The current panic among MPs desperate to protect Dutch companies from aggressive hedge funds reveals just how little has changed in this paradise of protectionism. It is also completely at odds with all too recent government policy to increase shareholders rights. More >

In a move strangely at odds with its avowed commitment to sustainability and corporate social responsibility, Dutch banking and insurance group ING yesterday signed a three-year sponsorship deal with the Renault Formula 1 team. More >

As amusing as it may be to see Christian Democrat and Labour MPs falling over each other to defend the rights of elderly viewers, their furious reaction to the plans to scrap popular quiz programme Lingo (see Friday’s DutchNews) does make you wonder whether our public representatives might not be more gainfully occupied helping to dig the tunnels and build the new road and rail links they keep voting to give us. More >

The GreenLeft party in Amsterdam has a novel idea to help prostitutes who have been affected by the council’s cancellation of 37 brothel licences, reports the Parool. More >

Anyone who has explored the Dutch world of English-language communications has been forced to laugh or cry at how the well-meaning Dutch mangle our beloved language. More >

As we approach the November elections, a new party has emerged as a realistic coalition candidate. Jan Marijnissen’s Socialist Party has suddenly got religion and now claims to be a contender for the votes of disaffected Christian Democrats. More >

She might have moved to the US, but ex-Dutch MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali can still pull in headlines. Today’s Volkskrant includes a bizarre article by two supporters, Leiden professor Afshin Ellian and writer Leon de Winter. More >

With all the far-right splinter parties competing for scarce seats in next month’s general election, it is hardly surprising that they have now all started biting each other. Voters meanwhile must be scratching their heads over the plethora of parties: ÉénNL, Freedom Party, Fortuyn, PvNL, all of which are hoping to benefit from the anti-Islam vote. More >

The Netherlands is one of the few countries in the world where voting is carried out almost entirely by computer. The days of cocooning yourself in a booth with a long list of names and a red pencil are over. More >

Today’s DutchNews.nl contains quite a number of items relating to nationality, but this isn’t deliberate. The idea isn’t to leap aboard the anti-foreigner or the Dutch-bashing bandwagon. More >

Dutch football coach Marco van Basten is finding management a far trickier task than playing the game. As a striker Van Basten was ruthless. As a manager he has the same clinical focus and shows little emotion as he watches from the dugout, jaw set, x-ray eyes on the play. More >

The battle between Amsterdam city council and the government over the partial privatisation of Schiphol airport looks set to be played out right up to the eve of a new government taking power – possibly not until early next year. More >

There have been few front page photos more depressing recently than that in today’s Telegraaf – a production line of girls in bikinis queuing up to pose provocatively for a photographer working on shots for the 2007 Axe deodorant calendar. More >

The Dutch might have an obsession about how well they speak foreign languages but they also seem to be paranoid about anyone who does not speak perfect Dutch. More >

The pesky little ‘korenwolf’, or wild hamster, has finally hit the headlines again after years of silence. Builders everywhere must have prayed that the rodent, a protected species, had actually died out. More >

News editors used to give new reporters one piece of advice: ‘Always remember, all politicians are liars and cheats.’ This cynical caveat should have been in most journalists’ minds during the past two weeks when politicians wrestled with two major scandals: the report on a fire in a Schiphol cell complex which killed 11 refugees and Amsterdam’s role in allowing a ship to dump toxic waste in Ivory Coast which killed seven people. More >

There is nothing wrong with using a television soap opera to get across a social message – this is indeed how soaps started. But exactly what is the message behind the new AT5 soap partly sponsored by Amsterdam city council? More >

The main reason for the unbelievably complicated and bureaucratic way of paying for healthcare in Holland is an obsession with solidarity between the sick and the healthy. And an insistence that everyone should basically pay the same. More >

‘Murder in Amsterdam’, the new book by Anglo-Dutch writer Ian Buruma, has recently been translated into Dutch under the title ‘Dood van een gezonde roker’ – the Dutch title refers to the murder of Theo van Gogh who was hardly ever seen without a cigarette in his mouth. More >

It is probably quite easy to resign as a minister when you know there is an election nine weeks away anyway. Justice minister Piet Hein Donner, facing his third sticky patch as a minister, and planning minister Sybilla Dekker, were very quick to hand in their resignations yesterday after publication of the damning Schiphol fire report. More >