On December 24th a migrant boat capsized in the Aegean Sea. It was the third accident involving migrants in Greek waters in less than a month, bringing the death toll of the three sinkings to 27. Three suspected smugglers were also arrested.
The Queen chose to pay tribute to childhood and its carefree nature, able to seek and find joy in all things. In a sober and discreet allusion, she recalled the original meaning of Christmas—namely the arrival of the baby Jesus in the manger: “[Children] teach us all a lesson—just as the Christmas story does—that in the birth of a child, there is a new dawn with endless potential.”
Mounting tensions between East and West have been a fixture in news reporting for the past few weeks, with the U.S. and Ukraine claiming Russia may be preparing an invasion of its neighbor. Russia has emphatically denied planning such a course of action and says it is Ukraine’s dalliance with NATO that is to be blamed for the escalation.
The challenge before us is to decide whether we believe in a universe created by a loving God who called us into being and who has destined us for eternal Communion with Himself, or whether we think we can only be ‘free’ by making ourselves like God and imposing our will on our body and the world?
Following disastrous local elections for his party in October, Zaev announced at the end of the month that he would resign as Prime Minister, though he didn’t formally submit his resignation until December 23rd. In the meantime, he led the coalition government through the threat of a no confidence vote to reinforce their slight majority in Parliament to 64 of the 120 seats. This avoided snap elections.
The agreement between Denmark and Kosovo will allow hundreds of criminal migrants with deportation orders to carry out their sentences in Kosovo instead of Denmark.
It is almost as if Don Simon Jubani was prepared to be a political prisoner. His collaborators and admirers describe him as “a nut with a hard shell,” “tough,” “passionate for the truth,” “uncompromising,” “provocative and justice-seeking,” and “highly intelligent though impatient.” He was an athletic priest (a former soccer star) who ministered to five mountainous rural parishes in the Mirdita region before he was arrested in 1963. The toughness comes across in print.
Growing capital formation and a rising standard of living are irrefutable evidence of how the Hungarian government is successfully putting its conservative values to work. With a distinctly conservative welfare state, Mr. Orbán has led his country out of a demographic slump. Marriage and birth rates are up noticeably, which is precisely what the Hungarian government was aiming for.
“Blanket booster programmes are likely to prolong the COVID-19 pandemic, rather than ending it,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters. He reasoned that until vaccination reached around the world, the virus would only have more opportunity to spread and mutate. “No country can boost its way out of the pandemic,” Tedros added.
Figures from a government report have shown that foreign nationals were responsible for 92% of thefts and nearly two-thirds of all sexual assaults carried out on the Paris regional public transportation system in 2020.
A major retrospective of the work of the Russian painter Ilya Repin (1844-1930) is being held for the first time in Paris at the Petit Palais from October 2021 to the end of January 2022.
The Enlightenment had its fair share of such confusion. It was a time of truly scientific pursuits; of Voltaire’s brave and sharp remarks; of Hume’s observant rationality. But it also produced Rousseau, whose romantic view of freedom inspired generations of rebels. They thought that only monarchs and nobles could be oppressive, for they had not yet seen tyranny of the people.
