Investigators are looking most closely at engine failure in the crash of a Turkish Airlines 737 into a field near Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam on Wednesday. That has not prevented many other theories from arising. The Turkey Airline Pilots' Association is suggesting that wake turbulence from a Northwest 757 contributed to the crash. Airline pilots elsewhere don't seem to think much of the turbulence theory in their online discussions. They don't believe the 757, which landed two minutes before the crash, was close enough to cause much turbulence for the Turkish Airlines jet. And turbulence doesn't square with some reports that the aircraft dropped nearly vertically from the sky. Because of that vertical drop and reports from passengers that the engine noise suddenly stopped, investigators are looking more closely at engine failure.
A Dutch mayor said Thursday that five Turks and four Americans were killed when a Turkish Airlines jet slammed into a field near Amsterdam's main airport. Also Thursday, officials said they were looking at engine failure as a potential cause of the crash, but that it was only one possibility among several. Haarlemmermeer mayor Theo Weterings said the names of the victims would not be released until the bodies have been formally identified. "The relatives have been informed that the missing person will be dead," he told the Associated Press. "We have arranged some help for them." He also said Thursday that investigators now say 135 passengers and crew were on the flight, not 134 as previously believed, which was one reason it had taken so long to account for the dead.
At the crash site Thursday, investigators took detailed photos of the wreckage, trying to piece together why the plane lost speed and crashed. On Wednesday, Jim Proulx, a Boeing spokesman in Seattle, identified four Boeing employees on the flight as Ronald A. Richey, John Salman, Ricky E. Wilson and Michael T. Hemmer. Proulx said they are from the Puget Sound area of Washington state, and were traveling on company business. Boeing could not immediately be reached Thursday for a reaction or say whether any or all of its employees were among the dead. The head of the agency investigating the accident said Thursday engine trouble might have been to blame for the crash.
Turkish Airlines issued a statement Thursday denying reports that the plane had had technical problems in the days before the accident. It confirmed the plane had undergone routine maintenance on Feb. 19, and that it had to delay a flight Feb. 23 to replace a faulty caution light. A retired pilot who listened to a radio exchange between air traffic controllers and the aircraft shortly before the crash said he didn't hear anything unusual. "Everything appeared normal," said Joe Mazzone, a former Delta Air Lines captain. "They were given clearance to descend to 7,000 feet." The recording was posted by the Web site LiveATC.net, which captures air traffic exchanges by monitoring scanners near airports.
A Turkish Airlines plane carrying 135 people slammed into a muddy field while attempting to land at Amsterdam's main airport in misty weather Wednesday. Nine people were killed and more than 50 were injured, many seriously, officials said. The Boeing 737-800, en route from Istanbul to Amsterdam, broke into three pieces when it hit the ground short of a runway at Schiphol Airport at 1031 a.m. (0931 GMT, 0431 EST). The fuselage split in two, close to the cockpit, and the tail broke off. The crash site is about two miles (three kilometers) from the runway. A spokesman for investigators said two pilots and an apprentice pilot were among the dead and confirmed that the stricken plane's flight data recorders had been found and were to be analyzed by experts.
Turkish Transport Minister Binali Yildirim said it was "a miracle" there were not more casualties. "The fact that the plane landed on a soft surface and that there was no fire helped keep the number of fatalities low," he said. Experts said that might also have helped avert a fire resulting from ruptured fuel tanks and lines on the underside of the fuselage, which appeared to have suffered very heavy impact damage. Having reached its destination, the plane would have used up a major portion of its fuel. At first, the airline said everyone survived. But at a news conference later, Michel Bezuijen, acting mayor of Haarlemmermeer, reported the fatalities. "At this moment there are nine victims to mourn and more than 50 injured," he said. At least 25 of the injured were in serious condition and crew members were among those hurt. A spokeswoman for local health authorities, Mieke Van der Zande, said six of the injured were in critical condition, 25 were seriously wounded and 24 had slight injuries. Survivors were taken to 11 hospitals including an emergency field hospital set up by the military in the central city of Utrecht.
More at the Associated Press
Thursday in NYC, Dutch design collective Droog will open its first U.S. store, following earlier shops in Tokyo and Amsterdam. The space is huge—5,000 square feet—and has a striking centerpiece: the House of Blue, a mostly foam structure created by Rotterdam architecture firm Studio Makkink & Bey. It's both a showroom and a model; interested parties can purchase the design and have it customized from whatever materials they choose. (Price, of course, will vary.) For those in search of humbler (or at least smaller) offerings, there are also coffee-table books, Chris Kabel's witty Sticky Lamps, and the last edition of Mario Minale's Red-blue Lego chair. The space will also host events, including a fashion show in September.
When I'm updating my guidebooks, one of my favorite places to visit is rollicking Amsterdam. This Dutch metropolis is ever changing and ever crowded with fun-loving sightseers. Throughout the year, visitors line up to see its three top sights: the Van Gogh Museum, the Rijksmuseum (with Rembrandts, Vermeers and more) and the compelling Anne Frank House. The lines at the sights are generally for buying tickets rather than getting in. To avoid the wait, buy tickets online on the museum Web sites.
If you want to complement your Dutch art appreciation with some Dutch alcohol appreciation, gin drinkers can learn the fine points, create their own blend, then have a bartender mix it on the spot at the new House of Bols: Cocktail & Genever Experience. This distillery, designed to give tourists an appreciation of Dutch gin, just opened across the street from the Van Gogh Museum. (A few blocks away, beer lovers can soak up the recently reopened Heineken Experience, at the site of the former Heineken brewery.) On sunny summer days, the Rijksmuseum offers a fun "lunch-box-with-a-blanket-in-the-park" deal (about $17 with museum entry, or about $6 for just the boxed lunch and a loaner blanket). There are plenty of picnic spots on the pleasant museum grounds between the Rijks and Van Gogh museums. Across town, on the parklike square called the Rembrandtplein, you can experience Rembrandt's masterpiece, "The Night Watch," in 3-D by checking out a new kid-friendly statue based on the painting.
If inspired by your visit to the Anne Frank House, buy its new pamphlet, "Persecution and Resistance in Amsterdam" (75 cents), which leads you on a self-guided walk to the Dutch Resistance Museum and its impressive World War II exhibits. The Royal Palace on Amsterdam's Dam Square reopens to the public in June after three years of extensive renovations. When constructed in 1648, this sumptuous building was one of Europe's finest. Today it's the official (though not actual) residence of Queen Beatrix (she lives in The Hague).
The Netherlands has been regarded as the cycling nation since before World War II. In a 1938 newspaper article, the bicycle was dubbed "the most Dutch of all vehicles." Decades since, bike infatuation still appears to be on the rise. In Amsterdam, residents now choose bicycles rather than automobiles for more of their trips, according to a recent study. Between 2005 and 2007, Amsterdam residents rode their bicycle 0.87 times a day on average, compared to 0.84 trips by automobile.
The high level of cycling is an accomplishment for the Dutch capital, but not a great surprise considering Amsterdam's long-held love affair with bicycles, said Ralph Buehler, an international urban affairs professor at Virginia Tech University. "It's the result of the policies they have implemented over the past 30 years to make bicycle use more attractive and safe, etc, while also implementing policies for car use in the city to be more inconvenient, stressful, and less attractive," Buehler said. "Even the queen bicycles." Among Western nations, cycling is most popular in the Netherlands. Nearly 30 percent of Dutch commuters always travel by bicycle, and an additional 40 percent sometimes bike to work.
The high level of bicycle ridership in Amsterdam is due to a variety of bike-friendly transportation policies. The city boasts an extensive system of bicycle paths that allow riders to bypass traffic signals and shortcut through neighborhoods. Residential neighborhoods restrict speed limits to 30 kilometers per hour to improve safety. Bike parking facilities are located citywide, while vehicle parking downtown is highly restricted. The Netherlands plans to spend about 70 million Euros on bicycling projects in Amsterdam between 2007 and 2010 - an average of 13 Euros per city resident.
This weekend sees carnival celebrations in many countries all over the world. The scenes of scantily clad female dancers and drum bands in the streets of Rio de Janeiro are perhaps the most recognisable images of the more exotic carnival celebrations. In The Netherlands, the carnival traditions are somewhat different. Despite the credit crisis, the party spirit is stronger than ever.
In The Netherlands, carnival is celebrated most in the southern provinces of Limburg and Brabant, which are mostly Catholic. Children and adults walk around in fancy dress, taking part in street parades with floats of abundantly decorated trucks and obeying to the rules by the local Prince Carnival and his ‘Raad van Elf' (‘Council of Eleven'). The number of councillors refers to the tradition that eleven is the number of foolishness. Most cities are temporarily given obscure names, often taken from old dialects. Den Bosch, the largest city of Brabant for instance, is known as Oeteldonk during carnival season, meaning ‘swamp' in old Brabants. Once it is renamed, the city gives itself over to an anything-goes atmosphere.
Carnival celebrations also mean happy times for many café and bar owners, as beer consumption spirals. However, a request from the Dutch society of bar and café owners to relax the much talked about smoking ban over carnival, has fallen on deaf ears by the Dutch Ministry of Health. In fact, the Food and Consumer Products Safety Authority has announced its inspectors will dress up as carnival goers to check whether cafes and bars adhere to the ban.
The Netherlands and New York are going Dutch on a dramatic public hub to be built for this year's NY400 celebration, which will commemorate the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson's arrival in New York Harbor. UNStudio principal Ben van Berkel, one of Holland's most prominent architects. will design the 5,000-square-foot New Amsterdam Plein & Pavilion. It will be located on the Battery, the 25-acre park overlooking New York Harbor that was the arrival site for Dutch settlers when they arrived at the tip of Manhattan Island in 1626 to form New Amsterdam.
Van Berkel's design calls for a flower-shaped pavilion within the Battery's Peter Minuit Plaza, named for the Dutch director-general who consolidated early settlements at the tip of Manhattan in 1626. A carved stone map of Castello's New Amsterdam will be placed at the entrance to the Plein, while its open space will feature UNStudio-designed tables and chairs. The structure will also be equipped with an electronic LED façade that will project a constantly changing nocturnal light show.
"It is our hope that New Amsterdam Plein & Pavilion will become a permanent Dutch legacy in New York City, and a nod to the future as well as our shared history," says Gajus Schitema, consul general of the Netherlands in New York. "It marks the celebration of 400 years of friendship between our nation and this great American metropolis."
The New Amsterdam Trail
To make historic Dutch Manhattan come alive for the greatest number of people, Henry Hudson 400, with the Dutch National Archives and the National Parks of New York Harbor Conservancy at Federal Hall, have joined forces to create the multi-platform, self-guided walking tour, The New Amsterdam Trail. The New Amsterdam Trail may be accessed in a number of ways. It may be downloaded to a handheld mobile device for a self-guided walk or experienced online as an interactive, virtual tour [LINK]. The tour is also available as a printed brochure available at tourist sites around the city.
The Trail's entertaining and informative narration is provided by Russell Shorto, author of the bestselling history, "The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony That Shaped America." Shorto's encyclopedic knowledge of the geography and history of the Dutch settlement evocatively bring the contours and personalities of those who lived there to life. Tours include a stop at these historic locations:
- New York Harbor, with speculation as to where exactly Hudson dropped anchor
- Pearl Street, site of the city's first church, and row houses looking onto the harbor
- Houses of the settlement's little-known antagonists, and their dramatic stories
- The former location of the Stadhuys (City Hall) at Coenties Slip
- Broad and Bridge Streets, site of the one bridge across what is now Canal Street
- Fort Amsterdam, later the U.S. Customs House and now the site of the Museum of the American Indian
- The bowery (farm) of Peter Stuyvesant
- The Singel, the northern limit of Dutch Manhattan
The New Amsterdam Trail is a history walk that many will want to experience, charted along busy streets, illuminating the presence of the Dutch in the landmarks, architecture, monuments, former sites and street names of lower Manhattan.
When Miep Gies rescued a jumble of notebooks and papers from an Amsterdam attic in August 1944, she had no idea that she was creating a literary, and historical, phenomenon. She thought that she was preserving the precious diary of a 15-year-old girl, who would be overjoyed to rediscover her "old friend" when she returned "after the war". Anne Frank never returned. Her private diary went on to become the most read book in the world, second only to the Bible. Her one-time "helper", Miep Gies, will be 100 years old tomorrow and is still living in Amsterdam, the last survivor of the the small band of Dutch people who helped the Franks, together with another Jewish family who shared the attic, to hide from the Nazis for two years before they were betrayed. Ms Gies, who has devoted her life to commemorating the Holocaust and the Frank family, has asked not to be disturbed on her 100th birthday.
In a brief email exchange with Associated Press this week, she also requested that she should not be remembered as a heroine or as someone who did something exceptional. "This is very unfair. So many others have done the same or even far more dangerous work," she wrote. She said she would like the world to dwell instead on the many "unnamed heroes" who helped a small percentage of Dutch Jews to escape deportment and death in the Nazi camps. "I would like to name one, my husband Jan," she wrote. "He was a resistance man who said nothing but did a lot. During the war he refused to say anything about his work, only that he might not come back one night. People like him existed in thousands but were never heard."
In an internet interview in 1997 with schoolchildren all over the world, Ms Gies remembered the frail, noisy, friendly, inquisitive teenage girl she had tried to rescue. "Anne was the one asking me questions all the time, particularly about what was going on in the world outside the hiding-place ... I was 20 years older than she was, but it was like talking to a much older person than a teenager." Ms Gies told her young questioners of her "tremendous disappointment" that her "friends" should have been arrested "so close to the end of the war" when the Allies were "less than 250 miles from Amsterdam". In another interview, in 2000, Ms Gies said that she was sometimes asked how she would respond to people who denied that the Nazi genocide had occurred. She said: "My response is that on 4 August, 1944, at nine o’clock in the morning, I did meet a healthy and strong 15-year-old girl, Anne Frank. The next thing I saw was her name in a German list of people on a cattle train to Auschwitz."
A member of the Dutch Parliament who has compared the Koran to Hitler's "Mein Kampf" and blamed Islamic texts for inciting the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and other terrorist atrocities was detained by immigration officials at London Heathrow Airport on Thursday and forced within hours to board a return flight to Holland. His deportation had been ordered by Home Secretary Jacqui Smith on the grounds that his presence in Britain would be a danger to public safety. The lawmaker, Geert Wilders, 45, had been invited to a showing at the House of Lords later Thursday of his 17-minute film, "Fitna," which caused outrage in wide areas of the Muslim world last year after it appeared on the Internet.
As he had planned, Wilders's deportation - an action that British officials said had taken place only three times previously in the case of a citizen from another European Union country who was not wanted in a criminal case - attracted widespread publicity. Although informed of the Home Office ban by the British Embassy in The Hague this week, Wilders boarded a flight at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam in the company of a posse of reporters and cameramen. He arrived at Heathrow to the accompaniment of live television coverage by Britain's main news channels.
11 February 2009
A Dutch member of parliament facing prosecution because of his anti-Islam remarks said on Tuesday that Britain had refused him entry to the country as a threat to public security. Geert Wilders had wanted to show a short film, "Fitna," which accuses the Koran of inciting violence, in the British parliament, but said the British authorities had told him he was excluded from the country. "The secretary of state (minister) is satisfied that your statements about Muslims and their beliefs, as expressed in your film "Fitna" and elsewhere, would threaten community harmony and therefore public security in the United Kingdom," Wilders told Dutch television a letter he had received from the British government said.
Wilders faces prosecution by an Amsterdam court for inciting hatred and discrimination. Britain's Home Office (interior ministry) declined to comment on Wilders' exclusion, but a spokeswoman said the government opposed all forms of extremism.
09 February 2009
The state's fragile coastline and intricate levee protection system may be 5,000 miles away from the Netherlands, but this week, a South Louisiana delegation is hoping to bridge that distance. "How you live in a delta is very unique, just like these other places," said Windell Curole with the South Lafourche and Terrebonne Levee District. Curole is part of a three-person team heading to Amsterdam, for an international conference on coastal erosion and delta protection. The delegation includes Col. Al Lee of the Army Corps of Engineers. "It's really to get some dialogue and interchange of ideas on how other countries, other companies, academia, engineers, are meeting some of the challenges other places face around the world," Lee said. "It's important that we see, as much as we can, that they match our interests, match the federal interests to the state and local interests," Curole said.
The Louisiana-Netherlands connection is nothing new: an active exchange between experts from both areas has been ongoing since before Hurricane Katrina. "We have incorporated some of the things, lessons learned, that the Dutch have-- [and] worked that into the hurricane system in Louisiana, especially in New Orleans," Lee said. More recently, this past October, a group of Dutch flood control experts made a series of presentations at Tulane University, called the "Dutch Dialogues."
During the 17th century, the Dutch had every reason to be proud of their republic. These tulip-crazed folks led Europe in banking, trading, cartography and book printing. Their thriving economy spurred urban expansion with town halls, markets and houses built along newly dug canals. Artworks heralded the civic accomplishments of this Dutch golden age in a new genre, the cityscape. These architecture-centered works are celebrated in a tightly focused exhibit at the National Gallery of Art where four dozen paintings are displayed alongside 23 maps, atlases and illustrated books. As in the museum's recent Jan Lievens retrospective, curator Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. casts Dutch art of the 1600s in a new light. Familiar painters of domesticity, including Pieter de Hooch, Jan Steen and even Johannes Vermeer, are linked in his catalog essay as keenly interested in civic spaces as well as private domains. Sadly, Vermeer's stunning "View of Delft" is not part of the current show, which opened last fall at the Mauritshuis, the Royal Picture Gallery in The Hague.
This shifting perspective provides a window into important mercantile and governmental centers, including Amsterdam, Delft, Dordrecht, The Hague and Utrecht. These cities vied with one another to have their urban portraits painted by leading Dutch landscape and marine artists who came to invent the cityscape genre. For the town hall of Hoorn, artist Hendrick Vroom depicted the port in a similar manner but from the harbor to reflect the importance of trade to its economy. Vroom's painstakingly painted view of Delft from 1615 is one of the first cityscapes to be commissioned in the Netherlands.
When Her Majesty Queen Beatrix "by the Grace of God Queen of the Netherlands" celebrated her 70th birthday earlier this year, the Dutch press was feverish with speculation about whether she would abdicate. However, the birthday came and went and there's still no sign that the monarch is going to retire, thus giving her oldest son, Prince Willem-Alexander, and her daughter-in-law, Princess Maxima, more time to prepare for their eventual takeover of the throne. Prince Willem-Alexander and Princess Maxima have three daughters, Princess Catharina-Amalia, 5, Princess Alexia, 3, and Princess Ariane, 1.
The couple met at a party in Seville, Spain, and the prince had introduced himself only as Alexander. Maxima, who did not know him, reportedly just laughed when he later told her that he was a prince. Maxima, a trained economist, worked for Deutsche Bank in New York before tying the knot. She is an active member of the United Nations Advisors Group on Inclusive Financial Sectors, a group whose goal is to halve world poverty by 2015. Some royal watchers believe the queen is now getting ready to let her son take over. "Everything is being prepared for her to retire. The Royal Palace in Amsterdam, where abdications are signed, is being renovated and Drakensteyn Castle, where the Queen will live when she's retired, is also being tidied up."
But a spokesperson for the Royal House told ABC News, "The only person who knows when she will step down is her majesty, the queen. And she's not telling anyone of her plans yet."
Drilling tunnels beneath the wooden pillars that support one of Europe’s oldest cities sounds mad. Yet this is what Amsterdam decided to do in 2002, when it chose to build a new metro line. The line starts in the north and heads south under the Ij river, the central station, Dam Square and Rokin. For six years, the area south of the station has been a huge construction site. Deadlines have stretched; the budget has doubled, from €1 billion ($1.3 billion) to €2 billion.
The metro is a sore point in local politics. In the 1970s planners tore down one of Amsterdam’s oldest quarters in the east to build a line between the central station and the suburb of Bijlmer. Local residents fought fiercely to save parts of their old city. Atop the metro today is one of the city’s worst eyesores: a four-lane highway known locally as Stalin Alley. That trauma kept the city’s metro ambitions in check for 20 years. Yet the number of commuters has risen to 1.3m, almost twice the city’s population. The centre is chronically clogged with trams, cyclists, tourists and taxi-drivers.
Drilling technology has improved, allowing tunnels to be dug without breaking the surface. Only the stations were built at first. This year, a huge circular bore is to be lowered into a layer of sand deep beneath the city, where it will drill a tunnel to link them. The hope was that this would not disturb the thousands of wooden pillars on which the city rests. Along the route lie such landmarks as the 1903 stock exchange, several high-end shops, the royal palace on the Dam and houses from the 17th century. A system of sensors and mirrors would signal the tiniest sinking—in theory. Yet last summer several houses along the route suddenly sank a few centimetres without warning. Their occupants, alerted by the cracking, escaped through windows. All underground work was halted. A special commission said construction work was substandard and suggested that it should proceed only if the ground were frozen, which would increase costs. The ombudsman criticised the city for its poor supervision.
03 February 2009
Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende ordered on Monday an independent commission to examine the government's decision to support the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. The Netherlands did not send troops into Iraq but supported the U.S. push to invade Iraq because of the threat of weapons of mass destruction, which was later found to be unjustified. Dutch critics of the war say the government put the country, which is hosts several international courts, at legal risk.
The commission, headed by former chief of the Dutch Supreme Court Willibrord Davids, will investigate whether the government heeded findings from its own lawyers over the legality of the invasion. The commission is due to release its report in November.
An extensive list of events surrounding the celebration of the 400th anniversary of New York at NYCgo.com
A trip to NYC has always been an adventure—perhaps even more so back in 1609, when Henry Hudson and his crew aboard the Dutch vessel Halve Maen explored what became New Amsterdam (and later New York). They were a diverse group of traders in search of economic and personal liberty, and their legacy lives on in the optimism, freedom and innovation of today's New York. It's only appropriate, then, that NYC and the Netherlands have planned a number of exciting events to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Hudson's arrival. The festivities will begin in March and continue throughout the year, with a special emphasis on NYC 400 Week, September 8–13, and the New Amsterdam Plein & Pavilion, a gift from the Netherlands, designed by Ben van Berkel, to be unveiled in Battery Park in late 2009.
» Dutch Iraqi pleads guilty in US
An Iraqi-born Dutch suspect accused of planting roadside bombs in Iraq has pleaded guilty at his US trial. Wesam al-Delaema, who was extradited from the Netherlands two years ago, is the first suspected Iraq insurgent to be tried in the US. He agreed to a 25-year prison sentence on charges of conspiracy to murder Americans outside the US, the Associated Press news agency reported. Mr Delaema was arrested in May 2005 in the Dutch city of Amersfoort following a tip-off from US authorities. In Dutch court hearings, he argued that he was kidnapped and forced to make the video on pain of death. To secure his extradition, the US gave assurances that he would be tried in a federal court, not by a military commission, and could serve any sentence in the Netherlands.
More at BBC Newscomments | ¶
» Making Killzone 2 proved too much for Amsterdam's power supply
Killzone 2 looks set to be the biggest, loudest thing to yet land on the PS3. But did you know it's so big, and so loud, that Amsterdam's power supply couldn't cope with its development? As the game's production drew to a close, developers Guerrilla - who are based in the Dutch capital - saw their team size swell from around 45 employees to around 200. And the poor old power system running through their block in Amsterdam couldn't cope with all the extra juice all those extra computers were sucking down. Sony forked out for a diesel generator to be brought in, so that Guerilla weren't forced to develop via candlelight and pedal-power.
From Kotaku.comcomments | ¶
» Dutch pub hit with first smoking ban fin
A pub in the Dutch city of Groningen has become the first to be convicted and fined under the Netherlands' new smoking ban law, a lawyer says. Attorney Manuel Bloch, who represents the De Kachel pub, said he would appeal the conviction and fine of more than $1,500 against the bar, Radio Netherlands said Friday. Bloch alleges the ban on smoking in Dutch bars, cafes and restaurants is in direct violation of the country's Tobacco Act. The lawyer also claims Health Minister Ab Klink does not have the authority to implement such directives.
More at UPIcomments | ¶
» The Dutch economy expected to contract 3.5% in 2009
The Dutch economy is expected to contract 3.5 percent in 2009 amid a worsening economic outlook for the region and the globe, the government's macro-economic think tank CPB said on Tuesday. The projected decline, the first full-year recession since 1982, comes after growth figures released last week showed Dutch gross domestic product (GDP) shrank by 0.9 percent in the last three months of 2008 from the previous quarter. The CPB said the forecast contraction in 2009 in the Dutch economy, the euro zone's fifth largest, is slightly more negative than its previous forecast in December due to the 'strongly deteriorating international picture'. Inflation is seen at 1 percent in 2009, down from the previous forecast of 1.5 percent. The forecast for 2010 was unchanged at 1 percent.
More at Forbes.comcomments | ¶
» Dutch city fears loss of pornography archive
Officials in the Dutch city of Leeuwarden say the municipal pornography archive is missing and they fear it may be lost for good or stolen. Spokesman Erik Krikke of the city's historical center says the archive — which contained photos, drawings and erotic texts with a connection to the city — may have been taken home by an employee or visitor. "We're hoping that someone will say 'Hey, I have that in my attic' and bring it back," he said Thursday. "No questions asked." Krikke said the collection was small enough to have fit in a moving box. Mayor Ferd Crone of Leeuwarden, 140 kilometers (87 miles) north of Amsterdam, told local media he was unaware of the collection's existence and was surprised it was gone. Associated Presscomments | ¶
» Somali 'pirates' face Dutch court
Five suspected Somali pirates are to appear in a Netherlands court over an alleged foiled attack on a ship in the Gulf of Aden, say Dutch prosecutors. They were extradited after being arrested by the Danish Navy following a 2 January attempt to board a Dutch Antilles-registered cargo freighter. The Samanyulo's crew kept the gang at bay with signal flares until a naval frigate came to sink the pirates' boat. The accused risk up to nine years in jail if found guilty. A Rotterdam magistrate will decide on Wednesday whether to remand them in custody for more two weeks, the Dutch Public Prosecution Office said.
More at BBC Newscomments | ¶
» Software glitch leads to 5-cent gas in Dutch town
An unmanned gas station began offering customers gas for 1 euro cent per liter (five US cents a gallon) — a discount of more than 99 percent — due to a glitch that occurred around midnight. Most people were home in bed, so it could have been worse," Piet-Hein Bogaers, director of the company that operates the station in the Dutch town of Genderen, Vollenhoven Olie BV, said Monday. As word of the deal spread, business boomed at the station, 100 kilometers (60 miles) southeast of Amsterdam. Bogaers said that, by the time the mistake was fixed Saturday morning, customers were lined up to buy gas. Many had even called to alert the company.
More at AP Newscomments | ¶
» Netherlands' worst neighbourhood is in Amsterdam
The worst neighbourhood in the Netherlands is in the capital Amsterdam. According to television news programme RTL nieuws the Kolenkit neighbourhood in west Amsterdam heads a list of twenty neighbourhoods in the Netherlands with the worst social-economic problems. In 2007, the programme went to court to force then Housing Minister Ella Vogelaar to release a list of 40 problem neighbourhoods. The minister did not want the list released because the neighbourhoods had been ordered according to the severity of the problems they faced. Ms Vogelaar feared that the publication of the list would stigmatise the areas. The Council of State ruled that the list could remain secret, but in the end RTL Nieuws received a copy of the top 20 from the Planning Ministry. Neighbourhoods in Rotterdam dominate the top of the list, coming in second, third and forth position. Ondiep in Utrecht is the fifth worst neighbourhood in the country.
More at Radio Netherlandscomments | ¶
» Dutch team up for FTTH expansion
While some other European countries appear clueless about how to enable a next-generation broadband society, the Dutch are showing the way with a collaborative effort that includes an existing open access municipal network and the incumbent operator, KPN Telecom. The City of Amsterdam first approved the point-to-point fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) network in January 2006, at which time it became one of the financiers (...).
Three years on, and the muni rollout has reached 43,000 homes in the Dutch capital, and is ready to start the next stage of construction, which will take the number of homes passed to 100,000. Local politicians leave no doubt as to how important they see the development of high-speed broadband access. "I expect the expansion of the open fiber network to have far-reaching positive implications for Amsterdam's development," noted Amsterdam's Mayor, Job Cohen, in a statement released by the city's authorities. "Today, like energy and water supply broadband is an essential necessity that should be accessible to all." Maarten Van Poelgeest, an Amsterdam Alderman, added: "Fast networks are important for the future of the city of Amsterdam. We want our citizens to be offered the best in telecare, e-Health, distance learning and teleworking. As the construction of this fiber network will take quite a few years the right time to start is now."
Read the entire article at Light Readingcomments | ¶
» Amsterdam Seaports do better than forecast
The joint Seaports of Amsterdam have grown more in the past year than originally predicted. Just a month ago, the estimate for transhipment was four percent up on the year before. In fact, the figure for 2008 is twice that amount. The Seaports of Amsterdam consist of the ports of Velsen-IJmuiden, Beverwijk, Zaanstad and Amsterdam. When provisional figures for 2008 were presented in January, the results for November and December were still not definite. However, those two months turned out particularly well.
From Radio Netherlandscomments | ¶
