In the run-up to the parliamentary election last year, pro-diversity party DENK worked on a fake PVV advertisement aimed at setting the anti-Islam party in a bad light, NPO Radio 1 program De Nieuws BV reports. DENK ultimately decided not to use the idea. PVV leader Geert Wilders is furious and is considering pressing charges against DENK.
The online ad consisted of a picture of Wilders with the text: 'After 15 March we will purify the Netherlands', according to De Nieuws BV.
A car crashed into a snack bar on Kruidenhof in Diemen during a police chase on Wednesday evening. The car came to a halt inside the store. Three people were injured, the police said on Twitter.
One of the injured is the 26-year-old driver of the car, the police said to AT5. He was arrested. The other two injured were inside the snack bar when the car crashed into it. They were treated by paramedics at the scene and did not have to go to hospital.
The Dutch authorities made multiple mistakes while investigating the fireworks disaster at SE Fireworks in Enschede on May 13th, 2000, according to the results of a four year long investigation by former MEP Paul van Buitenen. The Public Prosecutor deliberately misled the judiciary to make sure that the criminal investigation had only one conclusion - that the government was not to blame, Van Buitenen concluded, NOS reports.
Mossack Fonseca, the Panamanian company that stood central in in the Panama Papers scandal, did not know who its customers were in many cases. A new leak from the company contains 180 new Dutch names, NOS reports.
The United States decided to step out of the United Nations' Human Rights Council (UNHRC). Minister Stef Blok of Foreign Affairs responded that he regrets the decision. Prime Minister Mark Rutte called it "unwise", the Telegraaf reports.
Serious Request star Tijn, a terminally ill boy who raised over a million euros for the Red Cross with his nail polish fundraiser, now has his own monument in the Red Cross' new office in The Hague. The 6-year-old boy is commemorated with a wall full of nail polishes. Tijn's parents and brother officially opened the monument by placing the last three bottles of nail polish on Tuesday, almost a year after Tijn's death, NOS reports.
The government is planning to close four prisons in the Netherlands, sources told newspaper AD. The prisons need to close because there are too many empty cells in the country, but this will also cause job losses for prison staff.
The prisons in Zoetermeer, Zeist, Almere and Zwaag are on the list to be closed, according to the newspaper. By choosing those prisons, the government hopes to save prisons outside the Randstad, where prison workers will have a harder time finding new work.
The Amsterdam Metropolitan Region developed strongly after the financial crisis and will continue to do so in the coming years, according to the Economic Outlook Metropolitan Region Amsterdam 2018 that the city of Amsterdam published on Wednesday. The city attributes the region's success to its "diverse and open economy in which both large and small companies can grow".
Pension investors ABP and Aegon together invest more than a billion euros into polluting oil sands. Insurer NN Groep and pension fund PFZW together invest 119 million euros in this sector, according to research by environmental organization Greenpeace, the Volkskrant reports.
On Tuesday evening the fire department rescued a 9-year-old boy from the roof of a building on Baron G.A. Tindaplein in Amsterdam. The kid climbed onto the roof "like some kind of Spiderman", but couldn't make his own way down, the Amsterdam Oost Zeeburg police said on Facebook.
According to the police, the boy climbed to the roof using windowsills around 9:00 p.m. Why exactly the young daredevil did so, is not clear.
The fire department eventually rescued the boy with a ladder truck. He was home just before dark, the police said.
Criminal organizations have approached 15 percent of Dutch farmers to offer them money in exchange for free-standing sheds or stalls so that a drug lab can be built there, Trouw reports based on a poll conducted by Geleen Consultancy.
The number of farmers approached by criminals in this way may well be higher, as some may be afraid to admit this. The police believe the number may be as high as 3 out of 5 farmers, according to the newspaper.
The Ministry of Defense reached an agreement on compensation with the families of three killed soldiers, a soldier killed during shooting practice in Ossendrecht and two soldiers killed when a mortar grenade exploded during training in Mali, lawyer Michael Ruperti confirmed to ANP.
Inés "was sick and could not be cured", Queen Maxima said about her youngest sister's death. "Our only comfort is that she has now found peace", the Dutch Queen said after paying a visit to the UMCG Proton Therapy Center in Groningen on Tuesday, ANP reports.
Inés Zorreguieta suffered from depression. She committed suicide on June 6th at the age of 33.
The police reopened the missing person case for 35-year-old Herman Ploegstra, who disappeared from IJzendijke in Zeeland in October 2010. Partly as a result of new information, the cold case team decided to restart the investigation into his disappearance. They hope that new insights and techniques will bring more clarity about what happened to the man, RTL Nieuws reports.
The Public Prosecutor demanded two years of juvenile detention and juvenile institutionalized psychiatric treatment against the 17-year-old boy suspected of murdering 14-year-old Savannah Dekker from Bunschoten. That is the maximum sentence that can be imposed on the suspect, who was 16 years old when Savannah was killed, under juvenile criminal law, NOS reports.
A 58-year-old man drowned in Amsterdam on Monday after he jumped into a canal while fleeing from shop employees who suspected him of theft, AT5 reports.
During his flight, the man jumped into the water on Kostverlorenstraat. He tried to swim to the other side, but disappeared under water.
Divers from the fire department got the man out of the water and he was resuscitated at the scene for a long time. He was taken to hospital, where he passed away.
