Eurotopics.net

El Salvador has become the first country in the world to approve bitcoin as legal tender. To this end it has launched a digital payment and exchange system (or cyberwallet) called Chivo based on the cryptocurrency last week. The World Bank, IMF and rating agencies are very critical of the move, and there have also been protests among the country's population. Reactions from the press are more mixed.

Saturday will mark the twentieth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Together with the retaliatory measures by the US and other Western states, they are considered a major historical turning point. For many observers this anniversary is above all about open wounds given the West has made little progress on legal proceedings against the culprits and not banished the threat of jihadism.

In Guinea, the military ousted the country's president, Alpha Condé, on Sunday. Many people celebrated Condé's overthrowal on the streets, but the UN and EU have strongly condemned the coup. Condé came to power in 2010 in the first free elections since Guinea achieved independence in 1958, and was considered a stabilising beacon of hope. However, he has recently come under fire for authoritarianism and human rights violations.

The EU's interior ministers failed to reach an agreement on binding conditions for taking in Afghan asylum seekers at their special summit last week. Despite the strong desire to reach a consensus, the EU Commission failed due to opposition from Austria, Hungary, Denmark and Slovenia, among others. Instead, Afghanistan's neighbouring countries are now to receive money for taking in refugees. Europe's press is incensed.