Great Unions of this decade?

I saw you asked this in Yahoo India and here in the states Union can have a lot of connotations. Do you mean union as in marriage? A political union such as treaty? Or a union like a geographic region, like the European Union?

I guess I'll do an example of each...

1) Marriage...probably the most famous couple in the past 25 years was Princess Diana and Prince Charles; both were important figures in Britain as well as activists. Diana especially was highly respected for her work in Africa during the early years of the AIDS epidemic

2) Treaty...NATO is a military pact between many western nations (US, UK, Germany, France, etc.) with the notion that an attack on one is an attack on all. As a result, there were UK soldiers fighting in Afghanistan along with Americans. Other NATO nations also gave money to help the war effort.

3) European Union is a financial, governmental and security Union of (nearly) all the nations in Europe. It is born out of the notion that having nearly 40 small nations is weaker than having a Union in which they all have common goals. There are similar unions such as the African Union, and less powerful ones such as NAFTA (this is just a trade union and has nothing to do with security or collective government) between the US, Canada, Mexico and a few other north atlantic countries.

Many more European countrys have joined the European Union.