praca w Europie

Dear Friends of the Foreign Press
Association,
Some news events are so gripping you
never forget where you were when you
first heard about them: The 9/11 attacks,
the murder of filmmaker Theo van Gogh in
November 2004 and, last summer, the
arrest of Radovan Karadzic.
Barely recognizable behind a mess of white hair, spectacles and a huge beard, he
looked more like a lunatic Rasputin than the former ultranationalist Bosnian Serbian leader.
His transfer to the Hague proved that staff at international courts like the ICTY need
the endurance of long distance runners – something Richard Goldstone, the ICTY’s first chief
prosecutor, could confirm when returning to The Hague in spring 2009 as the first Hague
Peace Philosopher. It was Goldstone who had indicted Karadzic 15 years earlier. As he told
members of the FPA during an informal dinner, the arrest of this most wanted alleged war
criminal gave him a very special kind of satisfaction - and we journalists of course a lot of
deadline stress. They were busy times this summer, with Goldstone’s colleague Luis Moreno
Ocampo from the ICC just a couple of weeks earlier having asked for an international arrest
warrant for Sudanese President Omar al Bashir on charges including genocide in Darfur.
International law stories would keep us busy till the end of the year with preparations for the
Lubanga Child soldiers trial that finally got under way in January at the ICC and the
celebration of the 60th anniversary of the Genocide Convention in December.
2009 marks 400 years of trade between Holland and Japan and the arrival four
centuries ago of the Pilgrim Fathers in Leiden, where they stayed until leaving Dutch shores
in 1620 to become the founding fathers of America – even Barack Obama has ancestors
among the Leiden Pilgrims.
And 2009, of course, is the year Amsterdam and New York are celebrating 400 years
of links. Many of us wrote about Henry Hudson leaving Amsterdam one foggy morning in
1609 to look for a shorter sea passage to India, only to discover instead a river which now
bears his name and return home without finding a shortcut to India because the huge
American continent blocked his route.
There was plenty of other news, too: Ahmed Aboutaleb, becoming mayor of
Rotterdam - the first Moslem mayor ever of a major European city; the Afghanistan
Conference in The Hague in spring 2009; and thanks to soccer’s European Championships in
2008 and the euphoric (at least until their team met their match in Russia in the quarterfinals)
Oranje Fans there was so much sports news, that for the first time you find a Sport section in
our year book! I hope you will enjoy those stories, too!
Kerstin Kerstin Schweighöfer
Schweighöfer
Schweighöfer
President