Documentary on deportation of 48,000 Jewish Amsterdammers during Holocaust prompts city to act
On 8 August 1944, an Amsterdam tram took Anne Frank from Weteringschans prison, past the “secret annexe” where she had hidden from the Nazis, on the start of a journey to her death.
It was one of a series of Dutch night trams that deported 48,000 Jewish Amsterdammers during the Holocaust, trams commissioned by the Nazis and paid for with the Jewish wealth they stole.
Continue reading...Operators hope newly opened Dutch track will help prove feasibility of high-speed shuttle system
The longest hyperloop test track in Europe has opened, raising faint hopes once more that the maglev meets vacuum tube transport technology could be the future.
Operators said the facility would help prove the hyperloop’s feasibility, saying it could allow a 6,200-mile (10,000km) network of high-speed tubes to be in place around the continent by 2050.
Continue reading...Hundreds of Engelandvaarders took various routes from occupied Netherlands to Britain to fight in second world war
They travelled over land and water, braving the North Sea, trekking across the Pyrenees or fleeing north through Sweden to reach Britain and join the fight against the Nazis.
Now a project at the Dutch national archives, opening on Thursday, is for the first time publishing the stories of 2,150 “England voyagers”. These brave Dutch men and women escaped the occupied Netherlands during the second world war and found their way to London to volunteer.
Continue reading...Operator also found by Amsterdam court to have painted ‘overly rosy picture’ of sustainable aviation fuel
The Dutch airline KLM has misled customers with vague environmental claims and painted “an overly rosy picture” of its sustainable aviation fuel, a court has found.
In a greenwashing case brought by the campaign group Fossielvrij, the district court of Amsterdam ruled on Wednesday that KLM had broken the law with misleading advertising in 15 of the 19 environmental statements it assessed. They include claims that the airline is moving towards a “more sustainable” future and statements on its website about the benefits of offsetting a flight.
Continue reading...Long hours spent at desks and sofas leads to 21,000 deaths a year in the Netherlands from cardiovascular disease, diabetes and cancer
The Dutch are perceived as a nation of healthy giants, leaping on their bikes to cycle energetically across flat lands. But new research suggests they are in fact the “sitting champions of Europe”, with a sedentary lifestyle that causes thousands of early deaths.
Health experts are calling for urgent action to stop so-called “chair-use disorder” spreading across western countries. A report by the research organisation TNO, published on Friday, found too much sitting costs the Netherlands €1.2bn (£1bn) annually and leads to 21,000 premature deaths a year from cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and cancer. It is riskier, researchers found, to be a lawyer than a lorry driver.
Continue reading...Blockades at facilities in Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden, with protests in Scotland and action expected in Denmark
Climate activists in four countries are blocking access to North Sea oil infrastructure as part of a coordinated pan-European civil disobedience protest.
Blockades have been taking place at oil and gas terminals, refineries and ports in Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden, in protest at the continued exploitation of North Sea fossil fuel deposits.
Continue reading...It is city’s latest attempt to clamp down on nuisance tourism after ‘stay away’ campaign and ban on smoking cannabis in the centre
Over the years, Amsterdam has tried various ways of clamping down on nuisance tourism, from a “stay away” campaign to dissuade British lager louts, a ban on smoking cannabis in public in the centre, and 2am bar closing times.
Now it has opted for a new approach, using typical Dutch bluntness in an online quiz that aims to see off those who want to visit the historic city for anything less than its tulips and Stroopwafels.
Continue reading...Four parties have agreed to pursue ‘extra-parliamentary’ cabinet, says mediator overseeing tense coalition talks
Dutch coalition talks will move on from exploratory discussions to more concrete negotiations aimed at forming a largely technocratic government, after the far-right leader Geert Wilders accepted he could not be prime minister.
Four months after Wilders’ anti-Islam Freedom party (PVV) became the largest in parliament, Kim Putters, the former socialist senator overseeing the talks, said they would continue based on a cabinet of political veterans and outside experts.
Continue reading...Leader of far-right Freedom party, which came first in election last year, was unable to get all partners in a potential coalition onboard
Geert Wilders, whose far-right Freedom party (PVV) shocked the Netherlands by finishing first in elections late last year, has conceded that he will not be the next prime minister because his potential coalition partners do not back him.
“I can only become the prime minister if all the parties in the coalition support it. That was not the case,” Wilders said on X late on Wednesday. “Love for my country and voters is bigger and more important than my own position.”
Continue reading...Prime minister will reportedly meet CEO of semiconductor equipment maker ASML, which has warned against anti-migrant stance
The Dutch government is scrambling to ensure that the country’s largest company, the semiconductor equipment maker ASML, does not move operations or expand abroad after the tech firm voiced concerns over the country’s hardening stance on migrants.
On Wednesday, the Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf reported that the Dutch government had launched a cross-ministry effort, dubbed “Operation Beethoven”, to encourage ASML to continue to invest in the country.
Continue reading...Letter aims to bring public anger over 30,000 deaths of Palestinians in Gaza into heart of parliaments
More than 200 MPs from 12 countries have committed themselves to trying to persuade their governments to impose a ban on arms sales to Israel, arguing they will not be complicit in “Israel’s grave violation of international law” in its assault on Gaza.
The letter, organised by Progressive International, a network of socialist MPs and activists focused on international justice, is seen as the best practical measure possible to bring public anger over the 30,000 deaths of Palestinians in Gaza into the heart of parliaments, where calls for an immediate unconditional ceasefire have so far fallen on deaf ears or been rejected by national governments.
Continue reading...First-year vehicle excise duty is a fraction of that in countries such as France and the Netherlands
Low taxation on petrol SUVs in the UK compared with much of Europe is inviting a glut of large, polluting luxury cars, according to an analysis by a green thinktank.
The tax paid when buying a new petrol or diesel SUV in the UK is only a fraction of the levies in neighbouring countries, including France and the Netherlands, and lower than many others in Europe, making it a “tax haven” for the bigger, less environmentally friendly vehicles, the report from Transport & Environment (T&E) found.
Continue reading...Regulator demands recall of two models, understood to affect about 10,000 of the popular products
Dutch authorities have ordered a leading European manufacturer of cargo bikes to suspend sales and recall thousands of its products amid safety concerns over frame breakages.
The Dutch regulator for food and consumer product safety (NVWA) called a temporary halt to trading by Babboe, which makes family cargo bikes seen daily on school runs from Berlin to Bristol, “because their safety cannot be sufficiently guaranteed”.
Continue reading...Europe has been ‘negligent,’ as an acceptance of cocaine and cannabis leads to corruption, violence, and misery, says Aboutaleb
The mayor of a city on the frontline of the illegal drug trade has said that a “negligent” attitude to recreational drug use, including an acceptance of cocaine as the middle-class narcotic of choice, has led to violence and corruption in Europe’s poorest neighbourhoods.
As the Netherlands digests three life sentences handed out in the criminal trial of drug baron Ridouan Taghi and his “well-oiled murder machine” gang, Ahmed Aboutaleb, mayor of Rotterdam, has demanded authorities take a tougher line on cocaine use.
Continue reading...Rijksmuseum director general makes plea for artwork taken from Leerdam in August 2020 before new exhibition in Amsterdam
The director general of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam has appealed for the return of a stolen Frans Hals painting as he prepares to open a major exhibition devoted to the Dutch master without the “amazing” €15m artwork.
Two Laughing Boys With a Mug of Beer was stolen from the Museum Hofje van Mevrouw van Aerden in the Dutch town of Leerdam in August 2020. Unlike a Van Gogh painting believed to have been taken by the same gang and recovered last year, the Hals appears to have vanished into the criminal world.
Continue reading...NSC’s Pieter Omtzigt said to be shocked by public finances as he abandons talks to form coalition under far-right leader
Geert Wilders’ chances of forming a majority government in the Netherlands have been dealt a heavy blow after one of the far-right leader’s three potential partners abruptly withdrew from coalition talks citing concerns over public finances.
Wilders, whose Freedom party (PVV) shocked Europe by finishing first in elections last November, said on X he was “unbelievably disappointed” by the decision of New Social Contract (NSC) to declare it was “finished” with the current round of talks.
Continue reading...Prime minister says blockades by protesting farmers at Dutch-Belgian border ‘have been stopped’
Belgian prime minister Alexander De Croo arrived in Place du Luxembourg just as a bronze statue that was felled in the protests yesterday was being taken away.
The statue, which weighed 200kg, was taken into a van by half a dozen men, as the clean-up in the square continues.
I think, by now, all governments have basically seen them, the Flemish government, the federal government – yesterday also the president of the [European] Commission.
We’ve shown that we’re able to come up with steps in the right direction. For some measures, we need more time to elaborate. And there’s a real willingness to go forward.
Continue reading...Police start to interview witnesses following Guardian reports on adoptions to the Netherlands nearly 50 years ago
Police in Bangladesh have launched an investigation into historical allegations that children were adopted abroad without their parents’ consent, after a Guardian investigation into adoptions to the Netherlands in the 1970s.
Bangladesh special branch in Dhaka confirmed it had opened an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the adoption of a number of children between 1976 and 1979.
Continue reading...Sea Ranger Service will offer the chance to carry out maintenance work and climate research on sailing vessels
A social enterprise has launched offering people between the ages of 18 and 29 the chance to protect the seas around the UK while getting paid.
The Sea Ranger Service (SRS) will offer young people the chance to sail out to sea and undertake vital work to conserve Britain’s oceans.
Continue reading...For some farmers already struggling, paying for more of their pollution is a step too far. Germany is the latest country to see anger boil over
The columns of tractors that have blocked roads in Germany, causing chaos in cities and headaches for commuters, are the latest wave in a growing tide of anger against efforts to protect Europe’s nature from the pollution pumped out by its farms.
In recent years, farmers in western Europe have fought with increasing ferocity against policies to protect the planet that they say cost too much. In the Netherlands, where the backlash has been strongest, a court ruling on nitrogen emissions in 2019 triggered furious and recurring protests over government efforts to close farms and cut the number of animals on them. In Belgium, similar fights led to convoys of tractors clogging the EU quarter of Brussels in March last year. In Ireland, which has seen smaller protests, dairy farmers angry at nitrogen restrictions marched with their cows to the offices of three government ministers last month.
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