Reports from the Middle East note, “There is something happening in the Arab world.  A collective voice is being heard again… rarely has there been a moment when the Middle East felt so interconnected, governments so unpopular and Arabs so overwhelmingly agree on their demand for change… The Middle East is being drawn together by economic woes and a shared resentment that people have been denied dignity and respect… For the first time in a generation…a somewhat nostalgic notion of a common 

In 2005 a U.S. federal court struck down a motion to teach “intelligent design” along with the federally mandated topic of evolution.  Since then, scientists and educators have developed evolution-based curricula to counter the growing movement questioning the validity of evolutionary theory (Education Week, November 16, 2010).  In 2008, the Council of Europe “condemned all attempts to bring creationism into Europe’s schools” (USA Today, February 11, 2008).

The “Tunisian wind” that toppled an authoritarian regime in Tunisia is spawning similar protests across the Arab world.

The record rains that flooded huge parts of Australia’s northeast state of Queensland are now moving across the southeast state of Victoria toward the sea.  The flood waters have created an “inland sea” some 55 miles long and 24 miles wide that has closed coal mines and swamped large areas of valuable agricultural land—in what has become “the nation’s most expensive natural disaster in history” (telegraph.co.uk, January 24, 2011).  Across the Indian Ocean, flooding in eight of South Africa’s nine provinces has saturated farms and disrupted rail transport, which has affected coal, m

Sensing a growing suspicion of Brussels, EU Council President Herman Van Rompuy has defended the European Union as the “fatherland of peace” (euobserver.com, January 17, 2011).

Mr. Van Rompuy told university students in Poland, “The union’s force of attraction accelerated the collapse of Communism and the end of the Cold War… [and that] Europe is the best guarantee for peace.”  He urged his listeners to resist “euro-scepticism” and look to the “negotiating rooms” in Brussels as the source of peace.