DEAR READER

The Da Vinci Code, there are people who genuinely believe that Jesus was married and had children. The alien lizard theory propagated by David Icke stems directly from the 1980s science fiction series V. Aliens that look like humans, but are actually scary reptiles.”

“Not really. As president of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki halted the use of HIV inhibitors from the West because they were said to be toxic. And what about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, for which no evidence was ever found? That said, with Trump we do seem to have reached a new level of state-propagated conspiracy theories the likes of which we have not seen in recent memory.”

“Oh, definitely. The Flat Earth movement, for example. They dream up all kinds of experiments to prove that the Earth is flat, which inevitably fail because the Earth is round. But conspiracy theories are a serious matter and can have serious consequences. What you believe determines how you act. A little boy who is convinced there’s a monster under his bed won’t be able to sleep. If you think the pharmaceutical industry wants to put a chip in your body, you will refuse vaccinations and that will impact public health. The same applies to climate change and the treatment of minorities. Conspiracy theories can have a destabilizing effect on societies and become a source of conflict.”

Are you okay, given the circumstances? It’s a strange period, of hard work and looking for new ways to get everything done. This also applies to the editors of Ad Valvas. In the past six months, with a deserted campus, we did not produce magazines. Now there is a tentative restart, with three magazines until the end of the year.

Online we are all the more active: every day we bring news, interviews, opinions and background stories about everything that is happening at VU Amsterdam.

The good news is that we are finally starting with English-language journalism, online on www.advalvas.vu.nl/en and in our magazines.

We rarely meet now, but we keep our eyes, ears, mailbox and webcams open: please keep feeding us your ideas, news and experiences that you think deserve our journalistic attention. And students and staff with journalistic ambition and English as their mother tongue: we can use your help with this!

See you soon, Marieke Schilp, editor in chief

Young graduates hit hard by contracting economy

With the economy in a represented in this group. Many have a slump caused by the part-time job.” coronavirus crisis, Now the figures for the second quarter unemployment have been published, it is clear what among young the downward trend means for young graduates and job seekers in possession of a higher students has education degree. In the second quarter increased. “These are not fun times of 2019, the unemployment rate among for young people looking for work,” recent graduates between 20 and 25 says Peter Hein van Mulligen, the chief years old was just 2.8 percent. This year it economist of Statistics Netherlands. has shot up to 6.6 percent. The national “Their employment opportunities are statistical office includes in this group generally very closely linked to the anyone looking for a job yet who cannot economic situation.” find one, even if it is only for a few hours

Unemployment is rising among per week. (HOP) people on temporary contracts in particular, he explains. “And young The full article is on advalvasvu.nl> people are disproportionately English>news>20 August