COVID-19 has rendered Europe’s right-wing parties all but obsolete, at least in the near-term. Nationalist parties like Alternative für Deutschland (AfD, “Alternative for Germany”) and the Dutch Partij voor de Vrijheid (PVV, “Party for Freedom”) had built their electoral clout
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In 2002 the Netherlands became the first country in the world to legalize euthanasia, formalizing what had been tolerated by the government for several decades prior. Today, however, the Dutch practice of euthanasia is arguably less settled legally than ever
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The afternoon of Monday, August 19, I was at home in my apartment in the city center of São Paulo. Glancing out the window, I noticed the sky was unusually dark. I figured it was about to rain, so I
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Jair Bolsonaro’s election to the presidency of Brazil last year provoked a media meltdown similar to Donald Trump’s victory in 2016. Just as in the U.S., journalists in Brazil and abroad predicted the “Trump of the Tropics” was akin to
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On Thursday January 17, news broke in the Netherlands that a Dutch journalist had been expelled from Turkey. Ans Boersma, 31, had been detained the day before in Istanbul when she applied to renew her residence visa. In a last-ditch
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South Africa has rarely been out of the headlines in 2018. In late February, the South African government voted to amend the constitution to allow for the expropriation of land from white farmers without compensation. The vote put an international
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What do you do when people favor your ideas but your party is shut out of government? That’s the dilemma faced by the far right in the Netherlands. The Party for Freedom (PVV), led by Geert Wilders, settled for second
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A sign hangs in the waiting room of my doctor’s office. It advises patients how many appointments were missed in the previous month and how many work hours this cost the staff. The practice has no recourse against patients who
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“I think Boris honestly sees it as churlish of us not to regard him as an exception—one who should be free of the network of obligation that binds everyone else.” These words were written by a housemaster at Eton College
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Of course Scotland won’t leave the United Kingdom. That was the conventional wisdom when the referendum on Scottish independence was announced two years ago. But today no one is quite certain what the outcome will be. The referendum is scheduled
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This summer, as U.K. schoolchildren go on vacation, their school buildings will become hives of activity. Construction workers will descend in droves to overhaul kitchens and dining halls. These need to be refitted for a major new purpose. Starting in
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Last May, an unnamed friend of U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron was quoted referring to the Conservative Party’s base as “mad, swivel-eyed loons.” This extraordinary outburst illustrates the extent of the rift between Cameron and a large section of his
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“Today is the beginning of the liberation from the European elite, the monster in Brussels.” These are strong words. But they are not surprising coming from Geert Wilders, the leader of the Dutch Party for Freedom and a man known
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Viviane Reding is a woman on a mission. She believes Europe’s major companies are run by an old boys’ network that excludes female colleagues from top jobs. And since Reding is the E.U. commissioner for justice, fundamental rights, and citizenship,
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A nine-year-old boy has caused the simmering tension between Western Europeans and Muslim immigrants to boil over once again. This latest incident has occurred in the Netherlands, which over the past decade has become the poster child for failed Muslim
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The British tabloids couldn’t get enough of it. Photos of Prince William wearing multiple large gold chains, a baggy track suit, a baseball cap, and a menacing sneer on his face were splashed across their front pages. To the British,
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