This month I travelled from Maastricht to Bruges on the day that happened to be the hottest day ever recorded in both Dutch and Belgian meteorological history. As weather experts were explaining how a wave of hot air had moved north from the Sahara across continental Europe, it became clear to most European citizens that heat waves have no borders, with heat records also broken in neighbouring France and Germany. In Maastricht and Bruges, temperatures, as if they had harmonised, were ultimately ...

The UN wants to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. But, as many of us are acutely aware, the SDGs are not only ambitious but also complicated. A kaleidoscope of grand visions, the 2030 Agenda aims to rebuild our world from the ground up, in a work plan covering everything from the environment to education to peace and security. And linked to the 17 goals, there are 169 targets and 230 indicators. For The Economist magazine: “these are ambitions on a Biblical scale and not in a go...

‘Savages, monkeys … go back to the jungle!’ was the ghastly woven prose splashed across my door, the day after I arrived in Belgium. It was 23 August 2002. I was living with my cousin in the heart of the Molenbeek district, now sadly famous for other reasons. ...