100 posts
Piercing ACTA armour
We have looked at the growing protests online and on the ground against the Anti-Counterfeiting (and much more) Trade Agreement ACTA. The anti-ACTA feelings run high, but there is also a need for deliberation on the official policies of ever more dr...
Growing ACTA protest online and on the ground
By now, more than 1.526 million netizens have signed the Avaaz.org petition for the European Parliament to reject #ACTA. The call is also directed at the parliaments in the EU member states, where most of the governments are preparing ratification. P...
De Gucht merits ACTA rejection
We learn, although not from the website of Karel De Gucht, but from La Quadrature du Net, that the EU trade commissioner has written a letter to the members of the Committee on International Trade (INTA) in the European Parliament, accusing civil soc...
"How (not) to Defend Entrenched Inequality" by John Quiggin
The endless EU vs US debate rolls on, but now with an odd twist. Although the objective facts about economic inequality, immobility and so on are far worse in the US than the EU, the political...
Sarah Palin is right: Newt Gingrich is getting crucified by Mitt Romney's millions
Sarah Palin has spoken, and she says that the Republican establishment is “trying to crucify” Newt Gingrich. To a large extent, she is right (although Newt probably supplied his own nails). On Sunday, NBC reported that Romney now leads Gingrich b...
Barack Obama's state of the union address
video Follow Barack Obama's 2012 state of the union address to Congress, in which he called for a fairer America and challenged Republicans not to obstruct his plans. RE...
Central Asian state shifts between Moscow and Washington depending on circumstances - Alexei Malashenko
In what some see as a move to secure military patronage from the United States, Uzbekistan’s president Islam Karimov has warned that the withdrawal of coalition forces from Afghanistan in 2014 will seriously threaten regional security. REA...
Talks with Russia on missile defence stalled - NATO
By Sebastian Moffett Talks with Russia over NATO's planned missile defence system are failing to progress, the head...
Azerbaijan develops Islamic financing
By Leyla Abdullayeva Azerbaijan may soon become a regional Islamic financing center and play a significant role in...
The Baltic Tigers after 20 years: is Russia extending a helping hand?
By Česlovas Iškauskas On the New Year eve the Russian media started escalating the issue of Baltic countries&rsqu...
Rogozin Proposes State Body on Aerospace Defenses
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin on Friday proposed setting up a government body responsible for consolidating efforts aimed at the creation of an effective aerospace defense network in the country. READ MORE...
Address by the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev to the People of Kazakhstan
Socio-Economic Modernization as Main Vector of Development of Kazakhstan. READ MORE...
Atambayev Invites Turkey to Decide on US Transit Center’s Future
By Aida Kasymalieva, Erica Marat Although the newly-elected Kyrgyz President, Almazbek Atambayev, received signific...
An Unreconstructed Kremlin
The mental leap to freedom is hard for those programmed into the ideology of the revolutionary left.“When I was a teenager growing up in Chicago, I went through the standard teenage rebellion,” Bill Browder told me one afternoon in the Hermitage...
A Future of Regulators at Fault?
The typical case in the U.S. is that the industry being regulated resists being regulated, while the regulators insist on enforcing the regulations. To be sure, particularly strong firms in an industry may propose incremental regulations for strategi...
The way to neuter opposition to intrusive government measures is to present them as being “for the children”
Imagine a law in America that could set children against their parents, centralize power away from the states toward the federal government, mandate increases in government spending regardless of taxpayer wishes, bypass the House of Representative...
ACTA Stipulates Increased Damages For File Sharing
”ACTA changes nothing” has become the favorite mantra of those who want to push the agreement through at any cost. This in itself is of course a strong signal that there is something very suspect about the whole issue. If ACTA really chan...
ACTA: ”Nu handlar det om att få ett nej i EU-parlamentet”
Sveriges Radios ”Alltid Nyheter” hade flera inslag om ACTA igår. Först intervjuade de Stefan Johansson, som är tjänstemannen på Justitiedepartementet som driver på för att få igenom ACTA, och därefter fick Henrik Alexandersson oc...
Over five year almost 100,000 troops would be cut. Will security risks follow?
Do you think the security risks will come with the fact the US will have a smaller force or not, and why? Comments by Richard Stoll, Professor of Political Science, Rice University. The cuts to the US defense budget that Secretary of Defense Panett...
Putin Slips Below Runoff Threshold In New Polls
Ratings for Russian Prime Minister and presidential candidate Vladimir Putin slipped in the last week, with three polls showing he would receive less than the 50% of votes necessary to avoid a second round of elections if a vote was held immediate...
Russians Give Their Government Low Grades
A roomful of Russian elites at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, identified corruption as Russia's biggest problem and gave the government low marks for effectiveness.
DN: Sverige skrev under Acta-avtalet
DN skriver: EU och 22 av medlemsländerna skrev på torsdagen under det omdiskuterade Acta-avtalet vid en ceremoni i Japan. ”Sverige har mörkat det här”, anser Christian Engström, piratpartist i EU-parlamentet. Läs mer hos DN...
Bill Gates: Pleased with European commitment to development aid
According to Bill Gates "Europe's role will shape global action, what happens to people in need." Gates, who recently met the Parliament´s Development Committee, recognises the European´s commitment to development aid. In spite of the European eco...
Iraq makes sanctions against Iran ineffective | Nima Khorrami Assl
The long border with Iraq undermines US and EU efforts to stop Iran's nuclear programme with trade sanctionsThe US and EU have announced new sanctions in the hope of persuading Iran to abandon its alleged nuclear weapons programme, though how effect...
ACTA signatures and content
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan has published a note on the signing of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement between the European Union and its Member States, Australia, Canada, Japan, the Republic of Korea, the United Mexican States, the...
Europe’s SOPA?
The European Parliament’s website has been shut down by hackers today, allegedly in a denial-of-service attack from Anonymous in protest of imminent anti-piracy legislation restricting internet freedom. But as the IT folks in parliament scramble to...
Aid has to be modernised; EU is not pulling out from middle income countries (MICs)
The European Union, like many other donors, is currently exploring the best ways to fight against poverty around the world. Faced with differentiation between developing countries, some of which have become aid donors themselves while others suffer f...
In big Obama speech, a European absence
The news overnight focused on President Barack Obama’s annual State of the Union address. For the Brussels crowd, the most interesting thing in the speech may have been what was not in the speech: Europe. Despite the ongoing eurozone crisis, &helli...
SOTU: Obama does not care for europe
In the last State of the Union speech of his first term, US president B. Obama talked about economy, social justice and healthcare… But did not mention Europe – not even to mention the crisis we are in at the moment and the risk for the world...
"What Germans Don't Understand About America"
On Wednesday, January 25 at 7 PM (German time, which means 1:00 PM EST), US Ambassador to Germany Philip D. Murphy will deliver a keynote speech at the American Academy in Berlin entitled "What Germans Don't Understand About America." Cont...
ACTA in European Parliament committees: Legal Affairs (JURI)
After the roundup of ACTA blog posts in Finnish, Swedish or English on Grahnlaw Suomi Finland, IPR trade protection: ACTA controversy, I have published two recent updates about the agreement in the European Union: Grahnlaw (EN): ACTA update (in par...
EU formally adopts Iran oil embargo
By DON MELVIN BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union formally adopted an oil embargo Monday against Iran and a freeze of the assets of the country’s central bank, part of sanctions meant to pressure the country to resume talks on its nuclear prog...
Blogger, politician, populist? - Alexey Navalny’s rise
Alexey Navalny may well be the first Russian internet politician. The charismatic 35 year old emerged not just as an online activist, but leading agitator of the nascent protest movement. HisRead more…...
Putin´s aim is to stay in power for the rest of his life - but he will not succeed
The opinion page editor of the Moscow Times, Michael Bohm has written a must read article about why Russia´s de facto dictator Vladimir Putin aims to stay in power for the rest of his life: According to The New Times Oct. 31 cover story, "Russi...
ACTA in European Parliament committees: International Trade and Development
Yesterday I offered some information about the state of ACTA in the institutions of the European Union: ACTA update (in part). Now for some complementary information. INTA The Committee on International Trade (INTA) is the responsible committee in t...
“U.S. Americans”
The term is as absurd as “États-Unien” (FR: “United-statesian”), and I hear it more and more.My simple retort to the pinheaded who argue to me that they have the right to define the terms by which we Americans describe ourselves is to enligh...
Gingrich scores big win in South Carolina. How bad is it for Romney?
Experts comment on the results of SC primary election. Eric Ostermeier, Research Associate, Center for the Study of Politics and Governance, University of Minnesota Newt Gingrich’s win in South Carolina on Saturday means an unprecedented three diff...
Gingrich to seek TransAtlantic Adultery Pact.
Former Speaker and adulterer Newt Gingrich took time off today from lecturing on family values to announce that he would seek to agree an Adultery Exchange Programme with France if he were elected President of the United States. “I’m no...
ACTA update (in part)
In October 2011 I wrote a blog post Greens challenge ACTA legality. The two proposals from the Commission (DG Trade) had been published in June. They are: Proposal for a COUNCIL DECISION on the signing, on behalf of the European Union of the Anti-Co...
Where is Doha these days? Not the city, the round!
Has anyone heard anything recently of the WTO Doha Round? Has it been lost somewhere in the ocean (Pacific or Atlantic)? Many many months ago, it was announced that the 10 year old round of WTO talks looked most unlikely to conclude and that a "Doh...
Free what? The myth of (WTO) "free trade"
WTO trade is free-er world trade compare to some decades ago. Not free. Tariffs are allowed especially by developing countries and the BRICs plus most countries of the WTO have hidden/tricky barriers to trade (imports). Especially the pro free trade...
My Perspective at 50: A Scholarly View on Modern Society from the Cheap Seats
Exactly half a century after I came into this world during what in the Northern hemisphere is the coldest week of the year, I set out on an open-air jaunt over snow-plowed roads on a bright, bitterly cold morning on a bike that had been “given” (...
What May Come
By Dan Peleschuk Russia’s Tough Talk on Foreign Policy Suggests Fear of Internal Revolts. READ MORE...
Human rights violations continue in China
China´s communist government continues its shameful crackdown on human rights in 2012:The Chinese government recently sentenced three prominent activists to lengthy prison sentences, confirming that human rights standards in the count...
Polls Show Putin Faces Fight
Recent polls suggest it's unclear whether Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin will be able to gather enough votes in the March 4 presidential election to avoid a second round.
How balanced is globalisation in 2012?
World wide web, global social media, global finance, global warming, world trade. Where is the world/global parliament?NickPthinks on business, EU policy, socio-economics and systemics in Europe. North America and the world...
The biggest American political story Europeans haven't heard of
The US presidential primary race has attracted its usual amount of fascination here in Europe, and yesterday’s developments - with the Iowa race being re-called for Santorum and Rick Perry dropping out - were front page material. But behind the spe...
FSN covers a remarkable day in US politics
On the US campaign trail, Thursday was one of those days you just can't make up. At the very moment Governor Rick Perry was dropping out of the race for the Republican nomination and endorsing Newt Gingrich for the Presidency, ABC News was releasing...
The Russian Conscience on Human Rights in Syria
Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, warned on January 18, 2012, according to the New York Times, “that outside encouragement of antigovernment uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa could lead to ‘a very big war that will cause suf...
Visit to Kosovo
I am in Pristina, Kosovo for two days. The purpose of the visit is to launch a visa dialogue with the country. All Balkan countries today, except for Kosovo, enjoy visa freedom with the EU. Being able to visit family and friends or go for a holiday o...
Putin Ally Signals Readiness for Change, Not Revolution
Mass anti-Kremlin rallies, which Moscow and other Russian cities saw in December, have prompted Vladimir Putin, the country's prime minister and the almost certain winner of the upcoming presidential election, to make "changes," said a long-time gove...
