Eastern Europe

March 25, 2015

Corruption And Bribery: The Cost Of Health Care In Central And Eastern Europe

It is no secret that rule of law in places like Slovakia is weak. Corruption, pay-offs, bribes and twisted use of power often pass for “rule of law.” However, this problem has infected health care as well, which means those who are able to bribe the doctor or health care worker is the one who will get the care. Continue Reading...

December 03, 2014

Video: Lessons from Ukraine’s Holodomor and Soviet Communism

The Acton Institute is currently hosting an art exhibit called “Holodomor: Through the Eyes of a Child” in our Prince-Broekhuizen Gallery at the Acton Building. It features artworks created by contemporary Ukrainian children commemorating the great famine of the 1930s that was inflicted upon Ukraine by Stalin, resulting in the deaths of almost 7 million people by starvation. Continue Reading...

November 26, 2013

A Turkey in Every Pot

In this week’s Acton Commentary, “Tyranny Is the True Enemy,” I explore the latest film installment of the Hunger Games trilogy, “Catching Fire.” I pick up on the theme that animates Alissa Wilkinson’s review at Christianity Today, but diverge a bit from her reading. Continue Reading...

December 19, 2011

Vaclav Havel and the ‘Notion of Responsibility’

Václav Havel, playwright, anti-Communist dissident and former president of the Czech Republic, died yesterday at the age of 75. There has been an outpouring of tributes to the great man today. Continue Reading...

May 10, 2011

Stories from the Gulag

A new online exhibit: European Memories of the Gulag. (HT: Instapundit/Claire Berlinski) From 1939 to 1953, nearly one million people were deported to the Gulag from the European territories annexed by the USSR at the start of the Second World War and those that came under Soviet influence after the War: some to work camps but most as forced settlers in villages in Siberia and Central Asia. Continue Reading...