International

Hard-hitting criticism from Russian President Vladimir Putin, both on the subject of Kosovo and on the proposed NATO rocket shield, is correct, said SP Member of Parliament and foreign affairs specialist Harry van Bommel in a lecture given at the University of Moscow as part of a hearing for students and teachers of Dutch. Van Bommel was in Russia as part of a Dutch parliamentary delegation which was visiting the country this week. After Moscow, the delegation will go on to the town of Perm.

The Netherlands should do more to encourage research into medicines for developing countries, while an end should be called to research in developing countries aimed at the western market. This was the response of two SP Members of Parliament – Agnes Kant, SP spokeswoman on health care, and Ewout Irrgang, the party's spokesman on development issues – to a report from two Dutch organisations, international health NGO Wemos and multinational corporation watchdog Somo. The report shows a growing trend for clinical medical trials in poor countries. "Developing countries are used increasingly by the pharmaceutical industry as a test laboratory with poor people as guinea pigs," Kant observes. "Meanwhile in the west we are doing far too little to develop the means to help people there. This is morally reprehensible.