Category Archives: Netherlands

​World largest meat company faces legal challenge over green credentials of $6bn global expansion

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Greenpeace petitions Dutch courts to order JBS to disclose how its aims are compatible with responsibilities to climate and human rights

The world’s biggest meat company, JBS, faces a landmark legal challenge to disclose how its $6bn (£4.5bn) global expansion plan is compatible with responsibilities to the climate, nature and human rights.

Courts in the Netherlands, where JBS is headquartered, will assess the petition filed by Greenpeace for information on whether the company is compliant with Dutch laws on “duty of care” as well as its own publicly stated commitments.

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From mobile jungles to shadow art: how Dutch people try to beat the heat

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A national heatwave plan has been activated to help people stay cool during the Netherlands’ increasingly hot summers

Households in Amsterdam are being urged to hang their curtains outside their windows as health experts recommend simple hacks to moderate the heatwave rolling across the Netherlands, where homes were built for old-fashioned damp and coldish northern European weather.

In a viral social media post last week, Eline Coolen, the heat coordinator at the city’s public health institute, urged sweaty city-dwellers to rig up temporary curtain rails or drape curtains or sheets outside to stop the sun’s rays reaching their large windows.

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Dutch PM apologises for Moluccan soldiers’ mistreatment after Indonesian independence

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Rob Jetten acknowledges grief and pain of Moluccan families as crowdfunded monument unveiled in Rotterdam

The Dutch prime minister, Rob Jetten, has formally apologised for the “heartless” mistreatment of thousands of Moluccan soldiers who fought for the Dutch colonial army during Indonesia’s struggle for independence.

About 12,500 people – men who had served in the Royal Dutch East Indies and their families – came from a group of Indonesian islands to the Netherlands in 1951, many having been given no choice. They thought it would be a temporary evacuation after Indonesia had won independence.

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Trial of 12mph bike lane speed limit grinds gears of Dutch cyclists

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Increase in road deaths amid rise of e-bikes prompts Houten to test willingness of freedom-loving cyclists to slow down

As road deaths increase and cycle lanes overflow with e-bikes, the Netherlands is considering a cycling speed limit of 12mph (20km/h).

The government has started a two-week trial in Houten, near Utrecht, to gauge whether freedom-loving Dutch cyclists are willing to slow down – and whether they have any idea how fast they are going in the first place.

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Dutch far-right party pays damages to court artist after changing image with AI

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Geert Wilders’ PVV altered sketch of jailed Syrian brothers to make them look more menacing

A Dutch court artist has received damages after an MP for the far-right Party for Freedom (PVV) used one of her drawings without permission and manipulated it with AI to make the subjects look more menacing.

Petra Urban, a court artist for 19 years, was shocked to discover a drawing she had made last year of two Syrian brothers jailed for the murder of their sister had been reworked and used in a video on Instagram and Facebook by the party’s Noord-Brabant region.

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UK will not have to pay Rwanda £100m over failed asylum scheme, court rules

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Rwanda had sued UK government over alleged breach of agreement, after scheme scrapped by Labour on first day in office

The UK will not have to pay the Rwandan government millions of pounds over a failed migrant deportation scheme set up by Boris Johnson’s administration, an international court has ruled.

The east African nation had sued the current UK government for more than £100m, claiming it was owed after a breach of an agreement.

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Milburn says migrants not to blame for Neets crisis but falling immigration creates ‘opportunity’ – UK politics live

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Major report on young people not in employment, education or training warns ‘we have neither a system or a plan to deal with it’

Pat McFadden, the work and pensions secretary, is introducing Alan Milburn.

He says Milburn’s report is “really important and powerful”.

I could see in the first few weeks after being appointed as the secretary of state what was happening, both in human and in financial terms, [in terms of youth unemployment].

And I knew that we had to get properly under the bonnet of this problem, because there’s a lot more thing than one thing happening here …

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‘It was like a mosh pit’: Swatch closes stores as watch launch causes crowding and scuffles

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French police fire teargas and UK shops close for safety reasons as hundreds queue for Royal Pop timepieces that make up Audemars Piguet collaboration

The launch of limited-edition Swatch watches descended into chaos in several European cities and New York, with French police firing teargas to restore order at a store near Paris.

Hundreds of people waited through the night from Friday into Saturday – and in some cases for several days – hoping to buy the Royal Pop timepieces, made in collaboration with the luxury watchmaker Audemars Piguet.

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British crew member in need of urgent medical care amid suspected hantavirus outbreak on cruise ship

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WHO says seven confirmed or suspected cases of hantavirus on MV Hondius, including three passengers who died

A British crew member was in need of urgent medical care and a passenger from the UK remained in a critical but stable condition following a suspected outbreak of hantavirus on a luxury cruise ship in the Atlantic Ocean.

Three people have died and medics on Monday were scrambling to evacuate two others from the MV Hondius, which set off in March from southern Argentina carrying 149 people from 23 countries. The crisis emerged late on Sunday after the World Health Organization (WHO) said it was investigating a suspected outbreak.

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Britain to create joint naval force with nine European countries as ‘complement’ to Nato

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Royal Navy chief says unified naval force will deter future Russian threats from the ‘open sea border’ to the north

Britain has agreed to create a unified naval force with nine European countries to deter future Russian threats from the “open sea border” to the north, the head of the Royal Navy has announced.

Gen Sir Gwyn Jenkins said that despite the ongoing crisis in the Middle East, where the strait of Hormuz remains closed after the US-Israeli war in Iran, “Russia remains the gravest threat to our security”.

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Aegon offloads 200-year-old UK business to Standard Life for £2bn

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Deal will create pensions and savings group with 16m customers and £480bn of assets, while Aegon focuses on US

The Dutch financial services group Aegon has struck a £2bn deal to sell off its almost 200-year-old UK arm to Standard Life, as part of a US push in which the group will be rebranded as Transamerica.

Standard Life, previously known as Phoenix Group, said the deal to buy Aegon UK would create a pensions and savings group with 16 million customers and £480bn of assets under administration.

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‘It’s amazing’: stolen 2,500-year-old Romanian gold helmet has been found

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Priceless artefact snatched in Netherlands museum heist has been recovered, ending international search

A priceless gold 2,500-year-old helmet from Romania, stolen last year in the Netherlands, has been recovered, according to a Dutch art detective.

“It’s amazing. It’s the best news we could have got,” Arthur Brand said on Thursday, confirming that the Helmet of Coțofenești had been found.

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Painting considered workshop copy is in fact by Rembrandt, expert says

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Exclusive: UK owner’s version of Old Man with a Gold Chain reunited in Chicago with undisputed work by Dutch master

A portrait in a UK collection that has long been dismissed as a workshop copy of an almost identical painting by Rembrandt was in fact also painted by the 17th-century Dutch master, according to a leading scholar.

Each of the paintings, titled Old Man with a Gold Chain and dated to the early 1630s, is a near-lifesize depiction of an older man wearing a gold chain and a plumed hat.

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Skeleton of Three Musketeers hero d’Artagnan may have been found

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Archaeologists believe remains found in Maastricht, Netherlands, may be of soldier who inspired novel character

More than three-and-a-half centuries after a musket ball to the throat put an end to decades of exemplary swashbuckling, the French soldier who inspired Alexandre Dumas and went on to be immortalised on the stage and screen – not to mention as a plucky cartoon dog – may rise again.

Workers repairing a church in the Dutch city of Maastricht have discovered a skeleton that could belong to the 17th-century Gascon nobleman Charles de Batz-Castelmore – better known as d’Artagnan – whose exploits led Dumas to make him the hero of the Three Musketeers.

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Senior European journalist suspended over AI-generated quotes

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Mediahuis suspends Peter Vandermeersch, who says he ‘fell into trap of hallucinations’, after investigation by newspaper where he was once editor-in-chief

The publisher of the Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf and the Irish Independent has suspended one of its senior journalists after he admitted using AI to “wrongly put words into people’s mouths”.

Peter Vandermeersch, the former head of the Irish operations at Mediahuis, said he “fell into the trap of hallucinations” – the term for AI-generated errors – when using the technology.

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‘Deliberate attack’: explosion damages Jewish school in Amsterdam

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Mayor condemns ‘cowardly act’ on south side of Amsterdam which caused limited damage and no reported injuries

An explosion has damaged a Jewish school in Amsterdam in what the city’s mayor described as “a deliberate attack against the Jewish community”.

The explosion early on Saturday in a residential neighbourhood on the south side of the city caused limited damage, the mayor, Femke Halsema, said in a press release, as police and firefighters arrived at the scene quickly.

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Dutch king says he ‘will not shy away’ from slavery history on rare royal visit to Suriname

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The king and queen’s visit to the former colony is the first by members of the Dutch royal family in nearly five decades

The Dutch king, Willem-Alexander, vowed on Monday that the topic of slavery would not be off-limits as he visits former colony Suriname, where the practice ended just over 150 years ago.

The king arrived in the capital Paramaribo on Sunday with Queen Maxima, a week after the small South American country marked 50 years of independence from the Netherlands.

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Satisfaction with democracy below 50% in eight out of nine western countries, poll finds

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Ipsos survey reveals fake news, lack of accountability, extremism and corruption seen as biggest threats

Satisfaction with democracy is below 50% in eight out of nine western countries surveyed in a poll, and majorities in all but one fear for its future, with fake news, lack of political accountability, extremism and corruption seen as the biggest threats.

An Ipsos survey of almost 10,000 people in Croatia, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Sweden, the UK and the US found satisfaction with democracy low in all except Sweden, with deep concerns about the future state of electoral politics.

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Liberal-progressive party D66 wins election, Dutch media report

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Party will take lead in first round of talks to form coalition government after securing most votes

The Dutch liberal-progressive party D66 won the most votes in Wednesday’s general election, the news agency ANP has reported, putting its 38-year-old leader, Rob Jetten, on course to become the youngest prime minister in the Netherlands.

While the last few thousand votes are still being counted, Dutch media reported on Friday that Geert Wilders’ anti-immigration, anti-Islam Party for Freedom (PVV) could no longer win.

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Geert Wilders faces shutout as centrists hail huge gains in knife-edge Dutch election

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Far right neck and neck with liberal D66 but all major mainstream parties have ruled out working with anti-Islam firebrand

Geert Wilders is almost certain to be shut out of the next Dutch government after a knife-edge general election in which support for his far-right Freedom party (PVV) slumped and the liberal-progressive D66 party made spectacular gains.

With 99.7% of ballots counted, the two parties were neck and neck on a projected 26 seats each in the 150-seat parliament, with D66 an estimated 15,000 votes ahead after the capital, Amsterdam, declared preliminary results on Thursday.

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