Turkey

Will the economy remove Erdogan from office?

Authoritarian rulers are known for having an ambivalent relationship with reality. If promises do not match actual developments, then discrepancies must be made invisible. The problem is that the longer one denies those discrepancies, the greater they usually become. Too little is done then. It’s hard to fight issues that don’t officially exist. In Turkey, discrepencies can no longer be ignored. […]

Economy

The logic of sanctions – or: Why gas pipelines won’t decide the Ukraine conflict

Much of the world wants to prevent Putin’s Russia from invading Ukraine. The means of prevention: setting the price, Putin would have to pay, as high as possible. The west has ruled out military means to inflate the price. For a good reason. The costs of a military conflict between Russia on the one hand and Europa and the USA on the other would be immense, not just for Putin. […]

Europe

Polish Catholic church: How dare you?

he southern Polish diocese of Bielsko-Żywiec speculated in a court case about whether sexual abuse of a twelve-year-old boy would bring “satisfaction” if the boy was gay. After media reported on a document to this effect, the diocese apologised for the statement and declared that they would not pursue this theory in the trial. Specifically, the case concerned the complaint of 48-year-old Janusz Szymik, who claimed to have been raped several times by a priest at the age of twelve. The perpetrator was declared guilty by the Vatican in 2015. […]