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…


The first congress of International Traditional Medicine

The first congress of International Traditional Medicine, hosted by the Association for Universal Cultural Medicine (UCM), will take place in Vienna from January 19 to January 21, 2018. Academic lecturers, physicians and therapists will come from North and South America, India, Tibet, Mongolia, Iran, China as well as Europe to offer deep insights into their work, to present their traditional healing methods, and to discuss about how to integrate old knowledge with the modern age. Organizing the congress, the association UCM, with its core team at Dr. Koegler lifeAGEnts, is embarking on building bridges not only between continents but also…


Music

Music is a matter of taste. Yes, the kind of music someone likes often depends on where they grow up, which people they are surrounded with and how much they know about music (its history, theory or practise, etc.). However, I believe that in the end, it is very individual whether a genre of music is worth listening to or not, especially for the young generation. I grew up with classical music and shreds of Jazz. In fact, until the age of 12, I could not even bear to hear non-classical music without freaking out immediately. Often, after listening to…


Inner Mongolia in China

Recently, the editor-in-chief of SINOPRESS was invited to Inner Mongolia in China. Here are some fascinating photos taken there revealing the breathtaking beauty of Hulun Buir Prairie with its Ger, Ergune River and Wetlands.


Election in Austria and Politics in the EU

Mid-October, Austrian electios for the National Assembly  took place. Winner was the People’s Party (ÖVP) with the future chancellor Sebastian Kurz. The Social Democrats (SPÖ) with the present chancellor Christian Kern got second, tightly followed by the Freedom Party (FPÖ) with the chairman Christian Strache. The Green Party dropped out of the parliament, whereas their former member Peter Pilz, who quit his party, could reach eight mandates with his own list. Most possibly SPÖ will go into opposition – as the Social Democrats in Germany do, because there will be a coalition between ÖVP and FPÖ. Different from in 2000,…


BIANCA REGL: ​BETWEEN THE APPLE AND THE PLATE

“… For beauty is only a step removed from a burning terror we barely sustain, and we worship it for the graceful sublimity with which it disdains to consume us.” (Rainer Maria Rilke, from The First Elegy (Duineser Elegien, 1923), translated by John Waterfield) Born in Austria in 1980, Bianca Regl lives in Beijing since 2010. In her prior years she spent time in Los Angeles and Berlin. The theme of her paintings was, and is, the (picturesque) localization. Terms such as ‘homeland’ and ‘tradition’ face others, like ‘emigration’ and ‘hyper culturalism’. François Jullien writes that coming across China means compiling a sloping and strategic access that makes us grasp European…