The European Union has launched the “Year of Equal Opportunities for All” with a two-day conference in Berlin aimed at promoting new anti-discrimination laws across the continent.
In its drive to ban discriminatory behavior, the European Commission has adopted sweeping measures to end prejudice based on race, religion, gender, sexual orientation or disability. But even […]

The Netherlands has the lowest youth unemployment rate in Europe, at just 6.6%, according to European statistics office Eurostat. The average jobless rate among the 27 member states is 16.3%, with Poland highest at 25.9%. The overall Dutch unemployment rate of 3.6% is also very low in EU terms, only Denmark is lower (3.2%).
Source: […]

The Second Chamber of the Parliament has begun an investigation into the new initiatives in the public education introduced in the past twenty years, such as spaces for self-learning, preparatory secondary vocational training (vmbo) and the “new learning” plan.
The reason to start the investigation are last week’s student protests, De Volkskrant reports. The students […]

The municipality of Amsterdam is opposing the participation of children in the Gay Pride Parade this summer.
Last week, gay organisation COC announced it would allow children from the age of 11 to participate in the boat parade held annually in the Amsterdam canals. This was major news in many countries, but not in the Netherlands.
Mayor […]

The reopening of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam has been postponed for a second time. The Dutch Culture Minister Maria van der Hoeven says the renovated museum will open its doors after the summer of 2010. The reason for the delay is that the museum is waiting for permits and there are changes to the designs […]

The Doping Authority reports that performance-enhancing drugs are becoming more popular in the Netherlands, particularly among young men in the major cities. Around 150,000 people used anabolic steroids, the growth hormone epo and similar drugs in 2005, twice as many as the previous year. The use of cannabis and tobacco remained the same or even […]

This month has been the warmest January in the Netherlands since temperatures were first measured in 1706, the Dutch meteorological institute KNMI said on Wednesday.
The average temperature in January was about 7.1 degrees Celsius, 2.8 degrees more than the usual for the month and significantly exceeding a previous record of 6.2 degrees reached in 1921, […]

The European Commission wants all countries in the bloc to prohibit smoking in public places. The model is Ireland, where a public ban on smoking has been seen as a great success.
Following the release of a discussion paper on smoking released on Tuesday, the EU executive said overall health in the entire EU would benefit […]

The Netherlands has come fourth in the Top Ten deadliest natural disasters of last year. Around 1,000 people, mostly the very old and the sick, died during the heatwave which struck the Netherlands in July. The chart is compiled by the United Nations. Top of the list is Indonesia, where the Jogyakarta earthquake claimed nearly […]

More and more Dutch people are buying weekend houses in the Czech Republic, especially in the mountainous areas of east and north Bohemia where some exclusively “Dutch villages” have been built in the past few years, the latest issue of the weekly Tyden out today writes.
Read full article: Czech News Agency via the Prague Daily […]

The UM Scholarship Fund will make 20 scholarships available in the academic year 2007–08 for talented non-EU students who wish to follow a master’s programme in Maastricht. The UM High Potential Scholarships, worth over €20,000 each, will cover all related costs. Maastricht University (UM) aims to further strengthen its position as a leading European university […]

Local council taxes are expected to rise by an average of 5% or €31 this year according to a survey carried out by Groningen University on behalf of 37 major municipalities. The average household will pay €590 in council taxes in 2007.
But council taxes vary considerably, the survey shows. People living in Heerlen pay […]

Following protests by Hindu groups who say they’ve used the swastika as a religious symbol for millennia, Germany announced Monday that it has dropped plans to outlaw the sign throughout the European Union.
Germany, which currently holds the EU’s rotating presidency, still wants to make Holocaust denial illegal throughout the EU to stem racism and xenophobia.
Read […]

Scientists at Aachen’s Technical University have developed a high-tech wheelchair to provide added independence to severely handicapped people both inside and outside of home.
Joystick-controlled wheelchairs have been available to the disabled who still have some movement in their arms and neck for years. Such chairs, however, are not an option for people suffering from even […]

Some 80 documents written by Anne Frank’s father Otto - including several letters from Amsterdam detailing his desperate attempts to save his family - have turned up in New York, Time Magazine reports today. The letters were discovered in a file by a volunteer archivist at the city’s YIVO Institute for Jewish Research two years […]

Most EU citizens are prepared to share sensitive personal information on their religion or ethnic origin in order to battle discrimination, according to a European Commission report released Tuesday.
Seventy-five percent of those questioned said they would agree to hand over information on their ethnic background, anonymously, to help build up a picture of the victims […]

From next week, a class of 27 pupils at the Bonnefanten College in Maastricht will use an electronic book, or Iliad, in their Dutch and history classes. It’s the country’s first experiment in replacing traditional books with the A5 screens.
Publisher ThiemeMeulenhoff has adapted its text books for the new system and expects more schools […]

The European Commission has taken legal steps against Austria and Belgium for failing to give students from other EU member states the same access to their higher education systems as to their own national students.
Its 27 commissioners decided on Wednesday (24 January) in favour of sending Vienna and Brussels “letters of formal notice” - the […]

A man from Hellevoetsluis has got hold of an identity card on which his photograph shows him as a clown. The man evaded the strict rules with which a photo must comply by saying that his religion required him to look like a clown.
The home affairs ministry tightened up rules for passport photos considerably last […]

Studium Generale is organising a lecture in English on Wednesday 31 January for all international students and other international guests of Maastricht, who want to know everything about the complete change Maastricht is undergoing for at least three days in February.
And there is more - not only a lecture… The Prince of Carnival of […]

The Dutch railway unions FNV and VVMC say that maintenance and repairwork is not being carried out. Both unions say the new train timetable, which means that trains are continually in use, is responsible for the problem. There is simply no time to carry out repairs. The unions say around 300 trains have problems ranging […]

The EU could soon be footing the bill for the free distribution of fruit and vegetables to schools, holiday camps and charities, as the European Commission combines an overhaul of the fruit and vegetable sector with its fight against obesity.
Read full article: EU Observer, 25 January 2007
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Mental therapy could be as effective as physical exercise in reducing back pain, signalling relief for thousands of chronic back pain sufferers.
Researcher Rob Smeets, from the University of Maastricht, Netherlands, and colleagues studied 223 people suffering from chronic back pain and found that training the mind was just as effective as using more physical […]

Registered crime in the large municipalities in the Netherlands decreased more than in the rest of the country. Relative to record year 2002, registered crime in large municipalities was reduced by 17 percent, as against 6 percent in other municipalities. The theft and burglary rate declined significantly.
Crime rate further down
In 2005, the police registered more […]

With 135.5 thousand, last year’s mortality was again down on the preceding year, according to provisional data, published by Statistics Netherlands. In the period 2000-2003, mortality was approximately 5 thousand higher. The low mortality recorded since 2004 is remarkable, given the ageing of the population.
Mild autumn
The predominantly mild weather conditions in recent years […]

Although Dutch companies are making more and more use of ICT, they are still not using it to its full potential. Most companies have gone no further than having a website on the Internet.
Most companies have only a website
The share of companies which used all the possibilities afforded by ICT for external data […]

In the framework of the 15th anniversary of the Treaty of Maastricht, Joost van den Akker, student European Studies, was assigned to write a book on the Treaty. On 7 February, this book will be presented to the public, amongst whom several former politicians who signed the Treaty of Maastricht in 1992.
Source: Maastricht University, […]

This year, it was one century ago that the Italian Maria Montessori opened her first Casa Dei Bambini.
The Dutch Montessori Association (NMV) is celebrating the jubilee year with a European Congress in October.
The festivities will open on Wednesday during the Dutch Education Exhibition (Nederlandse Onderwijs Tentoonstelling) in Utrecht.
On 15 March, all the […]

The Netherlands is considering financing a Koran school in Afghanistan. The population of Uruzgan has a need for this, according to Governor Abdul Hakim Munib.
Uruzgan currently has no official Koran school, with the result that children now end up at madrassas just over the border in Pakistan. There they receive Islamic education that is influenced […]

The Dutch are rather unhappy about the quality of government services. Additionally, such feelings are growing, a study by the Social and Cultural Planning Bureau (SCP) showed yesterday.
Some 63 percent of the Dutch term the quality of old folks’ homes bad or mediocre. Jurisprudence is rated bad or mediocre by 56 percent, while of the […]