d66

After chaos caused by farmers driving their tractors on highways during protests last year, a majority in the lower house of Dutch parliament pledged their support to a legislative proposal that will oblige farmers to put license plates on their tractors. The Netherlands is one of the last countries in Europe to regulate this, RTL Nieuws reports.

A 22-year-old Dutch-Persian woman who had plans to vacation in the United States with her friends had those dreams crushed when she was not allowed to board her plane to Los Angeles at Schiphol last week. Annahita Mazaheri was banned from entering the U.S. due to her Iranian surname, she said to AD. The D66 wants to know whether the U.S. immigration service has the authority to refuse passengers on Dutch territory.

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.

Divorced parents who keep a child away from another parent against the rules must be tackled by the police, according to the D66 and SP in a proposal to Minister Sander Dekker for Legal Protection. Police officers must also receive extra training on how to deal with such conflicts, the parties said, the Telegraaf reports.

Gay men must be able to donate blood if they have safe sex, according to the VVD, D66 and GroenLinks. The parties want blood bank Sanquin to lift the restrictions on gay men donating blood if they live a monogamous life. They asked Minister Bruno Bruins for Medical Care to investigate whether this is possible, the Telegraaf reports.

Currently blood bank Sanquin does not take blood from men who have had sex with a man in the past four months. This is because men who have sex with multiple male partners are at higher risk of being infected with HIV or hepatitis, for example.

The quality of Amsterdam taxis seem to be declining. Mystery guests traveled 200 trips in so-called TTO taxis last year and found no fault in only 19 of those trips, according to the Amsterdam Taxi Monitor 2018. Almost 40 percent of the trips involved major violations, like unnecessary detours and price manipulation, De Telegraaf reports.

The most common complaints about Amsterdam taxis involve drivers' driving and parking behavior, taxi drivers refusing a ride, the fare, and drivers treating customers or people on the street poorly.

A mandatory women's quota for executive positions in listed companies is now one step closer. Coalition party CDA expressed support for a quota to ensure that at least 30 percent of listed companies' top positions are filled by women. The party, along with coalition partner D66, is submitting a motion calling on the government to adopt the recent

Drivers in the Netherlands will soon be limited to just 100 kilometers per hour on Dutch roadways, in an effort to make an immediate and dramatic reduction in air pollution, sources told broadcaster NOS.

The Dutch government is currently investigating a list of around 20 unorthodox and unpopular measures for reducing nitrogen emissions in the Netherlands. These measures include banning car traffic on one Sunday a month, and lowering the speed limit on all highways to 100 kilometers per hour, AD reports based on sources in The Hague.

Millions of tourists visit the Netherlands every year and this number only continues to grow. The government must do more to address the problems caused by tourism and reduce its strain on popular Dutch destinations, a majority of the parties in the Tweede Kamer, the lower house of Dutch parliament, said to NOS op 3.

The conservative VVD party is willing to discuss retrieving the children of Dutch jihadists from Syria and bringing them back to the Netherlands, but only if their parents do not come with them, parliamentarian Dilan Yesilgoz said on television show Pauw. Up until now the party of Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte always outright refused to negotiate on this topic.

"When it comes to children, that of course also affects me. Especially if they are small children", VVD MP Yesilgoz said on the television program. "They didn't choose this themselves."