The accession of Cyprus to the European Union (EU) in May of 2004 constitutes the most positive strategic development in the history of the island state since its independence in 1960. In the last two years, the Cypriot people have experienced watershed events, filled with frustrations, challenges but also opportunities. Cyprus' EU membership has extended the borders of the EU to the strategic corner of the Eastern Mediterranean and has brought the Middle East ever closer to Europe. It is hoped that Cyprus' EU membership can contribute to the expansion of peace, stability, security and prosperity in the area. Cyprus is situated at the crossroads of three continents and civilizations, where global political and economic interests, as well as international security concerns, converge. Together with its American ally and with the help of its European partners Cyprus aspires to play a positive role, and to act as a bridge of mutual understanding and the promotion of sustained and result oriented dialogue between its Middle Eastern neighbors and Europe. At the same time, Cyprus strives to achieve a just, permanent, functional and mutually acceptable solution to the Cyprus problem, an end of the Turkish military occupation, reunification and prosperity for all Cypriots within their common European home.

His Excellency Euripides L. Evriviades presented his credentials as the Ambassador of the Republic of Cyprus to the United States to President George W. Bush on 4 December 2003. He is also accredited as High Commissioner to Canada. Ambassador Evriviades served as Ambassador of Cyprus to the Netherlands from August 2000 to October 2003. Prior to his posting in The Hague, he served as the Ambassador to Israel from November 1997 until July 2000. Earlier in his career, Mr. Evriviades held positions at Cypriot embassies in Tripoli, Libya; Moscow, USSR/Russia; and Bonn, Germany.

A lecture by Timothy Garton Ash to mark the 15th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the election of the 44th President of the United States.

Timothy Garton Ash's new book Free World: America, Europe and the Surprising Future of the West will be published in the United States on November 9, the day the Berlin Wall was breached in 1989. He is a Professor of European Studies at Oxford University and a Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. His previous books include The Magic Lantern, his eyewitness account of the velvet revolutions of 1989, The Polish Revolution: Solidarity, The File: A Personal History, In Europe's Name: Germany and the Divided Continent" and "History of the Present.

In the context of the Iraq Wars, references to totalitarianism multiplied across the political, cultural, and intellectual spectrum. For every equation of Saddam with Hitler, another followed projecting the Nazi past onto the American present. While the end of the most recent war has led to the macabre discovery of the Iraqi killing fields, some German intellectuals have drawn the conclusion that American moral authority has come to an end. Current politics aside, the first question we hope to raise involves the legitimacy of this proliferation of the term totalitarianism, either directly or through rhetorical invocations of features of Europe in the thirties and forties: appeasement politics, firebombing, attacks on civilians. A conservative usage of the term might restrict it to the regimes of Hitler and Stalin; alternatively, it could be utilized as an analytical tool for multiple political phenomena of the late twentieth century (and beyond). We want to explore the consequences of these different strategies through a reflection on the term itself and its appropriation in various venues.

While these questions can and should be pursued with regard to many national histories, the German experience with totalitarianism in the twentieth century is particularly intriguing. The Weimar Republic witnessed the rise of both Communist and National Socialist movements, with revolutionary aspirations, in the wake of which, ultimately, two dictatorial political systems followed. To be sure, the two cases are not symmetrical; the GDR was unthinkable without Russian occupation and the Cold War. Nonetheless, large segments of the German population lent their support to both regimes, at times with enthusiasm and at times under duress. While the collapse of the Nazi regime led eventually (if not quickly) to a critical discourse on the past, a parallel scrutiny of the Communist era has not yet developed to the same extent. In light of the renewed totalitarianism discourse, a review of this past seems more urgent than ever. We are interested in examining the Communist experience in relationship to National Socialism, with regard to both similarities and differences, and in terms of philosophical, historical, and literary/cultural frameworks.