Apologies for technical glitch today

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Conclave is a preposterously gripping papal thriller

Film critic Donald Clarke writes in The Irish Times yesterday on  Conclave releases in Irish cinemas yesterday

CONCLAVE * * * *

Directed by Edward Berger Starring Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, Lucian Msamati, Brían F O’Byrne, Carlos Diehz, Merab Ninidze, Thomas Loibl. 12A Cert. 120 mins

It could hardly be more appropriate that Robert Harris’s preposterously gripping (and sometimes grippingly preposterous) drama of papal electioneering finds itself competing for multiple first-division Academy Awards. There are analogies here with national elections, but what goes on in the conclave, with its tidier voting body, is closer to the arm-twisting, blackmailing and guilt-tripping one encounters at the Oscars. Yes, it’s as nasty as that. If still a little more significant.

How comforting to encounter a contender that relies so heavily on old-school, convoluted plotting. You would, of course, expect such from an adaptation of a Robert Harris novel. It would be a shame to give too much of that story away, but we can surely observe that, when the sitting pope dies suddenly, the dean of the College of Cardinals, Thomas Lawrence (a flawless Ralph Fiennes), is called in to officiate the coming election.

Stanley Tucci is snappy and forceful as the liberal candidate. Sergio Castellitto is magnificently oily as a scary traditionalist manipulator. (The film’s political sympathies are never in doubt.) John Lithgow looks to provide a potential compromise. All are shaken by the arrival of a hitherto unknown Mexican voter (Carlos Diehz) who has been serving clandestinely as archbishop of Kabul.

That last twist kicks up reminders of Anthony Quinn in the 1968 adaptation of Morris West’s The Shoes of the Fisherman, but Conclave is an altogether more rambunctious affair than that faux-serious papal epic. We move at a dizzying clatter as revelation upends revelation. You expect research from a Robert Harris adaptation, and, though many experts will complain about the broad treatment of Catholic politics, the details on procedure are fascinating throughout.

Edward Berger, director of the recent All Quiet on the Western Front, and Stéphane Fontaine, his experienced cinematographer, bring an eye-watering lavishness to the interiors. As the cardinals vape furiously and poke at their smartphones, we feel ourselves living in a kind of phantom anachronism.

Does it all add up? The cleaved-brow Fiennes, who does inner torture better than anyone, makes something believable of Lawrence’s battle for truth and integrity. Isabella Rossellini works magic with a minute supporting role. But few will survive the final scenes without pondering the Italian for “magnificent hokum”.

Robert Harris ‘Conclave’ in Irish films from today

Conclave is being released in Irish cinemas today.

If it’s as interesting and intriguing as the book, then this blog strongly recommends the film.

The book is a page turner and right at the end there is an interesting development. 

CNN journalist  Christiane Amanpour  interviewed film director Edward Berger last evening on her programme. With a smile she said her only wish was that the film would have gone on longer to develop the twist.

Below is a comment made by US Bishop Robert Barron  urging Catholics to skip the new film “Conclave” — a fictional story that tells the story of a papal conclave — saying that it “checks every woke box.”

“If you are interested in a film about the Catholic Church that could have been written by the editorial board of the New York Times, this is your movie,” Barron, the bishop of the Diocese of Winona-Rochester, Minnesota, said in a post on X after watching the film himself.

The film is based on the 2016 Robert Harris novel of the same name. 

It depicts ideological and theological infighting among Catholic cardinals during the election of a new pope. More traditional cardinals are pitted against others who are portrayed as being open to changes in doctrine that are contrary to Catholic teaching. 

It would be interesting to  know why the bishop has urged Catholics to avoid the film.

The novel, is a great read and strongly recommended by film critics and writers.

What exactly are Robert Barron’s literary credentials that he feels himself in a position to ‘urge’ people to stay away? Episcopal nonsense.

Super commercialisation of Christmas Season

Next Sunday is the first Sunday in Advent. In the Christian liturgy it is a time to prepare for the birth of Jesus Christ.

The shops have gone Santa mad. I asked a member of staff in a Lidl shop what percentage of the merchandise was junk. She looked at me, smiled and quietly said 90 per cent.

It’s full-on saturation and we have not even started Advent.

The Christian churches rightly cast a cold eye on the  super commercialisation of the Christmas Season.

But it is puzzling how church outlets are advertising Christmas merchandise even before the Season of Advent begins.

It makes it difficult to take them too seriously.

Bede Joseph McGregor OP (1937 - 2024) - an obituary

Bede Joseph McGregor died in 

Bede McGregor op

St Francis' Nursing Home, Mount Oliver, Dundalk, Co Louth on Monday, November 25.

Bede was born in Ealing in England on February  16, 1937, and baptised in Westminster.  He had family roots in Co. Galway.

Bede went to Newbridge College, spending the school holidays on the school campus.

On leaving school in 1955 he joined the Irish Province of the Dominican Order the following September, making solemn profession in 1959, and ordained a priest on July 8, 1962. He spent his noviciate year in St Mary’s Priory Cork. He studied philosophy and theology at St Mary’s Priory Tallaght.

After priestly ordination he studied at the University of St Thomas Aquinas in Rome, living in the Irish Dominican Priory, San Clemente on the Via Labicana.

Bede obtained his doctorate in moral theology from the said university in 1964.

On completion of his studies in Rome he was assigned to Nagpur in India, where the Irish Dominicans had set up a community in 1959. The previous year they had taken charge of St Charles Major Seminary. 

Bede spent nine years teaching in the seminary. During his time in Nagpur he edited In Christo, a theological magazine in India

He organised a theological conference in Nagpur, among the invitees at that conference was Kevin McNamara, who at the time was chair of dogmatic theology at Maynooth University. After Maynooth McNamara was bishop in Kerry and later Archbishop of Dublin.

A member of the community in India recalls how well known Bede was in Nagpur: “He regularly gave talks and wrote many articles. Bede was a very pleasant person and a lovely man in community,” he said.

Kevin and Bede became friends and at Kevin’s suggestion Bede applied for a post in Maynooth, where he spent the next 30 years as professor of missiology. Bede was instrumental in setting up the faculty at the college.

He was a member of the Irish Episcopal Theological Commission while in Maynooth.

Before taking up his post in Maynooth he studied an Indian philosopher under the tutorship of Professor Zaehner at Oxford, a Czech academic and convert to Catholicism.

While residing in Maynooth he would regularly spend weekends in St Mary’s Priory, Tallaght, administering the Sacrament of Reconciliation in St Aengus’ Church on Saturday evenings, where he was greatly appreciated.

On retiring from Maynooth Bede was assigned to St Mary’s Priory, Tallaght and appointed director of the Rosary Apostolate in succession to the late Gabriel Harty.

Bede was closely associated with the Legion of Mary, where he was spiritual director to the concillium. His talks were subsequently printed and sent around the world to the Legion of Mary.

He gave a series of talks on EWTN, where on one occasion he had a viewership of over two million.

Between 2007 and 2016 Bede was prior in St Malachy’s Dundalk, where he remained for the rest of his life.

He was spiritual direct and confessor for Redemptoris Mater Missionary Seminary in the Archdiocese of Armagh.

Bede had special devotion to Frank Duff and was vice-postulator for the cause of his beatification.

He was greatly appreciated as a spiritual adviser and confessor.

If one held a different position to him he would listen carefully, still disagreeing, but would always be pleasant and gracious to the person.

May he rest in peace.

Bede's body will be lying in state in St Malachy's Priory from 10.30am to 6.30pm today, Wednesday. Removal to St Malachy’s Church for Evening Prayer at 7pm. Funeral Mass in the church at 11.30am tomorrow, Thursday, November 28. Burial afterwards in St Patrick’s Cemetery.

Wars unleash a terrible anger that lasts for generations

This week’s Mediahuis Irish regional newspapers’ column.

Michael Commane

Have you ever felt misunderstood as a result of something you said and then simply unable to undo the damage?

I got chatting to two people in a coffee shop. They were mother and daughter. When the daughter told me she was still at school I asked her was she studying German. She replied in good German. 

They had lived for five years in Düsseldorf. There were only two other people in the cafe. They heard us talking German and one of them, smiling said it must be a little German-speaking club as she was from Austria. 

We had great banter and fun between the five of us. The mother of the daughter told me she and her daughter were Ukrainians and she was living in Ireland for 20 years. 

We got talking about the war and I in all innocence and probably stupidity said that unfortunately I could not see Ukraine winning the war. I pointed out that Russia had vast resources, both manpower and militarily and I was worried what the incoming US government might do. 

I had touched a nerve. The woman exploded, her face dramatically changed to anger. Moments earlier we were all smiling, having great fun. The girl’s mother was now exceedingly annoyed with me. She shouted at me, that next week her brother was heading to the front to fight for Ukraine. Her daughter stood there silently, maybe not knowing what to say. 

I tried to explain that I was hoping for a Ukrainian victory but I simply could not see how Ukraine could defeat the might of Mother Russia. I think it was that expression that upset the woman. I could hear her angrily repeating what I had said: ‘the might of Mother Russia’. 

She stormed out of the cafe. She was upset, indeed, in a rage. And I too was upset and felt I was completely misunderstood. There was nothing I could do. I was stuck to the floor, feeling stupid and powerless. I was annoyed with myself for what I had said. A few pleasant enjoyable moments had turned into a horrible experience. 

As the crow flies it is approximately 3,000 kilometres from Ireland to Ukraine. What must it be like for the people in Ukraine? What must it be like between the Ukrainian and Russian soldiers fighting each other on the front line as they kill and maim each other? 

There are no words to describe the hatred that has been unleashed. Pandora’s Box has been torn open and the death and damage that has been released has created great evil. How is it all going to end? 

Who is going to stop this war? And stop, it will someday but the damage that it is doing right now and will continue to do to future generations is enormous. 

Someone, somehow please help end this war and yes, pray that civility can return to all our hearts. The world needs good, honest leaders, who are wise and kind, who are genuinely interested in the people they are meant to serve. I hope the Ukrainian woman whom I upset is now in a better state. I wish I could meet her to apologise.

Bede McGregor OP, RIP

Dominican priest Bede McGregor died this afternoon in St Francis’ Nursing Home, Mount Oliver, Dundalk

An obituary to follow. 

May he rest in peace.  

A religion that forgets and ingnores the poor is doomed

Any religion that professes to be concerned about the souls of people and is not concerned about the slums that damn them, the economic conditions that strangle them and the social conditions that cripple them, is a spiritually moribund religion awaiting burial. 

-Martin Luther King Jr.

A one day UK royal gig costs British taxpayers €87 million

The coronation of Britain’s King Charles in May 2023 cost British taxpayers €87 million.

According to experts the monarchy costs the people of the United Kingdom €500 million annually.

Difficult to fathom.

Merkel: I mistook Trump for ‘someone completely normal’

The Guardian on Angela Merkel’s comments about Trump in her book to be published next week.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/nov/21/angela-merkel-i-mistook-donald-trump-for-someone-completely-normal?CMP=share_btn_url

Moscow’s Gulag museum closed as criticism is silenced

From The Irish Times of yesterday.

Russians encouraged to inform on each other as Putin regime fuels fear and paranoia

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Even before Russia effectively banned political dissent following its all-out invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the Gulag History Museum in Moscow felt like it was running on borrowed time.

Protests against Vladimir Putin’s rule were routinely crushed by police violence, civil society groups were branded as “foreign agents” and opposition figures were demonised by the state and sometimes attacked, as when Alexei Navalny nearly died in a poisoning by the Federal Security Service (FSB) in 2020. Polls showed rising popularity for Soviet dictator Josef Stalin and growing ignorance of his crimes, including the creation of the Gulag, a vast network of prison camps in which 2 million people died.

“But here we are, sitting in a state museum to the history of the Gulag,” the optimistic director of the institution, Roman Romanov, told The Irish Times in September 2021. “We have a monument to victims of political repression, and soon we will open a memory garden here. And all this is in the centre of Moscow.”

Moscow officials closed the museum indefinitely last week on fire safety grounds, using bland administrative cover to mask a political move in a way their Soviet predecessors would have recognised.

Two officials in the capital confirmed to the Moscow Times, on condition of anonymity, that the museum had been shut down on “strong recommendation from senior Kremlin figures and people from the Federal Security Service”.

The trigger for the move may have been a “remembrance prayer” event that the museum held last month on the day when Russia officially honours its victims of political repression, even though Moscow had refused to allow public gatherings.

Glossed over

For years after taking power in 2000, Putin – a KGB officer from 1975-91 and head of the FSB in 1998-99 – pushed the crimes of the Soviet Union into the background of public life and focused on its achievements, above all its immense contribution to the defeat of Nazi Germany. The KGB’s role in destroying the lives of millions of Soviet citizens was glossed over and the FSB was lionised by politicians and state media.

Since Putin launched a full-scale war against pro-western Ukraine, public criticism of his regime has in effect been outlawed and anything seen as besmirching Soviet glory is regarded as unpatriotic and potentially treasonous.

Some memorials to Stalin’s millions of victims have been dismantled, including many of the “last address” plaques on buildings from which people were taken to a KGB cell or directly to the Gulag. Since 2022, Russia’s prosecutor general has revoked decisions to rehabilitate at least 4,000 people convicted by Stalin’s authorities.

Russian investigative journalists working outside the country have found that more people in Russia have been prosecuted for their political beliefs under Putin than at any time since the rule of Stalin, including thousands who have been charged under draconian wartime censorship laws and accused of extremism, treason and spying.

Officials are once again urging citizens to do their “patriotic duty” by informing on anyone they suspect of subversive leanings, reviving a tradition of denunciations that many came to regard as shameful after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Moscow paediatrician Nadezhda Buyanova (68) was jailed for 5½ years last week for spreading “fake” information about the Russian army, after the ex-wife of a soldier killed in Ukraine reported her for criticising the invasion during a consultation. There were no other adult witnesses and Buyanova denied making the comment, but the woman’s testimony was enough for the court to convict the doctor.

“The sentence is monstrously harsh . . . even given what is happening today,” her lawyer Oskar Cherdzhiyev told the BBC.

A Russian hero who tended to tell the truth

Georgy Zhukov was the man who helped save the world from the tyranny of Hitler. He was a marshal in the Red Army, saved Leningrad and Moscow and against all the odds defeated the Germans at Stalingrad. It was Germany’s first and most significant defeat in World War II. Stalingrad changed the war

After the war he was badly treated by both Stalin and Khrushchev. Banished, rehabilitated, and banished and rehabilitated again.

Geoffrey Roberts Stalin’s General The Life of Georgy Zhukov writes: “What Stalin really objected to was Zhukov’s independent streak and his tendency to tell the truth as he saw it, a quality that had served the dictator well during  the war but was less commendable in peacetime when Stalin felt he needed no advice except his own.”

It’s not just dictators, who behave in such a way, living in bubbles surrounding themselves with sycophants.

It happens in democracies too, and in the churches. It happens everywhere, right in front of our eyes.

Iris Rail’s first Hydrotreated Vegetable Oil locomotive

Irish Rail has refitted the

HVO powered loco pulling 13.00 Heuston
Cork train yesterday

first of its 201 Class locomotives to run on Hydrotreated Vegetable Oil. 

All diesel fleets will operate with at least a 35 per cent biofuel/hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO) blend.

The locomotive hauls the Dublin Cork Mark IV trains.

The 201 Class locos were built by GM in London, Canada and delivered to Irish Rail in 1994/1995. The first loco arrived in Dublin Airport on a Russian Andropov aircraft.

At present there are 23 in service with many more being canabalised in Inchicore.

They also haul the De Dietrich train, used on the Belfast Dublin service.

An allotment where they make apple juice and play act

This week’s Mediahuis Irish regional newspapers’ column

Michael Commane

It nourishes the soul when we come across something that’s good and wholesome. There are nuggets in our lives that stand out, those moments when we see the wonder and genius of what people do.

I worked with a man in The Kerryman newspaper who fascinated me. He was an expert at his job, which meant he was forever correcting me when it came to page layout, which was not my forte. He’d shout across the office telling me I miscalculated the size of a picture. He mortified me. But he was great fun and I think I was able to take his ribbing. 

He took early retirement from the job and left the newspaper some short time before I did. We’ve stayed in contact. From time to time he’d tell me what he was doing, the books he was reading, his political views, and his involvement in a local drama group.

He’s a jovial man and never takes himself too seriously. Over the years he has told me that along with a few other men he had rented an allotment in the town. 

I never knew exactly what he did there besides drinking coffee and discussing how to run the world. 

My eyes were opened for me when by chance I visited the allotment last week. Three of them were in the process of making apple juice. It was an amazing operation to observe. Between the three of them they were cleaning the apples, mulching them, working a press and saving the waste, which they would pass on to a pig farmer. 

In some respects I had called at a bad time as they were in production mode, nevertheless they had time to make me a cup of coffee. And it was made and drunk in a glass dome-shaped room they use on occasion for putting on plays. 

I wandered around the allotments to see how every metre of ground is used to produce all sorts of edibles. And this right in the centre of a built up area. Of course their worry is that the Council might decide to sell it for housing. What a disaster that would be. I’m told one allotment for the year for unemployed persons is €20. I presume it’s the same for those who are retired.

On leaving the allotment I called into a friend of mine who has a bicycle shop some 400 metres away. I told him where I had been and he had no knowledge of such an enterprise. 

And that was something that struck me. So much goes on right in front of our noses or maybe just out of sight and we know nothing about it. With all our communication and all our instant digital news we seem out of touch with the wonders of our surroundings and the genius of the people who quietly work their minds and hands to do great things.

I’m always saying it’s the little things, those unnoticed, forgotten activities that make us and indeed, make the world a great place. 

Before leaving the allotment I was handed a bottle. Five minutes earlier I had seen the freshly-made apple  juice being poured into the bottle. Honestly, it was delicious. 

Aer Lingus holding company IAG makes staggering profits

International Airlines Group has reported a summer of record profits.

IAG, which owns five airlines including Aer Lingus, reported a summer of record profits.

For the three months July, August, September the group made an operating profit of €2.01bn. It was a record for the company and 15 per cent higher than for the same period last year.

Casting Zelenskiy as spoiled child not good for Ukraine

Insightful piece by Lara Marlowe in The Irish Times yesterday.

In Trump world, Ukraine’s brave leader Volodymyr Zelenskiy is a spoiled child who exploited the naivety of the Biden administration. “You’re 38 days from losing your allowance,” said the crass caption to an Instagram video of Zelenskiy reposted by Donald Trump jnr, the eldest son of the president-elect, this week.

Trump reacted with sarcasm to Zelenskiy’s appeal for more US aid last June, calling the Ukrainian leader “the greatest salesman of all time” and complaining like an exasperated parent: “He just left four days ago with $60 billion, and he gets home, and he announces that he needs another $60 billion. It never ends.”

Trump’s obeisance to Russia goes back to 1987, when he purchased full-page ads in US newspapers urging the US to stop funding Nato. The KGB were delighted. In the mid-2000s, Paul Manafort, who would later chair Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, went to Ukraine to work for Viktor Yanukovych, the uncouth former convict from Donetsk and a Putin stooge who was prevented from stealing Ukraine’s presidential election by the 2004 Orange Revolution.

Manafort restyled Yanukovych and his Party of Regions for a Trump-like comeback, which culminated in victory in Ukraine’s 2010 presidential election.

At Putin’s bidding, Yanukovych distanced Ukraine from the EU and Nato, precipitating his overthrow by the 2013/14 Euromaidan Revolution. Manafort continued to work with the remnants of Yanukovych’s party after the fallen president fled to Moscow. Ukraine’s national anti-corruption bureau found evidence that Manafort was paid $12.7 million over five years for advancing Russia’s agenda in Ukraine.

Manafort was eventually sentenced to 7½ years in a US prison for fraud and conspiracy stemming from his employment by Yanukovych. He was one of 29 underlings pardoned by Trump at Christmas 2020. The Washington Post reported last May that Manafort is “poised to rejoin Trump world”.

Imminent betrayal

Thus, Trump’s imminent betrayal of Ukraine can be viewed as the culmination of a long contest between US Democrats, who favoured liberal democracy in Ukraine, and Trump Republicans who appeared determined to give the country to Putin.

In a private conversation with advisers in 2019, Trump said that Ukrainian politicians were “terrible people . . . all corrupt and they tried to take me down”, the New York Times reported.

Trump’s grudge originated with Ukrainian revelations about his buddy Manafort’s meddling in Ukrainian politics. Trump was so enraged by Zelenskiy’s refusal, in a July 2019 telephone conversation, to investigate Hunter Biden’s business dealings in Ukraine that he suspended a military aid package for Kyiv the following month. On Trump’s orders, House Republicans blocked a desperately needed $60 billion aid package for six months last winter. There is no reason to believe Trump will not block aid to Ukraine a third time, as he has promised.

Indications of collusion between Trump, his entourage and Putin are alarming. Bob Woodward reported in his new book, War, that Trump had up to seven private telephone conversations with Putin in the past four years. That would have been “a smart thing”, Trump said. Russia and Ukraine expert Fiona Hill calls Trump’s return to power the “oligarch capture” of the US. The world’s richest man and Trump sidekick Elon Musk has also maintained secret communications with Putin, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Musk’s ‘peace plan’

Musk’s participation in Trump’s post-election telephone call to Zelenskiy from Mar-a-Lago is chilling, because two years ago Musk tweeted a “peace plan” for Ukraine that espoused Putin’s demands: Russian sovereignty over Crimea, Ukraine’s abandonment of its application to join Nato, and referendums in Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine.

Zelenskiy scolded Musk for expressing opinions about a conflict he did not understand. Like Trump, Musk probably bears a grudge against Zelenskiy. With Ukraine reliant on Musk’s Starlink satellite communications system, Musk holds a sword of Damocles over Ukraine’s prosecution of the war.

Trump returns to power as Russia continues to advance on the eastern front and steps up the bombardment of Ukrainian cities. Zelenskiy attempted to put a brave face on the situation, saying that he, like Trump, believes in “peace through strength”. No one was fooled. Ukraine is the victim of Russian aggression, and in Trump world, victims are “losers”, unworthy of sympathy or support.

Lt Yulia Mykytenko, who heads a 25-man drone unit on the front line in Donetsk, and whose story I recently told in a book, is stoical about Trump’s election. “We respect the will of the American people,” she said. “Trump is unpredictable, and ultimately we’re alone against the Russians anyway.”

Europe shows small signs of finally getting its act together. The European Union missed its promise to supply Ukraine with a million 155mm artillery shells by last March, but foreign policy chief Josep Borrell says the goal will be met by the end of this year. Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban, friend to Trump and Putin, whose far-right Patriots for Europe group is the third largest in the EU parliament, can be counted on to block significant EU aid to Ukraine. However, eight “capability coalitions” grouping countries who have the biggest stake in confronting Russian expansionism, chiefly Poland, the Baltic States and Scandinavia, can make up part of the shortfall in US aid.

Olaf Scholz phones Vladimir Putin

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz spoke to Russian President Vladimir Putin for the first time since December 2022 yesterday afternoon urging him to start "serious" talks with Ukraine. 

In the phone call, Scholz urged Putin to end the war of aggression against Ukraine and withdraw his troops, German government sources stated. 

Russia should “enter into serious negotiations with Ukraine with the aim of achieving a just and lasting peace for Ukraine,” Scholz was reported to have said, stressing that Russia had not achieved its war goals. 

Scholz also stressed Germany’s commitment to supporting Ukraine as long as necessary, government sources added. The involvement of North Korean troops is seen as a “serious escalation and expansion of the conflict.”  

Putin, for his part, underlined that any agreement to resolve the conflict would have to "take into account the security interests of the Russian Federation, proceed from the new territorial realities and, most importantly, eliminate the root causes of the conflict," Russian news agency TASS reported. 

He reiterated that, in his view, “the current crisis was a direct result of NATO's multi-year aggressive policy.”  

German media had reported in October that Scholz was considering a phone call with Putin ahead of next week’s G20 summit in Brazil.  

However, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov had responded to the reports by saying that he did not see any relevant topics to discuss, according to Russian news agencies, adding that relations had reached “absolute zero.” 

In recent months, Scholz has repeatedly stressed his desire to bring Russia to the negotiating table. He had stated his goal of holding a peace summit with Russia following the June peace summit in Switzerland, at which Russian representatives were absent. 

The phone call marked a notable development, as it was the first call between the two leaders in nearly two years and one of the first of any major European leader in a long time. French President Emmanuel Macron had also last spoken to Putin in 2022. When contacted by Euractiv, the Elysée Palace declined to comment.  

On Sunday, the Scholz will travel to Brazil, where Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is expected to be present. 

No doubt neither man will be aware the phone call took place of the feast day of the famous Dominican theologian and philosopher, St Albert the Great.