Hello from Inside!  Hope all has been well with you.

The latest pickups, themed on Europe, was inspired by the recent various issues in Europe, such as weak euro, new taxes that would be implemented in some countries (‘fat tax’ in Denmark & Hungary…) and so on.  Almost 20 years after the effectuation of the Maastricht Treaty, perhaps the entire continent is reaching another transitional period… 

However, around the same time Western Europe became almost as one (EU), Eastern European countries went the other way round.  In fact they chose to divide.  Some of those little countries that began operating by themselves are not ‘official’ countries but ‘act like’ independent countries. 

Arizona State University
Geography of Europe - Content
Geopolitics of Europe Part 6 (De Facto Countries)
http://iuniv.tv/top/episode/eid/34826/pid/2765

This sound-only lecture focuses on such de facto countries such as North Cyprus, Kosovo, Gibraltar, and Kaliningrad to name a few.  It is interesting to find out especially about (Turkish Republic of) North Cyprus, where Turkey is the only country that recognizes it but it actually operates like an independent country. 

For more information on North Cyprus, please refer here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Cyprus

Note: In this lecture, Kosovo is considered one of the de facto countries, but actually Kosovo has been ‘partly’ recognized as an independent country in 2008.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Kosovo
Insider assumes this lecture was recorded before 2008.