Harry’s Place and Cabalamat both got to this Robert Kagan piece in the Washington Post (registration or Bug Me Not required) before me, and there’s not too much to add to Phil’s rather interesting remarks on it. As a sidenote to his contention that the EU is the Borg - ‘you will be assimilated (and [...]

While everyone takes the chance to catch their breath after the twelve days of the Orange Revolution, it’s worth remembering that the political crisis in Ukraine continues, just that the focus has shifted to Parliament from the streets. There’s already deadlock over the attempts to reform the Central Electoral Commission with Yuschenko’s supporters unable to [...]

For those of you interested, the BBC’s website has an English translation of several parts of the Ukrainian Supreme Court’s ruling yesterday. I’m not a legal expert - especially on Ukrainian law - but I was struck by one aspect of the case that we either didn’t notice, or didn’t deem important enough to acknowledge [...]

Many early proponents of democracy believed that public education was of utmost importance for the people to be able to exercise democracy. I am not sure whether they thought of graduation ceremonies of the kind Viktor Yushchenko is planning to hold in Kyiv today - yet it seems that everyone wearing orange will receive a [...]

In light of the British obsession with all things related to the second world war and, especially, Nazism - the British history curriculum focusing on the NS period of German history has repeatedly been named a prime cause for “Kraut bashing” in the British tabloids - today’s Independent features an interesting article about an opinion [...]

I just noticed that afoe has been nominated for the Wizbang 2004 Weblog Awards in the category “Best European (non-UK) Blog”. As usual with blog awards, the opportunity to find great blogs one has not been aware of so far seems more important than winning. But if you, gentle readers, should decide afoe is worth [...]

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) – The Supreme Court declared the results of Ukraine’s disputed presidential run-off election invalid and ruled Friday that the run-off should be repeated by Dec. 26, bringing cheers from tens of thousands of opposition supported massed in Kiev’s main square.
The ruling, made after five days of hearings by the court’s 18 justices, [...]

UPDATE: (18:02 CET) I just removed the question mark behind the headline! Yushenko’s lawyers were dressed for success: According breaking agency reports, Ukraine’s Supreme Court, after five days of hearing, just ruled that the disputed presidential election officially won by Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich is invalid. Moreover, the court has not just backed Mr [...]

The European Union has assumed responsibility for the peacekeeiping mission in Bosnia.
A new force called EUFOR that numbers about 7,000 troops will enforce the Dayton peace agreement that ended the bloody Bosnian war in 1995.
The change from NATO to EU on Thursday begins nearly nine years after NATO deployed 60,000 forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina, [...]

99 (and some more) orange balloons are floating over Kyiv today while protesters gathered again peacefully waiting for the Supreme Court’s decision. In the meantime, outgoing President Kuchma met with Russia’s President Putin at a Russian governmental airport near Moscow. There are differing reports about what exactly Putin said with respect to a possible Ukrainian [...]