Polish PM Donald Tusk becomes new president of the European Council
Current Polish prime minister Donald Tusk has been designated as the next president of the European Council and as such tasked with chairing the meetings of the council which consists of the heads of government of the European Union member…
The modernization of the monarchies
One of the strongest traditions of the monarchical institutions has been the steadfast view that a monarch reigns until death, unless exceptional political circumstances have forced the incumbent out prematurely. The only traditional exception to this rule has been the…
Ukraine’s last hope?
The agreement now on the table might be the last chance to stop the bloodshed in Ukraine and also to avoid a situation devolving into a civil war. The main question now is how much the agreement actually will be…
Time for German coalition talks
The German federal election became a success for incumbent chancellor Angela Merkel and her CDU, but simultaneously something of a problem in that the liberal FDP, the traditional CDU/CSU ally, for the first time in German post-war history saw themselves…
Can pope Francis make a change?
Pope Benedict XVI’s unexpected stepping down from his office made way for the election of Cardinal Bergoglio as pope Francis. A new pope from a new part of the World and with a new, never before used papal name, apparently…
New Dutch government coalition installed
A new Dutch cabinet has been installed after the latest election. The new cabinet is a coalition government consisting of the liberal VVD and the social democratic Labour party PvdA. Each party will have ten minister posts. Mark Rutte (VVD),…
The Pirates are entering Berlin politics
For the first time has a Pirate Party entered the political arena for real. With nine percent of the votes in the election in Berlin, the German Piratenpartei managed to get a good bit above the threshold limit and enters…
German Greens’ success in BW
From what it looks, the German Greens have won their first government premier position in the state elections of Baden-Württemberg. With 24.2 percent of the votes the Green Party managed to become bigger than their traditional ally SPD with 23.1…
The problems with nuclear power
As if the earthquake and the following tsunami were not enough, Japan got into another nightmare with its damaged and apparently out-of-control Fukushima nuclear power plant. It can of course be argued over the logic in the reasoning to construct…
Twitter subpoenas: Highlighting the problem with globalized data
Birgitta Jónsdóttir, a member of the Althing – the parliament of Iceland – and a former Wikileaks supporter has apparently been informed by Twitter that the US Department of Justice has demanded that Twitter turns over the stored Twitter data…
