Around the Bloc - Czech PM Babis Joins Opposition to UN Migration Pact
Centrist Czech government aligns with right-wing Central European critics of the non-binding agreement.
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Centrist Czech government aligns with right-wing Central European critics of the non-binding agreement.
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Some of the biggest challenges states in the Western Balkans are facing since the end of the Cold War are non-traditional security threats. Although recent studies have argued that “history has returned” and that traditional security threats have come back to become core challenges for states, authors of this paper argue that due to geopolitical, political, economic and cultural factors, the states in the region suffer more from non-traditional or “soft security” rather than “hard security” threats. In this paper, the authors are focused on two of such threats: organized crime and terrorism. The region of the Western Balkans is quite vague and imprecise as a concept, and for the purpose of this paper, we use the term to refer to the former Yugoslavia, excluding Slovenia and Croatia and including Albania. Two methodological approaches are used: discourse analysis and semi-structured interviews. The paper consists of three parts. The first part deals with the theoretical and conceptual change of security in the Western Balkans by focusing on key security challenges which the states are facing. In the second part, the paper identifies main contemporary threats, focusing on two most significant threats: transnational organized crime and terrorism. In the third part, the paper analyses alternative approaches that these states can use to overcome these security threats.
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The paper assesses the EU crisis management in the South Caucasus with a particular focus on the South Ossetian conflict. The EU engagement in the South Caucasus dates back to 2003, when the region gained importance for the EU as an energy transportation corridor between East and West, as well as for security purposes, in terms of building “a new chain of friends” outside the EU borders. At the same time the EU introduced a wide range of institutional structures and coordination mechanisms over multiple policy domains of crisis management. In contrast, the increased EU presence in the region did not contribute to coherent crisis management in South Ossetia. The involvement of multiple institutional actors in the planning and implementation phases of CFSP and Development Aid has increased the institutional fragmentation within EU`s crisis management architecture creating a need to establish coherence in their actions.The paper argues that the incoherence in EU crisis management is undermined by the overlapping mandates of EU institutional agents in the two main policy areas: the EU’s Common Foreign Security Policy (CFSP) and Development Aid Policy (DAP). The impact of the mandate overlaps on incoherence is empirically analysed through the prism of the bureaucratic politics theoretical framework.
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The aim of the article is to show how in Italy the traditional inequalities in class, gender and geography have been matched by an inequality linked to immigration, whose causes, forms and social consequences I will analyse here. In so doing I will underline how such inequality linked to immigration is an integral part of the system of social inequalities existing at global level and in particular it is part of the globalization of inequality linked to immigration.Over the last few decades, there has been a deep social transformation at world level which has changed the system of inequalities; new inequalities were created, among which, the inequality linked to immigration is rather important. Historically, this is certainly nothing new, yet we are witnessing a globalization of inequality linked to immigration, which refers to disparities and social advantages that affect immigrant populations and citizens with migratory background. This phenomenon has several causes, but it is mainly due to two elements: the systematic use by several countries of an exploited and stigmatised migrant workforce, kept in a condition of social inferiority and with half the rights of the rest of the population; the globalisation of selective, restrictive and repressive immigration policies. Such process is quite visible in Italy, where inequality based on immigration is the result of the combined action of labour market, legal system, and mass media, which have pursued rationales, which led to the social inferiority and segregation of immigrants. Such inequality involved specific generative mechanisms such as the selection, precarisation and differential exploitation of migrant workers, the creation of a special legislation, the systematic stigmatisation of immigrant populations in the public discourse, the comeback of the rhetoric of assimilation. Such inequality is multidimensional as, from work to health, from living to education, from public images to legal conditions, it affects all aspects of the social life of immigrants; and it is a challenge to social citizenship.
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This article aims to photograph the state of the Transnistrian media in terms of size, configuration, categories, legal framework and professional issues.At present, the share of all state and municipal media in the local media market is about 60%, TSV - 30%, and other non-state media - about 10%. Given that the TSV channel is approaching the current governing team, it can be said that the proportion of pro-government media resources in the market structure reaches 90%.In this situation, the only alternative to obtaining information is the news portals of Facebook organizations and public groups that become a favorite source of news and opinions. In social networks, people ask questions and discuss issues that are not far from the media.An acute problem remains the issue of financing independent media, experiencing difficulties in surviving in a difficult economic environment and a modern media landscape. At the same time, all state media resources are financed or subsidized from the Republican budget.
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Undertaking the protocol decisions at the end of 2017 have led to a sustained effort by the authorities in the concrete management and implementation of the agreed provisions, with a special focus on the work of the sectoral working groups. Thus, the work of these sectoral working groups has intensified, their expertise resulting from the dialogue between experts on both banks of the Dniester, being more and more relevant and concrete in the regulatory process.
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This article is an analysis of the actual situation around the status of Moldovan permanent neutrality. Actual policies promoted by the different state and civil institutions do not have a necessary complex approach to this issue. But different geopolitical, international and internal risks which the Republic of Moldova faces of last 25 years impose this topic as one of the most important priorities for the national security sphere, foreign and internal policy. Respectively, the realization of the analysis of the subject of the some law and political aspects upon this issue within the article will be achieved through these key dimensions.
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The methods and instruments chosen for presenting the internal conflict in the Republic of Moldova allowed the author to follow step by step 1785 real events, which played a tragic role in the country's fate, which received state independence as a result of the self-destruction of the Soviet Union.Presenting concrete facts through the recommended bibliography method, M. Melintei relies on a wide range of sources, mainly official, which confirms the author's objectivity and provides an efficient working tool both for the theoretical and practical analysis of the Transnistrian issue.This study is unique in the sense that there are no such collections of specialized documents and chronologies on the issue in question. The volume of descriptive material (over 450 pages) is impressive, as well as the fact that the study is published in Romanian and Russian.
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Humans have always been prone to adorning the truth and to producing twisted fallacious arguments in order to sketch a truth (i.e., their own truth) that best suited their interest at a certain time, within certain circumstances. Even more, the communication climate of nowadays has moved from face-to-face communication ̶ that offered a limited kit of means to mold the truth ̶ towards the emerging technology mediated virtual communication that enhances the dressing up and the re-shaping of truth to make the message more appealing to its target public to such an extent that truth loses its substance and may turn into its opposite. Advertising messaging exhibits some contradictory characteristics that are involved in producing what we call and aim at coining here as the Műnchausen Effect. Our research findings have shown that all of the 100 taglines on bestslogans.com relied on enthymematic argumentation and where erroneous in terms of content, all as non sequitur fallacies. However, due to the ambiguity brought about by their elliptical structure (as all of them lacked the conclusion and at least one of the premises), these implicit arguments have proved hard to analyze with regard to the specific kind of fallacies that could hide beyond the missing premise(s), as one could imagine any kind of missing premise(s), where there is an elliptical structure of argumentation. This difficulty that is encountered leaves room to another kind of approach to research in communication, the quantum approach that in critical thinking may have to do with informal logic, and that takes into account creativity and the Umberto Eco idea of opera aperta. We may dwell on such an approach in a further study.
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Nowadays, both on-line and "off-line" lives seem to be bound to the terms of democratization of information. While this brings clear advantages, does free and fast access to plenty of information entail that individuals are better informed and well-equipped to think reasonably, make decisions, and solve problems? In a time apparently governed by fraudulent decision-makers, floppy media, fake news, and frantic information, it is essential to know how to think critically. Critical thinking is crucial along schooling, in the world of work, in personal everyday life, and in life as members of a society. Nonetheless, critical thinking is not innate and effortless; it must be developed and mobilized with deliberation in a systematic way. Researchers and international agencies agree that it is critical to have critical thinking to face present-futurist challenges such as the United Nation's 17 Sustainable Development Goals. But before individuals learn to become critical thinkers, teachers themselves need teacher education opportunities to learn how to use their critical thinking abilities, and how to spark students' critical thinking potential and promote it. Here, the role played by education in developing critical thinking is stressed, and specific teaching-learning strategies that have shown to be effective are identified.
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Political events in Catalonia from 2010 to the present have marked part of the Spanish and EU media agenda and have resonated in the international media. We analysed German, French and UK media coverage and opinions of foreign correspondents regarding the Catalan independence movement for the period 2010 to 2017. We analysed press representations of the positions of the Spanish and Catalan governments and of the confrontation between them, focusing on the main newspapers (Le Figaro, Le Monde, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Süddeustsche Zeitung, The Daily Telegraph and The Guardian) of the major EU economies of Germany, France and the UK. Analysis was intended to determine the degree of (il)legitimacy of the independence movement as well as arguments in favour of the Spanish status quo and even of European identity. We conducted a framing analysis of 563 press articles and an ethnographic study based on in-depth interviews with four foreign correspondents in Spain. The analysed newspapers provided wide coverage of the Catalan independence movement, framed the crisis as a conflict between the governments of Spain and Catalonia and called repeatedly on the EU to mediate.
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We are witnessing the emerging of the European single digital market which brings new opportunities for the transmedia and cross-media producers. Although the European media landscape does unite, culture and language boundaries are remaining. “East Grimm” is a cross-cultural transmedia project that is concerned with ancient heritage, old traditions and mythology in popular form. The old mythologic stories are accessible to creative retelling, they are timeless, and they project into our today´s life. This paper describes the “East Grimm” project and its development. The project narrative offers an opportunity to observe cultural specifics in today´s storytelling and the stories themselves.
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This sections contains a large number of interventions related to the theme of the issue, which is Posthumanism.
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On April 18, 1968, Frank Kowalski, a Democratic representative from Connecticut, addressed the House of Representatives on the perils of America’s imminent resumption of atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons through “a prayer for the preservation of mankind” written by Thomas Merton. The Congressional peace prayer is established within the corpus of Thomas Merton’s social writings. Yet, surprisingly, the prayer has received little critical commentary. This article seeks to probe deeper into the historical circumstances in which the prayer was written by highlighting coincidental contradictions in United States policy-making that took place on the day the prayer was read in Congress.
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The article examines the academic self-government, underlying in the base of the model of the higher schools government in Bulgaria. Based on the comparative-legalanalysis with former legislative solutions the authors make conclusions and summaries.The challenges and tendencies in the contemporary period of the higher education development and the interrelations with the academic self government are marked.
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The article is dealing with specific issues related to the quality control of higher education in Bulgaria. Standards and guidelines aimed at ensuring and improving the quality of higher education in the European community are analyzed.
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The primary aim of the article is to identify the degree of creativity in the expressive means employed by citizens showing their attitudes to the current political situation. Other aims of the text include the identification of rhetorical, linguistic and stylistic resources and explicit and implicit inspirations related to art present in the recorded messages. The authors address three research questions arising from the above-mentioned aims. The research material consists of photographs of 203 different messages in the form of banners, scale models, models, ready-made, objet trouvé, performances and other textual and/or visual representations displayed during the protest held on 16th March 2018 on the SNP Square in Bratislava, which was held after the brutal murder of Slovak investigative journalist Ján Kuciak and his fiancée Martina Kušnírová. The authors use a modified method of content and image analysis and product creativity evaluation. The data is analysed both qualitatively and quantitatively, i.e. via triangulation approach. In the concluding part of the study, the authors discuss the available options in connection with the use of banners and other messages as a means of self-expression and manifestation of commitment, political activism and civic engagement. The most creative messages have the greatest potential to be multiplied through social networks and thus transmit the intended message in a more efficient way.
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This study briefly presents the development of personal data protection and its relation to the right to respect for private life. Some of the key points set out in the new Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Directive 95/46/EC (General Data Protection Regulation) regarding the balancing of the right to expression are under discussion in the paper. Due to the fact that the GDPR obliges Member States to reconcile by law the right to the protection of personal data with the right to freedom of expression and information, including processing for journalistic purposes and the purposes of academic, artistic or literary expression, some general remarks and comments are made towards the Draft Articles for the amendments in the Bulgarian Law on Protection of Personal Data and its conformity with the GDPR.
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This article aims at presenting the legislative decisions in the Confederation of Switzerland by means of comparative analysis of the Bulgarian legislation with simultaneous presentation of the Swiss case-law and legal doctrine. Some suggestions de lege ferenda are made as well. The analysis is made with regard to the applicable legal acts of both countries under consideration which are in force as of 1 January 2013.
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The effect of the doer’s confession in criminal cases adjudicated under the order of the brief court investigation or settlement of the case by an agreement is statutory lowering the punishment. This procedural effect raises the question about the material value of the confession which has to be presented trough the point of two purposes of the punishment and the basic principles of imposing a determined sanction on a particular doer. Current article is focused on the material legal contents of the confession as a mitigating circumstance and legal grounds for applying art. 55 of Penal Code, which allows the substitution of the statutory sanction with a lighter one.
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