Nick Ottens is a public affairs officer for the Dutch Animal Coalition and a board member for Liberal Green, the sustainability network of the Dutch liberal party VVD. He is a former political risk consultant and a former research manager for XPRIZE, where he designed prize competitions to incentivize breakthrough innovation in agriculture, food and health care. He has also worked as a journalist in Amsterdam, Barcelona and New York for EUobserver, NRC, Trouw, World Politics Review and Wynia’s Week, among others.
What is now known as the Asian Financial Crisis began in July 1997 in Thailand where the baht fell victim to massive speculative attacks. Before the currency was finally devaluated to lose over half of its value, the country’s economic growth came to a grinding halt amid disastrous layoffs in previously booming sectors as finance […]
The Obama Administration is pushing back against the notion that its policy is hostile to business.
China is building up its fleet, but it is not building the infrastructure needed to support a global naval presence.
Brazilians will be heading for the polls come October to elect a new president. For the first time since democracy was returned to the Latin American country in the 1980s, the name of Luiz Inácio da Silva will not appear on any ballot. But for the major party candidates, it’s hard to escape the shadow […]
China and Taiwan are expected to agree to a preliminary free-trade agreement later this month in a effort to normalize relations across the Strait after more than six decades of bickering and mistrust. According to The Economist, the proposed Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) calls for cuts on 539 categories of Taiwanese exports to China […]
The United Kingdom will withdraw parts of its forces from the hotly contested Helmand Province in Afghanistan later this year. The region around the town of Sangin, notorious as a Taliban powerbase and a center of the opium trade in the south of the country, has seen heavy fighting in recent months, demanding several casualties […]
With a conservative majority on the Supreme Court, Barack Obama’s policies could be in jeopardy.
Bronisław Komorowski fends off a challenge from the right to claim the presidency for the Civic Platform.
Education in the United States can seem a bit bewildering at times. Confronted with the undeniably poor performance of public schools, in the 1990s, an alternative was devised that gave greater freedom to individual teachers and schools while not admitting fully that the free-market option — private schools — are in fact the only viable […]
The Democrats may be falling in the polls and President Barack Obama is certainly unpopular but the Republicans have no reason to take their newfound success for granted. On the contrary. The party has now to stop boasting and define its vision of twenty-first century conservatism lest it risk being thrown into the opposition again […]
A common charge voiced against libertarians is that they should promote social and political anarchy. “Why don’t you move to Somalia?” critics wonder about proponents of limited government as though the poor East African country were a textbook example of a free society. Such rancor misses the point entirely. Laissez-faire doesn’t prosper in lawlessness. A […]
Allowing people to move freely across borders is an economic as well as a moral imperative.
The United States appear to be scheduling a greater involvement in Central Asia. They should think twice before immersing themselves in this unfortunate quagmire however, boxed in between the conflicting interests of two former Cold War rivals. EurasiaNet reports that the Pentagon is preparing to embark on a small building boom in Central Asia. The […]
World leaders ignore Barack Obama’s call for stimulus and commit to cutting their deficits instead.
Gun rights advocates welcome the Supreme Court’s affirmation of their right to bear arms.
