Just watched live the recently-freed Íngrid Betancourt addressing the European Parliament. (Earlier prayers: 2007-07-04, 2007-12-07, 2008-01-17.) She seemed to have got the chamber full of tearful, sympathetic eyes; and a standing ovation at the end. At the subsequent press conference, she said she did not like how politics was conducted all over the world – I suppose this meant she will not run for the Colombian presidency again anytime soon.

Gentle readers using Microsoft Windows can probably watch the recording (with real-time interpretation into English and 26 other languages) on European Parliament Live or EuroparlTV. Irritatingly, these web services are not entirely interoperable on some other platforms. I will try to remember to put a link here to the verbatim report when it becomes available.

The “green” Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, His All Holiness Bartholomew I, also addressed the European Parliament last month.