Hong Kong and Switzerland top the rankings of a new index released today that presents the state of human freedom in the world. The U.S. performance is worrisome and shows that the United States can no longer claim to be the leading bastion of liberty in the world. The Human Freedom Index (HFI) is the most comprehensive measure of freedom ever created for a large number of countries around the globe.
The euro indeed plays a major role in the Greek drama, but the ultimate cause of the Greek economic turmoil lies somewhere else. The real problem is that the architects of the euro used it as a turbo that was meant to speed up the integration engine of the eurozone, while encouraging other European countries to do so as well.
The events during the Christmas Truce 1914 were described by Robert Naiman as “the most morally compelling acts of spontaneous mass civil disobedience in recorded human history”. The anniversary of this date is a perfect opportunity to investigate the power and impact of free press not only in those times, but also in present day when it comes to Ukraine-Russia- conflict.
Hungarian government started building a fence on the border with Serbia to ward the immigrants off. The construction, stretching over 170 kilometers, is not in any way a solution to the problem of immigration. All that the fence will do is manifest Hungary’s separation from Europe.
The refugee wave which has affected the European Union is different every year. Nevertheless, it does not subside. It may change in terms of the number of refugees and their nationality, but it is still a serious issue in the EU.
Demographic change is not a tsunami. It proceeds gradually but steadily, just as the ocean’s tide. It can be foreseen if we simply choose to open our eyes and look at facts.
I don’t think that the youth want revolution. In these unstable times they rather want stability that no longer favours the mainstream populism, not taking responsibility for the future of the state, unkept promises and embarassing U-turns (career-like as well). Stability in which the political class is not moving further away from the reformatory attitude in the state of constant self-contempt.
Google has been targeted by the European Commission. The IT giant has been accused of prioritizing its price comparison services in search engines. To illustrate, when comparing prices from two dealers, Google Shopping comes out on the screen. Formally, one can of course justify an investigation as a potential abuse of the dominant position by Google, but what is the real cause?
The freedom of our Eastern neighbours seems to have fallen into the rabbit hole. Ukrainians will not catch it on their own. Only Alice holds the key to unlocking their civic rights, but Europe still refuses to man up and play this part. The Mad Hatter won’t stop being mad just because someone says him to do so.
Regardless of the necessity of the Iraq War, recalling troops with the job half done will only worsen an already bad situation. The people of the West will not tolerate yet another long-lasting war which will result in withdrawing the military earlier than necessary. On the other hand, swift and short military engagements will not yield in satisfactory results in the long term either.
