In The News

The EU Can Ignore Eastern Europe at Its Own Peril

Katinka Barysch April 17, 2009
At the G-20 meeting and subsequent media commentaries, focus has been on the travails of the European Union. But Eastern Europe is often lost sight of in the expression of cautious optimism about the EU economy weathering the storm. The former Soviet bloc countries, cautions analyst Katinka Barysch, are still at risk from the financial crisis with serious negative consequences for the West. Many...

A Wild Cossack Rides Into a Cultural Battle

Ellen Barry April 14, 2009
Art is often said to imitate life, but in the case of a recent Russian film on Taras Bulba, a 15th century cossack glorified by Urkainian novelist Nikolai Gogol, it seems to imitate politics. In the current instance, it is Russia’s on-going struggle to restore special ties with the Ukraine, a former member of the Soviet Union. The movie, which took three years to make and was funded by the...

A Faltering Solidarity? EU Resists Eastern Bailout Pleas

March 4, 2009
The word “bailout” is not the exclusive property of American officials – it has been buzzing on the lips of leaders around the world as the crisis develops. The European Union has found itself in an especially tight spot since its member countries have experienced very different levels of economic hardship. While it is working towards a common recovery plan, the pressure is revealing old fissures...

To Shelter Its Cuisine, Italian City Bans Foreign Flavors

Nick Squires February 23, 2009
The nation that produced Marco Polo should know full well that explorers seek new ingredients and immigrants enjoy melding flavors from their old and new homes. Yet the Italian tourist town of Lucca has declared a ban on any ethnic eateries that do not meet Tuscan standards. City officials insist that they want to preserve authentic Italian flavors, and yet critics point out that some Italian...

Will Services Provide Our Salvation?

Hamish McRae February 18, 2009
Some industries center on necessities and conventional wisdom might suggest that those companies might be less devastated by economic crisis. Even as auto manufacturers lay off workers, companies like Domino’s Pizza hire extra employees. Unfortunately, many of the new service jobs pay less than the old manufacturing positions, explains Hamish McRae in a column for the Independent, adding there is...

For Russia's Migrants, Economic Despair Douses Flickers of Hope

Michael Schwirtz February 16, 2009
Russia has the second largest immigrant population the world, after the US, once inviting workers from former Soviet republics to construct luxury hotels, office buildings and homes amid a decade-long oil boom. A drop in world oil prices hit the emerging economy of Russia, striking its migrant workers particularly hard. Employers withhold wages, and the government sets quotas on jobs for...

Union in Crisis

Jonathan Fenby February 16, 2009
Europeans shrugged about a credit crisis in 2008, chalking it up to a lavish American lifestyle, dependent on debt, and assumed they were immune. But national economies are tightly connected, particularly those of the European Union, and crisis spread quickly. Compounding the financial crisis is seething anger over closed factories, long unemployment lines, banks that lost rather than protected...