More than half the world’s population and more than 80 percent of our cities are found in deltas prone to flooding from the sea or rivers. If temporary, the positive effects of flood waters on soil fertility are well known, as the ancient civilisation of the Nile and the Indus deltas show.

But the risks and damage caused by flooding may increase as our climate changes, with sea levels rising and extreme weather events such as storms becoming more frequent. No other natural disasters strike as deadly as floods.

In Asia the impact is most devastating because of population density. But, everywhere, as population and wealth grow, we have more at stake. And hence more to protect. The question is: can we protect everybody and every property?

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The election of Barack Obama was hailed with incredible enthusiasm throughout Europe. For good reasons.

This euforia, however, is felt despite not because of his plans for Afghanistan. For understandable reasons.

During the US presidential election campaign Obama made clear that he is planning to send more troops to Afghanistan and to press Europe to follow suit. For Obama, Afghanistan and Pakistan – not Iraq – are the central front in the war against Al Qaeda.

What should Europe do? Resist the pressure from the man they all welcomed in the White House? Give in and face growing criticism at home? Many Europeans do not believe that the war in Afghanistan can be won nor that European soldiers should die for that cause.

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Obama has won the presidency and will soon become the commander in chief of the US armed forces; the most powerful military apparatus in the world.What is he going to do with it? How will he execute his command authority?

The answer to these questions does not only affect the US, but the rest of the world as well. I have good hopes Obama has what it takes to wield this tremendous power wisely.

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With Europeans being so elated about the new American president-elect, Barack Obama, they might also want to have a look at the so-called “affirmative action” policies that America enacted to provide opportunities to African Americans. Affirmative action began with university admissions. But, in the early 1970′s, President Richard Nixon expanded the scope of affirmative action.

Ethnicity began to be weighed as a positive factor not only in university admissions, but also in public procurement decisions, credit facilities for small enterprises, and government hiring. Such programs are often viewed as contradicting a basic American value, namely that admissions, lending, and hiring decisions should be based on the merits of the individual, not group distinctions. But leading American companies, like General Motors, General Electric, and Walmart, have created affirmative action programs for hiring and selecting suppliers at their own initiative.

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Last week, the US presidential elections finally came to a close. The American voters have chosen Barack Obama to be their new president. Whether he can deliver the change that he promised to bring the voters, remains to be seen.

Days after the election, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sent a letter of congratulations to the newly elected president Barack Obama. It was the first time an Iranian leader has congratulated the winner of an American election, at least since the Iranian revolution. In his letter, president Ahmadinejad advised Obama to make major changes in domestic and foreign policy, to limit American interference in other parts of the world and to reconsider American support for Israel.

Obama has said before that he is willing to talk to Iran, I sincerely hope that he doesn’t.

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I stayed up all night and it was worth it. To see Americans embracing hope and change in such large numbers is truly inspiring. And long overdue. In 1960, John F. Kennedy said at his acceptance speech in Los Angeles: “We stand at the edge of a new frontier. The frontier of unfulfilled hopes and dreams. Beyond that frontier are unchartered areas of science and space, unsolved problems of peace and war, unconquered problems of ignorance and prejudice, unanswered questions of poverty and surplus.” One year later, president-elect Obama was born (and so was I). In those early sixties, African Americans were still being lynched in the South. Anywhere in the States – or Europe, for that matter – they had less chance than a snowball in hell to fulfil the American dream. The Cold War was raging and risked turning hot over Cuba. Women were treated like second-rate people, both in the US and Europe. Much of the Third World was still colonized and fighting abject poverty. In the Netherlands, people with my background had little to no change of ever reaching higher education. Lees verder »

Tomorrow the United States will elect a new president. Many challenges will face him. I would like to focus on those in economic and tax policies.

The announced recession will most probably be deeper and longer than previous ones. Fundamentally, however, the US economy should be able to bounce back . The ability to grow again is present. Its main drivers are the demographic development and the increase of the productivity.

The American population will increase from a current 300 million people to around 400 million in 2050. The excellent academic environment in combination with the real spirit of entrepreneurship enhances innovation, which is a condition for economic growth.

If the next president designs a policy based on maintaining the good elements of the free-market economy combined with public investments (infrastructure) a resilient economic recovery is possible. The president could strengthen this policy by stimulating private investments in green technology. But a prerequisite for any success is an austere federal budget policy.  A balance should be found between reasonable tax increases and well chosen budget cuts.

Both candidates propose a redistribution of income. Barack Obama is in favour of the lower and middle income classes and John McCain in favour of the higher income class.

The Tax Policy Centre, a non-partisan research group, estimates that, under Obama’s plan, the after-tax income of the bottom 20 percent of people would be 5.4 percent higher while that of the top 1 percent of people would be 8 percent lower. Under McCain’s plan, the lowest  20 percent would see their after tax income rise 0.2 percent whereas the top 1percent would see theirs rise 2.2 percent.

To me, the envisaged tax policy of Obama not just makes more sense under the current economic circumstances, it  also is more fair.

Marnix van Rij (1960) was the national chairman of the Christian Democratic Party CDA between 1999 and 2001. He is a partner at Ernst & Young tax advisors in The Hague.