The Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands Frans Timmermans gives an emotional speech from the UN Security Council Meeting on Ukraine. The Netherlands lost the most lives of any country, 193 of the 298 people on board, when MH17 was shot down over Eastern Ukraine.
Showing posts with label netherlands. Show all posts
Showing posts with label netherlands. Show all posts
19 Jul 2014
Russian Roulette
On Thursday, July 17, 2014, a Malaysia Airlines passenger jet carrying 298 people was shot down over eastern Ukraine — allegedly by pro-Russia separatists. Residents in the area described bodies falling from the sky and landing in their own backyards.
18 Jul 2014
More Than 100 AIDS Researchers and Advocates Perished on Downed Malaysian Jetliner
More than 100 AIDS experts and public health officials on their way to the International AIDS Conference in Australia were among those killed when a Malaysian jetliner was shot down over the Ukraine yesterday. Their deaths prompted an outpouring of grief from their colleagues.
“The International AIDS Society today expresses its sincere sadness at receiving news that a number of colleagues and friends en route to attend the 20th International AIDS Conference taking place in Melbourne, Australia, were on board the Malaysia Airlines MH17 flight that has crashed over Ukraine earlier today,” the group's organizers said.
Among the passengers was Glenn Thomas, a spokesman for the World Health Organization, and Joep Lange, an eminent HIV researcher from the Netherlands who was also the former president of the International AIDS society. Lange led a campaign to expand affordable care for HIV patients in impoverished regions. He is considered an icon in the AIDS medical community. “Joep was a giant in this field; a researcher who really ‘got it’ in terms of human rights, equity and justice. He was as much activist as researcher — and that is rare. Incredibly sad,” Mitchell Warren, an AIDS activist, told NBC News.
The exact number of individuals on flight MH17 who were heading to the conference is unknown, but Australian officials have said it's a “substantial number” including medical doctors, scientists and AIDS advocates. The event is set to host about 14,000 delegates from around the world.
16 Apr 2013
Dutch republicans want new king to take a pay cut
Dutch republicans have a message for the Netherlands' Crown Prince Willem-Alexander, who will become king when his mother Queen Beatrix abdicates at the end of April: you're not worth it.
Hans Maessen of the New Republican Fellowship — which seeks to abolish the monarchy — said Monday his organization is launching a petition to have the new king's annual salary of 825,000 euros ($1.1 million) lowered.
"If you look at the demands of the job, it's totally out of proportion," Maessen said. The Dutch monarch earns more than twice the salary of the president of the United States, four times that of the president of Germany, and five times that of the king of Spain or the Dutch prime minister.
29 Jan 2013
18 Jan 2013
Russian activist kills himself after failing to win Dutch asylum
A Russian opposition activist has been found dead in the Netherlands after being refused political asylum, the Dutch justice ministry confirmed on Thursday. Aleksander Dolmatov, arrested last May during a demonstration opposing president Vladimir Putin, applied for political asylum in the Netherlands in June, saying he feared for his life.
Dolmatov was found dead in a Dutch detention centre early on Thursday morning. He was sent to the centre on Wednesday to await deportation after his application for asylum failed. A spokesman for junior justice minister Fred Teeven told the NRC he had left a note for his mother, but did not go into details about why his application for asylum had been rejected.
The spokesman also said staff at the detention centre did not see any signs that Domatov intended to kill himself. However, based on earlier reports, he was being held in a section for asylum seekers with psychiatric problems, the spokesman said.
29 Nov 2012
Zwarte Piet is a racist relic, so why is it part of the modern Dutch celebration?
Winter is coming. Christmas decorations adorn its shopping streets. Christmas is not yet foremost in Dutch people’s minds though, as it is preceded by the Sinterklaas celebration on December 5th. In The Netherlands, the festival provides an excuse to get together for creative gift giving, eating sweets and reading poetry. More importantly, however, is the omnipresence of its two main characters, Sinterklaas (Saint Nicholas) and Zwarte Piet (Black Pete) in Dutch streets and other public places. These characters are either depicted in imagery or enacted by predominantly white volunteers adorned with black face paint, red lips and black curly wigs. The public display of a white saint (Sinterklaas) and his jolly black helpers (Zwarte Piet) occupying almost every public space is a continuous defamation of people of colour – especially those of African descent – a project started in the 19th century.
During the 1800s, when the print industry reached its peak, black figures were commonplace in popular Dutch illustrations known as the volksprent. Serving as educational and entertainment material, they often depicted black people as the “noble savage” or the servant boy. Similar images featured prominently in Sinterklaas children’s literature of the time. Zwarte Piet - known as ‘Peter my servant’ (‘Pieter me knecht’) until the 20th Century - developed from a bogeyman that threatened naughty children, into a clownish fool. Today, this character remains intact and either largely unquestioned or fiercely defended by the Dutch majority.
In fact, as the celebration is a national tradition, criticism is often perceived as a threat to Dutch culture in general. Addressing its racist elements, for example by wearing a t-shirt that states “Zwarte Piet is Racism” during the televised national arrival of Sinterklaas, is considered threatening to such an extent that it led to the violent arrest of artists Quinsy Gario and Kno’ledge Cesare who wore t-shirts bearing the statement. Their unlawful detention, on the 12th November 2011, for six and a half hours included exposure to repeated remarks from police officers that: “this is our Dutch tradition” – a tradition two young black men are not entitled to criticise.
26 Oct 2012
Top Dutch Official Facing Child Rape Allegation
A high-ranking Dutch official, who's retiring this week, is being honored for his work. But human rights advocates say Dutch Justice Ministry Secretary-General Joris Demmink doesn't deserve praise; he deserves prison.
Demmink is being accused of raping two teenage boys, now men, during a visit to Turkey in 1990s. One of them recently shared his story on Capitol Hill. Much like a court room, witnesses at an Oct. 4 Helsinki Commission briefing presented their testimonies to a Capitol Hill audience. But Demmink, the man they've accused, has yet to stand trial.
"I was afraid to say no, and I was very young and very innocent," one victim testified, describing the emotional scars from childhood. His identity is being protected because he barely survived an assassination attempt. That attack followed his allegations against what's been called "the Dutch Super Elite."
10 Jul 2012
Operation Product
Pictures have emerged from executions by Dutch military in the then Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia).
Operation Product, (1947/1948) was the first of two major Dutch military offensives against the Republic of Indonesia during the Indonesian National Revolution. It took place following Dutch assertions that Indonesia cooperated insufficiently in the implementation of the Linggadjati Agreement, which had been ratified on March 25, 1947 by the lower chamber of the Dutch parliament. This police action was also influenced by a Dutch perception that the Republic had failed to curb the influence of Indonesian Chinese, Indonesian Indians and the rising Indonesian Communist Party.
Operation Product, directed by General Simon Spoor, was intended to occupy economically important areas of West and East Java, leaving Yogyakarta, seat of the Republican government, alone because of the high costs that the fighting was expected to incur. On July 21, the Dutch deployed three divisions in Java and three brigades on the less-densely populated Sumatra. The operation resulted in the occupation of large parts of Java and Sumatra, with the Republican army (TNI) offering only weak resistance.
30 Apr 2012
House of Orange Crime Cartel
In the following article, we set out to trace the steps of two brothers, both of whom are grandsons of Bilderberg-founder Bernhard, who have now been destined to carry along the torch of treason. The objective: to dismantle the nation-state, strip the people of their self-determination and free will, and position themselves as sovereign rulers of the planet. Their common cause does not deviate from the age-old directive, but their means are custom-made to fit current times.
Children of the Dutch royal family are destined to carry along the torch of treason.
To those who feel that the quest for a worldwide grid, a prison-planet, is too great an effort to conceal from public scrutiny, we can say there's hardly any concealment on the part of the elite.
We can even say that the perpetrators are generally committing their acts in the full light of day, as they speak quite openly about their vision for the world.
Continues on True Conspiracies
Also see: Black nobility, house of orange, Frescobaldi on Above Top-Secret
No austerity measures for the Dutch Royal Family
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte has called an agreement on austerity measures “a fantastic result”. Analysts had feared that if the government was unable to present a package of measures by Monday to bring down the budget deficit to three percent of Gross National Product, the Netherlands could lose its triple A credit status.
The government sees "no reason" to more cuts in the Royal House. (Elsevier) ‘How rich is Queen Beatrix?’ is then probably a valid question. No one knows the answer on this question.
The Queen’s Treasurer (in Dutch: de Thesaurier der Koningin) is most likely the person closest to ‘the secret’.
I would like to give you an explanation, based from a chapter about the Thesaurier der Koningin out of the book ‘Aan het Hof. De monarchie onder Koningin Beatrix’, (‘At the Court. The monarchy under Queen Beatrix’) by Remco Meijer (ISBN 90 5713 462 4).
‘How rich is Queen Beatrix?’ All publications, articles and magazines who claim to answer this intriguing question are unreliable. Main reason: those who have knowledge about it, maintain a stony silence. Every single Euro put down on Queen Beatrix is pure speculation and is also unreliable for two reasons. Until her death in 2004 Princess Juliana was the owner of the vast bulk of the Orange-Nassau fortune. No one knows exactly what did happen with her heritage. In the Netherlands, by law each child is treated equally and Queen Juliana had four daughters. There is no regulation possible in which the eldest child receives more than the other children.
The other reason is the fact that most of the valuables, the possessions, the art collections, the jewels, the inventories, the gold-, silver and crystal ware, etc. were put into family foundations. These foundations are legal entities on which no natural person can claim an ownership anymore. But all this does not take away that the Orange-Nassaus are one of Europe’s richest families.
25 Feb 2012
Fact-check of a bizarre set of false claims by Rick Santorum
Erik Mouthaan, U.S. correspondent for the Dutch RTL News, joins Rachel Maddow to fact-check a bizarre set of false claims by Rick Santorum about the elderly and euthanasia in the Netherlands.
7 Jan 2012
Prototypical Fascism in Contemporary Dutch Politics
In the Netherlands, Geert Wilders and the PVV are more than the prototype of contemporary fascism. They are its selling model, and they sell well. … The PVV does not use physical violence, but its rhetoric is at times highly combative. It carries the same message as early twentieth century fascist violence: that only the PVV is tough enough to save the nation from hostile threats. Such militant rhetoric can give its supporters the idea that violence is justified, and regrettably it has done so in the recent past.
The PVV is a fascist party. The PVV exhibits political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline and victimhood. The PVV is a nationalist and anti-Islam party working in uneasy collaboration with a minority government of traditional elites. The PVV is a party
striving to unite, energize and purify the Dutch community. The PVV is a party that is willing to abandon democratic liberties in order to protect the community from alien threats. The PVV is not a party of militants, nor a party violently pursuing internal cleansing and external expansion. But the PVV is a party that employs militant rhetoric and that proposes exclusionary policies, e.g. to deny Muslims freedom of religion and to ban the Qur’an. Paxton’s “short handle” of fascism fits the PVV very well.
The PVV is a fascist party and its leader Geert Wilders is a fascist.
1 Dec 2011
No Black Peter in Canada after Racial complaints
Organizers of New Westminster’s Dutch Sinterklaas celebrations will pull “Black Peter” from their traditional parade next weekend after complaints that the black-faced helper carries racist undertones.
Members of the African-Canadian community had complained that Zwarte Piet, or Black Peter, a young person in blackface makeup, is offensive and outdated and should not be included in the Dec. 3 event. This will be the first time since 1985 that Black Peter will not accompany Sinterklaas as he heads to New Westminster Quay aboard a paddlewheeler boat.
“We will not have Black Peter,” organizer Tako Slump said Friday.”We did all our research and came up with the understanding that they do have a point. We can assure the African-Canadian community that there will not be any offensive black faces.” A statement from Sinterklaas organizers apologized to those “who may have found aspects of our celebrations demanding and hurtful.”
21 Nov 2011
Zwarte Piet Institutionalized Racism in the Netherlands?
Zwarte Piet is said to be a racist image of the African negro. Above are the different views on this matter.
30 Oct 2011
Little hope for Mauro
The Dutch Christian Democratic party voted to work towards a more humane policy on young refugees, but that does not mean 18-year-old Angolan boy Mauro can stay, party officials said on Saturday. (DutchNews.nl)
Abigail R. Esman is appalled. she writes this because she finds it unfathomable that a Western, civilized country that dares to boast of its “tolerance” (a fable, but people still believe it) and its “openness” (ditto), a country that professes to believe in human rights and human dignity, can be committing this kind of sin against an innocent young man. She write this because she thinks the world should know.
Mauro Manuel arrived in the Netherlands as a child of nine – frightened, alone, sent off by his parents who feared for his safety in their war-torn homeland of Angola. Their son, they knew, would face a better future in the West.
And so he came to live in the Netherlands, where he has, in the nine years since, learned to speak the language fluently, with the unmistakeable drawl of the province of Limburg, where he now lives with a foster family. He has been a good student. He plays soccer with the best of them. His foster parents gave birth two years ago to a son Mauro calls his brother, and loves as if they had been born to the same family.
But Mauro is now 18 years old. And the Dutch government wants to send him back to Africa. Mauro no longer speaks his native language. He no longer knows the cultural mores of his homeland. He has been raised a Westerner, a Dutchman, and this is the culture of which he feels a part.
17 Oct 2011
The Murder of Vincent Van Gogh
Vincent Van Gogh died from a gun wound, two days after it was inflicted, on 27th July 1890. He had returned to his lodgings in Auvers-Sur-Oise.
The artist was 37 when he died. If Vincent Van Gogh had died when his works were selling for millions of dollars the inquest into his death would have been thorough, but he didn’t and it wasn’t.
With the new Van Gogh Exhibition now underway at London’s Royal Academy, which displays the so called “suicide note”, it seems a good time to re-examine the evidence and ask: did Vincent Van Gogh commit suicide or was he murdered?
Many accounts of Vincent Van Gogh’s death cite the letter found on his person after the shooting incident as his “suicide note”. This “suicide note” conclusion should be suspected.
Firstly, unusually for a suicide note, the letter was unfinished and made no mention of an intended suicide or reasons for taking his life. Secondly, this document is actually an unfinished letter to the artist’s brother Theo. It reads: My dear brother,
Thanks for your kind letter and for the 50 francs note in contained.
There are many things I should like to write to you about, but I feel it useless. I hope you have found those worthy gentlemen favorably disposed toward you.
15 Sept 2011
Dutch state liable over Indonesia massacre
A Dutch court has ordered the government to compensate the widows of seven villagers who were summarily executed and a man shot and wounded in a notorious massacre during Indonesia's bloody battle for independence from colonial rule. The Hague Civil Court ruled on Wednesday it was "unreasonable" for the government to argue that the widows were not entitled to compensation because the statute of limitations had expired.
According to Indonesian researchers, Dutch troops wiped out almost the entire male population of Rawagede, a village in West Java, two years before the former colony declared independence in 1949.
"Justice has been done," said Liesbeth Zegveld, lawyer for the plaintiffs. "This means that the state can't just sit in silence for 60 years waiting for the case to go away of the plaintiffs to die and then appeal to the statute of limitations."
15 Aug 2011
Immigration and Islam Raise Questions of Dutch Identity
Anders Behring Breivik, the Norwegian who admitted to mass killings last month, was obsessed with Islam and had high praise for the Netherlands, an important test case in the resurgence of the anti-immigrant right in northern Europe.
The sometimes violent European backlash against Islam and its challenge to national values can be said to have started here, in a country born from Europe’s religious wars. After a decade of growing public anger, an aggressively anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim politician, Geert Wilders, leads the third-largest party, which keeps the government in power.
In Slotervaart, a majority immigrant neighborhood in southwestern Amsterdam, Maria Kuhlman and her friends watched Muslim families stroll by on a Ramadan afternoon, some of the men in robes and beards, the women wearing headscarves. A large blond woman shouted, “Go Wilders!”
Mr. Wilders’ Freedom Party, which combines racist language with calls for more social spending, won 15.5 percent of the vote in June 2010. He was recently acquitted of charges of hate speech for comparing the Koran to “Mein Kampf” and calling mosques “palaces of hatred.” He wants all immigrants and their children deported and warns of the supposed Muslim plot to create “Eurabia.” He declined repeated interview requests.
22 Jun 2011
Dutch state to answer for 1947 bloodbath
On 9 December 1947, Dutch troops on Java raided the village of Rawagede, around 100 kilometres east of the Indonesian capital Jakarta. The Dutch military campaign to put an end to the Indonesian independence struggle has always been referred to rather euphemistically as the “police actions”. Indonesian proclaimed its independence in August 1945, after the end of the Japanese occupation during World War II. It took The Hague until the end of 1949 to give in to international pressure and recognise the independence of its former colony.
Eye witnesses say the men of the village were lined up and shot dead. The Committee of Dutch Debts of Honour claims 431 people were killed, in a report written 1969 on the campaign’s excesses this figure is put at just 150 victims.
It was 20 years before the report was published, but the United Nations concluded in January 1948 that the military operation in Rawagede was deliberate and ruthless. However, there were no consequences for the Netherlands. This made it easier for the Dutch legal authorities to avoid prosecuting the Dutch officer responsible for ordering the bloodbath, Major Alphons Wijnen.
More on Radio Netherlands Worldwide and attorney statement here (pdf)
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