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.
Barack Obama inherited two Middle East wars from his predecessor and countless of struggles labeled as such from the many presidents that came before him, ranging from a critical War on Terror to an endless and largely futile war on drugs. His administration has so far added one notable campaign to this list — a […]
German media are urging Chancellor Angela Merkel’s ruling coalition to give up.
India’s objectives in Afghanistan are aligned with America’s. Pakistan’s are not.
Europe’s finance ministers agreed last week to review each other’s national budgets in the future to prevent one or several member states from imperiling the stability of the common currency as happened in Greece this April. The move may end being a step in the right direction but little more than that. The finance chiefs […]
Flemish separatists are on the rise while French-speaking Belgium remains mired in recession.
Since North Korea sank a South Korean corvette in the Yellow Sea last March, the Hermit Kingdom proved once again just how capable it is of causing international consternation. South Korean President Lee Myung-bak promised “firm, responsive measures against the North.” The world’s last bastion of Stalinism threated with “all out war” in turn which […]
Kyrgyzstan’s interim government led by Roza Otunbayeva has asked for Russian military support to suppress violence in the south of the country on Saturday. Dozens were reportedly killed in the city of Osh last week amid confrontations between native Kyrgyz and Uzbek youths. Mass riots in Osh escalated into violence on Thursday night, resulting in […]
British leaders are concerned about the American president’s criticism of the oil company.
Turkey has worked hard in recent years to establish itself as something of a Middle Eastern power broker. With Brazil, it managed to negotiate a nuclear fuel exchange agreement with Iran last month while Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan launched a strategic partnership with Russia in February. On Thursday, the architect of Turkey’s newfound regional […]
Liberals and nationalists emerged as the largest political parties in the Netherlands.
In the wake of North Korea’s sinking of the South Korean corvette Cheonan last March, the Obama Administration has been trying to muster Chinese support for renewed sanctions against the Stalinist regime. So far, its efforts have been frustrated by division within Beijing’s ruling class. After international investigators proved that the North had been responsible […]
For the first time in almost a hundred years, the Dutch right-wing liberal party may emerge as the country’s largest parliamentary faction from Wednesday’s election. But as results poured in on election night, the liberals were unexpectedly engaged in a fierce struggle for power with Labor. The outcome was anticipated by preelection polls which had […]
France and Germany have insisted that the European Union speed up its scheduled financial reforms, noting that “strong volatility” in the markets necessitates a quick ban on speculative trading against “certain” stock and government bonds. In a joint appeal, French president Nicolas Sarkozy and German chancellor Angela Merkel called on European Commission President José Barroso […]
The British leader showed that there’s an alternative to Keynesianism.
As the threat of cyber war and cyberterrorism is evermore real in this twenty-first century, traditional military powers and alliances have to find ways to cope with computerized attacks. NATO now ponders returning fire, according to Defense Tech. The group of experts headed by former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright that is rethinking NATO’s […]
