Economic woes are many times followed by political upheaval with extremist parties becoming populist parties and holding the support of the citizens of the countries they represent. Such is unfortunately what seems to be happening in Europe these days. Read the rest of this entry »

This Thursday began in France with people bracing themselves for a day of chaos. Public transport, air traffic and schools across France were all set to be affected by the 24-hour shutdown. For the second time in the month unions were ready to strike against government plans to raise the minimum retirement age from 60 to 62 and to ensure full retirement benefits from 65 to 67 by the year 2018. Read the rest of this entry »

Today the Swiss parliament elected two new members of the government in an event that was almost unnoticed in the rest of Europe not to say of the world. And it was not totally unnoticed because for the first time in Swiss history, women became the majority in government in a country that was the last one in Europe to give women the right to vote, in 1971! Read the rest of this entry »

Europe is in the middle of a discord over how to handle unwanted immigrants. The country that began the controversy is France and the immigrants involved are the Roma community whose 12 million form the largest ethnic minority in the EU. Read the rest of this entry »

Last Sunday the Basque separatist group ETA declared once more a ceasefire after 42 years of a bloody campaign to get a homeland independent of Spain. In a video, which had been sent to the BBC and the pro-independent Basque daily Gara, three persons covered with yellow hoods and Basque berets were sitting at a table flanked by Basque flags and an ETA symbol on the wall behind. Read the rest of this entry »

For the first time in Australia an elected female will become prime minister as well as leading the first minority government in nearly 70 years. Read the rest of this entry »

Today, the European Commission President Jose Manuell Barroso gave his first annual state of the union speech to the European parliament in Strasbourg. He told the members that in the last year the economic and financial crisis has been on of the greatest challenges ever in the Union Read the rest of this entry »