English Club

 The French presidential election signals a turning point in the debate about Europe: François Hollande's victory would open the field for fiscal politics that are not dependent on the squeeze of austerity measures, argues Niels Annen, a member of the German Social Democratic executive council.  

While Turkey' aims to become the 10th largest economy in the world by 2023, the country fell to 148th rank in the World Press Freedom Index and has made no significant human rights reform since 2005.

While Italy has been humiliated and faces economic collapse, largely due to Berlusconi and the failure of Italians to rid themselves of him earlier, one should remember that it is also the land of renaissance, writes Alexander Görlach, editor of German online magazine The European.

A common criticism of President Obama's $800 billion stimulus package has been that it failed to produce anything – that while the New Deal built bridges and dams, all the stimulus did was fill some potholes and create temporary jobs. But one success the Obama administration can duly claim is the rebirth of the electric-car industry in the United States, reports Michael Grabell from ProPublica.

California-based writer and photographer Steve Fine, who has been actively involved in the Occupy demonstrations in Los Angeles, gives Mediapart a revealing first-hand account, with pictures, of how the street protests unfolded and were forcibly ended, and explains the new tactics of the movement as it enters into a "version 2.0".

White criminals seeking presidential pardons in the US over the past decade have been nearly four times as likely to succeed as minorities, an investigation by independent investigative website ProPublica has found.

 Letters from members of Congress triple a criminal's chances of receiving a presidential pardon in the US, reports independent website ProPublica, in this second of a two-part investigation into the workings of the pardon system.

Across Europe, people are demanding a new vision for the European Union, writes Alexander Görlach, editor of German online magazine The European. We used to say "never again" to the threat of war, he argues, and today, we say "never again" to the danger of debt.

Scientific discoveries can be serendipitous, and so it was when Jay L. Alberts, a Parkinson's disease researcher at Emory University in Atlanta, mounted a tandem bike with Cathy Frazier, a Parkinson's patient. The New York Times's Gretchen Reynolds reports on uplifting findings about the neurodegenerative disease.

More than six million Americans are behind on their mortgage payments or facing foreclosure and many neighborhoods across the US are filled with foreclosed homes. ProPublica presents a guide to the Obama adminsitration's achievements and failures in tackling the crisis. By Lois Becket.