Since 2013, when negotiations began, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Pact, or TTIP, has been hotly debated by the informed European public. Much less known, logically, is the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) which, after more than five years of negotiations, was signed on 5 October in Atlanta, Georgia, by the US itself, Japan and ten other countries bordering the Pacific, with the significant absence of China.
The European Parliament’s Committee on Environment, Public Health and Food Safety has rejected a proposal by the Commission which gives Member States the power to restrict or prohibit imported genetically-modified organisms (GMOs), and asked the Commission to drop the plan altogether. For the time being, the plan already enjoys the support of fourteen nations which have rejected GMOs…
There is a global network of airport-based duty-free depots that buy and sell works of art that might never again see the light of day. Chances are you’re not among their customers.
In 1990, Japanese paper magnate and art collector Ryōei Saitō purchased a Van Gogh at a Christie’s auction. He paid 82.5 million US dollars, making “the Portrait of Dr. Gachet” the world’s most expensive painting at that time. Saitō died six years later…
On Sunday, October 4th, Portugal had national elections. Seventeen parties entered the fight. Following the social crisis outcry, expectations and predictions reflected the general sentiment that the Socialists would be the next winners. How can we explain, then, that the voters rewarded the parties (PSD and CDS) that had made their lives so miserable with austerity measures?
By Deniz Torcu
When I was working for a UNESCO Commission in Turkey a couple of years ago, we had started receiving dozens of phone calls from the Southern Turkish border with Syria, from refugees desperately trying to get in touch with some authority that could help them get settled in a camp or help them get to the EU
The Roman Empire stretched as far as the Danube and the Rhine, where the name of Cologne itself still recalls the ancient Romans. But it was precisely the “northern barbarians” that put an end to it. And central Europe, the Mitteleuropa of the upper Danube, experienced the many migrations that completely changed the face of Europe.
The last world survey on the strength of democracy went totally ignored, except for the New York Times, which did publish a special report. And yet the World Values Survey, a respected research association with the United Nations, conducted the survey and the data of the 2015 survey are extremely worrying.
While Greece continues to give nightmares to both European politicians and public, Portugal appears to have emerged from the worst difficulties in recent years and have swallowed the Troika’s bitter pill with prospects of soon overcoming its serious economic crisis. Its political leaders do not cease to emphasize that they have successfully…
By David Yarrow and Sean McDaniel
Jeremy Corbyn, a rebellious left-wing MP who remained on the fringes of the UK’s Labour Party for over thirty years, has stormed onto the political scene and won the party’s recent election by a landslide. Winning an enormous 59.5% of the vote in a four-way contest, Corbyn’s victory gives him an unprecedented mandate from the Labour Party’s members and affiliated supporters.
By Deniz Torcu
Hosting nearly 2 million Syrian refugees and serving as the crossing point into the European Union for many other hundreds of thousands, with unfortunate tragedies occurring on a daily basis, Turkey’s domestic unrest has been out of the spotlight for the past few weeks. Recently, the conflict with the PKK has brought Turkey’s domestic situation back to the spotlight, namely in the city of Cizre in recent days. As strategically important as ever, the current disarray in the country is even more relevant to the rest of the European Union. In the general elections earlier this June, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) was dealt some harsh blows. Having lost the absolute…
