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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This paper aims to analyse conceptual categories clustered around power metaphors. My research focused on metaphorical conceptualizations of POWER in current Romanian TV journalism, in collecting metaphors I relied on the MIP and MIPVU methods. People frequently use metaphors in ordinary life situations. Identifying/Collecting (manually) power conceptual metaphors in media discourse was a challenge for me. Power is a polysemantic lexical term and an abstract noun. At present, the mappings of power are very interesting, because power is closely connected to politics. The metaphorical correspondences developed by word power differ from one context to another.
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The article is devoted to the issue of preserving the expressive power of metaphor in translation of literary texts into Latvian. The author conducts a comparative stylistic analysis the metaphors used to describe the characters of the parents in Barack Obama’s autobiography “Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance” and its Latvian translation.
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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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Since 1999, the accountability for human rights violations committed in Kosovo during and after the war was addressed by ICTY, UNMIK and EULEX. However, a whole set of crimes committed in the aftermath of the war were not properly addressed. The research aims to understand whether international judicial mechanisms intervening in Kosovo until today, successfully planted the seeds for the blooming of post-conflict justice. The paper adopts a qualitative approach, including analyses of cases, reports and interviews. The findings show that both international and local actors in many cases could not ensure justice for war crimes committed in the country, which brought to the conceiving of the Specialist Chambers, an extraterritorial court with no local personnel, but under Kosovo national legislation. The paper focuses on previous experiences to understand if the lessons have been learnt, showing the challenges that the new Specialist Chambers will have to overcome to bring justice.
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Following the armed conflict in 1992, the Moldovan society, on the left bank of the Dniester broke, from a political and administrative point of view, proclaiming itself a separate state under the name "The Moldovan Dniester Republic" – which is unrecognized until today at an international level.The negotiation process, started in 1992, did not produce significant convergence effects - although issues related to the everyday life of the population are resolved today at a faster pace than ever before.The present article aims at investigating, principally and (as much as possible) quantitatively, to what extent the political divergence has evolved over two decades and a half, and to what extent it finds itself in economic, military and civil society divergences. In conclusion, we will try to evaluate the chances of a convergence process between the two banks of the Dniester in the near future.
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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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Ukrainian philosophical thought has been developing under the influence of several philosophical streams. Being influences by Orthodox tradition mainly, Church has always been at the forefront of any political campaign conducted on Ukrainian terrain. The level of education plays a key role in the process of cultural development of any country. Western part of Ukraine, comparing to its Eastern counterpart, had better access to education and information due to Catholic Church predominance in the region. Scholastic teaching was accepted by Ukrainian culture partially only, as well as it appeared to be interspersed with Patristics in an Orthodox vestition. The article intends to investigate the scholastic and patristic thought and its reproduction by Ukrainian cultural environment via various European teaching systems. Ukraine has been developing in a broad European context and this is why it could not have been deprived of influential teachings. However, Russian imperialistic and later communist ideology was hindering constantly the deployment and development of many ideas that were important for European philosophy. Together with Eastern theology, which was based mainly on works of Damascenus,Aristotelian traditions were introduced in Ukrainian schools gradually, and based on Aristotle’s works,theology of Saint Thomas was taught. Prominent Ukrainian thinkers, such as Petro Mohyla, KasianSakovych, Stanislav Orichovsky were influenced by many scholastic philosophers, including Saint Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas’ influence is apparent in later thinkers, such as Gabriel Kostelnyk and other prominent philosophers. In conclusion, it is apparent that despite the fact that so-called “philosophy of heart” was more intimate to the majority of Ukrainian thinkers; still Western approach was represented in various aspects and periods of development of Ukrainian philosophical thought.
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Governments in the region have avidly sought Chinese investment, but the telecoms giant may be too hot a property.
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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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