A collaboration between Dutch and Sierra Leonean midwives is facing closure due to a lack of funding. The twinning programme between the Sierra Leone Midwives Association (SLMA) and the Royal Dutch Organisation of Midwives (KNOV) is aimed at implementing innovative projects to reduce the maternal mortality rate in Sierra Leone.

Corruption can make people very rich. But those who engage in it should know that, one day, they will be unable to find peace anywhere under the sun. Corruption and other politicians' crimes might sometimes look harmless and unthreatening from the outside. It's easy to commit small crimes without ever getting caught, and someone can perpetuate small dishonesties throughout a lifetime, justifying them with all kinds of faulty reasoning. But deep inside, he knows that he has committed a transgression.

As Syria teeters on the verge of full-blown civil war, and the UN is either unwilling or unable to intervene, pressure is mounting on Turkey to create a buffer zone on its border – not least from the Syrian refugees living in camps on the Turkish border.

Het Nederlands is een nogal moeilijke taal, daar valt niet over te twisten. Het is een wereldwijd bekend feit, vooral sinds James Boswell, de eerste Nederlandse allochtoon, dat besefte en daarom een heel instituut in Utrecht oprichtte. Om de fijne kneepjes van deze taal aan buitenlanders te leren natuurlijk.

Since the end of the Cold War in 1989, European relations with African countries have been characterized as lukewarm. The Institute for Security Studies in South Africa, for example notes that some European countries are in the habit of helping countries that had been under their colonial rule, whereas others shy away completely, telling their former colonies, "Manage your own affairs." Based on these precepts, European initiatives to create conditions for security on the continent can be viewed as divisive.

A stranger from an unfamiliar country is coming to live near you. Neither you nor he can deny this destiny. Over the last few years, the Dutch government has been trying to reduce the rate of asylum requests to the Netherlands and has been sending asylum seekers back to their home countries against their will. But exiled Bhutanese nationals are being welcomed to the Netherlands, although what they want is help to go back home. Those who are currently living in the Netherlands are asking themselves whether it's an extended exile or a new home. Nanda Gautam gives an insight into a forcibly exiled minority from a country we in the West are told is the happiest nation in the world.

It could sound a bit scary, but it is not so. Thus, I'm just telling a story about my flight on a line between Washington Dulles – Chicago O'Hare in October 2001 and about the pilot who made warm and patriotic speeches.

'Hé jij, Zwarte Piet!' is wat sommige kinderen met een donkere huidskleur wel eens naar het hoofd geslingerd krijgen. Voor het gemiddelde kind is Sinterklaas een leuk feest, voor anderen een ware hel. Drie Afro-Nederlanders vertellen wat zij elk jaar als kind ervaarden. 'Terugschelden verlichtte de pijn.'

Het mag paradoxaal klinken, maar de gedachte aan mijn eigen eindigheid lijkt moeilijker te accepteren dan het simpele besef dat je in de oorlog een 'eigen' kogel of 'eigen' granaat wacht. Maar in Sarajevo was het zo: voor iedereen was minstens één kogel of granaatscherf gereserveerd.

Welke rol spelen vrouwen in de Arabische revolutie? De Marokkaanse Vrouwen Vereniging Nederland (MVVN) boog zich vrijdag, 14 oktober hierover. Zijn het slachtoffers of leiders? Voor dagvoorzitter Karima Belhaj is het duidelijk. "Het zijn leeuwinnen."