The city of Heerlen in the southern Dutch province of Limburg will soon be the first in the world to heat and cool homes and offices using water from abandoned and flooded mines. At the same spot where dirty energy came from the ground in the form of coal, green energy will be produced with […]

When a guest at a hotel in the Dutch city of Maastricht told Reception she’d found a two and a half metre snake in her toilet bowl, the subsequent investigation revealed a large menagerie of exotic animals in the room one floor below hers. The snake had, apparently, made its way upstairs through the sewage […]

Would you like to meet other expatriates in the Maastricht region?
Yes? Then, please feel welcome to join the newly created “International community South Limburg” group on Facebook at:
http://www.new.facebook.com/group.php?gid=26306583670&ref=mf
This virtual network aims at bringing together the professional international community in South Limburg and will be presented on October 6th during the Expat Fair organised by […]

Former judge Fokke Fernhout is part of a university research team looking into a possible miscarriage of justice in a child abuse case. This is striking as he was convicted of possessing child pornography himself.
Fernhout is involved in a project at the University of Maastricht to examine whether reasonable doubt has been overlooked by judges […]

Belgian’s province of Limburg has a compact network of cycle paths with over 2,000 kilometres in all. Cyclists do not have to pore over maps to find a route as 20,000 blue, numbered signs across the network makes finding your way easy.
A sign reading “96-97-98-91-71″ may resemble a telephone number, but it is in […]

Controversial international newspaper cartoons are to be exhibited from 16 September in Eindhoven.
The works on display include anti-Semitic, anti-Christian and anti-Islamic cartoons from both Western and Arabic cartoonists. Among them are the Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard and the Dutchman Gregorius Nekschot, who was recently arrested by the Dutch authorities.
COS Brabant, an oganisation for international development […]

The ground in the Dutch province of South Limburg is not as stable as had been thought. Satellite observations have shown greater localised rises than expected.
This is one of the findings announced by Prof. Ramon Hanssen in his inaugural address at TU Delft in the Netherlands on Wednesday 3 September. Newly-developed technology has also enabled […]

Dutch car manufacturer Nedcar has asked 1,000 technicians it dismissed two years ago to return, writes today’s Volkskrant.
The Mitsubishi Outlander, a compact sports utility vehicle which is much more fuel efficient than most other SUVS, is so popular that the company’s Japanese plant cannot cope with demand. Mitsubishi has invested tens of millions of euros […]

A demonstration by two far-left artists and activists against the Dutch tradition of Sinterklaas has been cancelled at the last minute. The organisers have been inundated with furious reactions over the past few days.
The protest march was to be held in the Eindhoven city centre on Saturday. However, the extreme leftwing organisation Doorbraak, one of […]

The first Mitsubishi Outlander has rolled off the NedCar production line in the Dutch town of Born. Mitsubishi decided to move European production of the 4-wheel drive from Japan to the Netherlands because of an unexpected increase in demand.
Since the production of the Smart ForFour ended, NedCar has only been producing the Mitsubishi Colt. The […]

Photocopier and printer maker Océ is to shed 100 of the 1,000 jobs at its research and development division in Venlo, the company announced on Thursday.
In July, Océ said 600 jobs would go worldwide.
The job losses affect 60 permanent and 40 temporary staff. Océ says the jobs must be cut because the company has been […]

How difficult is it for foreign students to find a job in Maastricht? Do you really need to speak Dutch? And can you find a job that also looks good on your curriculum vitae.
Read the article in the newest edition of Maastricht University’s paper Observant.

A majority in the Dutch population evaluate their own health as ranging from good to excellent. Nearly one in five individuals evaluate their own state of health as rather poor. This category is overrepresented in the province of Limburg. They visit their GP relatively often. This emerges from the Health Survey published by Statistics Netherlands.
Majority […]

The US war graveyard in Margraten, Limburg, needs people to adopt missing US soldiers from World War II.
All the 8,302 graves in the cemetery now have someone to look after them, but more volunteers are needed to take care of the Walls of the Missing, where the names of those whose bodies were never […]

Six baby garden dormice, a breed that is almost extinct in the Netherlands, have been born in south Limburg, reports Thursday’s Telegraaf.
A spokesman for the local conservationist group told the paper the news is ‘hopeful but we can’t hang out the flag yet’. In September last year conservationists reported that only nine garden dormice still […]

‘Based in Europe, focused on the world’
On Monday 1 September 2008, Maastricht University celebrates its official opening of the 2008-2009 academic year. The central theme for the opening ceremony, ‘Based in Europe, focused on the world’ is closely connected with the strategic international ambitions of Maastricht University, with a main focus on partnering in […]

The 23rd Pukkelpop music festival in the village of Kiewit, near Hasselt (Limburg province) has been hailed a resounding success.
A record 150,000 music-lovers attended the three-day festival of alternative music which saw 200 bands performed on a total of eight separate stages.
Read article: Expatica Belgium, 18 August 2008

Hanny van Arkel was poring over photos of galaxies on the Internet in August 2007 when she stumbled across a strange object in the night sky: a bright, gaseous mass with a gaping hole in its middle.
Hanny van Arkel made her discovery by poring over images of galaxies on an astronomy Web site.
“It looked […]

ITV Channel in the UK currently looking for homesick British expats all over the world who are considering returning to UK.
Please see announcement below:
 

ARE YOU A BRIT LIVING ABROAD BUT THINKING ABOUT COMING HOME TO THE UK?
DO YOU KNOW SOMEONE WHO IS?
ITV1 are making the second series of ‘No Place Like Home?’ about British […]

The following update was sent to Crossroads’ mailing list subscribers on Monday 14 July 2008:
Dear Crossroads reader,
Crossroads is taking its annual summer break on July 15 and will resume daily updates on Monday, August 18, 2008.  
Here’s an overview of the articles we’ve published since our last update on December 21, 2007. Click on any headline to go directly to that […]

Maastricht University Medical Centre and the University Hospital in Aachen have joined forces to build a cardiovascular centre on an industrial area in Heerlen which straddles the border between the Netherlands and Germany.
The new centre is the first step in creating the first European university hospital with a common management and strategy, reports Tuesday’s Trouw.
Source: […]

Digital Audio Guide:
Zicht op Maastricht Mobile invites visitors to take a walk through Maastricht with a new free digital audio guide available in Dutch, English, French or German:
“Discover Maastricht with your PDA, Smartphone, MP3 Player or iPod. Watch the presentations and listen to audio clips in the unique places of the city. Determine your own […]

Interested in learning Dutch, English or other languages? Please have a look at our new page with links to language courses in the region.
The list of languages courses has been kindly provided by the Limburg Development Company LIOF.

An overwhelming majority of Dutch MPs have voted in favour of the compromise proposal on testing embryos for hereditary diseases. Earlier the issue caused a crisis in the Dutch cabinet when Deputy Health Minister Jet Bussemaker tried to expand the practice, only to be blocked by the smallest coalition party, the Christian Union.
Last week, the […]

Sources in the Dutch government say the Cabinet has reached a compromise in the question of an expansion of embryo testing during in vitro fertilisation by the Maastricht University Medical Centre. A committee of medical experts will be set up which will make assessments on an individual basis.
The controversy started at the end of last […]

Studying music in Maastricht, a video report by Europocket TV at Conservatorium Maastricht. Includes interviews with foreign students.
Source: Europocket TV, May 2008

The Dutch parliament is due to convene an emergency meeting Thursday to debate whether Dutch hospitals may screen embryos resulting from IVF treatment for certain genetic diseases, reports said Wednesday.
After screening, only those embryos free of the gene that may later cause a person to develop the disease will be implanted in the uterus.
The emergency […]

Deputy Prime Minister André Rouvoet is furious at the decision by Maastricht Academic Hospital to continue screening embryos for the gene that causes breast cancer. In the television programme Nova, the Christian Union leader said that the matter should first be debated in the cabinet.
The Christian Democrats are also annoyed with the hospital’s decision. Christian […]

Bus services over much of the country were paralysed on Monday as regional bus drivers continued their indefinite strike in support of a 3.5% pay claim.
The strike began on Sunday and means that no Arriva, Veolia and Connexxion buses are operating in most parts of the country. Services are continuing in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The […]

This year’s Pinkpop festival drew more than 90,000 visitors from Friday until Sunday where they attended numerous performances at the festival grounds in the Limburg town of Landgraaf.
Many of them stayed more than one day; around 42,000 people spent the night at one of the campgrounds in the area. Sunday included performances by Kate […]