Iceland: from boom to bust

The blog La moqueta verde has a very interesting post on the boom and bust of the Icelandic financial market.
The graph shows the sharp rise and sudden fall of the Icelandic OMX15 index, it’s just brutal.
From happiest nation in the world according to the UN just a year ago to a country shattered accepting a [...]

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In praise of India

Today the 9th EU-India summit has kicked off in Marseille. As a student of South Asian affairs I would like to mark this event with a little reflection on India as one of the great hopes for our world in the 21st century.
When I arrived at SOAS to study politics I had to decide which [...]

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The big picture: the economy

Two days ago the Spanish finance minister, Pedro Solbes, wrote an article for the FT in which he explained the situation of the Spanish economy and the way the government plans to face the current crisis.
This article should be a must read for Alistair Darling and his entire department.
When an economic crisis hits home there [...]

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Don Aznar de Marco

Well! who would have thought so, I’m in shock, I’m in disbelief! Our very own Jose Maria Aznar, the rock star politician, is rumoured to be the father of the child expected by French Justice Minister Rachida Dati. The world is gone crazy: that’s a fact.
Those years playing squash are really starting to show Mr. [...]

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More lunacy from the eurosceptics

Daniel Hannan, the Tory MEP, has gone into another of his rants about his very amusing EU conspiracies. The tragic thing isn’t Hannan’s blogpost in the Telegraph (we are used to that) but Iain Dale’s follow-up that denotes how far the Tories are willing to go to paint their own picture on the EU.
The new [...]

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Practice your French

A friend of mine has sent me a link to this new French online magazine called Rue89.
I had a look around and it seems really interesting. Its content is pretty mixed with some good curent affairs analysis from alternative perspectives (don’t worry, it’s not a Indymedia style lefty e-zine). It’s also pretty interactive with the [...]

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The census of shame

The so-called Maroni census, named after Italian Interior Minister Roberto Maroni, is the latest and gravest attempt in Europe to haunt inmigrants and violate their human rights.
The Maroni census created by the Berlusconi government aims at recording the identities of all Gypsies in Italy, but not just their identity also their ethnicity and religion. The [...]

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Eurobarometer and the Lisbon Treaty

Some weeks ago I argued in this blog that the rejection in Ireland of the Lisbon Treaty was the result of bad campaigning by pro-Europeans. The latest EC’s Eurobarometer seems to corroborate my argument.
According to their analysis the Irish government didn’t take the campaign too serious. The results are quite shocking:
- 52% of those that [...]

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Euro 2008: the demographics

In El Pais today there’s an interesting article on Euro 2008 and European demographics. If we look at the teams participating in this tournament we can claim that probably this is the most representative tournament ever:
- 4 historic block of nations: the Latin world (Portugal, France, Italy and Spain)- 170 mill. people and GDP per [...]

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The 65 hours’ working week: another fine mess

The Council of Ministers has given the green light, still to be ratified by the European Parliament, to the 65 hours’ working week in the EU. The Council is pretty much blowing a 91 year old international treaty signed by the ILO to commit governments across the world to a 48 hours working week.
I believe [...]

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