Back in white Amsterdam after two nice weeks Xmas holidaying with my friend Christiaan in Tipschern, Austria (hardly any snow) I scanned my old Volkskrant newspapers. I read many year – and first decade end lists and stories in the last week of December and forward looking features on global issues that we are confronted with, and not dealing with. And to my pleasure three wise men mentioned in their interviews water as one of the main problems.
In a special page on 31 December with three interviews analysing the first decade of the 21st century two mentioned water. Dominic Moisi, Frech specialist in international affairs and co-founder of IFRI, France’s Pioneer Foreign Policy “think tank” : global warming has become an inevitable security issue, together with its related food and water problems.
Indian author Aravind Adiga whose new book Between the Assassinations I finished reading during Xmas, talked a.o. about the threat to the environment, and more specifically the problems with chronic water shortages in many states of India.
And on 9 January 2010 the elderly European statesmen Jacques Delors in a page-long interview said: “Don’t give aid to Africa, bur give Africa water, so that it can feed itself.” Delors created Notre Europe in 1996, an independent think tank devoted to European integration.
On 15 March 2010 Mr Delors will receive the Peace of Nijmegen Penning.