Posted by Benjamin Cunningham on October 24, 2010
The second round of Senate elections ended in triumph for the opposition Social Democrats (ČSSD). For full analysis on the implications of the victory on the governing coalition check out the Oct. 27 print edition of the Prague Post, but here is a summary of how things broke down… ČSSD won 12 of [...]
Posted by Benjamin Cunningham on October 20, 2010
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev will attend the NATO summit Nov. 19-20 in Lisbon. “I will go to the Russia-NATO summit,” he said at an Oct. 19 press conference. “This will further the work for necessary compromises and developing a dialogue between the Russian Federation and the North Atlantic alliance as a whole.” U.S. President Barack [...]
Posted by Benjamin Cunningham on October 17, 2010
Get a full round up and analysis of the local and Senate election results in the Oct. 20 print edition of the Prague Post, but here are some early Sunday morning results. The Civic Democrats (ODS) have lost control of city councils in all of the Czech Republic’s major cities with the exception [...]
Posted by Benjamin Cunningham on October 13, 2010
It was hard to notice, but a former United States’ plan for missile defense in Europe is becoming a NATO plan. And the project is receiving endorsement at the highest levels… NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen (with the likely help of a team of public relations experts) penned a opinion piece in today’s International [...]
Posted by Benjamin Cunningham on October 11, 2010
On Oct. 8 jailed dissident intellectual Liu Xiaobo was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize “for his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China,” according to the Prize committee. On Oct. 11 Liu’s wife went to visit him in prison. Upon returning home she was placed under house arrest. Chinese prison officials reportedly [...]
Posted by Benjamin Cunningham on October 6, 2010
Check out today’s print edition of The Prague Post for details about how tensions between President Václav Klaus and Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg could be working to divide the governing coalition. Here are a few excerpts from our interview with political analyst Bohumil Doležal (former chief political advisor to Klaus when he was prime minister) [...]
Posted by Benjamin Cunningham on October 3, 2010
When was the last time you heard a European leader speak about Bosnia-Herzogovina? Well, today, the state that was created in 1995 on Air Force base in Dayton, Ohio held elections at a time that is as close to becoming failed-state as it has been since the brutal wars of the early 1990s. The [...]
Posted by Benjamin Cunningham on September 29, 2010
Taking your political party into opposition is a good thing for reorganizing and reconstituting yourself after an election defeat. In the case of the Social Democrats (ČSSD), they actually entered opposition after winning an election (though they were unable to find potential coalition partners). ČSSD is still severely disorganized (they don’t even officially have a [...]