OVERVIEW OF THE POLITICAL EVENTS OF 2014–2015 IN UKRAINE
The current chapter gives a short overview of political events that played major role in Russia’s information war against Ukraine during the ongoing conflict.
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The current chapter gives a short overview of political events that played major role in Russia’s information war against Ukraine during the ongoing conflict.
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From the perspective of the past two (almost three) years, it seems that the significant anniversary of 2014 went down in the annals of history as a remarkable fiasco of Hungarian memory politics. Controversial Monument, Divided Hungarians, Angered Jewish Community – these newspaper headlines are still fresh in our minds. Over the course of the year, the Hungarian Holocaust Memorial Year turned to become somewhat infamous, and scandal followed upon scandal not only in domestic media but also in foreign newspapers. However, everything had started off well in the beginning. This essay will first briefly introduce the broader context of this fiasco, discussing the main differences between Eastern and Western European memory politics before and after 1989. It will then distinguish some milestones of the Hungarian ambiguity and delay in coping with the European tendencies in Holocaust remembrance. After that, it will turn to its central subject, analysing the main events of the Hungarian Holocaust Memorial Year 2014. Toward the end, the essay will map the different initiatives between the coordinates of memory politics and show some unintended consequences of the unsuccessful governmental intentions.
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The collective memory on the twentieth century totalitarianisms is still a topic that divides Europe, both the elites and society taking part in this controversy whose consequences are reflected in the long-term projections on the democratic model. The ascent of political radicalism in recent years has given rise to positions taken by traditional parties (both left and right), which call on the historical memory to condemn these trends. The adoption by the European Parliament of the „Resolution on the importance of European remembrance for the future of Europe”, at 80 years since the signing of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact, provides us the opportunity for a study on the different perceptions by the Member States of the European Union, on the recent historical past. The main research question is the following: is the European approach to the history of the 20th century objective or equitable, or - on the contrary - is the result of a forced, unilateral condemnation of the past, without taking into account the details and subtleties that can bring a real release from the burden of this past? This article attempts to answer these questions by analysing the most visible and important aspects of the collective historical memory, expressed at European level.
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W dniu 24 stycznia 2014 r. w Warszawie odbyło się Walne Zgromadzenie członków Towarzystwa Kultury Języka. Jego celem było m.in.: przyjęcie sprawozdań ustępujących władz TKJ oraz wybór ich nowego składu, podjęcie uchwał dotyczących oddziałów Towarzystwa w Zduńskiej Woli i Suwałkach, przyjęcie sprawozdania redaktora naczelnego „Poradnika Językowego”, a także podjęcie decyzji w sprawie zmian w statucie Towarzystwa.
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Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov visited Washington, DC last December for a meeting with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and a visit to the Oval Office with President Donald Trump. This was Lavrov’s second such visit during the Trump administration; his first visit occurred in May 2017, when pictures emerged of him, Trump, and then-Russian Ambassador to the US, Sergei Kislyak, yucking it up in the White House the day after Trump fired the head of the FBI, James Comey. On this latest visit, Lavrov was seen smiling once again with Trump in a photo the American president tweeted out after the meeting. “Just had a very good meeting with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and representatives of Russia. Discussed many items including Trade, Iran, North Korea, INF Treaty, Nuclear Arms Control, and Election Meddling. Look forward to continuing our dialogue in the near future!” Trump wrote
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When Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the former foreign minister and now federal president of Germany, once tried to describe Germany’s role in Europe; he called it the “chief facilitating officer”. France’s newfound role under Macron now seems to be that of Europe’s “disrupter-in-chief”. That these two roles do not necessarily match is no surprise. Especially for the Central and Eastern European states, Macron appears to be the proverbial fox in the henhouse. The list of what makes Macron’s recent moves suspicious to these countries is long, and it mostly relates to Russia. Apart from his notorious “braindead” comment when it comes to NATO, Macron called for a rapprochement Russia – without any coordination with Germany and Central and Eastern Europe.
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Ukraine’s oligarchs have established themselves as an independent component of the socio-political and economic system, whose lack of interests has become impossible in current times. The challenge for Volodymyr Zelesnkyy is how to confront the influence of the oligarchs. Current developments suggest three scenarios between the oligarchs, the new political elite, and civil society.
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Austrian writer Peter Handke was awarded the 2019 Nobel Prize for Literature. The award renewed a debate surrounding this author – his ardent support for Serbia and Slobodan Milošević, who was the Serbian leader in the mid-1990s – and puts the integrity of the Swedish Academy into question.
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Azerbaijan may not be on the cusp of a major reform, but developments of recent months have formed the most interesting socio-political dynamics this rather boringly-stable Caspian Republic has seen since 2003.
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Candidate Trump made reducing unauthorized migration a central theme of his campaign in 2015 and 2016 (Martin, 2017a). Soon after taking office, Trump issued executive orders that instructed the Department of Homeland Security to build a wall on the Mexico-US border, increase deportations, and reduce refugee admissions (Martin, 2017b). Immigration systems are like supertankers, hard to turn around quickly, but President Trump has in three years developed a restrictionist migration policy aimed at reducing unauthorised migration and asylum seeking. Even though Trump’s businesses employ low-skilled guest workers, there have been no major changes to the H-2A and H-2B guest worker programs.
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This paper seeks to analyse Syrian and Eritrean refugees' mobility experience across European borders, in a framework of mobility and insecurity. Drawing on the conflict model of migration, the paper focuses on the effects of migration and asylum policies when these are not in line with refugees’ needs and aspirations. We argue that when the asylum system does not meet with those expectations, insecurity brings into play secondary movements, which occur in a framework of irregularity. The considerations behind this article are motivated by the empirical evidence that both Syrian and Eritrean refugees undertake irregular secondary migration, whilst being within a protection system that most of the times satisfies their asylum claims. This paper is the result of a qualitative research conducted in 2017 through observation, in-depth interviews with Syrian and Eritrean refugees, and consultations with experts and practitioners in Italy, Greece, Germany and Lebanon.
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Due to a decreased birth rate and increased emigration, Lithuania’s population fell from 3.5 million to 2.8 million during the period 1990 - 2017. This paper presents a picture of the endangered Lithuanian population conditioned by high emigration flows. Four emigration waves and their reasons during the 27 year period in Lithuania are discussed. Economic and social conditions have only shown a slight change for Lithuanian citizens. In addition, no option of dual citizenship is available for emigrants. These reasons, as well as the Brexit consequences, have an impact on the emigration rates and Lithuania’s endangerment generally.
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This article explores the recent bordering practices across and around Europe, with a specific focus on the construction of walls and fences. Since the outbreak of the Syrian war in 2011, thousands of refugees fleeing persecution have risked their lives crossing dangerous maritime and land borders while attempting to reach Europe. In the face of this intensification of refugee movements and the subsequent mass death around the borders, European countries have decided to erect more walls and fences instead of offering protection to refugees. Rather than a novel theoretical and conceptual framework, this article seeks to subject these bordering practices and their material and discursive underpinnings to critical–analytical scrutiny, drawing on the frameworks offered by critical border studies. Concomitantly, it reflects on the detrimental impacts these practices are having on the rights of refugees and problematizes the approaches of European countries vis-à-vis present-day refugee movements.
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This paper assumes that during the Arab uprisings the Turkish position towards the Arab Israeli Conflict including the two Israeli wars on Gaza in 2012 and 2014, was affected by changing of the regimes in other Arab countries like Egypt. During the Israeli war on Gaza in 2012, Muslim Brotherhood was governing Egypt, the thing that made Egypt to be a strategic ally for Turkey. At that time, JDP leaders used the same discourse of Muslim Brotherhood in warning of Israel, and Turkey was able to play an active role in the ceasefire in cooperation with Egypt and Qatar. While in Gaza war 2014, the situation changed as Egypt became under military rule, and it is no longer ally for JDP government, for that Turkey did not play an active role to end the Israeli attack on Gaza. That will be analyzed using constructivist theory of Michael Barnett about the role of identity in foreign policy and choosing of an attractive partner that share a common identity, common history, and a common destiny. Besides, the post-structuralist discourse theories which assume that “nothing outside the text” and claim that “identity is constituted through repeated acts”, will be used to show how discourse of ‘Rabia’ which its origins back to Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, was institutionalized in Turkey through repeated acts and became a sign of JDP.
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This paper examines the communication practices during protests and social initiatives (in 2014 and 2015) in order to understand how activists are promoting their movement and its goals, how successful are they in mobilizing the public to join their cause and what tools do they use for this purpose. Furthermore, it examines how government officials responded to calls for accountability and how they engaged in talks with those movements. The previous government seemed to be in a standstill in terms of communicating with the public and the various social initiatives in society. Government officials communicated mainly through the media that had the reputation to be “pro-government”, and shunned critical media outlets that include different viewpoints in their reporting. Additionally, the media environment in the country was severely polarized, and dominated by media outlets that are known to favor the government’s policies, and mostly criticizing the opposition’s ones. This left activists with a limited arena for expressing their opinions and dissatisfaction of public policy that is affecting their live. They therefore were conducting their communication with the public and their target groups through social media and through some of the online news portals that enabled them to voice their attitudes, opinions and requests. The paper investigates the communication practices of the activists with government officials and institutions during the student protests in 2014, the case of an imprisonment of a journalist in 2013, and the protests against the reshaping of the exterior of the Skopje City Centre Mall (GTC) that began in 2013. The paper aims to provide an improved understanding of communication dynamics during protests and will enable recommendations for improvements of communication practices of activists with government officials, media and citizens during times of unrest and social protests.
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This paper analyzes changes in the Croatian party system in the 1990-2016 period by looking at trends in the ideological makeup of voters of the main center-right (HDZ) and center-left (SDP) parties. An assessment of changes in voter self-placement on a left-right scale has shown a gradual increase in the ideological distance among voters of these parties. Further, the paper detected a trend towards an increase in the share of self-declared far-right voters among HDZ voters and far-left voters among SDP voters. In addition, an analysis of categorical ideological identification has demonstrated that, on average, two thirds of HDZ voters were Christian Democrats, while two thirds of SDP voters were Social Democrats. However, among all Christian Democrats, an average of 55 percent voted for the HDZ, while just shy of 60 percent of Social Democrats voted for the SDP. Finally, a logistic regression analysis has confirmed the importance of the cultural dimension of voter behavior in Croatia. Religiosity levels, as well as left-right self-placement serve as rather good predictors of a vote for the HDZ and the SDP, with the model showing greater explanatory strength for HDZ voters. In conclusion, the observed trends in ideological characteristics of HDZ and SDP voters could serve as pointers of underlying shifts in patterns of party competition and offer clues to the increased instability of the Croatian party system following the 2015 and 2016 parliamentary elections.
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Church of St. Florijan is located on a narrow raised plateau, at the northern edge of the Old Town of Varaždin, along the old Roman road from Ptuj to Osijek. The approach of the church is emphasized by two pillars with angel sculptures. The main facade captures the city space by convex line. The harmonious, singlenave church with a slightly narrower polygonal sanctuary contains a valuable, completely preserved inventory from the Baroque era. The facade and the interior are emphasized by stone carvings, sculptural, stucco, painting and joinery details, carefully executed and of high quality, that testify of the high level of artistic craftsmanship in Varaždin in the 18th century. The program for the protection and preservation of this cultural monument, organized and managed by the Croatian Conservation Institute, included the archival, conservation-restoration and archaeological research, the project and the presentation proposal, the subsequent conservation of the construction and of the inventory as well as the conservation-restoration works on the facades and in the interior; on wall paintings, stucco, stone, metal and wooden inventory. The facade was researched in 1992 and restored in 1995, while the interior was researched in 1997, and the extensive conservation works took place between 2001 and 2017. Two major architectural phases were established on the facades: the first, from the mid 18th century, when the chapel was externally plastered and the second phase, which has been restored, from the time when the belfry was built after the fire in 1776. In the well-preserved interior, two complete phases of decoration were established, the first one from 1738 to 1745 and the second from 1870.
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Wills are formal legal affairs that must satisfy strict prerequisites in order to be valid. Otherwise, they will be either automatically null or voidable. The rules pertaining to the form of wills have always been strict and have required wills to be made in a certain way. It is said that the amplified formalism promotes testamentary intent, ensures reliable evidence of testator’s wishes and reinforces the gravity of testation. However, it seems that, as of late, formalism sometimes clashes with the real intent of the decedent. Some countries have already adopted rules that allow judges to consider documents that do not meet all of the formal requirements needed for wills, to be valid and have effect. By doing so, they have opened the door to creation of certain new types of wills, made with the help of digital technology, that have never existed before – i.e. wills created with the help of smartphones, cameras or computers. Wills made with the help of digital technology are extremely informal but nonetheless; they purport testamentary intentions of the people who made them. These wills would not have any effect in most countries, however, in some, they can be declared valid, under certain conditions. This paper deals with a number of such examples and implications of abandoning strict formalism concerning the form of wills.
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This study aims to investigate the impact of aggressive monetary policy in terms of inflation on the effects of structural shocks over macroeconomic fundamentals in Turkey. For this purpose, we estimate the basic new Keynesian model by using the Bayesian method for the period of 2000Q1 to 2019Q1. We use the most recent quarterly dataset of the real gross domestic product index, consumer price index and short term interest rate for Turkey. The prior distribution of structural parameters and shock processes are determined according to the literature. Then, we estimate two different version of the basic new Keynesian model with six distinct chains of Metropolis-Hasting algorithm with each of 100000 draws. Finally, we examine the long term impact of aggressive monetary policy on the effects of structural shocks with the help of the unconditional variance decomposition. Besides, the short term and over time analysis are conducted via the conditional forecast error variance decompositions. The results of Bayesian impulse responses are consistent with theoretical framework of the new Keynesian synthesis. Besides, the historical shock decompositions of endogenous variables give valuable insight for the last twenty years of Turkish economy. The empirical results show that aggressive monetary policy increases the effects of monetary policy shock on inflation while its impact on output gap and interest rate decreases at every quarter. Moreover, the aggressive monetary policy boosts the effects of supply shock on the variability of output gap over time. If the Central Bank of Turkey intends to implement aggressive monetary policy to sustain price stability, the monetary authority should bear in mind that their effects on both the real sector and the short term interest rate will diminish. This study deals with the popular discussion about the aggressiveness of monetary authority in emerging countries with its own distinctive design.
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The aim of this research study is to assess the progress of the food sector companies that received financial aid for investment through the Developmental Laws in the last years (2013-16) of the economic recession in Thessaly Region (Greece), by choosing a random and representative sample of companies. In order to achieve this goal, financial data was collected which would be able to provide us with information in order to study the evolution of the food industry in Thessaly Region (Greece). The statistical analysis of the data was done with the statistical analysis package IBM SPSS Statistics 23. The descriptive statistics on the distributions and frequency diagrams (Histograms) and normal frequencies curves for the percentages of changes were also calculated. To test the significance of the differences between the mean values of the financial statements items, the method of One-Way Analysis Of Variance (One-Way ANOVA) was used. The same method was used to test the mean values of both the changes in amounts and in their percentages. In short, we can say that the percentage changes in Total Assets and Equity the time period 2013-16 are small and concentrated around zero. The same period, we have a significant increase in L/M Debt and Sales, except for a few extreme cases, while the percentage changes in Gross Profit and Profit before Tax are limited. The year 2016 there were significant changes in Taxes and Net Profit from AM2005-16. The collection, processing, and analysis of the financial data of the undertakings were limited to the undertakings which have the obligation to publish their financial data. In recent years, very few studies have been carried out on the effectiveness of investment by private companies subsidized by Greek or European Investment Programs.
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