News

On Pentecost Sunday, Pope Francis hosted an unprecedented “prayer meeting” with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli President Shimon Peres (CNN, June 9, 2014).

A rapidly spreading viral disease has erupted in the sunny islands of the Caribbean. Victims of the chikungunya disease “suffer searing headaches, a burning fever and so much pain in their joints they can barely walk or use their hands. It’s like having a terrible flu combined with an abrupt case of arthritis.

Political struggles are threatening the internal cohesion of the European Union. Following the elections for the European Parliament, British Prime Minister David Cameron warned, “his country could leave the European Union if Luxembourg’s former premier Jean-Claude Juncker became the next European Commission president” (Agence-France Presse, May 31, 2014). Britain is not alone in its mistrust of Mr. Juncker, who is known to favor deeper integration for a more federated Europe.

“A treaty to launch the Eurasian Economic Union spanning Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus has been signed by the countries’ presidents in the Kazakh capital. The bloc will come into being next January” (Deutsche Welle, May 29, 2014). “Armenia and Kyrgyzstan have said that they want to join the union later. The Eurasian Economic Union will base its executive body in Moscow, a high court in Belarus and a top financial regulator in Kazakhstan” (ibid.).

This week in a visit to Israel and the West Bank, "Pope Francis inserted himself directly into the collapsed Middle East peace process… issuing an invitation to host the Israeli and Palestinian presidents for a prayer summit meeting at his apartment in the Vatican, in an overture that has again underscored the broad ambitions of his papacy" (New York Times, May 25, 2014).