Thirty years after 10th November 1989, the term "transition" still works flawlessly in our country, the same way as the English salt does. Especially, if it is combined with another term - "revision". A few days ago, it became clear that ultimately, such a revision might be finally conducted. GERB party (Citizens for European development of Bulgaria) insisted on establishment of a commission of inquiry, charged to investigate what happened in the murky 1990s in Bulgaria. Their idea was supported by the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF), which pointed out that such a proposal has been repeatedly submitted by the lawmaker Delyan Peevski.

Winston Churchill, Christopher Columbus, Thomas Jefferson, King Leopold II, Edward Colston, Indro Montanelli, John Hamilton, Robert Lee? What is the common thread connecting those historical figures, some well-known and others less so? The answer is the Black Lives Matter movement.

First of all, I would like to thank the Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte for inviting me to this inaugural session of your National Consultations. And I would like to congratulate you, and through you all the political leaders and representatives on all sides, the economic and social actors, for this unprecedented effort to establish a recovery plan for your country: Italy. 

By running down the clock and refusing to ask for an extension, Boris Johnson’s hope seems to be to secure concessions from the EU at the last minute. This form of brinkmanship is likely to backfire and increases the chance of no deal.

By agreeing a proposal for a €500bn EU recovery fund with Emmanuel Macron on May 18th, Angela Merkel broke two rules of Germany’s EU policy: that there should be no common borrowing and no transfer union beyond the existing EU budget. The Franco-German proposal could be a historic step towards more fiscal integration in the EU, but the Northern European ‘frugals’, led by the Netherlands, will have to be persuaded not to whittle down the size of the transfers.

The next Brexit crisis point is fast approaching – the British government must decide by 30 June whether to request an extension to the current ‘transition’ period. The moment could be used to avert a disastrous economic rupture between the European Union and United Kingdom at the end of the year. But nothing serious will happen on the British side unless PM Boris Johnson acts. Will he make the effort?

From Argentina to Panama, a number of officials have been forced to resign as reports of fraudulent purchases of ventilators, masks and other medical supplies pile up. The thefts are driven by price-gouging from manufacturers and profiteering by politically connected middlemen who see the crisis as an opportunity for graft.

The current pandemic is giving humanity a crash course in apocalypse management. Whether COVID-19 is actually apocalyptic or not is debatable, but the pandemic has many of the characteristics that we associate with something of that scale. Like climate disruption, it’s global; like nuclear war, it’s deadly. Most importantly, like any crisis of this magnitude, it cannot be solved by a single country or region alone, no matter how powerful.

All eyes are on the corona crisis, and whether Xi Jinping’s China and Donald Trump’s America can join forces in a multilateral strategy to find scientific solutions to it and cooperative economic policies to combat a global depression. But climate change remains the greater long-term threat to humankind.

Over the last two years, you have undoubtedly been bombarded with notifications and pop-ups regarding your personal data every time you click on a website, and since the introduction of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in Europe, we’ve spent a lot more time thinking about who we grant access to our data, and whether it’s used responsibly, aligned to our consent. These pop-ups are often irritating when scrolling through the Internet and shopping, something that has no doubt been exacerbated under lockdown conditions for all of us.