Marijn van Osch is a friendly fellow, to say the least.

The Dutch designer recently spent three months wishing every single person he passed on his way to work a “good morning” in an attempt to make Holland happier.

Bright yellow art installation in Victoria harbour sparks social media conspiracy theories to explain why it suddenly shrank

There’s something inherently old-fashioned about being a king, or any member of a royal family. But that doesn’t mean 21st century royals need to stick with musty, medieval branding.

ANY good history of financial markets will have a section on Amsterdam. The Dutch city was the home of the world’s first stock exchange, kicked off in 1602 by the issuance of shares in the Dutch East India Company (the Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, or VOC). Equity derivatives followed: forward contracts on VOC shares were being traded by 1607. By the 1630s the secondary market had taken off, helped along by Christoffel and Jan Raphoen, brothers who bought and sold VOC shares on demand and can claim to have been the world’s first market-makers.

Self-build kit homes in Nijmegen in the Netherlands can be assembled within six to eight weeks

Sponsored feature: Europe has a crucial role in the global economic debate, and Nyenrode Business Universiteit is playing its part in preparing a future generation of world business leaders.

It is entirely coincidental that when Arjan de Zeeuw walks into the town centre cafe he is wearing one of those chunky cardigan-sweaters reminiscent of the type Paul Michael Glaser made famous in Starsky and Hutch.

 

The eurozone's slow suffocation is going Dutch. Each extra month of slump caused by Europe's negligent authorities is pushing Holland closer to a debt-deflation trap.

Relatively few people in Africa know that many of the most fashionable designs worn in the continent are actually created in the Netherlands.

A Dutch firm, Vlisco, has come to dominate an increasing lucrative fashion market in Africa with its distinctive and luxury fabrics.

The BBC's Anna Holligan has been trying to discover its secrets.

Robin van Helsum duped police and social workers into believing that he was an abandoned child

He's got a nice smiley face! And he's just been made King of the Netherlands! But what else do you know about The Artist Formerly Known As Prince Willem-Alexander?

Prince Charles could be forgiven a slight twinge of jealously as he joined European Royals at a stunning abdication party to mark the handover of the Netherland's throne from Queen Beatrix to her son.

Amsterdam's public transport company is getting in on the action with a royal tram. Photo: Novum

There will be lots of everything on April 30. Here's a number of them:

She will be given the title of queen as an honorary gesture, as wife of the king, but Argentine banker Máxima Zorreguieta is more popular than her husband.

On April 30, 150 members of the lower house, 75 members of the senate and a whole host of dignitaries and civil servants will make the trek from The Hague to Amsterdam to attend the inauguration of the new king, Willem-Alexander.

One summer night in 2011, a tall, 40-something professor named Diederik Stapel stepped out of his elegant brick house in the Dutch city of Tilburg to visit a friend around the corner. It was close to midnight, but his colleague Marcel Zeelenberg had called and texted Stapel that evening to say that he wanted to see him about an urgent matter.

If cars, traffic and navigation can be “smart,” is there any reason for roads to remain as dumb as bricks?

Thirty-three years after her coronation, having carried out 54 state visits abroad and living through five prime ministers, queen Beatrix is stepping down.

With just three days to go before he officially becomes king, crown prince Willem-Alexander celebrates his 46th birthday on April 27.

Queen’s Day is always the busiest time of the year in Amsterdam, and it will be even busier this year because of the investiture of king Willem-Alexander. Some reports say tourist numbers in the capital will be up 25%.

Peter Van de Wetering, for 54 years the unrivaled tulip impresario of Park Avenue, grew up in a lush world. As a child raised in The Hague, his earliest memories were of the greenhouses where his father produced seeds for vegetable growers and profusions of flowers — freesias, anemones and of course tulips, a Dutch obsession that survived the ruinous frenzy of tulipmania that swept Holland in the 17th century.

Eva Schloss was 23 years old when her mother Fritzi married Otto Frank, making her the posthumous stepsister to Anne Frank, who had died eight years earlier in a concentration camp. 

AFP - While the Netherlands parties in gaudy orange as the new king takes the throne on April 30, a small group of defiant republicans will protest the monarchy's very existence by wearing white.

Thousands apply to become one of four astronauts selected to set up a human colony in a plan that comes with snags

It's a challenge that anyone in her place would find both daunting and thrilling. Princess Maxima of the Netherlands has to pick out the perfect outfit for her husband Willem-Alexander's inauguration as King. 

Well, there's top model Doutzen Kroes for a start. A new promo video explains that the hearts on the Frisian flag are actually lily leaves and tells you where in the world you can study the language.

More than seven million tulips, daffodils and hyacinths will make a spectacularly British display at the largest spring garden in the world. The 80-acre exhibition near the town of Lisse, south-west of Amsterdam in the Netherlands, known as Keukenhof, is described as one of the most beautiful gardens in the world.

Finding the perfect man usually involves dates galore, the odd disappointment and the patience of a saint. But Dutch designer, Noortje de Keijzer, has come up with a simpler solution.

With all the pomp and circumstance surrounding the investiture of king Willem-Alexander, you might get the impression  the Dutch monarchy stretches back hundreds of years. In fact it is just 200 years old.

Test your knowledge of Oranje-Nassau family in the run-up to the investiture of king Willem-Alexander and the rest of the Queen's Day madness.

Would you buy a conflict diamond, purchase a slave, or bank dividends from Auschwitz? Of course you wouldn't -- those are all questions of conscience that are easily answered. But what about buying shares of stock in captive orcas (killer whales) including the wild born Morgan?

The Haarlemmerstraat in Amsterdam is a narrow enough thoroughfare that from my office window I can easily see into the shops across the street. There is the olive oil boutique, with its rows of metal barrels and its sign inside saying “Check Your Oil,” and the coffee shop that young, nattily dressed tourists wander into to get licitly high.

The May 2013 edition of Vogue Netherlands has run an editorial honouring designer Marc Jacobs’s work with Louis Vuitton. So far so Vogue, but puzzlingly, the accompanying spread features a white model in “blackface” make-up.

A Dutch entrepreneur is on a mission to send a bold gang of explorers - aka reality show contestants - to Mars. It's either one of the biggest hoaxes in history conjured up by a group of richly deluded young fantasists or a brave attempt to challenge the boundaries of space travel and beat Nasa and co at their own game.

Who doesn't know the Dulux dog? The doe eyes, the wagging tail, the blow dried coat. Launched onto TV screens and billboards more than half a century ago, the old English sheepdog is an advertising icon.

It sounds like the ultimate do-it-yourself project: the print-your-own-home. In place of bricks and mortar and the need for a construction crew, a customisable building plan which transforms itself from computer screen graphics into a real-world abode thanks to the latest in 3D printing technology.

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A chip shop in the Netherlands will offer diners its cannabis-flavoured sauce, but the owner says you won't get the munchies.

While flash mobs in the United States have generally revolved around things like The Fresh Prince of BelAir or the Harlem Shake, a culturally-minded group staged a high-art flashmob to celebrate the return of Rembrandt Van Rijn’s famous painting The Night Watch to the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.
 
 

Renowned garden designer Piet Oudolf has spent a lifetime honing his craft. Now he's letting us in on the secret

Paul Krugman praises the CPB's Coen Teulings

Archaeologists are trying to piece together clues to the identity of a shipwreck in the north-west Highlands.

Three cannon and part of a wooden hull lie on the seabed near Drumbeg in Sutherland.

Archaeologists believe it could be the remains of a Dutch vessel that got into difficulty between 1650 and 1750.

LOPPERSUM, the Netherlands — Jannes Kadyk’s modest brick home suffered more than $5,000 in damage. Bert de Jong’s more stately home will need about $500,000 to get back into shape.

The cyber attack threatening to cripple the internet was traced yesterday to a Cold War command post in the Netherlands.

 

It has been called one of ther biggest ever cyber attacks in history, one that nearly broke the internet. But did you even notice? If not, you're not alone …

The Belgian comedy team 2BE asked themselves what yoga lessons would be like if the Dutch had invented it.

European plans to harmonise the payment card market will undermine innovation and hurt consumers, says Pascal Paul, CEO of Moov’card.

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The IMF delivers an unexpected message to the Dutch

Marge Johnson of Prospect Heights remembers as if it were yesterday — the advertisement in a Girl Scout magazine seeking pen pals.

When she looked down the list of names, she picked Bep Snoek, who was 15 years old and lived in Amsterdam.

Dutch artist's digital collages of black children in tropical surroundings are eerily beautiful and decidedly unreal