A round up of the best stories about the Netherlands and all things Dutch from leading international publications
In most languages, if someone said you had cancer, it would be a diagnosis. In Dutch, it is more likely to be an insult. Kankerlijer (“cancer-sufferer”) is one of a long list of Dutch profanities and expletives derived from diseases. More >
In the low-lying Gelderse Valley some 85km east of Amsterdam, a Dutch university is changing how humans eat. There, a bright-eyed press officer with Willy Wonka flair is showing me the miracles of modern food science. One laboratory door swings open to reveal giant, fragrant basil leaves growing under multicoloured lights. More >
It was a political masterclass to watch Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte switch roles at last week’s EU budget talks, from the ever-reliable neighbour and ally of German chancellor, Angela Merkel, to the intransigent leader of the Frugal Four whose behaviour she panned as childish’. More >
As recent numbers show, the Netherlands ranks very high in international rankings on innovation and competitiveness. It ranks fourth in the 2019 editions of both the Global Innovation Index and the Global Competitiveness Index, making it Europe’s most competitive economy. At the same time, its energy usage is least sustainable of all countries in Europe and its air is one of most polluted in Europe too. What is going on? Do we have a new “Dutch Disease?” More >
f there’s one contradiction that goes to the heart of why Dutch drugs policy has lost its way, it’s this: that while it’s legal for ‘coffee shops’ to sell cannabis for personal consumption, growing the cannabis they sell is illegal and subject to stiff penalties that have forced production underground. More >
The Dutch are coming. That is the upbeat message from Ido Abram, director of See NL, the umbrella body for the promotion of Dutch films and film culture. ‘Dutch films overall did really well internationally in 2019,’ he says. ‘Documentaries, short films, youth films, feature films all made the festival circuit in an incredible way.’ More >
Oscar-winning actor presents documentary retracing life of Jewish teenager killed by the Nazis. More >
Shortly after her capture by the Nazis in 1944, Dutch resistance fighter Selma van de Perre was transferred from a regular prison to the worst concentration camp in the Netherlands. Van de Perre arrived at the infamous Camp Vught about five months after its commander, Adam Grunewald, had killed 10 women by cramming them and 64 other inmates into an unventilated, 100-square-feet cell for 14 hours. More >
When he was asked to create a memorial to the 104,000 Jewish, Roma, and Sinti people from the Netherlands who were killed during the Holocaust, Daan Roosegaarde hesitated. The Dutch artist, engineer, and master of light-based art and design was not sure at first whether to accept such a delicate and complicated assignment. More >
The Dutch justice system is cutting jail populations by offering specialist rehabilitation to people with mental illnesses. More >
When she came across a Nazi killing an infant by repeatedly swinging its tiny body against a brick wall, Truus Oversteegen didn’t flinch. The freckle-faced teenager, who was just three months shy of her 17th birthday when Germany invaded the Netherlands in May 1940, was a newly minted member of the Dutch resistance. She had been mostly assigned to hide Jewish children, political dissidents and homosexuals in various safe houses throughout Haarlem, her hometown, which was about 12 miles west... More >
German aerial photographer Tom Hegen has dedicated his craft to exploring the impact that humans have on the natural world. For better or worse, his work shows how we have shaped the environment and made changes that are often irreparable. His latest journey into the sky saw him photographing Holland’s LED greenhouses, which have allowed The Netherlands to remain a formidable force in food production and export. More >
Last week, Dutch farmers across the country parked their tractors along highways in the third such protest since October, when they jammed traffic while driving en masse to The Hague, the nation’s center of government. More >
Wrapped in an electric blanket metres from a busy highway in the Netherlands lay the body of a man in such a state of decomposition he was impossible to identify. It was August 1991 and the man’s chest bore several stab wounds. The local workers who found him told police it was the stench that led them to his corpse. More >
The architecture, language and culture of New Netherland influences New York today, even if most modern-day inhabitants have little idea of the history beneath their feet. More >
Thunderdome launched with a giant octopus on an ice rink – and created the Netherlands’ biggest youth culture movement. Three decades on, it’s stronger and tougher than ever. More >
The Netherlands could build a million new homes from sustainably harvested local wood and save 100 megatons of carbon in the process, according to architect Marco Vermeulen. More >
The Dutch chief information officers of more than 100 big companies have raised the alarm about monopolistic practices by major software suppliers. Oracle in particular is said to have locked its customers into unfair contracts before demanding millions of euros a year in extra charges. More >
Middle-power nations need to do more to reform flawed and failing global institutions such as the UN Security Council and the World Bank, not disengage from them, Netherlands PM Mark Rutte has told an Australian audience. More >
