
Volunteers clad in Santa Claus costumes throw their hats in the air as they gather to deliver gifts to the poor in downtown Seoul (Seoul National Capital Area) ROK.
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Christmas at St Adalbert of Prague Roman Catholic parish in Kaliningrad (Kaliningrad Oblast. Northwestern Federal District) RF.
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British travellers Liam Wadeson (left), Jemma Wild and Ashley Colotta, (right), frolic in the waves as they celebrate Christmas Day at Bondi Beach in Sydney (Sydney Region. New South Wales) AUSTRALIA.
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The choir at Shrine of Mary Help of Christian Church sings during Christmas Mass in Nairobi (Nairobi County. Nairobi Metro Area) KENYA.
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A Chinese man prays during Christmas Eve mass of at the South Cathedral official Catholic church in Beijing (Beijing Municipality) PRC.
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Members of a local parachute club wearing Santa Claus costumes fly past residential buildings dropping presents to pedestrians during a promotional event celebrating Christmas in Guiyang (Guizhou Province) PRC.
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A Pakistani Christian family gathers around a fire to warm themselves from the evening cold in an alley of a Christian neighbourhood decorated with festive lights for Christmas in Islamabad (Islamabad Capital Area) PAKISTAN.
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Men look at a Christmas tree, with pictures of the 43 missing trainee teachers, in the Ayotzinapa Teacher Training Raul Isidro Burgos College in Ayotzinapa, on the outskirts of Chilpancingo de los Bravo (Guerrero) MEXICO.
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On Christmas Eve, a Palestinian dressed as Santa Claus holds balloons at Manger Square, outside the Church of the Nativity, traditionally believed by Christians to be the birthplace of Jesus Christ, in the West Bank city of Bethlehem (Bethlehem Governorate) PALESTINE.
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A man exits an illuminated Church on Christmas Eve in Ahmedabad (Ahmedabad District. Gujarat State) INDIA.
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Archbishop Paolo Pezzi (centre) during Midnight Mass at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Moscow (Federal City of Moscow. Central Federal District) RF.
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Indian girls pose for photos near decorative statues of Santa Claus outside a church on Christmas in Mumbai (Mumbai City District. Maharashtra State) INDIA.
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A US Army soldier from the 3 Cavalry Regiment dressed as Santa Claus greets fellow soldiers eating Christmas lunch at Forward Operating Base Gamberi in Laghman Province of Afghanistan.
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Pope Francisco Bergoglio kissed the statue of baby Jesus as he arrived to lead Christmas Midnight Mass at St Peter Basilica in Vatican City. He prayed for peace in the Ukraine and decried the “brutal persecution” of Christians and other religious minorities in Iraq and Syria in his traditional Christmas address, known as the Urbi et Orbi (to the city and the world).
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Christmas is one of the main Christian holidays. It’s an annual festival commemorating the birth of Jesus, observed as a religious and cultural tradition among billions of people across the world. Christmas Day is a public holiday in many of the world’s nations, and a great number of non-Christian people celebrate it. According to the Gregorian calendar, the Roman Catholic Church and most Protestant churches celebrate Christmas on 25 December. Roman Emperor Theodosius II made the decision to celebrate Christmas on 25 December at the Third Ecumenical Council of Ephesus in 431.
Advent precedes Christmas, which starts four weeks before Christmas. This period is supposed to prepare the faithful the birth of Jesus. The festive customs associated in various countries with Christmas mix pre-Christian, Christian, and secular themes and origins. Popular customs of the holiday include gift giving, completing an Advent calendar, Christmas music and carolling, a special meal, and the display of various Christmas decorations, such as Christmas trees, Christmas lights, and garlands.
Christmas is associated with Santa Claus, also known as also known as St Nicholas and Father Christmas, a cultural figure with legendary, folkloric, and historic origins. In many Western cultures, folklore has it that Santa Claus brings presents to the homes of good children the night before Christmas. According to early Roman Christian traditions, three special liturgies are served on Christmas… a midnight Mass, a Mass at dawn, and a Mass during the day. In the Roman Catholic Church, Christmas celebrations last for eight days, from 25 December to 1 January, a period known as the Octave.
The North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD) tracks Santa Claus when he leaves his official residence in the North Pole and flies around the world in his sleigh. NORAD has tracked Santa’s journey for more than 50 years. As gift-giving and many other Christmas customs involve heightened economic activity, the holiday became a key sales period for retailers and businesses all around the world. Groups and schools often perform Nativity plays and Christmas pageants during the holiday period. They depict the story of the birth of Jesus Christ. The tradition dates from the 10th-century Roman Empire.
25 December 2014
Sputnik International
http://sputniknews.com/photo/20141225/1016225951.html
Zbigniew Kazimierz Brzeziński: Death of an Anti-Russian Terrorist
Tags: 9/11, Afghan War (Soviet), Afghanistan, Cold War, Cold Warrior, Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, diplomacy, diplomatic relations, Gerald Ford, humanitarian intervention, international organisations, James Earl Carter Jr, Jimmy Carter, mujaheddin, NATO, neocon, neoconservatism, Neoliberal, Neoliberalism, North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, Osama bin Laden, political commentary, politics, Richard Nixon, Russia, Russian, Soviet Union, Soviet war in Afghanistan, United States, USA, USSR, war and conflict, Zbigniew Brzeziński
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Zbigniew Kazimierz Brzeziński is dead at the age of 89. The former US National Security Advisor put the feuds of his homeland above the interests of his adopted USA. Richard Nixon had more foreign policy achievements that just about any modern American President. However, Nixon’s scandal-plagued White House generally overshadowed these achievements. Amongst his most important achievements was engaging in détente with the USSR. Nixon’s de-escalation of tensions with Moscow ultimately led to the signing of the Helsinki Accords in 1975, wherein America and its allies and non-aligned states of Europe agreed to respect the borders and sovereignty of existing states, including that of the USSR and her allies. The Helsinki Accords affirmed renouncing violence as a means of settling disputes and forced signatories to respect the right of self-determination among peoples. This was a rare moment; the USA admitted that it couldn’t win the Cold War and that engagement and peaceful dialogue were preferable to threats against the Soviet superpower.
In 1976, Jimmy Carter became the President of the United States after Nixon’s former Vice-President Gerald Ford failed to win over an America hungry for change on the domestic front. While many remember Jimmy Carter as a man of peace, his Presidency was anything but peaceful. The reason for this was the power behind the throne, Carter’s National Security Advisor, Brzeziński. The Polish-born Brzeziński put the historic blood-feud of his mother country ahead of American interests. He openly opposed Nixon and Ford’s policy of détente and orchestrated the use of American power to arm and fund all those who sought to undermine the USSR.
This became most apparent when he decided to use the USA’s resources to fund, arm, and train the Mujahideen in Afghanistan. Among the fighters Brzeziński’s policy helped to arm was Osama bin Laden, the founder of the Salafist terrorist group al-Qaeda. The USA later blamed that group for orchestrating and executing the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the USA. Brzeziński was happy to ally with blood-soaked jihadists to topple the secular modern government of Afghanistan, for the simple reason that it was a Soviet ally. Brzeziński’s jihadists took over the country in the 1990s; they famously executed and then mutilated the corpse of Afghanistan’s pro-Soviet President Dr Mohammad Najibullah in 1996. Many blame the Brzeziński-authored policies in Afghanistan for unleashing the plague of jihadist terrorism throughout the wider world.
Brzeziński’s formal time in the White House was only for Jimmy Carter’s single term, but many of his policies lived on long after his formal period in power. Throughout the rest of his life, Brzeziński continued to vocally advocate policies designed to cripple Russia, including NATO’s expansion into Eastern Europe. He was a strong supporter of the 2014 coup against the legitimate Ukrainian government and more recently said that the Russian Federation would break up. Furthermore, he said that the USA must help those wanting to break it up, irrespective of who they are. He continued to advocate sanctions against Russia until his dying day, in spite of the fact that the sanctions ended up hurting his native Poland more than the Russian Federation he sought to destroy.
Brzeziński was a deeply violent and hateful man. He was also dishonest; he told the last Shah of Iran that the USA would give him full backing, knowing well that there was division in the White House on the issue. He was a man who brought ancient hatreds, hatreds which long pre-dated the USA’s existence, into the heart of American policy making. At the age of 89, Brzeziński is dead. Even if he lived another hundred years, he’d never see his dream, the death of Russia. Russia remains alive and well, and in this sense, perhaps, he died knowing that his entire reason for being was a failure.
26 May 2017
Adam Garrie
The Duran
http://theduran.com/zbigniew-brzezinski-death-anti-russian-terrorists/