By Mel O’Brien

I wanted to take an opportunity to give kudos to the current Australian government, led by Prime Minister Rudd. I was lucky enough to be in Australia when the elections were held in November, so I got to go to the polls and vote, and attend an election party with friends. We sat at the party, drinks in hand, hoping and wishing for a change that was so desperately needed. For far too long we were ruled by John Howard, a little man with internationally embarrassing policies. As an international lawyer, there have been many moments when I was mortified by the policies of the Howard government. For example, I remember taking refugee law for my LLM, and having an entire 2-hr lecture devoted to the Australian ‘Pacific Solution’ refugee policy (that being where refugees are shipped to a Pacific island and detained in an ‘off-shore detention centre’). The Howard government had so many people believing refugees were bad people- ‘queue jumpers’, who didn’t wait their turn to immigrate like all good people should. Howard refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, refused to apologise to the indigenous people of Australia, and sent troops to Iraq and Afghanistan like the good little obedient US-servant he was. Happily, the change that we were all hoping so much for at that election party has happened! How the champagne flowed as we watched Rudd emerge to give his victory speech. Let’s just take a look at what the Rudd government has done in just over 6 months in power: Continue reading →

By Nick Li

With all apologies to the residents of West Virginia, Kentucky and Puerto Rico, the outcome of the Democratic Primary process is no longer in doubt. Hillary Clinton put on a brave face and a valiant (if someone negative) fight. While it would be nice of her to concede soon, the most important thing is that she work hard to get her many supporters to line up behind Obama – although exit polls claiming that "40% of Hillary voters would not vote for Barack in the General Election" should not be trusted, Obama cannot take for granted that all the Democratic Primary voters will vote for him in the fall. Barack Hussein Obama will be the Democratic Nominee this fall and will face Republican John Sidney McCain. Yes, I said their middle names. I find it unbelievable that it is considered a smear in the US to imply that someone is a muslim (or worse, a secret muslim) but I get the feeling we haven’t even seen a fraction of the dirty, racist, fear-mongering tactics that are coming our way this fall. Continue reading →

By Otto Spijkers

Today, we celebrate our freedom in the Netherlands. 5 May was chosen because it marks the end of the German occupation of the Netherlands during the Second World War, but it is really a day to celebrate our freedom in general. Yesterday evening, we commemorated those who fought and died, in the Second World War and thereafter (in missions overseas, including UN Peacekeeping Missions), so that we can now enjoy this freedom. This Remembrance of the Dead is held annually on May 4. Each year, at 8 o’clock in the evening of May 4, the entire country is silent for two minutes. The main ceremony is held at Dam Square, Amsterdam (see picture). This ceremony mainly consists in the laying of wreathes in front of the National Monument on Dam Square, in commemoration of the dead. Also, the winner of a high school poetry-competition reads his or her winning poem on the square, just after the entire nation observed two minutes of silence. The poem is meant to commemorate those who went, fought and died for our freedom. This year the winner was Bahar Azizi, an 18 year old Dutch girl born in Afghanistan. I liked the poem so much that I made an attempt to translate this Dutch poem into English. So here it goes: Continue reading →

By Otto Spijkers

The issue of equitable geographic representation at the various organs and bodies of the United Nations is always topical, so I guess it deserves a blog post even though I have no recent development relating to this issue to address specifically. It is an interesting topic, both for politicians and for those who like to work with statistics and calculators. The end-result of any application of the principle of equitable geographic representation, I guess, is always based on both cold calculation and hot politics. For a UN report on the issue, see here. So let’s look at some examples where we can apply the principle… Continue reading →

By Otto Spijkers

The Dutch Member of Parliament, Mr. Geert Wilders, published his Fitna-film (see also my previous post ). Somewhat surprisingly, the two most effective objections to the movie so far were made, not against the message of the movie, but rather against the unauthorized use in that movie of other people’s material. First, the author of a cartoon ordered Wilders to remove footage of his cartoon from the film (which was done), and today a rapper was awarded financial compensation, to be paid by Mr. Wilders, for immaterial damages caused by the use of a picture of the rapper posing as the murderer of Van Gogh. This picture was presented in Fitna as a picture of that murderer. Mr. Wilders used that picture without the photographer’s permission, and thus Mr. Wilders also had to pay that photographer. But I want to focus on the message of Fitna, not the copyright stuff. More specifically, I want to share with our readers the reaction of our Minister for Development Cooperation. On 11 April, Mr. Bert Koenders, our Minister for Development Cooperation, visited the Brookings Institution in the United States of America, and presented there a Dutch perspective on freedom, religion and democracy in the age of the 24/7 news cycle, addressing also the Fitna-movie and the responses it triggered all over the world. I believe the speech is really interesting, and that is why I would like to share with our readers the most interesting parts. It starts as follows: Continue reading →

By Otto Spijkers

As I mentioned in an earlier post, each Friday some of the interns at United Nations Headquarters used to go to the delegates lounge after work to have a drink or two and make plans for the weekend. It appears that those days are over; not just for me (I left UN Headquarters on 28 March 2008), but also for future generations of UN interns. In this post, which will be my last post about the UN Headquarters internship programme, I will share with the reader the reasons given by the United Nations for no longer allowing the UN interns access to the Delegates Lounge, which was one of the privileges the intern-community greatly enjoyed. Continue reading →

By Otto Spijkers

Geert Wilders, the leader of the Dutch opposition party called Partij voor de Vrijheid (Party for Freedom) plans to release a short film (15 minutes) warning about the Islamization of the Netherlands and about the supposedly violent character of Islam in general. The video, which will be released at the end of this month, has already been the talk of the town for months. The Dutch government has tried to persuade Wilders not to make or show his movie, fearing reprisals from parts of the Muslim world, aimed not only against Wilders but against the entire Dutch country and its people, including those living and working abroad. In fact, a national security strategy was drafted by the Dutch government especially for this film, indicating the measures to be taken in case Dutch embassies would be under threat etc. etc. Continue reading →

 By Nick Li

Barack Obama’s religiosity has always been a mixed blessing. On the one hand, it makes liberal atheists like me think that maybe he will be more electable to Americans who like their politicians to fear/love God and wear their Christianity on their sleeve. The Democrats have always been seen as "weak" on religion and since America is such a religious country, maybe an overtly religious Christian man who also adopts some of the speaking styles of a preacher and preaches a message of unity can help win some of the "red" states. On the other hand, it has always made me a little wary. Maybe this is just pandering or tactical or a political strategy to get elected; or maybe this is a canidate who really cares deeply about his faith. That would worry me except that Obama has been pretty explicit about his support for abortion, gays, and stem cells, the three issues that lie at the intersection of religion and politics in America. But recently the cable news outlets have been going crazy attacking Barack Obama’s preacher Reverend Jeremiah Wright. The reverend has indeed made some controversial comments. What follows is a sample I culled from the internet. Continue reading →

 By Richard Norman

There are a lot of reasons why Hillary Clinton looks set to lose the Democratic nomination. An inconsistent message and inflexible campaign strategy are two. Another important one is Barack Obama’s singular political talent. But one of Clinton’s biggest problems is a website: the Drudge Report. Continue reading →