Category Archives: Netherlands

‘A little bit cursed’: how stolen Van Gogh was a ‘headache’ for the criminal world

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‘Indiana Jones of art world’ traces lost artwork seized from museum during Covid lockdown

It was a masterpiece with a curse: an early Van Gogh worth €3m-€6m (£2.6m-£5.2m) stolen from a Dutch museum three years ago was being passed around the criminal world like a hot potato, according to art detective Arthur Brand.

“We knew that the painting would go from one hand to another hand in the criminal world, but that nobody really wanted to touch it because it wasn’t worth anything,” said Brand, who is known for retrieving stolen artworks. “You could only get in trouble. So it was a little bit cursed.”

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Remains found in search for crew of British bomber shot down by Nazis

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Salvage operation in Dutch waters finds remains presumed to be those of Arthur Smart, Charles Sprack and Raymond Moore

The remains of British airmen shot down by the Nazis over Dutch waters may have been discovered in a massive rescue operation.

With the help of a €15m national plane-wreck rescue fund, the Dutch have started to sift the wreckage of the British Lancaster ED603, which never returned from a mass bombing mission targeting Bochum in Germany on 13 June 1943. Instead this “Pathfinder”, that gave the lead to 503 bombers, was tracked as it headed home. It was shot down and crashed in the blue Dutch waters of the IJsselmeer with seven men aboard.

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Reality show The Traitors inspired by murderous 17th-century mutiny

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Maritime horror, after Dutch sailing ship Batavia wrecked off western Australia, set TV show in motion

The hit TV reality show The Traitors was originally going to involve a recreation of a real-life murderous mutiny onboard a 17th-century Dutch ship, with programme contestants pushed into the sea when voted out.

Jasper Hoogendoorn, who oversaw the programme’s development, said the show was inspired by the voyage of the Batavia, a Dutch ship which was shipwrecked off Australia in 1629.

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Netherlands and Denmark to donate up to 61 F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine

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Danish PM says country will provide 19 in stages when pilot training is completed as Dutch counterpart pledges up to 42 planes

The Netherlands and Denmark have announced they will donate up to 61 F-16 fighter jets between them to Ukraine once pilot training has been satisfactorily completed, as Volodymyr Zelenskiy visited both countries after months of entreaties to bolster the Ukrainian air force.

Denmark’s prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, said her country would provide 19 jets – “hopefully” six around new year, eight more next year and the remaining five in 2025. “Please take this donation as a token of Denmark’s unwavering support for your country’s fight for freedom,” Frederiksen said.

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US reportedly approves sending F-16 jets to Ukraine from Denmark and Netherlands

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Secretary of state Antony Blinken confers ‘full support’ for transfer of F-16s and training of pilots

The United States has approved sending F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine from Denmark and the Netherlands as soon as pilot training is completed, the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, says in a letter seen by the Reuters news agency.

Washington will expedite the approval of transfer requests for F-16s, the letter – sent to Blinken’s counterparts in Denmark and the Netherlands – was reported to say. The US must approve the transfer of the military jets from its allies to Ukraine.

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Seals practise social distancing, aerial survey of North Sea shows

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Research suggests behaviour may reflect evolutionary response to previous outbreaks of disease

Aerial surveys of the North Sea have revealed that seals practise social distancing – and the discovery may have profound implications for the spread of disease among the marine mammals.

In a paper published today by the Royal Society, researchers conducting censuses of grey and harbour seals detail new evidence that the two species not only maintain distances between their own kind (unlike walruses, for instance, who cluster close together) but also that this behaviour may “reflect an evolutionary response to viral susceptibility”.

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Burnt-out ship carrying 3,700 cars towed to Dutch port of Eemshaven

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The Fremantle Highway caught fire last week, raising concerns of an environmental disaster

A burnt-out transport ship carrying thousands of cars has been towed to a northern Dutch port more than a week after catching fire at sea, averting a feared environmental disaster.

Local media images showed tugs towing the Fremantle Highway into Eemshaven after a journey from a holding position.

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One killed as ship carrying 3,000 cars catches fire off Dutch coast

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Ship’s owner says electric car suspected as possible cause of blaze on vessel travelling from Germany to Egypt

A blaze on a cargo ship carrying nearly 3,000 vehicles off the Dutch coast has killed one person and injured several others, with coastguards warning that the fire could last for several days.

The fire began on Tuesday night on the 199-metre Panama-registered Fremantle Highway, which was en route from Germany to Egypt. Several crew members were forced to jump overboard.

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Amsterdam to close cruise ship terminal amid effort to restrict tourism

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Move by city council follows action to limit public cannabis use and to discourage wild partying by young Britons

Amsterdam’s city council has decided to close a cruise ship terminal in its centre, in the latest attempt to limit mass tourism in the Dutch capital.

“Polluting cruise ships are not in line with the sustainable ambitions of our city,” said a statement from the centre-right party D66, which runs the city with the social democrats PvdA and GroenLinks environmentalists.

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Crows and magpies using anti-bird spikes to build nests, researchers find

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Dutch study identifies several examples of corvids’ ‘amazing’ ability to adapt to the urban environment

Birds have never shied away from turning human rubbish into nesting materials, but even experts in the field have raised an eyebrow at the latest handiwork to emerge from urban crows and magpies.

Nests recovered from trees in Rotterdam in the Netherlands and Antwerp in Belgium were found to be constructed almost entirely from strips of long metal spikes that are often attached to buildings to deter birds from setting up home on the structures.

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Mark Rutte hands in resignation as Dutch government collapses over asylum row

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Radically different outlooks of four parties on immigration ‘unbridgeable’, says four-time prime minister

Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte has presented his government’s written resignation to King Willem-Alexander, who returned from holiday to receive it.

It was Rutte’s fourth government – a fragile, four-party coalition of his People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), the liberal democratic Democrats 66, the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) and centrist ChristenUnie. It took 10 months to agree its formation and it lasted less than 18 months.

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Dutch government falls as coalition partners clash over immigration

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PM Mark Rutte disbands cabinet after four parties in government coalition disagree over asylum seeker policy

Mark Rutte, the Dutch prime minister, has announced his resignation and that of his cabinet, citing irreconcilable differences within his four-party coalition about how to control immigration.

The decision on Friday by the Netherlands’ longest-serving premier means the country will face a general election later this year for the 150-seat lower house of parliament.

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Archaeologists unearth 4,000-year-old ‘Stonehenge of the Netherlands’

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Religious site contains burial mound serving as a solar calendar as well as remains of about 60 people

Dutch archaeologists have unearthed an approximately 4,000-year-old religious site – nicknamed the “Stonehenge of the Netherlands” – that includes a burial mound that served as a solar calendar.

The mound, which contained the remains of about 60 men, women and children, had several passages through which the sun shone directly on the longest and shortest days of the year.

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Dutch study reveals extent of wealth made via slavery from three past rulers

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Report comes shortly before an expected apology from King Willem-Alexander in a speech in Amsterdam

Inside the stables of Paleis Noordeinde in The Hague is a golden coach embellished with images of colonial offerings to Dutch rulers that many, including the current Dutch king, regard as a symbol of exploitation that, according to a new study, netted three Dutch rulers the equivalent of more than €545m (£465m).

Historians calculated the staggering value of colonial profit for Willem III (also king of England, Ireland and Scotland), Willem IV and Willem V for a report published at the request of the Dutch parliament last week before a widely expected apology over slavery from the Dutch king.

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Netherlands to provide free sun cream to tackle record skin cancer levels

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Dispensers will be in place at schools, parks, sports venues and festivals across country this summer

Citizens of the Netherlands are to be offered free sun protection this summer in an effort to tackle record levels of skin cancer in the country.

Sun cream dispensers will be made available this summer in schools and universities, at festivals, parks, sports venues and open public spaces across the country, according to the government.

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No sex on the beach, please: Dutch town tells nude sunbathers to put a lid on lust

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The local authority in Veere has put up warning signs after a wave of complaints about frisky visitors to the nature reserve

A town in the south of the Netherlands has started a campaign to dissuade nudist beach visitors from sex on the beach and in the dunes.

On Thursday, Veere municipality put up amended beachside boards warning frisky guests that the dunes are legally off limits, public sex is banned and there is “increased monitoring” to combat “sexual meeting place activities in the dunes, nature reserve and beach”.

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Brown, grimy… and historic: the battle to save Amsterdam’s old bars

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Classic, smoke-stained Dutch drinking spots should be given protected status, say campaigners

On the bar is a dispenser for Dutch jenever – the liquor that inspired British gin – silver taps of lager and 10 hard-boiled eggs at €1 a pop.

Café de Druif is one of Amsterdam’s oldest “brown bars”, or bruine kroegen, and part of a movement to preserve these cosy drinking rooms.

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More than 1,500 arrested at Extinction Rebellion protest in The Hague

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Several Dutch celebrities among protesters, including Game of Thrones actor Carice van Houten

More than 1,500 people were arrested during a protest by the Extinction Rebellion climate group in The Hague on Saturday, Dutch police said.

Activists blocked a section of a motorway during the afternoon in protest against Dutch fossil fuel subsidies.

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Three Dutch mountaineers found dead in Swiss Alps

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Swiss authorities have launched an investigation into the deaths and said they cannot rule out that the three died in an avalanche

Three Dutch mountaineers who had been missing for days have been found dead in the Swiss Alps, and police suggested they may have been victims of an avalanche.

Two men aged 32 and 40 and a 30-year-old woman had been hiking in the southern Swiss canton of Valais when they disappeared, regional police said on Monday.

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US indicates it will not block European countries exporting F-16s to Ukraine

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Shift in stance could allow countries such as the Netherlands to send US-designed fighter jets to Ukraine

US officials have indicated that the White House would not block any European countries seeking to export F-16 jets to Ukraine, potentially averting a standoff over the issue at the G7 summit in Japan.

The shift in stance, first reported by the Washington Post, could eventually allow countries such as the Netherlands to export the US-designed jets once pilots and ground crews have been trained.

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