The “alarming” scale of violence and violations against journalists and press freedom in the world has been revealed at an event in Brussels. Such attacks also include Belgium where there have been no less than 11 violations registered in the last 8 months alone. This was disclosed at the event held earlier this week at…
The EU needs its own anti-money laundering authority. This is acknowledged by the six finance ministers from Germany, France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and Latvia in a joint position paper. Olaf Scholz and his five counterparts want a European money laundering supervisory authority to coordinate and supervise national authorities in the financial sector and, if…
MEP Anthea McIntyre has vowed to do all she can to get answers to the mystery surrounding football fan Robert Spray’s death while in the custody of Bulgarian police. Miss McIntyre, Conservative MEP for the West Midlands, has joined with Mr Spray’s Cannock Chase constituency MP Amanda Milling to pursue the case. She will use international contacts…
A major new polling report, published today by the Open Society Foundations, examines attitudes towards politics and civil society in Central and Eastern Europe, 30 years on from the fall of the Berlin Wall and the 1989 revolutions. The new report, entitled “States of Change”, draws on YouGov polling in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Germany,…
MEPs have adopted a resolution urging member states to work on long-overdue rules obliging multinationals to disclose what taxes they pay in each country. The resolution, adopted by 572 votes in favour, 42 against and 21 abstentions, urges member states to agree a position on the legislative proposal requiring public country-by-country reporting of taxes paid…
The spotlight had already been on Romania’s prison conditions due to a report earlier this year by the Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT). The international scrutiny has continued with the imprisonment of Liviu Dragnea, the leader of country’s Social Democrat party. The imprisonment…
The European Court of Auditors (ECA) has signed off the 2018 accounts of all 41 EU agencies as reliable and confirmed the positive results reported in previous years. In this year’s annual report, published today, the auditors also gave all agencies a clean bill of health as regards their income and spending – except for…
Tax havens: are European finance ministers guilty of applying double standards because they still do not blacklist the US? EU finance ministers have removed several third countries from the EU list of non-cooperative countries in tax matters. But the US are still not on the EU list of tax havens. Since June 2019, countries that…
Taiwan serves as key geopolitical hub in East and Southeast Asia, and Taiwan can help make a safer World, writes Huang Ming-chao. The World Drug Report 2018 published by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) pointed out that North America, East Asia and Southeast Asia are key regions in the production and…
Rights organisations have made a fresh and damning condemnation of China’s human rights record. This comes after what is said to be a big upswing in persecution of religious minorities in the country. Speaking in the European Parliament in Brussels, Anna Hill, of Open Doors International, said that China had risen to number 27 on…
