Eastern Europe is currently enjoying its coldest weather since 1979. Temperatures in Moscow have been below minus 20 C (that’s minus 5 Fahrenheit for our American readers) for a week straight now, with regular visits to minus 30 (minus 22 Fahrenheit). In Bucharest, where we live, it’s currently minus 9 Celsius; that will [...]

On a recent factoid-finding mission to Sofia, the Bulgarian capital, I discovered that Bulgarians are very keen on their yogurt. The secret of long life and happiness, they claim, is yogurt…

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Eastern Europe is currently enjoying its coldest weather since 1979. Temperatures in Moscow have been below minus 20 C (that’s minus 5 Fahrenheit for our American readers) for a week straight now, with regular visits to minus 30 (minus 22 Fahrenheit). In Bucharest, where we live, it’s currently minus 9 Celsius; that will [...]

from our internal discussions. I recently remarked to Edward that for much of the US government’s foreign policy apparatus, Russia is still Not Europe. This view is a legacy (still) of the Cold War period in which most of the decision-makers and working-level staff were trained and gained experience. It shapes basic reflexes toward Europe [...]

This post serves as a small addendum to Edward’s post Not Amused about Chirac’s threat to use nuclear weapons if necessary. This addendum will hopefully broaden and continue the discussion his statements generated. I won’t be talking about the possibility of nuking Iran or other rogue states here, that element has been covered extensively by [...]

A state-of-friction seems to have gotten a grip on relations between Russia and Ukraine, and it doesn’t look like it is going to go away anytime soon:
“Ukrainian state authorities seized the Yalta lighthouse on January 13 from Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, and a Ukrainian student organization is picketing the Russian radar station in Henychesk [...]

As Spanish commenter Pepe would probably say, ‘hot labour’ is moving into Spain at a nifty clip: 2% of the total population per annum. In 2004 the number increased by 700,000. Last year, although we don’t have the numbers yet there was probably the same number or more. Here is a story from El [...]

The Financial Times reports this morning that:
“Jacques Chirac, France’s president, has threatened to use nuclear weapons against any state that supported terrorism against his country or considered using weapons of mass destruction.“.
According to the FT Chirac’s actually words were:
“The leaders of states who use terrorist means against us, as well as those who would consider [...]

I came to the webcomic thing late. But living in Bucharest, I can’t easily get US newspapers. So there was a niche waiting to be filled: the three or four minutes I used to spend every morning, flipping through the Washington Post’s excellent comics pages, chuckling over Boondocks or Doonesbury.
These days [...]

You will all recall, I’m sure, that Germany had a problem with nazis sixty or so years ago. After this problem had been cleared up (primarily by non-Germans), the Germans resolved that they didn’t want that sort of thing to happen again. And towards that end they enacted some laws.
One of those laws is § [...]