apology

KLM issued an apology on Friday after a note posted on a toilet door on a flight from Amsterdam to Seoul caused an online uproar earlier this week. The note stated only in Korean that the toilet was only for cabin crew use. When a passenger asked about this, they were told that the note was hung as a precaution against the coronavirus 2019-nCoV, NU.nl reports.

The passenger snapped a picture of the note and posted it on social media, after which the hashtag #BoycottKLM was trending in Korea. 

Prime Minister Mark Rutte met with a group of 200 parents who were unjustly labeled fraudsters by the Tax Authority and had their childcare allowance halted as a result. During the emotional meeting, Rutte apologized for the Tax Authority's actions in this affair and listened to parents' stories. Some stories made him shed a tear, he said after the meeting, NU.nl reports.

On the second day of the appeal in the hate-speech trial against PVV leader Geert Wilders on Thursday, claimants could demand compensation from the politician and explain why they think they deserve it. Demands ranged from apologies to actual monetary amounts between a symbolic 1 euro to over 30 thousand euros, NU.nl reports.

The Surinamese government is not satisfied with a letter of apology that Minister Stef Blok of Foreign Affairs sent after he called Suriname a 'failed state'. Blok's Surinamese counterpart Yldiz Pollack-Beighle calls Blok's apologies "poor" because he "does not take back the inaccuracies he voiced at a closed meeting", NOS reports.

Minister Eric Wiebes of Economic Affairs and Climate apologized for calling a wrong approach to dealing with problems caused by gas extraction in in Groningen "autistic". Talking about the wrong approach on Friday, Wiebes said: "Decisiveness is good, but autism is not", RTL Nieuws reports.

Sint Eustatius politician Clyde van Putten apologized for threatening to kill Dutch soldiers in a speech he made last week. Van Putten said that his previous comments were reprehensible and that he does not want to call for violence. Though he added that his comments were taken out of context by people "with a political agenda" to damage his reputation, NOS reports.

Jos van Winsen, director of the Shell refinery in Pernis, Rotterdam, offered his apologies on Tuesday for two major incidents at the refinery over the past days. "We are extremely sorry, this is not what we are", Van Winsen said to RTV Rijnmond.

The Dutch National Charity Lotteries issued an apology because a data leak resulted in details of 450 thousand players being accessible to hackers. About 900 players' bank account numbers were also visible. This involves participants of the Nationale Postcode Loterij, VriendenLoterij and the Bank Giro Loterij, NU.nl reports.

The Sinterklaas Foundation in Leiden issued an official aplogy after a commotion erupted due their use of savage-like  "cannibal" Zwarte Piet characters in blacface makeup. Sinterklaas was accompanied by a parade of blackface Piet characters dressed in frizzy wigs with bones in and panther skins when he arrived in Leiden on Saturday, Omroep West reports.

Chemical company DuPont apologized for the leakage of hazardous substances on its premises in Dordrecht and for its poor communication about such leakages with local residentsm director Europa Govert Griffioen said to newspaper AD. This is the first time he is substantively talking about two formaldehyde leaks at the company this year. 

Oil companies Shell and Exxon apologized for the suffering of Groningen residents as a result of gas extraction earthquakes in the province. The apologies were made in the Tweede Kamer, the lower house of Dutch parliament, at the insistence of GroenLinks parliamentarian Liesbeth van Tongeren