“Saudi media said some 350,000 forces from the Persian Gulf Arab states and a number of other countries will take part in the Saudi-led military maneuver in the area of Hafer al-Batin in northern Saudi Arabia” (Alalam News, February 9, 2016).

It was William Shakespeare who once put it so memorably: “To be, or not to be, that is the question”! Let’s for a moment reframe and reapply (with apologies!) the noble bard’s sentiment to 2016 politics in the land of his birth. Thus, we might ask, “To be, or to not to be, in the European Union; that is the question.”

Hollywood likes to make movies about gods, these days—whether it is the real God of the Bible, or some fictional being out of myths and legends. But how do these stories impact your beliefs?

Pope Francis became “the first pontiff to ever meet a patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, as the two Christian leaders set aside centuries of division in a historic encounter that was held in an unlikely setting: a room at the Havana airport” (New York Times, February 12, 2016).

Europe has two major threats on its borders: Russia and the Islamic State. In a recent action to confront the growing Russian threat, NATO decided to use multinational forces on its eastern borders.