Sometimes one wonders if the western governments are not crying wolf too often about terrorism and at the end we are going to disregard their warnings just at the time when we should listen. In the US beginning with the color warnings we had -not even sure they are still issuing them- and the many other attack warnings, Americans are getting a little blasé about the whole thing and that could be dangerous. Read the rest of this entry »

As interesting as a trip to Europe is for many non Europeans and as good as everyday life is in general for those who live there, one cannot but worry somewhat for the resurgence of the extreme right wing politics in several countries. Read the rest of this entry »

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 »

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 »

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 »

While Cuba celebrates today its National Rebellion Day, the question people are asking themselves more and more is if the country is changing. After the pressure of the Catholic Church and the appeals of Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos, Cuban president Raul Castro has agreed to release 52 political prisoners, of the so-called Group of 75, who were imprisoned since 2003 for “counter-revolutionary activities.” Read the rest of this entry »

If one looks at it from Europe, the unemployment rate in the US does not look so bad. The problem is that the rate does not tell exactly what is going on. For instance, in May the rate declined to 9.5% from 9.7% but that did not mean that more jobs were available. Read the rest of this entry »