Europe
Europe
Fair Observer provides insightful and informed analysis about important European issues, events and trends.
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360° Analysis / Alessandro Sallusti / Il Giornale / Italy / Media Freedom / Ossigeno per l’Informazione / Politics / Silvio Berlusconi / Steven Ellis / Europe / Arts & CultureBy Steven EllisAmong other threats to press freedom, journalists in Italy continue to face potential prison time for defamation, a situation which is unlikely to be resolved anytime soon. When Italy’s highest tribunal upheld a 14-month prison sentence last fall for criminal libel against Alessandro Sallusti, editor of the newspaper Il Giornale, the move not only drew international condemnation, but raised hopes that it might prompt long-overdue reforms to Italian defamation law. Like many European countries, Italy allows those aggrieved by the publication or broadcast of allegedly defamatory statements to pursue remedies through a civil action or to file a criminal...
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360° Analysis / Cyprus bailout / Euro crisis / Eurozone / Harris Samaras / IMF / Europe / Finance & EconomicsHarris Samaras asks why Cyprus received the harshest bailout deal in the Eurozone so far, and looks at what this means for Europe’s financial future. The European Union (EU), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the international media blame Cyprus’ banking practices for the main cause of the crisis, and have ensured that the Cyprus economy was ruined in just a weekend. Manically, German and French politicians argued that Cyprus is harboring criminal money, is an offshore tax haven, and a money laundering center. For the record, Cyprus is an EU low tax jurisdiction not an offshore financial center. It makes one wonder: have all the EU, IMF and OECD reports and assessments...
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Best of the Month / Egypt / European Union / Glenn Carle / India / North Korea / Politics / Sarah Eltantawi / United States / Europe / Focus Article / BRIC / Middle East / Americas / Africa / AsiaFair Observer's five best articles of April. It is already the end of April and 2013 is speeding up fast. Boston has suffered the tragedy of a bombing, Italy finally has a government, New Zealand and France have legalized gay marriage, Syria continues to implode, and the North Korean drama seems to be simmering down. Obama's budget continues to upset many people and the battle for gun control rages on in the US. Margaret Thatcher, an iconic British leader, died at the age of 87. The Economist called her a freedom fighter because she championed free markets when her Big Bang unleashed the City of London to emerge as a rival to Wall Street. Yet, the August 1843 publication...
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Alexei Navalny / Amnesty International / Foreign Agents / Friedrich Ebert Foundation / Hans-Henning Schröder / Judiciary / Konrad Adenauer Foundation / Memorial / NGO / Patriotism / Politics / Putin / Europe / Focus ArticleBy Hans-Henning Schröder Actions against Russian non-governmental organizations and other opposition figures are the result of a shift in national policy towards promoting patriotism. However, this path, chosen to stabilise the regime, has become more and more of a problem for the leadership itself, argues Hans-Henning Schröder. Since the beginning of February, prosecutors, the ministry of justice, and the tax authority have paid visits to Russian non-governmental organisations, demanding comprehensive access to financial documents, personnel files, and program documents. All over Russia, reportedly close to a hundred of these revisions have taken place. During the second...
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By Glenn CarleDespite the financial crisis, a diminishing birth rates and seemingly unsustainable welfare states, Glenn Carle believes German leadership might offer a solution for structural reform in Europe. It is easy to say that Europeans should have more sex. Demography is destiny, after all, or so it has seemed for millennia, and what could be better than sleeping your way to world power? Existential Crisis Over the next 40 years the European Union faces an existential crisis of epic proportions; its fertility rate -1.58 in 2012 - will remain below replacement levels and its already strained ratio of four workers to every pensioner will deteriorate to an unsustainable two to one by the...
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360° Analysis / Belarus / Media Freedom / Politics / Turkmenistan / Uzbekistan / Europe / BRIC / Arts & CultureMore than two decades after the fall of the USSR many of its former republics failed to establish a democratic and open media landscape, ranking among the worst in media freedom indexes. At a Minsk café on a blustery day just before New Year’s in 2010, Franak Viačorka hesitated before switching on his phone. The former journalism student was on the run from the Belarusian authorities for organizing and blogging on antigovernment demonstrations that erupted after the disputed December 19 presidential vote that saw the reelection of the man who had occupied the seat for the previous 16 years, President Aleksandr Lukashenko. Viačorka called his father on Skype via his cell phone...
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360° Analysis / Ari Katz / Counter-Piracy measures / Global Piracy / Maritime Technology / Naval Collaborative Approach / United States / Europe / Africa / Global Security / Asia / Science & Technology / OceaniaBy Ari KatzSynergizing resources and technology from private and public stakeholders, can produce more effective and cost efficient counter-maritime piracy measures. With both sequestration and tensions ramping up in Asia, experts project that countering maritime piracy will take a back seat to the Asia rebalancing and other more existential US foreign policy issues. Unfortunately, this rationing of focus has the potential to undermine and reverse a recent downward trend in maritime piracy incidents, particularly along the Somali coast. However, with piracy still costing the world economy $7 to $12 billion a year, fiscal challenges should ideally spur innovative efficiency, rather than obstructive...
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360° Analysis / Ahmadinejad / Iran / Israel / Nuclear / Politics / President Obama / Sanctions / United Kingdom / United States / Europe / Middle East / Global SecurityAmbassador Peter Jenkins analyzes the complexities of the Iranian nuclear dispute in light of the recent talks in Kazakhstan and evaluates the chances for progress. Readers who recall that four years ago a new US President seemed eager to defuse the West’s quarrel with Iran over its nuclear activities may wonder why we are all still waiting for white smoke. I am not sure I know the answer, but I have a hunch it has something to do with a lack of realism on one side and a profound mistrust on the other. The lack of realism is a Western failing. The US and the two European states, France and the UK, that still have the most influence on the EU’s Iran policy, ten years after the...
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Economics / Global Piracy / Gulf of Aden / Gulf of Guinea / Horn of Africa / Piracy / Pirates / Politics / Somalia / United States / Europe / Finance & Economics / 360° Context / Middle East / Africa / Global Security / OceaniaMaritime Piracy is bleeding the global economy and fostering political instability on the eastern and western shores of Africa more gravely than we realise. Re-emergence of maritime piracy, one of the world’s oldest crimes, in the past decade has grown into a serious global security concern alongside terrorism and religious extremism. Rising number of attacks in recent years on merchant vessels to seize goods and hostages in exchange for ransoms running in millions of dollars has prompted an urgent concerted international naval campaign to protect arterial sea routes and shipping lanes. Earlier maritime robbery was mostly confined to hotspots around Malacca Strait, South China Sea,...
