Dutch TEFAF arts fair breaks attendance record
March 18, 2008 Leave a Comment
This year’s TEFAF art and antiques fair, held in the southern Dutch city of Maastricht, attracted 73,000 visitors, 2,000 more than last year. A number of top pieces were sold, including The Sacrifice of Iphigenia by Jan Steen which fetched almost 8 million euros. A huge yellow diamond also changed hands. Although the asking price [...]
Black rat returns to southern Netherlands
March 18, 2008 Leave a Comment
The black rat (rattus rattus), responsible for spreading the kidney-damaging hanta virus among other illnesses, is making a come-back in the south of the country, Jim van Steenbergen of the RIVM health institute told Radio 1 on Monday. In 2006, eight hanta virus infections were reported in the Netherlands but last year this was 25, [...]
Yellow diamond sells for USD 11m at end of Maastricht Fair
March 17, 2008 Leave a Comment
A yellow diamond priced at about 7 million euros ($11 million) was among the last big sales at Tefaf, the world’s largest art and antiques fair, which closed yesterday in the Dutch city of Maastricht. The 70.12-carat emerald-cut stone was sold on Saturday by the London jewelry dealers Graff to a European client. Read the [...]
Cold politics and lots of Russian gas to heat them up – a debate on EU-Russia relations
March 16, 2008 Leave a Comment
Under the heading “the EU and Russia: Strategic Partners or Competing Neighbours?”, three experts participated last week in a hot public debate on the political and strategic relationship between the EU and Russia. A review by Tobias Gerhard.
Democracy in the Middle East? The need for patience
March 16, 2008 2 Comments
Mr Eickelman, a US professor of Anthropology and Human Relations at Dartmouth University, Massachusetts, and senior advisor to the American University of Kuwait, recently visited Maastricht to share his views on “The Knowledge and Practice of Democracy in the Middle East”. A review by Eliot Rolen.
14-16 March: Jazz Maastricht Masters festival
March 14, 2008 Leave a Comment
While Tefaf is exposing the great masters of fine art, a major cultural event – Tijdens Tefaf – will take place in the town theatre ‘Theater aan het Vrijthof’. The world masters of jazz are performing in Maastricht on 14-16 March. Every artist who performs on the main stage of Jazz Maastricht Masters belongs to [...]
Government forms to be simplified
March 14, 2008 Leave a Comment
The 50 most-used government forms are to be simplified by next year so that everyone can understand them, junior home affairs minister Ank Bijleveld said on Thursday. The public is irritated by complicated forms when applying for care allowance, study grants and child care supplements she told the Algemeene Dagblad. And fewer mistakes in filling [...]
Most child-friendly neighbourhood in Sevenum, Limburg
March 14, 2008 Leave a Comment
The most child-unfriendly neighbourhood in the Netherlands is Rotterdam’s Schiemond, according to research conducted by the Verwey-Jonker Institute, reports Thursday’s Trouw. The survey, carried out in 2006, looks at levels of youth criminality and unemployment, teenage mother rates, under-performing school results, child abuse and child poverty, the paper says. Three districts in Rotterdam are among [...]
Brussels most boring city in Europe
March 14, 2008 2 Comments
Brussels, the capital of Europe, is the most boring city on the continent, despite its renown for its waffles, chocolates, and comic books, according to a survey of international travellers published on Wednesday (12 March). The city just beat out Zurich and Warsaw for the title, who came second and third in the race for [...]
ANWB expects busy roads for Easter
March 14, 2008 Leave a Comment
The ANWB expects an extra busy evening rush hour on the Dutch roads on Thursday 20 March. The motorists’ association assumes there will be about 400 km of tailbacks. An estimated 500,000 Dutch people will be going away for the Easter weekend, the ANWB said Thursday. Most will be travelling to another part of the [...]
Integration Minister also accepts refusal to shake hands
March 13, 2008 Leave a Comment
Integration Minister Ella Vogelaar does not see it as her job to interfere in Amsterdam, where Islamic public officials are permitted to refuse to shake hands with women. Amsterdam’s Labour (PvdA) Mayor Job Cohen permits ‘street coaches’ to refuse to shake hands with women on the basis of their religion. “Cohen is free to make [...]
17 March: conference: Islam and the West
March 13, 2008 Leave a Comment
The current commotion about Geert Wilders’ movie has raised a lot of questions about the nature of Islam and the Qur’an. This conference hopes to bring a fresh Islamic perspective to the issues currently being raised by politicians and journalists. Program: Lecture “The Qur’an – Truth Lies or Forgery”, Lecture “De-Mystifying Islam” and a Panel [...]
Integrity test for Maastricht Council members?
March 13, 2008 Leave a Comment
Do you have large debts or visit porn websites at work? The Maastricht Municipality is going to urge council members to undergo an integrity screening. The test may be adopted by Amsterdam district councils as well, says spokesperson Duco Adema. The Maastricht screening is to alert council members to potential risks. For example, certain combinations [...]
MPs back free school text book plan
March 13, 2008 Leave a Comment
Labour MPs have agreed to support plans to transfer responsibility for buying school text- books from parents to secondary schools, giving the move a parliamentary majority. Schools will put their book lists out to tender from the 2009-2010 academic year and the government will allocate €45m to set up a task force to assist them [...]
European Parliament in Strasbourg turns 50
March 12, 2008 Leave a Comment
The European Parliament in Strasbourg held a special session on Wednesday to celebrate 50 years since the European Union’s six founding members set up a common parliament . Back in 1958, the assembly was a mere talking shop consulted by governments on select issues. Now the 785-member parliament represents 27 states and is the world’s [...]
Cabinet to tax returning expats more heavily
March 12, 2008 Leave a Comment
Finance Minister Wouter Bos plans to tax expatriates who return to the Netherlands more heavily. The move was reported by Het Financieele Dagblad yesterday based on sources close to the cabinet. The cabinet is expected to present four measures Friday against what it sees as excessive remuneration in the private sector. It already emerged this [...]
Dutch ditching dykes for Dalarna
March 12, 2008 Leave a Comment
Hundreds of Dutch want to move to Dalarna and the county is using some innovative methods to help people leave the soggy dykes of Netherlands for central Sweden’s open landscapes. Last weekend, a delegation from the central county came away from an emigration fair in the Netherlands with a registry of 200 Dutch families interested [...]
OAVM-Africa calendar of events in 2008
March 12, 2008 Leave a Comment
29 May 2008: African Leadership Convention in Maastricht, the Netherlands The first African Leadership Convention in the Netherlands will be organized at the Maastricht School of Management. 30 May 2008: Leadership Golf Cup 2008 in cooperation with KLM Club Africa On the 30th of May 2008 the 2nd annual golf tournament will be organized at [...]
Netherlands sees flight delays, cancellations under storm alert
March 12, 2008 Leave a Comment
A storm alert was issued Wednesday morning in the Netherlands as winds as high has 120 kilometres per hour were forecast, leading flight cancellations and delays at Schiphol Airport. Dozens of flights were cancelled Wednesday morning at the airport outside Amsterdam as delays for incoming flights ran up to two hours. Only 20 flights per [...]
Zuyd University research: Diesel fume particles ‘can trigger stress’
March 12, 2008 Leave a Comment
Even a brief exposure to the level of diesel exhaust typical of heavy traffic is enough to stress the brain, according to a study led by Zuyd University in The Netherlands published in the British journal Particle and Fibre Toxicology on Monday. Read the article: Sapa-AFP, 11 March 2008
Maastricht banned from creating marijuana boulevards
March 11, 2008 Leave a Comment
A court has ruled that the southern city of Maastricht may not move its so-called ‘coffeeshops’, which offer cannabis, to the edges of the city because of possible problems for surrounding towns. Maastricht wanted to create ‘marijuana boulevards’ along the major roads leading out of the city to reduce the problems caused by these coffeeshops [...]
PvdA leader after all allows govt staff to refuse to shake hands
March 11, 2008 Leave a Comment
Labour (PvdA) leader Wouter Bos after all considers that Islamic public servants can refuse to shake hands with women. Only last week he said this was unacceptable. Bos appeared to be aiming for a discussion in principle within the PvdA on the way in which the integration of immigrants is going in the Netherlands. Instead [...]
Dutch swearing culture unique in the world
March 11, 2008 Leave a Comment
The Dutch have a penchant for naming sicknesses when they swear. In no other country in the world is that customary, it emerges from a survey of nearly 3,000 students from 11 countries, including 400 in the Netherlands. Boele de Raad, professor of personality psychology at the University of Groningen, and Jan Pieter van Oudenhoven, [...]
Public broadcaster faked burqa incident
March 7, 2008 Leave a Comment
Public broadcaster BNN deliberately misled viewers in a film clip about a woman in a burqa, the all-covering Muslim garment. In a mini-film on 101tv, BNN’s digital youth channel, a woman is seen who is helped immediately when she drops her bag of oranges. The same woman in a burqa however gets no help when [...]
Mothers continue to work part-time when their children grow older
March 7, 2008 Leave a Comment
After the birth of their first child, most mothers continue working, preferably part-time. As their children grow older, mothers rarely start working longer hours. Fathers usually continue to work in full-time jobs after the birth of their child(ren) and rarely adjust their working hours. This picture also emerges from the latest publication on this subject [...]
Highest incomes again found in municipalities in North Holland
March 6, 2008 Leave a Comment
In 2005, Bloemendaal was again the wealthiest Dutch municipality. The average income in Bloemendaal was 58 percent above the national average. In the space of five years, the classification reflecting average municipal incomes hardly changed. Residents of municipalities in the province of North Holland are still relatively wealthy, whereas those living in the provinces of [...]
YouTube film promotes Limburg
March 6, 2008 2 Comments
The tourism offices of Limburg have launched a video clip (in English) on YouTube to promote our province: Serious Health Warning Source: emovie.alleswatjethuisniethebt.nl/warning, Samenwerkende VVV’s Limburg Related article: Tired of Amsterdam? Time to discover Maastricht!
Writing contest for budding reporters in the Meuse-Rhine Euroregion
March 6, 2008 Leave a Comment
The TalenAcademie (a “centre of expertise” on language training) is running a contest for 14-19 –year olds, the “Media Reporter” contest. The students are expected to write an article in a language other than their own (Dutch, German, French). The sponsoring newspapers (Aachener Zeitung, Dagblad De Limburger, Krant in de Klas, Vers l’avenir, kidsweek and [...]
20 March: Subterranean Railway: a social history of the London Underground
March 6, 2008 Leave a Comment
The Speaker: Christian Wolmar is a writer and broadcaster specialising in transport. He has spent nearly all his working life as a journalist and lately he was at The Independent. Although he mainly concentrates on transport matters, he covers other social policy issues, notably housing and local government. He has written two books on the [...]
Maastricht Debates: upcoming events
March 6, 2008 Leave a Comment
RUSSIA AND THE EU On March 11 at 7.30 pm, a public debate will take place on trade and political relations between Russia and the EU under the title ‘Strategic partners or competing neighbours’. With Hiddo Houben, Member of Cabinet responsible for Bilateral and Regional Trade Strategy of the European Commission, researcher Marietta Koenig, and [...]
