The Netherlands is talking about sending an additional 1,200 troops to Afghanistan’s Uruzgan province. The Dutch already have 540 people working in Afghanistan under the umbrella of the ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) peace mission and another 674 under the umbrella of Operation Enduring Freedom. For other Dutch international deployments look here.
Why is it hard [...]

The Czech Republic is booming apparently. Both per-capita GDP and fertility are definitely on an upswing, although surprisingly perhaps, for once I am not going to try and suggest that these are connected:
The Czech republic has joined Slovenia among new member states with higher levels of wealth per capita than old member Portugal, according to [...]

Interesting news from the Czech Republic in this week:
The Czech republic has joined Slovenia among new member states with higher levels of wealth per capita than old member Portugal, according to European Commission statistics.
The central European country enjoyed gross income per capita of 73 percent of the EU 25 average last year compared to 71 [...]

Brighton College, a modest private school in the South of England, has announced that Mandarin Chinese is to become part of school’s core curriculum from September. Now all it needs is for the state sector to follow suit:
In a clear sign of China’s growing economic and political clout, a British school has become the [...]

Fresh from asking G. W. Bush to put an end to Guantanamo, Anglea Merkel is now in Moscow. High on the list will be both Iran, and democracy in Russia. Quite timely really that someone who grew up in East Germany and can read the riot act to him in her most charming Russian should [...]

While Latvia is still arguing with the EU Commission over the spelling of eiro (or is it euro), the FT today asks the much more pertinent question: will the other baltic states even be able to join? On the backs of the energy hike Estonia and Lithuania are struggling to comply with the entry conditions, [...]

It’s Suday morning, and I don’t normally feel moved to post on a blog, but this news is disconcerting, and seems to merit the effort:
“The US government, for the first time, is urging doctors not to prescribe two antiviral drugs commonly used to fight influenza after discovering that the predominant strain of the virus has [...]

February in Paris, 1983. A group of student leaders are ushered into the presence of President Mitterand by huissiers. They stay slightly more than an hour, discussing Marxism-Leninism, youth, and society with the ever-inconsistent, sometimes brilliant, sometimes crooked, sometimes socialist and sometime fascist president. Years later, one of them, Jean-Claude Cambalebis remembers the three questions [...]

Do you want to know why the virus has spread so rapidly in Turkey? Do you want to know why a slow mutation process is occuring? Then look no further:
“The daily Vatan reported that former President Suleyman Demirel, who lives in a townhouse in a busy, central Ankara street, had a dozen chickens he [...]

This seems to be the big-picture story in Iraq:
Sunni Arab politicians, meanwhile, expressed anger over remarks by Iraq’s most powerful Shiite politician suggesting that the new constitution, approved in October, would not be amended….
A key Sunni demand is weaker federalism and a stronger central government. The constitution now gives most power — including control over [...]