The political matrix of Central and Eastern Europe opening up the political space for a bipartisan system with no authentic niche left for the liberals, allowed some catch-it-all or pocket parties set up by the new tycoons and those seeking political revenge to pass for liberal forces — and this was the real tragedy. (Read more...)

What is happening in Syria is already a humanitarian catastrophe: millions of refugees, the toll of dead reaching more than one hundred thousand people, and most cynical use of the weapons of mass destruction by Bashar al-Assad’s regime against civilians, everything being likely to go with impunity ending up in what al-Assad overtly considers a cosmetic attack from the USA. (Tęsti..)

By Leonidas Donskis
Tomas Venclova is regarded as one of the most accomplished and noted Lithuanian humanists in the world, and rightly so. An eminent Lithuanian poet, literary scholar and translator, Venclova had long acted as a conscious and dedicated dissident opposed to the entire project of the former Soviet Union, with its crimes against humanity, severe human rights violations, brutal suppression of all fundamental rights and civil liberties, and violent politics.(Tęsti...)