International

SP Member of Parliament Ewout Irrgang is urging Development Minister Bert Koenders to demand the cancellation of Haiti's debts to the IMF and World Bank. “A terrible catastrophe of unprecedented proportions has hit Haiti. The most urgent priority must now be the saving of as many lives as possible through the provision of sufficient aid. The huge problems experienced in connection with this are already making that an enormous task. But the reconstruction of the country which must follow will be at least as difficult.”

One of life's certainties is that it's always election time somewhere or other. And as a member of the parliamentary group of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) I have the good fortune that during my term of office as a Senator for the SP I am able to act as an observer in some of these elections. Following Albania last summer, winter sees me in Ukraine. Everyone can still remember the battered face of Yushchenko at the last presidential elections, the protests in the streets, all of this entering history as the 'Orange Revolution'. He survived it and was seen as a martyr, a hero of the nation, the one who who would put this huge country on the map.