Your task is to extract the thesis of an opinionated news article by selecting some of its text segments. The thesis is a summarization of what the author wants to persuade the reader of. Your answer should consist of segments of the given text. Note that you are not allowed to combine different sentences.

Ex Input:
Pope Francis' Vatican just gave Democrats a big boost for 2016. A bombshell Vatican report released Monday that gives a green light to the social activism of left-wing U.S  nuns is the latest example of how the more liberal papacy of Pope Francis could affect the outcome of the 2016 US elections . The report forms the conclusion of an investigation, known as an "Apostolic Visitation," into the practices and beliefs of sisters across the U.S that was launched in 2008 under the papacy of Pope Benedict XVI amid long-standing concerns that many orders had lost their way . Although there are a significant number of vibrant orthodox orders, such as the pro-life Sisters of Life, the Dominican Sisters of St  Cecilia and the Little Sisters of the Poor (who are currently fighting the ObamaCare contraception mandate) , a much larger number of orders have rejected Catholic doctrines on the divinity of Christ, on sacramental theology and on moral issues such as abortion, contraception and gay marriage . Instead they substituted in alternative, non-Christian forms of spirituality that rejected fundamental Catholic truths, accompanied by a turn toward aggressively partisan left-wing social activism . What was being investigated was on show in 2012, with a group of left-wing nuns forming a slick national campaign called the "Nuns on the Bus," campaigning against the proposed Ryan budget plan . Last year their tour topic was another Democrat favorite -- amnesty for illegal immigrants . Heading up the travelling sisters is Sr. Simone Campbell -- a lawyer and lobbyist who also led the nuns who defied the US bishops' condemnation of ObamaCare, signed a letter supporting the law and attended the signing ceremony at which she received a hug from President Obama . At that time, the power of the "Nuns on the Bus" was limited by their designation as rebels . With a Vatican investigation under way, it made it difficult for the nuns to claim to be the authentic moral voice of Catholicism . However ,  since then, Pope Francis has taken over and brought with him a certain interpretation of Catholic social teaching which adheres a lot closer to the tenets of the Democratic Party than more universally acknowledged truths pushed by Popes Benedict XVI and John Paul II . The results of the probe will no doubt invite speculation that Pope Francis has had heavy influence over the findings of the report , which can comfortably be described as a whitewash . The report mentions nothing of the "secularist mentality" and radical feminism that had been given as the reason for the launch of the investigation , and is mostly a document of praise which offers little-to-no criticism, no disciplinary action and says the nuns' work resonates with Pope Francis' emphasis on social justice . The report even manages to take a swipe at the U.S  economy , praising the nuns for working in an economy that too often "creates inequity and exclusion." It is better than anything the liberal nuns could have hoped for . The liberal orders aren't out of the woods yet . A separate investigation by the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith into the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) -- a coalition of predominantly left-wing orders -- is not complete , and the doctrinal watchdog is likely to find something in a group that prides itself in rebelling against Church teaching . However ,  Monday's report gives left-wing nuns, and the Democratic Party a big boost for 2016 . The Catholic vote has been decisive in modern U.S  politics , and Catholic Democrats have often hyped their faith around election time . Joe Biden in particular has stood up as the advocate for liberal nuns, recently attending a "Nuns on the Bus" rally and in the past reportedly telling Pope Benedict XVI that he was being too hard on them and that he should "lighten up." With a recent Vatican synod appearing to undermine Church teaching on controversial issues , the new report is another blow to more traditional Catholics who, when the radical nuns are talking, have always been able to point out their status as rebels and dissenters ignoring Church teaching . Unless the CDF does a dramatic about-face with its report , the Democrats' favorite nuns will now claim to have Vatican approval . With a green light from Rome, expect left-wing nuns and the Democrat Party to be emboldened in their push to present the nuns -- and the Democrats -- as the authentic voice of Catholicism, putting the Democrats in a better position to retain and expand upon the often-decisive Catholic vote in 2016 .

Ex Output:
A bombshell Vatican report released Monday that gives a green light to the social activism of left-wing U.S  nuns is the latest example of how the more liberal papacy of Pope Francis could affect the outcome of the 2016 US elections With a green light from Rome, expect left-wing nuns and the Democrat Party to be emboldened in their push to present the nuns -- and the Democrats -- as the authentic voice of Catholicism, putting the Democrats in a better position to retain and expand upon the often-decisive Catholic vote in 2016


Ex Input:
Russia is part of the solution and the problem. When it comes to Russia, I must admit, I have my biases . Political and economic developments in Russia have a direct impact on the Caucasus and particularly my own country, Armenia . The heightened tension between Russia and the West limits Armenia's ability to balance between two friendly sides while Russia's economic reversals impact Armenia's fragile economy . Not to mention what another Cold War might do to Armenia, to the region and the world . My enquiry generated a commotion in the hall and the Finnish representative, pre-empting the speaker, challenged my premise arguing that Finland's choice was of its own volition , which is not the case in Ukraine . Schussel concurred . Fair point . But in international relations, a state's "volition" is so often shaped and determined by perceived threats . It's called diplomacy and it requires reconciling the pursuit of national interests with regional and global peace . Finland's President Sauli Niinisto himself, in a recent interview with the Washington Post, predicted that Finland joining NATO would negatively affect relations with Russia . "It is very obvious that if Finland joins NATO, that would undoubtedly harm our relations with Russia . You have to keep in mind that 1,300km is a long border, and you just don't keep it closed . On the contrary, it's a living border," Niinisto said . It's time Ukraine does the same . The world is inching towards a new Cold War and at the heart of it is Ukraine . When and what will be the last straw is hard to tell . But then it will be too late to reverse things from a point of no return . Russia today faces serious geopolitical and economic challenges . It is in direct confrontation with the West on a vision about the world order, on Ukraine, on Syria and on a great many other large and not-so-large issues . Economically, Russia is beginning to feel the aggregate impact of the West's economic sanctions , falling oil prices, the devaluation of the ruble, capital outflow and a decline in direct foreign investment . But to think that these pressures will force the Kremlin into even partial submission and to change its posture on global issues and weaken its grip on its immediate neighbourhood would be to misjudge President Vladimir Putin . It could have the exact opposite effect , as Russia's president perhaps walks his way out of this through consolidation at home and further assertiveness and intransigence abroad . In his annual State of the Nation address to parliament on December 4, Putin evoked exactly that . He called for the public's resilience in the face of hardship, and promised to continue his foreign policy in the belief in the justness of Russia's cause and greatness . Russia's(or Putin's) convictions are anchored on several real or perceived premises . Russian influence . First ,  Russia believes that the US never stopped containing Russia . Since the collapse of the Berlin wall, NATO's and the EU's borders have moved east . Russia fears that Ukraine's and Georgia's expressed desire to join both organisations, risks bringing those organisations to Russia's most vulnerable borders - to the east and the south . In his address condemning the "pure cynicism" of the West, he accused western governments of seeking to raise a new "iron curtain" around Russia and suggested that even if Crimea had not been annexed, the West would have come up with a different pretext to impose sanctions to contain Russia's resurgence . Second ,  Russia firmly believes that Americans are interventionists and falsely moralistic in their discourse . They are heavily involved in using soft power to manipulate and shape the will of the people while advocating the independence and sovereignty of states and respect of the will of those same people to determine their own future . In the same speech, Putin accused the West of meddling in Russia's internal affairs, claiming that sanctions were merely an excuse to weaken Russia . Last month, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov charged the West with seeking regime change in Moscow . Russia has always blamed the West for its policies of interference in other countries' internal affairs, but had never before implied that it had worries of its own . As we are faced with the possibility of another Cold War and are challenged to look for ways to avoid it , it is worth looking into history's verdict on the original one . Facing a Cold War . First there are the traditionalists of the 1960s who argued that the Cold War was the direct result of Stalin's aggressive Soviet expansionism . Later on, particularly during the Vietnam War, the revisionists (William Appleman Williams) challenged that view blaming the US for the Cold War, arguing that:"America's chief aim in the years after the war was to make sure that there was an 'open door' for American trade, and that this led the American government to try to make sure that countries remained capitalist like the United States." Then there were the post-revisionists (John Lewis Gaddis) in the 1970s who believed that:"America and Russia wanted to keep the peace after the war but that conflict was caused by mutual misunderstanding, reactivity, and above all the American inability to understand Stalin's fears and need to defend himself after the war." The latter is the closest guide to today's problems . One of the specificities of the current period is that the West considers Russia to be both part of the solution but part of the problem as well . Indeed ,  Russia supports the separatists in Ukraine and is the only power that can influence decisions there and make the rebels listen . In Iran, Russia built the heavy water Arak nuclear power station which was perceived to be a huge problem , even as it offers to supply enriched uranium or host Iran's centrifuges as part of a solution . In Syria, Russia backs the Assad regime while it remains engaged in the political process and under certain circumstances can influence Assad's decisions . The list grows even longer if one considers the conflicts in other parts of Russia's neighbourhood . From the Moldovan to the Georgian and the Armenian- Azerbaijani conflicts, Russia has a major influence and say in the final outcomes . As a result of this duality, the line is blurred between engagement and confrontation, creating misunderstandings and uncertainties, but also opportunities for both Russia and the US . This was not the case in the East- West standoff during the Cold War . These beliefs and perceptions are both strengths and weaknesses for one side or the other . Taken together, they nullify each other . In the bigger picture, in the face of enormous global disturbances causing untold carnage and loss of life, they seem trivial . It is time that the major players look beyond history and personalities and transcend the zero-sum thinking of the past .

Ex Output:
When it comes to Russia, I must admit, I have my biases Political and economic developments in Russia have a direct impact on the Caucasus and particularly my own country, Armenia


Ex Input:
It's time to reinvent what universities can be. With the annual Ucas university application deadline looming on Thursday, thousands of 17-year-olds will be putting the finishing touches to their personal statements . And so another cycle of conditional offers, A-level results and nervous forays into freshers' week begins . Unlike 50 years ago, when a tiny, socially elite proportion went to university , they will be joining almost 50% of their peers in studying for a degree, facing average costs of upwards of? 46k for a three-year degree, including tuition and living costs, compared with the generous grants available up until the 1990s . Setting expansion aside, it is remarkable how much hasn't changed: at the heart of the system remains a core model of young people moving away to university to study for three-year full-time degrees ; an expensive route for which they now bear much of the costs themselves . Yet the jobs market has changed beyond recognition . Graduates are now responsible for forging their own careers in a fluid market compared with the jobs for life that were the norm a few decades ago and employers are demanding a completely different set of skills . Does this model, then, remain fit for purpose? The political debate has focused on fee levels and headline prices to the exclusion of almost everything else, including the benefits and value of a university education - and how they might be improved . The debate about whether the 50% participation target is too high has been similarly staid : surely it's a no-brainer to hope that at least half of young people engage in advanced learning . But what type of learning should that be? One of the purported benefits of marketising higher education was that the market itself would deliver innovation and better value . But the government massively overegged the potential for higher education to behave like a market . Student demand far exceeds supply of places and price has become a proxy for quality . Little wonder, then, that average fees are far higher than the? 6,000 a year that the then universities minister, David Willetts, predicted when he introduced the? 9,000 fee cap . We now have the nonsense of a market where students pay the same for very different amounts and quality of academic provision . This is reflected in the variation in students' own perceptions : research by the consumer body Which? found almost a third of first-year undergraduates thought their course was poor value for money , while less than half thought seminars were worth attending . There is too little accountability for this variation within the powerful sector : universities award their own degrees ; the sector is opaque , even resisting moves to publish comparable information on the amount of teaching students can expect for their fees ; and the higher education regulator is weak, with virtually no powers to tell universities to buck up standards . The debate about innovation has centred on distance learning and Moocs (Massive Online Open Courses) . There is no doubt developments in technology have the potential to transform the way university education is experienced . But it's pointless to focus on technology at the expense of changes that need to happen in the system in order to take advantage of it . Moocs will not transform the sector until they are embraced by the most prestigious universities : why shouldn't you be able to study for a cut-price Oxford degree, half via YouTube and Skype, and half among the dreaming spires? Other innovations that could bring down costs without sacrificing quality might be a restructure of the system to standardise first-year curriculums , enabling young people to combine studying for a year or two at their local university with a year or two on campus at a more specialist institution . We could see more professional degrees co-delivered and funded by universities and employers, such as the accountancy degree offered by Durham and KPMG in which young people benefit from six years of combined university and work experience . Or there could be more intensive two-year courses, perhaps aimed at young people getting a year or two of work experience after school . University could be combined with more modern ways of adjusting to adulthood : for example, a year spent in a structured volunteering programme, such as that offered by the charity City Year, offers huge opportunities to develop the grit and teamwork so valued by today's employers , while making a real contribution to schools and other public services . But on some measures we are moving backwards, with a massive fall in numbers of part-time and mature students in the few years since the ? 9,000 fee cap was introduced . There are lessons from the 1960s , when Harold Wilson's government realised that the only way to increase access in the face of a reluctant sector was to back Michael Young's vision for a new institution, the Open University , which increased the student population by Britain by a fifth when it was launched via its distance learning degrees . Government can't simply wait for the sector to do what it is asked to do . It needs to foster a conversation with universities, students and employers about what it means to get a degree . Of course there will always be a role for the academic . But should we be shoehorning the majority of undergraduates into this model, or should getting a degree more routinely encompass work experience? It should also introduce strong new accountabilities within the sector . One way of doing this would be to separate degree-awarding powers from learning provision, as suggested by the Social Market Foundation . This would allow new providers to offer innovative ways of meeting the standards set by a Russell Group university, for example . And government should provide more incentives for universities to innovate . Come Friday, many teenagers will be heaving a collective sigh of relief once their applications are in . They deserve the best possible learning experience for the significant time and money they will invest in their degrees : it's critical we don't shy away from a challenge to universities to ensure their ivory towers continue to evolve to keep pace with the world around them .

Ex Output:

Other innovations that could bring down costs without sacrificing quality might be a restructure of the system to standardise first-year curriculums Or there could be more intensive two-year courses, perhaps aimed at young people getting a year or two of work experience after school