Klaas Dijkhoff

Prime Minister Mark Rutte made a number of thinly veiled insults aimed at Amsterdam while speaking on television program Buitenhof on Sunday. While speaking about the climate agreement, which the government and business community signed in December, Rutte mentioned the "Amsterdam elite" and later also the "white wine sipping elite", Het Parool reports.

Almost all parties in the Tweede Kamer want the government to amend Article 10 of a special emergency law for the Brexit. The 'Brexit Collective Law' will be implemented if the United Kingdom breaks with the European Union with no agreements in place. But the parliamentarians feel the law gives too much power to one minister and uncontrollable powers to the government, NOS reports.

Animal party PvdD will press charges against VVD party leader Klaas Dijkhoff on Tuesday for environmental pollution. Dijkhoff released 500 balloons at a VVD congress in Den Bosch on Saturday, AD reports.

With the release of the balloons, Dijkhoff responded to accusations that he released too many "test balloons" in his political work. He asked the the attendees of the congress to write down political ideas, which were attached to the balloons and released into the air. 

VVD party leader Klaas Dijkhoff is facing furious reactions on the way he responded to a 9-year-old boy telling him how afraid he was to be deported to Iraq. When the child told him that he thinks death waits in Iraq, the Liberal parliamentarian said: "Yes, well", RTL Nieuws reports.

The VVD's proposal to punish law breakers in problem neighborhoods twice as harshly as someone from another neighborhood, led to sharp accusations during the first day of the General Political Considerations, the parliamentary debate on the government's budget and plans for next year, on Wednesday. 

Klaas Dijkhoff, the leader of the parliamentary faction of ruling party VVD, announced in a critical open letter addressed to archbishop Wim Eijk that he is leaving the Roman Catholic church. "I choose for love and people instead of the restrictions and the church", Dijkhoff wrote, NOS reports.

Minister Stef Blok of Foreign Affairs is facing the Tweede Kamer on Wednesday on statements he made about multicultural societies. He faced fierce criticism from the parliamentarians, including from coalition parties D66, CDA and ChristenUnie. Only populist parties PVV and FvD outright supported his remarks, NOS reports. 

The last Peilingwijzer of the year shows that Geert Wilders and his anti-Islam PVV is facing increasing competition from new nationalist party FvD led by Thierry Baudet. The FvD leader was also named politician of the year by EenVandaag on Tuesday. 

The Tweede Kamer is shocked and outraged by reports from Minister Kasja Ollongren of Home Affairs and Kingdom Relations that Russia and other countries are using fake news to try and influence public opinion in the Netherlands. "That fake accounts influence our democracy is life threateningly dangerous", CDA leader Sybrand Buma said to broadcaster NOS. The CDA and D66 are presenting a set of measures in the Tweede Kamer, the lower house of Dutch parliament, on Wednesday to prevent this from happening.

The Ministry of Defense is recalling anti-tank ammunition and smoke grenades from the UN mission in Mali. Inspections done following a damaging report by the Dutch Safety Board about an accidental mortar grenade explosion that killed two Dutch soldiers, showed that these two types of ammunition were also stored at too high temperatures and may not be safe.

An Armenian mother was deported from the Netherlands on Monday without her children Howick (12) and Lily (11). The family lived in the Netherlands for nine years. According to children's rights organization Defense for Children, this is the first time ever that a mother was deported without her kids. "Horrible", the organization said, according to RTL Nieuws.