In the current financial turmoil we forget that just recently food was our great concern: mass famines were said to threaten world peace. The price rise of past years is due to the high demand for food and feed in Asia. Combined with a weak dollar, high energy costs and unfavourable weather food stocks have declined. Due to US and the EU “setting aside” policies, some of the best farmland has been left unproductive.
Although prices are now decreasing somewhat, the question still stands. Can we feed the world? The answer is emphatically: Yes, we can.

Food is not like oil because stocks cannot be exhausted. They fluctuate, but food is a renewable resource. Food is not like oil, because it is produced by about a billion independent farmers. Although large multinational businesses are involved, there is no “Organisation of Food Exporting Countries” like OPEC. There is no technical reason why we could not feed a world of nine billion people. Hunger is a matter of buying power, not of shortages.

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Most Turkey specialists in the European Union and Europe specialist in Turkey agree: negotiations between the two are stuck.

Yes, the technical talks on adapting Turkish laws to EU standards continue. Yes, Turkish and European politicians keep making positive statements about the advantages of Turkish accession to the EU. But the drive needed to get things done is gone.

The Turkish government echoes the frustrations of many Turks when it complains about the mixed signals coming from EU leaders. There is a growing feeling that even if and when the country complies with all EU demands Turkey will never get in. On top of that, the government is faced with an opposition that is hostile to all the reforms needed to keep up the momentum.

European politicians are frustrated with the slowdown of reforms since the start of negotiations three years ago. They expect Turkish leaders to tackle the issues which top the EU’s list of demands: freedom of speech, the position of ethnic and religious minorities, the Kurdish problem and the role of the army.

Both sides lack political leaders that are courageous enough to continue to make the case for Turkish entry in to the EU.

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Some argue that Europe’s life-style compares to America’s like slow food to McDonald’s. The cosy and relaxed lifestyles of the Europeans indeed sound appealing. But it’s not that Europeans simply enjoy more leisure than Americans do. It’s the high tax burden of the typical welfare state that forces Europeans to do all kinds of low-skilled jobs themselves.

Since European governments, like the Dutch government, take 50 to 55 cents of every euro earned, it is more efficient to forgo a day’s earnings to weed the garden or paint the walls than to hire somebody else, who would charge 20 euro per hour or more to do it.

Nothing would be wrong with people spending a nice day working in the garden if western Europe did not have such a large supply of low-skilled workers, mostly first and second generation immigrants. In the Netherlands, 65 percent of the young adults (age 20-34) with Turkish and Moroccan backgrounds have no high school diplomas. Their Dutch language skills are poor or non-existent. According to one government report, 79 percent of (first and second generation) Turkish and Moroccan women are unfit for the Dutch labour market. In New York City, on the other hand, 65 percent of first-generation female immigrants have a paid job.

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Global climate change is often subject to heated debate, not just in the scientific community but also in the political arena.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), established by the United Nations, says that there is overwhelming evidence that recent climate change is caused by human activity and will have catastrophic effects in the future.

Critics believe that the underlying data of climate models used by the IPCC are unreliable, since temperature data from historic times were reconstructed through secondary sources like ice-cores and tree rings and have been compared with accurate modern day temperature measurements.

In its report entitled Nature, not human activity rules the climate the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) argues that warming periods of greater magnitude have occurred in the historic past, without any catastrophic consequences.

Little over a month ago, a Dutch government advisory committee published its long term recommendations on how to protect our country from the sea, at present as well as in future. We would have to raise the dikes and widen coastal areas to avert the danger of an estimated sea level rise by more than a meter by the end of this century.

Not even the IPCC is that pessimistic!

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“The war against the Taliban in Afghanistan cannot be won.” This recent statement by Britain’s senior military commander in Afghanistan, Mark Carleton-Smith, sparked inevitable controversy. The ensuing debate is fuelled by his remark that negotiating with the Taliban is necessary and inevitable and by the findings of a leaked draft report of the US National Intelligence Estimate concluding that Afghanistan is in a “downward spiral”. Many are baffled. Does this mean coalition forces should have tea with the Taliban?

Carlton-Smith’s remarks were clearly taken out of context. The war against an irregular opponent like the Taliban, or any guerrilla movement, cannot be won in the traditional military sense. In asymmetric warfare, you are fighting an elusive enemy with a low tactical signature, no infrastructure, no industrial base, no seat of government and no command and control facilities. So, where can you hit him? This is an uncomfortable dilemma professional soldiers have acknowledged a long time ago.

The predicament we face in Afghanistan is that, although the war cannot be won in the traditional military sense, we cannot afford to lose it either.

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Two famous Dad’s Army characters were fighting for the upper hand in this week’s financial markets. Lance Corporal Jones (“Don’t panic, Mr Mainwaring, don’t panic!”) probably carried the day. But Private Frazer (“We’re doomed, I say. Doomed.”) was a close runner-up.The global financial system has become so complicated that no one can actually say with any degree of certainty what the extent of the current crisis is. Containing it is the prime responsibility of governments, the European Central Bank and national central banks. But it would be a mistake if we left it at that. We need to think hard about the underlying causes of the problem and perhaps rethink some of the assumptions our political system has worked with over the last thirty years.

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I was surprised when the Dutch state late last week nationalised Fortis Netherlands, ABN Amro Netherlands and some Dutch insurance companies belonging to the Fortis company, for 16.8 billion euros. I agree that it was inevitable. It certainly appears that the banking industry is in its deepest crisis since the 1930s depression.

One of the announced measures after nationalisation is the curtailing of the employee benefits for the top executives. For years this topic was one of the priorities in the political debate, not only in the Netherlands, but also in the USA, UK, Germany and France. Due to the complete turmoil in the international financial industry this subject has become even more urgent. But how can the government intervene in the salary conditions of top executives?

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