Prime Minister Mark Rutte will meet with United States president Donald Trump in the White House for the second time this evening. During the meeting, Rotterdam collector Bert Kreuk will hand Trump a D-Day flag he is donating to the United States. The main topic on the agenda for Rutte and Trump is trade, though Trump will likely also bring up the U.S. request to allies for a military contribution in Syria and to increase pressure on Iran, NOS reports.
Bruno Bruins
Jul 17 '19 09:20
The street scene in the Netherlands will change in the coming years thanks to the installation of tens of thousands of 5G masts. The government is committed to making this super fast internet widely available and is obliging municipalities to install masts in large numbers in public spaces, according to a provisional bill by the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate, AD reports.
May 17 '19 13:30
The Netherlands will not ban breast implants with a rough surface amid concerns that they may increase the risk of a rare form of lymph node cancer. But the Dutch government will tighten the rules for the use of implants in breast reconstruction and breast enlargements in an effort to make sure that all women who have them are as safe as possible, Minister Bruno Bruins for Medical Care said in a letter to parliament.
Feb 14 '19 12:30
In 2016 Dutch cancer patients were treated with medicines of which the active substance came from a rejected Chinese factory, where there was a serious risk of products being contaminated, Zembla reports based on its own research.
Feb 13 '19 12:40
Victims of sexual violence in the Netherlands no longer have to pay healthcare deductibles when they incur medical costs. With this one year long experiment, the Dutch government wants to find out whether free care will lower the threshold for seeking help, NOS reports.
Victims can go to a Center for Sexual Violence to get help. These are usually connected to hospitals' emergency room. The Centers perform trace evidence investigation, but they also offer psychological help and tests for venereal diseases.
Nov 23 '18 08:39
Many Dutch municipalities are dissatisfied with the current preliminary design of the government's experiment with regulated cannabis cultivation. Where municipalities queued to participate in the experiment when it was announced, the government will now have difficulty in finding 10 municipalities to participate, the association of Dutch municipalities VNG said to Trouw.
Oct 31 '18 16:00
The Dutch Safety Board is launching an investigation into the way in which patient safety was handled after MC Slotervaart in Amsterdam and the MC IJsselmeer hospitals in Lelystad and surroundings were declared bankrupt last week. The Safety Board wants to examine how the interests of the patients were weighed before and during the bankruptcy process, NU.nl reports.
Oct 3 '18 08:57
Amsterdam finds the national experiment with regulated cannabis cultivation unfeasible and "risky to public order". The municipality would like to participate in the experiment, but only with other rules, mayor Femke Halsema said in a letter to Ministers Ferdinand Grapperhaus of Justice and Security and Bruno Bruins for Medical Care and Sports, NOS reports.
Feb 13 '18 16:10
Online store Bol.com stopped selling laughing gas cylinders, meant to be use for whipped cream sprayers. The canisters are increasingly used in combination with balloons or N2O crackers as drugs, and Bol.com therefore finds it irresponsible to keep selling them, a spokesperson confirmed to NH Nieuws.
Feb 2 '18 08:38
Today is the Rutte III government's 100th day in office. Yet many of the ministers in the government are still just as unknown to the Dutch public as when they took office, according to a study by Kantar Public, BNR reports.
The most anonymous members of the Rutte III government are Ingrid van Engelshoven, Minister of Education, Culture and Science, and Minister Bruno Bruins for Medical Care and Sports. Only 7 percent of respondents knew who they are. Hugo de Jonge, Minster of Public Health, Welfare and Sports, did slightly better with 12 percent of respondents knowing who he is.
Jan 31 '18 13:00
A debate on the new, highly controversial, organ donation law in the Eerste Kamer, the Dutch Senate, went on well into the night on Tuesday, but did not come to a decisive end. The Senators want initiator, D66 parliamentarian Pia Dijkstra, to first clarify a number of questions and therefore decided to postpone voting on the law by a week, NOS reports.
Jan 23 '18 10:38
Queen Maxima and Prime Minister Mark Rutte will head the Dutch delegation to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The theme for this 48th edition of the WEF, taking place from Tuesday to Thursday, is 'Creating a Shared Future in a Fractured World'.
Other cabinet members taking part in the forum are Minister Halbe Zijlstra of Foreign Affairs, Minister Sigrid Kaag of Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation, Minister Wopke Hoekstra of Finance, and Minister Bruno Bruins of Medical Care and Sport.
Oct 23 '17 12:00
The names of the Rutte III cabinet's Ministers and State Secretaries were announced on Saturday. In addition to Prime Minster Mark Rutte, there wil be 15 Ministers and eight State Secretaries. Just over a third of the new government are women. The expectation is that the Rutte III cabinet will take office on October 26th, RTL Nieuws reports.
