A Dutch court has ruled that a 14-year-old girl is not yet experienced enough to set off on a record-breaking solo sailing trip around the world. The juvenile court extended the guardianship of child protection authorities over Laura Dekker until next July. The ruling on Friday means Laura can keep living with her father but her parents must consult child protection authorities about all major decisions in her life and she cannot begin her planned solo trip. Judges said plans to ensure Laura's safety on the voyage were insufficient for them to let her set sail.
Two Dutch parliamentary parties have requested an urgent debate over the Crown Prince's holiday home in Mozambique. The calls from the Democrats D66 and the Green Left come in response to reports in daily newspaper NRC Handelsblad concerning the foundation which is representing Prince Willem-Alexander's interests in the project. The foundation was set up to so that the prince and his wife Máxima would not be directly involved with the parties which are constructing the exclusive holiday homes. The paper reports that the chairperson of the foundation is one of the investors in the project, which has raised doubts about the foundation's ability to act independently.
The holiday home has been the subject of controversy before because of rumours of corruption and intimidation.
An 88-year-old former member of Adolf Hitler's fanatical Waffen SS went on trial Wednesday on three counts of murder for the wartime hit-style killings of three civilians in the Netherlands. Heinrich Boere admitted to the three killings to Dutch authorities when he was in captivity after the war but has managed to avoid prosecution for decades — first escaping from the Netherlands before he could be brought to trial, then successfully eluding the courts in Germany. Cries of "Nazis get out, no fascists here" broke out in the court room as two skinheads, wearing black neo-Nazi-styled garb entered and took seats in the back. After a few minutes, everybody settled down and the trial began. Teun de Groot, the son of one of Boere's victims and a co-plaintiff, stared long and hard at Boere, who sat across the room in his wheelchair. Ahead of the trial's start, de Groot had told reporters that he hoped Boere would be convicted.
Boere faces the possibility of spending the rest of his life in prison if convicted of the 1944 killings of a bicycle-shop owner, a pharmacist and another civilian while part of an SS death squad codenamed "Silbertanne," or "Silver Pine." The son of a Dutch man and German woman, Boere was 18 when he joined the SS at the end of 1940, only months after German forces had overrun his hometown of Maastricht and the rest of the Netherlands. After fighting on the Russian front, Boere ended up back in Holland as part of "Silbertanne" — a unit of largely of Dutch SS volunteers like himself tasked with reprisal killings of their countrymen for resistance attacks on collaborators. In statements after the war to Dutch authorities, which are expected to form the basis for the prosecution's case, Boere detailed the killings, almost shot-by-shot. Boere's attorneys have declined to say how they will try to counter the confession, but could try to argue that their client was simply following orders.
Early one evening Helena van Gelder heard bricks falling. Minutes later, she and her three young sons were standing outside their 17th-century home, watching it sink eight inches within hours. It was a terrible shock, but the family living on Amsterdam's Vijzelgracht thoroughfare was merely the latest casualty of a tunnel that has been the city's 3 billion euro ($4.5 billion) headache for seven years. Years behind schedule and so over-budget officials have abandoned hope it can recoup the cost of construction, the new metro project is wrecking historic buildings as it cuts through spongy sand and water more than 30 metres below sea-level.
Built to house a rapid transit system aimed at connecting business in the north and south of the city and relieving overcrowding, for now the subway is a gash through the city and risks joining history's great construction fiascos. No-one has died in the project so far, unlike the 195 killed during construction of the Hoosac tunnel in Massachussetts before it finally opened in 1876 - at a cost seven times original estimates, according to the North Adams Public Library. The Dutch project's cost is still less than the estimated 10 billion pounds poured in the 1990s into the Channel Tunnel between Britain and the European continent - that was double the original estimate.
Costs incurred so far on the tunnel already total 1.1 billion euros or 1,419 euros per resident: an additional 600 million would have to be paid in fees if contracts were canceled and the tunnel abandoned, the June commission headed by former Agricultural Minister Cees Veerman concluded. The tunnel is the ninth to be drilled in the Netherlands and will connect travellers faster to the business and legal district where banks such as Royal Bank of Scotland, ABN AMRO and ING are based. Even though the new underground railway won't open for another eight years, engineers point out it is just one of a handful of similarly problematic projects in Europe. Archeological findings during construction have caused delays in Rome's new subway of 31 underground stations. In Cologne, two people died in March after the city archive collapsed as a result of construction on the metro.
A 14-year-old Dutch girl who hopes to become the youngest sailor to circumnavigate the globe solo said Monday that she will wait until the school year ends in May before starting out on her voyage. The girl, Laura Dekker, left, is awaiting a court’s decision, expected Friday, on whether she can go ahead with her voyage or whether it would be too risky for a girl her age. A court in Utrecht temporarily blocked her departure in August out of concern for her safety. “It’s probably the most prudent if I just finish this school year,” she told the television station NOS.
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The genocide and war crimes trial of Radovan Karadzic, the former Bosnian Serb leader, opened on Monday with an empty chair where the accused should have been sitting and angry shouts from victims’ relatives in the public gallery. Making good on a threat issued last week, Mr Karadzic refused to leave his cell in a detention centre on the outskirts of The Hague. Because he is defending himself, that left prosecutors facing an empty row of desks as the judges looked on. After a hearing that lasted just over 15 minutes, O-Gon Kwon, the presiding judge, adjourned proceedings until Tuesday, when he said the prosecution would make the opening statement originally planned for Monday.
While claiming that he is not boycotting his trial, only seeking more time to prepare, Mr Karadzic’s tactics have successfully slowed proceedings. The court could yet appoint a defence counsel to represent him so that the hearings could continue without his presence. The judge said the court could take measures if Mr Karadzic continued to obstruct the trial, but did not announce a course of action. The prosecution called on the judges to issue Mr Karadzic with a specific warning as a prelude to appointing him with a defence counsel. Mr Karadzic was brought to The Hague 15 months ago after evading capture for 13 years. His trial is the highest profile case at the tribunal since that of Slobodan Milosevic, the former Yugoslav president, who died before his own trial ended.
The 93rd edition of the Tour of Italy in 2010 will start in the Netherlands on May 8 before embarking on a 3,416.5km journey around the Italian peninsula and ending in Verona on May 30. That was the course unveiled in Milan on Saturday with 21 stages and 39 climbs. Reigning champion Denis Menchov, the Russian Rabobank rider, was among the guests at the official presentation alongside former winner Damiano Cunego and Italian stars of the past such as Mario Cipollini. There was also a chance for Italy to get to know Yolanthe Cabau van Kasbergen, a Dutch actress and presenter who will be the face of the 2010 Giro and who also happens to be the girlfriend of new Inter Milan playmaker Wesley Sneijder.
The opening stage will be a short 8.4km timetrial (TT) around Amsterdam which will also host the start of the next two stages, ending in Utrecht and then Middleburg before the riders take an early break with the first rest day and a flight to Italy before recommencing in Savigliano with a 32.5km team timetrial. There will be two more individual timetrials with a 12.9km TT on the 16th stage following the second rest day while the final stage will be a 15.3km TT around Verona as the Giro ends for the second year in a row on a timetrial - something that sparked much excitement this year. It will be the ninth time the Giro has begun outside of Italy and second time it does so in the Netherlands. The first foreign start was in 1965 in San Marino.
A Dutch civil court Thursday ruled for a second time against three Swedish men said to control The Pirate Bay, ordering them to remove links to copyrighted material from the Web site and block all traffic between it and the Netherlands within three months. They could face up to euro6 million ($9 million) in fines if they refuse or are unable to comply. The Amsterdam District Court ruling replaces an earlier verdict after the men failed to respond to a summons. This time they were represented by a lawyer. "It's a bizarre story," said their lawyer, Ernst-Jan Louwers. His clients now have a "big problem" because they don't control the site and can't comply with the order. "The court assumes that they're behind the site -- end of discussion," Louwers said. They were considering an appeal.
The Pirate Bay, one of the largest sites on the Internet, provides an index to BitTorrent files, which can be used for trading media such as movies, music and computer games.
Dutch DSB Bank NV was declared bankrupt Monday amid accusations from its chief executive that too little was done to save it following a run on deposits and as last-ditch attempts to keep it afloat came to nothing. "We have tried everything, but did not succeed. It is over now," DSB Bank's owner and Chief Executive Dirk Scheringa said on Dutch radio. The Amsterdam court said that "everything has been tried to continue DSB Bank's operations." Since DSB Bank collapsed its depositors have been unable to access their cash. The Dutch deposit-guarantee plan, which is funded jointly by Dutch banks, will reimburse individual account holders up to a maximum €100,000 each ($148,940). Anything they are owed above that figure will be lost. Dutch Finance Minister Wouter Bos said he hoped depositors will have access to their money by Christmas. In the interim, the administrators said depositors will be offered advances of up to €3,000 each ahead of future settlements from the guarantee plan. Such advances, which depositors will receive by Wednesday, are likely to total €300 million, the administrators said. They added the settlements for lost deposits should be paid out by late December.
DSB Bank, which has a total balance sheet of €8.2 billion, was unable to agree a takeover by U.S. investment business Lone Star Funds after being put into administration last week following a run on deposits. It then turned to the Dutch government for a capital injection of €100 million but that was refused. At a news conference, Mr. Scheringa called for a parliamentary investigation into the role played in its collapse by the Dutch finance ministry and Dutch central bank. The CEO said he may appeal the Amsterdam court's decision to declare DSB Bank bankrupt. He claimed that the finance ministry and central bank disregarded a new business model DSB Bank wanted to launch, funded by a one-time government loan of €100 million. He said the finance ministry and the central bank also hadn't seriously considered the option of a takeover by Lone Star Funds. Finance Minister Bos refuted the claims and said DSB Bank was itself responsible for its problems. "The business plan that DSB Bank filed with us was absolutely unrealistic. There was a considerable risk that a new run on the bank would occur, that DSB Bank would have been saved with taxpayers' money and then go bankrupt afterwards with the loss of the additional money," Mr. Bos said. The Dutch central bank declined to comment.
Through saplings descended from the majestic horse chestnut tree that gave her so much pleasure in her bleak hideout, Anne Frank will soon have her story joined with that of the Little Rock Nine — the black students who integrated an Arkansas high school under the guard of 1,200 soldiers in 1957. The school, Little Rock Central High School, is one of 11 sites dedicated to fighting intolerance that have been chosen by the Anne Frank Center USA in Lower Manhattan as the destination for saplings that originated from the tree in Amsterdam, now 150 years old. Anne often marveled as it changed through the seasons, blooming flamboyantly, then slowly losing its leaves, outside the small office building at 263 Prinsengracht where she and her family were hidden during the Nazi occupation. It was one of the few things she could glimpse for those two years.
With the horse chestnut reaching the end of its life, the Anne Frank Center announced in April that it would take applications from institutions that wanted a derivative sapling. Thirty-four applied, though three — the White House, the World Trade Center site in New York and the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis — were chosen ahead of time. The saplings are currently in a nursery outside Amsterdam and will be shipped to the United States before year’s end, said Yvonne Simons, executive director of the Anne Frank Center. They will be quarantined for two years to make sure they do not carry certain plant diseases. Ms. Simons said the 11 sites were chosen largely because they showed “the consequences of intolerance — and that includes racism, discrimination and hatred.”
After successfully overturning a ban on his presence in the country, Geert Wilders was never going to slip quietly into the UK. The controversial Dutch politician sent a text message to Associated Press as he cleared customs at Heathrow to ensure the world's media had got the message. But even he cannot have anticipated the scenes waiting for him in Westminster, as he swept into a side street opposite the Houses of Parliament. His plan to stage an open-air news conference around the corner on College Green had to be abandoned when about 40 protesters arrived on the scene chanting "Wilders go to hell" and waving placards saying "Sharia for the Netherlands" and "Islam will be superior". The MP, who is an outspoken critic of Muslim ideology and has called for the Koran to be banned, was bundled through a gate in the high stone wall surrounding Abbey Gardens, an outpost of the House of Lords which was to be the venue for his hastily rearranged conference.
The Freedom Party MP then did his best to sound like the voice of reason, saying that although he would have preferred to stage his news conference on College Green as planned, he was pleased the young Muslims had exercised their democratic right to demonstrate, something he said would be denied them in an Islamist state. Pressed further on the purpose of his visit to the UK, given that he was not going to screen the film that had caused him to be banned in February, he said it would allow him to speak to his lawyers and friends face-to-face rather than over the internet but really it was a "token of victory".
Far-right Dutch MP Geert Wilders plans to visit the UK on Friday after successfully appealing against the Home Office's ban. The Asylum and Immigration Tribunal ruling overturned a government decision that led to Mr Wilders being turned back at Heathrow in February. He will not be showing his controversial film Fitna on this visit but plans to return to show it later. The Home Office said it would decide in "due course" whether to appeal. If it does appeal it would need the permission of the Court of Appeal to keep the travel ban in place pending the hearing. Speaking on the Victoria Derbyshire show on Radio 5 live, Mr Wilders said he was invited to the House of Lords by Lord Pearson to organise the showing of his film at a later date.
Following the tribunal's decision, a Home Office spokesman said: "We are disappointed by the court's decision. The government opposes extremism in all its forms. "The decision to refuse Wilders admission was taken on the basis that his presence could have inflamed tensions between our communities and have led to inter-faith violence. We still maintain this view."
Dutch bank DSB has been taken over by the country's central bank and is now likely to be liquidated. There had been a run on the bank after reports that it was insolvent. The government said DSB's failure was "not caused by the credit crisis" but by bad management, blaming its policies and unclear communications. DSB is the first Dutch lender to fail since the government rescued several banks last year. Many of its 2,000 staff are expected to lose their jobs. "This is about an individual, relatively small bank that brought itself into trouble by its policies, customers walking away, unclear communications, and all the uncertainty that was created because of that," said Mr Bos. He added that the government was launching an independent investigation into the bank's policies.
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It's crazy, cultured and classic, a triptych, a puzzle. Some of it is sketchy. Most of it is culturally rich. Which is the "real" Amsterdam? Take your pick.
On one hand, with its wafting pot smoke and bored prostitutes under glass, the city's infamous Red Light District is still a prude's nightmare and a rebel's dream. On the other hand, any city that can claim Rembrandt, Van Gogh and Anne Frank is a must-see for even the most staid travelers. Then again, Amsterdammers seem like the coolest people on the planet, not staid at all. Citizens ride their bicycles with a tidy grace around the town, some toting briefcases, some in green high heels, some on bikes they fold and carry right onto the trains. Except ... tidy, the town is not. Too much enthusiastic renovation has stripped the "pretty" from the city. Scaffolding mars the Royal Palace on the shabby Dam Square. Construction blights the Rijksmuseum (the city's premier museum), the historic train station, the harbor and other landmarks. One can only hope the eventual result will be worth the long wait.
Bottom line? Come to Amsterdam expecting tradition, and you'll find it. Come expecting sex and drugs, and the city will oblige -- but know the scene is changing. Come expecting history, architecture and the chance to see paintings that make you glad to be alive, and you'll find that, too. Whatever you want, Amsterdam will be.
Read the article, including lots of information about what to in Amsterdam right now, here.
Fishing the muddy, shallow canals for plump, fattened eels that the Dutch consider a delicacy smoked on toast or in bread -- and which are eaten in stews across Europe -- is no longer allowed during October and November. The Dutch ban will increase to three months in coming years, and despite planned compensation has aroused anger in the vastly depleted community of fishermen in a country where in the 19th century people rioted for days about eels. Just over 900 tonnes of eel are caught in Dutch canals, lakes and rivers every year. Europe's total annual eel catch is estimated by the European Union at 18,000 tonnes.
The ban, a unilateral step, has been complicated by the fact no one knows what is behind the decline [of the eel population]. "Nobody knows why, that's the bottom line," said Willem Dekker, senior scientist and eel researcher at Dutch marine ecology institute IMARES. The Dutch arm of environmental group WWF, supporting the ban, blames fishing for 70 percent of eel deaths in the Netherlands, and says eating an eel roll is like consuming a panda sandwich.
While Vincent van Gogh has become almost as famed for his troubled mind as for his paintings, a new exhibition in the Van Gogh Museum seeks to remind us there was more method than madness to his style. In honor of the publication of a new compendium of all the artist's known correspondence, the museum has put more than 100 personal letters in which he discusses his craft on display alongside the actual paintings. Museum Director Axel Ruger said the exhibit, opening Friday, is arranged to make a visitor feel "as if you are being led through the collection with Van Gogh giving commentary on his own work." Seeing the letters next to the paintings underlines Van Gogh's professionalism, which is sometimes overlooked amid spectacular biographical details such as his mental illness, his apparent amputation of part of his own left ear after a quarrel, and his suicide in 1890 at age 37. In the letters — known from recent books and films — Van Gogh writes about both the philosophy of painting and the technical details.
Van Gogh's letters were previously translated to English in 1958. The new compendium includes 20 new letters as well as complete versions of some letters previously only published in part. More importantly, Jansen said, it gives more precise translations and includes reproductions of more than 2,000 paintings Van Gogh makes reference to. In all, it offers an unusually complete picture of the mental world of one of the world's great artists. For Van Gogh fans not interested in buying the 6-volume set, the entire compilation has been put online as a free, searchable database in French, Dutch and English — the three languages in which the painter wrote. The database includes images of the sketches contained within in the letters, which are often stunning in their own right.
From 9 October 2009 to 3 January 2010 the Van Gogh Museum’s Rietveld building will be devoted to the letters of Vincent van Gogh. In the exhibition Van Gogh's letters: The artist speaks, some 120 original letters will be exhibited alongside the works that Van Gogh was writing about. The important documents are seldom or never on show to the public due to their extreme fragility and sensitivity to light. The combination of more than 340 works, from the rich collection of the Van Gogh Museum, including paintings, drawings, letters and letter sketches offers a multifaceted and penetrating view of Van Gogh as letter writer and as artist. Especially for this exhibition the Van Gogh Museum has been granted the exclusive loan of three special letters from Vincent van Gogh to the artist Emile Bernard (1868 -1941) from the Morgan Library & Museum in New York.
The exhibition is being staged by the Van Gogh Museum to mark the launch of the new international edition of the complete correspondence of Vincent van Gogh. This scholarly edition, which will be published both in book form and digitally, is the culmination of 15 years of research into the letters by the Van Gogh Museum and the Huygens Institute of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Art and Sciences (KNAW).
Coinciding with the book edition is the launch of the website www.vangoghletters.org. The website comprises all 902 letters by and to Van Gogh in the languages in which they were originally written (Dutch and French) and furnished with the English translation. The letters are accompanied by images of the manuscripts together with the annotations and the illustrations of the works of art referred to in the correspondence. The web edition furthermore offers extensive search facilities and is freely accessible from 8 October 2009.
The Netherlands and the United States this fall celebrated 400 years of strong relations, but the alliance is about to be tested on the battlegrounds of Afghanistan. President Barack Obama is weighing a difficult decision to send more American troops to Afghanistan at a time when the Netherlands is preparing to pull its own soldiers from the war-torn country next year. Dutch public support, like that in other European countries, has waned with the war now entering its ninth year. Obama is left to plead with one of America’s closest allies to reconsider the decision. The Dutch military has been fighting in Afghanistan as part of a NATO coalition since 2002. Over the last several years, Dutch forces have been concentrated in the Uzurgan province, where they have garnered praise for making significant gains against the Taliban. Twenty-one Dutch soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan.
“I have the strong impression that our investment in the security and development of Afghanistan since 2001 — with significant military, diplomatic and civilian resources — is very well-recognized by our American counterparts,” Dutch Ambassador Renée Jones-Bos said in an e-mailed statement to The Hill. “But our bilateral relation goes much deeper and wider than just the Dutch presence in Afghanistan.”
The Dutch commitment in Afghanistan and Iraq over the last eight years has played a significant role for the military cooperation between the two countries and has boosted the political relationship as well. But with that commitment winding down and the pressure ramping up on the U.S. in Afghanistan, the political debates in both countries over the next several months likely will set the tone for the future. Dutch officials hope that their country’s other contributions will carry the day. Among them is military help in Africa, drug-patrol missions in the Caribbean, participation in the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program and a large missile defense exercise organized by the Dutch next September. Dutch politicians are also considering allowing some of the detainees from Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to be held in the Netherlands, after initially opposing such a move.
The Netherlands has been nominated as the sixth best place in the world to live, reveals a United Nations research released Monday. Norway retains the number one spot in the annual United Nations human development index while China made the biggest strides in improving the well-being of its citizens. The index compiled by the UN Development Programme (UNDP) ranks 182 countries based on such criteria as life expectancy, literacy, school enrolment and gross domestic product (GDP) per capita. Norway, Australia, Iceland, Canada and Ireland take the first five spots while Niger ranks at the very bottom, just below Afghanistan.
The UNDP said the index highlights the grave disparities between rich and poor countries. This year's index was based on data from 2007 and does not take into account the impact of the global economic crisis. "Many countries have experienced setbacks over recent decades, in the face of economic downturns, conflict-related crises and the HIV and AIDS epidemic," said the UN development report's author Jeni Klugman. "And this was even before the impact of the current global financial crisis was felt." The top ten countries listed on the index are: Norway, Australia, Iceland, Canada, Ireland, the Netherlands, Sweden, France, Switzerland and Japan. The United States ranks 13th, down one spot from 2008.
The veiled women clutch their children's hands as they scurry past the liquor store, ignoring rows of vodka bottles on their way to the Muslim butcher's next door. Across the street, male customers emerge from the Climax sex shop with their purchases and quickly stride away without a second glance at the Turkish kebab restaurant just opening for lunch.The conservative and liberal, religious and secular, Dutch and foreign stand side by side here in Rotterdam, in a contrasting and at times uneasy coexistence where social and cultural middle ground can be elusive.
The job of finding that middle ground has now fallen onto the shoulders of a thoughtful Moroccan-born Muslim who arrived in Rotterdam just nine months ago. His address: the mayor's office. Ahmed Aboutaleb is the first Muslim immigrant to lead a major Dutch city.
How the 48-year-old Aboutaleb fares as mayor could well have an effect beyond Rotterdam's borders. With ethnic minorities accounting for almost half its population, the city serves in many ways as a laboratory of demographic change for the rest of the Netherlands, and potentially other parts of Europe. Thus far into his six-year term, analysts say, the bespectacled Aboutaleb has trod softly, getting a feel for Rotterdam's tricky political landscape. Though he is a member of the city's ruling left-wing Labor Party, as mayor he is supposed to hold himself above party politics. Within the last several weeks, however, Aboutaleb has said that he intends to step into the debate on integration. Although he has not specified how, it will mean navigating a minefield of competing beliefs, agendas and power plays by politicians, activists and bureaucrats.
As mayor, Aboutaleb must gingerly maneuver a cultural war pitting those who believe Dutch liberal, secular society to be under threat from a growing religious minority against others who say that Muslims and other immigrants have been unfairly scapegoated. Right-wing politicians demanded that Aboutaleb demonstrate his loyalty by giving up his Moroccan passport (he holds dual nationality). Geert Wilders, the country's most inflammatory public figure, declared that Aboutaleb's appointment was "as ridiculous as appointing a Dutchman as mayor of Mecca."
The Anne Frank House museum in Amsterdam has begun airing the only known video of the teenage diarist on a channel dedicated to her on YouTube. The channel also features clips of others, including her late father Otto and Nelson Mandela, talking about Anne, museum spokeswoman Annemarie Bekker said Friday. "It is really a great platform to show all the different kinds of films and documentaries about Anne Frank," Bekker added.
The channel shows footage taken during a neighbor's wedding on July 22, 1941. It briefly shows Anne before she and her family were forced into hiding to avoid the Nazis during their World War II occupation of the Netherlands. Bekker said the YouTube channel also has a video about the making of a 3-D virtual version of the secret annex concealed in an Amsterdam canalside house where the Frank family hid for 25 months until they were betrayed and deported. The virtual version of the secret annex is due to be formally launched next year to help mark the 50th anniversary of the museum's founding.
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Looking out of place against the lush Dutch maize fields, a few dozen camels saunter about between twice-daily milking sessions on Europe's only commercial camel dairy farm. Braying loudly and grazing lazily, the desert animals are the pet project of 26-year-old Dutch farmer Frank Smits, who overcame much ridicule and bureaucracy to start his unique venture. "I started in 2006 with three dromedaries (camels with only one hump). I have 40 today, of which 10 produce milk," Smits told AFP on his farm in the northern town of Cromvoirt. Describing himself as a "cow fanatic" who studied marketing and agriculture, Smits said he switched his attention to camels after reading about the virtues of their milk.
According to the UN's Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), camel's milk is more nutritious than many others and easier to digest for diabetics and lactose intolerant individuals. Smits sells about 60 litres (quarts) a day to a niche market comprised mostly of Turkish and Moroccan immigrants who traditionally drink camel's milk in their native countries. Smits said his farm should become profitable within two years once he has 15 milk producing camels. Camels reach calf-bearing, and thus milk-producing age, at about four. "In the long run, I hope to have 40." Anton Mentink of the Netherlands Controlling Authority for Milk and Milk Products (COKZ) said his service conducts regular checks at the camel dairy because of a risk factor in unpasteurised milk but "there have been no problems so far. We know this farm well, it has all the required permits and meets all our health and hygiene standards," Mentink said.
02 October 2009
Dtch police have arrested two people at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport for allegedly having hidden three kilograms (6.6 pounds) of cocaine in sandwiches, authorities said Thursday. Inspectors found the drugs last week in 33 sandwiches in the luggage of the two, a 30-year-old man from Suriname and a Dutch woman, 56. "With the unpacking of the sandwiches ... it transpired that they were not fit for consumption," said a military police statement. "They were filled with about 100 grams of cocaine each."
From AFP
» Home sick: Another case where work incentives matter
Although the recent health care debate has featured a number of comparisons of Europe and the United States, little has been said about sick leave. Economic research has shown that workers in the Netherlands, Sweden and Norway often stay home sick. Incentives, and not the flu, seem to be the explanation. Europeans are healthier than Americans by just about every measure. Thus it may come as a surprise that our poor health does not keep us Americansaway from work more often than European workers. Economists have been aware of these differences for a while now, and have understood them to be the result of incentives. Quite simply, the financial penalty for work absence in the Netherlands, Sweden and Norway was quite small (as compared to the U.S. and other European countries), and the labor market responded by keeping workers home “sick” more often.
Read the article at the New York Timescomments | ¶
» Anti-Islamic Dutch lawmaker speaking at US college
An anti-Islamic lawmaker from the Netherlands will address students at a Philadelphia university despite protests from campus organizations. Geert Wilders has been invited to speak Tuesday at Temple University. He has outraged Muslims by comparing their holy book, the Quran, to Adolf Hitler's "Mein Kampf." He also wants to end Muslim immigration in his country. A student group named Purpose invited Wilders. It says the event is a forum for sensitive subjects. But Temple's Student Senate and Muslim Students Association have blasted the school for allowing the visit. Associated Presscomments | ¶
» Dutch court gives DSB Bank more time for deal
A Dutch court gave DSB Bank a weekend reprieve on Friday to agree terms with a mysterious potential buyer from the United States. A court spokesman said it would hold the case "at the very latest" until Monday 0700 GMT, declining to give any further details. The court had appointed administrators on Monday after a run on the bank drained 600 million euros in deposits in just 12 days. The court gave DSB a one-day lifeline on Thursday to try and find a buyer, presumably one of the major Dutch banks that had nearly rescued it over the prior weekend.
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» The Pirate Bay temporarily sunk by BREIN
The infamous torrent tracker The Pirate Bay was taken down today by the Dutch anti-piracy agency BREIN, although it appears the site has been available sporadically throughout the day, and is available, at least here in the U.S, as of writing. The agency managed to block access to the site on an international scale and was proud. "Supplying services to such a well-known illegal site is asking for trouble", added BREIN director Tim Kuik. "The Swedish owners have been criminally convicted and the site has been ruled illegal in various countries amongst which the Netherlands. In case Dutch providers keep the site up then we will appeal to them to cease and desist". TorrentFreak is reporting that The Pirate Bay should be up and running for good now, as they have moved to the ISP CyberBunker, a nuclear war bunker in the Netherlands that can withstand a nuclear strike as well as an EMP blast. And they certainly won't cave to threats from BREIN.
Read the article at Afterdawn.comcomments | ¶
» Deutsche Bank said to resume talks about buying Dutch ABN units
Deutsche Bank AG resumed talks with the Dutch government about buying some ABN Amro Holding NV units in the Netherlands after negotiations failed last month, two people familiar with the matter said. Frankfurt-based Deutsche Bank, Germany’s biggest bank, is in discussions over ABN Amro commercial banking units that the Netherlands is required to sell to satisfy European Union regulators, said the people, who declined to be identified because the talks are confidential. Deutsche Bank and the Dutch Finance Ministry ended negotiations last month after they were unable to agree to the conditions for a transaction. The European Commission, the EU’s antitrust regulator, ordered the Dutch government to sell the assets as it prepares to merge Fortis Bank Nederland NV and ABN Amro, which were nationalized in October.
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