31 July 2009
From
Ars Technica:
An Amsterdam court has ordered The Pirate Bay to block all Dutch visitors to its website, threatening the site administrators with daily fines for noncompliance. Dutch antipiracy group Stichting BREIN, whose website is still down from an extended denial of service attack, filed a suit against the three Pirate Bay administrators who were found guilty earlier this year of aiding copyright infringement in Sweden—despite the fact that the three claim not to own the site. (They say it is owned by a Seychelles company called Reservella.)
None of the men showed up in the Dutch court, claiming they had heard nothing of the lawsuit (BREIN says that it contacted them through mail, e-mail, Twitter, and Facebook). Peter Sunde, The Pirate Bay's most public face, also announced that he was filing a defamation suit (in Sweden) against Tim Kuik, BREIN's chief. The court's injunction is preliminary—BREIN will need to apply for a permanent injunction before this one expires in two months. Sunde and his two co-defendants are ordered to block all Dutch traffic to their site and face a €30,000 fine per day for noncompliance.
Read the entire
here
30 July 2009
From
BikeRadar:
The Netherlands has increased its lead as Europe's biggest bicycle maker, raising its share of production from 20 to 30 percent in four years, Dutch statistics agency CBS says. "Bicycles worth a total of 1.9 billion euros were produced in the European Union in 2008," the agency said in a statement. "Of that, more than 30 percent were from the Netherlands." The value-share of Dutch bike production in Europe grew by about 10 percent from a fifth in 2004, said the statement.
The Dutch travelled 14.2 billion kilometres by bike in 2007, compared to 21.5bn with public transport and 97.5bn by car.
Read the entire article
here.
28 July 2009
Dutch soldiers allowed to join gay parade in uniform
The Dutch defence ministry has given permission for soldiers to join the Canal Parade in uniform for the first time. The soldiers will not have their own boat in Saturday's Canal Parade, the highlight of Amsterdam's Gay Pride celebrations, but will take place on the boats of the homosexual sections of unions like FNV or companies like IBM, Shell or Philips.
A defence ministry spokesperson said soldiers are allowed to take part "on condition that they wear suitable attire". She stressed that joining the parade is based on individual decisions and the defence ministry is not directly involved.
Read the entire article at
NRC International
Christian Democrats to join Amsterdam Gay Pride
This is the first time the Christian Democrat party is taking part in the annual canal parade. The Christian Democrat party will for the first time take part in the Amsterdam Gay Pride annual canal parade on Saturday. The party, which will have a boat, aims to stimulate dialogue between Christian homosexuals and the churches. Party MP and emancipation spokesperson Corien Jonker and 40 other Christian gays and lesbians will be on the boat as it sails through the canals of Amsterdam.
Cultural Minister Ronald Plasterk and deputy minister Sharon Dijkstra will also take part in the world’s only Gay Pride canal parade in a boat representing the ministry of Education, Culture and Science. This is the second time Plasterk of the Labour Party is taking part in the parade. Last year, he and Amsterdam Mayor Job Cohen attended the event to emphasise that each and any form of intolerance or violence against homosexuals is unacceptable.
Read the entire artice at
Expatica.com
28 July 2009
From
The Sun:
Smart car owners have been left Smarting over a new craze — for chucking their motors into canals. Dutch pranksters in Amsterdam have dumped dozens of the tiny two-seater cars into the city's waterways. And now police fear the bizarre trend will spread to the UK and the rest of Europe. Eco-friendly Smart cars are small enough to be picked up by just a few people and dumped into the Dutch capital's canals, reports De Telegraaf newspaper.
One victim Casper de Jong was woken by police after they found his Smart floating in the waterway outside his apartment. Mr de Jong said: "Several weeks ago the same thing happened to my companion's Smart. Both cars were a complete write-off." One Smart sales worker said: "We're not supposed to talk about this because the police don't want the craze to spread but we've had quite a few drowned cars returned to us."
Read the entire article
here.
10 July 2009
Only in Holland.com is off on a two week vacation, but leaves you with a preview of the cover of the upcoming 3rd edition of the book and an extract from the book.
Nieuw Amsterdam – the Big Orange?
New York City, the most famous metropolis on the planet and the self-proclaimed “Capital City of the World” was originally overwhelmingly Dutch in the 17th and early 18th centuries. Early
Dutch settlers and merchants established villages and trading posts throughout the entire New York metropolitan area beginning in the early 1600s in order to profit from the vast resources within the region. The Dutch are credited with negotiating the “Deal of the Millennium” with the purchase of the island of Manhattan from the Indians for, ostensibly, $24. The borders of the Dutch territory claimed by the West India Company stretched as far from southern Delaware through New Jersey and east-central Pennsylvania, and into eastern and central New York, including Long Island. This Dutch region was originally called Nieuw Nederland and New York City was originally called Nieuw Amsterdam, both names paying homage to the Dutch motherland in Europe.
(more)
07 July 2009
From
Earth911:
The Netherlands’ waste management system is highly regarded around the world. However, the country sticks to a simple plan: avoid waste as much as possible, recover valuable raw materials from waste, generate green energy from waste when possible and only discard the waste that is left over. This isn’t necessarily an original waste management plan, but the way the country goes about their plan is original – and it’s working. Second only to Germany, the Netherlands leads the world in recycling, with 65 percent of all waste recycled.
But how did the Netherlands get here? To answer this question, we need to take a look back – about 30 years back. In the 1980s, residents in the Netherlands were concerned about the future of their country. The Netherlands, one of the most densely populated and highly industrialized countries in the world, was becoming increasingly crowded. The production and consumption of consumer goods was rising, and with that, waste levels were increasing while landfill space was diminishing. In effort to control growing amounts of trash, the country scrambled. Incineration and overused landfills were increasing toxic levels in soil, water and air. Pollution and lack of landfill space became major causes of concern to the Netherlands’ quality of life.
So, with a growing sense of urgency, the Netherlands got down to business. Now known as the Social Response, the country unified its people, business sector and government to reduce environmental pressures and improve the quality of its surroundings. The country began drafting legislation and regulations, setting goals and standards and implementing and enforcing laws, rules and goals. The Netherlands practices stringent standards for waste disposal, and landfills are regulated by checking soil and groundwater for pollution. Incinerators are regulated for air emissions, plant construction and the incineration process itself.
Read the entire article
here.
05 July 2009
From
Art Daily:
As part of the celebration of the 2009 Hudson-Champlain Quadricentennial celebration, the New York State Office of Cultural Education (OCE) will present at the New York State Museum the exhibition “1609,” which will re-examine Henry Hudson’s voyage, the myths that surround it, and explore the legacies of Hudson’s unexpected discovery. The State Museum, State Archives, State Library and State Office of Educational Broadcasting, which make up OCE, are collaborating on the “1609” exhibition. It is scheduled to be open July 3, 2009 until March 7, 2010 in the Museum’s Exhibition Hall.
The “1609” exhibition is presented in four parts. The first section focuses on what life was like for both the Dutch and Native Peoples of New York before 1609 and the events of that year. The visitor will then look at the myths that Hudson planned to come here, and that Native Americans greeted him and his crew with joy and awe. The exhibition will attempt to dispel those myths and explore with the visitor what is known about Hudson and the 1609 voyage and the Native American response. The third section confronts the myths relating to the short-term impact of the voyage – the consequences for the Dutch and the Native Americans. Finally, the visitor will be able to examine the long-term legacy of the Native Americans and Dutch, and how they affected subsequent historical events and American culture today.
There will be many touchable objects and a reading area to engage the youngest visitors. Artifacts on display will include an elaborately decorated c. 1700 “Armada Chest” or strongbox, a classic type of chest or portable safe similar to what Henry Hudson most likely had in his quarters on the Half Moon; a dugout canoe recovered from Glass Lake in Rensselaer County similar to those used by Native Americans in the 17th century; a bronze cannon cast for the Dutch West India Company (1604-1661) used at or near Fort Orange and a stained glass window bearing the Coat of Arms of “Jan Baptist van Renssilaer,” patron of the Manor of Rensselaerswyck in the 1650s. A large 1611 etching of the Port of Amsterdam in the Netherlands, courtesy of the Amsterdam Municipal Archives, also will hang in the gallery.
Many of the maps and other 17th-century Dutch colonial documents in the exhibition are from the collections of the New York State Library and the State Archives and will be located in a separate room where lighting is carefully controlled. The New Netherland Project, a program of the State Library, has been working since 1974 to translate and publish these archival records.
Read the entire article
here.
03 July 2009
From the
Associated Press:
The life work of Rembrandt — all 317 known paintings, 285 etchings and more than 100 drawings — go on display next week in full-sized digital reproductions that attempt to recreate the works as they emerged from the artist's studio rather than as they exist today. In some ways, the high resolution images are more authentic than the real paintings, said Ernst van de Wetering, a leading Rembrandt scholar who supervised the project. Employing computer wizardry, pieces of canvas or panel that were sliced off centuries ago have been patched back on. Colors are restored to the vibrancy they had when they came off the master's brush. Details hidden in darkness because of aging pigments emerge into view.
"The Complete Rembrandt, Life Size" exhibition opens Sunday in the former Amsterdam Stock Exchange building and runs through Sept. 7.
Organized chronologically, the exhibition brings together work from more than 100 museums and collections around the world to offer viewers "a walk through Rembrandt's mind," said the art historian. It follows his 45-year evolution from young painter to possibly the most famous master of his day, and the sudden leaps of inspiration and conceptualization in between that jolt him to new levels.
In the exhibition, a copy of The Night Watch — a 1642 group portrait of an Amsterdam militia in colorful formal attire — as it is in Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum, stands next to a recreation of the original. Over the years, the massive painting had been trimmed on all sides, and two figures were cut completely from the left side. The result moved the two central characters to the middle of the canvas, destroying Rembrandt's intention to convey an image of motion.
Read the entire article
here.
03 July 2009
From
Reuters:
Amsterdam city council is turning its attention to a pressing problem for one of the city's key business sectors - banking and credit for prostitutes who can't get accounts from mainstream institutions. The city's red light district is famed the world over for its women in tiny windows and even tinier clothing, but despite the trade being legal, many banks shy away from taking the ladies on as customers. As part of the city's "Project 1012" to remake the De Wallen neighborhood, which includes the sex district, the city council has been asked to find a way to help bordello owners and sex workers gain more access to banks.
"Up until now, it's been very difficult for people in the sex industry to get credit with the banks," a city council spokesman said on Friday. "For them it is a hazard that they can not get regular credit or help or mortgages or anything from a regular bank." He added the city wants to ensure that prostitution is a "bona fide" industry, and that the "entrepreneurs" who ply the local trade need access to regular bank credit for legitimacy.
Read the entire article
here.
01 July 2009
From the
Sacramento Bee:
Tropical islands and mountain glaciers get all the attention. But the planet's river deltas are the real front lines of climate change. Sharing that message is a goal of the Delta Alliance, a new effort by officials in the Netherlands to unite people around the world struggling to manage river delta regions. This includes Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Nigeria – and California. Scientists have advised California to prepare for 55 inches of sea level rise in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta by 2100. Protecting communities and the Delta freshwater supply, which serves 23 million Californians, will be a complicated and pricey task.
The Dutch have lived below sea level for hundreds of years. They've survived by building massive levees that are the envy of the world. Last week, a delegation from the Netherlands visited San Francisco and the Delta. One result is a planned September symposium in California on common challenges.
The Bee interviewed Bart Parmet, director of the Deltateam for the Netherlands Ministry of Transport, Public Works and Water Management, during the delegation's stop in Sacramento.
Read the interview
here.
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