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Contents contributed and discussions participated by rachelramirez

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rachelramirez

The Coming Fight Over Oil Drilling in the Great Australian Bight | VICE | United States - 0 views

www.vice.com/...-in-the-great-australian-bight

Australia oil vice culture policy politics

shared by rachelramirez on 03 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • The Coming Fight Over Oil Drilling in the Great Australian Bight
  • An Australian Senate committee announced Monday it will consider BP's proposal to drill in search of oil reserves off the country's southern coast.
  • "If this project goes ahead, we really are gambling with the future of the Great Australian Bight," Greens Senator Robert Simms said told the ABC.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • would see four exploration wells drilled 1–2.5 kilometers [0.6–1.6 miles] into the Great Australian Bight, a large body of water to the country's southwest.
  • Last year, BP agreed to pay $24.5 billion [$17.7 billion USD] to settle claims against the company around the disaster.
  • It's attention that would be attractive to South Australia, which faces the prospect of becoming Australia's worst-performing state economy.
  • As the Wilderness Society points out, 85 percent of the species found in the bight cannot be found anywhere else in the world.
  • with the spill having an "optimistic" flow rate and being capped within 35 days, the modeling predicts that 175,000 barrels of oil would be released into the bight. Worst-case scenario looks more like 50,000 barrels a day for 87 days (the same as Deepwater Horizon)—close to 4.35 million barrels.
rachelramirez

For the first time, a team of refugees will compete in the Olympics - Vox - 0 views

www.vox.com/...olympics-refugees-2016-rio

refugees olympics vox crisis policy

shared by rachelramirez on 03 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • For the first time, a team of refugees will compete in the Olympics
  • The total number of refugees worldwide is larger than the combined populations of Sweden and Israel.
  • Among those 20 million people forced to leave their countries, the International Olympic Committee, which approved the team Wednesday, has so far found 43 athletes who are potentially eligible for the Olympics competition.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Only about 10 will probably end up actually taking part.
  • A refugee will carry the torch through a refugee camp in Athens — a symbolic gesture given Greece's role as both the birthplace of the Olympics and ground zero of the refugee crisis in Europe.
rachelramirez

Transgender Bathroom Bills Are a Statewide Trend | Al Jazeera America - 0 views

america.aljazeera.com/...lls-are-a-statewide-trend.html

transgender bills US policy

shared by rachelramirez on 03 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • The growing trend of transgender ‘bathroom bully’ bills
  • When she was a senior in high school, she worked to help craft California’s School Success and Opportunity Act, a 2013 law — the first of its kind in the nation — that requires the state’s public schools to allow trans students to use the bathrooms and play on the sports teams that correspond with their gender identities.
  • Nevada Assemblywoman Victoria Dooling, a Republican, proposed a bill on March 19 that would require kids at public schools to use the restrooms and showers that correspond to their biological sex at birth.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • Opponents of the Kentucky legislation call it the “bathroom bully” bill because they say it would open the door for children to judge each other based on perceived gender identity.
  • Lawmakers in Florida proposed a bill in February that applies to any sex-segregated public facility, not just in public schools, and calls for a $1,000 fine for violators and a potential prison term of up to a year.
  • A bill introduced in the Texas legislature in February would bar someone from entering a locker room or bathroom meant for women if that person has a Y chromosome. Violating the law would be a felony, and attendants who repeatedly allow trans people to enter could be charged with a felony and do jail time, according to the bill’s text.
  • Gender identity and expression is included in Title IX of the Education Amendments Act, a 1972 law that protects all public school students from gender discrimination.
rachelramirez

Hillary Clinton's email scandal, explained - Vox - 0 views

www.vox.com/...linton-email-scandal-explained

clinton email vox politics US policy education

shared by rachelramirez on 03 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • Hillary Clinton's email scandal, explained
  • She personally paid a State Department official and former campaign aide, Bryan Pagliano, to maintain her server outside of his government duties.
  • In March 2013, a hacker called Guccifer distributed a series of emails from former Clinton White House aide Sidney Blumenthal to Clinton about security in Libya. The email address Blumenthal used for her was HDR22@clintonemail.com. That was the first public disclosure of her personal email account, and it was a flag for journalists and lawmakers that Clinton was conducting official business on a secret account.
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  • It had actually been in the possession of a firm called Platte River Networks, which was keeping it at a data center in New Jersey, since June.
  • Clinton gave the State Department email messages her team determined to be work-related on December 5. Her aides attempted to wipe her personal email from her server. She gave thumb drives containing her work emails to her lawyer, David Kendall.
  • The State Department official who oversees the production of documents under the Freedom of Information Act, Undersecretary Patrick Kennedy, battled the inspectors general of the State Department and the combined US intelligence agencies over who had access to review documents for the purposes of finding and censoring potentially classified information in the email set.
  • It should also be noted that officials in George W. Bush's White House, including political adviser Karl Rove, used a server controlled by the Republican National Committee for email, circumventing archiving rules.
  • The consensus among experts, including some who have been critical of Clinton, is that, based on what's known now, she is not likely to be prosecuted under the Espionage Act or the law prohibiting the removal and retention of classified information
rachelramirez

Which Presidential Candidates Are Winning the Money Race - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...-2016-campaign-money-race.html

candidates new york times US politics policy

shared by rachelramirez on 03 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • Which Presidential Candidates Are Winning the Money Race
  • Hillary Rodham Clinton raised $29.9 million for her campaign in the third quarter, just ahead of Bernie Sanders, who raised $26.2 million.
  • Half of the reported money in the campaign so far has come from donations to groups outside the campaigns, like “super PACs,” that are not subject to limits.
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  • More than 88 percent of contributions to Mr. Sanders through Sept. 30 came from donations of $200 or less.
  • Jeb Bush and groups supporting him have reported more than $120 million in contributions so far, significantly more than any other candidate.
  • Donald Trump’s campaign spent $1.4 million through June 30, 74 percent of his campaign’s money at that point.
rachelramirez

A Swedish Girl, ISIS and a Cautionary Tale of Global Terrorism - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...-tale-of-global-terrorism.html

new york times terrorism ISIS crisis

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  • A Swedish Girl, ISIS and a Cautionary Tale of Global Terrorism
  • Europe has been troubled for several years by the number of its young people who have run off to join the Islamic State, and is increasingly concerned about the potential for them to come home to carry out terrorist acts in their native countries
  • Senior Kurdish officials say she was rescued on Feb. 17 by Kurdish special forces without a shot being fired. The officials said they were able to locate her using information derived from her occasional use of the Internet, but they offered no details.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Sweden now has more would-be jihadists per capita going to fight for extremist groups than any European country other than Belgium, according to a 2015 study by the International Center for the Study of Radicalization and Political Violence.
  • Recruiters for the Islamic State and for Al Qaeda affiliates active in Syria and other groups, including the Shabab, target the second generation of immigrants, terrorism experts said.
rachelramirez

Will the Supreme Court Deadlock on the Texas Abortion Case? - The Atlantic - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...472008

supreme court deadlock texas abortion politics US policy

shared by rachelramirez on 03 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • Will the Supreme Court Deadlock on the Texas Abortion Case?
  • If Justice Anthony Kennedy were a character from Lord of the Rings, he would be Treebeard the Ent—a giant walking tree who makes up his mind in his own time and then goes wherever he is going without worrying much about what’s in the underbrush.
  • Together, those requirements will impel the closure of about 34 of the 40 abortion clinics in the state.
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  • That requirement even applies to “medical abortions”—meaning abortions achieved by giving a pregnant woman two pills, spaced between two and seven days later.
  • The district court had concluded that the regulations were not imposed for any real medical purpose. Thus, it held, they imposed an “undue burden” (also called a “substantial obstacle”) on the right to choose abortion in Texas. The Fifth Circuit panel, however, reversed that judgment.
  • Justice Stephen Breyer noted that a colonoscopy (which doesn’t need to be done in an ASC) is 28 times more dangerous than a pre-viability abortion.
  • “If … this law is upheld,” Verrilli told the Court, “what you will be saying is that this right exists only in theory.”
rachelramirez

U.N. Toughens Sanctions on North Korea in Response to Its Nuclear Program - The New Yor... - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...north-korea-un-sanctions.html

sanctions new york times US politics crisis policy

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  • U.N. Toughens Sanctions on North Korea in Response to Its Nuclear Program
  • Exasperated with North Korea’s defiant testing of nuclear bombs and ballistic missiles, the United Nations Security Council voted unanimously on Wednesday to severely toughen its penalties against the isolated country.
  • The 15-member Council approved a draft resolution, negotiated for weeks by American and Chinese officials, that called for inspecting all cargo going in and out of the country, banning all weapons trade and expanding the list of individuals facing sanctions.
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  • Much depends, however, on whether China — North Korea’s leading trade partner and diplomatic shield — will enforce it.
  • The measure’s toughest component would require all countries to inspect all cargo passing through their territory to or from North Korea. In the past, inspections were required only if there was reasonable suspicion of contraband aboard.
  • It prohibits North Korea from sending martial arts experts to train police officers in foreign countries, as a United Nations panel recently accused Pyongyang of doing in Uganda.
  • Although prices have fallen in recent years, minerals still account for 53 percent of North Korea’s $2.5 billion in exports to China, its chief supplier of oil.
  • The Chinese ambassador, Liu Jieyi, focused on the North’s Jan. 6 and Feb. 7 tests, done in violation of previous resolutions. He also expressed skepticism about the effectiveness of sanctions, and used the occasion to criticize an American proposal to deploy a missile shield in South Korea.
  • China’s agreement to limit imports of North Korean coal and iron ore came with a condition: that it should be demonstrated that such imports would support the North’s illicit weapons programs
rachelramirez

Migrant crisis: EU proposes $760 million emergency aid for Greece - CNN.com - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

crisis greece emergency politics policy

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  • Migrant crisis: EU proposes $760 million emergency aid for Greece
  • The European Union announced plans Wednesday for 700 million euros ($760 million) in emergency aid to Greece as the economically struggling country copes with an influx of migrants stranded
  • Greece, the main gateway to Europe, had asked the EU for help to provide for tens of thousands of migrants in its territory.
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  • The aid proposal -- intended to meet basic needs such as food, water and shelter over the next three years -- came a day after NATO's top general told a Pentagon briefing that ISIS was exploiting the migrant crisis.
  • the U.N. refugee agency warned the constant influx of migrants meant Europe faced "an imminent humanitarian crisis."
  • The U.N. refugee agency said the number of migrants stuck in Greece had soared to 24,000 by Monday night, with about 8,500 of them stuck at Idomeni.
  • Some member states have temporarily suspended 1985's Schengen Agreement, which has guaranteed free movement within Europe.
rachelramirez

The head of the Democratic Party is trying to weaken Sen. Warren's consumer protection ... - 0 views

www.vox.com/...ebbie-wasserman-schultz-warren

consumer protection agency vox politics US policy

shared by rachelramirez on 03 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • The head of the Democratic Party is trying to weaken Sen. Warren's consumer protection agency
  • Democratic National Committee Chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz has joined conservative lawmakers' efforts to curtail coming CFPB regulations about predatory payday lending
  • At Salon, Ben Norton noted that 85 percent of payday loans in Florida go to those who have seven or more loans already every year.
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  • Bernie Sanders, while unlikely to win the nomination, has shown that a substantial section of Democrats yearn for their party to take a much more hard-line position on big business and champion the working poor.
rachelramirez

Neocons declare war on Trump - POLITICO - 0 views

www.politico.com/...linton-neoconservatives-220151

neocons trump politics US crisis policy

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  • Neocons declare war on Trump
  • “Hillary is the lesser evil, by a large margin,” said Eliot Cohen, a founder of the Project for a New American Century, a neocon think tank which promoted a muscular U.S. role in the world
  • Several other neocons said they find themselves in an impossible position, constitutionally incapable of voting for Clinton but repelled by a Republican whose foreign policy views they consider somewhere between nonexistent and dangerous
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  • Kagan warned. “The party cannot be saved, but the country still can be.”
  • Neocons depict Russian President Vladimir Putin as a sinister tyrant challenging America; Trump calls Putin a strong leader with whom he'd "get along very well"
  • The word "neoconservative" is subject to interpretation, and some conservatives consider it pejorative. Originally used to describe Democrats who adopted hard-line anti-Communist views during the Cold War, the word's colloquial meaning roughly amounts to “hawkish GOP foreign policy intellectual.
  • calling the Manhattan mogul “the most dangerous demagogue in American politics in my lifetime.”
rachelramirez

The way we think about cancer is outdated. Here's how to change that. - Vox - 0 views

www.vox.com/...living-with-cancer-chronic

vox cancer culture education

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  • The way we think about cancer is outdated. Here’s how to change that.
  • The cancer death rate has dropped by 23 percent since 1991, with some even larger gains in types of cancer that used to be extremely lethal.
  • Under the non-Hodgkin lymphoma umbrella alone, there are 60 different subtypes — and each has a different disease progression.
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  • "To imagine that we will find a simple solution to this doesn't do service to the true complexity of the problem," explains Siddhartha Mukherjee
  • Overall, Archer points out, the language around cancer in general desperately lags behind the current scientific understanding of the disease — and that has implications for cancer patients and their families.
  • The psychological effects of cancer are in fact so widespread that the American College of Surgeons recently required all accredited cancer centers to screen for the level of cancer distress in new patients and then offer psychosocial care to match patients' needs.
rachelramirez

Ben Carson Super Tuesday results: No 'political path' to GOP nomination he can see - PO... - 0 views

www.politico.com/...-path-to-gop-nomination-220142

carson tuesday gop politics US policy

shared by rachelramirez on 02 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • Ben Carson to end presidential campaign
  • saying that Super Tuesday's election results left him with no "political path forward."
  • The announcement marks the end of a run that showed flashes of great momentum and fundraising prowess
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  • The announcement comes after Carson had a dismal showing in the dozen states that voted on Tuesday, finishing at the back of the GOP field in the race’s early primaries.
  • Carson maintained a core of support among religious conservatives that gave him hope for a comeback that never materialized.
  • He stirred controversy in September when he suggested a Muslim shouldn’t be president — a comment that ended up deepening his support on the right.
  • He raised more money than any of his rivals in 2015 — built on an expensive direct mail and telephone solicitation operation — but burned through most of it by the time the calendar flipped
rachelramirez

Republican presidential debate: 6 takeaways - CNNPolitics.com - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

republican debate politics US policy culture

shared by rachelramirez on 28 Feb 16 - No Cached
  • Republican presidential debate: 6 takeaways
  • Rubio called the real estate mogul's Trump University "a fake school." He invoked Trump's business record to question his sincerity on immigration, saying: "You're the only person on this stage that's ever been fined for hiring people that worked on your projects illegally."
  • Rubio pressed for more specifics, saying that "now he's repeating himself" -- an ironic response from a candidate who has been mocked as robotic for repeating talking points at speeches and debates.
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  • When Trump said he was simply a "negotiator," Rubio shot back: "The Palestinians are not a real estate deal, Donald."
  • He spent much of his time attacking Trump, too -- but Cruz was clearly Robin to Rubio's Batman in going after the front-runner on stage.
  • But Carson may own social media for another line. When it comes to choosing a Supreme Court nominee, Carson said, he would look examine "the fruit salad of their life."
rachelramirez

Inside Jeb Bush's $150 Million Failure - 1 views

www.politico.com/...ping-out-set-up-to-fail-213662

bush presidential campaign politics US policy

shared by rachelramirez on 21 Feb 16 - No Cached
  • Inside Jeb Bush's $150 Million Failure
  • On page after page kept safe in a binder, the playbook laid out a strategy for a race his advisers were certain would be played on Bush’s terms — an updated, if familiar version of previous Bush family campaigns where cash, organization and a Republican electorate ultimately committed to an electable center-right candidate would prevail.
  • Besides, Bradshaw and other top advisers believed, it would be next to impossible for someone with so little experience to beat him.
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  • Most critically, the playbook, people who have read it tell POLITICO, contained nothing about Donald Trump, who would spend the next excruciating year turning Bush into his personal patrician piñata.
  • “When you’re the son and brother of former presidents, the grandson of a U.S. senator, how do you run in a year like this? It is just a year of personality, not message.
  • Days later, on Aug. 25, Trump was on stage at a rally in Dubuque, Iowa, when he offered an impression of Bush and characterized him as “low energy,” a critique he’d come up with after the first debate a few weeks earlier. Bush’s team was stunned, first by the insult and then that it stuck.
  • “You cannot run a political campaign and not have the ability to adapt, to pivot,” one longtime Bush donor who has supported all five of the family’s presidential campaigns
  • “He’s Jeb Bush. No one is going to empathize with him as someone who needs his senator to work on his behalf.”
rachelramirez

Pope Francis on Trump: Building walls 'is not Christian' - CNNPolitics.com - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

pope politics US policy

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  • Pope Francis on Trump: Building walls instead of bridges 'is not Christian'
  • Pope Francis said Thursday that GOP frontrunner Donald Trump "is not Christian"
  • he urged the United States to address the "humanitarian crisis" on its southern border
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • The Pope appeared somewhat unaware of Trump's stance on people who come into the United States illegally, though, saying that he would give him "the benefit of the doubt" until he had heard exactly what the billionaire businessman had said.
  • Trump also suggested that the Pope, who celebrated Mass Wednesday near the U.S.-Mexican border, was a pawn of the Mexican government.
rachelramirez

ISIS, in a First, Says It's Behind Attack in Capital of Syria - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...isis-syria-car-bomb.html

syria attack politics crisis

shared by rachelramirez on 09 Feb 16 - No Cached
  • ISIS, in a First, Says It’s Behind Attack in Capital of Syria
  • The Islamic State, using its official media channels, claimed responsibility for the blast, which the witness said had wounded dozens in Masaken Barzeh
  • the group said it was behind an assault last month on the Sayeda Zeinab shrine, on the outskirts of the capital, that left dozens dead.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • a signal that even as the leadership goes on the offensive in some parts of the country, government-controlled areas, including those believed to be secure, remain vulnerable.
  • According to the witness, a large explosion hit the officers’ club, which was frequented by government troops as well as by allied fighters from the Lebanese group Hezbollah.
  • But the Islamic State is not a party to such deals, and it considers both the national government and the Free Syrian Army to be enemies.
rachelramirez

The Evangelical Roots of American Economics - The Atlantic - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...460455

american economics US policy

shared by rachelramirez on 08 Feb 16 - No Cached
  • The Evangelical Roots of American Economics
  • Harvard, Columbia, Yale, and Princeton were all founded to educate Protestant ministers and the men who would sit in the pews of their churches.
  • After 1920, even when Catholics and Jews started to be hired as faculty members, they still could not find work easily teaching American literature or American history because it was thought that only Protestants could properly carry on the lineage that defined the American character.
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • Not surprisingly, several of the textbooks used for teaching economics were written by college presidents. But more surprisingly, most of them were written by ordained Protestant ministers
  • Ely and his peers focused on charity, concern for the poor, and social justice.It was on these moral grounds that the American Economic Association was founded in 1885.
  • The economy they were familiar with was the one that defined the early 19th century and consisted largely of farmers and small-town merchants.
  • Their economic thinking was suffused with Protestant moralism: They preached, for instance, that strikes were a violation of laborers’ contracts with their employers.
  • Having come of age in this milieu, these older economists emphasized the Protestant values of personal freedom, dedicating oneself to one’s vocation, and being obedient to authority.
  • One of the big reasons Ely’s faction had trouble getting traction was that in the early days of the AEA, the ideas of the older Protestant ministers still held sway with most people in the pews.
  • The late 19th century had seen the rise in popularity of socialist and communist ideas in Europe, and Pope Leo’s encyclical on the relationship between capital and labor was issued in 1891.
  • Like the university, the discipline of economics was secularized after 1920. Around this time, the discipline of philosophy came to be dominated by logical positivism—essentially, the idea that the scientific method is the only way to arrive at true, factual knowledge
  • But just like the founders of the American Economic Association, today’s economists have strong values, and their theories are value-laden. This does not make them bad economists, nor their analysis invalid
  • Among the many things that would define the new economic mainstream that emerged in the early 20th century was a type of analysis that placed consumers, not laborers, at the center of the economist’s value system.
rachelramirez

More Gun Deaths Than Traffic Fatalities in 21 States - The Atlantic - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...460431

gun deaths traffic politics US

shared by rachelramirez on 08 Feb 16 - No Cached
  • Gun Deaths May Not Eclipse Traffic Fatalities Just Yet
  • New data shows traffic deaths jumped by more than 9 percent during the first nine months of 2015, the most recent period for which information is available.
  • The NHSTA says it’s too soon to speculate on factors contributing to the “significantly higher” traffic fatality rates last year.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • Lower gas prices are one possible reason. When gasoline is cheaper, people drive more—and more time on the road translates into more fatal accidents.
  • For instance, the increase in traffic deaths exceeded 20 percent in the region that includes Alaska, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Montana, but only went up by about 3 percent in the region that includes California, Arizona, Hawaii, and other Pacific territories.
  • But while car-safety technology has improved dramatically in recent decades, handguns have barely changed in a century.
  • Gun deaths surpassed motor-vehicle deaths in 21 states plus the District of Columbia in 2014, according to analysis by the Violence Policy Center.
rachelramirez

In Historic Move, Pope to Meet With Leader of Russian Orthodox Church - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...a-russian-orthodox-church.html

pope patriarch politics great schism

shared by rachelramirez on 05 Feb 16 - No Cached
  • In Historic Move, Pope to Meet With Leader of Russian Orthodox Church
  • the first meeting between a pope and the Russian patriarch since the eastern and western branches of Christianity split nearly 1,000 years ago
  • it is another important milestone in his efforts to reconcile the Roman Catholic Church with Eastern Orthodox churches.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • discussions had been underway “for at least two years,” and the fact that both leaders planned to be in Latin America created the possibility of a “neutral place” for a meeting.
  • The two agreed to establish formal diplomatic relations only at the end of 2009, and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia met Francis in June 2015, in what was seen as a break of Russia’s isolation from the West over the crisis in Ukraine.
  • Francis has worked to reconcile divisions in Christianity that trace to the Great Schism of 1054, which formally divided the Eastern and Western churches.
  • Alberto Melloni, a Vatican historian, also noted that the Cuba meeting has meaningful geopolitical implications, because it comes at a time when the United States and Europe diplomats are working to isolate Russia.
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