The scene is familiar: the White House Oval Office, President Donald Trump signing a large white document as Vice President Mike Pence and other high-ranking officials look on approvingly in the background. Last Wednesday, the guest and fellow signatory was the...
International Relations
Image Credit: Etereuti, Pixabay
We Must Prevent the US and NATO from Dragging Us into Further Military Ventures
The Cabinet must renounce NATO’s defense spending requirements. Rather than allocating an extra 6 billion euros (approximately $6.3 billion) for defense and contributing to endless wars and the arms race, the Netherlands should instead invest in education and national...
Amnesty International Is Also Holding a Mirror Up to the US
Amnesty International recently issued a travel advisory for the United States in an effort to call attention to the excessive gun violence there. An overly political move, according to critics. The human rights organization experienced quite a bit of backlash online....
A New Moon Race Is Not Humanity’s Most Urgent Mission
50th Anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon Landing In January of this year, the Chinese moon lander Chang’e-4, named after the Chinese moon goddess, deployed a rover on the far side of the moon. India is scheduled to launch its Chandrayaan-2 mission to the moon on July...
Huawei Ban Extends Far Beyond Smartphones
Android It is a major blow for Huawei. U.S.-based Google has been forced to take drastic measures against the Chinese tech firm. After the Trump administration introduced stricter regulations for conducting business with Chinese tech companies last week, Google is now...
Forget About Assange: Save Journalism
So, it’s settled then. There must be a scapegoat. And that scapegoat is now being prepared for the ritual sacrifice: Julian Assange is behind bars. He was taken into custody after the Ecuadorean government “invited” the British police to remove him from its embassy in...
The Symbolic Struggle Over Trump’s Wall
If the U.S. truly wants less irregular migration, then it will have to reform its neoliberal economy. The current debate over Trump’s wall is primarily a conflict over window-dressing. At first glance, the political impasse over Donald Trump’s wall appears to reflect...
Fake Philanthropists Threaten Democracy
Philanthropy Hiding behind the virtuous façade of philanthropy is an elite class that determines political agendas in the absence of any form of control, write Menno Bosma and Roeland Muskens. Two hundred people in the United States, including actor Heath Ledger, have...
Don’t Be Hypocritical – Support Trump’s Wall
Modern states have to keep out non-citizens. They cannot do otherwise. A wall , a physical boundary, only makes that more visible, writes Eric Hendriks. Be honest about that. Are you a fence or a wall person? If you consider that a strange question and think that a...
Trump Puts America First, Then Trade, Before Freedom and Justice
"Blinded by cheap oil and seduced by weapons sales, Trump maintains his alliance with a hereditary dictatorship with medieval social mores." It remains unsettling even after two years – especially when it is all there in black and white, complete with exclamation...
US Contravenes International Legal Order
The fact that the United States is ... turning its back so emphatically on the international legal order is ultimately harmful to everyone. In his speech at the beginning of this week, U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton combined two favorite subjects: his...
Trump Supplies the Weapons for War Crimes in Yemen
There would be no war in Yemen without American and British weapons. But Carolien Roelants sees no sign of movement toward terminating that assistance. There is an unbelievable photo in which Donald Trump points out on a board the number of weapons he has sold to...
America Is a Cartel Paradise. For Real Competition You Have To Be in the EU
Margrethe Vestager is without a doubt the most popular European commissioner at the moment. The Dane heads the Directorate-General for Competition of the European Commission. She adjudicates on issues of market power, cartels and unfair competition. With a snap of her...
It Will Get Ugly if the U.S. Comes To View Google as a National Interest
The €4.3 billion (approximately $5.1 billion) fine that the European Commission imposed on Google last week seems like an enormous sum of money. The penalty relates to Google’s alleged abuse of power in the mobile phone market. Some 85 percent of mobile devices...
The Netherlands Is Also Responsible for Nuclear Stability
A coherent nuclear policy is not only in the national interest, but also contributes to a strong trans-Atlantic bond, argues guest columnist Elmar Hellendoorn.* Lack of understanding of nuclear weapons constitutes one of the greatest risks for international security....
Trump Gives the Finger to Rest of the World
"[T]here is no doubt that the United States – in the wake of its earlier withdrawal from the Paris climate accord – has, once again, further distanced itself from the international community this week." With his now well-known bravado, American President Donald Trump...
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