Critical. Internet. Journalism.

The Swiss referendum against the construction of new minarets caused a lot of criticism from all over Europe. Debates started, whether referendums are suitable to decide on difficult topics. Could highly complex questions be answered by direct democracy or would it be better to count on expert knowledge? Is the Swiss referendum representative for a European Union where the population seems to fear the expansion of muslim religion?

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A few weeks ago, the University of Vienna attracted attention when students started to occupy the Auditorium Maximum while protesting against bad learning conditions, entrance restrictions, cut downs on the budget for higher education. In the meantime, more than 50 universities are affected by a big movement which especially disapproves the “Bologna Process“; but what went wrong? (more…)

Millions of people were celebrating when Barack Hussein Obama won the presidential election last year in the U.S., thus taking place of former president George Walker Bush. After the “Obamania” in autumn 2008, Obama wanted to start his new role as the mightiest man in the world with a big “Change”. But how much of this “Change” has become reality so far? (more…)

The new German defense minister Karl Theodor zu Guttenberg is famous for being a charismatic politician who knows how to attract the attention of people. He is a conservative politician from Bavaria who made his point earlier this year, when he criticised the subventions for the automobile company Opel, a subcompany of General Motors.

Right from the beginning, zu Guttenberg made clear that he stands for political directness and does not hesitate to speak his mind. Therefore, people were not wondering when he described the ongoings and involvements of German soldiers in a different way than his predecessor: he spoke of warlike events in Afghanistan. (more…)

In our blog we are covering different important topics like human rights, justice, poverty, equality, politics and many others. But how are the human rights exactly defined?

To define human rights, we have to look at history and modern laws. They are regarded as subjective rights which are given to every human being. Moreover, they are universal, cannot be given away and cannot be reduced. The idea of human rights is narrowly connected with Humanism, the Enlightenment and with natural justice. (more…)