Many others injured as police say they are trying to determine why vehicle careered down dyke
The death toll from an accident when a lorry drove off a dyke and into a barbecue party in a village south of Rotterdam has risen to six, with a further seven people in hospital, including one in critical condition.
Police said the lorry driver, a 46-year-old Spanish man, was suspected of causing the crash, which happened early on Saturday evening in the village of Nieuw-Beijerland.
Continue reading...Abellio UK’s CEO Dominic Booth is understood to be leading buyout and will help fund deal using own money
The Dutch state railway is to pull out of the UK with a management buyout of its subsidiary Abellio, which runs four rail lines and a number of London bus routes.
Abellio, which for 20 years has run East Midlands Railway, Greater Anglia, Merseyrail and West Midlands Railway and employs 15,000 staff, is to be sold by the Netherlands state-run Nederlandse Spoorwegen to its UK management. The business will be operated by a new firm, to be known as Transport UK Group Limited.
Continue reading...Wiegman has transformed the fortunes of the women’s football team and got them to the Euro semi-finals – with no fear of making tough calls along the way
For any of the 7.6 million BBC One viewers who tuned in to watch England’s dramatic extra-time defeat of Spain in the quarter-finals of the Euros on Wednesday night, the sight of an animated blond Dutch woman on the touchline will not have gone unnoticed.
Sarina Wiegman, England’s manager, is fast becoming a talking point. Less for her antics – although watching her being lifted aloft in a bear-hug from centre-back Millie Bright after the full-time whistle was a treat – and more for the 11-month transformation of the Lionesses from disjointed and confidence-drained to contenders on the biggest of stages.
Continue reading...Solution to overcrowded asylum centres angers NGOs, though three ships have already been commissioned
Plans to house refugees arriving in the Netherlands on cruise ships have been described as “absurd” and illegal, as the Dutch government laid out its solution to overcrowded asylum centres.
Three large ships have already been commissioned and one is due to be anchored in Velsen, near IJmuiden in North Holland, although ministers are struggling to find further willing ports.
Continue reading...From Europe to India and the US, the revelations have fuelled anger from across the spectrum, from the drivers to politicians
The release of the Uber files has prompted a frenzy of reaction around the world, piling pressure on senior politicians, fuelling calls for a crackdown on corporate lobbying and drawing outrage from groups including traditional taxi drivers.
The fuse was lit with the publication of revelations from a trove of more than 124,000 documents about Uber spanning from 2013 to 2017, leaked to the Guardian and shared with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and international media.
Continue reading...Murders, corruption and ‘Mocro Maffia’ prompt Dutch to set up war chest to tackle wave of organised crime sweeping nation
Journalists and lawyers under protection or murdered on the streets, court hearings guarded by the army, witness statements anonymised, and billions in dirty drug money that leaches through society, corrupting as it goes.
This is the Netherlands, where these facts have now inspired a crackdown pitting some €500m a year against a level of organised crime that politicians fear is increasingly “undermining” public order.
Continue reading...Calls grow for greater measures against wave of BA.4 and BA.5 cases in countries from Spain to Denmark
Multiple European countries are experiencing a significant surge in new Covid-19 infections, as experts warn that with almost all restrictions lifted and booster take-up often low, cases could soar throughout the summer leading to more deaths.
According to the Our World in Data scientific aggregator, the rolling seven-day average of confirmed new cases per million inhabitants is on the rise in countries including Portugal, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Greece, the Netherlands and Denmark.
Continue reading...Sister-in-law hid one dedicated to Gauguin because of ‘anger at the French artist’s attacks on his former friend’
Shortly before Vincent van Gogh cut off his left ear and had a breakdown after quarrelling with his fellow artist, Paul Gauguin, in the French city of Arles in 1888, he created a pair of extraordinary paintings. One, Gauguin’s Chair, depicts a couple of books and a lit candle discarded on an ornate armchair. The other, Van Gogh’s Chair, shows a tobacco pipe and pouch on a rustic wooden chair and is instantly recognisable as one of the most famous paintings in the world.
Now, the mystery of how the diptych of paintings came to be split up – and why the picture of Gauguin’s chair was kept in the family collection while Van Gogh’s Chair was sold off – has finally been solved.
Continue reading...Singer, 78, developed symptoms as he arrived in Dutch capital for Sixty tour, which includes dates in England
Sir Mick Jagger has tested positive for coronavirus, prompting the Rolling Stones to cancel their show in Amsterdam on Monday.
The singer, 78, began to develop symptoms as he arrived at the Johan Cruijff ArenA in the Dutch capital earlier in the day.
Continue reading...Exclusive: she will sell the 1683 portrait of Steven Wolters by Caspar Netscher through Sotheby’s so her family can benefit from the proceeds
At the age of 101, a Dutch woman has been reunited with a painting that had been looted from her father by the Nazis during the second world war, but she has decided to sell it through Sotheby’s in London so that her family can benefit from the proceeds.
Charlotte Bischoff van Heemskerck, a non-practising Baptist who joined the Dutch Resistance, had never given up hope of finding the 1683 portrait of Steven Wolters by Caspar Netscher, a Dutch master whose paintings are in the National Gallery, London.
Continue reading...Daughter of Peter R de Vries tells his alleged killers ‘I hate you’ and says her father was a hero
The children of a Dutch crime reporter who was fatally shot last year have confronted his alleged killers in court.
Peter R de Vries, 64, was shot in the head outside an Amsterdam television studio in July 2021 in a crime that prosecutors say was linked to his role in the trial of a Dutch drugs mafia kingpin.
Continue reading...Gazprom raises stakes in sanctions war after EU move to embargo most Russian oil imports and companies miss deadline to pay in roubles
Russia has further cut off gas supplies to Europe, after state energy giant Gazprom turned off the taps to a top Dutch trader and halted flows to some companies in Denmark and Germany.
The intensification of the economic battle on Tuesday over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine follows the EU’s overnight decision to place an embargo on most Russian oil imports as part of its financial sanctions against the Kremlin.
Continue reading...Dutch prosecutors say 64-year-old man accused of role in massacres arrested after extradition request
A Rwandan man has been arrested in the Netherlands based on an extradition request from Rwanda on suspicion that he was involved in the central African country’s 1994 genocide, Dutch prosecutors have said.
The 65-year-old man, who was not identified, has been living in the Netherlands since he was granted asylum there in 1999. He was arrested on Wednesday in the town of Ermelo, 44 miles east of Amsterdam.
Continue reading...Takeaway group in boardroom turmoil after two bosses exit before annual shareholder meeting
Just Eat Takeaway is facing boardroom turmoil after a senior executive stepped down amid an investigation by the courier group into a formal complaint regarding misconduct at a company event.
The board of Just Eat said it would not be putting Jörg Gerbig, its chief operating officer, forward for re-election at the company’s annual shareholder meeting on Wednesday, as it was due to engage an “external expert” to conduct an investigation into “possible personal misconduct”.
Continue reading...Child found safe and unharmed wandering in pyjamas and bare feet after abandoning car in Utrecht
A “highly enterprising” four-year-old boy was reunited with his parents unscathed after grabbing his mother’s keys and taking her car for an early-morning drive through the streets of Utrecht in the Netherlands, police have said.
The boy, in pyjamas and bare feet, was spotted wandering on a street in the city’s Overvecht district early on Saturday morning by bystanders who called emergency services, the North Utrecht police force said on its Instagram account.
Continue reading...Former player Johan Derksen appeared to make comments about historic drunken incident to amusement of presenter
The Netherlands has been forced again to face questions about attitudes to sexual violence towards women after one of the country’s most famous football pundits appeared to admit live on air to assaulting an unconscious woman with a candle 50 years ago.
Dutch prosecutors opened an investigation after Johan Derksen, 73, made the comments on Tuesday on the talkshow Today Inside, to the amusement of presenter Wilfred Genee and fellow pundit René van der Gijp.
In the UK, Rape Crisis offers support for rape and sexual abuse on 0808 802 9999 in England and Wales, 0808 801 0302 in Scotland, or 0800 0246 991 in Northern Ireland. In the US, Rainn offers support on 800-656-4673. In Australia, support is available at 1800Respect (1800 737 732). Other international helplines can be found at ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html
Continue reading...After a rookie militiaman secretly watched a video of 41 people being brutally killed, he knew he had to get the horrific images to the outside world
• Warning: this report contains images readers may find upsetting
On a spring morning three years ago, a new recruit to a loyalist Syrian militia was handed a laptop belonging to one of Bashar al-Assad’s most feared security wings. He opened the screen and curiously clicked on a video file, a brave move given the consequences if anyone had caught him prying.
The footage was unsteady at first, before it closed in on a freshly dug pit in the ground between the bullet-pocked shells of two buildings. An intelligence officer he knew was knelt near the hole’s edge in military fatigues and a fishing hat, brandishing an assault rifle and barking orders.
Continue reading...Images show woman who looks like smuggler known as Godmother of the Coke, who disappeared in 2019
Photographs found on a phone showing the torture of a woman believed to be a Moroccan-Dutch drug smuggler nicknamed the Godmother of the Coke have been added to the prosecution’s evidence against a suspected drug kingpin in his trial in Amsterdam for multiple murders.
Three disturbing images of a woman who bears a close resemblance to Naima Jillal, who disappeared in 2019, were reportedly found on a BlackBerry when Ridouan Taghi was arrested three years ago in Dubai.
Continue reading...Accusations of ‘sexually transgressive behaviour’ and abuse of power cast shadow over original version of popular talent show
Dutch prosecutors have opened a criminal investigation into sexual abuse allegations around the talent show The Voice of Holland, saying four suspects are under investigation.
Accusations of “sexually transgressive behaviour” and abuse of power rocked the Netherlands in January, in the country’s first major #MeToo scandal.
Continue reading...Duke and Duchess of Sussex will address spectators in The Hague accompanied by Netflix film crew
The Duke of Sussex took part in a driving challenge as the Invictus Games got under way on Saturday. Ahead of the opening ceremony, he and the Duchess of Sussex joined a junior driving contest where they were driven round a circuit of miniature Land Rovers.
The couple are expected to speak on stage at the Invictus Games opening ceremony on Saturday night.
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