The disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 in March 2014 set off a worldwide search for the missing plane. How could a flight carrying 239 people just go missing? The mystery dominated news cycles for months. (In July 2015, a piece of the plane’s wing was found on an island in the Indian Ocean.)
But just three months after Flight 370 went down, another group of passengers went missing — 243 men, women, and children. The passengers were refugees, mostly from the severely repressive African country of Eritrea, fleeing the country in the hopes of reaching Italy. The boat they took from Libya disappeared in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. This time, nobody noticed, except for the families of those missing.
The new organization advocating a ‘leave’ vote in the UK’s referendum on its EU membership has launched a website with a series of FAQs, which will rapidly give itself a reputation for factual errors and disinformation.
New poll: Majority of German voters back red card for national parliaments
A great inflow of refugees has triggered division and alarm across the European Union. But history advises, and the present requires, a more rational response.
The panic-driven political and media reactions to Europe’s current refugee crisis carry an echo of the doom and perdition omnipresent in Henryk Sienkiewicz’s historical novel Potop / The Deluge, published in 1886. This, the second of a trilogy that would help earn Sienkiewicz (1846-1916) the Nobel prize for literature two decades later, depicted the Swedish invasion of Poland in 1626-29 under Gustavus Adophus; its related works portrayed epic struggles in central Europe against Tatar and Ottoman would-be conquerors.
He stood on the mud, crows cawing overhead, pointing at unmarked graves. “Here’s a mother with her baby. And here’s another young woman. Over there, that’s a 60-year-old man.”
In today’s world, it is essential to take welcoming into account in the cycle of reproduction of social life.
No One is Illegal! May Day of Action, 2009. Flickr/Tanya Liu. Some rights reserved.Hundreds, sometimes thousands of people have come to our towns and cities in the last week seeking a safe place to live. They escape dire economic and political situations, and many have lost all they had in violent conflict, loved ones and their homes. We want to welcome them.
The European Union agreed on Monday (12 October) to suspend sanctions against the regime of Belarussian strongman Alexander Lukashenko after he won a fifth term as president, even though observers said the poll was flawed.
MAIN FOCUS: Portugal seeking a stable government | 06/10/2015
Portugal is having difficulties forming a government after the elections. The centre-right alliance under Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho received the most votes, but leftist parties will have more than half of the seats in parliament. Some commentators see the vote as a clear rejection of the austerity policy. Others praise the Portuguese for voting differently to the Greeks.
Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi was poised for a historic victory as the Senate votes today (13 October) to relinquish most of its power in a revolutionary move to end decades of political instability.
The head of Portugal’s main opposition Socialists on Monday (12 October) raised the prospect of forming an “alternative government” with two other leftist parties, after inconclusive elections saw the ruling centre-right fall short of an outright victory.
FIFA has provisionally banned President Sepp Blatter and UEFA President Michel Platini for 90 days in the wake of a Swiss criminal investigation.
The compartmentalisation of individuals into the categories of economic migrants or refugees obscures the fundamental ways in which these two groups are intimately related through remittance economies.
Let’s not overdo comparisons between the Scottish referendum and the EU referendum
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President François Hollande made a joint call for more solidarity in the refugee crisis on Wednesday in the European Parliament. The German-French tandem is functioning once more and will save Europe, some commentators write enthusiastically. Others call on the two to provide concrete solutions instead of pretty words.
Transport management, waste treatment and energy efficiency in buildings are just three areas in which towns and cities can take action to reduce their impact on the climate.
On 25 October, Ukrainians will vote in local elections where not a single candidate will be openly gay. The country’s LGBT movement and public conservatism are both to blame. на русском языке
The EU has offered Turkey a plan under which it would resettle more refugees, but only if Ankara establishes new camps and boosts its coastguard to slow the flow of people to Europe, officials said on Tuesday (6 October).
The PEGIDA movement was thought to be dead in the water. But the escalating – if unclear – number of refugee arrivals, and Monday night’s show of strength by the xenophobic group, show that anti-Islamic backlash is still alive and well in Germany.
MAIN FOCUS: ECJ: Europe’s data unsafe in the US | 07/10/2015
The personal data of European Internet users is not adequately protected from being accessed by authorities in the US, according to the European Court of Justice. On Tuesday the court ruled that the “Safe Harbour” agreement – which regulates data exchange between the EU and the US – was invalid. Europe’s judiciary is protecting the people’s private sphere, some commentators write in praise. For others, the freedom of the Internet is in peril.
China could become the largest non-EU contributor to the so-called “Juncker Plan”, the European Commission President’s flagship investment initiative to revive growth in Europe.
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