European Union
Illustration by Michael George Haddad
In 1994, Congress passed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), establishing a template for free trade deals that was neither free nor fair. While North American trade tripled and corporations profited under NAFTA, the costs were borne by manufacturing workers across the U.S. and Mexico, smallholder corn farmers, and our environmental commonwealth. These trade consequences contributed to migration to the U.S.
The dirty secret about free trade agreements is that much of the content has little to do with trade. They serve to maximize corporate profits by pressuring countries to weaken or jettison domestic laws that serve the common good—such as public health, financial, and environmental regulations—to make room for policies that serve corporate interests and economic superpowers. Corporations and other nations can sue for perceived “unfair treatment,” which often costs taxpayers millions or billions of dollars and results in a regulatory chilling effect. With hundreds of U.S. government-approved industry trade advisers at the negotiating table—and few civil society representatives—is this any surprise?
Rabat's Medina neighborhood / Photo by JP Keenan
The European Union has pressured Morocco to curb migration in recent years. Since 2014, they have committed to disbursing €232 million for migration-related support. But as funding has increased, so has the violence of law enforcement. Five of the migrants I spoke to referenced personally experiencing police brutality.
Image via RNS/Reuters/Ammar Abdullah
Pope Francis condemned the suspected chemical weapons attack that killed over 100 people in Syria and renewed his call for an urgent political solution to end the war. Speaking at his weekly audience at the Vatican on April 5, the pope said he was horrified by the “unacceptable” massacre of civilians, including at least 20 children, on April 4.
Image via RNS/Pascal Rossignol
Every year, there are several hundred hate crimes committed against French Muslims. Of these, the majority of victims who have been physically assaulted are women in headscarves.
So what will be the impact of the Court of Justice’s ruling on an already beleaguered minority of headscarf-wearing Muslim women?
Image via RNS/Reuters/Michael Kooren
“Dutch values are based on Christianity, on Judaism, on humanism. Islam and freedom are not compatible,” populist politician Geert Wilders, 53, said in an interview with USA Today. “You see it in almost every country where it dominates. There is a total lack of freedom, civil society, rule of law, middle class; journalists, gays, apostates — they are all in trouble in those places. And we import it.”
Image via 360b/Shutterstock.com
On Dec. 6 German Chancellor Angela Merkel called for face-covering veils to be banned in Germany, reports the Washington Post.
“The full veil is not appropriate here, it should be forbidden wherever that is legally possible,” said Merkel, speaking to attendees of the Christian Democratic Union's conference.
Image via Wikimedia Commons
In the summer of 430, the great Christian writer and bishop Augustine of Hippo lay dying as barbarians besieged his North African city – basically a mop-up operation in the slow-motion fall of the Roman Empire.
Today, in the fall of the year 2016, a lot of Christians can relate.
Image via RNS/Reuters/Alkis Konstantinidis/File Photo
A population exchange with Turkey after World War I brought in over a million ethnic Greeks as refugees. When the new migration crisis began last year, there was empathy for the new arrivals, with many Greeks recalling what their grandparents went through.
But even given that proud history, academics and volunteers fear that the warm welcome of the last year could wear thin, when the refugees start to integrate in a nation that has long resisted a multifaith identity.
The Ordinary Session of the Assembly of African Heads of State and Government of the African Union Summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Jan. 29-31. Via GovernmentZA / Flickr.com
Currently, only 13 of the 54 member states offer liberal access (visa free or visa on arrival) to all Africans. African Development Bank recently released a report aimed at highlighting the economic benefits of visa ppenness by citing examples of Seychelles (a country that has been an early reformer in relaxing visa requirements to boost its tourism sector), and Mauritius and Rwanda (both of which saw an increase in African business and leisure travelers and consequently, an increase in economic activity).
While the positives are plenty, there’s also a lot that the AU could learn from the EU.
Pope Francis holds his pectoral cross. Photo via Paul Haring / Catholic News Service / RNS.
The 77-year-old pontiff is well-known for his attacks on consumerism and for his compassion for the poor. More recently, Francis has turned his attention to bioethics issues, describing abortion, embryonic stem cell research, and euthanasia as “playing with life” and “a sin against God.”
But this was the first time he has delivered his message on the floor of the parliament of the European Union, which represents 500 million people across 28 countries.
As the first non-European pope to hold the office in almost 1,300 years, Francis also appeared less willing to continue the Roman Catholic Church’s traditionally unconditional support for the EU.
As the impact of the stifling economic crisis is being felt in European countries like France and Italy, Francis attacked the EU for a dearth of leadership, saying its ideals had become weighed down by bureaucracy.
“The great ideals that inspired Europe seem to have lost their power of attraction, in favor of the bureaucratic, technical emphasis of its institutions,” the pope said.
View of the Shandon area of Cork City. Image via http://bit.ly/xb7NQz
Oh, how I love the Irish. Sure, I'm biased, being half a Celt myself with legion cousins still living on the old sod. (Shout out to the Bradys and Caffreys in Ballyjamesduff!)
As a self-confessed Gaelophile, I've been following the various Irish Occupy groups on Facebook for several months now, and they are endlessly entertaining — and interesting. The Occupy movement in the States is, largely at least, missing at least one key component: A sense of humor. The Irish Occupiers seem to understand that you can catch a few more flies with honey — and a good laugh — than you can with angry chants and somber rhetoric.
When I heard about a surprising turn of events at the County Cork occupation last month, I thought, That's brilliant. On Christmas Eve, members of the Occupy movement in the southern city of Cork found a present underneath the Christmas tree in their Peace Park encampment. It was a package containing a letter from "Santy" Claus, which read in part, "Dear people of Cork: Inside is a present, a gift from me to you, from all of us here at the North Pole."
The gift package also held the key to a padlocked, vacant, seven-story office building in the city center, and a list of instructions.
TIME Magazine's Person of the Year 2011: The Protester
I love seeing who is chosen as TIME Magazine’s Person of the Year.
But sometimes TIME's honoree is not just a “Person.” Sometimes it’s “Persons” or even a thing.
Sometimes it’s the biggest news story of the year. Sometimes it encapsulates the zeitgeist, global urgings, or our collective mood.
This time around, it’s all of those things: A person, a group, a zeitgeist, a news story.
According to TIME, 2011 is the year of “The Protester.”
In March more than 70 organizations, including churches, labor unions, and civil society groups, met for the first European conference on work-free Sundays.