Tibesti Mountains

Guelta d’Archei

Hungary Steps Away from European Democracy

Pathetic

While threat to democracy and human rights is serious I find:

ban on the homeless from loitering in public spaces,

fascinating. Like Hungarians completely lost sense of purpose of constitution. It should be list of basic limits for sovereignty of the state, not the Fidesz' wishlist.

How much is the gap between the richest and poorest countries in the EU expected to close in the next decades?

Slovakia and Lithuania had fastest growing income recently, but even for them growing from 50% EU average income per capita (in purchasing power standard) to 70% EU average took about 6 years. Bulgaria and Romania haven't reach this level yet.

I predict that in 2023 France, Germany and UK are below 120%, 2004 enlargement is at 70-80% and Romania and Bulgaria still below 70%.

Trends in under-5 (child) mortality in European countries between 1983 and 2011

Here

It is interesting how Ukraine level in 2011 is Norway/Netherlands level in 1983.

The logarithmic trends are better for projections and health policy appreciation. Azerbaijan had largest absolute drop in child mortality rate, but this is unhelpful information.

Imagine that you want make health reform in Latvia. Should you take example from Kazakhstan, which decreased the rate from 40 to 28 in 10 years or from Estonia which improved from 10 to 3.7?

Fuzzy

Angora rabbit

Federal European Union

NUTS1 map- highly centralised countries like France would likely oppose it.

Please give the President as little power as possible, so we can send the figurehead to receive highest honours in Kazakhstan or Chile without obstructing any important works.

I don't think it would particularly suppress nationalism, but it would push capable politicians into European level, make division of natural resources (CAP, but not only that) more palpable.

Arrogance of some government claiming to represent 50 million people is unhelpful and largest NUTS1 has 16 million, I think.

Russian and Polish viewpoints

According to the table Russians most often associate word "Poland" with "traditional family" and Polish most often assoctiate "Russia" with "pride".

Peter Singer | Authors at Google

Global Burden of Disease comparison tool

http://viz.healthmetricsandevaluation.org/gbd-compare/

Never tasted Coca-Cola

You are probably in minority. It's salty and very sweet, slightly sour. Imagine citrus juice with salt and lot of sugar added. Not very refreshing, but it enhance the taste of anything you eat at the moment, so you have appetite for more.

UK: Up to one in three Romanians arrested, figures show

I found the source, which is quite baffling. Methods of reporting the nationality of subjects by the police are surprising when Pondicherry, Central African Empire, or Antarctica are represented.

 No, this is number of arrests not number of arrested and obviously not a number of charged. No, it is not "just in London".

Apparently in Sweden tax evasion results in deportation to Russia

European Union officials have struck a provisional deal on new financial rules, including capping bank bonuses - Under the agreement, bonuses will be capped at a year's salary, but can rise to two year's pay if there is explicit approval from shareholders

Actually this could be beneficial for different reason. It will incentivize giving premium to bankers over longer periods of time (3 years for example) instead every quarter. Then they should be willing to make decisions for medium term instead short term profit.

Lithuanian-Polish-Ukrainian military unit might be set up this year

This brigade was apparently planned when Ukraine was willing to join the NATO. I don't see how it might work in co-operation with non-NATO member.

Why we cannot see non-EU countries in European statistics?

Non-EU countries aren't so often included, because they don't want to. Write to your national statistical agency to learn why is it the case.

In the Eurobarometer Survey on Entrepreneurship India and Brazil were 

More democracy for EU

This absolutely take away sovereignty from member states. They are in direct control over European Council.

Transferring the power to the individuals necessarily infringes sovereignty of the state.

The representatives wouldn't act for member states, but for their people.

The state is not the country and the state is not the people.

This is not semantics. The state is not the people. Germany due to its sovereignty was legally perfectly fine to exterminate its Jews, although it infringed rights of individuals.

takes power from the national governments and gives it to the people

This is exactly how taking away sovereignty looks like.

The supreme, absolute, and uncontrollable power by which an independent state is governed and from which all specific political powers are derived; the intentional independence of a state, combined with the right and power of regulating its internal affairs without foreign interference.

The Free Dictionary

Davos 2013 - The Global Development Outlook (Ban Ki-moon, David Cameron, William H. Gates III, Helene D. Gayle, Paul Kagame, Paul Polman, Queen Rania Al Abdullah)

Is education equivalent?

That's another point. According to 2009 PISA results 

(excluding computer proficiency) only Estonia and Poland have above average education results, while countries with low completion rate like Belgium, Netherlands and Iceland have above average results.

Worrying is situation in countries like Turkey, Italy, Spain, Greece, Portugal, France, and Ireland; where completion both rate and education results are below average.

The standard of living in Soviet satellites

As you all can see on the on the graph of coronary disease death rate (measure for living standard) in 1960-1990period rising

 

and in 1990-2005 dropping.

Edit: Child mortality trends[3] 

 

 as a bonus.

How European Parliament seats are split

This is mathematics - Banzhaf power index.

Homicide rate in Europe

Lithuania and Estonia had dropped below 7, Turkey and Latvia below 5, Germany and Spain below 1.

These were more violent times.

Statistics up to 2010 or so [xls]

Edit: There was decrease in the number of homicides in EU between 2005 and 2010 by about 2000, that is amazing.

Oh, and numbers for Finland and Sweden are obviously wrong. Sweden has lower homicide rate, between Germany and Denmark, and Finland about twice as high, higher than Bosnia and Herzegovina.