Jason Burke of the Observer reports that the next few days are expected to bring the indictment of people involved in Ergenekon. Ergenekon? Well, if you read AFOE you’ll already know that Ergenekon is a secret extreme-right network of influence within the Turkish elite, suspected of being behind a succession of acts of violence, which [...]

It would take a stand-alone blog to track the daily utterances of George Bush but here he is in St Louis today talking about his visits to Romania –
And they had just been accepted into NATO, and the President asked me and Laura to go, and there was 225,000 people, more or less, in the town [...]

One of Nicolas Sarkozy’s worse ideas is the retention de securite, a change to the law that would allow for prisoners who complete their sentences to not be released if the government thought they were of “particular dangerousness” - this being an executive decision and hence very likely to be taken for reasons of low [...]

I’d like to come up with more thoughtful and respectful titles for these posts. But, well.
Stupid #1: In the wake of the NATO summit, and Greece’s veto of Macedonian membership, there’s now a boycott campaign in Macedonia against Greek goods and Greek-owned businesses. Since Greece is one of Macedonia’s largest investors and [...]

Haven’t we seen this movie before? Will it be any better this time? Can Italy afford another round of Silvi B?
I know what could make this a great term of office! Start a new campaign: Tyrolia is only Italian! Because it’s worked so well for Greece…
Update: I see that David is as enthusiastic as I [...]

In today’s Wall Street Journal Europe, Gareth Harding does a nice job describing the frustration of a UK citizen who has lost the right to vote as a result of long-term residency outside the UK — a feature that only dates from 2002 legislation.  It’s little consolation, but the Irish voting regimen for its many [...]

Not too long ago, Doug Muir wrote about why Nagorno-Karabakh may be coming soon to a front page near you. Back in the mid-1990s, I wrote something much longer on the conflict there. (PDF, ca. 500K) Money quote:
Two of the least useful questions for consideration of the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh are “Who’s right?” and “When [...]

In less than a week Italy will be holding a general election three years ahead of schedule, but before I explain how the upcoming vote may lead to another gridlock, I believe an introduction is in order. My name is Manuel Alvarez-Rivera and I’m the webmaster of Election Resources on the [...]

The latest news from Macedonia: a local art gallery did a billboard showing the Greek flag with a swastika in place of the cross.
The Greeks have, of course, gone completely apeshit. Front page news, demonstrations, formal diplomatic protest.
This is one of those perfect Balkan storms where you have obnoxious and stupid behavior that leads [...]

“All religions are just as good as each other, as long as the people who practice them are honest, and even if Turks and heathens came and wanted to populate this country, then we would build mosques and temples for them”(1)
As quoted in Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia 1600-1947, by Christopher Clark, [...]