Former Dutch transport minister Nelie Smit Kroes was appointed to the prized EU Commission post of Commissioner of Competition & State Aid. Trouw newspaper said this ‘beautiful brief with a whale of a portfolio in her pocket’ marks Smit Kroess’ finest hour in the latter days of a brilliant career’.
Dutch Prime Minister Jan Perter Balkenende was praised for winning this coveted position for the Netherlands and ensuring a greater role for smaller countries within the EU. All was not quite so rosy on the domestic front, however, as relations between Dutch unions and the government broke down. Unions no longer feel obliged to honor an earlier agreement with the government on freezing wages, and the government in turn said it no longer regards collective labor agreements as binding for an entire sector. One newspaper reported this as ‘a declaration of war’, signaling the government’s ‘fundamental attack on the trade union movement and labor rights’. The Dutch cabinet wants to give the country’s national intelligence and security services greater powers to fight terrorism. The government has proposed an expansion of the national monitoring service, which, in future, will allow the Dutch Intelligence and Security Service (AIVD) and military intelligence and security services to collect information on persons who, for example, are themselves not suspected of any crime, although they may have contact with ‘suspicious’ individuals. Calls for expanded security powers follow the publication of the AIVD’s annual report. AIVD chief Sybrand van Hulst said the Netherlands can expect to live with the threat of Islamic terrorism for years to come. Van Hulst said that ‘those fighting terrorism are not winning. There’s not even a prospect of winning.’ The British newspaper, The Observer, reports that Dutch oil giant Shell is expecting a takeover bid from its French rival Total. Shell has been vulnerable to takeovers since being forced to re-evaluate its oil reserves downwards. Shell is the world’s third largest oil company followed by Total in fourth place. Shell recently announced it was bidding for Iraq’s two largest oil fields, one near Rumaylah and the other near Kirkut. Elsewhere, a Dutch court sentenced two Polish men to prison terms for trying to blackmail the Ikea furniture chain. The men placed bombs outside Ikea stores in December 2002, in a bid to extort 250,000 euros. A 25-year-old man and his 57-year-old male accomplice were sentenced to seven and four years in jail, respectively. Ikea was forced to close its ten Dutch outlets while police searched for explosives. “Crimes like this instill anxiety in our society,” the judges said. “The fear and insecurity felt by the Ikea employees… cannot be overlooked.”
The Netherlands ‘enjoyed’ its first heat wave of the summer last week. A heat wave is officially a heat wave when temperatures reach 25 degrees centigrade for five days in a row. But while this was good news for beach lovers, it wasn’t for others, especially the elderly. Research at the University of Maastricht revealed that 40 people a day die unnecessarily because of the heat. Temperatures were certainly raised in the Dutch capital recently during the ninth annual gay weekend known as Amsterdam Pride. Some 400,000 people lined the canals of Amsterdam’s center to watch the colorful canal parade of boats laden with extravagantly dressed homosexuals. The Amsterdam Pride weekend was launched in the 1990s to help maintain the city’s reputation as the ‘Gay capital of Europe’ in the face of increasing commercial competition for the homosexual ‘pink dollar’ from other European cities such as London and Berlin. Although once known for tolerance of homosexuals and gay rights – the Netherlands was the first country to officially sanction same-sex marriages in 2001 . many Dutch gays complain of a declining level of acceptance of their sexual orientation. A survey by the Dutch gay magazine De Gay Krant found that the one in five Dutch gays experienced some kind of threatening behavior in the last 12 months. With the Olympics underway in Athens, one Dutchman closely involved with the Athens Games is 35-year-old Dutchman Tijs Verwest, who’s not an athlete but rather a world famous DJ. ‘DJ Tiësto’, as he’s known in the trance music world, created the sound spectacle for the opening ceremony, which was watched by billions of television viewers around the world. “A few years ago I was spinning records for about 150 people at a disco in Breda,” Tiësto said. And finally, the dreaded ‘Toe-licker of Rotterdam’ was on the loose this summer in Dutch parks. The Telegraaf newspaper reported that the man apparently sneaks up on sunbathers and, if they’re asleep or not paying attention, begins licking their toes. Apparently the police are powerless to stop the man, as licking a stranger’s toes isn’t officially a crime.
compiled by David McMullin
Former Dutch transport minister Nelie Smit Kroes was appointed to the prized EU Commission post of Commissioner of Competition & State Aid. Trouw newspaper said this ‘beautiful brief with a whale of a portfolio in her pocket’ marks Smit Kroess’ finest hour in the latter days of a brilliant career’. Dutch Prime Minister Jan Perter Balkenende was praised for winning this coveted position for the Netherlands and ensuring a greater role for smaller countries within the EU. All was not quite so rosy on the domestic front, however, as relations between Dutch unions and the government broke down. Unions no longer feel obliged to honor an earlier agreement with the government on freezing wages, and the government in turn said it no longer regards collective labor agreements as binding for an entire sector. One newspaper reported this as ‘a declaration of war’, signaling the government’s ‘fundamental attack on the trade union movement and labor rights’. The Dutch cabinet wants to give the country’s national intelligence and security services greater powers to fight terrorism. The government has proposed an expansion of the national monitoring service, which, in future, will allow the Dutch Intelligence and Security Service (AIVD) and military intelligence and security services to collect information on persons who, for example, are themselves not suspected of any crime, although they may have contact with ‘suspicious’ individuals. Calls for expanded security powers follow the publication of the AIVD’s annual report. AIVD chief Sybrand van Hulst said the Netherlands can expect to live with the threat of Islamic terrorism for years to come. Van Hulst said that ‘those fighting terrorism are not winning. There’s not even a prospect of winning.’ The British newspaper, The Observer, reports that Dutch oil giant Shell is expecting a takeover bid from its French rival Total. Shell has been vulnerable to takeovers since being forced to re-evaluate its oil reserves downwards. Shell is the world’s third largest oil company followed by Total in fourth place. Shell recently announced it was bidding for Iraq’s two largest oil fields, one near Rumaylah and the other near Kirkut. Elsewhere, a Dutch court sentenced two Polish men to prison terms for trying to blackmail the Ikea furniture chain. The men placed bombs outside Ikea stores in December 2002, in a bid to extort 250,000 euros. A 25-year-old man and his 57-year-old male accomplice were sentenced to seven and four years in jail, respectively. Ikea was forced to close its ten Dutch outlets while police searched for explosives. “Crimes like this instill anxiety in our society,” the judges said. “The fear and insecurity felt by the Ikea employees… cannot be overlooked.”
The Netherlands ‘enjoyed’ its first heat wave of the summer last week. A heat wave is officially a heat wave when temperatures reach 25 degrees centigrade for five days in a row. But while this was good news for beach lovers, it wasn’t for others, especially the elderly. Research at the University of Maastricht revealed that 40 people a day die unnecessarily because of the heat. Temperatures were certainly raised in the Dutch capital recently during the ninth annual gay weekend known as Amsterdam Pride. Some 400,000 people lined the canals of Amsterdam’s center to watch the colorful canal parade of boats laden with extravagantly dressed homosexuals. The Amsterdam Pride weekend was launched in the 1990s to help maintain the city’s reputation as the ‘Gay capital of Europe’ in the face of increasing commercial competition for the homosexual ‘pink dollar’ from other European cities such as London and Berlin. Although once known for tolerance of homosexuals and gay rights – the Netherlands was the first country to officially sanction same-sex marriages in 2001 . many Dutch gays complain of a declining level of acceptance of their sexual orientation. A survey by the Dutch gay magazine De Gay Krant found that the one in five Dutch gays experienced some kind of threatening behavior in the last 12 months. With the Olympics underway in Athens, one Dutchman closely involved with the Athens Games is 35-year-old Dutchman Tijs Verwest, who’s not an athlete but rather a world famous DJ. ‘DJ Tiësto’, as he’s known in the trance music world, created the sound spectacle for the opening ceremony, which was watched by billions of television viewers around the world. “A few years ago I was spinning records for about 150 people at a disco in Breda,” Tiësto said. And finally, the dreaded ‘Toe-licker of Rotterdam’ was on the loose this summer in Dutch parks. The Telegraaf newspaper reported that the man apparently sneaks up on sunbathers and, if they’re asleep or not paying attention, begins licking their toes. Apparently the police are powerless to stop the man, as licking a stranger’s toes isn’t officially a crime.
compiled by David McMullin
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