News

“The Ukraine crisis has dramatically worsened relations between NATO and Russia. With cooperation on nuclear security now suspended and the lack of a ‘red telephone,’ experts at the Munich Security Conference warn any escalation in tensions could grow deadly” (Der Spiegel, February 13, 2015).

“Copenhagen police shot and killed on Sunday morning (15 February) a man suspected to have carried out two terror attacks in the Danish capital over the weekend. ‘Once again Europe is shocked by what appears to be another brutal terrorist attack targeted at our fundamental values and freedoms, including the freedom of expression’” (EU Observer, February 15, 2015). The Danish-born Palestinian gunman opened fire on a conference about “freedom of expression” and later on a Jewish synagogue.

In the last few days ISIS has burned 45 people to death in a western Iraqi town (Daily Mail, February 18, 2015), beheaded 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians in Libya (Mail Online

“The Copenhagen Consensus Center… puts the global costs of violence, excluding conflicts, at $9.5 trillion a year, equivalent to around 11 per cent of world GDP” (New Scientist, February 9, 2017). Encouragingly, “VIOLENT crime is on the retreat in most advanced economies. The latest US figures, for 2013, show that murder rates are lower now than in the early 1960s. In the same year, homicides in Japan hit a post-war low.

“In a unanimous decision, The Supreme Court Friday struck down as unconstitutional the nation’s contentious century-old law against assisted suicide” (National Post, February 6, 2015). Justices cited a patient’s “right to life, liberty and security” and to avoid “physical or psychological pain,” as well as their right to “control the method, timing and circumstances of their death” (ibid.).