Europe

DEVECSER, Hungary – It was just past noon, last Oct. 4, when Karoly Horvath returned home from fishing a local lake, here in provincial western Hungary. His wife and 12-year-old daughter were home to greet him, too – just as the waves of red sludge crashed through the door and windows.

Within seconds, the toxic mud was above their waist, burning the skin. Unable to move, Karoly could only watch mother and child screaming in agony.

David A. Andelman is the Editor of World Policy Journal. Previously he served as Executive Editor of Forbes.com. Earlier, he was a domestic and foreign correspondent for The New York Times in various posts in New York and Washington, as Southeast Asia bureau chief, based in Bangkok, then East European bureau chief, based in Belgrade.

BRATISLAVA -- The Romani people are Europe’s largest minority – and also its

Short of traveling the world, the best way to learn about other people and cultures is through literature. Yes, yes, yes… the news, nonfiction, movies, and other media are fine conduits for showing us glimpses into the lives of others. But nothing delves into the essential psychology of people like literature does. Nothing can get into the hearts and minds of the beautiful and dastardly people of this world like good fiction. Literature allows the time and space necessary to really mine a person’s psyche, the context of a situation, and the dreams and nightmares of people and places so far… far… away.  

BRATISLAVA, Slovakia — Just days before Christmas, Hungary's new right-wing government, which now controls a near-invincible two-thirds of parliament, succumbed to temptation: It rubber-stamped a draconian-sounding new media law that looked as if it would slip a leash of censorship around the necks of both traditional and online media.

HAINBURG, Austria – Lounging by the pool in this medieval Austrian town, overlooked by 17^th century castle ruins on a hilltop nearby, you can enjoy a schnitzel, a schnappsor an eiskaffee mit schlag. But listen closely, and virtually all you hear on the blankets of fellow sun-bathers is the Slovak language.

Last Tuesday, Intelligence Squared sponsored a debate on whether or not President Barack Obama’s foreign policy signaled America’s decline as the driving force in global affairs: Dan Senor and Mort Zuckerman argued yes; Wesley Clark and Bernard-Henri Levy argued no.

It’s winter in Europe, time for snow, St. Nicholas, and the annual Russia-Ukraine dispute over natural gas supplies. On Wednesday, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev warned his counterparts in Ukraine not to try to modify a 10-year gas supply contract between the two countries.

It was all suppose to turn out so differently.  The Orange Revolution, was suppose to be the birth of a true and lasting democracy in Ukraine, a peaceful uprising in late 2004 against what were widely seen as rigged presidential elections.  Tens of thousands of Ukrainians took to Kiev’s Maidan Nezalezhnosti (“Independence Square”) and in similar places around the country with a simple demand – to have their votes fairly counted.  A young, Western-leaning president was swept into office in what has held up as an example of people power to all the pseudo-democracies o