Transition Online's Martin Ehl writes about the possibility that the Visegrád Group--a post-Communist association of the four central European countries of Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and Hungary--might not survive differences over Ukraine.

On the one side, there is Poland, which has asked the United States to station thousands of troops ( Read more... )

Bosnian writer and diplomat Hajrudin Somun's essay in Today's Zaman makes the argument, looking at France and Hungary and Italy and Turkey and elsewhere, that right-wing authoritarianism--near-fascism, even--is doing well in Europe outside of Russia. These things can spread.

Something strange is happening with the good old lady Europe. It seems as ( Read more... )

Transition Online's Martin Ehl reports on the ill-timing of Hungary's push for self-government for the Magyar minority in Ukraine.

Last week, leaders of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, and Poland competed at a security conference in Bratislava in the political categories of cynicism and hypocrisy. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban ( Read more... )

Via Reuters' Krisztina Than.. Might I note the anti-immigrant sentiment, too?

Hungary will stand up for its rights within the European Union and wants autonomy for ethnic Hungarians living beyond its borders in central Europe, including Ukraine, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Saturday ( Read more... )

• The Buffer blog advises online writers as to how often they should post on different media.
• Centauri Dreams reacts to the discovery of the ocean under Saturn's moon Enceladus.
• The Dragon's Tales notes a recent paper claiming to set limits on a potential distant planet X and observes archeological data suggesting a 9th century settlement date for a ( Read more... )

• At the blog Buffer, Kevan Lee shows what lengths--in characters and in words--tweets and blog headlines and blog posts should be, according to science.
• Patrick Cain notes that Canadians have no way of knowing how many banned guns there were under the former registry since its junking.
• The Dragon's Gaze links to a paper examining what, exactly, is ( Read more... )

• Eastern Approaches notes the ongoing protests in Bosnia and the Hungarian purchase of a Russian nuclear reactor for its energy needs.
• Far Outliers first notes the fragile stability of the Mexican republic at the beginning of the 20th century under Profirio Diaz then remarks on the failed Wilsonian reset of Mexican-American relations.
• Hogtown Commons ( Read more... )

I've accumulated more than a few links in the past couple of weeks. I wanted to share them, in two posts, before I left Toronto on a week-long vacation in Prince Edward Island.

• Acts of Minor Treason's Andrew Barton shares a vintage photo of Toronto's Union Station from 2010, before the massive construction on Front Street that transformed the ( Read more... )

I have a news links roundup at Demography Matters, covering everything fro the official overestimate of the German population by 1.5 million to emigration from Portugal and Hungary driven by economic and social (and political) conditions, from the transformation of the Latin American family to the depopulation of the rural United States. There's ( Read more... )

• Bag News Notes' Michael Shaw considers the remarkable cool of one of the terrorists involved in the Woolwich killing of a British soldier. Does this cool mean this is routine?
• Beyond the Beyond's Bruce Sterling and Will Baird at The Dragon's Tales both note astronomers who think that Saturn's moon Titan, nearing summer, is about to experience ( Read more... )