Tensions in Hungary still remain high as a result of last year's lies. It has been one year since audio tapes were leaked in which the prime minister of Hungary, Ferenc Gyurcsany, admitted to lying day and night in order to seize power for power's sake. Ferenc Gyurcsány
Hungarians have become increasingly alienated from the political elites running the country. Meanwhile, extreme right-wing movements are on the rise. Is Hungary now heading down the road toward fascism, or has it been on this road all along?
Ayaan Hirsi Ali is, among many things, a Somali-born feminist and former Dutch parliamentarian. Her name gained worldwide attention in 2004 after Theo Van Gogh, the grandnephew of the famous Dutch painter, was murdered for his work with Ali on their short film Submission, an artistic statement on the status of women in Islam.
Nicolas Sarkozy, the newly elected French President, wanted to mark the difference in governing style between himself and outgoing President Jacques Chirac - although both belonged to the same political party and shared basic political orientations. Thus Sarkozy ran on a program of a "break with the stagnant past" as though he had not been a member of the outgoing government. Sarkozy
Going to my flat in London from Heathrow last month, I found myself in a minicab driven by a man who spoke little English. But he was, like me, a Pakistani immigrant, and he told me in Urdu that his German was quite good. He had moved to the UK only recently. When I asked him why, he replied: "Because after ten years of driving a taxi in Germany, I never drove anyone who looked like you."
L'Abbé Pierre, champion of the homeless and world citizen, died on January 22nd, 2007 in Paris at 94 years old. He was born in 1912, named Henri Groues, brought up in Lyon in a bourgeois family and educated in Catholic schools. His father was active in helping the poor directly and in Catholic social efforts. As a 15-year old student on his way to Rome for Easter with his school, they stopped at Assisi, where Henri had a mystical experience alone on the mountain side and was ever afterwards influenced by the image of Francis of Assisi helping the poor.
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