This is an updated version of an earlier post. I first retain the post as it was, then I have added some reflections in the light of comments received.
The Independent is running the following story:
“Germany is deporting tens of thousands of Roma refugees to Kosovo despite clear threats to their safety and dire warnings from [...]

As all of Germany seems to engage either in market or Marx bashing these days, I thought it is time to add my two cents to the debate - and I’ll do it with the help of the US Europhile Jeremy Rifkin, who gave the “Stuttgarter Nachrichten” an interview about an old book of his, [...]

Heraclitis said that you can not step in the same river twice.
Wolfgang Pauli said that you can not be an identical fermion twice
that is that there can’t be two identical fermions.
Some Heraclitian said that you can’t step in the same river once.
This is clearly silly.
Similarly, I think that an honest application of the basic assumptions [...]

I was a little surprised to read in the Christmas edition of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung (not yet online, subscription wall, in German) that Robert Mundell seems to have changed his mind. In his seminal 1961 paper about monetary integration, he famously stated that “the optimum currency area is not the world”. Now it appears [...]

The Ukrainian parliament remained deadlocked today with respect to the issue of linking electoral rules and constitutional changes to limit the future President’s powers (Reuters), despite the alleged agreement in yesterday’s round-table talks.
Hoping to be able to avoid the constitutional curtailing of the future President’s powers, Yushchenko’s supporters insisted on two separate votes [...]

99 (and some more) orange balloons are floating over Kyiv today while protesters gathered again peacefully waiting for the Supreme Court’s decision. In the meantime, outgoing President Kuchma met with Russia’s President Putin at a Russian governmental airport near Moscow. There are differing reports about what exactly Putin said with respect to a possible Ukrainian [...]