The populistic Frp party has left the Norwegian government, over the return of a woman of the radical ISIS organisation and her son. However the ultra-right Frp remains a strong force when it comes to government decisions. Click to listen to my radio talk (in Dutch)Scroll to 00:49:29 into the broadcastVRT Radio 1, De Wereld […]
Finland stops fake news
While everybody in the world is more or less influenced by fake news, there is one Scandinavian country that prides itself in dealing with it successfully: Finland. Sharing an extensive border with Russia the land of the 1001 lakes is long accustomed to the outside (read: Moscow) trying to clout things. Click to listen to […]
The Strangest Bosnian Road
The war in the Balkans during the 1990s devastated the lives of hundreds of thousands. One of the most chaotic areas was the enclave of Bihać in Northern Bosnia. In 1997, two years after hostilities ended, I went for my first assignment abroad – officially still as a student journalist – and took with me […]
Dirty Secrets underneath the Greenland Icecap
It sounds like a story from the James Bond movies. Underneath the icecap of Greenland a secret military base is hiding, powered by a nuclear reactor. Up to 300 nuclear missiles are tucked away in tunnels of hundreds of kilometres long; maintained, serviced and defended by thousands of soldiers living out of sight. Click to […]
Dutch State of the Union
It is called the Day of Princes and it marks what can be best called the State of the Union of the Netherlands. The Dutch monarch rides with horses and golden carriage to the parliament to deliver the speech of the year, every third Tuesday of September, cheered by tens of thousands along the way. […]