Staying below 2°C: The implications of the Paris Agreement for the Netherlands

Are you enjoying your Christmas holidays? If you are in the Netherlands you will probably have noticed by now: no white Christmas this year. In fact, this is the warmest

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BB-8 Star Wars Droid

The Star Wars series encouraged the public’s increasing desire to have a robot in the house. Imagine this: a small, round object that moves in your living room, answers your

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Widening or Closing the Window of Opportunity?..

EU-Ukraine Association Agreement – What It Brings to Europeans, Dutch, and Ukrainians  The referendum on the approval of the Association Agreement between the European Union and Ukraine will be held

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Checks Presents the Three Ultimate Christimas Gifts

Dear faithful Checks Community,  Twelve days left until Christmas, but obviously we could not care less about Christmas, this commercialised and old-fogyish tradition of giving and receiving presents – so materialistic –

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The Man Who Turned Fiction Into Reality?

-An article on Michel Houellebecq’s Soumission and a changing France- Paris, the night of the 6th of January 2015. Michel Houellebecq, enfant-terrible of the French literary world, is sitting in

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‘Islam, for a Better World?’ – The World of Islamic Banking

In recent years, no religion in the world had to face so much criticism and negativity as the Islam. Since the media tends to show just one part of the

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A unified Korea?

  Ask yourself for a moment who are the closest people to you. To whom do you go when you need a warm embrace, an encouraging voice and a loving

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Interview with Dr. Bob Reinalda Part II

A few days ago my esteemed colleague Rosa published the first part of the interview we conducted with Dr. Bob Reinalda, a considered expert in the field of international organizations.

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In Conversation with Eric Niehe

Eric Niehe is a former Dutch diplomat whose distinguished career in the foreign service of the Netherlands spanned four decades, and included postings as Ambassador to Ireland, Hungary, and India.

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Memoirs of Exile

Forced settlements in the Soviet Union took place in a series of brutal operations. A majority of the deportations were carried out in the Baltic States, primarily between 1941-1949. Over

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