Jaeger (1997), Werner Wilhelm, Aristotle: Fundamentals of the history of his development, Oxford University Press 1997 Jacket: '"Aristotle was the first thinker to set up along with his philosophy a conception of his own position in history; he thereby created a new kind of philosophical consciousness, more responsible and inwardly complex. He was the inventor of the notion of intellectual development in time . . . ." In this classic study, Professor Jaeger profoundly altered the general view of Aristotle among philosophers and classical scholars. He showed that Aristotle was not uncompromisingly opposed to Plato, that he developed gradually, applying step by step his particular genius to the problems of his age.' 
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Sacks (2015), Jonathan, Not in God's Name: Confronting Religious Violence, Schocken Books Inc 2015 ' In his remarkable book, Sacks argues that believers must face the painful facts. He is careful to document that wars of religion are not unique to Islam. He believes that to persuade religious people of the Abrahamic faiths, arguments against religious violence must be rooted in theology, not in secular ideas alone. E. J. Dionne Jr. "The Washington Post  
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Agencies (2025-02-16), Zelensky blocks Trump-led deal on rare minerals as it ‘does not protect’ Ukraine, ' Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Saturday he blocked a Donald Trump-led deal that would give the US access to vast amounts of Ukrainian natural resources as it lacked “security guarantees” for Kyiv and “does not protect us”. [. . . ] “The agreement is signed at the ministerial level. But I am the president and I will have an impact on the quality of this document. That is why I did not allow ministers to sign the agreement because it is not ready,” Zelensky told journalists at the Munich Security Conference. “In my opinion, it does not protect us. It is not ready to protect us, our interests,” he added. “It must be written out legally correctly, correctly, and it is an investment … If all this is connected with security guarantees. I don’t see this connection in the document yet,” he said. Ukraine says it won’t accept any US-Russia peace deal reached without Kyiv Zelensky set out the contours of a deal last week, unfurling a map showing numerous mineral deposits and saying he was offering a mutually beneficial partnership to develop them jointly and not “giving them away”. The minerals in question would include rare earth varieties, as well as titanium, uranium and lithium among others. Trump, who has not committed to continuing vital military aid to Ukraine, has said he wants US$500 billion in rare earth minerals from Kyiv and that Washington’s support needs to be “secured”.' back

Agencies (25_02_17), Zelensky says Ukraine won’t be part of US-Russia talks, can’t accept deals made without Kyiv, ' Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Monday his country will not take part in US-Russia talks this week on ending the war and will not accept the outcome of the talks if Ukraine doesn’t take part. Speaking to journalists on a conference call from the United Arab Emirates, Zelensky said his government had not been invited to Tuesday’s planned talks in Saudi Arabia. He said they would “yield no results,” given the absence of any Ukrainian officials, adding in comments carried by the Interfax-Ukraine news agency that the country “cannot recognise any things or any agreements about us without us. And we will not recognise such agreements.” Ukraine wasn’t invited, which “makes the situation dangerous” because talks “should be held first with Ukraine to hear our position,” Ihor Brusylo, deputy chief of Zelensky’s office, said in an interview with Bloomberg TV on Monday. “The main thing is to avoid this back door, backdealing. It doesn’t help the situation.” Zelensky said he would travel to Turkey on Monday and to Saudi Arabia on Wednesday, but that his trip to the Arab nation was unrelated to the planned US-Russia talks. Top Russian officials will hold talks with US counterparts on restoring ties, negotiating a peaceful settlement to the war in Ukraine and preparing a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump, the Kremlin said on Monday. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Putin’s foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov will fly to the Saudi capital later in the day to take part in the talks set for Tuesday. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio will lead the US delegation. Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff told Fox News Sunday that he and national security adviser Mike Waltz also will take part in the talks. back

Aida Touma-Sliman (2025_02_16), Opinion | Trump and Netanyahu Have Devised the Crime of the Century, ' Last week, U.S. President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presented an imperialist horror show. An American and an Israeli, each with his own criminal indictments, decided to determine the future of the Palestinian people. The plan for evacuating the residents of the Gaza Strip to other countries is a war crime, and it being introduced by the president of the United States is a death sentence for international law. It's the crime of the century. - Advertisement - Trump talks about Gaza like a capitalist who wants to develop real estate. He called it a demolition zone, as it has always been, and invented plans for building a city of the future without its original residents. Trump wishes to take over the property with financial support from the gulf states through a regional peace agreement in an effort to maximize his profit and control. When Trump stood next to Netanyahu, who destroyed almost all of the Gaza Strip, and talked about America taking over of the area, it's hard not to think about Netanyahu as his demolition contractor. Israel's war of destruction was directed exactly to this end: to make the Gaza Strip uninhabitable and to find someone who would accept the evacuees. Many in the government and military said this, one just needed to listen. [. . .] We, Jewish and Arab peace activists on the left, will not give up and will not remain silent. We will oppose Kahanism and imperialism. We will oppose the crime of the century as well as the daily crimes of the occupation and apartheid. We will continue to insist there is only one solution for Israel, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank: an independent Palestinian state alongside the State of Israel. Aida Touma-Sliman is a Knesset member with Hadash-Ta'al.' back

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard (2025_02_17), Revealed: Trump’s confidential plan to put Ukraine in a stranglehold , ' Donald Trump’s demand for a $500bn (£400bn) “payback” from Ukraine goes far beyond US control over the country’s critical minerals. It covers everything from ports and infrastructure to oil and gas, and the larger resource base of the country. The terms of the contract that landed at Volodymyr Zelensky’s office a week ago amount to the US economic colonisation of Ukraine, in legal perpetuity. It implies a burden of reparations that cannot possibly be achieved. The document has caused consternation and panic in Kyiv. The Telegraph has obtained a draft of the pre-decisional contract, marked “Privileged & Confidential’ and dated Feb 7 2025. It states that the US and Ukraine should form a joint investment fund to ensure that “hostile parties to the conflict do not benefit from the reconstruction of Ukraine”. back

Andrei Soldatov & Irina Borogan (2025_02_18), What Putin really wants , ' U.S. President Donald Trump’s first steps toward getting his deal in Ukraine were met with a storm of emotions in Moscow. Never before has Russian media cited its Western counterparts so extensively. After all, for the last three years, Russian society was told to turn away from the treacherous, decadent West and look toward the East — namely, China and North Korea. And yet, even the country’s most influential daily Kommersant — typically known for its reasonable and rational tone — ran the headline “Putin’s triumph” in its review of international coverage surrounding Trump’s phone call with the Russian president. [. . .] But there is a reason for this sudden shift. The messaging from Washington now aligns with the Kremlin’s worldview: Trump, the powerful American godfather, will sit across from the crime baron Vladimir Putin — less mighty than before but still getting stronger — and they will decide what to do with Ukraine. The Kremlin sees Trump’s move as a correct response to Moscow’s demand to respect Putin as an equal partner, as well as public recognition that Ukraine and Europe are to have a subordinate role in negotiations. It believes that Europe — liberal and hypocritically fixated on rule of law — must adjust to its true place in this brave new world: that of a supporting actor in the drama of strongmen. There’s no room for international law in this primitive 19th-century-like narrative. And Ukraine’s role is reduced to that of a client or failed state on the U.S. payroll, faced with the reality of repaying the military and economic support it received during the war and granting the U.S. rights to extract its natural resources, including rare earth metals — all fully understandable from Moscow’s perspective. [. . .] But while the Russian leader may see himself as more experienced and skilled in this kind of tactical game, in reality, he’s much more susceptible to sudden emotional outbursts. Russia has always defined itself through its relationship with the West — and since the Cold War, its relationship with the U.S. in particular. And what Russia always demands is respect. Lest we forget, Putin began his presidency in 2000 by seeking just that from then-U.S. President George W. Bush. Deep inside, he is always looking for recognition from Washington.' back

Geeta Pandey (2025-02_16), India anger as judge frees man accused of raping wife who then died, ' An Indian court's ruling that a man's forced "unnatural sex" with his wife is not an offence has led to huge outrage and sparked renewed calls for better protections for married women. The controversial order has also brought back into the spotlight the issue of marital rape in a country which has stubbornly refused to criminalise it. Earlier this week, a high court judge in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh set free a 40-year-old man who was convicted by a trial court in 2019 of rape and unnatural sex with his wife, who died within hours of the alleged assault. The lower court had also found the man guilty of "culpable homicide not amounting to murder". He was sentenced to "rigorous imprisonment for 10 years" on each count, with all the sentences to run concurrently. But on Monday, the High Court's Justice Narendra Kumar Vyas acquitted the man of all charges, saying that since India did not recognise marital rape, the husband could not be considered guilty of non-consensual sex or any non-consensual unnatural sexual act. The judgement has been met with anger, as activists, lawyers and campaigners renew their calls to criminalise marital rape in India. "To watch this man walk away is unacceptable. This judgement may be correct legally, but it is ethically and morally abhorrent," said lawyer and gender rights activist Sukriti Chauhan.' back

George F. Kennan (1947), The Sources of Soviet Conduct, ' But there is ample evidence that the stress laid in Moscow on the menace confronting Soviet society from the world outside its borders is founded not in the realities of foreign antagonism but in the necessity of explaining away the maintenance of dictatorial authority at home. Now the maintenance of this pattern of Soviet power, namely, the pursuit of unlimited authority domestically, accompanied by the cultivation of the semi-myth of implacable foreign hostility, has gone far to shape the actual machinery of Soviet power as we know it today. . . . But least of all can the rulers dispense with the fiction by which the maintenance of dictatorial power has been defended. For this fiction has been canonized in Soviet philosophy by the excesses already committed in its name; and it is now anchored in the Soviet structure of thought by bonds far greater than those of mere ideology.' back

George F. Will (2025-02_17), A spurious U.S. ‘realism’ about Ukraine flirts with catastrophe, ' Last week in Munich, a city closer to Ukraine than Washington is to Atlanta, Vice President JD Vance told Europeans that the principal security threat they face is insufficient free speech, exemplified particularly by the refusal of other German political parties to govern in coalition with Alternative for Germany, a fascist-adjacent party sympathetic to Ukraine’s would-be executioner, Vladimir Putin. Vance spoke two days after President Donald Trump’s 90-minute phone conversation with Putin. The day of that call, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth declared it “unrealistic” to hope for peace negotiations through which Ukraine regains pre-2014 territories (before Russia’s seizure of Crimea) or gains NATO membership. Perhaps those two outcomes are unattainable. But Kaja Kallas, Estonia’s former prime minister and the European Union’s foreign policy chief, tartly questioned the realism of giving the Russians “everything that they want even before the negotiations have been started.”[. . .] Putin is waging what Johns Hopkins scholar Hal Brands calls (in his new book, “The Eurasian Century”) “a quasi-genocidal war.” Barbarian regimes (see “‘Be Cruel’: Inside Russia’s Torture System for Ukrainian POWs,” the Wall Street Journal, Feb. 10) will be barbaric until stopped. But a revanchist and expansionist Russia worries Europeans more than it worries Donald Trump. “Look,” he said on Feb. 3 regarding Europe, “we have an ocean in between. They don’t. It’s more important for them than it is for us.” But the ocean was there in 1941. And someone should explain to Trump the acronym “ICBM.”' back

Henry J. Farrell and Abraham L. Newman (2025_02_17), This Is How Trump Will Smash the Machine of U.S. Economic Power, Professors Farrell and Newman are the authors of “Underground Empire: How America Weaponized the World Economy.” ' Over the past two decades, America has built an unprecedented arsenal of economic security tools that have anchored U.S. foreign policy. Republican and Democratic administrations together developed a shared understanding of the world, and how best to pursue America’s interests. Economic security officials worked across administrations, gradually developing grand ambitions of a global order founded on financial sanctions, export controls and development of crucial technologies. Each new administration built up the economic weapons it inherited from the last and encouraged its successors to keep building the structures of American economic power. We are about to find out what happens when those structures are controlled by a disruptive administration — and what happens when that administration inherits the weapons without the accompanying sense of responsibility. There are still traditional economic-security technocrats in the new Trump administration, but they are just one faction, vying with others — crypto fans, Wall Street boosters and America Firsters. With this jockeying as well as President Trump’s social media beefs with other countries, we may be looking at the beginning of a world in which countries disentangle themselves from U.S. dependence at the same time that our machinery of power begins rusting from within. [. . . ] Few outsiders paid attention to what seemed like an arcane realm of dull technicalities. Only specialists understood that the United States was slowly reshaping the global economy around its security interests, piling action upon action to construct a vast machinery of coercion. [. . . ] But crypto’s interests are at odds with U.S. financial and technological power. Crypto makes it easy for rogue states to move money across borders and promises that technological decentralization can provide alternatives to government power. Traditional banks worry about the possible fallout from crypto services’ lackadaisical approach to money laundering and enforcing financial sanctions. [. . . ] Countries and businesses will likely pay Mr. Trump his tribute, or pretend to, to avoid tariffs, sanctions and export controls. But they will also know the United States is no longer entirely reliable. They are likely to be hurt not only by Mr. Trump’s deliberate actions but also by the foreign-policy mistakes that proliferate as America’s administrative state withers from within. We are likely to see the erosion of the markets that underpin U.S. strength, as one-way tributes displace two-sided relationships in a multilateral world. Global businesses will diversify their supply chains, applying the same risk calculations to American exposure that they once applied to dealings with tinpot kleptocrats.' back

John J. Hopfield (2024_12_08), Nobel Lecture: Physics is a point of view, ' John J. Hopfield delivered his Nobel Prize lecture "Physics is a point of view" on 8 December 2024 at the Aula Magna, Stockholm University. He was introduced by Professor Ellen Moons, Chair of the Nobel Committee for Physics. … back

Khanyisile Ngcobo (2025_02_18), Even in his final seconds of life, first gay imam pushed boundaries, ' The 57-year-old was shot dead in what appeared to be a hit on Saturday in the small coastal city of Gqeberha. Initial reports that Cape Town-based Hendricks had been in Gqeberha to perform the wedding ceremony of a gay couple have been dismissed as untrue by his Al-Gurbaah Foundation. "He was visiting Gqeberha to officiate the marriages of two interfaith heterosexual couples when he was tragically shot and killed," it said in a statement. It is unclear why the couples had asked Hendricks to oversee their ceremonies, but it suggests that he was pushing the boundaries, even in the last seconds of his life. Traditional imams in South Africa rarely, if ever, perform the marriage of a Muslim to a non-Muslim - something that Hendricks clearly had no issue with. He had, according to a faith leader that the BBC spoke to, conducted one such marriage ceremony and was on his way to conduct the next one when he was gunned down in his vehicle. [. . . ] Then in 2006, South Africa became the first country in Africa to legalise same-sex marriage. Once in a heterosexual marriage with children, Hendricks came out as gay in 1996 - and, according to The Conversation, he later broke another taboo by marrying a Hindu man. He then spearheaded the formation of The Inner Circle as "an underground social and support group" for queer Muslims.' back

Lena Surzhko Harned (2025_02_20, In pushing for Ukraine elections, Trump is falling into Putin-laid trap to delegitimize Zelenskyy, ' Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was shut out of the discussions concerning the future of his country, which took place in Saudi Arabia on Feb. 18, 2025. In fact, there were no Ukrainian representatives, nor any European Union ones – just U.S. and Russian delegations, and their Saudi hosts. The meeting – which followed a mutually complimentary phone call between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin just days earlier – was gleefully celebrated in Moscow. The absence of Ukraine in deciding its own future is very much in line with Putin’s policy toward its neighbor. Putin has long rejected Ukrainian statehood and the legitimacy of the Ukrainian government, or as he calls it the “Kyiv regime. While the U.S. delegation did reiterate that future discussions would have to involve Ukraine at some stage, the Trump administration’s actions and words have no doubt undermined Kyiv’s position and influence. To that end, the U.S. is increasingly falling in line with Moscow on a key plank of the Kremlin’s plan to delegitimize Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian government: calling for elections in Ukraine as part of any peace deal. [. ..] What Putin needs for this plan to work is a willing partner to help get the message out that Zelenskyy and the current Ukraine government are not legitimate representatives of their country – and into this gap the new U.S. administration appears to have stepped. [. . .] ”In short, in seemingly echoing Russian talking points on an election being a prerequisite for peace, the U.S. puts the Ukrainian government in an impossible position: Agree to the vote and risk internal division and outside interference, or reject it and allow Moscow – and, perhaps, Washington – to frame Ukraine’s leaders as illegitimate and unable to negotiate on the behalf of their people.' back

Ling Xin (2025_02_18), Chinese scientists make brain-computer co-evolution possible for the first time, ' Chinese researchers say they have developed the world’s first two-way adaptive brain-computer interface (BCI), boosting efficiency 100-fold and moving the technology a step closer towards practical everyday use. In a study published on Monday by Nature Electronics, the scientists said the system could eventually be integrated into portable and wearable BCI devices, making it suitable for consumer and medical applications. Unlike traditional BCIs, which decode the brain’s signals, the breakthrough enables the brain and device to learn from each other, delivering a stable performance over time, according to the Tianjin University and Tsinghua University researchers. “Our work is the first to introduce the concept of brain-computer co-evolution and successfully demonstrate its feasibility, marking an initial step towards mutual adaptation between biological and machine intelligence,” said co-author Xu Minpeng from Tianjin University. BCI technology dates from the 1970s when scientists first showed that brain signals could be recorded and translated into commands, allowing users to control machines with their thoughts. While early research focused on helping people with disabilities, today’s BCIs have expanded into a wide range of applications, from wearable devices for gaming to hands-free drone control. However, the one-directional nature of the technology has meant that BCI devices have been unable to provide feedback that helps the brain adjust and improve control over time. This limitation often causes performance to decline over extended use. “A major challenge in advancing BCI technology is achieving mutual learning between the brain and the machine,” Xu said.' back

Massimo Faggioli (2025_02_19), Donald Trump captured American Catholicism — and the ramifications are being felt around the world, ' American Catholicism is no longer just a refuge for socially conservative ideologues as it was between the 1990s and the early 2000s. It is now a brand, for sale to the highest bidder. Consider Vice President J.D. Vance, who arrived on the political scene thanks to masters of the universe such as Elon Musk and Peter Thiel, and converted to Catholicism on the road to Damascus of the new ressourcement Thomism — a Thomism and a ressourcement very different from that of the theologians of Vatican II like Yves Congar and Marie-Dominique Chenu. [. . .] Catholics for Trump, including those behind the “Project 2025”, are heirs of the patriarch of modern American Catholic conservatism, William F. Buckley, Jr., with his visions of society and race, of anti-Europeanism and isolationism, of the “procreative society”. Today these ideas are expressed in a crude and populist form, not elitist and refined against the masses. But there is nonetheless a genealogy of the recovery of anti-liberal Catholicism that goes back to Buckley and his followers, as well as to his nineteenth-century sources such as Edmund Burke’s reflections on the French Revolution. [. . .] And then there are the blatant lies that characterise much of the “Christian” propaganda for Trump since 2015. A façade of pro-Christian culture is used to pass off, misrepresent or justify virtually everything from his supposed pro-life beliefs, to his contempt for science, to his attacks on political opponents as “godless communists”. There are members of the Catholic hierarchy who have subjugated themselves to Trumpism and the goals of his campaign, going so far as to claim that former President Joe Biden was not a true Catholic — and in so doing so have embraced the manipulation of the word typical of this era. [. . .] In America, there is still a hunger for spirituality, community and God that is nurtured and sustained through politics. Trump’s populist movement is not only a response — albeit a simplistic, violent, vindictive one — to America’s economic and social uncertainties. It is also a response to that search for meaning that emerges from a world order that is visibly on the ropes. back

Michael Gerson (2015_05_11), The best of both worlds? How Australia’s unique democracy evolved , ' We are social beings. So, within every group, decisions must be made about how to live together, preserving wellbeing and relations with others. Historically, those decisions were made by tribal leaders, or monarchs and their courts. Yet the ancient states of Greece, needing collective commitment to the battles in which they engaged, realised it would be generated by giving the people, the demos, a voice in what had to be done. From this issued the idea of “democracy”: a particular form of social organisation in which citizens participate in the decisions that affect them. Small communities can practise direct democracy: people meet and decide, or vote, on decisions concerning them all. In large modern societies, it operates instead as representative democracy within nation-states: citizens elect representatives to act for them in a forum where collective policies are determined. [. . . ] Australia is a settler society, created by immigrants from Europe from 1788 onwards. They settled on a continent inhabited by one of the oldest civilisations on earth: 131 distinct language groups, girdling the entire continent, with means of land management, harbouring resources, and investment in ways of living and spiritual connection with their own country over millennia. European settlers knew nothing of this. They saw First Nations people as primitive tribes, could not understand how they operated collectively, and failed to recognise the Indigenous economy. [. . . ] The result, inevitably, was conflict. Attempts on each side to come to terms were confounded by incommensurate ways of understanding the world. Frontier wars ensued. It was an uneven battle, propelled by increasing numbers of settlers. Dispossession and massacres of Indigenous peoples stretched right through to the 20th century. The settler state was established at the high point of “the age of revolution”, when battles against monarchical control (the American Revolution) and hereditary elites (the French revolution) spurred the adoption of this new form of democracy: government “of the people, by the people and for the people” on one hand, and “liberty, equality and fraternity” on the other. [.. .] Australia was a striking incarnation of modern social organisation. It was historically perhaps the most developed instance of the harnessing of democracy with bureaucracy, for two reasons. First, its settlement and development were documented in detail. Instructions to and reports from colonial governors, the manifests of convict ships, the documentation of immigrant arrivals — all were resources for those managing colonial development. Second, as population increased, colonial governments needed to raise loans from the mother country to develop the infrastructure necessary for private enterprise to flourish. Public officials became the essential intermediaries in what Noel Butlin called “colonial socialism”. Alan Davies saw these historical contingencies as the origin of an Australian “talent for bureaucracy”.' back

Ne Zha 2 - Wikipedia, Ne Zha 2 - Wikipedia, ther free encyclopedia, ' Ne Zha 2 was released in theaters in China on 29 January 2025 (the Chinese New Year Day). Having grossed US$1.3 billion on a US$80 million budget, it is currently the highest-grossing film of 2025, the fourth-highest-grossing animated film, the highest-grossing film in China, and the highest grossing non-English language film of all time. On the 11th day of its release, Ne Zha 2 became the highest grossing film in a single box office territory, surpassing the $936 million grossed by Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015) in North America, which itself had taken 165 days to reach that mark. Ne Zha and Ne Zha 2 both took five years to produce. More than 4,000 people participated in the animation of this film, more than double the 1,600 people in the first film. Producer Liu Wenzhang said that the number of characters in this film is three times that of the previous film. The previous film had more than 1,800 shots, while this film has more than 2,400 shots, including more than 1,900 special effects shots.' back

Owen Jones (2025_02_20), Let’s be clear – the US never had moral supremacy. With Trump, it’s not even pretending any more, ' The US no longer bothers to dress up its ruthless perceived self-interest in the garbs of high-minded principles. This is a major strategic mistake. These mythical moral claims helped win consent or at least acquiescence from the US public for the global projection of power: Hollywood’s presentation of the US as “the good guys” taps into a self-perception that is important for many Americans. These claims also beguiled significant numbers of people around the globe, offering up natural allies for the US in each continent. That is all dead now. And so all we are left with is a floundering superpower with depleted military prowess, a broken economic model, a crisis-ridden democracy and an openly thuggish demeanour. The fall of US power is anything but dignified.' back

Patrick J Ryan (2013_06_21), Divided by Ancient Disputes: Sunnis, Shi'ites and the Future of the Middle East, 'Americans wonder what is going on in the Middle East these days, especially the civil and religious strife that is tearing Syria apart – and, potentially, Lebanon and Iraq along with it. Modern Christians, even Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland, have little appetite for going to battle over religious differences. Within the House of Islam, however, ancient antagonisms between Sunni and Shi‘ite Muslims are alive and well; indeed, they are currently devastating the heartland of the religion. What is the source of the division between Sunnis and Shi‘ites, and how prevalent is this bifurcation in the whole Islamic world, a community of more than 1.6 billion people? - See more at: http://www.commonwealmagazine.org/divided-ancient-disputes#sthash.rMVr4yWw.dpuf' back

Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks (2015), May 2015 Faith Angle Forum: “A Religious Response to Religious Violence”, "So violence stems from identity and groupishness, not from religion, and the only connection between that and religion is religion is the most powerful creator of groups that humanity has ever devised, and to this day it is more powerful than race, than the nation-state and than political ideologies. It is no accident that religion has emerged as so powerful a force in a globalizing age. [. . .] RABBI JONATHAN SACKS: ‑‑ but in this case, I make an exception because I think there is a real religious issue here that cuts a hell of a lot deeper than same-sex marriage in the United States. The future of the Middle East is at stake. The future of Africa is at stake. I fear the future of Europe is at stake. I fear, even worse, the future of religion is at stake. And we have to think long, see large, and plan ways of creating a world or help get us closer to one in which our grandchildren can be safe and in which we do justice to God and to his image in humankind.' back

Rachael Woodlock, Antony Loewenstein, Jane Caro, Simon Smart, Doesn't religion cause most of the conflict in the world?, 'In this extract from the book For God's Sake, one question is asked to four Australian writers with very different beliefs.' back

Robert Reich (2025_02_20), In the global clash between democracy and oligarchy, the US is switching sides, ' Since the end of the second world war, liberal democracies have stuck together – led by the US. On the opposite side have been authoritarian states, led mainly by the Soviet Union, followed, after the demise of the Soviet Union, by Russia and China. But all this is rapidly changing. Russia and China have morphed into oligarchies, run by small groups of extraordinarily wealthy people. The US has been moving from a democracy to an oligarchy as well – and is doing so at lightning speed under Donald Trump and Elon Musk. The new poles are coming to be global democracies versus a global oligarchy. The United States is emerging on the side of global oligarchy. Trump’s remarks late on Tuesday – siding fully with Russia’s narrative of blaming Ukraine for the war there – signals more clearly than any other recent statement that the US is prepared to jettison its European allies and switch sides to embrace Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Earlier on Tuesday, senior American and Russian officials agreed not only to seek to end the war in Ukraine, but also, in the words of the secretary of state Marco Rubio, to explore “the incredible opportunities that exist to partner with the Russians”, both geopolitically and economically. Trump’s phone call with Putin last week also reflected Putin’s view of the world – that Russia and the US are “two great nations” that should not only negotiate Ukraine’s fate directly but also together address even weightier global affairs.' back

Schola Cantorum / Festival Statesmen Chorus, Faure Requiem (Thursday 20 February 2025), Schola Cantorum is the liturgical choir of the Cardinal Vaughan Memorial School, Kensington. Its principal responsibility is to serve the school's liturgy, and the choir sings weekly at the Wednesday morning mass. Formed in 2009 by Johnathan Bligh, the Festival Statesmen Chorus is a dynamic male-voiced a capella group based in Adelaide South Australia. Performing a diverse range of styles and repertoire from classical to contemporary pop music, the chorus provides a platform for Adelaide singers to achieve vocal and performance excellence. back

Thomas Gift & Michael Plouffe (2025_02_8), The US tried high tariffs and ‘America first’ policies in the 1930s. Trump should note what happened next, ' Donald Trump has hit the 30-day pause button on imposing 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico, but is proceeding with slapping 10% tariffs on Chinese imports, and tariffs on the EU are still on his agenda. Trump has declared that “tariff” is “the most beautiful word in the dictionary”. Yet as the president weighs up the sweeping consequences of his tariff fixation, he may want to throw out the dictionary and pick up a history book. The magnitude and scale of the proposed tariffs hark back to the US Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act enacted in 1930. For example, Nobel Laureate economist Paul Krugman told Bloomberg that “we’re really talking about tariffs on a scale that we … have not seen,” adding that “we’re talking about a reversal of really 90 years of US policy”. [. . .] Although at the time more than 1,000 economists implored President Herbert Hoover to veto Smoot-Hawley, the bill was signed into law. The resulting tariff act led to taxes averaging nearly 40% on 20,000 or so different types of imported goods. The culmination led to a dramatic decline in US trade with other countries, particularly among those that retaliated, and is widely acknowledge as severely worsening the Great Depression. According to one estimate, the sum of US imports plummeted by nearly half. What’s more, the impacts were felt globally. Protectionist policies are believed to have accounted for about half of the 25% decline in world trade, and indirectly helped create economic factors that led to the second world war. [. . .] Trump may think that tariff is a beautiful word now. But if even a glimmer of the 1930s repeats itself, its economic shadow could soon look grim. back

Thomas Joseph White (2022_11_03), The New Cambridge Comanion to Christian Docrine: 21 - Ressourcement Thomism, ' Summary Ressourcement Thomism refers to an emergent trend of theologians who seek to reassess the contribution of Thomas Aquinas both within his historical context and in a contemporary context. It is best explained genealogically in relation to other recent theological movements and has distinctive characteristics. In this chapter, I seek first to identify this historical context and characteristics of Ressourcement Thomism and then to illustrate its relevance by examining two typical theological claims found among those associated with the movement. The first of these is the claim that the modern focus on the “immanent and economic trinity” after Karl Rahner is conceptually problematic and that the Thomistic distinction between Trinitarian processions and Trinitarian missions serves as the more feasible one for a reasonable analysis of the way that the mystery of the Trinity is revealed in the economy of salvation. The latter model allows one to acknowledge more perfectly the New Testament revelation of the transcendence and unity of the Trinity and to avoid problematic historicizations of the divine life of God. The second claim is that key figures in modern kenotic theology such as Karl Barth and Hans Urs von Balthasar, despite their theological creativity, have failed to preserve a sufficient sense of the distinction of the divine and human natures in Christ. Aquinas’s Chalcedonian and dyotheletist Christology provides one with ways of thinking about how the crucifixion of God reveals the mystery of the Trinity in and through the sufferings of Christ without the problematic projection of human characteristics of the Lord onto the inner life of the Trinity, as constitutive of the inner life of the Trinity. In both these respects, Ressourcement Thomism as a theological movement suggests ways that historical theology that is concerned with the contribution of patristic and medieval sources can lead to a renewal of and creative engagement in modern theology. back

Tim Ross, Sam Blewett, Dan Bloom & Gordon Repinski (2025_02014) , How Trump blindsided Europe as he schmoozed with Putin, ' LONDON — Europe just found out what some have known for a while: Donald Trump doesn’t ask first. The U.S. president ripped up Western consensus by calling Vladimir Putin to open peace talks over Ukraine, offering a sweet basket of concessions to the Russian leader before negotiations had even begun. And it seems he didn’t bother to consult America’s allies in the European Union or the U.K. over what he was about to do. Advertisement Advertisement It’s a situation that lays bare the painful extent to which Europe — and the EU in particular — is now on its own, and seen in Washington, at best, as irrelevant. The transatlantic alliance, which was the foundation of European security since 1945, has been cut back to the brittlest of bones. Just hours before Trump and Putin shared their “highly productive” 90-minute call on Wednesday, the leader of the EU’s biggest economy, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, said he confidently expected Trump to stand by Kyiv. In an interview with POLITICO, Scholz said his discussions with Trump had led him to conclude that “we can hope and assume that the U.S. will continue to support Ukraine.” By the end of the day, that assessment proved hopelessly naive. Trump’s Vice President JD Vance had sat down for his first meeting with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in Paris on Tuesday. For the EU chief it had been a long time coming. She still hasn’t managed to pin down Trump himself for a proper discussion since he reentered the White House almost a month ago. Vance made no mention to von der Leyen that Trump was poised to call an end to American support for Ukraine’s resistance against Russia. Even British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who has done more than most to seek favor in the new-look White House, didn’t know what was going to happen in advance of the Trump-Putin call. Advertisement Advertisement On Tuesday, a senior U.S. official had tipped off the U.K. that a big intervention was coming, but did not reveal what it was, according to two people familiar with the matter. Like some others who spoke for this article, they declined to be identified so they could discuss delicate issues. “The war is happening here in Europe, so the terms of the cease-fire will affect us immediately,” Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský told POLITICO. “Europe cannot be a mere spectator." back