You are currently browsing the EU Australia Online archives for December, 2013.
The October boat-people tragedy; parliament’s distraction by Berlusconi; cyclonic floods…
SILVIO BERLUSCONI – SPOT OF BOTHER
The Berlusconi episode in public life, in Italy, looked to be coming to a sorry and bitter end, when the former Prime Minister’s desperate-looking ploy to unseat the government came unstuck. … Read More »
Gatherings in Warsaw and Colombo kept the international community’s focus on anxiety about climate change and sustainability, at the year’s end, though the Australians started to march out of step.
Actions on the home front in Australia show clear trends in a ‘non-environmentalist’ direction.
The year 2013 started with the cyber attack that closed down EUAustralia Online and associated sites for a fortnight in April, with a long recovery to follow. See EUAustralia Online, What Happened? 29.4.13.
The episode followed over six years of steady growth in site visits and user support for the service; it was bound to rebound.
Late in 2013, this being a university-based product, we did encounter other demands, e.g. in research and publishing, which put the site into virtual recess once more.
That is over, and the current “Ending 2013” series of posts is a signal of more to come in 2014.
Support has been strong, as indicated in statistics for the site. For the calendar year 2013 site visits (appx. half being unique visitors) are at 225184, exceeding the previous highest, 203836 in 2011.
Thank you to all users of EUAustralia Online; please contribute your views and responses at any time; every good wish for the New Year.
Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the Russian oil tycoon gaoled in 2005 and released this month (20.12.13), travelled to Berlin where he said he would be keeping out of Russia, and political life, for his immediate future.
The close of the year saw the death of the British actor Peter O’Toole in London; also that of the actress Joan Fontaine; and in other places, people not so well recognised, in the wrong place at the wrong time …
Observances were held on both sides of the Atlantic to mark the 25th anniversary of the Lockerbie bombing; the terrorist attack on a Pan American flight over Scotland (21.12.88), with the loss of 270 lives. … Read More »
A Court decision has opened a new fight over a relentless corporate drive to install genetically modified crops in European agriculture. … Read More »