Íngrid Betancourt is free! She remains strong and has given interviews to many media, including the BBC and the Guardian. She is a modern saint who showed us how to be Green, how to be Christian, even how to be human. I hope when she recovers, she will become a great president of Colombia.

My friend Nándor Tánczos, one of the few rastafarian parliamentarians in the world, gave his last speech (text) in the New Zealand House of Representatives recently. He will not stand in the general election later this year, but I hope the Green Party of Aotearoa will have some new blood to take his place. Relatedly, that country re-nationalized its railway earlier this month and called it KiwiRail; it also has a state-owned retail bank, Kiwibank.

By the way, I ♥ the Most Reverend and Right Honourable Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, who is now presiding the Lambeth Conference.