Drone and helicopter footage shows the extent of flood damage in towns across Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands after heavy rainfall caused water levels to rise in large parts of western Europe. Footage from local Belgian TV station RTL shows cars submerged in water and flooded streets and shops in the small town of Esneux, on the River Ourthe, just south of Liege. In Germany 18 people died and dozens were missing around the wine-growing hub of Ahrweiler, in Rhineland-Palatinate state, police said, after the Ahr river that flows into the Rhine rose and brought down half a dozen houses
Continue reading...Category Archives: Netherlands
Dutch crime reporter Peter de Vries dies after shooting
Family announces death of 64-year-old just over a week after attack in Amsterdam, reports say
The Dutch crime reporter Peter R de Vries has died just over a week after he was shot in the head in central Amsterdam, local media have reported, citing a statement released by the veteran journalist’s family.
“Peter fought to the end but was unable to win the battle,” the statement said, according to RTL Nieuws. “He died surrounded by the people who love him. Peter lived by his conviction: ‘On bended knee is no way to be free.’.”
Continue reading...The top journalist, the mafia boss and the gunman: Dutch fear the rise of ‘narco crime’
While Peter R de Vries fights for life in an Amsterdam hospital the nation reflects on how to end the grip of drug gangs
Five gunshots blasted like fireworks on a sunny evening, just behind Amsterdam’s busy Leidseplein. To the horror of the Netherlands, a cold-blooded shooting has left prominent Dutch crime journalist Peter R de Vries fighting for his life in hospital.
Everyone from European leaders to the Dutch king Willem-Alexander and Amsterdam mayor Femke Halsema have expressed their shock at the ambush of “national hero” De Vries as he walked back to his car on Tuesday after recording a chatshow, on a busy street in broad daylight.
Continue reading...Netherlands v Czech Republic: Euro 2020 last 16 – live!
- Euro 2020 last-16 updates from the 5pm BST game in Budapest
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The Dutch started vibrantly but the organised and athletic Czechs gradually grew into the game and it’s now very even between two contrasting side. I mentioned the Czechs famous win over the Netherlands at Euro 2004; well, that Czech team ultimately lost to Greece; and this Czech team has certain similarities with those Greeks. This is tricky for the Dutch.
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Related: Can Belgium’s world-beaters win a major trophy? It may be now or never | Jonathan Liew
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45+2 min: Lovely move by the Netherlands, with virtually every player getting a touch. When it reaches Depay in the box, he rolls past Kalas at the right-hand side of the box and flips a pass through to van Aanholt ... who drags his shot wide from nine yards! Oh, he was offside anyway.
Continue reading...AI helps return Rembrandt’s The Night Watch to original size
Rijksmuseum reproduces Dutch master’s work in all its glory, 300 years after it was cut to fit between doors
The Night Watch by Rembrandt has enraptured millions visiting Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum and its previous homes over the centuries, dazzling with its scale and fine detail.
But it is only from today, thanks to the use of artificial intelligence to recapture some of the Dutch master’s genius, including the sweep of his brush strokes and perspective of his eye, that it can for the first time in 300 years be enjoyed in its complete form.
Continue reading...Netherlands offers free pickled herring as Covid jab incentive
Country becomes the latest to encourage uptake by offering a traditional early-summer delicacy
After Russia offered cars, Washington state spliffs, Indonesia live chickens and Hong Kong the chance of a £1.2m apartment, the latest country to reward people who show up for their Covid shots is the Netherlands – with soused herring.
Early batches of Hollandse nieuwe, or new-season Dutch herring, a traditional delicacy consumed to the tune of 75m a year, are being distributed to vaccination centres around the country as an encouragement for people to get their jabs.
Continue reading...Party’s over: Amsterdam plans to keep tourists ‘in penis outfits’ away
As Dutch capital reopens post-Covid, city is taking ‘extra measures’ to discourage excess
Amsterdam has said it will not allow a return to the “nuisance and massive crowds” the city endured before the pandemic, sending a blunt warning that visitors “whose intention is to booze and misbehave, dressed like a penis” should go elsewhere.
As much of the EU prepares to open up to tourists who are vaccinated, have recovered from the coronavirus or can provide a negative test from 1 July, the Dutch capital’s city hall said in a statement it was taking “extra measures” to discourage excesses.
Continue reading...Ratko Mladić: life in prison is as close to justice as his victims will get
Analysis: upholding of genocide conviction for 1995 atrocities is a victorious end to a process few thought would succeed
When Ratko Mladić’s life sentence for genocide and crimes against humanity was confirmed, marking the end of the road for the Bosnian Serb general 10 years after his capture, Munira Subašić was in The Hague courtroom to watch.
In July 1995, Subašić was outside a UN compound, a disused battery factory near Srebrenica, appealing for protection from Dutch peacekeepers along with thousands of other terrified Bosnian Muslims.
Continue reading...Dutch to investigate business trio’s €100m face mask deal
Scrutiny of government procedures after ‘not-for-profit’ PPE contract led to ‘€20m enrichment’
The Dutch government has promised an independent investigation into a supposedly not-for-profit €100m (£86m) deal to buy face masks from China last year that ended up making three young entrepreneurs about €20m richer.
The investigative website Follow the Money (FTM) revealed that Sywert van Lienden, 30, a former civil servant turned TV pundit and activist, who co-wrote the manifesto of the Christian Democrat (CDA) party (part of the ruling coalition), netted €9.2m.
Continue reading...The pig whisperer: the Dutch farmer who wants to end factory farming
A unique ‘pig toilet’ and a diet of organic leftovers are part of former vet Kees Scheepens’ plans to put animal welfare and sustainability first
“Oma, hoi! Hier! Hallooo,” Dr Kees Scheepens, a Dutch farmer known as the “pig whisperer”, is calling his two oldest pigs for some apricot snacks.
Oma or “granny”, a seven-year-old sow, lives with a Berkshire boar called Borough, who’s nine, off a quiet lane in the town of Oirschot, in the south of the Netherlands, on a farm called Hemelrijken – Dutch for “the realms of heaven”.
Continue reading...Trouble in cyclists’ paradise: Amsterdam accused of favouring pedestrians
Dutch cycling union claims city has turned on them by making centre more difficult to navigate
Its reputation is that of an idyll for cyclists, a city freed from the torment of cars. But while Amsterdam remains a model to most of the world, there are signs of trouble in paradise.
A series of developments have led the Amsterdam branch of the Fietsersbond, the Dutch cyclists’ union, to claim the municipality has turned on them, unfairly prioritising pedestrians in the city’s historic centre.
Continue reading...Rijksmuseum slavery exhibition confronts cruelty of Dutch trade
Amsterdam show includes 140 objects ranging from Rembrandt portraits to human collars and ankle chains
The aim of a first exhibition on the Dutch slave trade to be shown at the Rijksmuseum, launched on Tuesday by King Willem-Alexander, is not to be “woke” but to be a “blockbuster” telling a truer story of the Golden Age, the director general of the national institution has said.
Taco Dibbits said his museum had no intention of taking sides in a political and cultural debate but that the royal visit, broadcast live on national television, highlighted that the wealth bestowed and cruelty endured was not just relevant to the descendants of those enslaved.
Continue reading...Amsterdam plans out-of-town ‘erotic centre’ as part of cleanup bid
Proposals for 5,000-sq-metre building detailed in document submitted to the council by mayor
Amsterdam is preparing to build an out-of-town five-storey “erotic centre” with two bars, 100 small rooms and an “erotic entertainment” venue such as a strip club as it downsizes its red-light district.
The plan for the 5,000-sq-metre building has been detailed in a document submitted to the council by mayor Femke Halsema as the city seeks to find a commercial partner for the enterprise.
Continue reading...Covid vaccine rollout rapidly gathering pace across Europe
EU now confident that supply – the biggest problem in early months of year – should not be an obstacle to further acceleration
The restaurant and cafe terraces spilling out into the streets of the pretty Dutch medieval town of Sluis were teeming over the weekend with smiling people clinking glasses under the spring sun.
The Netherlands reopened alfresco hospitality last Wednesday and Belgians, ignoring official advice, had driven a short distance across the border in huge numbers to enjoy their neighbour’s freedom over the long Labour day weekend. “We could have filled 400 tables,” said an apologetic waiter at the Resto de Eetboetiek, as he turned away the latest family arriving without a reservation.
Continue reading...How continental Europe is emerging from Covid lockdown
Countries across Europe are starting to relax coronavirus restrictions as case numbers fall
Counting on an accelerating vaccination campaign to keep new infections in check, much of continental Europe has announced plans for a gradual exit from lockdown over the coming weeks as case numbers begin to fall. Here is where things stand:
Belgium (at least one vaccine dose administered to 25% of whole population) aims to permit outside dining in restaurants and bars again on 8 May, with a mandatory 10pm closing time and tables limited to groups of four. Non-essential shops and hairdressers reopened on Monday.
Continue reading...Superyacht towed through narrow canal in Netherlands – video
A Dutch superyacht has completed its four-day passage through a narrow canal en route to the North Sea for testing. At 94 metres long, it is the largest possible vessel which can pass through.
Tom van Oossanen, a superyacht photographer who captured the footage, said: ‘The designers face limitations due to the narrow waterways and bridges. It’s always a tight squeeze. The locals usually love it. It’s very instagrammable’
Continue reading...EU states begin using single-dose J&J Covid vaccine
Johnson & Johnson’s coronavirus jab rolled out after backing from European Medicines Agency
EU member states are starting to administer Johnson & Johnson’s coronavirus vaccine after Europe’s drug regulator this week backed the single-dose shot, with several expected to impose age restrictions, as with the AstraZeneca jab.
Spain’s regional health authorities began using the shot on Thursday for people aged 70 to 79, two days after the European Medicines Agency (EMA) announced a possible link to a rare clotting disorder but stressed the shot’s benefits outweighed the risks.
Continue reading...Huawei ‘may have eavesdropped on Dutch mobile network’s calls’
Chinese firm could have been monitoring calls of KPN’s 6.5m users without its knowledge, report claims
The Chinese telecoms equipment supplier Huawei was able to monitor all calls made on one of the Netherlands’ largest mobile phone networks, according to a confidential report seen by the Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant.
The report, made for KPN by the Capgemini consultancy firm in 2010, concluded that the Chinese company could have been monitoring the calls of the provider’s 6.5m users without the Dutch company’s knowledge, according to the newspaper.
Continue reading...Court tells Uber to reinstate five UK drivers sacked by automated process
Ruling in Amsterdam overturns company’s decision to exclude operators for alleged sharing of account details
Uber has been ordered to reinstate five British drivers who were struck off from its ride-hailing app by robot technology.
The five drivers, backed by the App Drivers & Couriers Union (ADCU) and the campaign group Worker Info Exchange, argued that they had been wrongly accused of fraudulent activity based on mistaken information from Uber’s technology, and that the company had failed to provide the drivers with proper evidence to support the allegations.
Continue reading...‘This is all we could get’: Dutch tourists arrive in Rhodes for locked-down holiday
In experiment organised by Dutch government, travellers will have to take regular Covid tests and are barred from leaving resort
A regime that might, in more normal times, resemble a boot camp has been happily embraced by 189 Dutch tourists who traded lockdown in the Netherlands for eight days of voluntary confinement at a Greek beach resort.
In an experiment devised by travel industry experts determined not to lose another season to Covid-19, the tourists arrived on the Aegean island of Rhodes on Monday as part of a test run to see if safe holidays can be arranged during the pandemic.
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