Daily Archives: 9 January, 2015
Romania: abandoning communism’s remnants
I voted in the last presidential election just a few weeks ago. Yet still, when I gave my identity card to the embassy staff in Brussels I was somehow reminded of Romania’s communist legacy. “You are only half a Clujeanca, your birth place is actually Comanesti,” said the official. Indeed, I was born in the eastern part of Romania because my mother had been assigned a job there, as part of the Romanian Communist Party’s economic policies. Young professionals like her were uprooted upon finishing university, and spread around the country so that all regions would develop equally, no matter their local specificities.
Welcome Jacques and Gabriella
Prince Albert and Princess Charlène of Monaco have introduced us to their two little twins, Jacques and Gabriella, just three weeks after their arrival into the world. The twins were warmly welcomed by the people of Monaco, who celebrated that day as if it was a National Holiday. However, the previous week the new-borns were…
From a Cyprus problem to a possible solution at old Nicosia Airport
Juniper, the pan-Cypriot dog born in the UN buffer zone, contemplates the Cyprus problem as she stares across the tarmac of the old Nicosia International Airport. The airport stands abandoned in the buffer zone that cuts across the island, dividing the Turkish Cypriot north and the Greek Cypriot south, following Turkey’s invasion of northern Cyprus…
