In recent months, tension and attacks have escalated throughout the Middle East region, leading to increasing instability.  A recent suicide attack in Afghanistan killed more than 44 people and showed the capabilities of an ever-tenacious Taliban. “Causing the biggest death toll in a single attack since 2011, the militants, strapped with explosives, stormed the governor’s compound….

The EU’s longest-serving Prime Minister, Jean-Claude Juncker, recently commented that  Europe has been a war-torn continent for well over a millennium and, “The demons of nationalism are threatening a complacent Europe just as they did on the eve of the First World War” (The Times, March 12, 2013). Reacting to hostilities generated by the European economic crisis, Mr.

President Obama has stated that the EU-U.S. Free Trade Agreement is his top foreign policy priority for his second term in office. Such an agreement would “constitute the largest bilateral economic partnership in the world” (Deutsche Welle, February 26, 2013).

Pope Francis, who is known for his ecumenical perspective, “reached out to Rome’s Jewish community at the very start of his pontificate, pledging to continue to strengthen the increasingly close ties between Catholics and Jews”—and his overtures were received with high hopes (Associated Press, March 16, 2013). As archbishop of Buenos Aires, then Cardinal Bergoglio was known as an “ally” of the Jews.

Two weeks ago, Dr. Tom Frieden, Director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, held a press conference “to ‘sound an alarm’ on the advance of CRE, a highly drug-resistant bacteria” (CDC.gov, March 5, 2013; NPR, March 7, 2013). Dr.