Kosmolinks #8

Marko Bucik looks at Sarkozy’s wise men group that was transformed into a reflection group.

The signing of the Charter of Fundamental Rights caused some turmoil in the European Parliament.

This is the Treaty of Lisbon. And here is a useful collection of papers and studies dealing with the new treaty.

ISN Security Watch reports about a surprise court decision that the UN does not have legal immunity regarding the Srebrenica massacre.

A new partnership between the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO): “A counter-weight to what Russian politicians describe as the NATO-centric model of the world” ?

And Public Policy Watch writes about: Moldovan Democracy: How Amazing Is It?; the second part deals with the amazing Christmas tree story… On this note: Europe’s tallest Christmas tree can be found in Bucharest!

Kosmolinks #6

As expected, the recently held elections in Kosovo did not solve anything and Dec.10 is coming closer. At the same time, we are witnessing the last attempts of the international community to get its act together. At least the EU should speak with one voice! Whatever the outcome, a good overview about Kosovo’s contested future can be found on openDemocracy.

Normally, I do not post software links in this blog but this is an exception. I came across the Firefox extension Zotero – The Next-Generation Research Tool. Looks quite useful, has anyone tried to work with it? How are your experiences with this research tool? I would be very interested…please feel free to post a comment 😉

Apparently, Commissioner Reding is planning to make DRM interoperable. Indeed a great idea! Let’s hope she can resist the intense lobbying that has probably already started…

Unfortunately, I haven’t had the time to read this interesting paper, but it is definitely an interesting topic: “The Capacity of Central and East European Interest Groups to Participate in EU Governance”

These days there is a lot of talk in Russia about the idea of establishing a sort of ‘National Leader’. But we might need to wait until the results of the Duma elections are known to see what Putin plans to do… Talking about the upcoming Duma elections, Global Voices reports that the Russian blogosphere is debating whether To Vote, or Not to Vote? Moreover, Duma elections will be held without OSCE election observers.

And Joseph S. Nye tries to convince us about the Soft Power of the United Nations.