Issue Today

Syria is nowadays a mess. The whole war within Syria is now lasting for about 2 years and 9 months. The situation is terrible and especially for the civilians. Some villages or suburbs are already closed off from the outside world for a few months. Rumours say that people inside these closed of suburbs eat grass and their pets. It was shown on a documentary of the Dutch news program Nieuwsuur, in which a Syrian rebel showed the suburb in which he lived. It was terrible, there wasn't much food and people were starving. An estimation of the United Nations says that there died approximately 120,000 - 130,000 people because of the Syrian war. This is an enormous number which shows the scale of the war and what it has done to the population. Furthermore, there has not been significant movement in the war. Maybe the frontiers have moved a little but there has not been one side (rebels or Assad's army) which have taken over the majority of the country. The country is divided...

In the Netherlands there is a lot of fuzz about the UN mission to Mali because  the Dutch army will cooperate. Today the first soldiers will depart to Mali for the start-up of the mission. On December 12th of the previous year the majority of our government voted in favour of the Mali mission  therefore  the soldiers  are now heading for Mali. Like mentioned above, on December 12th 2012 the government agreed with the Mali Mission, however the SP (Socialist Party), the PVV (Freedom Party), and the PvdD (Animal Rights Party) opposed. The SP claimed that humanitarian support was much better than military support and Harry van Bommel (SP) said that the element of humanitarian support was missing in the Mali United Nations mission. The PVV said that it was not the task of the Dutch military to help the UN this time but that Algeria or Morocco should help. The members of parliament of the Second Chamber thought this to be quite peculiar because Muslim terror is one ...

At January 1st the Dutch and other North-European countries will be fully opened for Romania and Bulgaria. That was four days ago. The inhabitants of Romania and Bulgaria will now be able to travel throughout the Europian Union freely and, like other EU-citizens, try to find a job in the Netherlands. What consequences will this new regulation have? And what do the proponents say? What are the points the opponents are trying to make? The opinions are widely divided not only in the Netherlands but moreover in the whole of the EU.   Since January 1st the borders have been opened so in fact there is not really much the opponents of this regulation can do against the immigration of Bulgarians and Romanians. The minister of Social Affairs stated recently in the NRC – a Dutch newspaper- that the borders have been opened too early. He also claims that there is one big problem that's caused by the free traffic within the European Union. He says that it is causing a downward spiral in the wo...