political

UN Flag on Our Flagpole

United Nations

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The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization that was tasked to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international co-operation and be a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations. The headquarters of the UN is in Manhattan, New York City, and is subject to extraterritoriality. Further main offices are situated in Geneva, Nairobi, and Vienna. The organization is financed by assessed and voluntary contributions from its member states. Its objectives include maintaining international peace and security, protecting human rights, delivering humanitarian aid, promoting sustainable development and upholding international law. The UN is the largest, most familiar, most internationally represented and most powerful intergovernmental organization in the world. In 24 October 1945, at the end of World War II, the organization was established with the aim of preventing future wars. At its founding, the UN had 51 member states; there are now 193. The UN is the successor of the ineffective League of Nations.

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NATO Flag on Our Flagpole

NATO

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The collapse of the Warsaw Pact in 1989–1991 removed the de-facto main adversary of NATO and caused a strategic re-evaluation of NATO’s purpose, nature, tasks, and focus on the continent of Europe. This shift started with the 1990 signing in Paris of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe between NATO and the Soviet Union, which mandated specific military reductions across the continent that continued after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991. At that time, European countries accounted for 34 percent of NATO’s military spending; by 2012, this had fallen to 21 percent. NATO also began a gradual expansion to include newly autonomous Central and Eastern European nations, and extended its activities into political and humanitarian situations that had not formerly been NATO concerns.

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European Union Flag on Our Flagpole

European Union

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Including the overseas territories of France which are located outside the continent of Europe, but which are members of the union, the EU experiences most types of climate from Arctic (North-East Europe) to tropical (French Guiana), rendering meteorological averages for the EU as a whole meaningless. The majority of the population lives in areas with a temperate maritime climate (North-Western Europe and Central Europe), a Mediterranean climate (Southern Europe), or a warm summer continental or hemiboreal climate (Northern Balkans and Central Europe).

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Love Trumps Hate 2

Love Trumps Hate

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Perhaps it is silly of me, but I have been reading a compilation of the earliest editions of the Wonder Woman comics from the early 1940s.  Unlike the other super-heroes of the time, Wonder Woman’s primary power was the power of love.  Sure, she was incredible strong, she could deflect bullets, she flew an invisible plane, and she could force anyone to tell the truth or do as she instructed with her lasso, but through everything she did in the early days of her comic book appearances, she always tried to change the world to be a more loving place, to reduce the influence of Ares, or Mars, the God of War and to increase the influences of Aphrodite, or Venus, the Goddess of Love.  Instead of incarceration of execution for villains, Wonder Woman tried to reform through love and kindness.  Perhaps it would benefit us all to revisit the early editions of Wonder Woman, not the later more violent and vindictive versions of today, but the original intent.

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