Czech voters to give verdict on president’s anti-immigrant populism January 15, 2018 Source: The Guardian / www.theguardian.com / By Robert Tait / Jiří Drahoš, main challenger to incumbent Miloš Zeman, pledges to ensure that country will face the west if he wins poll on Friday The Czech president, Miloš Zeman, has been accused of promoting a climate of “vulgarity, incompetence and corruption” …
Embracing Iranian uprising January 8, 2018 Source: Thewhig.com / www.thewhig.com / By Geoffrey Johnston / Iran is a stinking torture state run by a theocratic regime that maintains its weakening grip on power through the barrel of a gun and organized violence. When Iran’s 2009 elections were stolen by Islamic hardliners, ordinary Iranians took to the …
Prague Spring: dream for ‘human’ socialism crushed January 4, 2018 Source: Yahoo! / www.yahoo.com / By Karinne DELORME / Paris (AFP) – The Prague Spring 50 years ago sought to introduce “Socialism with a human face” in then communist Czechoslovakia but was crushed by Soviet tanks seven months later. Here is an account of how it unfolded: Related Searches Prague …
E.J. Dionne Jr.: Praying for democracy December 31, 2017 Source: The Oregonian / www.oregonlive.com / By E.J. Dionne JR. / My New Year’s wish is for the health and resurgence of democracy. What follows is a slightly edited version of a morning prayer I offered last month at the Appleton Chapel of the Memorial Church at Harvard University. …
London Challenged Prague Over the Dissolution of NATO December 31, 2017 Source: Sputnik / www.sputniknews.com / By Nikolai Gorshkov / British government papers from the early 1990s reveal the leadership’s alarm at the “strong neutralist views” of the post-Communist leaders of Czechoslovakia, who advocated the dissolution of NATO. The papers have just been released by the National Archives in London. In …
When Václav Havel allied himself with the hairy musicians December 9, 2017 Source: Radio Praha / www.radio.cz / By Chris Johnstone / Václav Havel has been the subject of many books and quite a few have been devoted to the so-called Czechoslovak underground, the cultural movement which above all in music but also through literature and art ignored the desires and instructions …
The Next NATO Ally Russia Is Trying to Disrupt December 3, 2017 Source: The Daily Beast / www.thedailybeast.com / By Anna Nemtsova / As Czechs lose sight of the freedoms and benefits they won as part of the EU, Kremlin boosters step up their activities—and some are at the top of government. Roman Maca is a big guy. He stands about 6-foot-6 …
Czechs to invoke spirit of ’89 in rallies to defend democracy November 20, 2017 Source: The Irish Times / www.irishtimes.com / By Daniel McLaughlin / Tens of thousands of Czechs are expected to rally in Prague and other cities on Friday to commemorate the 1989 Velvet Revolution, and to warn that populism and xenophobia threaten democracy in their country and around the region. Many …
The Czech Republic’s anti-Havel November 18, 2017 Source: POLITICO / www.politico.eu / By Siegfried Mortkowitz / President Miloš Zeman ‘says what people want to hear, the way they want to hear it’ — just like Donald Trump. PRAGUE — He’s brash, provocative and blatantly politically incorrect. He recently called 90 percent of Czech Roma “unadaptable” and lazy, …
Does protest really work in cosy democracies? November 2, 2017 Source: The London School of Economics and Political Science / www.lse.ac.uk / By Steve Crawshaw / Does protest work? And is it more effective when it takes places in countries ruled by repressive regimes or those with democratically elected governments? Steve Crawshaw writes that if we think nothing will change, …
The expected surprise of the Czech elections October 24, 2017 Source: Visegrad / Insight / www.visegradinsight.eu / By Martin Ehl / The results of the Czech parliamentary elections has been a surprise which was expected. This seems to be a paradox but it’s not. The party of billionaire Andrej Babis was supposed to win but it has got shocking 29,64% …
Commentary: Middle Europe turns its back on the EU October 23, 2017 Source: Mail Online / www.dailymail.co.uk / By Reuters John Lloyd / In the Oct. 15 Austrian elections, the 31-year old head of the conservative Austrian People´s Party took his formerly languishing party to victory and secured the chancellorship for himself. Sebastian Kurz is on course to be the youngest leader …
George W. Bush speech on Trumpism October 22, 2017 Source: Politico / www.politico.com / By Politico Staff / Below is a transcript of George W. Bush’s speech delivered Oct. 19, 2017 at the at the “Spirit of Liberty: At Home, In The World” event in New York. Thank you all. Thank you. Ok, Padilla gracias. So, I painted Ramon. …
A Nobel Prize for Hong Kong’s Democrats August 16, 2017 Source: The New York Times / www.nytimes.com / By Bari Weiss / Here’s a suggestion for the Nobel Peace Prize Committee, which opens its nominating season next month: Look to the three young men who earlier today became Hong Kong’s first prisoners of conscience. In 2014, the courageous trio helped …
Belfast-bound Joan Baez tells of her lifetime as a singer and political activist December 31, 2017 Source: The Irish News / www.irishnews.com / By Jenny Lee / Folk singer Joan Baez was one of the major musical figures behind social justice movements in the 1960s. Fifty years later the singer, songwriter and activist is still passionate about the causes she embraces and will return to Ireland …