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September 1st, 1928, Europe gained a new kingdom and its only Muslim king: thirty-two year-old Zog I of Albania

the birth of the Kingdom of Albania – a native monarchy, not an alien imposition – did attract a flicker of international attention

For five decades, Albania was synonymous with hard-line Marxism-Leninism

Greece buses 2,000 refugees from border camp to Athens

Syrians, Afghans and Iraqis continue to be allowed into Macedonia and the Balkans, but people of other nationalities, who make up roughly 10% of the total number, have been stopped at the border since early November. Instead of returning to Athens, many of them set up camp for several weeks – and several sewed shut their mouths – leading to Wednesday’s dispersal.

In northern Greece, an activist and an aid worker said hundreds of Greek police arrived in the morning to disperse the camp, which includes asylum seekers from warring countries such as Somalia, as well as peaceful ones like Morocco. The vast majority went without protest, though some Iranians held a short demonstration at around midday, before being bussed back to Athens in a convoy of around 50 coaches.

Failed asylum seekers in Germany are voluntarily returning home, but only because the government is paying them.

The Federal Government has set aside some €2.14 million to pay for voluntary repatriations, which includes travel subsidies of €200 per person, although this does not include people who have entered Germany without a visa.

The figures come as Germany tightens its asylum laws, allowing for faster deportation and classifying the Balkan nations of Albania, Kosovo and Montenegro as “safe”, thus making it more difficult for people from those countries to claim asylum, and much easier to deport them.

From the fifteenth century on, ethnic Armenians made up a significant minority group within the Ottoman Empire. They were primarily Orthodox Christians, unlike the Ottoman Turkish rulers who were Sunni Muslims.  Armenian families were subject to the and to heavy taxation. As "people of the Book," however, the Armenians enjoyed freedom of religion and other protections under Ottoman rule.

To make matters worse, other Christian regions began to break away from the empire entirely, often with aid from the Christian great powers. Greece, Bulgaria, Albania, Serbia...  one by one, they broke away from Ottoman control in the last decades of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries.

The Armenian population began to grow restless under increasingly harsh Ottoman rule in the 1870s.  Armenians started to look to Russia, the Orthodox Christian great power of the time, for protection.

a Habsburg Emperor attended mass in the Imperial Chapel of Schönbrunn for the last time

The congregation, made up of loyal servants of the dynasty, knew that this was to be the last occasion of its kind

They knew that a whole political and social order had come to an end, that a whole way of life had become empty and meaningless. The next day, as the armies in France stopped fighting, Charles formally renounced his share in the government of the Austrian Empire; that evening, he left Schönbrunn with his family

A long time ago, I read of a torture technique that a journalist heard was used by Hamas on residents of Gaza suspected of being informants: The person is shown a wall onto which a staircase is drawn, and at the top is a drawing of a bicycle. The person is told to go up and get the bicycle. But it’s only a drawing, he says. He is told that if he doesn’t bring the bicycle down the stairs, he will be beaten. And when, again, he appeals to his torturer’s reason, to the reality in which both the staircase and the bicycle are drawings, he is hit.

he part about the beautiful door is funny, but the really funny part, as far as my children are concerned, is when the late-night host gives the future president a chance to apologize to anyone he wants, and the president can’t think of anyone. No one at all? Nope, the president says.

Those of us with homes have been told to take refuge there, to stay within the walls. As such, no one can reach anyone except via satellite, and our only shared reality is the news, and the numbers of infections and fatalities.

The newest Social Progress Index, shared with me before its official release Thursday morning, finds that out of 163 countries assessed worldwide, the United States, Brazil and Hungary are the only ones in which people are worse off than when the index began in 2011. And the declines in Brazil and Hungary were smaller than America’s.

The index, inspired by research of Nobel-winning economists, collects 50 metrics of well-being — nutrition, safety, freedom, the environment, health, education and more — to measure quality of life.

Norway comes out on top in the 2020 edition, followed by Denmark, Finland and New Zealand.

France has passed a new law criminalising the use of so-called "conversion therapy" to attempt to change the sexual orientation or gender identity of LGBTQ people.

The law had already been overwhelmingly backed in the French upper house, the Senate, where it was passed by 305 votes to 28, with the conservative Republicans party opposing it.

United Nations experts have repeatedly condemned conversion therapy, which can use group sessions, injections, electric shocks and prayer in its attempts to alter LGBTQ people's identities.