Guus Bosman

Truly a brilliant move of France, Germany and Belgium to veto preparations for preparing defense for Turkey in case of a war.

America's secretary of state Collin Powell will today give a much anticipated speech to the Security Council.

It will start at 16:30 and it's supposed to be a 'multi-media presentation'.

I'm happy to see that the NOS will have a life-stream of the speech online. It's an important event, that's why I was so surprised yesterday.

Didn't see the State of the Union live -- it was a little too early for that. In these uncertain times it's good to stay up-to-date; it's nice that the transcript of the speech is online.

"Mr. Speaker, Vice President Cheney, members of Congress, distinguished citizens and fellow citizens, every year, by law and by custom, we meet here to consider the state of the union."

As usual the VVD was the big winner among voters living abroad. They won 30% of the votes.

The Economist had an article about the influence of expatriates on national elections a few weeks ago. It's available online (for free).

"As a rule of thumb, though, émigrés are nationalists, even though they may at the same time be loyal citizens of their adopted country (96% of Australia's Croats are naturalised, and not known as lukewarm in their Ozziness). Perhaps the strength of nationalist feeling has something to do with feelings of guilt among those fortunate enough to live abroad, especially when the home country is under some kind of threat. Perhaps it has something to do with not having to live with the consequences of nationalism pur et dur. Perhaps it is because exile sharpens the sense of the country left behind. Issues may simply seem clearer from afar. In any event, absence certainly seems to make the heart grow fonder—and fierier."

The results still looks very nice, nobody thought this would happen a few weeks ago. It looks like a right-wing cabinet will not have a majority.

It's so nice to watch the elections with friends (and family).

Looking great...

Today are the elections for a new parliament in the Netherlands.

For the non-Dutch: there's a short introduction in English about the elections in a Dutch newspaper.

I never knew that Loesje is working abroad too. But they've expanded a lot from the small group they once were in 1983. They are posters in Bosnian, Catalan, Italian...

They have an international archive of all the posters they've published since 1990.

The Dutch elections of tomorrow have been dominating the news for a long time. Another 26 hours and we'll know if there'll be a right- or a left-wing cabinet.

Tonight we'll see a final 'burst' of politicians on TV:

The elections will be tomorrow, so all the news paper are full with commercials for political parties.

Wouter pointed me to these pages in the free newspaper Metro.

(Click on Read More... for the picture.)