The Dutch State is partly responsible for a plane crash in Faro in 1992 in which 57 people were killed and 106 seriously injured, the court in The Hague ruled on Wednesday. Survivors of the disaster and victims' relatives have been litigating against the State for years in an attempt to find out the causes of the disaster, AD reports.
Politics
Jan 8 '20 10:18
KLM is no longer flying over Iraq and Iran as a precaution after Iran's retaliation attack on American targets in Iraq, a KLM spokesperson said to NU.nl on Wednesday. Depending on their destination, flights will detour to the north or the south.
News agency AFP reports that Air France stopped flying over the two countries.
Jan 8 '20 07:48
Rotterdam will be the first large Dutch city to completely ban consumer fireworks for the coming New Year. After the "umpteenth" incidents and violence this past New Year's, the VVD in Rotterdam decided to support the ban, which means that there is majority support in the city council to prohibit the lighting of consumer fireworks, NOS reports.
Jan 7 '20 11:00
Kevin van Eikeren resigned as PvdA city councilor in Rotterdam because he must appear in court this week on suspicion of insurance fraud. In a written statement, Van Eikeren acknowledged that he scammed insurance companies, NOS reports.
Jan 7 '20 09:13
The Dutch government understands why the United States assassinated Iranian general Qassem Soleimani in an attack in Baghdad on Friday, but the attack did give rise to a much more complicated situation, Defense Minister Ank Bijleveld said in the first episode of talk show Op1 on Monday night, NU.nl reports.
"If you look at what Iran has done and what Soleimani is, he is of course no saint. That was a real crook", Bijleveld said. According to the Defense Minister, Soleimani as the leader of the Shiite militias can be held responsible for "terrible" things that happened in Syria.
Jan 7 '20 08:11
Lighting fireworks over New Year's is a tradition that needs to change, CDA Minister Hugo De Jonge of Public Health said on television program Jinek on RTL 4 on Monday. Earlier in the day it became clear that a majority in the Tweede Kamer, the lower house of Dutch parliament, now supports a partial ban on consumers' fireworks.
Jan 6 '20 14:20
The United States pressured the Dutch government, and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte himself, to block the sale of ASML chip manufacturing technology to China, Reuters reports based on anonymous sources. According to the news agency, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo lobbied the Dutch government, and White House officials shared classified intelligence with Rutte to convince him not to allow the sale.
Jan 6 '20 11:45
The Netherlands is temporarily suspending its training mission in Northern Iraq, the Ministry of Defense announced on Monday. The commander of the international coalition in the fight against terrorist organization ISIS decided to suspend all training activities in Iraq. The soldiers of the anti-ISIS coalition, including the Dutch soldiers, will remain stationed in the country, NOS reports.
Jan 6 '20 11:00
Support for a nationwide ban on firecrackers and rockets is growing within the political parties, including within the coalition. Coalition parties D66 and ChristenUnie called for such a ban. And two VVD mayors went against their party's position to call for such a ban, NOS reports.
Acting mayor Johan Remkes of The Hague argued for an "enforceable ban on firecrackers and rockets" for consumers on television program Buitenhof. And mayor Jan van Zanen of Utrecht asked the VVD to cooperate in a ban on all consumer fireworks.
Jan 6 '20 08:25
Minister Wopke Hoekstra of Finance believes that too many people in the Netherlands buy things on credit, and as a result an "unacceptably high" number of Dutch are in arrears on their payments. He is therefore giving online stores a year to improve this situation, or he will take measures himself, he wrote in a letter to parliament, the Telegraaf reports.
Jan 6 '20 07:25
The international coalition in the fight against terrorist organization ISIS decided to partly halt a mission to train Iraqi soldiers, in which Dutch soldiers are also involved, after a resolution in which the Iraqi parliament voted against the military presence of other countries in Iraq. The Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs is studying the resolution and is in consultation with the other countries in the anti-ISIS resolution, the Ministry said to NOS.
Jan 3 '20 17:40
In response to a drone attack by the United States on a Baghdad airport, killing an Iranian military leader, Dutch Foreign Minister Stef Blok said the events unfolding in Iraq are "worrying and serious." The attack happened weeks before the Dutch military was to send a frigate and helicopter to help patrol the Strait of Hormuz, which the U.S. requested months ago.
Jan 3 '20 10:37
A substantial increase in people relocating to the Netherlands pushed the population of the country to 17.4 million people by the end of 2019, the largest population growth in the country since the beginning of the century. Roughly 272,200 people moved to the Netherlands last year, while 157,900 moved out of the country.
Dec 28 '19 09:00
The Netherlands has dozens of new rules, regulations, and laws coming into force on January 1, 2020. Of over four dozen major tax changes rolling out in January, we are putting the spotlight on ten changes that could have a real impact on the wallets and bank accounts of people living and working in the Netherlands.
Dec 27 '19 08:00
As much as authorities wanted to prevent tractors and construction vehicles from tying up the highways during protests by farmers and builders in October, law enforcement in the Netherlands was outmatched and unable to prevent it, concedes Linda Bregman, of the Public Prosecutor's Office (OM). It was not "because we didn't want it. Not because we didn't understand the law.
Dec 25 '19 13:53
Freedom unites us, our differences do not divide us, and the pursuit of happiness should not be an obsession: Those were the main themes of King Willem-Alexander's annual Christmas Day address to the Netherlands, the seventh such speech he's delivered during his reign. The Dutch king recorded the five-minute address last week at the Huis ten Bosch palace in The Hague, where he has resided with his family since January.
Dec 25 '19 13:09
Below follows the full text of King Willem-Alexander's annual Christmas speech for 2019, translated from Dutch. The NL Times has also written about the address, in comparison to his previous Christmas Day speeches.
Dec 23 '19 18:29
Saskia Wempe, a member of Eindhoven's city council since 2018, has died. A member of the conservative VVD party, she entered politics six years ago and was in middle management at Spar Holding until last month.
Her death was announced by Eindhoven mayor John Jorritsma. He said her death followed repeated battles with cancer.
She was first diagnosed with the illness over five years ago, reported the Eindhovens Dagblad. Wempe twice went through treatment.
Dec 23 '19 17:32
Former national politician Sharon Dijksma, 48, gave birth to her third child on Monday morning. Eleonora Windmulder and her mother were both said to be healthy.
Dijksma, now the alderperson for traffic, transit, water and air quality in Amsterdam, declared on Twitter, "Amsterdam has another new resident!" The Labour politician added, "We are proud and grateful for this wonderful gift."
Dec 23 '19 12:01
The head of the national cases division of the Public Prosecutor's Office (OM) is being put forward by top cop Erik Akerboom to become the Chief of Police in Rotterdam. If appointed by Royal Decree, Fred Westerbeke will take over on April 1.
Dec 22 '19 13:06
With a new year comes a host of law changes, new rules, and regulations to be implemented in the Netherlands. The Dutch government is enforcing dozens of these new laws as of January 1, 2020. Every year, the NL Times does a roundup of these rules changes for non-Dutch speaking people. Here follows a summary of the main changes per category.
For 2020, the Dutch government categorized these laws into nine different sections. Click on each section header for a full article about each category's changes in the new year.
Dec 20 '19 12:37
Organizations in the Netherlands that promote a threat to the democratic way of life in the Netherlands should be more easily banned from operation in the country, said Sander Dekker, the Minister for Legal Protection. He introduced legislation on Friday to contravene "radical or extremist organizations" which "seriously threaten society or wish to overthrow legal order," the Ministry of Justice and Security said in a statement.
Dec 20 '19 12:00
The Dutch government is implementing a large number of rules, regulations, and law changes at the stroke of midnight on January 1. Below is a summary of changes made in the category Work and Income:
Dec 20 '19 11:29
Within 12 months, greenhouse gas emissions in the Netherlands must be reduced by at least 25 percent in comparison to 1990, the country's Supreme Court said in a ruling on Friday. The Court upheld lower court decisions that said the case was a human rights issue, and in turn ordered the emissions reduction, which Dutch environmental assessment agency PBL said was an unobtainable and "out of reach" goal.
