Sunday Smack

Happy Sunday, everybody! I hope your week was better, than mine! I had this quite serious cold sticking through most of it making it quite hard for me to function normally. Which I still needed to do. This weekend I am attending a two day learning training which I am excited about, even though I am still not well enough, and despite this means I will not have any weekend or time to rest at all. Oh well, maybe next week… What I am really sad about, though, is the end of summer, which I feel has just passed me…

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Sunday Smack

Happy weekend, everybody! I hope this finds you well. I had a nice mini vacation at the countryside this week, where I spent most of my time out in the sun reading a book or just listening to the sounds of nature. Unfortunately it resulted in a terrible cold/allergy, but the good part was worth it! This time I feel like I have written all I could about such pointless, terrible attacks and find it hard to add anything meaningful at this point. I am sad it just keeps happening… ¡Enviando buenos pensamientos y abrazos cálidos a todos los afectados! ¡Mantente…

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united-nations: Aid workers are #NotATarget. Volunteers are #NotATarget. Children are #NotATarget. Civilians are #NotATarget. ‪ This was the message sent by United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres and UN staff members, pictured here at UN Headquarters and at Times Square, #NYC on Friday. They have joined with people around the world to support Saturday’s World Humanitarian Day. “Warring parties attacking hospitals and schools are cowards. They must be held accountable. Civilians are not a target,” said the Secretary-General. 📷: UN Social Media Team

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Sunday Smack

Happy Sunday, everybody! I hope you are all safe and well! When I complained about being short of news, I didn’t exactly wish for anything close to this. One of my politics professors used to say that the greatest guarantee we have against a third world war is the nuclear bomb itself. Because all parties are very well aware that once it’s out, all hells will break loose. I do hope he was right. Also, I will repeat that any policy that encourages people to hate others for what they are or where they are coming from is wrong. And…

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Sunday Smack

Happy weekend! I hope this finds you well. We are about to see the end of yet another extreme heat wave that affected several parts of Europe, and science says in the years to come, it will only get worse (while others still say climate change is myth).  My Feedly feed was unusually easy to keep clean this week, my favorite bloggers must be on holiday. And there is not much to write about in terms of world affairs too, which I guess, in a certain perspective is good. Souring Relations Between the United States and Russia May Impact North…

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Sunday Smack

Happy Sunday! FINA World Championships are coming to a close today in Budapest, and I was able to witness some great moments there. Check out my Instagram for pics of the swimming competitions and waterpolo matches I attended. The cost of building and organizing the whole thing might have been high, I doubt it compares to what Hungary gained on it, but all I can say is nothing compares to the vibe of cheering your team on a world event, just ten minutes walk from your home (the serious sunburn nice tan I developed during a midday openair waterpolo match is…

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Sunday Smack

Happy Sunday! It is summer in full swing with another heatwave in Hungary. Today is also the day of a New Moon, which they say is a great occasion to start carrying out plans. I would argue that any day is a great day for that, but since here we are today, let’s review our yearly plans and make sure everything is in order. I sure have a lot to think about on that front. Anyway, my favorite bloggers must be on vacation, because there was significantly less posts this week to choose from. Here’s some for you to read,…

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After Failure of Crans-Montana Talks, What Next for Cyprus Peace Process?

un-dpa: Secretary-General Antonio Guterres (right) with Espen Barth Eide (left) Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on Cyprus during Cyprus talks. 30 June 2017. UN Photo/Jean-Marc Ferré There was much anticipation in the run up to the resumed Conference on Cyprus in Crans-Montana, Switzerland, at the end of June 2017. The feeling among many observers of the long-running “Cyprus problem” was that this latest phase of negotiations was the closest the parties – the Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots – had come in at least a decade to reaching a settlement. These renewed hopes quickly turned to disappointment, however. In the…

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Sunday Smack

Happy Sunday, Everybody! This was an eventful week in a lot of ways. The reason I chose this photo to define it is in part because I am such an admirer of traditional protocol, of which there is no greater source today than royal events as such. The other reason is a personal one, during the summer I started to up my Spanish skills with an intensive training, and I was so proud of myself listening to and understanding most of King Felipe’s state banquet speech! And also the gowns and tiaras, but that’s like an obvious reason, not to…

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Sunday Smack

Happy Sunday! How about that Emmanuelle Macron moment at the family photo? Apparently they thought they could make him stand in the back row and they were wrong. I bet all the others were thinking “huh, who knew you could do that?”. The G20 had more memorable moments of course, as this BBC collection shows, poor Chancellor Merkel must have had a hard time handling all these difficult men (wouldn’t it be much simpler if women ruled the world?). LOL at her eye-rolling at Putin. I hope your summer is going well so far, here’s some reading for today. Can this Woman…

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