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Op-Eds & Guest Contributors
Op-Eds & Guest Contributors
Britain’s racial history must not be tied to the American experience
The following is an excerpt from the writings of Frederick Douglass about his time in the British Isles during the 1840s. As a public...
Op-Eds & Guest Contributors
How Joe Biden is empowering America’s workers
Time and again over the past few years, as he fought to protect his coworkers at Bobcat’s North Dakota plant, William Wilkinson faced two...
Finland
Twilight of the Russian gods?
Alexey Navalny's three and a half years sentence in a penal colony is supposed to be a punishment for having violated his parole conditions...
Op-Eds & Guest Contributors
How the animal health sector became the unseen frontrunner in tackling antibiotic resistance
The danger of resistance rendering antibiotics ineffective is not only a threat to public health, it is also a threat to animal agriculture, a...
Greece
Greece’s new century
As Greece prepares to celebrate the bicentennial of the country's independence next month, Greece is also poised to enter a new era in its...
Op-Eds & Guest Contributors
The economy matters in Catalonia’s regional elections
On February 14, Catalonia will hold regional elections. Although an event of this kind has traditionally determined public debate in Spain, for the first...
Op-Eds & Guest Contributors
The so-called Moderna vaccine is a publicly funded miracle
The so-called “Moderna” vaccine is a miracle of science. It is nearly 100 per cent effective at preventing serious illness and death. By vaccinating the world,...
Op-Eds & Guest Contributors
Time to hold the Commission to account over vaccines
The decision by the European Commission to collectivise the purchasing and distribution of vaccines in Europe during the COVID-19 crisis has proven to be...
Op-Eds & Guest Contributors
EU-US first litmus test on social media firms and democracy
Bans on Donald Trump’s social media accounts highlight the enduring struggle between free enterprise and the responsibilities of the state, which have long been...
Cyprus
A calmness of sorts in the East Med
With no exploration activities taking place, other than in Egypt, and Turkey refraining from provocations, the East Med is a sea of relative calmness....
Op-Eds & Guest Contributors
Why severe COVID strikes men more than women
Scientists may have discovered why men tend to be at greater risk from COVID-19 than women – and it is largely to do with...
Op-Eds & Guest Contributors
Forecasting the 2021 renewable energy landscape
2021 kicked off with the official departure of the United Kingdom from the EU, the continued deployment of various COVID-19 vaccines to the world...
Analysis
Ukraine has lost its way
Ukraine has lost its way. Its chosen road towards transforming itself from a corrupt, post-Soviet thinking culture into a rules-based society has stalled.
Actually, it...
Op-Eds & Guest Contributors
Discrepancies in measuring obesity and overweight in OECD countries
The way obesity is measured throughout the EU and OECD countries is significantly flawed. A new paper by Instituto Bruno Leoni shows that existing...
Albania
Twitter banned me, too
It’s been two weeks since my Twitter account was blocked by Twitter itself. Perhaps it is of interest to explain how it exactly happened....
Albania
The EU-China investment agreement is a disaster for the West
The EU-China Comprehensive Investment Agreement that was announced in December 2020 at joint virtual press conference between Ursula von der Leyen, Charles Michel, Xi...
Georgia
A tale of two Georgias
After the end of the Trump presidency, it remains to be seen if the Republican Party establishment will break with Trump. A number of...
Op-Eds & Guest Contributors
The EU-China investment agreement threatens our reputation abroad
A few months ago, I distributed face masks to my colleagues in the European Parliament with the simple slogan ‘Speak Up for Uyghurs’ printed...
Op-Eds & Guest Contributors
All hands on deck
At high noon on January 20, the new President of the United States assumed his official responsibilities. Even if this happened 45 times before,...
China
With Navalny’s arrest, Russia hands Biden his first test on human rights
Alexey Navalny’s arrest upon his return to Russia on Sunday has handed newly-inaugurated President Joe Biden his first challenge from the Kremlin in office.Navalny...
Op-Eds & Guest Contributors
Draconian dream 2: Send in the troops
In the event that anyone reading this lives in a cave, or is the descendant of a Japanese soldier still fighting World War II,...
Op-Eds & Guest Contributors
Will Joe Biden’s climate policy challenge the European Hydrogen strategy?
It was like telling the world: We are ready to become the global Hydrogen champion! The European Hydrogen Strategy that was released in July...
China
Learning to live with the dragon in the Year of the Ox
With Trump now booted out of the White House, we now have a chance to reboot some key relationships around the world. President Joe...
Germany
Learning the lessons of the Holocaust means telling the whole story
I was privileged to witness the United Nations General Assembly mark the very first International Holocaust Remembrance Day in January 2006. The need to...
Albania
Montenegro’s parliament passes crucial religion law, but who’s really in charge?
The Montenegrin parliament, in a repeat vote, passed on January 20 a crucial Law on Religious Freedoms which President Milo Djukanovic refused to sign...
Albania
Albania’s agreement with the UAE violates the Stabilization and Association Agreement
The Agreement for Economic Cooperation between Albania and the UAE was signed in November 2020 in Abu Dhabi by Prime Minister Edi Rama which...
Op-Eds & Guest Contributors
The insurrection at the US Capitol is a sign of a much deeper problem than Trump
While the majority of Americans deplored the events at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, it was troubling to see a YouGov poll indicating that 1...
Op-Eds & Guest Contributors
Impeachment instead of a Twitter ban
It is an irony of history that Twitter, Donald Trump's preferred social media channel, has permanently blocked the American president's account for spreading false...
Op-Eds & Guest Contributors
Cancel culture: the road to obscurantism
Late last month, a Massachusetts high school teacher boasted on social media that she was, “Very proud to say we got the Odyssey removed...
Op-Eds & Guest Contributors
Valery Giscard d’Estaing – a maker of Europe
He had asked to be buried, not with the pomp due to a former head of state, but in the privacy, just as a...
Op-Eds & Guest Contributors
Hungry for change: an open letter to European governments
In 2020, the entire world knew what it was to be hungry. Millions of people went without enough to eat, with the most desperate now facing famine....
Op-Eds & Guest Contributors
Cancel culture must go
If I had felt so optimistic as to bother making a wish list for 2021, there would have been a fierce battle for top...
Op-Eds & Guest Contributors
This year will be the year of climate opportunities if the EU wants it to be
2020 will mark a turning point in many aspects: The most obvious one is clearly the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic and everything connected...
Op-Eds & Guest Contributors
Don’t sleep on methane emissions in 2021
When the European Council committed to at least a 55 percent reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, it was clear that 2021 would...
Op-Eds & Guest Contributors
The EU’s recent steps to combat online extremism
Since the earliest days of the internet, the propagation of extremist content online has been one of the most challenging and dangerous misuses of...
Op-Eds & Guest Contributors
The House GOP recited Trump’s false vote theft claims, even after historic attack on Congress by his supporters
It was past midnight on January 7 when the US House of Representatives began its debate on whether to accept Pennsylvania’s 20 Electoral College...
Environment
COVID has underscored the need for safe drinking water, but not everyone has it
When the COVID-19 outbreak swept across the U.S., toilet paper, hand sanitizer and Clorox wipes flew off store shelves. But shopping carts have also...
Canada
Erasmus and Brexit
No policy decision better encapsulates the entire Brexit process better than the UK's decision to withdraw from the Erasmus Programme. For those in Brussels,...
Op-Eds & Guest Contributors
The rise of remote workers and the end of migrant workers?
Migration flows today are mostly driven by people pursuing better economic opportunities. These individuals move from peripheries to hubs — often crossing a border and sometimes...
Op-Eds & Guest Contributors
COVID-19 lockdowns taking a heavy toll on the mental health of young people
Both the mental health effects and damage done to the education of young people by repeated lockdowns across the world have been points of...
Op-Eds & Guest Contributors
Years of digital radicalization has borne angry fruit
For years, warnings and evidence that words uttered either online or offline have consequences fell almost exclusively on deaf ears. Yes, some cosmetic changes...
Op-Eds & Guest Contributors
Is the Digital Services Act a watershed moment in Europe’s battle against toxic online content?
The past year has seen COVID-19 disinformation inundate online spaces, accelerating the spread of the virus and loss of life. The pandemic and ensuing...
Armenia
The global political game in the South Caucasus is finally settled
The regions of Azerbaijan occupied by Armenia, have now been finally liberated as a result of counterattacks by the Azeri Army against the Armenians...
Energy
Pompeo's Greece visit underlines Turkey’s isolation
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited Greece on September 28-30 with the objective of making it clear to Turkey that the Trump Administration...
Analysis
Trump Administration’s Kosovo announcement fails to impress
The Trump Administration’s second attempt to gather Kosovar and Serbian leaders at the White House succeeded on September 4 just as Washington and most...
Armenia
Elections in Nagorno-Karabakh don't dismiss democracy
Normally, a free and fair election is a welcome exercise of democracy and freedom. But in the case of the unrecognised Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh,...
Democracy & Human Rights
The impact of COVID-19 on women's rights
Experience from past epidemics clearly shows that a health crisis has always led to a regression of gender equality. The necessary restrictions taken by...
Finance
European businesses must consider Russia's poor track record before investing
After years of sanctions, European businesses are returning to Russia. The Russia-German Chamber of Commerce recently announced that German businesses invested more than €3.3...
Asia & Pacific
Could bad data be to blame for high coronavirus death toll
European countries saw some of the highest death told for coronavirus over the last month. Deaths in Italy have surpassed those in China many...
Analysis
Europe's masked corona ball
Response from the Cabinet of Commissioner Lenarčič:
At the end of January, as the outbreak intensified in Wuhan coronavirus epicentre, President von der Leyen triggered...
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