Schedium

Orban rally in 2012 (photo by Derzs Elekes Andor  via Wikimedia Commons) On November 29 Hungarian news outlet Nepszava reported that MTVA, Hungary's government controlled news agency, ordered its staff to ban statements from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch . Censorship of human rights-related content is yet another step towards authoritarianism in the country. Freedom House ranks Hungary as "partly free", giving it a score of 70 out of 100. "Hungary’s status declined from Free to Partly Free due to sustained attacks on the country’s democratic institutions by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party, which has used its parliamentary supermajority to impose restrictions on or assert control over the opposition, the media, religious groups, academia, NGOs, the courts, asylum seekers, and the private sector since 2010," Freedom House writes in a 2019 report. The Council of the European Union (EU) will hold a hearing on Article 7 proceedin...

2017 Venezuela protests (by Voice of America via Wikimedia Commons) On January 23 United States president Donald Trump recognized Juan Guaidó as Venezuela's legitimate president. The citizens of Venezuela have suffered for too long at the hands of the illegitimate Maduro regime. Today, I have officially recognized the President of the Venezuelan National Assembly, Juan Guaido, as the Interim President of Venezuela. https://t.co/WItWPiG9jK — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 23, 2019 Opposition leader Guaidó had previously declared himself interim president in an attempt to remove from office incumbent president Nicolas Maduro. Other countries, including Canada, Brazil, Argentina, and other South American governments , soon joined the United States in recognizing Guaidó as Venezuela's president. The European Union released a statement calling "for the start of an immediate political process leading to free and credible elections, in conf...

Volkswagen plant in Wolfsburg, Germany (photo by VW_Werk_Altes_Heizkraftwerk.jpg: Richard Bartz derivative work: Diliff via Wikimedia Commons) A white paper released by the British government in 2017 described the United Kingdom as an " open, liberal market economy ", whose foundation lies in "the power of the competitive market - competition, open financial markets, and the profit motive". Despite recognizing the government's "strategic power and leadership role" in developing and disseminating technologies and industries, the white paper rejected protectionism and equated industrial policy mostly with Research and Development (R&D), education and infrastructure. Nowadays there is a widespread belief that countries develop because of "free market" . Therefore, economically poorer regions, such as Greece, southern Italy or Portugal, are responsible for their own poverty, either because of their cultural shortcomings, ...