Report: Dutch Thought Anne Frank House “Not Worth Saving”
October 6, 2008 by Sueli · Leave a Comment
The Dutch government in the 1950s had no objections to the tearing down of the house where Anne Frank wrote her wartime diary, a newspaper report said.
The place where the young Jewish girl described life hiding from persecution by the Nazis was not considered worthy of preservation, De Telegraaf said Sunday, Oct. 5, quoting from [...]
Entire Cabinet avoided military service
October 2, 2008 by Sueli · Leave a Comment
Defence Minister Eimert van Middlekoop turns out to be no exception with his avoidance of military service. None of the 11 male ministers ever served in the Dutch army, De Telegraaf newspaper revealed yesterday.
Compulsory military service was abolished in 1997. All ministers stem from the period in which they were still required to serve in [...]
Toppers to represent the Netherlands at Eurovision Song Festival 2009
October 1, 2008 by Sueli · Leave a Comment
From today’s edition of Radio Netherlands press review:
Talking about Toppers, AD and De Telegraph print photographs of this band’s spectacular launch yesterday. The popular trio Gerard Joling, Rene Froger and Gordon have kicked off their bid to become the Dutch entry for this year’s Eurovision Song Festival yesterday. In extravagant purple and gold suits they [...]
Melamine powder found in Geleen
September 22, 2008 by Sueli · Leave a Comment
Part of an industrial estate in Geleen was covered with a quantity of melamine powder on Friday after it blew out of a storage silo for an unknown reason, news agency ANP reports.
Staff from chemicals company DSM and fire officers were busy cleaning up the spillage on Friday afternoon. There is no risk to health [...]
Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad launches an English language website
September 22, 2008 by Sueli · Leave a Comment
NRC Handelsblad launched its English language website nrc.nl/international on Tuesday, 16 September. The target group of the new site are foreigners who cannot read Dutch but who are interested in Dutch quality journalism.
A selection of news items, background articles, features and opinion articles about Dutch subjects with a cross-border interest will be published daily [...]
Dutch cities slow down for car-free Sunday
September 22, 2008 by Sueli · Leave a Comment
More than 20 Dutch cities have staged a car-free Sunday. Cars were banned in Amsterdam, Maastricht, Eindhoven and other cities. The capital organised around 100 special events, including a zero-emission car race through the city centre. The authorities in Amsterdam say the public enjoyed the car-free day. There were only a few reports of people [...]
Dutch town declared Europe’s greenest
September 22, 2008 by Sueli · Leave a Comment
The Dutch town of Uden in the south of the country has been declared Europe’s greenest. The award was announced during a European Union meeting in the Croatian town of Split. The international jury said it had been impressed by Uden’s public parks, which last year earned it the award for the greenest town in [...]
Dutch mayors want to ban foreign polygamists
September 22, 2008 by Sueli · Leave a Comment
The mayors of the four main cities in the Netherlands are going to ask the government to stop giving Dutch citizenship to foreign nationals who have more than one wife. Dutch towns currently register such marriages even though polygamy is banned in the Netherlands. The mayors of Amsterdam, The Hague, Utrecht and Rotterdam are drafting [...]
Five percent of Dutch population current cannabis users
September 19, 2008 by Sueli · Leave a Comment
Around 5 percent of the Dutch population aged 15-65 are current cannabis users. The drug is particularly popular among men in their late twenties, show figures released by the Central Bureau for Statistics (CBS).
Last year, 30 percent of men and 18 percent of women aged between 15 and 65 years said they had ever smoked [...]
Dutch men have least desire to have children
September 18, 2008 by Sueli · Leave a Comment
The largest-ever study into European men, sponsored by the Discovery television channel, shows that of all European nations, Dutch men have the least desire to have children.
Work, friendships, having fun and travel are all considered more important than raising a family.
Dutch men also postpone having children because they want to know for sure they are [...]
New website lists smokers’ cafes across the Netherlands
Dutch smokers, who want to smoke in a restaurant or cafe, can now click onto a new smokers restaurant database, according to the online publisher Tressis. Smoking was recently banned in all Dutch restaurants, cafes and bars, except in places that have separate smokers’ rooms or corners with ventilation facilities.
However, the places where smoking [...]
Holland has nearly 12 million pigs
September 18, 2008 by Sueli · Leave a Comment
The number of pigs in the Netherlands rose to 11.7 million last year, up just 3,000 on 2006, according to figures from the pig farming sector.
However the number of pig farms was down by over 500. Pork is the most popular meat in the Netherlands.
Source: DutchNews.nl, 17 September 2008
Main points of the 2009 budget
September 17, 2008 by Sueli · Leave a Comment
Finance Minister Wouter Bos presented the budget for 2009 to the Lower House yesterday. Most plans had already leaked out in the past weeks.
The key points follow below:
ECONOMY
· A planned VAT hike from 19 to 20 percent has been dropped. · The unemployment benefit (WW) premium for employees will be abolished, and the employers’ portion [...]
Schools get €200m to boost standards
September 12, 2008 by Sueli · Leave a Comment
Secondary schools are to get an extra €200m over the coming four years and school heads, teachers and parents are being allowed to decide how best to spend it, the Volkskrant says on Thursday.
Junior education minister Marja van Bijsterveldt is to publish details about the extra funding shortly, says the paper. The aim is to [...]
Environmental lobby enters Dutch classrooms
September 10, 2008 by Sueli · Leave a Comment
As well as arithmetic, language and history, children at primary schools in the Netherlands will now also have lessons about global warming. They will be taught that humans are causing this alleged phenomenon.
At a primary school in Vleuten, two Nature and Environment Foundation (Stichting Natuur en Milieu) staff members gave the Netherlands’ first climate lesson [...]
Netherlands launches Human Rights Tulip award
September 10, 2008 by Sueli · Leave a Comment
Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen has introduced the Human Rights Tulip. This will be presented annually to an individual “who has shown great moral courage in the protection and fostering of the rights of his or her fellow-citizens.”
The prize will be presented for the first time this year during a ceremony in the Knights Hall of [...]
Dutch spend less on education
September 10, 2008 by Sueli · Leave a Comment
The Dutch government spends less on education compared to other countries. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development has published a study on educational spending in all of its member states. The results show that OECD countries spend an average of 5.8 percent of their GDP on education, compared to 5.1 percent in the Netherlands. [...]
Dutch to introduce burqa ban at schools
September 9, 2008 by Sueli · Leave a Comment
In a letter to parliament, Dutch Education Minister Ronald Plasterk writes that the government intends to introduce a burqa ban in education. Not only teachers and schoolchildren, but also parents and school caretakers will be banned from wearing face-covering garments, both inside the school building and outside in the playground. The minister writes that it [...]
Some 25% of teachers are unqualified
September 8, 2008 by Sueli · Leave a Comment
A quarter of all secondary school teachers are giving lessons without having the proper qualifications, the Nederlands Dagblad reports on Friday.
In total, some 25,000 teachers don’t have a teaching certificate, the paper says, quoting education ministry figures.
The number of vacancies in primary and secondary education has gone up 30% this year, says researcher Marc Vermeulen.
While [...]
Cabinet wants taller buildings, big parks in cities
September 8, 2008 by Sueli · Leave a Comment
The cabinet wants the major Dutch cities to look a bit more like New York. Buildings should become higher and there should be big city parks.
The cabinet reached agreement Friday on Future Vision 2040. This sketches ambitions for Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague and Utrecht, the four cities that together form the Randstad western urban agglomeration.
In [...]
Netherlands has most members of social websites
September 5, 2008 by Sueli · Leave a Comment
The Netherlands has the most members of social network websites relative to its size. Nowhere in the world is a greater proportion of the population affiliated to such sites.
In the Netherlands, 49 percent are members of social network sites. Next come the United Arab Emirates at 46 percent, Canada at 44 percent and the US [...]
Dykes will cost the Dutch billions
September 5, 2008 by Sueli · Leave a Comment
Low-lying Holland must spend billions of euros on dyke upgrades and coastal expansion to avoid the ravages of rising sea levels due to global warming, experts have warned.
The country must spend billions a year over the next century on additional safety measures, says a report compiled by the government-appointed Delta commission.
“The security challenge is [...]
‘Expats stay in Holland longer’
September 3, 2008 by Sueli · Leave a Comment
Although the exact reason remains a mystery, a survey by the British HSBC Bank has concluded that the Netherlands scores the highest when it comes to how long expats want to stay in a particular country, reports the Volkskrant on Tuesday.
Of those interviewed for the survey, 82% said they had already been in Holland for [...]
Dutch website compares health providers
September 3, 2008 by Sueli · Leave a Comment
Dutch consumers will from now on be able to compare the performance of nursing homes, hospitals and home care providers. Deputy Health Minister Jet Bussemaker announced that relevant data are being disclosed on the kiesbeter.nl healthcare website. The information is based on the experiences of patients and figures provided by the institutions themselves. The site [...]
Asylum applications increase in Netherlands
September 2, 2008 by Sueli · Leave a Comment
The Christian Democrats and the conservative VVD are alarmed by the increase in the number of applications for asylum in the Netherlands in the first six months of this year. The number of requests in the first half of this year is just as high as for the whole of 2007.
The VVD thinks there is [...]
Iranian students to sue Dutch government
September 2, 2008 by Sueli · Leave a Comment
A group of students of Iranian origin studying in the Netherlands is going to bring legal action against the Dutch government for barring Iranian students from certain studies. The government measure aims to prevent Iranian students from obtaining secret information relating to nuclear weapons. The Iranian activists say the move breaches the Dutch constitution and [...]
Dutch government says purchasing power to rise
August 29, 2008 by Sueli · Leave a Comment
Dutch Finance Minister Wouter Bos says the purchasing power of most people in the Netherlands will increase next year. On Thursday, he and his fellow ministers agreed next year’s budget which will be presented on 16 September.
Over recent weeks, it has been widely reported that people on low incomes would be worse off in 2009. [...]
More immigrants than emigrants
August 28, 2008 by Sueli · Leave a Comment
* Population growth accelerating
* More immigrants from Europe
* Mortality rate higher
In the first six months of 2008, the population increased by nearly 30 thousand, because more people arrived in the Netherlands than left the country. Net migration has not been positive since the [...]
More bicycles than people
The Dutch statistics office reports that the number of bicycles sold last year rose by 80,000 to 1.4 million. Around 85 percent of the population owns a bicycle and there are now 18 million bicycles in the Netherlands, which has just over 16 million people.
Last year the Dutch cycled a total of 14.7 billion [...]
More money for gifted children in schools
August 25, 2008 by Sueli · Leave a Comment
The Dutch government has set aside ten million euros for the education of gifted children in primary schools. Deputy Education Minister Sharon Dijksma says at the moment lessons are not challenging enough for very intelligent children.
Research shows that a third of gifted children gain lower grades than they are actually capable of. She says, some [...]
