What to do about the Middle East?

For decades, the Middle East is facing political and military struggles.  Unfortunately, since several years it seems that tension is rising and is more often surfacing. Different countries are now openly confronting each other. This is a very delicate situation for Western states. The confrontations are threatening the geopolitical situation and can have long-term relational effects. So, what should the European countries, the USA and others do?

The news from the Middle East was dominated at first by the so-called Arab Spring, followed by fighting in Libya and Syria, continuous riots and fighting in Egypt and all-out civil war in Syria, and now the advancement of Jihadist forces, such as IS (previously known as ISIS or ISIL) in Iraq.

Exciting Environmental Week - time for questions

Environmental issues, sustainable development and the like are among my favourite topics to deal with, and I aspire to deal with those professionally in the future. Last Wednesday 5 June 2014, it was World Environment Day and this week there has been some interesting developments on climate change, energy and emissions reduction.

There have been two pretty cool technological developments this week in the media. One is an actual technique, one is still a concept. First in an article from the news website ScienceDaily, an excellent new technology was discussed and to me, this has a lot of potential in our modern world. Some anonymous student developed roof tile coating which can clean the air from smog! Just imagine the potential: all roofs in cities and villages coated with this substance and our air will be cleaner to breath. Supposedly it is cheap and does not harm the roof tiles. I am really looking forward to see developments, I am eager to see it in shops and put in on the roof tiles.