That gaggle of elite geeks who have been arguing against the horrible possibilities an internetworked world offers to fraudsters and state bullies for years have often said that one day, there’ll be a horrible crunch. A disastrous moment of truth. As Chernobyl finished the reputation of nuclear power for 20 years, the Privacy Chernobyl will [...]

It wasn’t clear over the weekend how the Zimbabwe crisis could manage to get more complicated but now we know: Morgan Tsvangirai has taken refuge in the Dutch embassy in Harare.  It seems that he was left with little choice since, far from seeing his withdrawal from Friday’s “election” as a concession, the state security [...]

As some parts of Europe prepare for Jean-Claude Juncker’s “Club of the Few” while others fall by the wayside, it’s time to look back at how we got here. Nothing unites Europeans like football, and this year’s Euro 2008 tournament is turning out to be one of the best in a long time, maybe ever. [...]

Early results from the Irish referendum suggest that it’ll be time to go back to the drawing board. Hm.
Update: Comments in P’s thread.

Henry of Crooked Timber, whom I know from way back, is in Ireland and has written up how the country’s referendum on the Lisbon Treaty looks the day before voting. There’s also a more academic version, for those inclined.
I hope that it will be a moot point, but I’m curious about how things would work [...]

Boy, this will certainly help ease dependence on oil.

Perhaps not “While Europe Slept”, but can we have a little more attention to what’s going on in Italy? As well as the fascist saluting business, and the is-he-joking-is-he-serious threats of violence, we’re seeing gypsy camps being set on fire by thugs, whose behaviour is being excused by the Northern League on grounds that the [...]

Over at the German-speaking version of ScienceBlogs, they’re talking about a referendum (and nobody’s going to sing a song with that as the refrain), or rather a whole package of them. Switzerland famously has a lot of referendums, but this one is interesting because it points up the fundamental tension between democracy and the republic.
So [...]

For me, the interesting bit in this Jean Quatremer story about the race to be the first EU president is right at the end.
On sait simplement qu’il y a des « négociations secrètes » sur le sujet avec Londres : elles porteraient sur la création d’une force aéronavale commune et la surveillance de l’espace européen [...]

Slovakia has recently taken some important “baby steps” on its path towards future euro membership. In particular the government in Bratislava has now officially asked the European Central Bank and European Commission to assess whether or not it is now ready to adopt the currency on 1 January 2009.
The response of the European Commission [...]