Category Archives: Netherlands

Hague court orders Dutch state to pay out over colonial massacres

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Indonesian man forced to watch his father’s execution is among those who will get compensation

An Indonesian man forced to watch his father’s summary execution by a Dutch soldier when he was 10 years old has spoken of his gratitude after a court in The Hague ordered the Dutch state to pay compensation to victims of colonial massacres in the 1940s.

Andi Monji, 83, who travelled to the Netherlands to tell his story to the court, was awarded €10,000 (£9,000) while eight widows and three children of other executed men, mainly farmers, were awarded compensation of between €123.48 and €3,634 for loss of income.

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US may become centre of coronavirus pandemic, WHO says

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Figures go against Trump talk of restarting economy, as other countries tighten controls

The United States could become the new centre of the global coronavirus pandemic, according to the World Health Organization, which said case numbers were rising quickly there even asDonald Trump talked of re-opening the country for business.

“We are now seeing a very large acceleration in cases in the US. So it does have that potential [to become the centre of the pandemic],” the WHO spokeswoman Margaret Harris said.

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Forward-thinking Utrecht builds car-free district for 12,000 people

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Scheme will enhance city’s reputation as a bicycling capital of Europe

The “cyclist-first” city of Utrecht is constructing the Netherlands’ first high-density, car-free residential district for more than 12,000 people, making it one of the largest of its type in the world.

The 24-hectare site, located between two canals in the middle of the city, is a business park but by 2024 it is hoped the area will enhance Utrecht’s reputation as a bicycling capital of Europe.

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‘Do not let this fire burn’: WHO warns Europe over coronavirus

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Europe now centre of pandemic, says WHO, as Spain prepares for state of emergency

The World Health Organization has stepped up its calls for intensified action to fight the coronavirus pandemic, imploring countries “not to let this fire burn”, as Spain said it would declare a 15-day state of emergency from Saturday.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO director general, said Europe – where the virus is present in all 27 EU states and has infected 25,000 people – had become the centre of the epidemic, with more reported cases and deaths than the rest of the world combined apart from China.

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Peruvian leader appeals to watchdog over ‘terrible harm’ caused by oil firm

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Chief representative of Quechua communities in north Peru urges OECD to support battle against ‘the tainting of land and rivers’

An Amazonian leader has travelled from Peru to the Netherlands to lodge a complaint with the global trade watchdog about an Amsterdam-based oil firm, demanding that the company clean up decades of pollution from his people’s lands. .

Aurelio Chino has accused Pluspetrol of using “letterbox” holding companies in tax havens like the Netherlands to avoid paying taxes in developing countries such as Peru.

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MH17 families fear they still face a long road to justice as trial begins

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Family of Richard Mayne say it could be years before they know why 298 people died

On Sunday Liz Mayne will make a familiar “pilgrimage” to the Netherlands. In 2015, she flew in to inspect the wreckage of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, shot down over eastern Ukraine the previous summer. “You could still smell the burning,” she says. “It was an overwhelming experience.”

Her son Richard, a second-year student at Leeds University, was one of 298 people on board. Ten were Britons. All perished. Richard was 20. His body was recovered intact from sunflower fields near the village of Hrabove. He was returned in the clothes he had set off in: sweatshirt and socks bearing the logo of his favourite rugby team, the Leicester Tigers.

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Prince’s dagger returned to Indonesia after 45 years lost in Dutch archive

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Discovery of secret memos led to two-year search for 19th-century cultural treasure

Forty-five years after the Netherlands promised its return, a gold-inlaid dagger surrendered by a “rebel prince” after his failed 1830 uprising against Dutch rule in Indonesia has been handed back to Jakarta.

The kris, a dagger with a waved blade, was among a number of Prince Diponegoro’s belongings that the Netherlands’ vowed in 1975 to return, only for the priceless cultural treasure to go missing.

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Dutch authorities issue alert over missing pregnant asylum seekers

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At least 25 heavily pregnant women have disappeared from asylum shelters since November, sparking fears of trafficking and illegal adoption

This article is part of the Guardian’s This is Europe series

Dutch authorities have issued an alert over the disappearances of dozens of pregnant African women housed in asylum shelters in the Netherlands.

The unusual alert, seen by the Guardian and Argos Radio of the Netherlands, was put out by the Expertise Centre for Human Trafficking and Smuggling (EMM), a collaboration between the Dutch National Police, the Royal Netherlands Military Police, the Social Affairs and Employment Inspectorate and the Immigration Service.

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Anger as F1 teams get go-ahead to drive on Dutch nature reserve

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Teams allowed to take beach route to get to Netherlands’ first F1 grand prix in 35 years

The return of Formula One to the Netherlands after 35 years has become mired in controversy after two racing teams got the green light to drive across a beach nature reserve to ensure their staff avoid traffic on the way to the circuit.

The teams of Red Bull Racing and AlphaTauri will be allowed to drive from their hotels along two miles of beach within the Noordvoort reserve, a popular resting spot for seals and breeding birds located between the Zandvoort racetrack and the North Sea.

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Amsterdam looks to bar foreign visitors from buying cannabis

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Mayor cites survey of tourists in Singel area as she looks to clean up overcrowded red-light district

The mayor of Amsterdam has sought to win political backing for her cleanup of the overcrowded red-light district by revealing that a third of foreign tourists and nearly half of Britons would be less likely to visit the city again if they were barred from buying cannabis in the coffee shops.

Femke Halsema, who is understood to want to reduce the number of outlets selling cannabis, attached the survey results to a letter to councillors announcing her intention to examine how they may reduce the attraction of drug use to tourists.

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Giant dams enclosing North Sea could protect millions from rising waters

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Dams between Scotland, Norway, France and England ‘a possible solution’ to problem

A Dutch government scientist has proposed building two mammoth dams to completely enclose the North Sea and protect an estimated 25 million Europeans from the consequences of rising sea levels as a result of global heating.

Sjoerd Groeskamp, an oceanographer at the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, said a 475km dam between north Scotland and west Norway and another 160km one between west France and south-west England was “a possible solution”.

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Dutch schoolchildren make video appeal amid teacher shortage

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Amsterdam primary among many schools in Netherlands suffering from a lack of staff

Parents of children at a primary school in the Netherlands have responded to a national teacher shortage by making a short video of their offspring asking for candidates to come forward and help make their dreams come true.

In the film the children talk about their plans to be a caretaker, pilot, plumber, acrobat or director when they get older. “But that is not possible without a good teacher,” the parents write on the website of Wereldboom school in Amsterdam.

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UK accused of ‘behaving like cowboys’ over EU database copying

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Dutch Liberal MEP Sophie in ’t Veld says leaked report revealed ‘violations and abuse’

The British government has been accused of “behaving like a bunch of cowboys” after a confidential report revealed it had allowed illegal copying of an EU database.

The issue, discussed publicly for the first time on Thursday, threatens to sour talks on the post-Brexit relationship between the UK and the EU, despite hopes on both sides for close ties in fighting crime and terrorism.

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Geert Wilders revives contest for cartoons that mock Muhammad

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Dutch anti-Islam lawmaker reveals his plans despite fears the move could spark attacks

Dutch anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders has revived his plan to hold a contest for cartoons caricaturing the Prophet Muhammad, more than a year after cancelling such an event out of fear for attacks in the Netherlands.

In a tweet late on Saturday, Wilders called on people to send in their Muhammad cartoons.

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Dutch detectives turn to power of podcast to solve 1991 murder case

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Netherlands detectives were inspired by Making a Murderer and other true-crime shows

Dutch detectives are chasing 15 new leads on a 30-year-old murder case after being inspired by the current popularity of true crime documentaries to broadcast their own three-part podcast on the original ill-fated police investigation.

Neither the identity of a murdered man found wrapped in an electric blanket by a busy motorway in August 1991 nor that of his killer have emerged in the decades since the discovery of the body despite a nationwide probe.

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Dubai police arrest Netherlands’ most wanted man

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Ridouan Taghi was sought on international arrest warrants for murder and drug trafficking

Police in Dubai have arrested the suspected head of a cocaine trafficking gang described as the most wanted man in the Netherlands.

Ridouan Taghi, 41, who was wanted on international arrest warrants for murder and drug trafficking, was held at a house in the Gulf emirate on Monday.

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Military police remove climate protesters from Schiphol airport

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Hundreds of demonstrators call for international hub in Amsterdam to curb emissions

Dutch military police have begun forcibly removing a group of climate protesters at Schiphol airport, in Amsterdam, after they refused to leave during a demonstration organised by Greenpeace.

Hundreds of protesters attended the demonstration on Saturday calling on the international air hub to adopt a plan to curb greenhouse emissions. The group had been allowed to protest outside the building only, but they broke that restriction, arguing that citizens’ rights to peaceful protest should not be restricted.

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Black Pete: why is the Dutch blackface tradition still going strong? – video

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Zwarte Piet or Black Pete has been a festive tradition in the Netherlands for generations – which sees thousands of people, who are often white, dress up as the character wearing afro-style wigs, red lipstick and full blackface makeup. There have been attempts to make the holiday character less controversial but the tradition is still widely practiced. We went to the festivities this year to find out if time is nearly up for the tradition


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