Highlights of the week of November 20-26
The end of November was marked by a major scandal and a proposal for a very significant reform, or rather a structural transformation, of a country's migration policy.
Cyprus wants to join Schengen
The country has been part of the European Union since 2004, but it is not part of the Schengen area. This opens up great opportunities for expats who obtain residence permits and permanent residency here.
Cyprus's Foreign Minister Constantinos Kombos has said that the priorities for the near future will be to join Schengen and provide visa-free travel for citizens to the United States. Although the EU itself does not share Cyprus' optimism, it does have a chance. However, it should be understood that accession requires the fulfillment of several important conditions.
The most important, and the one that irritates the EU the most, is the program for obtaining residence permits for investments. In the case of Cyprus, this is one of the most important pillars of the country's economy. However, for full accession to the Schengen Agreement, the country will have to either revise the policy or close the program completely. This is already happening in a number of member states, such as Portugal.
However, it should be noted that for those who have already obtained permanent residence or citizenship in Cyprus, traveling around Europe will become even easier.
The OpenAI scandal is growing rumors
As announced earlier this week, OpenAI has fired its CEO Sam Altman. The official reason is that Altman was "not consistently candid in his communications with the board".
On the one hand, we have a classic example of a firing where an executive doesn't devote enough time to his job. This is reinforced by rumors that Altman has been focusing more on outside businesses lately.
On the other hand, this version raises more questions. For example, why did Microsoft, which is a fairly large investor (the company's contribution is about 13 billion dollars), not know about the dismissal until the last moment? Or why did 95% of the company's 750 employees write an open letter demanding that Sam Altman be reinstated? There are no official reports on this, but there are reasons to believe that the situation is much more complicated than it seems at first glance.
Nevertheless, a complete shutdown of the company's neural networks has been avoided, which has been the source of many jokes on the Internet. Especially those who are currently writing their diplomas or research papers were joked about.
Swedish city struggles with loneliness
Luleå residents have been encouraged to say hello more often on the street, even to people they don't know. The city authorities have even launched a special campaign to encourage such small but very important social interactions. The campaign is called "Säg hej", or "Say hello".
An extensive information program has already been launched, and announcements can be found on public transportation and on billboards throughout the city. The authorities hope that this will reduce the social isolation of residents, especially in winter.
According to statistics, about 45% of Luleå residents between the ages of 16 and 30 suffer from loneliness. Among the older generation, the figures are lower, with only 39% of women and 25% of men over the age of 85 experiencing similar difficulties.
