#lizannijkrake

BY LIZAN NIJKRAKE (FGJ ‘19) - In April, the United Nations’ Green Climate Fund (GCF) and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development signed an agreement to finance the construction of a huge solar power plant in the vast fields of Kazakhstan. READ MORE

BY LIZAN NIJKRAKE (FGJ ‘19) - In the fall of 2017, Anouk van Gestel, editor-in-chief of the Belgian magazine Marie-Claire, was awakened one morning by banging on her front door. It was the federal police. Seven armed cops burst in. They searched her house for two hours and gathered her computers, phones and notebooks. READ MORE

BY LIZAN NIJKRAKE (FGJ ‘19) -- Er is een staakt-het-vuren, maar 24 miljoen Jemenieten lijden honger; het conflict is complex en duurt voort. Vorige week werd er in Pakhuis de Zwijger naar een oplossing gezocht, bij het Grote Jemen Debat. Een verslag. READ MORE

BY LIZAN NIJKRAKE (FGJ ‘19) - On clear days, Venezuelans can see the island of Curacao, which lies just 40 miles off its coast. Though no official data exist, roughly 15,000 Venezuelans have fled to the small southern Caribbean island to escape their country’s political and economic crisis. But instead of being welcomed as asylum-seekers, they’ve been jailed—or are in hiding, afraid of being put in detention. Aid groups have reported widespread immigration raids by police, harassment, and illegal deportations. READ MORE

BY LIZAN NIJKRAKE (FGJ ‘19) - Germany has been flooded this holiday season with billboards offering illegal migrants a bribe to leave — free rent for a year at home. “Your country. Your future. Now!” displayed in seven languages, jumps off nearly 2,500 screens in 80 cities. READ MORE

BY LIZAN NIJKRAKE (FGJ ‘19) - In April 2015, a motley crew of nearly 900, including Dutch DJ Gregor Salto, entrepreneurs and a national weatherman, sued the Dutch government. Their claim? The state had endangered them by failing to curb greenhouse gas emissions. A couple of months later, in an unprecedented ruling, a district court ordered the federal government to cut the nation’s emissions by 25 percent below 1990 levels by 2020. READ MORE

BY LIZAN NIJKRAKE (FGJ ‘19) - It’s a rare Dutch traveller who hasn’t heard some version of “Amsterdam? I’ve smoked a doob or two there. ”Forty years of coffeeshops in the Netherlands have created Europe’s best known stoner haven. The most famous of those coffeeshops is arguably Green House, which has counted Rihanna, Snoop Dogg and Eminem among its patrons. READ MORE