When I asked, “Who’s next?” I neglected to post the answers which were Washington Mutual and Ukraine. Hope that I was only half-right.

The Austrian government has just abolished university tuition fees. Why depressing?
This is the only thing I’ve ever protested against that’s been reversed.

Nobody likes the European Parliament, and that’s probably why everyone had such low expectations about the “telecoms package” it was meant to pass. There was all kinds of horrible gunk in there - the French government, for a start, had outsourced its policy to the owner of a chain of record shops, who decided that [...]

It’s generated amazingly little discussion in the international press, but the Greek and Turkish Cypriots are sitting down and trying to resolve their 35-year-old-and-counting conflict.
The talks started about three weeks ago. They are moving slowly — the negotiators just took a break for two weeks, and they don’t expect to complete the discussions until [...]

The IMF has just released its latest assessment of Hungary (news release, detailed report).  It’s interesting and sobering reading — this is a country where the budget deficit nearly hit 10% of GDP last year and which is still spending 4% of GDP a year on public debt service.  In Ireland we know how this [...]

Do you all think I should tell David about this?

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In the past few days, the researchers have seen areas of sea foaming with gas bubbling up through “methane [...]

We haven’t used the poll function for a while.
So okay: the Russians say that they’re only recognizing South Ossetia’s and Abkhazia’s independence because the wicked, lawless West set a precedent with Kosovo. And at first glance, this seems plausible! After all, the Georgia crisis came just six months after Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of [...]

So we have state elections here in Bavaria this week.
Yeah, I know. Bear with me, I’m going somewhere with this.
There are political signs here and there around our small town, but not as many as you’d expect. A surprisingly high number are for the nationalist, anti-immigration Republican Party. I say “surprisingly” because [...]

Newsweek has a longish (for Newsweek) article this week about how the center-left is in trouble in pretty much all the large European countries:
No matter what they call themselves—Social Democrats, Socialists or Labour—rarely have they simultaneously appeared so troubled. In Britain, Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s popularity has hit rock bottom. Germany’s Social Democrats are [...]

So the Russians are saying they’ll withdraw from Georgia Real Soon Now. Meanwhile Moscow has signed treaties of mutual defense with the, you know, totally independent and sovereign nations of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. If Georgia makes a move — or something that Moscow thinks is a move, or wants to think is [...]