Talk About Dedication!

In the Philippines, devotes decided that on this Good Friday they should re-enact the infamous suffering of the Jewish Carpenter who started a religious revolution. One of the men who was clad in a maroon robe with a crown of vines and thorns said, "I started having myself nailed to the cross in 1995 because my eldest son got sick and almost died." The tradition is now a tourist attraction, and some feel that the "surge of vendors and tourists has injected too much commercialism into Holy Week celebrations." Perhaps I can get a T-Shirt that says, "I watched a guy get nailed to a cross and all I have to prove it is this t-shirt and some photos on my iPhone."

In 1974 the island nation of Cyprus was divided into an internationally recognized Greek Cypriot south and a breakaway Turkish Cypriot north. Well leaders have agreed to restart peace talks on reunifying the island after over 33 years. One leader said, "We shall try our utmost in order to come to an agreed solution for the interest of the Cypriot people, both communities, as soon as possible." It's good to know that there is still hope to reunify after so much time... despite that most American's do not even realize that the island split.

Meanwhile in South America, the Brazilian government is cracking down on logging in the Amazon. While environmental regulators are happy, 70% of the population in the area depend on the logging industry for their survival. Whats a country to do? Well, here is what happened... Environmental regulators armed with metal poles began destroying their livelihood: brick ovens used to bake wood into charcoal. About 35 percent of all logging feeds charcoal ovens. That charcoal is purchased by companies that resell it for use in steel production. The two biggest importers of that charcoal are China and the United States. For those who had their livelihood ruined, they have two choices... move to find new work that is both legally sanctioned and economically viable or wait a few weeks until the police and regulators shift their focus elsewhere and rebuild the ovens. The companies that profit on their charcoal might finance the rebuilding. Wanna bet that after a few weeks everything will be back to normal?

The county of France appears to be dedicated to strategic withdrawal as President Nicolas Sarkozy has decided to cut France's nuclear arsenal to less than 300 warheads. The announcement came as a surprise as many people had totally forgotten that France has nuclear weapons. "Sarkozy shifted somewhat from the nuclear doctrine of his predecessor Jaques Chirac, by being slightly more ambiguous about the circumstances that might lead France to employ its nuclear weapons." Perhaps this will encourage other countries to trim their nuclear arsenals, or perhaps it will just let other countries know how many interceptors they need to build!