The reason the Netherlands Is closing its prisons is staggering, especially for the American reader: there are not enough offenders because of the country's progressive philosophy and best practices it is using.


The Criminal Justice Alliance (CJA), representing over 60 organisations, called for the government to urgently limit "unnecessary use of prison, ensuring it is reserved for serious, persistent and violent offenders for whom no alternative sanction is appropriate".

In 2009, the Dutch justice ministry announced a plan to close eight prisons in the Netherlands. Why? A declining crime rate that is expected to continue. In 2013, a staggering 19 prisons were scheduled to close. Officials have announced they are in the process of cutting 3,500 jobs.

How did they do it?

Primary reasons for fewer offenders and prisoners in the Netherlands include a continued general decline in crime rates, a focus on rehabilitation of offenders, progressive drug laws, and also, those convicted are choosing electronic tagging instead of incarceration.

How to Lead a Coalition and Avoid a Global Conflict

Sergei Glaziev is an Advisor to the President of the Russian Federation, Full Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Summary: The world needs a coalition of sound forces advocating stability - a global anti-war coalition with a positive plan for rearranging the international financial and economic architecture on the principles of mutual benefit, fairness, and respect for national sovereignty.

U.S. actions in Ukraine should be classified not only as hostile with regard to Russia, but also as targeting global destabilization. The U.S. is essentially provoking an international conflict to salvage its geopolitical, financial, and economic authority. The response must be systemic and comprehensive, aimed at exposing and ending U.S. political domination, and, most importantly, at undermining U.S. military-political power based on the printing of dollars as a global currency.

The world needs a coalition of sound forces advocating stability - in essence, a global anti-war coalition with a positive plan for rearranging the international financial and economic architecture on the principles of mutual benefit, fairness, and respect for national sovereignty.

Obama's September 24 speech at the UN is the most absurd thing I have heard in my entire life. It is absolutely amazing that the president of the United States would stand before the entire world and tell what everyone knows are blatant lies while simultaneously demonstrating Washington's double standards and belief that Washington alone, because the US is exceptional and indispensable, has the right to violate all law.

It is even more amazing that every person present did not get up and walk out of the assembly.

The diplomats of the world actually sat there and listened to blatant lies from the world's worst terrorist. They even clapped their approval.

Russia's ambassador to the UN used the word "strange" to describe a speech given by the Ukrainian prime minister at the General Assembly.

Most of Arseny Yatsenyuk's speech, which came last at the first day of UNGA debates, was devoted to criticizing Russia.

Yatsenyuk has urged the General Assembly participants not to lift sanctions imposed on Russia until Kiev regains control over the whole of the Ukrainian territory.

Russia's Foreign Ministry has denounced Romanian PM Victor Ponta's plan to unify Moldova with Romania by 2018 as "inadmissible and irresponsible," and called for all European countries to counter modern expansionism.

Prime Minister Ponta, announced last week that he was entering the race for the Romanian presidency, and said that if elected he would make the unification of Romania and Moldova his main objective.

"We consider it irresponsible and inadmissible to multiply such statements when an election campaign is under way in Moldova. We expect the Chisinau authorities to give an adequate appraisal of these words. We also hold that a reaction must follow from Brussels and other European capitals," the Russian Foreign ministry said in a statement.

Russian diplomats added that authorities in Moscow were concerned how certain Bucharest circles have annexation plans concerning the sovereignty and neutrality of Moldova.

Romanian nationalists have had plans to annex Moldova ever since it emerged as an independent nation in the early 1990s. Bucharest officials introduced a simplified citizenship procedure for Moldovans and thousands of people have already used it, especially after Romanians received the right of visa free travel in the EU.

This year Romania sponsored a national census in Moldova, and the Romanian ambassador told reporters that his country was interested in the number of Moldovans who spoke Romanian and considered themselves Romanians.

Moldova signed an Association Agreement with the EU in June this year and ratified it in July. After this move Moscow warned Chisinau that it would cause a review of trade links between Russia and Moldova. In addition, Russian Deputy PM Dmitry Rogozin said that the agreement violated the basic rights of residents of the Russian-speaking breakaway Republic of Transdniester. Rogozin also promised Russia's fully-fledged support to the region.

In the same speech Rogozin attacked Moldova's pro-EU position, saying that this course was countering "life's natural logic," as about 700,000 Moldovan citizens are now working in Russia as labor migrants, and their earnings are supporting the state budget of their homeland.

At least 14 Islamic State militants and five civilians have been killed in airstrikes carried out by the US-led forces overnight in northeast Syria, according to a monitoring group.

A third night of attacks targeted IS-controlled oil refineries in the east of the country, the location being the major source of income for the radical group, Rami Abdulrahman, the head of the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The facilities around al Mayadin, al Hasakah, and Abu Kamal were hit, according to the US military, as quoted by Reuters.

Attorney General Eric Holder, the first African-American U.S. Attorney General is expected to announce his resignation on Thursday.

NPR reported Thursday morning that Holder intends to leave the Justice Department as soon as his successor is confirmed.

Holder is the fourth longest-serving Attorney General in U.S. history and one of the President Barack Obama's most enduring cabinet appointees. He is apparently eager to leave office, concerned that "he otherwise could be locked in to stay for much of the rest of President Obama's second term," wrote NPR's Carrie Johnson.

Holder's tenure has been marked by controversy as Republicans placed political obstacles in the path of virtually every Obama administration initiative and appointee. However, it was his recent intervention in Ferguson, Missouri and appearance before protesters that is believed to have calmed tensions in the St. Louis suburb.

Deliveries of Russian relief aid for Ukrainian war-torn eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions, which currently face a humanitarian catastrophe, were transparent, a senior executive at the Organization for Cooperation and Security in Europe (OSCE) said on Thursday.

President of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly Ilkka Kanerva, who is currently on a visit to Moscow, said the European organization had always supported humanitarian aid and Russia's assistance delivered by three convoys of trucks was open and understandable.

The OSCE official also said he was surprised with attempts of some countries to politicize the issue of Russian humanitarian aid deliveries to Ukraine.

The day before the Iranian president's address to the UN General Assembly, Israel issued a statement, again accusing the Islamic Republic of allegedly testing technology that could only be used for nuclear bombs.

Based on "highly reliable information," according to the statement from Israeli Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz, Tel Aviv has accused Tehran of using internal neutron sources such as uranium in nuclear implosion tests at the Parchin military complex.


The statement claimed that the tests occurred back in 2000-2001, during the construction of what it called a "nuclear weaponization test site in Parchin."

The rise of violent extremism around the world is the fault of "certain states" and "intelligence agencies" that have helped to create it and are failing to withstand it, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said in an address to the UN General Assembly.

Speaking at the 69th session of the UN General Assembly on Thursday, Rouhani stressed that extremism is not a regional but a global issue, and called on states worldwide to unite against the extremists.

"Certain states have helped to create it, and are now failing to withstand it. Currently our peoples are paying the price," he said. "Certain intelligence agencies have put blades in the hand of the madmen, who now spare no one."

Rouhani also said the current anti-Western sentiment in certain parts of the world was "the offspring of yesterday's colonialism. Today's anti-Westernism is a reaction to yesterday's racism."

The Iranian president urged "all those who have played a role in founding and supporting these terror groups" to acknowledge their mistake.