offer.

The Louvre, in its effort to be in tune with the times, has on view an exhibit of works by Belgian "artist" and stage director, Jan Fabre, who makes his fortune on scatophilia and exhibitionism, and whose contempt for quality has earned him praise from audiences and politicians alike.

I visited Moscow last week, my second visit to the Russian capital in seven months, and it is always an overwhelming experience. Moscow is a Moloch of a city, an unimaginably vast metropolis where everything is on a far greater scale than anywhere else in Europe. The buildings are massive, most streets have three lanes in each direction, the crowds are stupendous. The metro, which is famously the best in the world, transports teeming millions of people hither and thither; the escalators are constantly full as people flood up and down, and the trains are full even though they come every minute with the absolute regularity of a Swiss clock.