Social networking has become the instrument of choice for anti-government, helping to unite public opinion. The government can control television and print media, but not the web. Meanwhile dissent’sconstituency continues to grow.
While working toward austerity remains a vital quest, it’s not enough to guarantee the EU’s future. The Union must adopt bolder strategies to stimulate growth and development.
Relations between Turks and minority Kurds eased in 2009, suggesting better times ahead. But since then the debate has lapsed back into contentiousness. The hopeful side is public opinion, which seems to want unity and peace.
Amysterious 1996 car crash suggested complicity between the government and crime syndicates, altering the face of Turkey and helping to usher in the Erdogan era. Now, Erdogan faces another challenge in dealing with the powerful and growing Gulen movement.
Impressive growth in the cities of Wroclaw, Poznan, Gdansk and Warsaw are collective proof of the boom that Poland has experienced since joining the European Union in 2004.
When parents in Romania, Ukraine and Moldova escaped awful domestic conditions to seek work elsewhere, many left their children behind. The pattern has led to the creation of a generation of so-called “white orphans”, damaged children with parents they don’t know.
China has supplanted Japan as Asia’s superpower. It is now seeking to fortify widespread diplomatic gains by consolidating energy resources in southeast and Central Asia. It also hopes to make the Yuan Asia’s currency of record. But its aggressive policies are beginning to raise serious questions in Moscow and Washington.
Chinese criminal organisations are building an increasingly powerful and widespread presence in Italy through illegal activities such as illegal immigration, prostitution and counterfeiting, not to mention tie-ups and alliances with the local mafia. Olga Capasso, an assistant prosecutor with the National Anti-Mafia Directorate, describes this growing phenomenon and outlines possible solutions, including extensive application of Article 416 (bis) of the so-called “anti-mafia law”
