Interviews 27. January 2018

Refugees, Human Rights & Alpine Peace Crossing

  Dear Visitors, welcome to Sinopress Interview! Human rights, a topic as old as humanity itself, has never ceased to be a hot issue throughout human history. Thomas Jefferson wrote in the U.S. Declaration of Independence that „All men are created equal“. Since then, this sentence might be the most quoted one. Yet easy said, difficult done! The implementation of human rights has been encountering dilemma and improbable situations all the way through the human civilization. As our world is turning more and more mobile, human rights are facing new challenges caused by political impasse, cultural conflicts, economic disaster and…

Technology 15. January 2018

Does Bitcoin Need A Benevolent Dictator?

In the Spanish Inquisition, people who did not accept the rigid precepts of the ruling church were brutally persecuted and eliminated with the purpose of preserving the prevailing orthodoxy. Today, things are a bit less gruesome, but people are still willing to attack each other viciously based on difference of opinion about what should be the rules. Mind you, in recent times we had to grapple with new phenomena in the media that made us doubt not only what is true and what not, but even what truth itself actually is. In this case, the debate is about what should…

Allgemein, Opinions 8. January 2018

Is China Ready for the New Legal Era?

As an immigrant living abroad, it’s only natural to follow the social changes back home. Almost instinctively, one observes such issues as the rapid economic development, fresh cultural phenomena, numerous legal debates and the topic of human rights, to just name a few. Not long ago, a white paper issued by the Chinese State Council Information Office caught my attention. The paper, titled “New Progress of Human Rights in China”, presented in six parts the progress of human rights in China: improving the legal framework to ensure human rights; promoting law-based administration; enhancing judicial protection of human rights; consolidating social…

Opinions 1. January 2018

Greetings on New Year’s Day

Dear Readers, Happy New Year! Thank you so much for accompanying us and supporting us in the past! 2018 has come, 2017 has gone. Briefly reviewing the past year, we are sad to see that among political instabilities, financial scandals, regional turmoil, natural disasters, airline bankruptcy, road accidents, agony in the Middle East and death of great personalities, the most eye-catching and mind-boggling incidents have been terror attacks. Throughout the year 2017, terror attacks have taken place in different countries, on different continents. The year began with an attack on New Year’s Eve at the biggest nightclub in Istanbul. 39 people died…

Culture & Literature 20. December 2017

Culinary Christmas Delights in Austria

In the Western world, Christmas time is considered to be the most wonderful time of the year and is celebrated accordingly. Even in today’s China, celebrating Christmas is getting more and more popular — at least in major cities, where the festival is basically embraced as a commercialized event.  Not aware of its religious background, the Chinese tend to associate Christmas mostly with Santa Claus, who brings presents as well as festive music and decorations. No wonder, China has been pursuing a consumption-driven economy for decades now. As a cultural and religious holiday celebrated by Christians, Christmas commemorates the birth…

Culture & Literature 19. December 2017

That Other Dimension

The night comes, boosting my creativity. The night, the dream, the fever. Doors to undiscovered worlds open up. Arms reach out, arms of darkness, of light, arms that grasp my eyes and my head, forcing me into another dimension.  I have no control of it. There, I do not harm anyone, and do not get harmed.  In that other dimension, however, everything seems as usual, real. The sounds of cars passing by, as frequently as the cries of the pitch-black crows. The clock is ticking, as regularly as planes flying across the sky. It is still the usual world with…

Opinions 19. December 2017

A View from the Inside

Today, Monday December 18th, the far right-wing government is sworn in by the green president in Vienna. A thick political cloud begins to hang over the social atmosphere in Austria. Read the insightful view by the Harvard-graduate, biologist Franz BeerFarmer. During the first “real” world war, which heralded the demise of Europe as world colonial hegemon 100 years ago, the pacifist Austrian writer and journalist Karl Kraus wrote a theater play 10 full evenings long. The title of the play was “The last days of mankind”, the setting being Austria as micro-laboratory for the coming fundamental change and destruction of…

Technology 9. December 2017

Bitcoin’s Price Bubble will Burst under Government Pressure

Kenneth Rogoff, professor of economics and public policy at Harvard University, was also the chief economist of the IMF from 2001 to 2003. In early October, he wrote an article about Bitcoin which showed enough insight to the matter. In the article, he observed that “China’s government, concerned about the use of Bitcoin in capital flight and tax evasion, has recently banned Bitcoin exchanges. Japan, on the other hand, has enshrined Bitcoin as legal tender, in an apparent bid to become the global centre of fintech. The United States is taking tentative steps to follow Japan in regulating fintech, though…

Opinions 9. December 2017

Some Thoughts on Human Rights

The history of the human rights is as old as mankind. At all times, human life and human dignity tend to be hurt and disdained. Power, ressources as well as the fight for superiority have been a prerequisite of force and violence, individually or collectively. Actually, civilisations and philosophical schools of thoughts on the principal of human equality existed in all cultures, serving also as benchmarks for political rights.  At the same time, descent, ethnic, religious and gender differences have been used to distinquish people and make a difference,  justifying slavery, racism and all kinds of discrimination on women and…

Opinions 28. November 2017

What’s Behind the New Marshall Plan?

Recently, a hot topic is circulating the political and economical lobbies in the EU, that is the „Marshall Plan with Africa“. As is well-known, the Marshall Plan, officially the European Recovery Program, i.e. ERP, was originally initiated by the USA right after World War II in order to help Western Europe recover from the war devastation. Beginning in 1948, the plan offered over 13 billion US dollars to remove interstate trade barriers, modernize industry, promote labour union membership as well as to support democracy. In the 1970s, Bruno Kreisky, Willi Brand and Olaf Palme began to propose a Marshall Plan…