Social Issues

A City of London worker spends more than £6,000 a year on season tickets to sit in the broom cupboard of a packed train. He sits next to a mop and bucket because there are usually no seats available during his daily commute between London and Ipswich. The Daily Mail reports: The City of London worker often struggles to find a seat on his return journey from London Liverpool Street to Ipswich, Suffolk, a journey he has made for the past 17 years.

Scuffles broke out at a pro-migrant rally in Calais, France, with one resident brandishing a rifle and pointing it at the marchers. Russia Today reports: The footage, filmed Saturday, features a French family and their neighbors trying to prevent the not-so-peaceful demonstration from marching through the street that they live on. The conflict escalated quickly as two men started insulting the protesters who “didn’t like” that, photojournalist Frederik Sadones told RT. The protesters returned the insults and started throwing things at the men, bicycle tires among them.

Europeans are struggling to come to terms with the wave of Mid-East refugees that have inundated the bloc over the course of the last 12 months.

The challenge, for those inclined to believe that German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s multicultural utopia is feasible, is to adopt an open minded approach to the prospect of integrating millions of Muslim asylum seekers into a largely Christian society while retaining a healthy level of skepticism with regard to the prospect of unifying two vastly divergent cultures.

Several thousands of people took to the streets in Rynek, Poland on Saturday to protest what they say is excessive internet surveillance by the government.  Protestors ranged from children to the elderly, men and women, all of whom protested some of the most invasive media censorship laws in Europe. Krakowpost.com reports: Polish law requires telecom companies to retain metadata on its users and allows nine different law enforcement agencies (an exceptionally large number) to demand it.

Pretty much all that Americans – and much of the West – get to hear about Russian President Putin is heavy-handed propaganda often read over images of him riding shirtless on a horse. He’s either a bully or a buffoon. But editors of a popular German newspaper encountered a much more sophisticated figure, writes Gilbert…