Dutch send senior official to Iran over activist
October 31, 2007 Leave a Comment
Foreign affairs minister Maxime Verhagen is to send his highest political advisor to Tehran in an effort to find out what is happening to the Dutch human rights activist Abdullah Al-Mansouri, arrested 18 months ago on terrorism charges, reports ANP news service.
The minister told MPs on Tuesday that he is very concerned about reports [...]
The mosasaur of Maastricht
October 31, 2007 4 Comments
Meet the mosasaur, Maastricht’s famous prehistorical lizard, whose fossil skull was first dug up around 1770 in the marl of Mount St. Pieter to the south of the city. Here is the story of this fascinating discovery. [continued...]
“Serious consequences” threat to Iran despite death sentence denial
October 30, 2007 Leave a Comment
The Iranian ambassador in The Hague has assured Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen that no death sentence has been imposed on Dutch human rights activist Abdullah al-Mansouri. If this does happen, Verhagen has threatened “serious consequences”.
Verhagen was called to the Lower House yesterday by Party for Freedom leader Geert Wilders. In fact , all parties were [...]
“No death sentence for Al-Mansouri”
October 30, 2007 Leave a Comment
Dutch-Iranian human rights activist Abdullah al-Mansouri has not been sentenced to death, Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen told Parliament on Tuesday.
Verhagen (Christian Democrats) said he had received this information from the Iranian ambassador in The Hague as well as authorities in Teheran.
One of his top civil servants is due to travel to Iran next [...]
7 November: “Showcase”: music festival in Maastricht featuring Tres.b, Lucky Fonz III, Phantom Taxi Ride
October 30, 2007 Leave a Comment
“Showcase” will feature Tres.b, an international band based in Maastricht (four members: English/Danish, Dutch/American, Dutch/Spanish, Polish); Lucky Fonz III, a singer/songwriter from Amsterdam (winner Grote Prijs van Nederland 2006) and Phantom Taxi Ride, a Polish indie rock band from Warsaw.
Presale tickets (EUR 4) are available at Somethin Good (Tongersestraat) and Traders Pop (Heggenstraat).
Date: 7 November, [...]
‘Dutch human rights activist and Maastricht resident sentenced to death in Iran’
October 29, 2007 Leave a Comment
Dutch human rights activist Abdullah al-Mansouri has been sentenced to death in Iran, according to his son. The Netherlands’ embassy in Teheran was apparently informed of the sentence ten days ago.
The son of the condemned man, Adnan al-Mansouri, said yesterday that he had been told by Syrian human rights organisation Nohr that his father had [...]
27 October: New dinosaur exhibition opens in Brussels
October 24, 2007 Leave a Comment
A new permanent exhibition has opened at the newly-renovated Natural History Museum in Brussels.
The museum’s new Dinosaur Hall boasts 35 unique skeletons of the pre-historic giants that once ruled the world.
This make the Natural History Museum’s exhibition the biggest in Europe. Among the most remarkable exhibits are the 9 iguanodons that were among the [...]
8-9 November: International NORFACE conference on Migration and Citizenship Attribution
October 24, 2007 Leave a Comment
How do immigration and emigration affect the way in which states regulate the acquisition and loss of citizenship? Can immigrants retain their citizenship of origin when they obtain the citizenship of their new state of residence? Why do some states have no problem with the phenomenon of multiple citizenship, whereas in others this leads to [...]
CBS: Nearly Five Million Immigrants in 2050
October 24, 2007 Leave a Comment
The number of ‘white’ Dutch living in the Netherlands will decline by 1.2 million between now and 2050. The number of immigrants will grow in the same period to 4.796 million, the Central Bureau for Statistics (CBS) predicted yesterday.
On 1 January, the Dutch population totalled 16.334 million. In 2050, it is projected at 16.797 million. [...]
13 November: GNE lecture: “Sir Christopher WREN & the English Baroque” by Andrew Lacey
October 24, 2007 Leave a Comment
A slide presentation for the Limburg branch of the ‘Genootschap Nederland-Engeland / Netherlands-England Society’
Having a degree in History, and Library Information Studies, Mr Andrew Lacey has worked as a professional librarian in various colleges & [...]
EU unveils ‘blue card’ scheme to attract skilled immigrants
October 23, 2007 Leave a Comment
The European Commission unveiled Tuesday its new “blue card” labour scheme aimed at attracting highly qualified immigrants to the European Union to fill millions of jobs.
The system, loosely based on the US “green card,” is aimed at attracting the kind of sought-after immigrants who tend to find more attractive pastures in places like the United [...]
Playing handball in Maastricht
October 23, 2007 3 Comments
Handball? For Americans, the sport is virtually unknown or plainly misunderstood. For Europeans and the residents of Maastricht, it is quite a different story, Crossroads writer Amrit Dhir has found out. [continued...]
Academia in Maastricht (part 1): “A good quality of life and a university: the perfect combination of things”
October 23, 2007 1 Comment
An ex-lover once asked me why on earth I wanted to become a researcher. He scolded me for aspiring for a life in academia. According to him all academics are stuck spinning their wheels, writing papers that are only being read by fellow academics. Worse still, he believed none of this knowledge ever made it back into the real world.
Ulterior motives aside, his claim covers little ground. Surely advances in science continue to influence societies on a daily basis, in countless ways, both good and bad.
Nonetheless it touches upon an interesting question. What gears people towards a life in science?
Crossroads’ writer Rosanne Rademaker speaks with Marco Zinzani, an Italian researcher at Maastricht University to find out what drove him into the world of academia. [continued...]
6 Oct-13 January: British Vision in Ghent, Belgium
October 16, 2007 Leave a Comment
‘British Vision’ is an overview of two centuries of British art, representing every major artist, including William Hogarth, Thomas Gainsborough, George Stubbs, William Blake, John Constable, Joseph Mallord William Turner, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Edward Burne-Jones, Stanley Spencer, Graham Sutherland, Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud.
The exhibition brings together over three hundred works of art from [...]
UM research: Getting intimate with robots
October 14, 2007 Leave a Comment
Tired of your current wife, husband, or partner? Someday soon you may be able to end all these messy human relationships and take up with a robot.
David Levy is an international chess master. He’s also a PhD candidate at the University of Maastricht here in the Netherlands. His dissertation argues that, in the not-too-distant future, [...]
Cabinet continues to allow dual nationality
October 13, 2007 Leave a Comment
The cabinet decided Friday to put forward a bill that formally bans dual nationality but which has so many exemptions that it will hardly change anything in the present situation. “We absolutely do not wish to create the impression that anything is wrong with dual nationality,” was how Justice Minister Ernst Hirsch Ballin characterised the [...]
Internet polls increasingly often trumped by Geenstijl
October 12, 2007 Leave a Comment
The popular website Geenstijl.nl increasingly often makes polls on the Internet a farce. This week, the website’s influence embarrassed newspaper Trouw twice.
Trouw presented 10 symbols typical of the Netherlands on its website. Initially the option ‘just behave ordinarily, then you’re already crazy enough’ was placed top in the election. “But now that GeenStijl has got [...]
WISER Festival in Maastricht: It’s time to get Wiser!
October 11, 2007 Leave a Comment
Almost 500 professors, researchers and students gathered on 4-5 October 2007 in the area around Centre Céramique to examine the role of women in Science, Education and Research through debates, demonstrations, performances, workshops and more informal parties. A review of the WISER festival in Maastricht for Crossroads.
Gay spots and events in Maastricht
October 11, 2007 Leave a Comment
Is the gay community well catered for in Maastricht? With two important Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) organisations and regular big parties, the situation doesn’t look too bad. Crossroads writer Hania Piotrowska takes a closer look at the available options. [continued...]
Secret service: Islamists now pretending to be moderate
October 10, 2007 Leave a Comment
The Netherlands has entered a third phase of Islamic fundamentalism. Where radical Muslims previously wanted to subject the country to Islam in a violent manner, they are recently doing this in a much less visible way, by participating in social forums and saying they reject violence, the AIVD secret service warns.
In a report presented yesterday, [...]
System of integration courses to be simplified
October 9, 2007 Leave a Comment
The new integration legislation introduced at the beginning of this year will be simplified and local councils will once again be able to offer Dutch language and culture courses directly to all immigrants from November 1, reports today’s Volkskrant.
The announcement came in a letter to MPs from integration minister Ella Vogelaar and brings forward [...]
EU sees numbers of asylum seekers drop
October 9, 2007 Leave a Comment
The number of asylum seekers in the EU has been progressively decreasing since the 1990s.
From 2001 to 2006, the numbers of applications have dropped by almost 50 percent, with a 15 percent drop noted in 2006 alone if compared to the previous year, recently released figures from the EU statistics office Eurostat show.
In 2006, the [...]
A bystander’s question
October 9, 2007 1 Comment
With the semester in its initial phase, Maastricht’s student population is in the ‘design your life’-craze again… an annual recurrence, as close observation suggests.
And with enormous piles of new students freshly arrived from high school or from the usual year abroad, the demand for self-definition and identity is outpaced even by the demand for IKEA furniture. [continued...]
Many vocational trainees almost illiterate
October 9, 2007 Leave a Comment
The newpaper De Volkskrant reports about the atrocious reading skills of most students attending secondary vocational education colleges in the Netherlands. An investigation by ICE, a company that develops language programs and tests, has revealed that many of the students read so poorly that there will never be able to finish their courses.
In order [...]
Integration courses bogged down in bureaucracy
October 9, 2007 Leave a Comment
The government’s compulsory integration courses are completely bogged down in bureaucracy, according to Saturday’s Volkskrant.
The vocational education association (MBO) tells the paper that just 10% of people who are supposed to take the courses are actually doing so. MBO chairwoman Margo Vliegenhart describes the situation as a ‘disaster’ and says the new integration law [...]
Is there such a thing as a Dutch identity?
October 9, 2007 Leave a Comment
A Dutch identity: does it exist? It is a hot topic in the Netherlands at the moment. Some people are singing the praises of the multifaceted Dutch identity while others say it is undervalued.
Remarkably enough, the person who sparked the debate was Argentine-born Princess Máxima. During a speech given at the presentation of a report [...]
EU-based firms continue to lag behind on research spending
October 7, 2007 Leave a Comment
Only three EU companies have made it to the global top ten for investors in research and development, according to an EU report on R&D investment.
The report lists the top 1,000 R&D investors in the EU and compares their research spending with the top 1,000 investors outside the EU.
Together, these 2000 companies represent more [...]
European lawmakers warn against creationism
October 7, 2007 Leave a Comment
European lawmakers have warned against teaching creationism - such as ‘intelligent design’ which denies the evolution of species through natural selection - in European schools saying it could become a threat to human rights.
National parliamentarians from around Europe meeting in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe – the top human rights body in [...]
Mahl magazine or the new Eutropolitan vision
October 5, 2007 2 Comments
Ever wished you lived in London or any other metropolis? Congratulations, say the creators of Mahl magazine, for if you live in Maastricht, Aachen, Hasselt, Heerlen or Liège you are an inhabitant of Eutropolis.
Europe ageing and divorcing at high speed
October 5, 2007 Leave a Comment
There are currently more elderly people than children living in the EU, as Europe’s young population has decreased by 21 percent - or 23 million – in 25 years, 10 percent of which in the last ten years alone.
Only 16.2 percent of today’s EU population is less than 14 years old, while 16.6 percent is [...]
