Category Archives: Netherlands

The Hague introduces €50 flat fee for parking to deter drivers

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Scheme on certain streets including near beach makes it as costly to park for 10 minutes as for whole day

Whether for 10 minutes or a whole day, it now costs a flat fee of €50 (£43) to park in certain streets in The Hague, including roads around the popular Scheveningen beach.

The pilot scheme in the Dutch city on the North Sea coast, which will last a year, aims to discourage tourists and visitors from blocking up the historic centre and seaside roads, particularly on sunny days.

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Nothing to see here: Dutch village calls off search for Nazi loot

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Ommeren became hive of activity after Dutch National Archive unveiled map featuring a red ‘X’ in January

A Dutch village that became the focus of a frenzied treasure hunt after a map allegedly showed Nazi loot buried there during the second world war has declared the search over – and said nothing was found.

The small hamlet of Ommeren did conclude that there had indeed been treasure buried there, but that it was removed after the war.

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Dutch court orders sperm donor to stop after 550 children

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Nation’s guidelines say no donor should father more than 25 children in 12 families

Dutch judges have ordered a man suspected of fathering more than 550 children through sperm donations to stop donating, in the latest fertility scandal to shock the Netherlands.

The man, identified in Dutch media only as Jonathan M, 41, was taken to court by a foundation protecting the rights of donor children and by the mother of one of the children allegedly fathered from his sperm.

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The wine intervention: Dutch nuns appeal for help with booze glut

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Convent in Oosterhout has been left with surplus of more than 60,000 bottles after hot and dry year

A Dutch convent is appealing to wine drinkers to support its endeavours as, thanks to an extremely hot and dry year, Sint-Catharinadal in Oosterhout has an excess of 64,000 bottles made from its vineyard.

“We had a lovely summer last year, warm temperatures, and it promises to be an excellent harvest of more than 60,000 bottles,” said Sister Maria Magdalena, prioress, in a video appeal.

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Netherlands train crash: one dead and dozens injured after carriages derail

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Authorities say at least 50 passengers were onboard train that crashed into a crane between The Hague and Leiden

A train in the Netherlands rammed into a maintenance crane on the tracks before it derailed and ploughed into a field, killing the crane operator and injuring dozens of passengers.

The maintenance work was planned and standard, but “we have no idea how the crane got on the track which was still open for traffic”, John Voppen, the chief executive of the railway infrastructure company ProRail, said at a news briefing on Tuesday.

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‘Damaged nuclear bomb’ at Dutch base was dummy weapon, Pentagon says

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US defence department releases statement saying object was used in training after photo emerged of military inspection

The Pentagon has said that a picture that featured in a report by the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) on Monday about apparent damage to a US nuclear bomb at a Dutch airbase was a dummy weapon used for training emergency response teams.

FAS published a photograph of a B61 bomb being inspected for damage by US soldiers, including two from an explosive ordnance disposal unit, and a civilian. The rear of the bomb appears to have been twisted by an impact and one of the tail fins is missing. There is pink sticky tape covering an apparent hole.

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Typhoid outbreak on refugee ship in Netherlands traced to raw sewage

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Report finds that 72 cases of the disease on the vessel, which was housing asylum seekers, were caused by a wastewater leak

A major outbreak of typhoid among asylum seekers living on a ship in the Netherlands has been traced to raw sewage which was allowed to mix with tanks of freshwater for drinking and cooking.

A total of 72 cases of the highly contagious disease were confirmed during the spring 2022 outbreak on the Liberty Ann, an old cruise ship which was being used as emergency accommodation in Haarlem.

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Michel Houellebecq sex film to be released despite attempt to stop it

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Amsterdam court dismisses French author’s complaint against film that shows him having sex with young women

A Dutch art collective can release an experimental erotic film showing the French novelist Michel Houellebecq having sex with young women in spite of the author’s attempt to stop its circulation, an Amsterdam court has ruled.

Amsterdam’s district court on Tuesday afternoon dismissed a legal complaint by Houellebecq and his wife, Qianyun Lysis, that had aimed to curb the distribution of the film KIRAC 27 by Keeping It Real Art Critics, as well as a trailer that was uploaded on the art collective’s website last month but has since been taken down.

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Amsterdam tells young British men who want a ‘messy’ weekend to stay away

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In bid to reduce nuisance behaviour ads will be triggered if people search online for terms such as ‘stag party Amsterdam’

The city of Amsterdam is geo-targeting a campaign to tell young British men wanting a “messy” weekend to stay away.

Research has suggested these Britons aged 18-35, and Dutch men of a similar age, tend to cause most nuisance in the red light district, with stag parties, pub crawls and all-night drink and drug benders making life unbearable for residents.

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US indicts alleged Russian spy who tried to infiltrate ICC in The Hague

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Sergey Cherkasov studied in US under false identity and is accused of working for Russian intelligence

US authorities have released new details about an alleged Russian spy who attempted to penetrate the international criminal court in The Hague, using a false identity developed over a decade.

An indictment made public on Saturday accuses Sergey Cherkasov, who US intelligence believes is an elite “illegal” operative of Russia’s GRU military intelligence agency. Cherkasov posed as Brazilian citizen Victor Muller Ferreira over many years.

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Burrowing badgers halt train services in the Netherlands

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Dutch authorities try to tempt out animals, which dig setts under quiet and raised train embankments

Leaves on the tracks, signal failures and strikes can all cause train delay headaches, but commuters in the Netherlands are facing railway havoc caused by badgers burrowing under the lines, with authorities struggling to tempt the protected animals out.

In the densely populated country, there is limited natural space for the country’s 7,000 badgers. They often dig out their homes, or setts, under relatively “quiet” train embankments, which are ideally situated away from people and also slightly raised, which prevents the sett from flooding.

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Rural populist party emerges as big winner in Dutch elections

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Success of Farmer-Citizen Movement in provincial vote is heavy blow to Mark Rutte’s four-party coalition

A new populist party surfing a wave of rural anger at government environmental policies has emerged as the big winner in Dutch provincial elections, dealing a heavy blow to the four-party coalition of the prime minister, Mark Rutte.

The success of the Farmer-Citizen Movement (BBB) in Wednesday’s vote, which will determine the makeup of the senate, casts doubt over the government’s ability to pass key legislation, including its plans to slash nitrogen emissions.

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Farmers-led party set to prosper in key Dutch regional elections

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Green transition in spotlight as party opposed to nitrogen emission cuts surges in polls

A new party led by farmers fighting cuts to nitrogen emissions looks set to be the big winner in key Dutch regional elections that could severely weaken the government and, analysts suggest, herald a Europe-wide backlash against the green transition.

The BoerBurgerBeweging (Farmer-Citizen Movement, or BBB) was launched in 2019 and has just one MP, but its people-against-the-elites platform has struck a chord with disaffected voters, and polls suggest it could finish as the second-largest or even the largest party in Wednesday’s vote.

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‘A new page’: European newspapers hail Northern Ireland deal

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Rishi Sunak lauded for making ‘adult relationship’ possible between UK and EU after post-Brexit dispute

Continental media have welcomed the deal settling the EU’s bitter post-Brexit dispute with the UK over Northern Ireland, hoping it may herald a new “adult relationship” that had been unthinkable while the “untrustworthy” Boris Johnson was in Downing Street.

In France, where the president, Emmanuel Macron, hailed “an important decision” that would “preserve the Good Friday agreement and protect our European internal market”, Le Monde called the Windsor framework a significant breakthrough.

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‘Chance of a lifetime’ Vermeer exhibition to open in Amsterdam

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Rare exhibition assembles 28 paintings by enigmatic Dutch master in one place

For once, say its curators, “the chance of a lifetime” may be right: never before have so many works by Johannes Vermeer, the luminous 17th-century Dutch master, been assembled in the same place – and it is highly unlikely they will be again.

Of the fewer than 40 paintings most experts attribute to the artist, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam has obtained 28. Opening next week, its first Vermeer retrospective has sold more advance tickets than any show in the museum’s history.

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Chip war: Japan and Netherlands expected to join US in ban on tech exports to China

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Washington officials appear to confirm deal to restrict export of semiconductor manufacturing technology to China

A Washington official has made the most direct comments by a US authority to date acknowledging the existence of a deal with Japan and the Netherlands for those countries to impose new restrictions on exports of chipmaking tools to China.

“We can’t talk about the deal right now,” said Don Graves, deputy commerce department secretary, on the sidelines of an event in Washington. “But you can certainly talk to our friends in Japan and the Netherlands.”

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‘Remarkable’: Eastbourne shipwreck identified as 17th-century Dutch warship

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Klein Hollandia discovery ‘opens up fascinating chapter in rich, shared maritime history between UK and Netherlands’

• Shipwrecked: how tech is revealing world of 3m lost vessels

A remarkably preserved shipwreck known only as the “unknown wreck off Eastbourne” has finally been identified as the 17th-century Dutch warship Klein Hollandia which was involved in all the big battles in the second Anglo-Dutch war.

Its identity has been confirmed after painstaking research by archeologists and scientists after its initial discovery in 2019, having lain 32 metres (105ft) underwater on the seabed since 1672.

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Underwater bike garage solves Amsterdam station’s storage headache

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Central station is replacing its messy, overflowing cycle parking facilities with a low-cost area that’s tucked away out of sight

Beneath the clear waters and pleasure boats by Amsterdam central station is a remarkable feat of engineering: an underwater garage for 7,000 bicycles.

The garage, which opens on 26 January, is the result of a four-year, €60m (£53m) project to clear heaps of rusty bikes left by hasty commuters and install rows of clean, safe parking spaces underground, where bikes can be left free for 24 hours and then at a cost of €1.35 per 24 hours.

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Amsterdam calls for crackdown on menace of souped-up e-bikes

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Demon young riders speeding at 40kph are making the Dutch city’s once cycle-friendly streets dangerous – and the problem is spreading

Debby Nieberg was cycling home from the dentist last October, when she was knocked to the pavement and broke her shoulder.

According to her police report, the youngster on an e-bike – overtaking Nieberg on Amsterdam’s narrow cycling lanes – got up and cycled off, a crime in itself. “This unfortunately has become a big part of my life because of the ‘need for speed’ of those on e-bikes,” says the 56-year-old freelance translator, who has just started cycling again. “The bike situation is definitely unsafe.”

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X marks the spot: newly released treasure map sparks hunt for £15m Nazi hoard

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Second world war document revealing a stash of coins and jewels hidden by German soldiers is put online by Dutch archivists

As the Nazis fled occupied Europe in the final days of the second world war, four German soldiers buried a hoard of gold coins and jewels in the middle of nowhere in the Dutch countryside. Nearly 80 years later, hopes of finding the buried loot have been raised after the National Archives of the Netherlands released a trove of documents – and a map to the treasure where X marks the spot.

The treasure – four ammunition cases laden with coins, watches, jewellery, diamonds and other gemstones – is thought to have been worth at least 2m or 3m Dutch guilder in 1945, the equivalent of around £15.85m in today’s money.

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