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Excerpts from the Windmill
Wright Flyer sculpture marks Dutch aviation centennial
Monument unveiled in Brabant town
Publish Date: Jan 11, 2010
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ETTEN-LEUR, The Netherlands - Underscoring the worldwide nature of the Dayton, Ohio aviation heritage, the Netherlands held its own first flight centennial last summer by dedicating a full size, stainless-steel sculpture of a Wright Flyer that made the first powered flight over Dutch soil.
Little tolerance left for New Year’s hooliganism
Publish Date: Jan 11, 2010
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ROTTERDAM – Dutch tolerance of hooliganism on New Year’s Eve is wearing extremely thin, a number of culprits discovered on January 2 when they were hauled before summary courts for quick justice. One 24-year old man received a six...
Dutch households hold record number of Internet connections
Publish Date: Jan 11, 2010
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BRUSSELS – The Netherlands again is number one in Europe with per capita Internet connections. Ninety percent of all Dutch households have access to the Internet, leading Luxembourg and Sweden, which have 87 and 86 percent respect...
Municipality ends Wierum construction stop
Publish Date: Jan 11, 2010
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WIERUM – A small Frisian village, which has been memorialized in U.S. literature by Dutch immigrant writer Meindert de Jong, may at last be building some new housing units. The municipality of Dongeradeel, to which the Waddenzee-d...
Government to include churches in Disaster Preparation
Publish Date: Jan 11, 2010
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THE HAGUE – Guusje ter Horst, the minister of Internal Affairs, who is also responsible for policing and disaster coordination, wants to meet ‘the churches’ and other faith communities to discuss their possible role in the afterca...
Students create record-size Dutch baking delicacy
Publish Date: Jan 11, 2010
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ALMELO – Most Dutch deli outlets in North America only offer factory made speculaaspoppen (spice dolls), as do supermarkets throughout the Netherlands. Many Dutch bakeries take pride in making their own specialty speculaas product...
Site of old riverbed reveals remainders of prehistoric forest
Publish Date: Dec 23, 2009
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ABCOUDE – The discovery of the remainders of upright trees at an archeological site near the western Dutch town of Abcoude is not only a bonus to the archeologists researching traces of a medieval hamlet but also is further eviden...
Author traces the rise of euthanasia in the Netherlands
Publish Date: Dec 23, 2009
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THE HAGUE - The Dutch minister who liberalized an obscure law regulating burial to allow active euthanasia now agrees that palliative care for dying patients was given insufficient attention. Els Borst-Eilers who represented the p...
New Belgians could forfeit their citizenship through criminality
Publish Date: Dec 23, 2009
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BRUSSELS – The Belgian cabinet with former premier Yves Leterme back in the saddle now that his successor Herman van Rompuy has been elevated to the EU-presidency, has decided that naturalized citizens may have their Belgian citiz...
Seventeenth-century Dutch public top singers of Europe
Publish Date: Dec 23, 2009
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NIJMEGEN – New research suggests that the average Dutch citizen must have been singing aplenty from a repertoire that included a very wide range of songs. People knew the lyrics by heart (many were illiterate in those times), alth...
Candy merchandiser Jamin to double in ten years
Publish Date: Dec 23, 2009
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OOSTERHOUT – The well-known Dutch confectionery and candy chain Jamin has been awarded the designation Royal court supplier, an honourary title reserved for highly reputable firms who survive economic and other turbulences for at ...
Minister sees benefits in central government hiring
Publish Date: Dec 23, 2009
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THE HAGUE – Home Affairs Minister Guusje ter Horst wants a review of how the government hires its workers. The minister points out that there are currently 5,000 different functions and ranks in the civil services, while 50 could ...
Municipal executive looking for huge budgetary savings
Publish Date: Dec 23, 2009
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AMSTERDAM – The downloading of responsibilities from the central Dutch government onto the shoulders of the provinces and municipalities during previous decades may soon be followed by a slowing of the flow of funding now that the...
Authorities order culling of pregnant goats in q-fever battle
Publish Date: Dec 23, 2009
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THE HAGUE – To contain the highly contagious Q-bacteria, Dutch authorities will be culling about 34,500 pregnant goats. Also, many thousands of male goats were slated to be killed in the drive to rid the country of the bacteria, w...
Jurisdiction of puzzle on Dutch-Belgian border settled after centuries
Complex feudal ownership claims
Publish Date: Dec 07, 2009
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BAARLE- Trying to make sense of the borderline between the Netherlands and Belgium requires a great deal of knowledge about a thousand years of history when looking at the municipalities of Baarle-Hertog and Baarle-Nassau. The borderline between the two entities resembles a one hundred piece puzzle. Additionally, players must first determine if the puzzle’s pieces were cut according to specifications of a text written in an antiquated dialect and a hard to read letter style. Confused? The following shows you are not alone.
Justice ministry to crack down on forced marriages
Age threshold raised to 18
Publish Date: Dec 07, 2009
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THE HAGUE - In a letter to the Second Chamber, Justice Minister Ernst Hirsch Ballin writes that he wants to give the Public Prosecutors’ Office wider powers to charge those who force others into unwanted arranged marriages.
German churches keep Emden’s a Lasco Library solvent
Named after minister of Dutch refugees
Publish Date: Dec 07, 2009
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EMDEN, Germany - The Johannes a Lasco Bibliothek, a library originally founded in 1559 within the Reformed Church in Emden, needs an infusion of capital after its reserves dropped to a low of 1,6 million euros. The library lost over 7 million euro during the tenure of a director who was forced out late last year. German churches plan to contribute 6 million euros to keep the library solvent.
Hungarian divers find 17th-century Dutch ship near Brazil
VOC flyboat Voetboog rediscovered
Publish Date: Dec 07, 2009
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BUDAPEST - A team of Hungarian marine archaeologists has found the wreckage of a Dutch cargo ship, which sank near the Brazilian coast over three centuries ago.
Dutch couple travels on floating castle
Publish Date: Dec 07, 2009
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DEN HELDER – A Dutch entrepreneur and his wife are traveling through the Netherlands and other parts of Western Europe aboard their floating castle, Museum ship Vlotburg. The barge has been outfitted as a medieval castle, complete...
EU not authorized or ready to take on embassy work
Publish Date: Dec 07, 2009
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THE HAGUE – Over time the European Union could be taking over the functions of Dutch embassies, although Foreign Affairs minister Maxime Verhagen discounts the possibility that this will happen before 2014. Now that the Lisbon Acc...
Minister mediates unhindered travel for Wilders
Publish Date: Dec 07, 2009
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KERKRADE – PVV-leader Geert Wilders fails to be evenhanded, so says Dutch Foreign Affairs minister Maxime Verhagen. Wilders is quick to dismiss opponents for all kinds of reasons, but gets extremely annoyed when a minister in Turk...
Socializing with visitors at home a diminishing habit
Publish Date: Dec 07, 2009
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TILBURG – Visiting family and friends at their home is an activity on the decline in the Netherlands. In 1975, the average Dutch person spent 8,4 hours a week socializing with each other over a coffee or a beer. Thirty years later...
Intensive farming methods bad news for hare population
Publish Date: Dec 07, 2009
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LEEUWARDEN – Two Dutch nature protection groups and the central bureau of statistics have concluded that the country’s hare or jackrabbit population has declined by thirty percent during the past decade. The jackrabbit (in Dutch h...
Dutch shipyards regaining market share in Europe
Publish Date: Dec 07, 2009
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RIJSWIJK – Dutch shipyards are regaining market share after a steady decline over the past number of decades. Last year, the Dutch realized twelve percent of the European ship building activity, up from seven percent in 2000. They...
Floating cities the answer to anticipated rising sea levels
Dutch engineers see opportunities
Publish Date: Nov 23, 2009
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DELFT - A Dutch design firm imagines floating cities as a response to climate change. Dutch engineers have long been known for designing innovative ways of managing water in flood-prone regions.
Dutch international maritime firms agree to merge after all
Icons Boskalis and Smit join forces
Publish Date: Nov 23, 2009
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ROTTERDAM - Dutch salvage company Smit International has given up its opposition to a take over by the Dutch-based international dredging company Royal Boskalis Westminster. The dredging company, with 10,200 employees and revenue of 2.2 billion euros, is taking over Smit International (3,600 employees and revenue of 708 million euros) in a 1.35 billion euro deal. No loss of jobs is expected in the takeover.
Connecting Almere with Amsterdam proves costly
Publish Date: Nov 23, 2009
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THE HAGUE – The huge majority of Dutch immigrants in North America left the Netherlands when the central inland lake, called IJsselmeer (before the 1930s the Zuiderzee), only had the Noordoostpolder carved out of it. Other polders...
Vehicle taxes to be replaced with a kilometre levy
Publish Date: Nov 23, 2009
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THE HAGUE – The concept of paying for road usage is one step closer to being realized in the Netherlands now that the cabinet has agreed to a three-year trial period, starting in 2012. The first group to start paying an average 3-...
Structured life in jail a benefit to psychiatric patients
Publish Date: Nov 23, 2009
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TILBURG – Dutch psychiatrist Jan Cees Zwemstra, who recently defended his dissertation, contends that jailed patients have an advantage over those admitted to regular psychiatric institutions. Prisoners respond well to psychiatric...
Frisian lakes after two centuries under Frisian control again
Publish Date: Nov 23, 2009
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LEEUWARDEN – The Dutch government recently reversed a Napoleonic decree that had put lakes in the province of Friesland (Fryslân in the Frisian language) under central, national authority two hundred years ago. The reversal took e...
Madurodam’s high-speed railway line built without delay
Publish Date: Nov 23, 2009
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THE HAGUE – The smallest city in the Netherlands, Madurodam, cut through red tape fast to complete in record time its new highspeed railway line South, overtaking its live size cousin that is being built – with numerous delays - t...
City canals venue for rowing race with dinghies
Publish Date: Nov 23, 2009
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AMSTERDAM – Rowing championships usually are held in canoes but the Dutch also use traditional flat-bottom dinghies for such contests. The annual Amsterdam sloepenrace, which covers a 24-kilometre distance through the city’s canal...
Skippers’ home misses Heemschut’s heritage site designation
Publish Date: Nov 23, 2009
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IJZENDIJKE – Vereniging Erfgoed Heemschut (a name which can be translated as Association Heritage Protectors) is a national umbrella group with an activist agenda to safeguard Dutch (architectural) heritage sites. The range it cov...
Jip and Janneke enter Iran with a spat back home
Translator of childrens’ cartoon in trouble
Publish Date: Nov 09, 2009
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THE HAGUE - Amid the current wave of Iran coverage that makes the country synonymous with a global nuclear threat, Dutch newspapers are linking the Islamic republic also to something as innocent as a Dutch children's classic. It appears that the children’s favourites, stories of cartoon characters Jip and Janneke have been translated into Persian, and much to the delight of a generation of Iranian children.
Engineering firm pushing a terraced diking system for tidal areas
Space for recreation and briny agriculture
Publish Date: Nov 09, 2009
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AMSTERDAM - Dutch engineering firm Arcadis has conceived an original solution to give the area around the Duchess Hedwige Polder, on the Dutch-Belgian border near Antwerp, new prospects.
Theme park De Efteling welcomes its hundred millionth visitor
Anton Pieck’s creation increasingly popular
Publish Date: Nov 09, 2009
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KAATSHEUVEL – “Hundred million! That’s six times the Dutch population,” exclaimed an elated Bart de Boer, topman at De Efteling, surprising a family of six as they came through the turnstiles at the largest theme park in The Netherlands. One hundred million tourists have visited the park, designed by famed Dutch illustrator Anton Pieck, since it opened its doors in 1952. Now one of the oldest theme parks in the world, De Efteling has welcomed a record number of tourists this year and has high hopes it may celebrate another milestone before the year is over when it admits its four millionth visitor.
Innovations at FloraHolland keep flowers in the coolers
Publish Date: Nov 09, 2009
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AALSMEER – Innovations at the FloraHolland auction will soon change the way flowers are auctioned. So far, the common practice has been bidding on lots that were displayed on carts passing through the auction halls below while buy...
Arabian genetic flaws stem from cousin-marriages
Publish Date: Nov 09, 2009
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DUBAI – Of all the population groups in the world, Arabs are most affected by hereditary deficiencies. Until now, Arabian genetic studies have identified no less than 900 hereditary flaws of which 200 are unique to Arabs in the Gu...
Book reveals how the fledgling VU depended on benevolent brewer
Publish Date: Nov 09, 2009
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AMSTERDAM – The 19th century brewer equivalent of today’s Heineken served as the financial backer of the fledgling Free University, paid the salaries of the institution’s professors, and later became its CFO. Until now, Willem Hov...
Software connects disaster guarding sensors to supercomputers
Publish Date: Nov 09, 2009
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AMSTERDAM – Technology developed at the University of Amsterdam is being installed to monitor volcanoes, dikes and bridges throughout Europe for impending disasters. The sensors submit warning signals to central supercomputers des...
Hamlet grabs headlines with release of history book and CD
Publish Date: Nov 09, 2009
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SINT ANTHONIEPOLDER – Named after a Dordrecht patron saint, the polder and the similarly named hamlet in the Hoeksche Waard have a long history which was reemphasized recently through the release of a new book with CD on the histo...
Retired grower revisits WWII fruit growing
Publish Date: Nov 09, 2009
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KAPELLE – A museum dedicated to the fruit growing culture in the province of Zeeland recently held a one-evening session on fruit growing as experienced during WWII. Among other things, it presented a retired grower who enlightene...
European award for Weerribben-Wieden
Publish Date: Nov 09, 2009
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OSSENZIJL – National Park Weerribben-Wieden in Northwest Overijssel has been awarded the designation of a sustainable tourism destination in a protected area. The park is now the first one in the Netherlands to fully meet European...
Utrecht considering another huge residential development
Publish Date: Nov 09, 2009
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UTRECHT – Plans are being considered for a new city district near Utrecht, between the two A12-freeway junctions, Oudenrijn and Lunetten. The long-range plans involving Utrecht, Nieuwegein and Houten, as well as the regional distr...
Clergy lost role in pushing for volunteerism
Publish Date: Oct 23, 2009
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THE HAGUE – Foundation De Zonnebloem, which has its roots in a Roman Catholic constituency, boasts in its current sixtieth anniversary year a volunteer base of 40,000 people, making it the largest in the country. The group’s volun...
Century-old district once home to relocated city farmers
Publish Date: Oct 23, 2009
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HARDERWIJK – If one walks with an observing eye through well-preserved centuries-old Dutch cities, it will not be long before one spots buildings which look much like historic farmsteads in the rural areas of the country. In many ...
Dorestad suffered from Viking invasions and climate change
Publish Date: Oct 23, 2009
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LEIDEN – The role of the Netherlands in foreign trade goes a long way back, if an exhibit on the pre-medieval town of Dorestad is any indication. Numerous artifacts, unearthed during excavations and other archeological work during...
New initiative to take profit out of crime
Publish Date: Oct 23, 2009
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ZWOLLE – Welfare recipients in the Netherlands, who drive around in high-priced sports cars and utility vehicles and spend money on expensive luxury items, can expect to be called to explain why their possessions exceed their leve...
De Rijke guided country’s modernization along with dams and ports
Unlicensed engineer Deputy Minister in Japan
Publish Date: Oct 23, 2009
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Dutch engineers, who were invited by the Meiji government in the nineteenth century, assisted in building and developing Japan’s ports and various other water-control projects throughout this mountainous country. C.J. van Doorn was the first to arrive but Johannis de Rijke earned the most praise for his 30-year long career in the land of the Rising Sun.
Rolls of Bouwman designed Olympic coins come with random surprise
Third commission for Royal Canadian Mint
Publish Date: Oct 23, 2009
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BURLINGTON, Ontario - They may not realize it, but millions of Canadian could soon have an opportunity to touch Jason Bouwman’s work of art when they pass along one or more of the recently released 25-cent coins that celebrate the men's hockey gold medal at Salt Lake City in 2002. In a unique twist, three million of these coins were produced in brilliant colour and inserted randomly into circulation coin rolls. Upon their release, the coins were initially available exclusively at the branches of the Royal Bank of Canada and at participating Petro-Canada gas stations. Both companies are a National Partner of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. Individual coins may also be available from select coin dealers.
Coalition party wants to an end to 'father unknown' option
Right to know for children
Publish Date: Oct 23, 2009
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THE HAGUE - Junior member of the ruling Dutch coalition, the Christian Union, is pushing for the mandatory registration of fathers on birth certificates. The party wants to put a stop to people simply ticking off the ‘father unknown' choice.
Biennial Netherlands Bazaar again a huge draw in community
Event raises over $123,000
Publish Date: Oct 07, 2009
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THORNHILL, Ontario – The fundraising for relief efforts by Committee Netherlands Bazaar have been given a major boost with the highly successful October 3 event at the Thornhill Community Centre. Organizers anticipate the biennial bazaar will have at a minimum equaled the net results of two years ago when they raised $123,000. It will probably take a number of days before a more definitive report will be available.
Hundreds jump at Ginkelse Heath World War II battle site
Parachutists commemorate ill-fated mission
Publish Date: Oct 07, 2009
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EDE, Netherlands - Hundreds of British, American and Dutch parachutists drifted out of blue skies over the central Netherlands recently to mark the 65th anniversary of an ill-fated operation aimed at bringing a swift end to World War II.
Massive project considered for the Blue Heart area
Publish Date: Oct 07, 2009
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LELYSTAD – Dutch authorities are planning an ambitious nature ‘creating project’ in anticipation of further developments in the IJmeer, the southern tip of the former IJsselmeer adjoining Amsterdam. The new wetlands would be creat...
Images from collection on Japanese camps online
Publish Date: Oct 07, 2009
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THE HAGUE – The local museum ‘Het Museon’ recently exhibited a priceless collection of image material detailing life in Japanese concentration camps in the former Dutch East Indies and beyond. In addition it showed music instrumen...
No more guessing about the ways of birds
Publish Date: Oct 07, 2009
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AMSTERDAM – A miniature GSP-backpack is revolutionizing knowledge about the travels of birds. Up to now, researchers were only aware of the broad outlines but now are able to track even the smallest details as birds go about their...
Tram line brought prosperity to Goeree-Overflakkee
Publish Date: Oct 07, 2009
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OUDDORP – It is 100 years ago this year, that modern transportation –a tram line- was introduced to the South-Holland island of Goeree-Overflakkee. Up to that point the island made do with dirt roads, which usually turned into alm...
Amsterdam tunneling lacks expert project supervision
Publish Date: Oct 07, 2009
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AMSTERDAM – An expert in underground building projects, who studied the problems the city of Amsterdam faces with constructing its so-called North-South metroline, has concluded that the project lacked sufficient supervision and a...
Usage of ecoduct by animals called a success
Publish Date: Oct 07, 2009
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HILVERSUM – Research has shown that the Hilversum-area ecoduct at Crailoo is a success. The 800-metre long structure bridges a secondary road, a railway, a business park and a sports park and was used by over 6,000 deer, nearly 6,...
Excavation of Spitfire rekindles history of WWII
Publish Date: Oct 07, 2009
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KEENT – The most important remainders of a British Spitfire were unearthed recently in this community near the Brabant town of Oss, nearly 65 years after it crashed on the return flight to its English home base. Excavators dug to ...
National championships sport pole held for 38th time
Publish Date: Oct 07, 2009
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JAARSVELD – Pole vaulting is considered to be a traditional sport in parts of the Netherlands dissected by waterways. This hails from the days when rural folks circumvented a longer road by jumping numerous ditches to reach their ...
Dutch authorities seek to stem the flow of imported brides
Publish Date: Oct 07, 2009
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THE HAGUE – Dutch authorities are taking steps to make it harder for minorities in the Netherlands to circumvent immigration and family law regulations. Of specific concerns are family reunification and marriage sponsorships, incl...
Utrecht fills void with new symphony orchestra
New launch after 24 years
Publish Date: Sep 23, 2009
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UTRECHT - The Netherlands is set to gain a new symphony orchestra. Since the demise of the Utrecht Symphony Orchestra in 1985, the central Dutch city has been without a professional orchestra of its own. The new 42-piece orchestra, the New Utrecht Philharmonic, has procured municipal and provincial funding as well as private sponsorship.
Indies veterans saluted by missing man formation
Publish Date: Sep 23, 2009
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ROERMOND – “The veterans of the campaigns in the Dutch East Indies received very little recognition for their efforts abroad when they at long last arrived home. There was no enthusiastic welcome. Everyone was busy with rebuilding...
Museum Infatuate recalls fierce battles in Scheldt estuary
Publish Date: Sep 23, 2009
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NIEUWDORP – The Battle of the Scheldt does not register with most (former) residents of the northern Dutch provinces. The lack of a free press during the German occupation shielded the public from objective coverage of one of the ...
Finding holders of burial plot rights a challenge
Publish Date: Sep 23, 2009
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LEEUWARDEN - Address unknown is a recurring problem to cemetery-owning Dutch municipalities, which by law must inform holders of burial plot rights – often heirs of the deceased - when graves need to be cleared of any remains so t...
Queen briefed about local Vechtdal product range
Publish Date: Sep 23, 2009
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OMMEN – The concept of promoting smaller scale, locally grown and or processed products has been gaining converts in many places throughout the Netherlands. Local farmers and entrepreneurs around the medieval Overijssel city of Om...
Scientists take high-tech gear on tour with box-bike
Publish Date: Sep 23, 2009
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ROTTERDAM – Wageningen meteorologists use a specially outfitted version of the traditional three-wheeler freight bike contraption, known by the Dutch as ‘bakfiets’ (which translates as box bike). Popular with bread and grocery ped...
Kickoff for construction of Second Coen Tunnel
Publish Date: Sep 23, 2009
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AMSTERDAM – The first steps have been taken on the long road to curtailing the daily huge traffic snarls at the Coen Tunnel. Transportation Minister Camiel Eurlings set the process officially in motion recently for the constructio...
Sharia law marriages not condoned by Dutch officials
Publish Date: Sep 23, 2009
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Budget plans allow purchasing power to erode
Publish Date: Sep 23, 2009
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THE HAGUE – The current worldwide economic downturn is leaving behind deep scars in the Dutch economy. As a result, the Dutch cabinet will have to make deep cuts to chip away at a significantly growing debt and much higher budget ...
Flotilla of Dutch heritage ships arrives aboard freighter in NY
Publish Date: Sep 07, 2009
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PEEKSKILL, New York - A fleet of Dutch traditional leeboard vessels of all sorts-low slung skûtsjes, fishing boats (Botters, Lemmeraken and Hoogaarsen) and barges (Tjalken en Ponen), the direct descendants of the flat-bottom vessels that sailed the Dutch coast and around Manhattan in the 17th century, will soon sail into New York Harbor all tightly ‘anchored’ aboard Dutch freighter Flinterduin.
Enthusiasts happy with the return of the invisible wisent
Dutch coastal park their habitat
Publish Date: Sep 07, 2009
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ZANDVOORT - The wisent, also known as the European bison, a huge animal that was reintroduced in the Netherlands two years ago, appears to do well, and is thriving in its new habitat. Experts say the wisent had disappeared from the Nether-lands in the last ice age.
U.S. artist captures the colonial Dutch experience in fine detail
Hollanders on the Hudson at Hoorn
Publish Date: Sep 07, 2009
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HOORN, the Netherlands - U.S. artist Len F. Tantillo is a storyteller and an historical and maritime painter in the tradition of 17th century Dutch masters. Unlike masters such as Willem van de Velde, Tantillo does not paint what he sees. He reinvents scenes in the common history of New York State, which no one alive today could have seen for themselves. Tantillo takes his viewers to moments long gone, and through his exquisite talent, restores lost worlds to be appreciated at the moment.
Dutch teenager honoured for adopting soldiers’ graves
Named a Kentucky Colonel
Publish Date: Sep 07, 2009
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FORT KNOX - Sixteen-year old Sebastiaan Vonk has been appointed Kentucky Colonel, which is the highest honourary title bestowed upon individuals by approval of the governor of Kentucky. In the history of the award, Vonk is only the second person under 18 to be named a Kentucky Colonel.
Building polders also a give and take battle with the sea
Claiming the Haarlemmermeer a feat
Publish Date: Sep 07, 2009
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The number of polders located in the Province of North Holland runs into the dozens, ranging in size from 2 hectares of the Hoornse Weeltje to the 7600 hectare of the Zijpe Polder, the largest of the period from 1400-1700. The earliest land project, the Limmermeer Polder, dates from the year 1430, with the Grote Waal of 1688 closing the list of 69 polders during that period.
Polish PM to join 65th of Operation Market Garden
Publish Date: Sep 07, 2009
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OOSTERBEEK – Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk will join his Dutch colleague Jan Peter Balkenende for the 65th anniversary of Operation Market Garden. Many Polish soldiers who fought alongside Allied forces died trying to liberate...
Entrepreneurs now cater to vacationers with disabilities
Publish Date: Sep 07, 2009
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THE HAGUE – The Dutch travel industry, particularly bungalow parks, has started to cater to a previously ignored segment in society: the chronically ill and the handicapped. Entrepreneurs are adapting bungalows for clients with su...
Dutch landscapers to fight weeds with steaming hot water
Publish Date: Sep 07, 2009
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CROMVOIRT – A common desire to find environment-friendly weed control solutions has pushed several Dutch landscapers to join forces in researching and building new equipment. Aquavince is an environmentally safe machine which figh...
Opponents block idea of breaching dike with public opinion
Publish Date: Sep 07, 2009
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THE HAGUE – Dutch transportation infrastructure projects keep running into opposition from environmental and nature preservation activists who have repeatedly appealed decisions based on international treaties to which the governm...
UN Human Right Commission restates concerns over euthanasia
Publish Date: Sep 07, 2009
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THE HAGUE – The UN’s Human Rights Commission has again raised its concerns over Dutch euthanasia policies, which it wants reviewed. The three coalition parties in the Netherlands failed to offer a unified response to the UN group’...
Muslim party to contest elections in at least five places
Publish Date: Sep 07, 2009
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EMMELOORD – A Dutch convert to Islam has promised that his Muslim party plans to register for the country’s municipal elections in four cities and one rural district. Dutch Muslim Party chair Peter Kreeft says he anticipates enter...
Gibraltar: British steadfast in adhering to Treaty of Utrecht
Publish Date: Sep 07, 2009
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GIBRALTAR – The Rock has been a British enclave ever since the Treaty of Utrecht, which in 1713 ended the Spanish War of Succession. The Spanish have attempted to regain its former territory ever since that time while London has r...
Dutch cartwheelers upstage Canadian world record
Publish Date: Sep 07, 2009
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AMERSFOORT – A Canadian record has tumbled in an Amersfoort park. Dutch gymnastics’ groups organized a giant cartwheel event in which participants were to make five cartwheels each in one minute, to gain entry in the Guinness Book...
New U.S. ambassador Hartog-Levin sent ‘home’ to The Netherlands
Early Obama supporter in Chicago
Publish Date: Aug 24, 2009
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WASHINGTON – U.S. President Barack Obama has picked his third Chicagoan for an ambassadorship, naming a consultant from a politically connected public affairs and media relations firm to be his representative to the Netherlands. The candidacy of Dutch-born Fay Hartog-Levin, who was an Illinois Finance Committee member for Obama's presidential campaign, was since confirmed by U.S. Congress.
Historic rural manors highlighted in popular scene route
Overijssel showcases its treasures
Publish Date: Aug 24, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
Castles and havezaten, upper scale and fortified manors, can be found especially in the eastern part of the Netherlands, surrounded by centuries-old farmstead and scenic wood stands.These monumental buildings require deep pockets to preserve and maintain, so it is not surprising at all that their owners open them to the public as part of a reclassification to obtain tax relief. Often, only a part of the huge buildings remain off limits as a private residence.
Drayton pair goes sky high to help pay for new school roof
Supporters sell aerial photography
Publish Date: Aug 24, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
DRAYTON, Ontario – Local folks will likely recognize the aircraft when they see the ultra light gliding above the trees of Drayton farms and acreages. They will know for sure that it is ‘their’ plane when it flies circles around a property. For the past while, two members of the local Community Christian School (CCS) have been taking to the skies to photograph properties as part of a novel fundraising campaign.
August 15 ceremonies draw officials and crowds
Publish Date: Aug 24, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE – Most of the Netherlands commemorates the end of the Second World War on May 5 but for a significant minority, who were still then were imprisoned in squalid conditions in Japanese camps in the Dutch East Indies, there ...
Recovery of Dutch economy requires a multiple year timeline
Publish Date: Aug 24, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE – Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende expects that the Dutch economy will experience the after effects of the current financial woes and downturn for years to come. The crisis has a multiple year character, which require...
Nijntje celebrates birthday with new website launch
Publish Date: Aug 24, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
UTRECHT – One of the most widely known Dutch characters has turned 54. The birthday was marked by the launch of a new website for Nijntje Pluis, the creation of illustrator Dick Bruna. The website features a range of educational g...
Foreigners weigh the Netherlands and its hospitality
Publish Date: Aug 24, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE – Foreigners visiting generally view the Netherlands as a hospitable destination, very well suited for a short vacation. These tourists also are very open to the idea of a return visit. In the most recent research it app...
Champions of 1963 skating marathon together on film set
Publish Date: Aug 24, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
LEEUWARDEN – Forty six years ago, three marathon skaters made history and caused consternation when they crossed the finish line together to claim a joint first prize of the particularly grueling 1963 Eleven Cities Race. Just rece...
Germany reviews cases of former Dutch Nazis
Publish Date: Aug 24, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
BERLIN – Germany has been a safe abode for a number of Dutch war criminals and collaborators since escaping from jails in the Netherlands in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Existing German law entitled them to citizenship for havi...
Putten seeks surviving family members of the October ’44 tragedy
Publish Date: Aug 24, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
PUTTEN – Stichting Oktober ’44, a group that aims to keep alive the memory of the hundreds of men the town of Putten lost in a horrendous act of retaliation by the German command following an attack by the resistance on the car of...
Scheveningen plans to memorialize its lost fishers
Publish Date: Aug 24, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
SCHEVENINGEN – People in every coastal village with an economy that relies on fisheries know that being a fisher can be a very dangerous job. In 1968, for example, the town of Urk, erected the statue of a woman looking out over th...
Clandestine publishing effort rounded off with television career
Resistance man later an Air Force officer
Publish Date: Aug 07, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
TAMPA, Florida – The former Oosterhout resistance man, Marinus (Mark) Damen, who published the clandestine bulletin De Vrije Stem (The Free Voice) during World War II in his bedroom, has died at age 85 in Florida as a retired public broadcasting pioneer and executive.
Mosques refuse hiring Dutch educated 'Polder Imams'
University graduates unwanted
Publish Date: Aug 07, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE - Not a single mosque in the Netherlands has taken on an Imam trained in special government courses. "Mosques have no money and no confidence in the 'polder Imam," the Trouw daily newspaper quoted its sources as saying.
British WWII bomber gunner visits Oene plane crash site
Sixty-fifth anniversary remembered
Publish Date: Aug 07, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
OENE, the Netherlands - Two local historians have touched the hearts of aging WWII Air Force veterans with their efforts to document a nearly forgotten RAF Lancaster bomber crash in a book and help erect a memorial for the men of the hapless plane.
Traditional handshake preferred over a birthday kiss from colleagues
Card on birthday welcomed
Publish Date: Aug 07, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE – Don’t kiss a Dutch colleague on his or his birthday. They hate such affectionate displays at work or elsewhere, preferring the traditional handshake. Dutch seniors appreciate a hug for their birthdays. While others may find it a challenge remembering countless birthdays, the Dutch do not. Their birthday tracking system has been perfected with the aid of special calendars, found in the vast majority of Dutch homes (and also in emigration countries).
Vanished siblings often linked to Napoleonic campaigns
Genealogical research often frustrated
Publish Date: Aug 07, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
Genealogists frequently wonder if the disappearance of an ancestor’s 1800-1812 sibling can be attributed to one of several Napoleonic wars. Dutch boys were pressed into service not only for the 1812 Grand Army but also for the campaigns on the Iberian Peninsula.
Jetses’ art on display at retrospective
Publish Date: Aug 07, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
BARNEVELD – Dutch illustrator Cornelis Jetses (1873-1955), the creator of the youthful characters of Ot & Sien, and who illustrated the reading method Aap-Noot-Mies, is the subject of a retrospective at Barneveld’s Veluws Museum N...
Fifth spot on world exporters list for the Netherlands
Publish Date: Aug 07, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
GENEVA – A small country does not necessarily rate as small or insignificant in any or all situations and not every statistic tells the whole story. Case in point is the ranking of the Netherlands as an exporter. While the Netherl...
Veteran games’ team organizer to retire after two decades
Luke Schipper started with WP&FG 1989
Publish Date: Jul 23, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
BURNABY, BC – The active involvement with organizing the Dutch participation at the biennial World Police & Fire Games to be held again at Vancouver, BC, next month, is coming to an end for local Hilversum-born entrepreneur Luke Schipper.
Universities launch Indo history research project
Berkely and Leyden join forces
Publish Date: Jul 23, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
LEIDEN - The Dutch Studies Program at the University of California, Berkeley started a research project related to literature from and about the “Indo” community in the Diaspora. In this context, it will be looking for all types of text (such as novels, memoirs, autobiographies, stories, letters, articles, diaries, etc.) written by "Indos" after they left the Dutch East Indies.
City to employ Delft Blue pottery to raise its profile
Cashing in on identity
Publish Date: Jul 23, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
DELFT, the Netherlands – The city of Delft wants to use its most famous product to raise its profile both at home and abroad. Delft Blue pottery is well known throughout the world and is one of the Dutch town's best-known export products as well as a tourist attraction.
Dutch researchers trace migrating gruttos via satellite
Heidenskip adds fame to Frisian village
Publish Date: Jul 23, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
GRONINGEN - One of the fifteen godwitses (called grutto in Dutch), that have been equipped with an electronic device, set off on a recent Saturday for Senegal in West Africa, where the bird arrived on the following Tuesday morning. The grutto, nicknamed Heidenskip, appears to have flown from Friesland via Spain and over the Sahara in one stretch. Heidenskip covered the distance of over four thousand kilometers in merely two days of nonstop flying.
C&A chain recognizes its Dutch roots with Sneek grant
Publish Date: Jul 23, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
SNEEK – Westphalian textile peddlers, termed lapjespoepen in popular Dutch parlance in the nineteenth century, so successfully built up a clientele among Dutch households that their ancestors still dominate clothing retail chains ...
Restoration of historic inland barge job for problem youths
Publish Date: Jul 23, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
GRONINGEN – Until the twentieth century, when railways and trucking firms emerged as the main freight handlers, inland barges were the main means for transportation of commodities and products. To accommodate inland shipping, the ...
Online bibliography reveals extent of Dutch book publishing
Publish Date: Jul 23, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE – The Royal Library (KB) has completed a huge and her longest running project ever with the official launch of the Internet site www.stcn.nl, the short-title catalogue Netherlands. The Dutch digital bibliography includes...
New dredging method sucks up archeological treasures
Publish Date: Jul 23, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
DEN BOSCH – Bringing up sand with a cutter suction dredger from a deep pit, layer by layer, is helping archeologists trace the location from where artifacts have been sucked up. The sand is pumped by huge pipes to an area where dr...
Dutch Muslims more inclined to emigrate since rise of Wilders
Publish Date: Jul 23, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
HILVERSUM – Over a third of the Moroccan and Turkish Muslims living in the Netherlands are contemplating emigration over the increasing popularity of PVV-leader Geert Wilders. Over half of these groups are thinking about it off an...
Dutch traffic among the safest in Europe
Publish Date: Jul 23, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
BRUSSEL – Road traffic in the Netherlands rates among the safest in Europe. Only in Malta, Sweden and England are the road fatality rates lower than the 45 per one million Dutch. The European average ranks at a much higher 79 per ...
Dutch replica ship the Onrust participant at NYC for river event
Newly built replica of 1614 rare ship
Publish Date: Jul 07, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
ALBANY - A replica of the first Dutch ship built in ‘Nieu Nederlant’ has taken part in this year’s commemoration of the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson’s arrival on the coast of New York, then still called after the home country of Hudson’s financiers, a group of merchants in Amsterdam.
Pier 21 honours role immigrants played in Canadian history
Named sixth national museum
Publish Date: Jul 07, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
HALIFAX - Historic Halifax landmark Pier 21 will be the site of Canada’s newest national museum. With its enlarged mandate, it will be dedicated to recognizing and celebrating the contributions of immigrants and new Canadians to Canada’s culture, history and heritage.
Saint Petersburg group wants memorial for Rusluie at cemetery
Vriezenveen trekked overland to Russia
Publish Date: Jul 07, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
VRIEZENVEEN, the Netherlands – A Saint Petersburg, Russia group wants to erect a memorial honouring Vriezenveen traders, who in earlier centuries fostered ties between the Baltic Sea port and their landlocked former peat colony in the Twente district of Overijssel. The traders, called Rusluie in the local dialect, mostly trekked to St. Petersburg via a 3-week land route when their Dutch contemporaries preferred a sea route.
Sales snorfietsen surpass those of bromfietsen
Publish Date: Jul 07, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
ALBLASSERWAARD – The Dutch make their way to and fro on an increasing variety of two-wheeled vehicles. They get around on various kinds of bicycles, from the Oma-bike to multi-speed racing bikes, scooters up to a 50cc capacity (br...
Make-shift ‘soup kitchen’ claims world record
Publish Date: Jul 07, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
POELDIJK – The municipality Westland, also known as the ‘city of glass’ due to its unparalleled concentration of greenhouses, has gained yet another distinction: a world record at making tomato-vegetable soup. Cooks used 7,500 kil...
North Americans a no show for the world titles sjoelen
Publish Date: Jul 07, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
EGMOND AAN ZEE – Accomplished North American players of the Dutch shuffleboard game have missed out this year on the world title Six Pack sjoelen. Only players from Belgium, Germany, Japan and Surinam competed with Dutch entrants ...
Amsterdam to become the world’s largest gasoline station
Publish Date: Jul 07, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
AMSTERDAM – The port of Amsterdam is well on its way to becoming the world’s largest gas station. The initial steps to create more gasoline storage were taken following the 1973 oil crisis, when the Dutch government decided to mai...
Test site looking for ways to treat ships’ ballast water
Publish Date: Jul 07, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
TEXEL – At a recently opened test site, a Dutch research institute is looking for new ways to combat the spread of exotic organisms in the western world. Much damage has been done by the arrival of algae, bacteria, plankton and la...
Fifth annual Veterans Day draws a record crowd
Publish Date: Jul 07, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE – Veterans Day, held each year on the last Saturday of June, attracted over 70,000 onlookers for the fifth annual parade. Originally started for veterans of the campaigns in the Dutch East Indies in the late 1940s, the e...
CRC Synod 2009 tentatively adds Belhar as a confession
Ratification scheduled for 2012
Publish Date: Jun 23, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
CHICAGO - After nearly three hours of discussion, Synod 2009 of the Christian Reformed Church in North America recommended adopting the Belhar document as its fourth confession. The churches belonging to the denomination, which has its roots mainly in the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands (GKN), will have until 2012 to study the document when Synod 2012 will be requested to ratify the decision.
No awards for helpers of converted Haarlem Jews
Yad Vashem under fire
Publish Date: Jun 23, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
AMSTERDAM - Dutch recipients of Yad Vashem's highest honour are considering returning the title to protest "discrimination" against saviors of ex-Jews, say leaders of the Dutch Jewish community. Yad Vashem has not yet responded to the request to reconsider the matter.
Cultural ties between Indonesia and Dutch solidify as exhibit opens
Treasure of Sumatra to travel
Publish Date: Jun 23, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
JAKARTA – An exhibition on Sumatra, which currently is on display in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta through September 8, will reopen in Leyden in October before moving on to Malaysia early next year. The exhibit Treasure of Sumatra was opened with Dutch Ambassador to Indonesia Nikolaos Van Dam, an Arabist, and Volkenkunde Museum of Leiden director Steven Engelsman in attendance.
Huygens’s pendulum clock gave the world accurate time
Dutch time standardized in 1909
Publish Date: Jun 23, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
LEYDENM – Time is of the essence in modern life but keeping track of it is very difficult if one town is out of step with time in another town down the road. That was the situation the Dutch railways faced a century ago when drawing up their schedules. For example, time in the Twente town of Enschede was 20 minutes earlier than that in The Hague. The difference may not have mattered when the Dutch traveled from place to place by coach or canal barge, but the rise of a much faster national railway system with a comprehensive train schedule required better regulation.
Action group to combat intrusive exotic species
Publish Date: Jun 23, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
AMSTERDAM - The animal and plant world in the Netherlands (other parts of the world, including Canada and the USA share the same type of problem) face a significant threat from exotic species. There are about 100 kinds which are c...
Wilders’ PVV part of Dutch protest movement tradition
Publish Date: Jun 23, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE - Significant numbers of Dutch voters have put their X behind a PVV candidate in the recent election for the European parliament. Geert Wilders’ party successfully used the EP-campaign as a referendum on politics in the ...
Umbrella to former resistance groups to disband next year
Publish Date: Jun 23, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
RIJSWIJK – The national federative council of the former resistance, an umbrella for local resistance veterans groups, has decided it will disband as of June 30, 2010 following the 65th anniversary of the liberation of the Netherl...
Aged 82nd Airborne veterans visit Nijmegen one more time
Publish Date: Jun 23, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
NIJMEGEN – In appreciation for the assistance Dutch resistance people gave the 82nd Airborne Division during their stay in Nijmegen during the winter of 1944/1945, General James Gavin helped in rebuilding the university. Among oth...
Dutch flower growers feeling pinched in hard times
Publish Date: Jun 23, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
AALSMEER – Analysts anticipate that several hundreds of the 5,500 Dutch flower growers will be forced out of business this year. These growers are facing difficulties upgrading their operations at a time when profitability is on t...
Bolkestein aims his guns at equality-driven Dutch society
Publish Date: Jun 23, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE – A former conservative liberal party leader and EC commissioner, Frits Bolkestein (VVD), has turned his guns on the current equality culture in the Netherlands, which, according to him, is applied beyond reason. He reje...
Restored Reformed Church 2009 yearbook still without statistics
Publish Date: Jun 23, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
VEENENDAAL – It has been five years since a core orthodox group in the Netherlands Reformed Church (NHK) refrained from joining the merger of their denomination with the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands (GKNs) into the Protest...
Ornamental silviculture centre requires upgraded infrastructure
Publish Date: Jun 23, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
BOSKOOP – Ornamental silviculture has put the South Holland town of Boskoop firmly on the map in its specialized industry in the Netherlands and far beyond Dutch borders. The town has thrived in this segment industry for years, ye...
Environment Week enhanced with ‘Go Green Go Dutch Go Bike’ initiative
‘Paddestoel’ signpost in Ottawa scenery
Publish Date: Jun 08, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
OTTAWA, Ontario - Cyclists in and around various Canadian cities were invited to join the local ‘Go Green Go Dutch Go Bike’ event, hosted by officials at the Netherlands Embassy in Ottawa and Consulates General in Toronto and Vancouver and by Consulates in other places. The events draw attention to the Dutch bicycle experience, which has been woven into the cultural fabric of the Netherlands.
Hamburger Poll accurately forecasts Liberal Party win
De Dutch within a margin of 3 percent
Publish Date: Jun 08, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
SURREY, BC – A small restaurant chain in BC with Dutch immigrant roots has reintroduced meat patties and fried onions into election time opinion polling. Considered amateurish by the experts who find it increasingly difficult to m...
Rotterdam offers safeguards against unwanted arranged marriages
Traveling teenage girls at risk
Publish Date: Jun 08, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
ROTTERDAM - The municipality of Rotterdam is testing a new approach which should help prevent teenage girls from being pressured into marriage when they take a holiday to their family's country of origin.
Redrawn Dutch coastline raising awareness of rising sea levels
Bicycling tour follows ‘new’ coastline
Publish Date: Jun 08, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
AMERSFOORT, the Netherlands - Frisian-born Dutch Deputy Transport Minister Tineke Huizinga has sent off a cycling tour along an imaginary new Dutch coastline. The 50-kilometre tour, started at a café in the inland town of Amersfoort, follows a route where the new coastline would lay if sufficient action was not taken to reinforce the current coastline from rising levels of the sea.
Dutch hospitals planning for more openness
Publish Date: Jun 08, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE – Dutch hospitals plan to create more openness with the release of the rate and causes of deaths of patients while under their care. The hospitals aim to release such information once they all use the same criteria so th...
Role human rights laws versus article 23 flares up
Publish Date: Jun 08, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
APELDOORN – Article 23 of the Dutch constitution, which dates from 1917, remains one of the most debated constitutional topics in the Netherlands. The article restricts the role of government in education in the Netherlands where ...
Ironcast natural gas lines called an uncontrollable risk
Publish Date: Jun 08, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
AMSTERDAM – The Dutch Research Council for Safety (its Dutch acronym is OVV) has issued a warning that the country’s aging grey ironcast natural gas pipelines need to be replaced urgently. The main pipelines built with this materi...
Dutch G-27 expands with five municipalities
Publish Date: Jun 08, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
ALMERE – The Netherlands has its own G-something. The G-27 recently expanded into G-32; the acronym refers to the number of Gs or Gemeenten (municipalities) with over 100,000 residents. Many of these towns face difficulties as a r...
Municipality offers toads right of way on local road
Publish Date: Jun 08, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
VALTHE – The knoflookpad or Garlic Toad, also known as the Common Spadefoot Toad, is a species that experiences numerous casualties while attempting to cross a road near this village. In many areas in the Netherlands nature enthus...
Dutch exports surpass all others except Germany’s
Europe's number two
Publish Date: May 25, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
ROTTERDAM - The Netherlands has overtaken France as the second largest exporter in the EU. Only Germany’s export value is higher than Dutch export totals. In 2007, The Netherlands still ranked third behind Germany and France. The increase in the value of Dutch exports was also large when compared to other EU countries. Analysts attribute the country’s increased exports in part to its significant role as distributor of goods to the European hinterland. Eurostat, the source of the data, coins the phenomenon as the "Rotterdam effect." Nearly half of the Dutch exports belong to the category of the so-called re-exports which arrive in Dutch ports and are shipped out again in one form or other.
Archives’ Anniversary project offers contrasting streetscapes
Photographic billboard exhibit
Publish Date: May 25, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE - Nearly all residents in The Hague know by now that the city’s Municipal Archives are turning 125 this year. To mark this occasion, the city agency has put on an open-air exhibit of 75 strike billboards, displaying historical photographs at 64 locations throughout The Hague. Dubbed “Hague Billboards, history is on the street,” they measure either 2 by 2 metres or 3 by 3 metres.
Academics critique government fiscal stimulus policies
Publish Date: May 25, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE – A Dutch economist and philosopher has concluded that her compatriots think of themselves as sophisticated money managers who excel in finding all sorts of advantageous benefits allowed by the Dutch taxation branch. Eri...
Liberation torch lights national Liberation Fire at Zwolle
Publish Date: May 25, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
ZWOLLE / ROTTERDAM – The Dutch remember their war dead on the eve of May 5 with solemn silent walks to special memorials or cemeteries, where they frequently observe an appropriate ceremony with the national commemoration always h...
Drive against loneliness in busy country starts with ‘hello’
Publish Date: May 25, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
AMSTELVEEN – Densely populated the Netherlands likely has one million lonely people, project organizers estimate. Thirteen groups have formed a coalition to create awareness of this social problem, which it is hoped will prevent a...
Genealogical search with ancient DNA nets possible descendent
Publish Date: May 25, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
VLAARDINGEN – Genealogists please take note. The search for descendants of the original Vlaardingen settlers is paying dividends. The molars found on two dozen human skeletons dug up in this Rotterdam-area town actually surprising...
Activists take dairy cows to town for different reasons
Publish Date: May 25, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
DEN BOSCH / THE HAGUE – Hundreds of thousands of city dwellers lament the loss of small-scale agriculture, which to them includes images of cows grazing in the country’s green pastures. Cost conscious farmers have ‘modernized’ the...
New York Times goes green with orange-coloured Dutch bikes
How the Dutch love those bikes
Publish Date: May 07, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
NEW YORK, NY - Time to act and protect the planet. And what better way to do this, then to leave your car at home and get on a bike. The New York Times Style Section declared the Dutch bicycle the latest ‘It object’. In the Netherlands, bikes have been a vital part of the Dutch cityscape ‘for centuries.’ As the New York Times sees it, the Dutch riding a bicycle to work in a suit and tie is as common as drinking a cup of coffee, yet there is no bike culture. All culture includes the bike. The newspaper has started a weekly feature on urban cycling, called ‘Spokes'.
Child survivors Holocaust remember their heroes at Toronto ceremony
Dutch widow took in Jewish boy
Publish Date: May 07, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
TORONTO, Ontario - A Dutch widow with five children who provided a home for a four-year old Jewish boy during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, was recently posthumously recognized with the Yad Vashem Award at a Toronto, Ontario ceremony. The ceremony also involved other awards for people who sheltered Jewish children from the Nazis in different countries.
Oldest writing found in the Netherlands deciphered again
Tolsum’s Roman tablet dated 29 A.D.
Publish Date: May 07, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
LEEUWARDEN - New computer techniques have helped researchers at the universities of Oxford and Leyden decipher the oldest piece of writing ever found in the Netherlands. The wooden writing tablet surfaced during excavation work at the Frisian hamlet of Tolsum in 1917. At the time, scholars transcribed the Roman era Latin inscription as being a contract for the sale of an ox.
Minister sees ‘brown gold’ in Dutch agriculture’s future
Publish Date: May 07, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
HEETEN – Dutch Agriculture Minister Gerda Verburg sees prospects in ‘brown gold,’ a substance of which the dense animal population of the Netherlands has an abundant surplus. Until recently strictly a huge environmental liability,...
KNIL flight history honoured with Brewster replica
Publish Date: May 07, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
SOESTERBERG – The Militaire Luchtvaart Museum (MLM) has added a replica of a very rare, light-weight but long-range plane once used in the Dutch East Indies in the fight against the invading Japanese armed forces. None of the orig...
Dutch agencies aim for high-tech dike monitoring systems
Publish Date: May 07, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
EEMSHAVEN – A dike near the Groningen Eemshaven will be outfitted with numerous sensors to electronically monitor its ongoing condition. Scientists have already conducted a series of tests on dikes by trying to create artificial e...
Significance of three ancient roadways subject of study
Publish Date: May 07, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
VENLO – The southern Dutch province of Limburg is commencing a study to document the cultural-historical characteristics of three roads. The goal is to gain a better insight in the socio-economic role of these routes and their inf...
Tragedy on a farm with malfunctioning manure tank
Publish Date: May 07, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
WARNS – A 23-year old farmer who was spreading liquid manure, suffocated in the spreader’s tank after climbing in to check on a possibly malfunctioning valve. It is thought that the man lost consciousness immediately. The father, ...
Weather analysts note Dutch enjoy more sunshine
Publish Date: May 07, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
WAGENINGEN – The number of hours of sunlight the Dutch enjoy has steadily risen over the past eighty years, the weather station at the Wageningen University reports. There are few such stations that have served the public longer t...
3-D death cell 601 to be launched online
Publish Date: May 07, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
DEN HAAG - New technology will soon ‘open’ one of the best guarded Dutch historical sites to the public. The WWII historical site in question is death cell 601 at the ‘Oranjehotel,’ the Scheveningen penitentiary. Although a histor...
Refitted freight barge a floating church at London's Canary Wharf
Meeting place for bankers
Publish Date: Apr 23, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
LONDON – The 140 ft Dutch river freight barge, which serves as the home of St. Peter’s Barge, London’s Floating Church, is definitely is not the first floating church in the world. The refitted 30-year old 180-ton barge was sailed from Rotterdam, the Netherlands, to London in a 31-hour voyage in 2003, and has since been used as a midday chapel for people working in London’s Canary Wharf financial district.
Dutch cervical cancer vaccination program a failure
Internet source of opposition
Publish Date: Apr 23, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE - The National Institute of Public Health (RIVM) has admitted mistakes were made in its vaccination campaign against cervical cancer launched in early March. Girls between the ages of 13 and 16 were encouraged to take part in a large-scale inoculation program, but the participation rate has been extremely low.
Dutch-American Daalder U.S. choice for NATO ambassador
Brookings Institution fellow
Publish Date: Apr 23, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
WASHINGTON - U.S. president Barack Obama has named a Dutch-American, Ivo Daalder, to be his next ambassador to NATO in Brussels. A senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a political think-tank in Washington, Daalder is considered by some as a champion of the idea to create a league of democracies as an alternative to the UN. The appointment is notably causing concern in Russia. A Washington insider, Daalder just recently launched his newest book, In the Shadow of the Oval Office. It is a historical study about the role of the National Security Advisor in the U.S.
Brutal murder on S.A. farm claims Dutch immigrant couple
Publish Date: Apr 23, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
BOSCHKOP, South Africa – A Dutch immigrant couple has been found brutally murdered on their farm in the Pretoria vicinity. The perpetrators only made off with two cell phones and did not discover other valuables. Dead are Johannes...
Dutch dentists face pricing deregulation and competition
Publish Date: Apr 23, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE – The Healthcare Authority of the Netherlands (NZa) has advised Dutch Public Health Minister Ab Klink that it is time to allow dentists to experiment with setting their prices. If the NZa has its way, the ministry will i...
Foreign dignitaries open tourist season at World Heritage site
Publish Date: Apr 23, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
KINDERDIJK – The 2009 tourist season for Kinderdijk’s very popular Unesco World Heritage site was recently kicked off with a visit from over 25 foreign ambassadors and their partners. The dignitaries each unveiled a flag of their ...
Veterans ISAF-mission recognized with special medal
Publish Date: Apr 23, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
ARNHEM – Another 1,500 ISAF-mission veterans were recently presented with a medal for having served in southern Afghanistan. A delegation of parliamentarians assisted armed forces General Peter van Uhm and Junior Defense minister ...
Five centuries old church bell silent during tuning job
Publish Date: Apr 23, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
SOEST – Bells in church towers continue to chime at set times and can be heard at least through sections of large cities or throughout smaller towns, the wind permitting. In medieval times, the bells were everyone’s ‘time pieces’ ...
Name recognition factor in a Hoekstra for governor run
Poll buoys Michigan U.S. Rep.
Publish Date: Apr 07, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
DETROIT, Michigan - Buoyed by strong support in West Michigan, U.S. Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Holland, Michigan), who earlier announced he will not seek another term in the U.S. House of Representatives, has jumped into the Republican race for governor in Michigan.
Panorama Mesdag wants a place on the World Heritage List
Municipality supports move
Publish Date: Apr 07, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE - The municipal executive board supports the application filed by the Board of the Panorama Mesdag Museum, requesting that the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science include the museum on the UNESCO World Heritage List.
Traffic more relaxed in Dutch town without road signage
Makkinga attracts attention
Publish Date: Apr 07, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
MAKKINGA - A northern Dutch town, which removed all road signs, traffic lights, fines and sidewalks, keeps attracting media attention from around the world. The municipal decision to redirect Makkinga’s conventional divided space concept into one shared by all road users, has also brought a CBS camera crew to the Ooststellingwerf town of 1,000 recently.
Researcher raises questions over private security help
Publish Date: Apr 07, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
AMSTERDAM – The number of private security guards in the Netherlands is rapidly nearing the number of policemen on the street. The phenomena started with a debate over so-called volunteer stadswachten, people who were to act as th...
Museum buys Japanese painting of colonial Dutch woman
Publish Date: Apr 07, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
AMSTERDAM – The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam has purchased the earliest-known Japanese portrait of a Dutch trader’s family. The portrait of the Cock Blomhoff family was painted on silk by artist Ishizaki Yushi and was owned by a desce...
Municipality now sells Nederland road signs
Publish Date: Apr 07, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
NEDERLAND – The hamlet of Nederland in the Netherlands has been without a road sign in recent years. Ambitious collectors pull up the sign as soon as it gets replaced. The hamlet which is now part of the rather newly merged munici...
Metro line projects cause serious problems
Publish Date: Apr 07, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
AMSTERDAM – A new metro addition in the Dutch capital of Amsterdam is giving officials more difficulties than anticipated. The North/South line is turning into a more costly undertaking causing by cost overruns, delays and other p...
WK snert and stamppot champions short of challengers
Publish Date: Apr 07, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
GRONINGEN – The northern Dutch provincial capital of Groningen hopes to profile itself with two culinary world championships for which in effect only Dutch cooks need to register. The two are creating snert, Dutch style peasoup, a...
Fast-tracking infrastructure projects wishful thinking
Publish Date: Apr 07, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE - Rescuing the economy by fast-tracking construction projects is easier said than done. To achieve such an objective means relaxing procedures and rules. Proponents point to the A4 traffic artery fiasco, a road-widening ...
Dutch enthusiasts ran the longest model train in the world
Publish Date: Apr 07, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
ROTTERDAM – Running the railway on time takes a good system, skill and precision. Setting up a model railway, as many enthusiasts do in basements and garages, probably takes more effort and patience than running a real railroad sy...
North America's first female ship captain Molly Kool dies at 93
Followed in father’s footsteps
Publish Date: Mar 23, 2009
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BANGOR, Maine - Molly K. Carney, who as Molly Kool was the first woman in North America to become a licensed ship captain, has died at her home at the age of 93. Known in Canada by her maiden name, Kool won her sea captain's papers in 1939 and sailed the Atlantic Ocean between Alma, New Brunswick, and Boston for five years.
DUCA starts fifty-fifth anniversary year in new head office
Over $6 million paid out in Bonus Shares
Publish Date: Mar 23, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
TORONTO - Milestones can take years to reach. This truism certainly is applicable to DUCA Financial’s effort at modernizing its head office in North York, a Toronto suburb. Actively debated and promoted since the beginning of this century, the new head office concept was realized last month when staff was transferred from its old location to the new one next door. The new structure has a ‘postmodern’ look, according to one source. In an earlier annual report DUCA described its proposed building as one with environmental initiatives such as a green roof, efficient heating and air conditioning systems to enhance its comfort, appearance and usability. The many windows promise employees and members a bright and pleasant place.
Location of demolished monastery declared a national heritage site
Publish Date: Mar 23, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
RINSUMAGEEST – The former site of the Klaarkamp Cistercian monastery, demolished centuries ago, has been declared a national archeological monument. Unfortunately, the 4,5 high metre site was leveled between 1858 and 1941 although...
Blanks filled in registry of Camp Amersfoort populace
Publish Date: Mar 23, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
AMERSFOORT – Far more information is available now on the former prisoners of German camps in the Netherlands. Officials of the Amersfoort Camp, a Dutch national monument, recently learned that the digital data bases at Bad Arolse...
Chinese officials questioned on religious freedom
Publish Date: Mar 23, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE – As part of its human rights watch, the Dutch government monitors freedom of religion in various parts of the world. China in particular has been questioned about its policies towards groups of unregistered Christians, ...
Lower U.S. demand impacts Dutch flowering bulb trade
Publish Date: Mar 23, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
ZOETERMEER – The hectares in tulips is nearly unchanged in the current flowering bulb season. There is a significant decline however in the number of hectares planted with daffodils, crocuses and irises. The decline in hyacinths i...
Stagnating volume at Aalsmeer answered with budget cuts
Publish Date: Mar 23, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
AALSMEER – The growth of FloraHolland, ‘Aalsmeer’s’ flower auction, is stagnating significantly and causing so much concern that it is paring down its 2009 budget. FloraHolland anticipates a volume drop of six percent compared to ...
Burlington airplane buff designs commemorative 2009 silver dollar
Child’s play makes it into coin
Publish Date: Mar 09, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
BURLINGTON, Ontario - Fascination with flying as a child helped illustrator and artist Jason Bouwman design a Royal Mint limited edition commemorative silver dollar, issued to denote the Canadian history of flight. The Burlington resident recalled the time that he and his friends ran around pretending to fly, a childhood activity that has now found its way onto an historical coin. Bouwman’s design depicts the silhouette of a young person running with arms outstretched, casting a shadow of an aircraft in flight. He worked in three particular aircraft: the Silver Dart, because it completed the first powered flight in Canada; the Avro Arrow, which was difficult to omit because it is such an icon of Canadian technological achievement in aviation; and the Snowbird, which the artist calls the more current representation of flight in Canada.
Innovator and equipment builder Vermeer succumbs at age 90
Brand name spotted worldwide
Publish Date: Mar 09, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
PELLA, Iowa - In Search of a Better Way, is the title of the biography – already out of print - by Iowa inventor and entrepreneur Gary Vermeer. His search resulted in a line of innovative equipment, which endeared Vermeer to numerous farmers and contractors throughout the world who continue to use his company’ effort-saving equipment line. Vermeer, who last year celebrated the 60th anniversary of his equipment manufacturing business, recently died at the age of 90. His business had become one of Iowa’s premier farm and construction equipment manufacturers.
New book traces forgotten Zeeland immigrants in Brazil
Rediscovery after nearly 120 years
Publish Date: Mar 09, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
Talk of an isolated settlement called Holanda, a community of descendents of Dutch immigrants in the coastal state of Espirito Santo, prompted a couple doing mission aid work on behalf of the Reformed churches in the Netherlands to check out the story. The arrival of Ton Roos and his wife Margje (Eshuis) in Holanda was seen as an answer to prayers by descendents of Zeeland colonists who in the late 1850s had been lured to Brazil under false pretences. Impoverished and with no one to help, they had no way of returning home. Successive generations had kept the hope alive that one day their Zeeland kinsmen would find them.
Minister may put cut welfare for integration deficit newcomers
Publish Date: Mar 09, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE – The drive of Dutch politicians to ensure an orderly integration of immigrants has taken many twists and turns, but so far all attempts have failed to generate the objective. This is primarily because newcomers either c...
Police arrest belligerent moped riders in wild west scene
Publish Date: Mar 09, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
ZAANDAM – Local police witnessed wild west scenes recently when they signaled two youths riding a moped to stop for a check of a noisy muffler and speeding without lights. The police used their bicycles as barricades to block the ...
Lawyer earns doctorate on victims’ aftercare policies
Publish Date: Mar 09, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
TILBURG – Victims of disasters want recognition and information. To better deal with tragedies, the Dutch government should develop a defined policy for follow-up treatment and care of victims. According to lawyer Karin Ammerlaan,...
Nijmegen rated as heavest hit Dutch city in WWI
Publish Date: Mar 09, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
NIJMEGEN – A new study, which also looks at the broader context of WWII Dutch history, has concluded that overall Nijmegen must be viewed as the heaviest hit city of the Netherlands during that era. Historian J. Rozendaal notes in...
Limburg citizenry welcome cross border news coverage
Publish Date: Mar 09, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
DILSEN-STOKKEM – National borders in Europe are now open and for the most part resemble provincial or state borders in North America. Cross border cooperation in various forms is on the rise. The decision by the two regional newsp...
Post-WWII recovery changed the face of Walcheren
Publish Date: Mar 09, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
MIDDELBURG – The changes that resulted from World War II damage are still visible on the former Zeeland island of Walcheren. A recently published landscape map, Landschapsatlas van Walcheren, shows how much the island’s appearance...
Austrian-born secretary Gies who cared for Jewish families in hiding turns 100
Publish Date: Feb 23, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
AMSTERDAM - Miep Santrouschitz-Gies, the woman who helped the Otto Frank family during their time in hiding during World War II, has celebrated her hundredth birthday quietly with family and friends. Gies was employed by the Franks at their spice business.
Website dedicated to information on roadside memorials
Publish Date: Feb 23, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
OENTSJERK - A Dutch group has opened a website devoted to the miniature road-side memorials one finds in the province of Friesland. The northern Dutch chapter of the Society of Traffic Victims posts photographs and accompanying st...
Bible smuggler group defenders of persecuted Christians
Publish Date: Feb 23, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
ERMELO – A Dutch international Christian organisation which has for decades distributed Bibles behind various ‘curtains’, also compiles an list of countries each year showing which are persecuting Christians. Founded by Bible dist...
Wereldomroep emergency channel for the Dutch abroad
Publish Date: Feb 23, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
HILVERSUM – Radio Netherlands World Broadcasting Service (in Dutch Wereldomroep) has assumed the responsibility of broadcasting announcements internationally for Dutch citizens abroad in times of disasters and emergencies. The ser...
Intensive excercising avoids muscle weakness among elderly
Publish Date: Feb 23, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
MAASTRICHT – The elderly can avoid loss of muscle mass by regular physical excercises. Prescribing special protein-rich powders or liquids were found to have no extra benefit in maintaining muscle power. According to a study by Ma...
International Court of Justice settles 0ne hundredth case
Publish Date: Feb 23, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE – The International Court of Justice at the Peace Palace in The Hague has recently rendered its one hundredth decision in an international dispute. Neighbouring countries Romania and Ukraine both claimed 12,000 square ki...
Fisherman to take ashore the garbage caught while fishing
Publish Date: Feb 23, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE – A plan originally launched in Scotland is increasingly drawing support in the Netherlands. Scheveningen fishermen are joining those of Delfzijl and IJmuiden in their efforts to clear the sea of garbage. Previously, gar...
Belgian mayors attend to ‘weeds top’ to combat soft drugs
Publish Date: Feb 23, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
BILZEN – Mayors of the Belgian border municipalities have urged the Netherlands to drop its policies on soft drugs and the so-called ‘coffee shops.’ The mayors noted that Dutch policies, which turn a blind eye to personal use of s...
Heroes of February 1953 Flood finally recognized for saving untold lives
Publish Date: Feb 09, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
NIEUWERKERK AAN DE IJSSEL, the Netherlands – Volunteers Cornelis Heuvelman and Johannes Aart van Vliet, whose heroic efforts at closing a breech in a local dike in the night of February 1, 1953 and saved much of the heartland of the province of South Holland from a potentially very disastrous flood, recently received an official award from the Carnegie Heldenfonds after nearly 56 years.
Centennial a busy day for ‘recently’ retired farmer Kolkman
Publish Date: Feb 09, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
GODERICH, Ontario – The recent one hundred birthday of the Vroomshoop, Overijssel-born retired farmer Teunis Kolkman turned out to be an action-packed occasion with plenty of family and community involvement. Kolkman’s eight surviving children and other offspring, five generations in all, were on hand to help in the memorable celebration.
Kampen’s watergate invention generates interest abroad
Publish Date: Feb 09, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
KAMPEN - Rising waters from a flash flood need no longer be a threat after a novel Dutch invention has been installed as a self-activating protective system. Invented by Johann van den Noort, a civil engineering consultant living in Kampen, the Netherlands, the automatic dam, made of lightweight foam-core polyester, sits in a casing installed around buildings or other projects, buried in the ground.
Dutch provincial water boards sign infrastructure deal in Aceh
Publish Date: Feb 09, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
JAKARTA - Three Dutch drinking water companies have signed a 15-year deal with nine local firms in Indonesia for drinking water facilities in Aceh. The three companies, Drenthe-based WMD, South Holland-based DZH and North Holland-based PWN, have been active in Aceh, Indonesia's northern-most province, since the tsunami devastated the area in December 2004.
Chinese call OMA’s radical office tower design Big Shorts
Publish Date: Feb 09, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
BEIJING – The Chinese capital has a new, radically-shaped landmark with a Dutch touch. Dubbed by the local population Big Shorts, grote onderbroek, the headquarters of China Central Television, is a skyscraper in the Beijing central business district.
Nederland Leest to campaign with Haasse’s Oeroeg
Publish Date: Feb 09, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
AMSTERDAM – The intense annual literacy campaign Nederland Leest (The Netherlands Reads) will republish the book Oeroeg for its Fall 2009 event. The 1948 fiction story by widely read author Hella S. Haasse is about two boys in the...
Survey gives Queen Beatrix a 7.5 for her birthday
Publish Date: Feb 09, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
HILVERSUM – Queen Beatrix who recently turned 71, scored 7.5 out of a maximum of 10 in a survey on the royalty in the Netherlands. The market research firm also reconfirmed that daughter-in-law Màxima continues to outscore the Que...
Bakkerij ’t Stoepje buys out competitor De Broodpiraat
Publish Date: Feb 09, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
SPAKENBURG – Two area bakeries which had been competing with each other throughout the country and arguing before the courts, are now part of the same group that sells fresh bakery products through over 900 market stalls and porta...
Long-time leader Opel drops to third place in Dutch car market
Publish Date: Feb 09, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
AMSTERDAM - The Volkswagen car brand has topped the Dutch charts for the fourth consecutive year now although the number of units sold dropped by nearly 8 percent from 2007 sales figures. Ford placed second with 43,550 cars, pushi...
Bos Atlas sets new record with ten millionth copy
Publish Date: Feb 09, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
GRONINGEN - The widely distributed and popular Bos Atlas (Bosatlas in Dutch) was conceived by P.R. Bos, a teacher in Groningen. The first edition with hand-drawn maps was published in 1877, titled Bos' Schoolatlas der geheele aard...
Current Michigan governor term-limited
Representative Hoekstra may be eyeing bid for governorship
Publish Date: Jan 23, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
HOLLAND, Michigan - The 111th Congress has hardly begun, and the recently re-elected Groningen-born Republican Representative Pete Hoekstra (55) of the Western Michigan district of Holland already announced retirement plans once his new term, his ninth, is over. Hoekstra, a former furniture company executive, has confirmed an interest in possibly making a bid for the governorship of Michigan.
Theological classic by Van Mastricht to be translated
From Latin and Dutch to English
Publish Date: Jan 23, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
GRAND RAPIDS, Michigan - The Dutch Reformed Translation Society (DRTS), most recently known for the translation into English and publication of H. Bavinck’s Reformed Dogmatics, has now taken on the translation of lesser-known late seventeenth-century theologian Petrus van Mastricht’s Theoretico-Practica Theologia.
Dutch crown prince to visit Antarctica with wife and experts
First hand looks at melting ice caps
Publish Date: Jan 23, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE - Dutch Crown Prince Willem-Alexander, a widely recognized authority on water management, and his Argentina-born wife Princess Máxima are planning to spend three days in Antarctica next month. Their visit underscores the commitment the Netherlands has for the governance of the Antarctic region. They will be guests of the British at the Rothera Research Station.
Records triple the number of wounded soldiers in May 1940
Publish Date: Jan 23, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE – A new book by Dutch historian Peter Kruit has forced war historians to take another look at the Dutch resistance against the German invasion of May 1940. In his book ”Een mythe aan scherven” Kruit reveals that in the p...
Smaller church groups join PKN hymnal production
Publish Date: Jan 23, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
ZWOLLE – The Interchurch Foundation for the Church Song (ISK), which works for the Protestant Church in the Netherlands, has gained two new members, the Netherlands Reformed Churches (NGK) and the Reformed Churches in the Netherla...
Grower tries prefabricated cardboard housing for laborours
Publish Date: Jan 23, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
ANNA PAULOWNA – Housing for seasonal labour in agriculture tends to generate problems. The jobs are frequently in rural areas where living quarters are often in makeshifts rooms in barns or small campers. Farmers or growers are al...
Sven Kramer extend European skating title by another year
Publish Date: Jan 23, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
HEERENVEEN – Dutch skater Sven Kramer, who recently extended his national championship by another year, also repeated the feat on the European level. It is Kramer’s third European championship in a row, winning first place in the ...
Shipwreck with Dutch art treasure may be salvaged
Publish Date: Jan 23, 2009
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MOSCOW – A Russian foundation wants to salvage a 1771 Dutch shipwreck because of its valuable contents of gold, silver, bronze and porcelain. The treasure had been ordered by Czarina Catherine the Great and included 27 paintings b...
Photographic history of Brabant town of Vught posted online
Publish Date: Jan 23, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
VUGHT – Posting photographs, and even albums, on the Internet has been possible for some time. Many people have put some photographs on dedicated image banks such as www.flickr.com to attract attention to their camera skills. Not ...
Dutch housing inventory surpasses seven million mark
Publish Date: Jan 23, 2009
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THE HAGUE – A new milestone has been reached in the Netherlands, now that the number of homes, including apartments, has surpassed the seven million mark. The country’s housing inventory increased by 87,537 in 2007. Housing offici...
Peoples Bank named Large Business of the Year by county chamber
Founded in Lynden in 1920
Publish Date: Jan 14, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
BELLINGHAM, Washington - Peoples Bank, which was founded in nearby Lynden in 1920, was given the 2008 Large Business of the Year award at the recent award ceremonies of the Bellingham/Whatcom Chamber of Commerce. Peoples Bank finished ahead of the local branches of Costco, Haggen and Wal-Mart.
Now over one million dual nationality holder in the Netherlands
Number tripled in a decade
Publish Date: Jan 14, 2009
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THE HAGUE - The number of people in the Netherlands with dual nationality has tripled in just over a decade to over one million. On January 1, 2008, 1.08 million people in the Netherlands had at least one other nationality besides their Dutch citizenship. This number is nearly three times as high as on January 1, 1995.
Dutch tractor woman on African rescues along the ‘way’
Towed a bus for 140km
Publish Date: Jan 14, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
CAPETOWN, South Africa – It is not known if connoisseurs will agree with her, but Dutch art student Manon Ossevoort calls her long-distance journey with a used Deutz tractor ‘performance art.’ Without any doubt, the undertaking is adventurous and, if not art, certainly a test or performance of endurance. She recently arrived in Capetown on the way to the next leg of her itinerary, if funds allow it, as part of an expedition to the South Pole.
Identities of crew of downed bomber still unconfirmed
Wellington crashed in July 1941
Publish Date: Jan 14, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
BOAZUM, the Netherlands - An area citizen group devoted to the memory of missing WWII Allied airmen, has kindled interest in one of its objectives in the United Kingdom. Long frustrated in its search for information on the crew of a Wellington bomber that crashed in the early hours of July 25, 1941 in a field near the village of Boazum in central Friesland, the group gained the help of the editors at The Sunday Express recently.
EC gives green light to Campina and Friesland for merger
New Dutch entity a global player
Publish Date: Jan 14, 2009
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BRUSSELS – Giant Dutch dairy co-operatives Campina and Friesland have become an even greater global market player following their recent merger for which they received conditional approval from the European Commission. The conditional merger of the two firms, which together have 17,000 members, has now obtained final approval from the memberships.
Evidence of Roman roads unearthed near Utrecht
Publish Date: Jan 14, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
UTRECHT – The massive urbanization of a district south of the City of Utrecht has prompted the mandatory pre-development archeological survey of the site. Farmers obviously were not first to traverse the meadows along the old Rhin...
Unhealthy lifestyles comparable to submerged peatbog fires
Publish Date: Jan 14, 2009
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THE HAGUE – Heath advocacy groups representing the diabetes, heart and kidney interests at the launch of the first national lifestyle barometer warned about the peatbog fire that ‘burns underground’ and is caused by unhealthy life...
New Year’s eve incidents fewer than previous years
Publish Date: Jan 14, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
AMSTERDAM - New Year’s Eve revelry by boisterous teenagers and young adults who in previous such events have caused much vandalism, even endangering the public, were back at it again on December 31, but in smaller numbers and in f...
TU/e already cracked futuristic internet security coding
Publish Date: Jan 14, 2009
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EINDHOVEN – A futuristic encrypted internet security system, deemed to solve today’s system weaknesses, was quickly cracked by technicians at the Eindhoven Technical University (TU/e). The Eindhoven group wrote a program to crack ...
Kramer and Wüst take Dutch speed skating championships
Publish Date: Jan 14, 2009
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HEERENVEEN – The 2008 Dutch speed skating championships have become a repeat of 2007. Sven Kramer extended his national men’s title by another year to a total of four and Ireen Wüst (women’s) three years. Kramer won three (5k, 150...
Making oliebollen gaining in popularity again
Publish Date: Jan 14, 2009
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
AMSTERDAM – Making your own oliebollen is regaining traction in the Netherlands, a recent survey has found. Last year, nearly one in five baked their own oliebollen, called Dutch donuts by some bakers in North America who put thei...
The weather analyzed long-term and over 2008
Publish Date: Jan 14, 2009
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DE BILT – The year 2008 is the twelfth one in a row with warmer than average temperatures, 10.6 degrees Celcius while the long-term average temperature is only 9.8 degrees. The year 2008 ranks ninth on the list of the warmest year...
Sixtieth anniversary of Dutch television broadcasts
Rapid changes since 1948
Publish Date: Dec 23, 2008
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EINDHOVEN – This year sixty years ago, 150 employees at Philips received the first television sets so they could listen to trial broadcasts transmitted from Eindhoven, where Philips had its headquarters. Since 2005, watching TV programs online has become increasingly popular. This year, mobile television was introduced.
Dutch municipal governments EU’s largest spenders
Comparative budgeting
Publish Date: Dec 23, 2008
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THE HAGUE - Spending by municipal governments in the Netherlands as a percentage of total government expenditures over the year 2007 was higher than the EU average. Dutch local authorities have limited taxation autonomy and largely depend on central government funding.
Dutch borders remain closed to Eastern Europeans until 2012
Broad support for policy
Publish Date: Dec 23, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE - A broad majority in the Second Chamber wants to keep Dutch borders closed to Romanian and Bulgarian labour migrants for another three years.
Research by Nijmegen neurologist detects Alzheimer earlier
Publish Date: Dec 23, 2008
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NIJMEGEN – Neurologist Frank Erik de Leeuw may have discovered the earliest stages of Alzheimer disease. He concluded that older people with slight memory problems suffer from a shrinking ‘hippocampus.’ This part of the brains con...
King Albert tops popularity chart in Belgium
Publish Date: Dec 23, 2008
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BRUSSELS – King Albert of Belgium remains Belgium’s most popular personality. Former sports women Justine Henin, Tia Hellebaut, Kim Gevaert and Kim Glijsters ranked second, third, fourth and fifth overall. Belgian premier Yves Let...
Number of businesses up 40,000 to a record high of 800,000
Publish Date: Dec 23, 2008
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RIJSWIJK – The number of businesses in the Netherlands has topped 800,000, an all time high. On January 1, 2008 the country had 40,000 businesses more than a year earlier. Leading was construction (up 10,000) and business service ...
Integrity checks ‘Bibob’ law to take crime out of prostitution
Publish Date: Dec 23, 2008
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ALKMAAR – Prostitution may seem to be legalized in the Netherlands but there are caveats. One such qualification is the licensing requirement. Many prostitution operators and prostitutes failed to properly register and have made t...
Country-wide Water Board elections have low turn-out
Publish Date: Dec 23, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
ZWOLLE – Political parties have set their sights at another layer of governance that so far had remained the domain of property owners and independents: the waterschappen or Water Boards. For the first time in their long history, ...
Barge and tractors maintain canals from the waterside
Publish Date: Dec 23, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
ENS – Maintaining Dutch waterways and shoulders is an ongoing challenge for Dutch Water Boards, the country’s 26 waterschappen. Contractors with barges that are outfitted with tractors and their specialized long-arm equipment, saf...
Museum Van Loon exhibits family’s matriarchal heritage
Patrician’s canal house breathes authenticity
Publish Date: Dec 08, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
AMSTERDAM - Time seems to have passed over the house at Keizersgracht 672, where the interior has been turned into a museum, showcasing an era that otherwise has long departed from Amsterdam’s bustling city core. Built in the early 1600s to accommodate a great influx of newcomers, the grachtengordel or canal belt of which the Keizersgracht is a part, the stately canal house was for decades the home of the patrician Van Loon family.
EU ministers of agriculture agree on significant reform
Milk quota on the way out
Publish Date: Dec 08, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
BRUSSELS - European Union agriculture ministers have agreed to a new round of aid reforms in Europe's shrinking farm sector meant to boost competition in global markets. The ministers reached their agreement following recent all-night negotiations.
Dawson Creek became stronger under Kruk’s leadership
Young B.C. Mayor battled cancer
Publish Date: Dec 08, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
DAWSON CREEK, BC - The tributes poured in from far and wide as the northern B.C. city of Dawson Creek struggled to come to grips with the death of their (first term) Mayor Calvin Kruk. Age 43, Mayor Calvin Kruk lost his battle with lung cancer less then six weeks after he was diagnosed with an aggressive type of the illness.
Baptist Seminary leaves Utrecht for the VU
Publish Date: Dec 08, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
AMSTERDAM - The annual meeting of the Union of Baptist Congregations has approved the move of its seminary to the Free University (in Dutch simply known as the VU) in Amsterdam. The Baptists had become concerned over the direction...
Dutch forestry percentage low by EU standards
Publish Date: Dec 08, 2008
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LUXEMBOURG - Although the Netherlands seems to have plenty of trees, the forest-covered areas only amount to eleven percent of the country’s territory. According to EU-statistics, that places the Netherlands near of the bottom of ...
All covering Muslim garb faces prohibition in Dutch society
Publish Date: Dec 08, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE - There are very few Dutch political parties that tolerate the burqa, the head-to-toe and face-covering garb for Muslim women. The fact that only a few Muslim females in the Netherlands wear this all covering dress to sc...
Dutch international school Eerde guarantees a diploma
Publish Date: Dec 08, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
OMMEN - Success is guaranteed if one enrolls their children at this school! School officials at Ommen’s International School Eerde will even put their commitment in writing. Eerde’s approach offers intensive staff involvement with...
Hobbyist snaps Rotterdam history with camera
Publish Date: Dec 08, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
ROTTERDAM - Tinus de Does may well be the country’s most enthusiastic shutterbug, and Rotterdam’s best photographic chronicler. The hobby has taken De Does on a publicist track, as an exhibitor of his vast photo and slides collect...
The Netherlands popular with expats
Publish Date: Dec 08, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
AMSTERDAM - In the immediate post-war years, hundreds of thousands of Dutch emigrants settled in countries such as Canada, the U.S.A., Australia and New Zealand. Initially, many of the vacancies were filled by newcomers from Spain...
Dutch government spearheads 2009 Governor’s Island Quadracentennial event
Following Henry Hudson’s footprints
Publish Date: Oct 07, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
NEW YORK – The recent visit of a Dutch delegation to Governor’s Island, just off the coast of Manhattan, was a vastly different occasion from the one nearly 400 years ago. Back then, the when Dutch merchant ship De Halve Maen landed there to explore the coast for a passage to the East Indies and to take in fresh water. Headed by Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende, the 2008 delegation came to explore too. They wanted to see the site of the Netherlands – New York 2009 Quadracentennial festivities and to use the opportunity to plant a commemorative walnut tree.
Cabinet to ease traffic congestion by fast tracking stalled projects
Publish Date: Oct 07, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE – A different way of interpreting environmental regulations and a more relaxed approach when applications show minor problems, will go a long way to curtail the endless delays infrastructure projects have faced in the Ne...
Task force trying to find closure for WWII missing persons case load
Publish Date: Oct 07, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
ZWOLLE – A new task force has been formed to clear up the remaining block of WWII missing person cases. Working from the premise that the uncertainty of ‘missing is worse than death,’ the task force will employ a DNA-data bank tha...
Provincial capital soon to be home to over 1000 monuments
Publish Date: Oct 07, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
DEN BOSCH – The provincial capital of North Brabant of ’s-Hertogenbosch (Den Bosch for short), which already is home to 220 buildings with a municipal heritage designation, will be getting another 315 such heritage sites on its gr...
Municipalities to develop ancient (Roman) heritage route
Publish Date: Oct 07, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
RIMBURG – The Roman ‘highway’ Boulogne-sur-Mer, which linked the northern French coastal town of Boulogne with the German town of Koln needs to be, where possible, restored as a heritage route, heritage promoters argue. The route,...
Dutch ministers reveal Morocco gathering intelligence
Publish Date: Oct 07, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE – In a joint letter, two members of the Dutch cabinet have informed the Second Chamber that Morocco has been gathering intelligence on the Moroccan Dutch community. Replying by letter is a customary procedure when formal...
Balkenende-Cabinet agrees to taller buildings in Randstad
More large urban parks
Publish Date: Sep 23, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE – The Randstad could one day look a lot more like New York if the Dutch government carries out its recently released vision statement. The Dutch may soon build taller high rises and develop large urban parks. The Balkenende cabinet recently reached consensus on the report Future Vision 2040.
Angry callers berate anti-Sinterklaas march by foreign artists
Exhibit exposes limits to tolerance
Publish Date: Sep 23, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
EINDHOVEN - A scheduled demonstration by two politically correct foreign participants in an exhibit on integration in the Netherlands, received a quick lesson in tolerance levels in Dutch society. Organizers of a march against the Dutch Sinterklaas tradition were inundated with angry calls, in support of Sinterklaas and opposing the demonstration.
Regional organ music libraries becoming national collection
Publish Date: Sep 23, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
HAARLEM – The national inventory of organs represents a rich cultural heritage for the Netherlands. Organ fans marvel over the quality of the instruments while those with an eye for design and architecture can find much to cherish...
Airbase to close, sees helicopters leave for new location
Publish Date: Sep 23, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
SOESTERBERG - The move away from Airbase Soesterberg, also a long time base for U.S. Air Force personnel, has reached the point of no return now that the squadron Alouette III-helikopters has left for its new location at Gilze-Rij...
Accidents involving youths on farms a concern to officials
Publish Date: Sep 23, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE – About 130 youths, aged between 14 and 18, are hospitalized every year because of injuries caused by accidents on farms. The total number needing medical attention, some urgently, numbers about 380. Each year, the numbe...
Paper burden lighter in highly regulated Dutch society
Publish Date: Sep 23, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE – The Netherlands is widely known for its high population density, for its highly regulated society with numerous rules for every type of activity which set the bar high for, among others, entrepreneurs. The country is d...
Impatient car drivers often cause of tractor-trailer accidents
Publish Date: Sep 23, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
AMSTERDAM – A group of traffic experts has concluded that many accidents involving tractor-trailers are not caused by inattentive truckers but by automobile drivers who display impatient and overly aggressive behavior behind the w...
Frisian officials reviewing redress for rotting pilings
Publish Date: Sep 23, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
LEEUWARDEN – The battle has been a long one for a Lemsterland group, which represented home owners facing costly repairs as a result of damage to the pilings caused by dropping ground water levels. Officials at the Frisian provinc...
Wheels that stopped churning centuries ago still leaving their marks
Dutch surnames Wiel, Weel and Waal
Publish Date: Sep 07, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
It should be no surprise to anyone that numerous Dutch surnames can be traced to the interaction of people with water or water-related events. Surnames derived from rivers and creeks perhaps are obvious to those with knowledge of Dutch geography and language but, in many cases, the small and obscure water bodies, that are well-represented in Dutch society, often leaving people guessing for their origin and meaning.
Recorded distress calls scares away others of same bird species
Scarecrows replaced by digital devices
Publish Date: Sep 07, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
ROSMALEN, the Netherlands – Scarecrows are going digital, creating efficiency in a haphazard struggle in fields between winged and legged harvesters, between birds and growers. It was never particularly effective, the use of straw men as scarecrows. Neither were booming air cannons which proved to be very problem-some for the neighbourhood. Birds soon figured out that nothing much happened beyond the initial scare, leaving growers with double pain, loss of crop and unhappy neighbours. Innovators think they offer the right solution: AlcetSound’s digital bio-acoustic bird repellers, basically bird distress recordings.
Building plans’ archives help reconstruct Rotterdam’s past
Publish Date: Sep 07, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
ROTTERDAM – Archivists are still trying to re-construct Rotterdam’s history, over 65 years after the city core of Rotterdam was destroyed by German bombs. Along with hundreds of people who were killed during this brutal act of agg...
Access basilica restricted to stop thieves from stripping copper
Publish Date: Sep 07, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
BRUSSELS – The council of the famed Koekelberg basilica parish in the Brussels suburb has closed off motorized vehicle access to thwart the possibility of thieves stripping more drainpipes and gutters from the facility. Theft of s...
Farmers angered by scheming politicians wanting farms for ‘nature’
Publish Date: Sep 07, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
LELYSTAD – Neatly maintained farmyards, surrounded on all sides by hundreds of acres of pasture and crops do not classify as nature in the Netherlands, or so it seems. The country’s newest province, Flevoland, now wants to turn an...
European Baptists to celebrate Amsterdam 400 next year
English refugees first met in bakery
Publish Date: Aug 25, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
PRAGUE - The world Baptist movement is planning to celebrate its 400th birthday next year. In 1609, the first Baptists, who were refugees from England, met in the backroom of an Amsterdam bakery in order to read the Bible together. They founded the first Baptist-minded congregation. The European Baptist Federation (EBF) plans to celebrate this anniversary from July 24 to 26, 2009 with festivities in Amsterdam’s RAI Congress Centre entitled “Amsterdam 400”. It is anticipated that 1.700 Baptists from throughout Europe will attend.
Six neighbours to create a single joint airspace
Dutch part of trend-setting pact
Publish Date: Aug 25, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE - The Netherlands and five neighbouring countries have taken steps towards the formation of a single joint airspace. Their Functional Airspace Block (FAB) is intended to become the model for a Single European Sky.
Noah’ Ark replicas popular with public
Publish Date: Aug 25, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
SLIEDRECHT – Contractor Johan Huibers is building his second replica of Noah’s Ark, now on the Biblical scale of 175 metres long, 30 metres wide and 13 metres high. The builder plans to exhibit his second ark during Sail 2010 in A...
Navy detonated 500 North Sea bombs in three years
Publish Date: Aug 25, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
SCHEVENINGEN – The Dutch navy has detonated the 500th explosive since April 6, 2005, when an American bomb killed three fishermen aboard the Morgenster, an Ouddorp trawler. The crew landed their fish net a bit too hard on the deck...
Researchers see Utrecht leading cities in Western Europe
Publish Date: Aug 25, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
UTRECHT – Being centrally located in the Netherlands and relatively short distances away from Amsterdam, The Hague, Rotterdam, Den Bosch and Arnhem, has given the oldest of these, Utrecht, advantages on which it only now is cashin...
Dutch bakers reducing salt ratio in their products
Publish Date: Aug 25, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
ZAANDAM – Giant grocery chain Albert Heijn has reduced the salt ratio in bread by ten percent. The chain also promised to reveal the amount of salt in all its in-house brand products. Those moves follow the recommendations of the ...
Marine life experts launch data bank on marine species
Publish Date: Aug 25, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
OOSTENDE – An international project has been launched to uniformly record all marine life, plants, fish and other species. The World Register of Marine Species - its acronym is WoRMS - will start cataloguing all 230,000 known spec...
Heerenveen wins skûtsje sailing title for the 12th time
Publish Date: Aug 25, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
HEERENVEEN – The annual sailing championship on the Frisian waterways and lakes has again settled in favour of the town of Heerenveen, its 12th win to date. The contest with the ‘turfschuiten’ (in Frisian called skûtsje) requires ...
Dutch author Baantjer opens museum near famed police station
Detective stories publicize Wamoesstraat scene
Publish Date: Aug 07, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
AMSTERDAM – The Dutch capital city of Amsterdam is the home of yet another new museum. While museums usually focus on subjects of a distant past, the country’s latest addition features the work of famed Dutch detective author A.C. Baantjer (the lead character always is Inspector DeKok), who was on hand to officially open the facility. At age 84 a retired police detective, Baantjer recently submitted his 70th manuscript for publication.
Panorama by Dutch artist a cultural historic display of Bollenstreek
Work took eleven years to finish
Publish Date: Aug 07, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
VOORHOUT, the Netherlands – Tourists from all over the world still flock in record numbers to the dazzling flowering bulb show at Keukenhof, but they see steadily less of the colourful quilt of tulips that once covered the entire Bollenstreek each Spring. Rising real estate costs make growing flowering bulbs elsewhere in the Netherlands financially more attractive, while owners sell the traditional bulb fields to build new subdivisions. The memory of the colourful Bollenstreek will live on, thanks to a newly created, huge art scene: the Bollenstreek Panorama. Sponsored by a local history group, artist Leo van den Ende painted a million tulips on canvases complete with the landscape that increasingly is being lost. Van den Ende’s labour of love took eleven years to complete.
Dutch volume of exports up by six percent in May
Trade surplus growing
Publish Date: Aug 07, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE - The volume of goods exported by the Netherlands in May 2008 was more than six percent higher than in the same month a year earlier. The rise in the volume of imports was only 4 percent during the same month, according to the Central Bureau for Statistics (CBS).
Donald Duck still most popular magazine among Dutch students
Cartoon strip attractive
Publish Date: Aug 07, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE - Dutch college and university students seem more interested in the adventures of Donald Duck than in global politics, international problems or in thought-provoking intellectual questions.
New townsite Leidsche Rijn bares another Roman shipwreck
Publish Date: Aug 07, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
UTRECHT – The new Utrecht satellite town of Leidsche Rijn has become a Dutch window on antiquity. Archeologists have already discovered six wrecks of Roman ships that were preserved in Dutch soil, waiting for discovery. The latest...
Government to enhance registration requirements for sex trade
Publish Date: Aug 07, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE – The Dutch government wants to firm up its framework law that legalized prostitution in 2000. All forms of the sex trade will need to register in the future. At the time the ‘paarse, non-confessional’ Labour-led cabinet...
Report on windmills suggests innovation for national icon
Publish Date: Aug 07, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
BREDA – A study by eight students of the Breda-based international college NHTV conclude that owners of windmills ought to take better advantage of the nostalgic aspects of their characteristic buildings. This approach could help ...
Texel ranks high as unspoiled island tourist destination
Publish Date: Aug 07, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
DIEMEN – The National Geographic Traveler, a magazine devoted to tourism, has ranked Wadden island Texel as one of the most unspoiled island destinations in the world. The list, which is headed by the Danish Faroe island constellation, awards Texel a shared seventh spot. The Dutch Caribbean island of Bonaire also ranks well but Aruba and Sint Maarten fare poorly on the list. The magazine says of Texel that its "historic structures (e.g., Texel Lighthouse) and the ever-present sheep make for a pastoral experience. Tourists bicycle everywhere. Very appropriate for the character of the area." The island “is a classic example of 'sustainable mass tourism.' The Dutch got it right. Very nice (and quite pricey) accommodations, and great management of the extensive dune systems, where most visitors tend to stay on the beautiful tracks and boardwalks."
Cabinet reviewing compulsory treatment in health neglect cases
Publish Date: Aug 07, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE – Junior minister for Public Health, Jet Bussemaker (Labour), wants to grant care givers the authority to intervene in the lives of people who for a number of reasons fail to look after themselves. The minister is partic...
Dutch couple celebrates their eightieth wedding anniversary
Publish Date: Aug 07, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
AMSTELVEEN – Retired bicycle dealer Pieter Ably and his French-born wife Henriette recently celebrated their “oak” wedding anniversary. News of the couple’s eightieth anniversary revealed that the Dutch central bureau for statisti...
Local Belgenmonument upgraded with backgrounders
Publish Date: Jul 07, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
AMERSFOORT – Anyone who thinks that providing hospitality to strangers was something unique to World War II, should rethink this idea. Opening homes to strangers during wartime already had a history, but without the severe penalti...
Exhibit in German castle honours Queen-Mother Emma
Publish Date: Jul 07, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
BAD AROLSEN, Germany – The number of people in the Netherlands and beyond with first hand knowledge of Queen-Mother Emma is declining through attrition. The Queen who married King Willem III at the age of 20 when he already was 61...
Albert Heijn chain testing high end payment technology
Publish Date: Jul 07, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
BREUKELEN – In this small Dutch town the day has arrived that shoppers will not need to have a wallet with any bank cards in it to pay for purchases. Giving the store a finger will do. That is at least the case at the local Albert...
Dutch East Indies veterans on leading edge for veterans’ recognition
Publish Date: Jul 07, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE – The veterans of the Dutch East Indies campaigns, along with those of the New Guinea conflict and the Korea War, have laid the foundation for the emerging policies for Veterans’ issues in the Netherlands. The lack of su...
Province and city to celebrate tri-centennial of Treaty of Utrecht
Publish Date: Jul 07, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
UTRECHT - Dutch tourism promoters, which have used Rembrandt, Van Gogh and De Ruyter anniversaries in the past to attract tourists, are discovering there is potential as well in celebrating anniversaries of international peace tre...
Year of the Potato underscore importance of Bildts’ potato weeks
Publish Date: Jul 07, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
SINT JACOBIPAROCHIE – The Northwestern Frisian municipality of Het Bildt has a love affair with the potato, its main renewable commodity. The area, which is ideally suited for growing potatoes, produces approximately ten percent o...
Castle lords offer tourists a stay at their manor
Publish Date: Jul 07, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
WINTERSWIJK – A home away from home could also be a castle, especially if the destination is this Eastern Dutch border region with Germany. Tourists wanting an upscale experience, something normally reserved for the upper class, a...
Frontline Nijmegen was left to mourn hundreds of casualties
Online memorial honours city’s victims of war
Publish Date: May 07, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
NIJMEGEN - The city’s 2300 victims, who died during World War II as a result of warfare, Nazi oppression and accidental Allied bombing, have been acknowledged on a new website, recently launched by a local historical society. The group received the help of a Radboud University historian. The website, which will be updated as more details on the victims become available, was launched by Nijmegen mayor Thom de Graaf. It intends to put a face to the victims who otherwise would be forgotten.
Cracks in foundations caused by rot in wooden pilings
Publish Date: May 07, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
LISSE – The executives of Lisse’s municipal council do not think they are responsible for rot in wooden pilings, which are part of the foundations of a small number of homes in the flowering bulb region town. The problem surfaced ...
Court disagrees with Hervormde dissenters’ legal claims
Publish Date: May 07, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
LUNTEREN – The legal wrangling over the rightful ownership of buildings, real estate and especially the name Nederlands Hervormde Kerk (Netherlands Reformed Church) deemed important for succession status may have ended with the co...
Limburg landscaper decks Pope’s Easter stage in flowers
Publish Date: May 07, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
ROERMOND – Limburg landscaper Paul Dekkers literally decks the Vatican with flowers each Easter. Dekkers received the contract for the first time in 1985 when the late Dutch priest and professor Titus Brandsma, a Carmelite who was...
The Netherlands nearly Europe’s second largest exporter
Publish Date: May 07, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
VOORBURG – The Netherlands stands a very good chance at overtaking much larger France as Europe’s second largest exporter of goods and services. The statistics for 2007 revealed that the two countries were less than $3 billion apa...
Queens’ Day for a great number of Dutch ‘flag day’
Publish Date: May 07, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE – One out of every Dutch citizen take civic pride in the Netherlands. Just as many people think that their fellow citizens could take a bit more pride in their country. Princess Máxima remains the most popular member of ...
Dutch government to overhaul complex estate tax system
Simplification new focus
Publish Date: Apr 07, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE – Junior Finance Minister Jan Kees de Jager is proposing to lower all estate (inheritance) taxation rates by dropping them below 50 percent. He is also wants to simplify the inheritance tax law.
Dredged up hand axes evidence of Ice Age hunting
North Sea bares rare artifacts
Publish Date: Apr 07, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
MIDDELBURG - An amateur Dutch archaeologist named Jan Meulmeester made a startling find which pleases scientists: an amazing collection of 28 flint hand-axes, dated by archaeologists to be ‘around 100,000 years-old.’ He found them in an area about 13km off Great Yarmouth.
Shape shifting gives micro-aircraft its expert maneuverability
Robotic bird makes first flight
Publish Date: Apr 07, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
WAGENINGEN - A bird-like micro-aircraft with feathered, morphing wings took to the skies on its maiden flight recently. Its landing was even more dramatic, when the RoboSwift crashed into a tree. The craft flew for a total of about five minutes at an altitude of some 200 meters under windy conditions.
Entire Frisian provincial executive visits Friezenkerk in Rome
More help on the way for restoration
Publish Date: Apr 07, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
ROME – Frisians already were heading for Rome when Roman emperors still controlled much of Europe. They called the coastal lowlands, the region roughly between Northern France and Denmark, Frisia. When arriving in Rome, the Lowlanders were expected to stay at the Frisian Quarter, which also had its own church, the Friezenkerk. Numerous weary travelers over the centuries attended services in this church. It was not until last month that the entire executive of the Frisian Provincial Estates, along with two of its top bureaucrats, made it to Rome to check out the 800-year old building.
Zeeland village now home to monument for fallen defender
Publish Date: Apr 07, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
ANNA JACOBAPOLDER – The Second World War remains close to the Dutch consciousness. Explosives’ removal is a never ending activity, which regularly involves entire neighbourhoods. Reburial of wartime military casualties still occur...
Former rope making facility may get new lease on life
Publish Date: Apr 07, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
VLAARDINGEN – The site of a former rope making facility, a 350 metre long lijnbaan which has not been used for years, may be around for the enjoyment of future generations when the area around it is given a proposed major facelift. The site, which was already used for rope manufacture as early as 1611, may be turned into a new pedestrian route. Vlaardingen and its neighbour Rotterdam were major port cities, which constantly required heavy ropes for ships. Rope makers at the lijnbaan laboured in the open air for more than two centuries. The structure, which is seven metres wide, has been neglected far too long and requires a major restoration.
Limburg celebrates Religious Heritage with extra funding
Publish Date: Apr 07, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
MAASTRICHT – The province of Limburg, one of twelve such regional jurisdictions, took its turn recently in celebrating its Religious Heritage in the context of the national theme for the year. The Netherlands not only is home to numerous churches, chapels and monasteries, it also has been bestowed with monumental grave markers, priceless interior art, and other related historic sites. The religious heritage theme, the Dutch focus on a different theme each year, castles, farmsteads and windmills (2007), draws attention to a cultural heritage which in a secularized society relies on a dwindling number of people for financial support. Limburg which has its own very unique religious heritage, announced funding of about $1.6 million to help preserve it.
Municipality installs lifelines for drowning cats along steep quays
Publish Date: Apr 07, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
HEERENVEEN – City canals can be death traps for hapless pets, that fall into the water. The stoned lined sides of the canals are usually steep so there is little chance that cats can make it back to dry ground on their own. The plight of such pets has caught the attention of the municipality of Heerenveen which has canals running through town. It will install planks in the canals as act as an escape route out of the water.
Sales of bicycle maker Accell improve with mild weather
Publish Date: Apr 07, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
HEERENVEEN – Fair weather translates into favourable results for manufacturers of bicycles, Dutch investment firm Accell reported recently. The company which owns a list of well-known bicycle brand names, increased its sales by ab...
Wards of the state to be outfitted with knee-lock devices when escorted
Publish Date: Apr 07, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE – Dutch junior Justice Minister Nebahat Albayrak, a Labour politician, is taking the knee-lock invention to the institutions which care for prisoners which beyond their jail term have been declared a ward of the state. T...
Dutch maintain disproportionately large diplomatic service
Equals that of Germany
Publish Date: Nov 24, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE - The Netherlands has a disproportionately large and expensive diplomatic apparatus. The number of embassies is much greater than in countries of similar size, concludes a confidential report by the Finance Ministry, which was leaked to a leading Dutch magazine.
Lego club builds its own Sinterklaas figure
Publish Date: Nov 24, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
ZWOLLE – Members of Lego enthusiasts ‘De Bouwsteen’ (The Building Brick) have literally created their own giant St. Nicholas (Sinterklaas), a 2.16 metre tall figure consisting of 34,819 Lego pieces. It took club members eight week...
Physicians oppose pro-euthanasia group’s demand
Publish Date: Nov 24, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
UTRECHT – The pro-euthanasia activist NVVE wants physicians prosecuted if they fail to help or accommodate patients who demand a life-ending procedure. Doctors are currently not required to offer such help if it is against their c...
Belgians commemorate 90th anniversary of the end of WWI
Publish Date: Nov 24, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
IEPER / BRUSSELS – Thousands upon thousands recently converged on the Belgian town of Ypres (Ieper) to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the end of WWI hostilities. Officials laid wreaths at the town’s Menenpoort, which was buil...
Old Thank You letter by veteran creates excitement at city hall
Publish Date: Nov 24, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE – The ties of friendship between Canada and the Netherlands were emphasized again recently with the arrival of a sixty one year old Thank You letter from one of the city’s liberators, reports The Hague’s chief archivist....
Water usage in Dutch households on the decline
Publish Date: Oct 23, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
VOORBURG – The volume of water used in Dutch households and in industry has dropped steadily, the Central Bureau for Statistics reports. Between 2003 and 2006, Dutch industry used two percent less per year, while households have b...
Local and regional governments caught in credit crisis
Publish Date: Oct 23, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
HAARLEM – The list of municipalities, provinces and other governmental jurisdictions such as waterschappen, the diking and water management boards, that placed deposits with Iceland banks, is growing daily as embarrassed officials...
What exactly is the job description of a koster?
Next in surname series
Publish Date: Nov 07, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill Genealogy
The number of Dutch people named Koster and the variants Coster and Kuster on this surname run into the tens of thousands. They are found in nearly every region of the country. To many, a koster is a custodian of a church, which is the correct answer. However, since the answer is given in a time long after the age of specialization arrived, there is much more that could be added to the answer.
All seven incumbents re-elected
General election attracts numerous Dutch Canadian candidates
Publish Date: Nov 07, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
OTTAWA – All sitting Members of Parliament of Dutch extraction have been returned to office in their respective electoral districts in the recent general elections in Canada. The Dutch Canadians represent three of the four parties that hold seats in the House of Commons, five of them are Conservatives, one is a Liberal and one a New Democrat. The largest number of Dutch Canadians ran for the Christian Heritage Party, which elected none.
U.S. Embassy site possibly the future home for museum
Legation moving to Wassenaar
Publish Date: Nov 07, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE – Executive councilor Marnix Norder of The Hague already has plans for the American Embassy on the Lange Voorhout, although the building will not be vacated for at least another four years. Located in an area where it is hard to offer the embassy the level of security it requires, the Urban Development wethouder sees no such issues arising if the landmark was turned into a museum.
Queen Beatrix' European beech tree at RBG has new marker
Publish Date: Nov 07, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
BURLINGTON, Ontario- The climax for the Dutch Canadian community during Dutch Queen Beatrix's 1988 State Visit to Canada occurred at the Royal Botanical Gardens, where a festive community event had been organized in her honour. To commemorate the occasion for generations to come, Queen Beatrix, aided by RBG curator Freek Vrugtman, and watched by a large group of enthusiastic onlookers, planted a tricolor European beech tree at the garden.
Family matters relevant to the Dutch public domain
Publish Date: Nov 07, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE – Family matters remain relevant in Dutch politics, whether it involves controversies surrounding new life in the womb, child rearing or marital relationships. Dutch abortion activists have taken to the high seas, offeri...
Guided tours offered along sagging homes near construction project
Publish Date: Nov 07, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
AMSTERDAM - Public works contractors who take on projects involving excavation and tunneling in the soggy Dutch soil, know they must reinforce such sites to keep them and the surrounding areas from sagging or even collapsing. An e...
New Japanese Foreign Affairs minister reaffirms 1993 WWII regrets
Publish Date: Nov 07, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
TOKYO – After years of tiptoeing around the issue since Japan in 1993 first expressed its regrets and sorrow over brutalities committed during World War II, the new Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs recently expressed his "sinc...
Police inspector who refused Nazi orders finally recognized
Publish Date: Nov 07, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
AMSTERDAM – A police inspector, who defied orders to arrest Jews from a collaborating superior during the occupation years of World War II and got fired on the spot, has recently been held up as an example of heroism to today's po...
Extensive landscape make-over planned ahead of quadcentennial
Publish Date: Nov 07, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
DEN BOSCH – Turning history into a modern experience seems to be the aim of the task force De Groene Vesting (The Green Fortress). It is preparing for the 400th anniversary of Prince Frederik-Hendrik's military feat of 1629, when ...
Electronic version of Danish registry
Unique resource for maritime and economic history to go online
Publish Date: Jul 23, 2008
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LEEUWARDEN - A special research team at the University of Groningen and Tresoar, the Frisian Historical and Literary Centre in Leeuwarden, are setting up an electronic database on the Sound Toll Registries (STR). Completion of the project is expected by 2011, when the STR will be online in its entirety. These records of tolls levied in the Danish Sound are among the most extensive resources for the study of Dutch and European economic and maritime history.
Focus on minister’s legacy
University to mark Mansholt’s 1908 birthday with symposium
Publish Date: Jul 23, 2008
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VEENDAM, the Netherlands – The 100th anniversary of the birth of a key Dutch’s agriculture minister who also served as the European Community’s agriculture commissioner, is to be the subject of a commemorative symposium. On September13, 2008, the Faculty of Spatial Sciences of the University of Groningen will hold a symposium on Sicco Mansholt to honour the famed social democrat farmer, minister and European commissioner.
Dutch veterans take up development aid in former service area
Publish Date: Jul 23, 2008
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AMSTERDAM – Dutch veterans of military and peacekeeping missions frequently return to their former theatre of action to support humanitarian projects. In this way they hope to aid the people they left behind upon the completion of...
Automobile club ANWB at 125 still a loyal partner
Publish Date: Jul 23, 2008
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AMSTERDAM – Automobile club ANWB, with 3.9 million members the largest Dutch interest group by far, recently celebrated its 125th birthday. The society, which already received its royal designation in 1935, was congratulated by Tr...
Freight haulers avoid more costly Dutch fuel suppliers
Publish Date: Jul 23, 2008
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RIJSWIJK – Truckers who rely on diesel fuel are finding it hard to accept the recent 3 cent a liter levy increase in the Netherlands. Dutch freight haulers, who play a major role in Europe, are switching their fuel supply contract...
Motorcycles gaining popularity with higher fuel costs
Publish Date: Jul 23, 2008
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AMSTERDAM – Rising fuel costs are pushing commuters out of cars and onto motorcycles, say enthusiastic Dutch motorcycle riders and European motorcycle makers. The two-wheeler uses less fuel and is easier to park, Amsterdam and man...
Famed building gains funding for restoration
Publish Date: Jul 23, 2008
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EINDHOVEN – The famed Philips Klokgebouw, part of the electronics' maker 24.5 hectare former factory complex, will receive over $3 million for restoration. Built in the 1920s, the building is a national heritage site. The governme...
Public broadcaster caught faking burqa incident
Publish Date: Mar 24, 2008
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THE HAGUE - Broadcaster BNN, a public Dutch group, deliberately misled viewers in a film clip about a woman in a burqa, the all-covering Muslim garment. The broadcaster failed to disclose that the clip shows a staged event where the activity of bystanders was manipulated.
Dutch citizenship day untied from summer vacation season
Publish Date: Mar 24, 2008
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THE HAGUE – The date of a fairly new Dutch national ceremonial day is being moved from August to December. Dutch municipal authorities and the Caribbean islands were unhappy with the August 24 'naturalisatiedag' for immigrants tak...
Prisoners' state benefits to be further curtailed
Publish Date: Mar 24, 2008
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THE HAGUE – Dutch prisoners may soon have to do without their Dutch state pension as well, if junior minister Nebahat Albayrak (Justice) and Ahmed Aboutaleb (Social Affairs) have their way. Earlier, the cabinet suspended other ben...
Enthusiastic minister wants children to enjoy Dutch nature
Publish Date: Mar 24, 2008
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NEELTJE JANS – Look for the attractions at home when considering holiday destinations abroad. A visit to the East Scheldt estuary would be a good start. That was the conclusion of Agriculture minister Gerda Verburg at the opening ...
Staphorst alleyway residents caught in postal delivery bind
Publish Date: Mar 24, 2008
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STAPHORST – Residents of rare alleyways in the tourism weary but very picturesque Dutch town of Staphorst are battling the one-size-fits-all bureaucratic attitude of their postal services and the heritage protection rules of their...
Cacao trade remains a Dutch specialty in Europe
Publish Date: Mar 24, 2008
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RIJSWIJK – The Netherlands is by far the European Union's largest supplier of cacao butter, the commodity used for the production of chocolates and cosmetics. The Dutch imported 450 million kilograms of cacao beans from the Ivory ...
Physician translates expansive series of Talmud into Dutch
Publish Date: Mar 07, 2008
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LEEUWARDEN - A Dutch physician who is translating the Talmud from the Aramaic and Hebrew languages into Dutch, recently presented the first volume of many to the rabbis of Jewish schools in Amsterdam. The Talmud is a record of rab...
Operators on 'de Wallen' face close scrutiny by city
Publish Date: Mar 07, 2008
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AMSTERDAM – It is a tourist destination that causes many problems for officials in the Dutch capital. They are welcoming the news that housing corporations are negotiating the purchase of a number of buildings on ‘the Wallen’ that...
Population of the Netherlands on the rise again
Publish Date: Mar 07, 2008
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VOORBURG - The population of the Netherlands has risen by 46,000 to 16.4 million people. Last year’s increase was twice as big as in 2006 and mostly due to more immigrants arriving and fewer emigrants leaving. The largest group of...
Culture Fund awards grant for ecological heritage church yards
Publish Date: Mar 07, 2008
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AMSTERDAM – Religious Heritage Sites are being showered with special attention during the course of this year. So far, the focus has been on the monumental aspects such as architecture, style, historical significance of the buildi...
Another addition at Elim Village
Oasis amenity building seen as hub of social life
Publish Date: Mar 07, 2008
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SURREY, British Columbia – A key component in Elim Village’s plans was recently dedicated with hundreds of residents and supporters looking on. The new Oasis Amenity Centre was designed as a club building with a large multi-functional 400-seat auditorium, and includes a coffee shop, a wellness centre, and numerous activity rooms. Elim’s board sees Oasis as the new hub of the village's social life.
Success attributed to globalization
Asians boost foreign investments in the Netherlands
Publish Date: Mar 07, 2008
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THE HAGUE – Globalization has had a positive influence on the Dutch economy, Dutch officials believe. They point to the rise in foreign investment in the country as proof of their conclusions. The number of such projects in 2007 represents an increase of 40 percent over the year before. These projects gave the country a rise of 60 percent in new jobs over the same period. The investment totals in 2007 were 25 percent, up from 2006, reports the Netherlands Foreign Investment Agency (NFIA).
Concept spreads beyond Dutch borders
Firm’s anti-squatters stem the tide of squatters’ movement
Publish Date: Mar 07, 2008
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DEN BOSCH, the Netherlands - The phenomenon of Dutch riot police using water cannons to disperse crowds of violent protesters in rundown districts has pretty much disappeared from the news. In the past decades, unoccupied buildings in Dutch cities often attracted illegal occupants by the dozens, creating headlines throughout the western world when at last police emergency units tried to evict the krakers (squatters), from behind barricaded and bolted down entrances. Thanks to firms such as Camelot Beheer, the housing protest movement has sharply diminished in size and rarely takes on the police anymore.
Volunteers clock one million hours
Refurbishing wheelchairs focus of international outreach of Iowa group
Publish Date: Mar 07, 2008
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ORANGE CITY, Iowa - Volunteers at Hope Haven International Ministries, which distributes refurbished wheelchairs to people with disabilities, particularly abroad, recently marked the 1,000,000th hour volunteered to strip and rebuild used wheelchairs. Since 1997, the nine workshops in the so-called Tri-State area in NW Iowa shipped nearly 71,000 such wheelchairs via partnering groups to 104 countries.
Walking Dutchman covered 7,750 kilometres
Boyhood dream set Brabant teacher on ten-country trip to China
Publish Date: Mar 07, 2008
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EINDHOVEN - The recent journey of adventurer Jan Vroomans has shown the world that China is within walking distance of the southern Dutch city of Eindhoven. The 39-year old teacher set out for the backyard of China in October 2007, on foot, pulling his belonging on a two wheeled cart. Vroomans returned fifteen months later via Schiphol Airport at Eindhoven’s railway station, where a large of his group of friends welcomed him home. He ended his journey just three months short of Beijing, after having traveled an estimated distance of 7,750 kilometres.
Vechtdal route begs tourists to explore old freight route
Publish Date: Mar 07, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
HARDENBERG - Tourism agencies increasingly promote cross border routes that extol the beauty of areas easily missed otherwise. One such area is the so-called Vechtdal, the Vecht valley, which straddles the river Vecht between the ...
Northern Dutch university offers services in Russia
Publish Date: Feb 25, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
GRONINGEN – Dutch relations with Russia date from the 1600s when Dutch traders set up shop in Archangel, Russia’s northern most port. Much later, the Dutch helped build what would be President Vladimir Putin’s hometown St. Petersb...
The longest street name discovered in Gramsbergen
Publish Date: Feb 25, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
BRUSSELS – Complaints by householders living on the Clos des Compagnons Batisseurs, a street in Evere near the Belgian capital, prompted Flemish broadcaster VRT to do a search for the longest street name in the country. The Evere ...
Over one million Dutch people have a pauper as an ancestor
Publish Date: Feb 25, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
VEENHUIZEN – Demographic statistician Carel Harmsen of the Dutch Central Bureau for Statistics figures that over a million Dutch citizens have an ancestor who lived in one of the dedicated pauper colonies of Veenhuizen-based Maats...
First customers served roadside from truck
Dutch import store appealed to passersby with potato loss leader
Publish Date: Feb 25, 2008
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NEW WESTMINSTER, British Columbia - Fifty years ago, a laid back intersection on the municipal border of New Westminster and neighbouring Burnaby turned into a regular destination for many Dutch Canadians. At the corner of Tenth Avenue and Kingsway they could find everything from boerenkool, rookworst and roggebrood, all locally grown or made, as well as imported foods to Dutch language books, records and kitchenware. Non-Dutch neighbours were enticed by one of the two stores to come and shop by a loss-leading potato special. Next door, also in a newly opened store, imported Dutch underwear, wool, tablecloths and runners, blankets, and made-to-measure suits and giftware could be bought.
Minister’s report card
Local business climate in Helmond rated best of all
Publish Date: Feb 25, 2008
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THE HAGUE - Helmond’s business has the highest local satisfaction level. Schiedam scored the worst in the survey results sent by Economic Affairs Minister Maria van der Hoeven to the Second Chamber. The survey covered 5,200 businesses and the 31 largest municipalities.
Iowa Dutch ties
Five generations family photograph spans 95 years
Publish Date: Feb 25, 2008
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SHELDON, Iowa – The five generation photograph represents a time frame of 95 years between the most senior and junior personality and as may be assumed is only a small part of the total family picture. Taken in the northwest Iowa town of Sheldon, the five generations are part of a very significant Dutch American concentration which dates from the early 1870s when a number of Dutch migrant settlers arrived in the area. The party came from the crowded Dutch America settlement of Pella which had been founded in 1847 under the leadership of dominee H. Scholten.
Colleagues trick ambulance attendant
Roadside emergency call a farewell party for unsuspecting driver
Publish Date: Feb 25, 2008
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GOES, the Netherlands – Ambulance driver Bram Huissoon had attended every type of emergency in his 32 years on job, involving calls from boats, cars, trucks and railway cars. Wanting to retire quietly without a reception, he hoped to put in a regular relatively uneventful shift, not anticipating an emergency with a pair of planes on his last working day.
Lancaster crew to be honoured with plaque on 65th of crash
Publish Date: Feb 07, 2008
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BOERDONK – The Brabant village of Boerdonk which lost a significant part of its population in the 1950s when many villagers opted to immigrate, will get a plaque to commemorate the crash of an English Lancaster bomber on the night...
Kruispunt TV series on Dutch monasteries popular with viewers
Publish Date: Feb 07, 2008
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HILVERSUM – The Roman Catholic television program Kruispunt keeps attracting record numbers of viewers for its series on monasteries and other subjects, such as on Dutch priest Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, the since retired head of the ...
Small ferry operators in Zeeland want the help promised them
Publish Date: Feb 07, 2008
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MIDDELBURG – Entrepreneurs in the Dutch province of Zeeland who operate ferries for pedestrians and bicyclists who are frequently tourists, have raised concerns that the province has still not come through with its promises for an...
Both clubs soon added social events
Early years of predecessors Edmonton’s Dutch Club focused on soccer
Publish Date: Feb 07, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
EDMONTON, Alberta - If you are a more recent arrival in the Province of Alberta, you may wonder how the Dutch Canadian Club became such a key part of Edmonton’s cultural mosaic. Some of the older DCC-members will tell you, that it all started in April 1953, during the heyday of Dutch immigration to Canada, when young soccer enthusiasts banded together for regular games and fellowship. Fifty-five later, Edmonton’s Dutch Canadian community regularly hears about new activities at the Dutch club but little about the early beginnings. The annual Dutch Market is but one of these. A brief introduction.
All English program
Amsterdam's universities planning a new University College
Publish Date: Feb 07, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE – The Dutch capital soon will be home to a University College, an English language program for students from all over the world.
Minister sees role as EU’s industry hub
The Netherlands may be turning to Russia for more natural gas
Publish Date: Feb 07, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE - The Netherlands wants to extend and strengthen contacts with gas-producing countries, but Dutch Economic Affairs Minister Van der Hoeven seems to be thinking primarily of Russia. She sees her country playing a role as an influential partner in EU’s natural gas market. Although small in size, the Netherlands has a major natural gas field in Groningen and has developed a significant pipeline system to distribute natural gas to the community.
New Dutch carrier to take off
Oil business and Muslim pilgrims targeted by Amsterdam Airline
Publish Date: Jan 23, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
AMSTERDAM – New Dutch carrier Amsterdam Airlines plans to focus on flights for third parties, both in the charter market and in scheduled luxury services.
Dutch biker describes travel in India as a suicide mission
Publish Date: Jan 23, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
HARDENBERG – An enthusiastic biker from this eastern Dutch city returned home safely in time for Christmas after an epic trip across the USA, Australia, Asia and Europe. Jan Mulder and a small group of fellow riders spent over fou...
Houben chapel an international pilgrimage destination
Publish Date: Jan 23, 2008
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MUNSTERGELEEN – The chapel in the parental home of a late Dutch priest has attracted an estimated 250,000 pilgrims in 2007. Father Karel Houben who laboured much of his life in Ireland, was canonized as Saint Charles of Mount Argu...
Pastor counsels denomination against part-time clergy
Publish Date: Jan 23, 2008
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EINDHOVEN – Local pastor Mirjam van Nie, in an article in Woord & Daad, a publication of the Protestant Church in the Netherland (PKN), argues against the increasing frequency of congregations in the merger denomination to appoin...
Several Dutch cooperatives among top 10 of European list
Publish Date: Jan 23, 2008
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BREUKELEN – The Netherlands is well represented on the list of the top 100 European cooperatives, suggests a report compiled by the Nyenrode University. Headed by Brabant-based Vion, a meat processing conglomerate, the list contai...
North Holland Commissioner wants a new Amsterdam port
Publish Date: Jan 23, 2008
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HAARLEM – The Queen’s Commissioner in the Province of North Holland, Borghouts, recently used his annual New Year’s statement to float another proposal to build facilities on the Dutch coast. To ease the congested dock facilities ...
Dutch officials refuse to sign EU’s Serbia association accord
Publish Date: Jan 23, 2008
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THE HAGUE – If Serbia wants to fast-track its application for EU-membership, it will have to comply with the extradition requests by the UN Yugoslavia Tribunal in The Hague. That condition is basic to the Dutch who are eager to bo...
Derogatory remark scuttles joint meeting of representatives
Publish Date: Jan 23, 2008
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WILLEMSTAD – A parliamentary conference between representatives of all parties in the Second Chamber of the Netherlands and the States of the Netherlands Antilles was called off after a stalemate developed over an unparliamentaril...
Merger of Reformed Church groups
CRCNA to host inaugural meeting of combined world bodies
Publish Date: Jan 23, 2008
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GRAND RAPIDS, Michigan – The campus of Calvin College has been selected for the first international meeting of two merging groups of Reformed Churches. The Christian Reformed Church in North America will host the meeting scheduled for June 18-28, 2010.
Plaque unveiling in Ottawa
Dutch Royal family celebrates milestone birthdays in Amsterdam
Publish Date: Jan 23, 2008
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OTTAWA, Ontario - The birthday of the best-known resident of the central Dutch city of Apeldoorn will be marked in Ottawa with a special ceremony at the Civic Campus of the General Hospital. Highlight of the event will be the unveiling of a plaque by Ambassador Karel de Beer of the Netherlands, recognizing the hospital’s staff for keeping the story of the birth of Princess Margriet alive.
Vandals pelt firefighters
New Year's Eve revelers set fire to school buildings and cars
Publish Date: Jan 23, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE – Out of control New Year’s Eve reveling has extracted a heavy toll among school buildings in the Netherlands. Twenty two schools were hit by fire of which three were completely destroyed, insurer Centraal Beheer confirmed. Total damage to the schools is about $30 million.
Looking for votes in Sioux Center
Coffee shop of popular bakery pulls in Sen. McCain
Publish Date: Feb 07, 2008
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SIOUX CENTER, Iowa – A popular local bakery with coffee shop seating recently served as a venue in the long and grueling campaign for the U.S. presidency when Senator John McCain, candidate for the Republication nomination, stopped by looking for support. He is the second presidential hopeful to stop by the bakery. Casey’s Bakery which also sells a line of Dutch imports, was packed with its regulars, with interested voters and McCain supporters.
Surname may pinpoint early roots
Peat soil happy Riet plant basic to a range of Dutch family names
Publish Date: Jan 23, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill Genealogy
Reed culture is very much part of Dutch history and tradition. The landscape, with its numerous rivers, canals, lakes and increasing number of wetland parks, are ideal places to grow and harvest the plant which for centuries has been used to economically supply thatch for houses and farmsteads. Depending on the quality and type of the reed, the Dutch used the material for a range of applications, including reed-based furniture, baskets, mats and woven seats for chairs.
Reed just one of several types of material
Dutch entrepreneurs Dekker often thatched roofs as a summertime sideline
Publish Date: Jan 23, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill Genealogy
Most people have wondered about the significance of their surname at one time or other, and why a distant ancestor would have adopted it. A satisfactory answer to such a question can elude people for decades. Just as often, the answer can be fairly obvious if a serious effort is made to check what the meaning of the name or word was two hundred or more years ago. In some cases, antiquated Dutch or an obscure dialect might make it difficult to trace the meaning. The surname could be one as common as Dekker and still raise plenty of questions as to its origin.
Veer part of numerous surnames
Ferrymen played a crucial role in early Dutch road system
Publish Date: Mar 24, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill Genealogy
Veerman or ferrymen have been navigating Dutch estuaries, rivers and streams for centuries. They were the people who travelers looked to help them get to the other side of the water with dry feet on a ‘floating bridge,’ or ferry. Veerman or ferrymen long played a crucial role in connecting parts of the Dutch road system when most of the country’s bridges only crossed canals within the walls of cities or on heavily traveled routes that could be bridged easily.
Drost, Richter, Scholte and Schulte
Early Dutch surname Schouten has regional Lowland equivalents
Publish Date: Jun 23, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill Genealogy
North Americans wondering about their roots and identity frequently overlook the keyword that has identified them for a lifetime: their surname. If their surname is Schout(en), they can be fairly certain that their name has been used by their ancestors for hundreds of years already. The source of the surname, the office of ‘schout’ in the Dutch government was replaced in the late eighteenth century by ‘openbare aanklagers.’ While the given name Schoute has fallen into disuse its Frisian cousin Schelte 1) still survives to this day.
From Agterhorst to Zwiekhorst
Horsts early farmsteads on elevated former wooded locations
Publish Date: Jul 23, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill Genealogy
Just picture the Lowlands without dikes, canals, ditches and other water-control mechanisms such as waterlocks and sluces. To many people, such a floodprone Delta region would not be very appealing as a habitat. Excess water can be a problem on higher plains too when it cannot drain away, making the wet surroundings difficult to access. Still, inaccessibility can offer protection from intruders and maurading bands. It does not have to surprise anyone that Lowlanders picked the most favourable locations in water-logged regions to settle, at spots that lay just a bit higher than the surrounding area.
New Benelux treaty moves beyond economic union model
Pioneering common voice in Europe
Publish Date: Jun 23, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE — Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, also known as the Benelux, plan to sign a new reciprocal treaty in The Hague, called the Benelux Treaty. Its forerunner has benefited its partners significantly, and the new one will modernize and strengthen the partnership, according to Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Verhagen following a meeting with his Belgian and Luxembourg counterparts in Brussels.
Soccer coach Hiddink best ambassador for Dutch exports
Exporters evaluate spokesmen
Publish Date: Jun 23, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
AMSTERDAM — International Dutch soccer coach Guus Hiddink has been his country’s best ambassador for exports over the last decade. That is the conclusion reached in a study by credit insurer Atradius and the federation of exporting companies Fenedex.
Dutch mountaineers forced to abandon Mt. McKinley adventure
Injuries curtail Alaskan climb
Publish Date: Jun 23, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
TERSCHELLING — Dutch mountaineers Frans Tersmette, a police officer, and Jetze de Beer who were well on their way to scale Mount McKinley in Alaska, have had to abandon their efforts due to injuries. The men were hurt at a camp while preparing for their attempted ascent of the 6194 metre high mountain, one of the most challenging of the world’s peaks.
Jason-2 tracks sea levels down to a millimetre
Publish Date: Jun 23, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
DE BILT — A new satellite, the Jason 2, will be providing exact data on sea levels anywhere in the world. The UN climate agency IPCC anticipates a sea level rise of 18 to 59 centimetres during the course of the 21st century,...
Bakker Commission proposes retirement age at 67 by 2040
Publish Date: Jun 23, 2008
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THE HAGUE — Several proposals by Social Affairs Minister Piet Hein Donner to increase participation in the work force failed to gain traction with two of the three coalition partners. Labour and ChristenUnie balked at moves ...
Dutch ISBN data to be posted on the Internet soon
Publish Date: Jun 23, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
CULEMBORG — An authors group and a book distributor, owned by players in the publishing industry, failed to reach agreement on a crucial matter for the authors: public access to the ISBN-data bank. The data bank contains inf...
Entrepreneurial couple sees future in stinging nettles
Publish Date: Jun 23, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
KRAGGENBURG – Farmers looking for an alternative crop and innovative ideas may want to check out Brennels, which not only grows stinging nettles but also processes the fibers into a new line of environmentally-friendly clothing ma...
Appreciation for Dutch veterans and military on foreign missions
Publish Date: Jun 23, 2008
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HAVELTE – The recent high profile missions of the Dutch military have resulted in the need for greater recognition of those serving their country in dangerous places. Among the steps taken is an event to which the nearest family o...
New insider book reveals role of ‘armed support service’
Dutch wartime resistance work focused on hiding people
Publish Date: Jun 09, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill World War II
How does one organize the disappearance of over 300,000 people 1) with as few people as possible noticing they have ‘moved away?’ How does one find hiding places for that many people without neighbours in a densely populated country becoming aware of strangers living next door or down the street? How does one supply food for that many unregistered roommates or illegal guests in a society where everything has been tightly regulated with ration cards, stamps, identification papers and various permits, all enforced by a highly efficient bureaucracy and by brute force?
Dutch-American conference set
Dutch immigration to Wisconsin predate Michigan settlements
Publish Date: Jun 09, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill Immigration
SHEBOYGAN, Wisconsin — The Sheboygan County Historical Research Center will be hosting a conference titled "The Dutch-American Experience in Wisconsin: 1840-Present" on September 25 through 27. The Dutch immigrant experience in the state originates with those from in and around the province of Gelderland, near the border with Germany. Dutch passengers on the ill-fated ship Phoenix, of whom the majority perished in the 1847 disastrous fire near the vessel’s destination, had emigrated from that region as well. The state also attracted many immigrants from North Brabant who mostly joined the Roman Catholic settlement of Little Chute.
Chalk-drawn protest in Amsterdam
Political cartoonist Bierman first challenged Nazis on sidewalks
Publish Date: Jun 09, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
VICTORIA, BC — Dutch Canadian political cartoonist Bob Bierman will always be remembered for goading another prominent Dutch Canadian into suing him after he was caricatured pulling wings off flies. That libel suit, launched by then-human resources minister Bill VanderZalm, and future British Columbia premier, was the first ever to be filed over a political cartoon in Canada.
Huge fire turns sawmill to ashes
Fire fighters saved giant wooden shoe from burning
Publish Date: Jun 09, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
STEEN, Minnesota — A giant wooden shoe, maybe even North America’s largest, is all that survived a at the sawmill operated by third-generation Dutch American Erwin Bonestroo and his wife Jan. FTB Sawmill, which among others things, creates one-of-a-kind furniture and fireplace mantels from discarded wood, was completely destroyed recently in a disastrous fire. Fire fighters tried moving the wooden shoe out of the way, but could not. Instead, they just kept it wet.
Minister bypasses cabinet with in vitro fertilization announcement
Publish Date: Jun 09, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE — Junior Health Minister Jet Bussemaker (Labour) has withdrawn her plans to allow women with a genetic form of breast cancer to filter out their dangerous gene in in vitro fertilization. When Bussemaker announced s...
Dutch hydraulic expertise could help solve Middle East issues
Publish Date: Jun 09, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE — Dutch Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Verhagen received novel marketing advice from parliamentarian Karien van Gennip during the debate on the budget for his department. She wants the minister to sell Israël, Jor...
Reintegration program for juvenile ex-convicts may become mandatory
Publish Date: Jun 09, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE — If it is up to Dutch Junior Justice Minister Nebahat Albayrak (Labour) juvenile convicts will have to follow a mandatory reintegration program after they complete their sentence. The proposed changes will add a c...
Wartime crash site marked by new monument
Publish Date: Jun 09, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
ELSPEET — Local history groups throughout the country keep pushing for the erection of monuments and other markers in recognition of wartime events such as the crash in the night of February 19, 1944 of an English bomber at ...
This spijkerman did not need hammer and nails for his job
Latin at the root of very old surname
Publish Date: May 23, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill Genealogy
The Dutch surname Timmerman (carpenter) most certainly represents a better tradition with a hammer than does a Spijkerman. While a timmerman requires spijkers (nails) to successfully carry on his trade, a Spijkerman should attribute the origin of his name to a very distant ancestor who very likely lived at a Spijker, where he may have taken in grain (spica) and other crops as payments for rent and other debts on behalf of his estate owner or tax franchise holder. Spijkerman, Spiekerman, Spijksma and Van ’t Spijker, along with many more obscure variations, all share the same Latin origin, spicarium (Spijker or granary). The surname Spijk(man) offers several options, it could be a shortened version of Spijkerman but just as likely refers to a ”landtong” in a meandering river or coastline.
Sharing news remains the Windmill Herald’s focus at 50
News bulletin filled a gap in 1958
Publish Date: May 23, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
The outflow of unprecedented numbers of emigrants from the Netherlands, particularly to Canada, was already subsiding by the time in 1958 that the first issues of an as yet unnamed newsletter were being delivered by letter carriers. In fact, the bold moves of acquaintances Hans Blom and Johan de Haas in setting up retail stores to serve the local Dutch immigrant community, can be seen as part of a new era in the life of this emerging group. Dutch Canadians were consolidating, and flexing their entrepreneurial muscles in a new environment. The rise of the community’s (import) business core, among other things enriched the new Canadian (and American) experience with back-home flavours and familiar products.
Crowds in Australia line up for arrival of violin king Rieu
Dutch musician discovers continent
Publish Date: May 23, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
SYDNEY, Australia — Thousands of fans lined several blocks down a Sydney street to meet their “man” from Maastricht, the Netherlands to get their DVDs autographed. With André Rieu’s first tour of the continent “down under,” Australians are quickly warming up to the Dutch violinist and conductor’s popular brand of classical music.
Ten years after original decision, Euro a great success
Publish Date: May 23, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
BRUSSELS — EU Commissioner Joaquin Almunia (Monetary Affairs) acknowledges that much remains to be done to better control economic and budgetary issues, but is very pleased the way the Euro currency has developed. In a time ...
Final tests raise anxiety levels for over 200,000 Dutch students
Publish Date: May 23, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
AMSTERDAM — The month of May, when government mandated tests occur, is a stressful time for many Dutch secondary students. Broken down by educational programs, there are 115,000 students in the vmbo program, 52,000 in the ha...
Government looking for ways to reduce paper burden of police
Publish Date: May 23, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
VENLO — Dutch citizens wants to see more ‘blue uniforms’ on the country’s streets. Complaints about the limited visibility of the police were documented in a recent report to the government. The was reason enough for junior ...
Film crew followed flock of sheep along scenic Utrecht route
Publish Date: May 23, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
ZEIST — Flocks of sheep have returned to the countryside and roads of the Netherlands, where entrepreneurial shepherds rent-a-flock to graze difficult to mow parks and road shoulders. Groups of enthusiasts have also reintroduced r...
Tollgates left their many marks on a wide range of Dutch surnames
Publish Date: Apr 23, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill Genealogy
Topography, history and family identity are all subjects that come to mind when considering the origin of Lowlander surnames and place names. Many of these names, such as Tol, Tollenaar, Van Tol, Tolstra and their many variations, tell an interesting story. While some of these surnames may only have become permanent since about 1811 as a result of Napoleon’s surname decree, others such as the Van Tol ‘brand’ have very old currency. The Tol with the ‘stra’ ending is easily identified as Frisian by most Dutch people but that the Van Tols also have a very local origin is likely news to many people. As well, the story of the Tol-surnames is tied to a thousand year long Dutch history.
Liberation Day event features WWII underground worker Eman
Publish Date: Apr 23, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill World War II
CAMBRIDGE, Ontario – Elderly World War II Dutch resistance veteran Diet Eman, whose experiences were published in the book Things We Couldn’t Say, and filmed in the dvd The Reckoning will return to Southwestern Ontario to speak at the Cambridge Liberation Day commemoration on May 10.
Government tightens rules for Sunday store openings
Publish Date: Apr 23, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE — The Balkenende-cabinet has agreed to tighten the regulations for store openings on Sundays. Municipalities are currently allowed a maximum of 12 Sunday shopping days a year. They could easily increase this number by declaring that opening on more Sundays serves tourism. The cabinet will be redefining what constitutes 'tourism.'
Dutch national debt drops slightly to $400 billion
Publish Date: Apr 23, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE - Following decades of (significant) budget deficits, the Netherlands last year recorded its second surplus year in a row. Dutch government expenditures rose by 4.3 percent in 2007 while revenues increased by 4.1 percent. Dutch national debt declined by $3.3 billion to nearly $400 billion, according to the Central Bureau for Statistics.
Protestant synod settled over half of property claims
Publish Date: Apr 23, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
UTRECHT — In the wake of the 2004 merger of three Dutch denominations which now form the Protestant Church in the Netherlands (PKN), the synod of the merger church has now settled property issues with about half of the sixty...
University hospitals join forces to study malnourishment effects
Publish Date: Apr 23, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
UTRECHT – Two Dutch university hospitals are researching the health effects of the 1944-1945 hunger winter on women and girls, then between the ages of 2 to 33. By tracing the medical history of the young toddlers of that time and...
Dutch fishermen often haul up unexploded ammunition
Publish Date: Apr 23, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
SCHEVENINGEN – The Dutch are reminded continually of World War II when reports about the after effects make the news. As part of the publicity on recent naval exercises, Dutch fishermen were urgently reminded to report every ammun...
Bronze Age find in Limburg reason to rethink history
Publish Date: Jan 08, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
VENLO — A major archeological find of bronze weaponry in Central Limburg in the 1970s has caused archeologists and historians to rethink theories about the level of manufacturing sophistication by the Celts in the Bronze Age...
Giant international Dutch dairy cooperatives talking merger
Publish Date: Jan 08, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
ZALTBOMMEL — Two Dutch international dairy cooperatives are holding merger talks and, if successful, could form the world's third largest of its kind. Brabant-based Campina and Friesland Foods have joint sales of nearly $12 ...
Excessive New Year’s Eve rowdiness produces calls for snelrecht
Publish Date: Jan 08, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
APELDOORN — New Year's Eve celebrations increasingly have become rowdy events, which require extensive attention of the police, of firefighters and of ambulance attendants. The problems do not end there, as the night of Dece...
Historic village to return to former island status
Publish Date: Jan 08, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
HAARLEM — The 1930s reclamation works Wieringermeer enclosed the former island of Wieringen in a newly drained polder, which was named after the historic fishing village. This engineering work put a stop to the advancing lan...
Dutch language gained about 3650 new words in 2007
Publish Date: Jan 08, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
AMSTERDAM — The vocabulary in the Dutch language keeps evolving and increasing. In the past year, editors at Van Dale (the Dutch Websters) registered about 3650 new words. Although hard to translate without an explanation, t...
Private sector bonuses to be taxed through a new levy
Generous rewards face a cap
Publish Date: Jan 08, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE — Information provided by Dutch Junior Finance Minister, staatssecretaris, Jan Kees de Jager suggests that the government is planning to tax large bonuses in the private sector. The extremely generous bonuses are a thorn in the flesh of particularly Labour (PvdA) and other left of centre parties which placed the issue on the political agenda in the Netherlands. The taxation of the bonuses replaces the original idea to abolish the deductibility of pension premiums from annual incomes of over 185,000 euros.
DUCA shares millions in profits with members
New Year's Day bonus
Publish Date: Jan 08, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
TORONTO — Some banking customers in Ontario got a surprise deposit on New Year’s Day. DUCA Financial Services Credit Union distributed $5.9 million in Bonus Shares, giving as much as $1,000 to some of its customers who also are its members. The Bonus Share program rewards DUCA members for their patronage and has paid over $41 million since the first issue in 1999.
Rotterdam nets European record with 10 million containers in one year
Maas port first to surpass mark
Publish Date: Jan 08, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
ROTTERDAM — The port of Rotterdam is the first in Europe to surpass the 10 million container units (TEUs) handled in a single year. To celebrate this milestone, Port of Rotterdam Authority CEO Hans Smits presided over the forwarding of a specially painted container at the ECT Delta terminal.
Albert Heijn tests fully automated order system for its branches
Publish Date: Dec 24, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
AMSTERDAM — Dutch grocery chain Albert Heijn is currently testing a new order system which directly links cash registers to the inventory system of its Pijnacker distribution centre, one of a number in the Netherlands supply...
Vatican appoints conservative physician-theologian Archbishop
Publish Date: Dec 24, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
UTRECHT — The Vatican has appointed a new face at the Archdiocese of Utrecht, the Dutch kerkprovincie of the Roman Catholic Church. Mgr. Wim Eijk, currently Bishop of the northern Diocese of Groningen-Leeuwarden, will be ins...
Drees family turns private papers over to National Archives
Publish Date: Dec 24, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE — The Dutch National Archives recently launched a virtual exhibit on postwar Dutch premier Willem Drees who governed from 1948 to 1958. The depository already housed a collection on Drees' public life and also rece...
Cold War fortification unearthed again as a heritage site
Publish Date: Dec 24, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
OLST — Following the World War Two occupation by German troops, Dutch governments have been more diligent in their preparation to ward off another invasion. At the height of the Cold War, Dutch authorities built the IJssel l...
Dutch housing supply does not respond to price levels
Dutch control an impediment
Publish Date: Dec 24, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE — The steadily rising housing costs in the Netherlands has largely been caused by the government. Additionally, the upward price trend has scarcely prompted more housing construction or better housing, report the Central Planning Bureau (CPB).
Schiedam-based salvager uses robots to work at great depths
High demand for newcomer
Publish Date: Dec 24, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
SCHIEDAM — Dutch specialist firms Wijsmuller and Smit have established a long and solid tradition in the business of rescuing ships in distress and taking them to safe ports. Newcomer Mammoet Salvage has added a new dimension to such operations, unloading sunken ships at depths in excess of fifty metres.
AEGON finalizes Taiwan life insurance and pension joint venture
Partners with banking group
Publish Date: Dec 24, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
TAIPEI, Taiwan — Taishin Financial Holding Co. Ltd. and AEGON N.V. have finalized a joint venture agreement to develop and distribute life insurance and pension products in Taiwan. The joint venture is expected to be operational by mid 2008, subject to final approval by regulatory authorities.
Second Chamber asks commission to study plans for new islands
Dutch engineers targeting North Sea coast
Publish Date: Dec 24, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
AMSTERDAM – Dutch dredgers which have been using their polder-building experience of the fifties and the sixties of the twentieth century in other parts of the world to build very innovative projects, could also get the opportunity to create a new island off the Dutch North Sea coast. The Second Chamber recently approved a call to develop a new land reclamation in the shape of a tulip to offset overcrowding in the Randstad and shield the coastline from the effects of the anticipated rise of the North Sea.
The legendary liberator of Zwolle - Excerpt
Private Léo Major captures 93 POW’s
Publish Date: Dec 07, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
Léo Major, one of the unsung heroes of the Canadian army, get's plenty of praise in the Netherlands. In fact, Léo Major is billed as the liberator of the Dutch provincial capital of Zwolle, then home to about 50,000 people. When Canadian troops approached the city Leo and his army buddy Willy Arsenault volunteered to penetrate the enemy-held town to assess it in advance of the impending attack. Leo’s reconnaissance is a must read. Canadian retired Nick Veenhof who was there when Zwolle was liberated, researched the story of Léo and saw it published in the 2007 Christmas / New Years supplement of the Windmill Herald. Below is an excerpt covering another episode involving Léo Major, long before he got to Zwolle.
Dutch lead effort in cataloguing and recording history of Russian city
Publish Date: Dec 07, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
ST. PETERSBURG, Russia – Foreign churches in the Baltic Sea port of St. Petersburg not only played a crucial role as religious communities but also were important for the city from a cultural perspective. That point was made by Dutch church historian, Prof. Dr. N. Holtrop, during the presentation of his new book on the city’s history of foreign churches, which cover the period of 1703 to 1917. A Dutch Reformed Church was always part of St. Petersburg’s history during those two centuries.
Engineers to build smart dike equipped with monitors and sensors
Publish Date: Dec 07, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
NIEUWESCHANS – Dutch engineers will soon be testing a dike outfitted with sensors and monitors. They hope to find a way by which they can extract early warnings about weaknesses in the dikes that are part of the IJkdijk project. R...
Sinterklaas by far most popular Dutch tradition
Publish Date: Dec 07, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
UTRECHT – The Dutch rate their Sinterklaas festivities as the most important tradition, concludes a study commissioned by the Nederlands Centrum voor Volkscultuur. Ninety percent of the respondents picked Sinterklaas as their top ...
National Committee cataloguing WWII sites to revive interest in history
Publish Date: Dec 07, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
AMSTERDAM – There are numerous sites in the Netherlands that the National Committee May 4 and 5 classifies as ‘oorlogssporen.’ The group has catalogued these sites which include bunkers, defense lines, buildings and other military...
Failure of physicians cause patients to seek out alternative healers
Publish Date: Dec 07, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
UTRECHT – Nearly three out of four Dutch physicians see disappointments with traditional healthcare as the main reasons why patients flock to alternative healers. About two out of three physicians acknowledge that the regular medi...
TNT sees opportunities and challenges in China
Publish Date: Dec 07, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
SHANGHAI, China - Dutch postal giant TNT, the former state-owned PTT, hopes that its investments in China will propel it into a leading parcel delivery service there just as it is in Europe. Active in many countries, TNT already p...
Historic river port Dordrecht hosts world’s largest tugboat show
Home of tugboat industry
Publish Date: Nov 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
DORDRECHT, the Netherlands - The second edition of ‘Vaart in Dordt’ has catapulted itself into the Guinness Book of World Records with its parade of nearly 160 tugboats. The noteworthy two-hour parade stretched a distance of about six kilometers. The record-breaking tugboat event was organized by Binnenvaart, a fan club for anyone with ties to the river barge cargo industry.
Writer wants to interview Westerwolde emigrants for book
Plans to tour North America
Publish Date: Nov 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
WINSCHOTEN, the Netherlands – Publicist and writer Harry Wubs, who for nearly forty years worked as a reporter for a regional daily newspaper, wants to make contact with people who left the Groningen quarter of Westerwolde for a new life in Canada and the U.S. Wubs plans to visit North America in 2008, and where possible visit former Westerwolde residents and interview them for a book he hopes to write on Westerwolde’s emigrants.
Career ranged from delivering groceries to building fleet of tankers
Industrious entrepreneur succumbs at age 82
Publish Date: Nov 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
ABBOTSFORD, BC – The entrepreneur and freight hauler whose company for decades collected an increasing part of the milk produced at British Columbia’s dairy farms, recently passed away at the age of 82. Patricus Jansen joined the then fledgling Vedder Transport as a partner in 1956, immediately after taking a job with the trucking firm. He remained a partner with the Wiebe brothers until his retirement 35 years later. Several Jansen family members still work for the firm.
Characters of New York satirist helped create American tradition
Dour St Nicholas became jolly Santa
Publish Date: Nov 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
The jolly old Santa Claus character first came to the attention of Americans following the release of the book "Knickerbocker's History of New York," in which the then still obscure author Washington Irving (under his pseudonym Diedrich Knickerbocker) gleefully satirized the early Dutch settlers of New York and their traditions. The book which became a classic, also poked fun at Saint Nicholas. Irving’s humorous reinterpretation of the Dutch patron saint heralded the start of a new legend, which since has grown to global proportions.
Record-setting Windmill book covers a distance of 140 metres
Publish Date: Nov 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
LEIDSCHENDAM – The Year of the Windmills has produced another Dutch world record: a pictorial book stretching a length of 140 metres. No other book can make such a claim, say the Zuid-Holland millers. A regular edition featuring t...
Inspections of crossings reveal various deficiencies
Publish Date: Nov 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE – Dutch officials have conducted a thorough inspection of their country’s numerous bridges. They discovered metal fatique in 25 bridges, prompting them to fast track remedial action for 12. None required immediate interv...
Dutch research respondents favour tougher line policing
Publish Date: Nov 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
DEN BOSCH – Dutch Canadians and Dutch Americans returning to the Netherlands have frequently commented on the assertive approach Dutch people take when, for example, boarding buses and trains. A recent market research study asked ...
Dutch customs clearance second fastest in the world
Publish Date: Nov 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE – Dutch businesses importing merchandise and materials receive very efficient service, reports a study by the World Bank. The conclusion is based on responses from eight hundred freight forwarders and other logistics spe...
Declining church membership bottomed out in the Netherlands
Publish Date: Nov 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
UTRECHT – A new report suggests that the downward trend in the number of people who are aligned with Dutch churches has leveled off. In recent times, each new decade saw a diminishing interest among people in maintaining ties with...
Dutch expert hopeful neglected Mennonite windmills can be restored
Gdansk area once had 300 windmills
Publish Date: Nov 07, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
HOORN, the Netherlands – The major landmarks of Mennonite colonies seem to be windmills, in certain places these buildings apparently dotted the landscape just like they did in the Netherlands at one time. The plight of these early facsimiles of Mennonite industrial production, one no longer required, has been one of abandonment and neglect. Much to the chagrin of Polish photographer Marek Opitz, who turned towards the land of windmills for help with the windmills in his own area.
Hofman unexpectedly abandons his appeal by pleading guilty to fraud
Dutch Canadian to be resentenced in Australia
Publish Date: Nov 07, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
CAIRNS, Queensland, Australia - Piet Cornelius Walters, in North America known as Fred Sybold Hofman, the Canadian accountant and ‘financial advisor’ who disappeared in 1991, has pleaded guilty to defrauding Cairns region investors of nearly $1 million in a bogus investment scheme. Appearing before the Cairns District Court, Walters unexpectedly pleaded guilty to the 14 charges on which he had previously been convicted and successfully appealed.
New U.S. container security law likely to benefit Rotterdam port
Hugely costly upgrades for older facilities
Publish Date: Nov 07, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
ROTTERDAM - The new American law that makes it mandatory for ports to scan every container shipped to the United States, creates major problems for European ports which are lacking behind in upgrading their systems. Rotterdam’s facilities are continually the subject of upgrades.
Transcribed Dutch admiralty records a treasure of genealogical data
Frisians sailed for Zeeland commanders
Publish Date: Nov 07, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
LEEUWARDEN, the Netherlands – The employment records of the various pre-1800 Dutch admiralty offices in recent years have become a new but largely untapped source of genealogical information. Due to the tireless efforts of former Dutch navy officer and researcher P.F. Poortvliet, the records of Zeeland’s admiralty have been transcribed from handwritten seventeenth and eighteenth century lists, published as ”De bemanningen van de schepen van de Admiraliteit van Zeeland” (The crews of the ships of the Admirality of Zeeland).
Radical Muslims stage coup at a Dutch public broadcaster
Forced merger backfires
Publish Date: Nov 07, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE - Radical Muslims may have taken control of the Dutch Muslim Broadcaster (NMO). At least three of the public broadcaster's eight directors are considered to extremely controversial.
The Netherlands strengthens its ties with EU partner France
Premiers identify priorities
Publish Date: Nov 07, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE – Dutch Premier Jan Peter Balkenende and his French colleague Prime Minister Fillon want to strengthen the bilateral relations between their respective countries. In a joint statement, they said they will make every effort to strengthen the innovative clout and sustainability of their economies.
Architects design new high profile Dutch railway stations
Publish Date: Nov 07, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
UTRECHT – Dutch architects hired by the railway company NS have unveiled designs for new railway stations which incorporate applications well beyond the traditional mandate of the NS which was to move people from A to B. The new U...
Growing wild boar population encroaches on humans
Publish Date: Nov 07, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
DRIEBERGEN – As a densely populated country, the Netherlands is continually making adjustments to accommodate a huge number of domesticated animals as well as those living in the wild. Rising populations easily encroach on each ot...
Virtual Roman Catholic museum seen as educational tool
Publish Date: Nov 07, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
NIJMEGEN – A new website targeting youths aged 16 and over, aims to promote awareness of the history of Dutch Roman Catholicism. An initiative of the Radboud University Nijmegen and its Katholiek Documentatie Centrum, the website,...
Dutch public weary of foreign takeovers of business icons
Publish Date: Nov 07, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
AMSTERDAM – Over half of the Dutch public is concerned about foreign takeovers of leading Dutch businesses, reports a polling firm. This finding was based on a survey of 800 respondents. Older people particularly regret such trans...
Store’s golden anniversary emphasizes generational changes
Owners, customers and products evolving
Publish Date: Oct 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
BURLINGTON, Ontario - Continuing a Dutch imports and delicatessen store beyond generational ‘time’ zones has for many families in the business been a significant challenge, often turning out to be ’a bridge too far.’ Retired entrepreneur Bert Vlaanderen and his wife Anita, who opened The Dutch Shop in Burlington 50 years ago, not only saw their son Brian take it over 21 years ago, they recently saw their granddaughter Jessica successfully digitalize the store’s inventory system. Jessica and her sister Bethany can regularly be seen at work in the store.
Veteran MPP Witmer wins fifth term in Ontario election
Avoided religious school controversy
Publish Date: Oct 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
WATERLOO, Ontario – Veteran Waterloo-Kitchener Member of Provincial Parliament Elizabeth Witmer recently swept to her fifth straight victory in her electoral riding in the province’s heartland. In a campaign which locally was characterized as one fielding strong and well-known female candidates, the daughter of a Dutch immigrant family proved unbeatable.
Dutch Canadian webmaster keeps alive the memory of missing women
Police double list to eighteen
Publish Date: Oct 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
PRINCE GEORGE, British Columbia – A RCMP probe into a series of missing or murdered women cases in Northern British Columbia has been expanded, doubling the number of files being examined. The oldest added case dates from 1969, the most recent one from last year.
Cocaine smugglers used dead insects to hide illicit drugs
Unusual packaging revealed
Publish Date: Oct 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE - Dutch customs officials have discovered dead insects stuffed with cocaine shipped in a postal package from Peru.
Scanners had shown an anomalous picture. This lead customs agents to take a closer look at the package, which turned out to contain over 100 dead insects. The large insects each had an opening in the back into which the drugs had been inserted.
Internet home to digital image bank of Dutch 3,000 churches
Collection started in 1965
Publish Date: Oct 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
GRONINGEN, the Netherlands - A research institute at Groningen University has posted on its website about 60,000 images of 3,000 Dutch churches. The collection of images which was started in 1965 and includes both Protestant and Roman Catholic buildings, are listed by place names. The addition of descriptions to the largely black and white photograph collection has been started. The institute sells copies of interior and exterior images for €12.50 each.
DNA confirms identity of drowned bargeman after nearly 120 years
Remains belonged to Jan Kisjes
Publish Date: Oct 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
LELYSTAD, the Netherlands – The human bones found thirty years ago near a shipwreck excavation site have been identified as those belonging to the freight barge’s owner, who disappeared during a storm on the Zuiderzee in November 1888. A great grandson of the bargeman recently donated his DNA for the research project which helped close an unfinished chapter in the Kisjes family history.
Delft Blue maker attracts fewer American and Japanese visitors
Weak currencies a problem
Publish Date: Oct 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
DELFT, the Netherlands – Famed earthenware maker Royal Porceleyne Fles, one of the oldest earthenware companies still in operation, will be targeting a different market. The authentic Delft Blue producer is attracting fewer American and Japanese tourists and those who tour the premises spend fewer euros, due to their weakened currencies. Instead, the centuries old firm wants to attract tourists from other EU countries.
Efficient Dutch postal services TNT ready to deliver abroad
Publish Date: Oct 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
LUXEMBOURG – Postal services such as TNT (the Netherlands), Deutsche Post (Germany) and La Poste (France) are eagerly awaiting the challenge of delivering regular mail in a much larger territory than their current home base. These...
Dual nationality issue keeps returning to political agendas
Publish Date: Oct 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE – The controversy over immigrants who take out Dutch citizenship but also hold onto their original nationality as well, is back in the news in the Netherlands. The plan to pare back the number holding dual citizenship ha...
Plans for privatization of Schiphol airport to be scrapped
Publish Date: Oct 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE – The ongoing controversy over the privatization of Schiphol airport has turned another page now that current Finance Minister Wouter Bos has reversed the decision of his liberal conservative predecessor Gerrit Zalm. In ...
New Bible translation receives a mixed report at synod CGK
Publish Date: Oct 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
NUNSPEET – The Synod of the Christian Reformed Churches (CGK, in North America it has ties with the Free Reformed) has received two conflicting reports on the New Bible Translation (NBV) which since its release has found its way i...
Breakfast a lonely affair for most Dutch people
Publish Date: Oct 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
GORINCHEM - One in four people in the Netherlands regularly leave home in the morning without first having breakfast. Others, who do sit down for something to eat, are done in twelve minutes. The Dutch prefer a traditional breakfa...
Amsterdan Jews developed unique customs and rituals
Publish Date: Oct 08, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
AMSTERDAM - A new book by a Dutch rabbi presents an overview of Amsterdam’s Jewish religious traditions and practices throughout the centuries. Evers, the rector of the Dutch-Israeli Seminarium, translated and reworked the text fr...
Fruit parade, harbour days and music festival attracted great crowds
Publish Date: Oct 08, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
TIEL - About 90,000 onlookers lined the annual parade route through Dutch fruit capital Tiel for a look at fifteen beautifully decorated and fruit laden floats. Tiel, which is located in the Betuwe region, an area between the grea...
Country’s top floral parade exits at age sixty
Publish Date: Oct 08, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
AALSMEER - A very popular Dutch floral parade, the bloemencorso Aalsmeer attracted about 110,000 onlookers for its sixtieth and final edition recently. Forty decorated floats and vehicles participated in one of the country’s most ...
Koggenland starts recovery of two downed WWII Allied bombers
Publish Date: Oct 08, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
BERKHOUT - A Dutch mayor recently informed surviving family of the crew members of a downed WWII British bomber that the remains of their loved ones had been unearthed. The bomber, a Hampden MKI, crashed in the night of November 8...
The Dutch host over 10 million tourists for a second year in the row
Publish Date: Oct 08, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
LEIDSCHENDAM - It is come and go in the Netherlands, a pin-sized country with over 16 million people. For two years in a row, it was host to over 10 million tourists, a new high. Germans (2.8 million), the British (1.9 million) an...
Udink family’s vanity license plates considered offensive
State dissects Dutch name
Publish Date: Oct 08, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
MERLIN, Oregon - The state of Oregon has ordered a family to turn in the vanity license plates on its cars because their Dutch last name, which is printed on the plates, is similar to an offensive word.
Decommissioned barge returns for warm welcome in floating parade
Arrived in town by truck
Publish Date: Oct 08, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
DEDEMSVAART / HASSELT, the Netherlands – Hauling freight is something the Dutch transportation industry does well, whether on land, by inland water barge or in the sky. To move a bulkey, heavy 22 metre long freight barge by truck is not an every day job for even a Dutch transportation firm. Although a costly job, the unusual arrival of Dedemsvaart’s turfschip at Hasselt’s wharf Admiraal generated plenty of publicity for the upcoming sail event Hassailt, and was also a boost for historical society Avereest, the ship’s owner.
Willemsorde recipient Hazelhoff-Roelfzema popularized WWII resistance history
Soldier of Orange dead at age 90
Publish Date: Oct 08, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
HONOKA’A, Hawaii - He lived the life that movies are made of. That is the way a local daily in Hawaii summarized the life and career of the most widely known WWII Dutch resistance man, Engelandvaarder and Dutch wartime soldier, Sarabaya-born Erik Hazelhoff-Roelfzema. A resident of Hawaii since the early 1970s, Hazelhoff-Roelfzema recently died at home, at the age of 90.
Cable lift pioneer from Harlingen built Gdansk bastion and dikes
Mennonite refugee hero in Polish city
Publish Date: Oct 08, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
HARLINGEN, The Netherlands - The headline in a Dutch daily announced: Harlingen pioneer unknown in his hometown, Adam Wybe built a revolutionary cable lift in Danzig in 1644. After all those years, Danzig (Gdansk) still remembers the Frisian migrant with a Wiebe Wall, a Wiebe Square, a Wiebe armory, and a Bastion Wiebe. East Prussians and the Polish remain acquainted with their fortress builder and water works engineer, even though his name was forgotten at home. A subtle reminder, that about 435 years ago, Dutch religious dissenters became refugees abroad.
Toronto workshop on Dutch genealogy a rarity in North America
A first for longtime Maryland family historian
Publish Date: Sep 24, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
TORONTO, Ontario – The series of Dutch genealogy workshops recently held by the Toronto branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society last month, were fully booked and lauded as an overwhelming success. The workshops attracted people interested in family history and roots from far beyond the Ontario borders and received raving reviews from participants. Elaine Obbink Zimmerman, whose great-grandfather left Aalten, Gelderland in 1867 for Cedargrove, Wisconsin, and her husband Ken, both professional genealogists in Maryland, had during their career never attended a conference in North America with a lecture on Dutch genealogy. The Toronto group of the OGS hopes to schedule a follow-up event in the future.
Publisher awarded membership in Order of Orange-Nassau
At August 15 remembrance
Publish Date: Sep 24, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
ANAHEIM, California – De Indo publisher and editor Rene Creutzburg, who for over forty years has promoted the roots and identity of the Indo community from his California home, was recently named a Member in the Order of Orange-Nassau. The honour was awarded at the August 15 remembrance, held at the Avio Dutch American club building.
Finance minister calls accusations of selling out a myth
Controversy over foreign raiders
Publish Date: Sep 24, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
AMSTERDAM - Finance Minister Wouter Bos (Labour, PvdA) calls it a myth that ‘The Netherlands Inc.’ is becoming a prey to foreign raiders. Bos dismissed such charges at a recent seminar of the Holland Finance Centre, a foundation promoting the Netherlands as a favourable location for the financial sector.
Roaster Alfred Peet influenced the way the world drinks coffee
Initially supplied Starbucks
Publish Date: Sep 24, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
ASHLAND, Oregon - Alfred H. Peet, a Dutch-born coffee merchant who changed the way Americans experience a cup of coffee, recently passed away at his home at age 87. Mr. Peet, described in the beverage industry as the “grandfather of specialty coffee,” started his business in 1966, with a single retail coffee bean outlet in Berkeley, California, that blossomed into a public company that carries his name, with 150 stores in 10 U.S. states.
DRC denomination changes name to Christian Reformed Church
Sri Lankan parliament adopts proposal
Publish Date: Sep 24, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka - After several years of waiting, the Sri Lankan Parliament has passed a bill officially changing the name of the Dutch Reformed Church to the Christian Reformed Church. The church had requested a name change, hoping to have it passed by its 350th anniversary in 1992. However, it needed a private members motion in Parliament to make the change legal, and such motions are considered only rarely.
EC drops its ten percent fallow rule for crop farmers
Publish Date: Sep 24, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
BRUSSELS – The European Commission, the cabinet of the EU, wants crop farmers to stop fallowing any of their acreages because of concerns about possible crop commodity shortages. The EU compels farmers each year to take one tenth ...
Buckhorst estate’s potential as tourism draw investigated
Publish Date: Sep 24, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
ZALK – Local and provincial authorities are investigating whether parts of the Buckhorst estate, from 1813-1840 the residence of Overijssel’s governor B.H. baron Bentinck, can be restored. Initially, a project group is putting its...
Bishop Muskens gets little support at home for Allah as God’s name
Publish Date: Sep 24, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
BREDA – The suggestion by Roman Catholic bishop Muskens that the Dutch can call also God Allah, has gained him little support on the issue. In a special release, the diocese explained that the bishop gave a personal opinion which ...
Giant natural gas producer to refocus on core activities
Publish Date: Sep 24, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
ASSEN – The Netherlands Oil Company (NAM) plans to refocus itself on a few core activities: producing natural gas at its Groningen field, underground storage of natural gas at the Grijpskerk and Langelo locations, the possible ups...
Canada signs another mutual customs information sharing agreement
Seventh border with the Netherlands
Publish Date: Sep 07, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
OTTAWA - Canada and the Netherlands have concluded a Customs Mutual Assistance Agreement. The document was initialed by the President of the Canada Border Services Agency, Alain Jolicoeur, and Ambassador Karel P.M. de Beer of the Netherlands.
New website helps firms study European locations for branch plants
Dutch agency launches 'LocationEurope.com'
Publish Date: Sep 07, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
NEW YORK - As part of a broad marketing effort targeting small-to-midsize North American companies considering their initial investment in Europe, the Netherlands Foreign Investment Agency (NFIA) has launched an interactive website. This site, www.locationeurope.com is designed to help foreign companies establish operations on the continent.
Swifterbant discovers undisturbed 6,000 year-old farming site
Publish Date: Sep 07, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
DEVENTER – SWIFTERBANT – Archeological finds of recent decades should prompt revision of Dutch history books and local histories. Several recent discoveries highlight this need. Archeologists in Deventer, a former Hanseatic League...
Group wants politicians to support women’s case against Japan
Publish Date: Sep 07, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE – The Dutch Foundation Japan’s Debts of Honour, Stichting Japanse Ereschulden, wants the Second Chamber to follow the example of the U.S. House of Representatives which call on Japan to settle with the women it pressed i...
Drenthe town vicinity home to two wartime underground hiding chambers
Publish Date: Sep 07, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
DIEVER – The vicinity of the Drenthe town of Diever is home to two underground chambers used by the Dutch resistance to Nazi German occupation during World War II. The first chamber, which was used as a place of refuge for people ...
ProRail forces gardeners to vacated plots along railway tracks
Publish Date: Sep 07, 2007
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UTRECHT – Vandalism is one of the reasons why ProRail, which in the reconfigured railway system in the Netherlands owns the tracks, wants to phase out all the garden plots along the railways. The campaign to rid the country of the...
Incomes in Northern provinces lag further behind, Utrecht tops list
Publish Date: Sep 07, 2007
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LEEUWARDEN – Prosperity in the Netherlands varies widely between the agrarian northern region, the large cities and the smaller commuter towns. Statistics show that the northern provinces of Friesland and Groningen are steadily fa...
Retired university professor catalogued Dutch American achievers
Ongoing project by Carl Pegels
Publish Date: Sep 07, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
Dutch immigration to North America spans a period of almost 400 years. The Dutch presence in the New World is basic to North American history since it brought traditional Dutch lifestyles and structure to New Netherland, a sprawling area along the Atlantic coast and up the Hudson River. The extent of Dutch influence on the rest of the U.S. is becoming more known and documented as pre-independence archive material gets translated from old-Dutch into modern English (all volumes are listed at GoDutch.com under early Dutch American history). An excellent introduction to that subject as well is Russel Shorto’s book: The Island at the Center of the World, The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan, the Forgotten Colony that Shaped America.
Website provincial photo bank posts 100,000th image
Publish Date: Aug 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
TILBURG – Putting archive catalogues on the Internet will not only help researchers but also make it much easier to locate relevant documents for genealogists and amateur historians. One such website has been dedicated as a Dutch ...
North Brabant to develop more ties during mission in China
Publish Date: Aug 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
DEN BOSCH – The Province of North Brabant, a favourably located economic power house in the Netherlands, has its eyes set on China and has already developed ties with the Chinese province Jiangsu. North Brabant capital, ‘s-Hertoge...
Dutch bicycle maker Accell sets its sight on the Americas
Publish Date: Aug 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
HEERENVEEN – Getting around on bikes remains a popular option in the Netherlands. It is good for business too. Bicycle maker Accell, the owners of an impressive list of mostly Dutch brandnames, including Batavus and Sparta, reaped...
Crop farmers may start growing hemp for industrial fiber
Publish Date: Aug 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
GRONINGEN – Crop farming has been on the wane for years in the far north of the Netherlands. Many farmers relocated to other countries while those who stayed have taken on other crops to replace potatoes, sugar beets and grain. Am...
Rotterdam-based family games-maker buys Dutch competitor
Publish Date: Aug 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
ROTTERDAM – Dutch family games producer Jumbo, widely known for the red elephant in its logo, has been sold to the Rotterdam-based European competitor M&R De Monchy. Jumbo is the maker of such widely known games as Mens erger je n...
Heritage structures move along to new viable working windmill sites
Publish Date: Aug 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
ZOETERWOUDE – It has been done before. Windmill De Zwaan in Holland, Michigan no doubt is the tallest immigrant anywhere but its move from the Netherlands involved a reassembly at its new site. The three, possibly four windmills o...
Dutch barge owners happy with proposed Rotterdam-Paris route
Publish Date: Aug 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
BRUSSELS – Belgian and French efforts to modernize canals and waterways are a boon to Dutch barge owners, who own about eighty percent of all Western European inland waterway barges. Modernizing the rivers Scheldt and Seine takes ...
Report on water drainage reveals names early settlers Hoogeveen
Pioneers looked after waterlocks
Publish Date: Aug 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
HOOGEVEEN – An October 1637 water drainage report which describes the condition of a number of water overflows (in Dutch a verlaat) provides crucial information about some of the original settlers in Hoogeveen, a peatbog colony east of Meppel. Documents discovered in the Van Echten estate archives also name the personnel who manned the waterlocks.
Animal right group created controversy over horsemeat consumption
Survey researchers see no problem
Publish Date: Aug 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
WAGENINGEN – A Dutch animal rights group shocked the national and international media with news that one-third of all Dutch snacks contain horsemeat. The controversy was generated by a Wageningen University survey commissioned for Wakker Dier, an activist group which opposes what it describes as factory farming. The students who conducted the survey do not really understand why so many are up in arms about the consumption of horsemeat. They prefer it over other sorts of meat.
Dutch minister orders investigation into homosexual rights abroad
Development aid recipients targeted
Publish Date: Aug 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
AMSTERDAM - Development Cooperation Minister Bert Koenders has launched an investigation into the attitude towards homosexuals in all countries receiving systematic aid from The Netherlands. Koenders has commissioned the Dutch embassies in the 36 'partner countries' to carry out the study.
Frisian day, Paris, Ontario.
Publish Date: Aug 07, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
It was a beautiful morning and people of all walks of life were slowly moving their vehicles in the direction of Paris, in order to take part in the Frisian day 2007. This year held a special significance for us as we celebrated our fortie...
Bank’s arrival seen as a pull effect on Chinese investors
Rotterdam develops European Chinese Centre
Publish Date: Aug 07, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
AMSTERDAM – The Bank of China, the second largest bank in the People’s Republic, is open for business at its first branch in the Netherlands, in premises located on Rotterdam’s Westblaak. For the time being, the bank will focus on managing current accounts and facilitating international payments to and from China. This will make it easier for medium and small-sized businesses operating in the Netherlands to send money to China.
Finance Minister Bos encourages Islamic banking by Muslims
Chamber questions haunt PVV
Publish Date: Aug 07, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE - Finance Minister Wouter Bos recently gave members of a Second Chamber faction the opposite of what they wanted to hear: he will encourage Sharia banking in the Netherlands. The Party for Freedom (PVV) members Geert Wilders and Teun van Dijck had, in fact, asked for a ban on such Islamic banking.
Four Day Walk easily largest Dutch sporting event
Publish Date: Aug 07, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
NIJMEGEN – The Four Day Walk, already held for decades in the Nijmegen vicinity, recently attracted tens of thousands of participants and onlookers to the two thousand year old Dutch city. Over 34,000 of the 37,000 people who had ...
Bronbeek home to new Indisch Remembrance centre
Publish Date: Aug 07, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
ARNHEM – The Dutch veterans’ care facility Bronbeek, which is home to many former soldiers who hail from the former Dutch East Indies, has been designated as the future site of a new Indisch Remembrance Centre. The new centre take...
Group of nearly 1,400 Dutch centenarians mostly female
Publish Date: Aug 07, 2007
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VOORBURG – The number of people aged one hundred years and over has risen drastically in the Netherlands since 1950, when the country was home to less than forty centenarians. By 1965 there were more than one hundred of eeuwelinge...
Zeeland first Dutch region awarded bicycle friendliness certificate
Publish Date: Aug 07, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
MUNICH – The EU has set up a program to stimulate bicycle ridership. The program offers Bypad certificates for cities and regions that meet its criteria. Three regions were the first to receive such a certificate recently. The sou...
Barrie’s second annual Dutch festival again attracts full house
WWII resistance display popular
Publish Date: Aug 07, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
BARRIE, Ontario – Rain clouds failed to dampen enthusiasm for the Second Annual Dutch Festival at Barrie’s Dunlop Arena recently (July 2007). “Echt Hollandse weer” (real Dutch weather) added to the cozy atmosphere inside the building where about 1300 people celebrated Dutch culture to the sound of London’s Tomato Soup band, the smell of Dutch delicacies, including poffertjes by the Alberts and group games such as Dutch shuffle board. At a display, the festival whetted the appetite for a speedy return of Sint Nicolaas and invoked the memories of wartime resistance at another.
Annual Frisian July event again pulled together its thousands
Fortieth anniversary a draw
Publish Date: Aug 07, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
PARIS, Ontario – Organizers of the annual Frisian Picnic are all smiles with their fortieth event on July 2 (2007). The three thousand Frisians ’om ûtens’ gathered at the local park, and among other things, officially sent off three committee members with a hand of applause. They also noted the absence of the One Man Band of crowd pleaser Bert Ferwerda, who entertained numerous thousands over the many years he helped provide a happy and festive atmosphere at the picnic.
Premiere gift of two centennials subject of another inaugural recital
Netherlands Centennial Carillon upgraded
Publish Date: Jul 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
VICTORIA, BC - Forty years after then Queen Juliana laid the cornerstone of the tower for The Netherlands Centennial Carillon, another inaugural recital has been planned for the carillon. The 5:10pm recital on August 1, 2007 will celebrate the restoration of a crucial part of the carillon, the keyboard. The replacement clavier was installed by Royal Eysbouts, the well known Dutch carillon foundry, and paid for by a private, as yet unidentified –non-Dutch-Canadian- donor.
Private Coevorden group receives municipal support to rejuvenate castle
Vancouver castle replica part of plan
Publish Date: Jul 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
COEVORDEN, the Netherlands – The newly organized foundation Stichting Coevorden 2010 has been granted seed money from the eastern Dutch border municipality, among others, to promote ties with the Western Canadian city of Vancouver, the 2010 winter Olympics host.
Relaxed rules for Christian asylum seekers from Iran
Dutch officials promise flexibility
Publish Date: Jul 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE – Dutch junior Justice minister Nebahat Albayrak has promised greater flexibility in reviewing asylum requests from Iranian Christians. This change in direction reduces the risk that asylum seekers will be sent back to Iran.
Former U.S. Congressman Vander Jagt succumbs at age 75
Architect of foreign trade policies
Publish Date: Jul 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
WASHINGTON, DC – The U.S. Congressman who successfully spearheaded the campaign to proclaim November 16 Dutch American Heritage Day in 1991 in recognition of The First Salute by foreign authorities (on the Dutch Caribbean island of St. Eustatius) to the American flag in 1776, recently passed away in Washington, D.C. after a courageous battle with cancer. Guy Vander Jagt was 75.
Laborious searches at last reestablish Liberation Day friendship
War veteran calls Dutch resistance man a life-saver
Publish Date: Jul 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
LANGLEY, British Columbia – Jack Somerset remembers it vividly. A young Dutchman at the entrance of the old Groningen town of Warffum kept frantically waving until the advancing Canadian tanks finally came to a stop. The tank commanders listened to the excited civilian who warned them they were heading into an enemy trap farther down the road. The English-speaking man, who belonged to the Resistance, then showed them a route to attack the Germans from the rear.
Dredging firms awards more orders to Dutch shipyard IHC
Publish Date: Jul 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
SLIEDRECHT – Shipyard IHC Holland has booked new orders for a total of $890 million in the second quarter of 2007. The shipyard builds high-tech vessels for the flourishing Dutch and Belgian dredging industry. One of the orders is...
Fourteenth century firebrand preacher gains recognition at home
Publish Date: Jul 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
DEVENTER – The preacher who launched the Modern Devotion movement in the fourteenth century will finally get more recognition in his hometown, Deventer, a member of the Hanseatic League and at the time the most important town in O...
Dutch postal service tackles markets in Germany
Publish Date: Jul 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE – Technological advances such as e-mail have cut into postal delivery volumes everywhere. Various postal services have branched out across national borders with international delivery services. TNT Post, once known as th...
Amsterdam reins in city’s red light district
Publish Date: Jul 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
AMSTERDAM – In an attempt to control the unruly aspects of prostitution and the proliferation of brothels in Amsterdam’s Centre, officials of the city’s municipal ward have outlined a series of measures in cooperation with the ‘in...
South African group want emigrants to return home
Publish Date: Jul 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
DUBAI – South African business is supporting a semi-government group in its drive to promote remigration among their country’s expats in various parts of the world. Highly educated South African whites (and others as well) have be...
Bulkley Valley examines Dutch immigrant presence in museum exhibit
Guest curators earn high praise
Publish Date: Jul 09, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
SMITHERS, British Columbia – An exhibit on Dutch immigration to the Bulkley Valley is the first one put together under the new Guest Curator policy of the Smithers-based Bulkley Valley Museum. The exhibit ’From Windmills to Sawmills and Beyond’ traces the arrival of the Lowlanders and how they put down their roots in a vastly different geography and work experience from the one back home.
Dutch mothers have their first child at age 29
Average age no longer rising
Publish Date: Jul 09, 2007
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THE HAGUE - The average age of women in the Netherlands who gave birth now is 31.1 years. For mothers with their first child, this is 29.4 years. The age statistic has been stable since 2004.
Dutch government critical of Guantanamo Bay prison violations
Respect for human rights a basic
Publish Date: Jul 09, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE – Dutch Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Verhagen plans, among other things, to express his country's dissatisfaction with the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba when visiting Washington, next month.
Anne Frank House to showcase Frank family archive
Sixtieth anniversary release of diary
Publish Date: Jul 09, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
AMSTERDAM - Relatives of Holocaust victim and famed teenage diarist Anne Frank will loan a collection of photographs and letters to the Anne Frank House museum, in a gesture to mark the 60th anniversary of the publication of her diary. The museum contains the actual rooms that were the Jewish girl's hiding place during World War II.
Inflatable dam at IJssel River mouth a problem
Publish Date: Jul 09, 2007
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KAMPEN – A recent study has revealed that Waterschap Groot Salland’s inflatable dam at the IJssel River mouth is not quite as dependable as engineers had expected. The acceptable failure rate is 1 in 2,850 but the study shows it i...
Artificial coastal reefs a solution of Dutch engineering firm
Publish Date: Jul 09, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
SCHEVENINGEN – Europe’s prime Delta region has an ambivalent relationship with the sea, its greatest threat to security as well as a rich source of opportunities for many. Much of the wealth in the Netherlands is trade related and...
Broadcasters loose tv-guide monopoly in Chamber vote
Publish Date: Jul 09, 2007
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THE HAGUE – The public broadcasting entities must share news of their program schedules with outsiders. The Second Chamber vote indicates that these broadcasting corporations and societies no longer will have a monopoly on this in...
Dutch sway European Union member states in treaty talks
Publish Date: Jul 09, 2007
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BRUSSELS – Prime Minister Jan Pieter Balkenende achieved most of his objectives at the recent European Union summit, chaired by German chancellor Angela Merkel. The EU constitution concept is now a regular treaty while the anthem ...
Thieves make off with rare art treasures from village church
Publish Date: Jul 09, 2007
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SWOLGEN – Thieves have made off with centuries-old rare and very valuable art treasures from a Southern Dutch village church. One of the treasures, a tryptich, also had much sentimental value. The three-part painting was made in 1...
EU decrees taxes and charges to be included in airline ticket pricing
Publish Date: Jul 09, 2007
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LUXEMBOURG – Europeans soon will see uniformity in flight ticket pricing. All taxes and service charges will be included in the price of airline tickets, according to a decision by the 27 EU ministers of Transportation. The Dutch ...
Dutch trade mission sees opportunities in Alberta’s oilsands
Spearheaded by P.M. Balkenende
Publish Date: Jun 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
OTTAWA / EDMONTON - NATO’s extended mission in Afghanistan was one of the items on the mind of Dutch Prime Minister Jan Pieter Balkenende when he visited Ottawa recently in conjunction with a 22-company Dutch trade mission heading to Alberta’s oilsands. The Netherlands is looking to its NATO partner Canada for ongoing help in the troubled Asian country where both countries have troops. The Dutch mission is offering high-tech know how to Canada’s oil sector.
Rotterdam port recognized for complying with Sharia law
Islam-friendly facility
Publish Date: Jun 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
ROTTERDAM - The port of Rotterdam has been officially designated as halal at the World Islamic Economic Forum (WIEF). This means the door is open to trade with Islamic distributors.
Diocese proposes drastic cut in weekend masses
Publish Date: Jun 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
ROERMOND - A reduction of the number of weekend Eucharist celebrations is the objective of the Roman Catholic diocese of Roermond so the workload of its priests can become manageable again. With the shortage of priests in the dioc...
Srebrenica genocide keeps plaguing Dutch government
Publish Date: Jun 23, 2007
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THE HAGUE – A party of about 150 Bosnian Muslim women were on hand at the Binnenhof recently to see their lawyers serve legal notice on the Dutch government. They claim that Dutch troops, serving under the U.N. command, failed to ...
Controversial kidney donor television show a hoax
Publish Date: Jun 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
HILVERSUM – A Dutch television show recently attracted worldwide attention after it announced that a dying woman was going to donate a kidney to one of three participating contestants who require a kidney transplant. After on-air ...
Government shuts down problematic Islamic schools
Publish Date: Jun 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
AMSTERDAM – Three Islamic schools in Amsterdam will be shut down at the end of the current school year, forcing parents to enroll their children in other schools in the Dutch capital. The Islamic schools had been judged sub-standa...
Nutreco makes major acquisition in Canada
Publish Date: Jun 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
AMSTERDAM – Nutreco, the world’s largest fish feed producer, has acquired the animal feed division of Maple Leaf Foods for $437 million. The Canadian company has a twenty percent market share in its home market. Maple Leaf’s Shur-...
July long weekend again highlight for Frisians in North America
Fortieth anniversary Frisian Picnic
Publish Date: Jun 07, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
PARIS, Ontario – One of the largest outdoor events organized by the postwar Dutch immigrant community in North America will celebrate its 40th anniversary on July 2 at the Pinehurst Conservation Park in Paris, a town near centrally located Brantford. The annual Frisian Picnics which at its peak attracted crowds as large as 3,500 people, now is focused more on socializing than on actively participating in games and sports.
U.S. telecom firm boosts research funds at Tilburg university
Law and Economics Center beneficiary
Publish Date: Jun 07, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
TILBURG, the Netherlands - Research center TILEC, the Tilburg Law and Economics Center, has received almost $.€300,000 from American telecom company Qualcomm. The money, which can be spent without restriction, was obtained by Damien Geradin, professor in competition law and legal advisor of the company.
DAF collectors launch renting service for nostalgic day outings
Heritage car back on the road
Publish Date: Jun 07, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
SLIJKENBURG, the Netherlands – A remote hamlet on the northern border of Overijssel in Friesland is home to one of the country’s most unique car rental service. Two DAF car buffs acquired models of the old timers of the 1960s Dutch sedans which in the Netherlands gained a reputation as the ideal car for the average driver with limited means. The only mass-produced Dutch designed car, among other names, was dubbed ‘oude wijvenbakkie.’
Canadian donor surprises Liberation Woods with Maple Leaf seeds
Foundation appeals to community for help
Publish Date: Jun 07, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
GRONINGEN, the Netherlands – Foundation Liberation Woods Groningen wants residents of the city’s care centres for the aged to grow up to 40,000 maple leaf seedlings. The call for help also has gone out to schools. The foundation, which unexpectedly received the seeds from a Canadian donor, does not have the manpower to grow the seedlings themselves and is making a community project from the donation.
Underweight baby lived to become world’s oldest person
Publish Date: Jun 07, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
HOOGEVEEN – The Dutch woman who at age 115 died the world’s oldest citizen two years ago, was born an underweight and sickly baby it was revealed just recently. Hendrikje Schipper Van Andel donated her body for medical research. J...
Dutch diplomatic ties with China at 35
Publish Date: Jun 07, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
BEIJING – Dutch Foreign Affairs minister Maxime Verhagen and his Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi recently signed a declaration in which the parties agree to foster their mutual relations. The pair took 2,5 hours out of their sched...
Finance minister sees need for each ministry’s annual policy review
Publish Date: Jun 07, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE – Dutch Finance minister Wouter Bos who doubles as the country’s Labour Party leader, wants more scrutiny of government policy, not just the budget numbers. The annual budget day in the Netherlands, called Prinsjesdag, n...
Commission hopes to document all Dutch pipe organs
Publish Date: May 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
DRIEBERGEN – The Commission Organ Causes (COZ) wants to document all the pipe organs used in church buildings belonging to the Protestant Church in the Netherlands (PKN). The commission is hoping to get volunteers to create a comp...
Campaign aims to take in material on WWII
Publish Date: May 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
AMSTERDAM – No country has as many museums per 1,000 residents as the Netherlands, which also has a number of museums dedicated to war and resistance collections, Remembrance centres and the Netherlands Institute for War documenta...
Rotterdam names street after coordinator Operation Manna
Publish Date: May 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
ROTTERDAM – A solitary Lancaster bomber recently appeared for a fly past over Dutch territory. The fly past was in memory of the Allied food drops of Operation Manna food droppings, which took place between April 28 and May 8, 194...
Troop transport ship Waterman first of many to drop off immigrants
A landmark in the Dutch Canadian experience
Publish Date: May 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
Internationalization and globalization each are part of a process. In the face of these seemingly irreversible trends there is a renewed interest in identity and roots, especially on the family level. Genealogy has become a favourite pastime for many, coincidentally made easier with the same tools - computers and the internet - which have helped to push forward internationalization and globalization. Not far behind genealogy is renewed interest in local and community history.
Organizers thrill crowd at civic ceremony with memorable Fly Past
Burlington proclaims May 5 Canada Netherlands Friendship Day
Publish Date: May 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
BURLINGTON, Ontario – The crowd that had assembled at Burlington’s City Hall on May 5 was thrilled with an unannounced Fly Past by two aircraft from the Tillsonburg-stationed Canadian Harvard Aircraft. Everyone was there for the Remembrance and Flag Raising ceremony, organized by the Canada Netherlands Friendship Association (CNFA). The annual ceremony attracted a delegation from Burlington’s sister city Apeldoorn, Burlington’s City officials, including mayor Cam Jackson, Canadian war veterans, and CNFA supporters. Also in attendance were Dutch-Canadian officials MP Michael Chong and MPP Elizabeth Witmer.
The Netherlands eighth strongest economy on Competitive Countries List
Jumped from fifteenth place
Publish Date: May 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
AMSTERDAM - The Netherlands placed eighth in the annual ranking order of the most competitive economies in the world in 2006, reports a recent survey by the Swiss International Institute for Management Development (IMD). A year earlier, the Netherlands ranked 15th.
Dutch royal party mingles with the crowds during Queen’s Day festivities
New Jersey police attend for look at Dutch security
Publish Date: May 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
WOUDRICHEM, the Netherlands – Three policemen on an exchange from New Jersey to observe Dutch security methods to protect their leaders, likely returned home bewildered and perhaps a little amazed. The Americans witnessed the colourful national Queens Day celebrations that, despite the Pim Fortuyn and Theodore Van Gogh murders, have not thrown up any apparent barriers between the public and their very popular royal family.
Australian airman’s daughter sees the rest of her father’s story
Attends Dutch village May 4 memorial
Publish Date: May 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
HOLLANDSCHEVELD, the Netherlands – Australian-born Beverly Deveson never really knew her father Edward. Lancaster bomber crew member Edward Deveson and six others died over sixty years ago in March 1944 when their bomber crashed in the former peatbog colony. Beverly recently learned more about him when she attended the May 4 war remembrance ceremonies at the small rural community of Hollandscheveld near Hoogeveen.
Dutch history redefined by groups of historians
Publish Date: May 07, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
UTRECHT – The attempts by the Commission-Van Oostrum to prioritize events in Dutch history into a commonly accepted ‘canon’ may have been a bit too ambitious. Various groups have created their own list of historic events while med...
Edmonton’s event a top draw for DCC
Dutch Spring Market now 21
Publish Date: May 07, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
EDMONTON, Alberta – The stalls at any Dutch market are much more than displays of merchandise and wares, they also are as much community meeting points and windows on culture and traditions. The Dutch Spring Market at the Dutch Canadian Centre, these days also home to several Scandinavian groups, in that sense is no different from those weekly markets back home.
Tulip Caucus resolution cherishes ties with the Netherlands
Adopted by Michigan State House
Publish Date: May 07, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
LANSING, Michigan – Shared Dutch ancestry has already for some years been a reason for Michigan State House Representatives and State Senators to occasionally informally meet together. Last month, these State House Representatives went public as a group to introduce a resolution declaring April 19 the Dutch-American Friendship Day. This resolution was formally adopted by the Michigan House of Representatives.
178th Fighter Wing welcomes Dutch pilots for training
New purpose for redundant air base
Publish Date: May 07, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
SPRINGFIELD, Ohio – Dutch military ties with the U.S.A. have further cemented now that the training of Dutch fighter pilots has gravitated towards a North American base. The Springfield Air National Guard Base, which is home to the 178th Fighter Wing, will be the destination of 16 Dutch student pilots a year. Up till now the students received basic training in F-16s at Woensdrecht and were sent to another U.S.A. airbase to perfect their skills.
Dutch public apprehensive over extent of extremism
Multiculturalism contentious
Publish Date: May 07, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
AMSTERDAM – The National Security Survey 2007 indicates that the Dutch are apprehensive about the effects of extremism. Almost 80 percent of the population believes that the Netherlands has extremist groups that threaten the country’s freedom. Fundamentalists and religious fanatics are primarily seen as the greatest threat.
Elim breaks ground to begin new seniors’ care centre
Complex Care facility new addition
Publish Date: May 07, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
SURREY, British Columbia – The long-term goal to provide ‘complex care’ to its aging residents and others in the community is taking a giant step forward with the recent groundbreaking ceremony at the 20-acre location of Elim Village, a multi-faceted seniors’ community founded by Dutch Canadians. The $25 million project will be build directly behind Elim’s assisted living centre and will facilitate 118 new complex care (extended care) beds in the 100,000-square foot Complex Care Building.
Canadian premiere of WWII documentary comes to Redeemer
The Dutch Resistance and the Holocaust:
Publish Date: May 07, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
ANCASTER, Ontario – The award-winning U.S. documentary film, The Reckoning: Remembering the Dutch Resistance, will have its Canadian premiere showing on May 29 at Redeemer University College in Ancaster.
Dutch remember noted dates with – military – history
Publish Date: Apr 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
POEDEROOYEN / ROOSENDAAL – The Netherlands, some commentators argue, does not have a strong military tradition. The Dutch definitely are not militaristic but they do observe events with a military connection. The surrender of Nazi...
Rabobank partners with first time house buyers
Publish Date: Apr 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
UTRECHT – Rabobank, the Dutch equivalent of member-owned financial institutions in North America, is willing to take an ownership stake in the houses of young first-time buyers. The plan allows aspiring home owners a better chance...
CPB’s newly devised measuring system reports trade more accurate
Dutch agency solves mystery
Publish Date: Apr 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE - The Dutch Central Planning Bureau (CPB) has developed a new method for measuring the country's export growth more accurately and comparing it with that of other countries. This method suggests that Dutch exports previously have not been reported as accurately as they could be.
Rabobank most generous sports sponsor of the Netherlands
Doubles amount of two runners-up
Publish Date: Apr 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
UTRECHT, the Netherlands - Rabobank, the huge Dutch cooperative financial institution, appears to be the most generous sports sponsor in the Netherlands with a budget of $52.2 million this year. The list was published by Sponsor magazine recently.
Libro named Business of the Year 2006 by London group
Formerly St. Willibrord Credit Union
Publish Date: Apr 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
LONDON, Ontario - The Southwestern Ontario-based Libro Financial Group which has its roots firmly in the postwar-Dutch immigrant community, recently was named Business of the Year by the London Chamber of Commerce in the large business category.
Dutch food industry searching for alternatives for salt
Consumption far too high
Publish Date: Apr 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
AMSTERDAM - The Dutch food industry is busily reviewing substitutes for salt in processed foods. Recent studies suggest that consumers take in far too much salt. About 80 percent of the salt is eaten through food such as meat, bread and cheese.
Leading U.S. Spring festival looking for an authentic Dutch touch
Holland’s Tulip Time evolves
Publish Date: Apr 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
HOLLAND, Michigan – For many decades, Holland’s Tulip Time, the annual colourful flowering bulb show has heralded the passing of the lengthy winter season. It has been celebrated surrounded by numerous symbols of Dutch identity: the klompen dancers, the ceremonial street washing as part of the parades, Dutch hybrids, windmills – from the live-sized De Zwaan to miniature porcelain window sill models, and six millions of tulips lining city streets and private yards.
Ellis Island approaches centennial of record-breaking day
Numbers unmatched for over 80 years
Publish Date: Apr 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
ELLIS ISLAND, NY - April 17, 2007 marks the 100th anniversary of the busiest day in Ellis Island's history, when 11,747 individuals disembarked to begin new lives in America. A usual day saw some 5,000 immigrants processed. It was the highpoint of 1907 when 1,285,349 immigrants entered the United States, with Ellis Island processing nearly 80 percent of those new arrivals. The country would not welcome as many immigrants again until 1990.
Windmill looms on the horizon of a Wisconsin ‘Dutch’ town
Greta Van Susteren a booster
Publish Date: Apr 07, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
LITTLE CHUTE, Wisconsin - A Dutch windmill could soon rise 10 stories and more than 100 feet above the skyline of a small Wisconsin village, even surpassing its current tallest structure which is the steeple of St. John's Roman Catholic church. The proposed windmill project, for which a fundraising campaign has been underway for some time, would be prominently visible for miles around, and become one of the true landmarks of the state’s Fox Cities. The windmill site would include an attached Visitor Center and Museum of the village’s Historical Society. The additional Dutch touch would be beautifully landscaped grounds with no shortage of Dutch tulips.
Congressman Hoekstra launches 'Dutch-American Day'
Resolution obtains unanimous support
Publish Date: Apr 07, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
WASHINGTON - The U.S. House has unanimously passed a resolution to establish a "Dutch-American Friendship Day." The resolution was introduced by U.S. Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Holland, Michigan. He said such a day would celebrate the historic ties between the United States and the Netherlands. The friendship day commemorates the presentation of the diplomatic credentials of U.S. ambassador John Adams at the States General in The Hague on April 19, 1782.
Comfort women of Japanese military again endure old pain
Reversal of 1993 acknowledgement hurtful
Publish Date: Apr 07, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
SYDNEY, Australia - Three grandmothers from three different countries, speaking no common language but protesting with a common purpose, joined each other in front of the Japanese consulate here recently. What brought them together - a 90-year-old Taiwanese from Taipei, a 78-year-old South Korean from Seoul, and an 84- year-old Dutch-Australian from Adelaide - was their experiences as so-called ‘comfort women,’ or ‘troostmeisjes’ in Dutch, of Japan's military during World War II.
Energy market lucrative to giant Dutch dredging firm
Publish Date: Apr 07, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
PAPENDRECHT – Dutch dredging firm Bos Kalis, the largest in the world, is profiting handsomely from the increasing investments in the energy sub-sectors such as oil and natural gas. These industries are building terminals and offs...
More help on the way for job-hunting handicapped people
Publish Date: Apr 07, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE – Dutch authorities are embarking on a plan to help 100.000 people with serious health problems and handicaps find a job. So far, efforts to convince employers to hire people with such challenges have not been all that s...
Newly released handbook a guide to the Willem Holleeder-case
Publish Date: Apr 07, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
AMSTERDAM – The Willem Holleeder-case now is being billed as the court case of the century. A complicated case which turns around blackmail perpetrated against a number of real estate tycoons by the top criminal, has been simplifi...
Coalition partners Labour and CU sparring over ethical hot potatoes
Publish Date: Apr 07, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE – A key negotiator who helped the Labour party (PvdA) make a coalition deal with the Christian Democrats (CDA) and the smaller CU, and at the time promised to test the limits of the agreement seems to be following throug...
Illinois city of Fulton pursues windmill museum
Enhancement plan passes
Publish Date: Mar 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
FULTON, Ill. — A standing-room-only crowd recently heard council members of the western Illinois city of Fulton debate a range of topics, including a new fire hall and a windmill museum. The bulk of the evening’s discussion however, was devoted to the enhancement plan of the city’s full-scale working windmill De Immigrant which sits on the banks of the Mississippi River.
Golden Tulip enters China with first hotel in Shanghai
Eighteenth largest chain
Publish Date: Mar 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
SHANGHAI, China - Golden Tulip Hospitality, a Netherlands-based hotel chain, and Shanghai Eastern Airline Hospitality have signed a management agreement for the 283-room Shanghai Eastern Airline Hotel.
Dutch company lands contract for coastal defenses of New Orleans
Storm surge barrier a possibility
Publish Date: Mar 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
BRUSSELS - Dutch consulting and engineering firm Arcadis recently has won a $150-million contract to protect the coast of New Orleans in the United States.
Dutch East Indies destined merchandise preserved in North Sea shallows
VOC treasures back in the Netherlands
Publish Date: Mar 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
Vlissengen, the Netherlands - Some of the merchandise aboard the VOC ship ‘De Rooswijk’ destined for the Dutch East Indies in 1740 has been returned ‘undelivered’ to the Netherlands over 265 years later. Now declared heritage objects and worth a fortune, the items never made it past the English Channel. Instead, the treasure lay hidden on the bottom of the North Sea for centuries where the ship sunk in a heavy January storm. Now on display in Flushing’s nautical MuZEEum, the collection quickly attracted the attention of two outgoing cabinet ministers, Van der Hoeven of Education and Zalm of Finance.
Wisconsin group gathering old letters from area residents
Material for book on Dutch connection
Publish Date: Mar 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
SHEBOYGAN, Wisconsin - The Sheboygan County Historical Research Center (SCHRC) should have little difficulty tracing ties between its area and the Netherlands. It may be a more daunting task to gather old correspondence to and from the Netherlands for publication in a book about the Dutch in Wisconsin.
Emigration trade show popular with young families
Publish Date: Apr 23, 2008
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
NIEUWEGEIN – A significant number of businesses service those wanting to leave the Netherlands for destinations that seem more attractive and offer better futures. Those candidate-emigrants can attend trade shows where anyone of n...
National meeting NGK allows women ordination
Publish Date: Mar 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
ZWOLLE – The national meeting of the Netherlands Reformed Churches (the Dutch acronym are NGK) have voted 33 against 10 to allow women in the pulpit. The NGK which split off from the Reformed Churches liberated (GKNv) in 1967, had...
Achen court rules former Dutch SSer to be jailed in Germany
Publish Date: Mar 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
ACHEN – A Dutch member of the SS who was given the death penalty in absentia after WWII, and who later had his sentence commuted to life, still must serve his sentence. Although the man’s identity was not revealed, it is thought t...
Groups of home owners battle with municipality over pile rot
Publish Date: Mar 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
DORDRECHT – Auditors at the Dordrecht municipality are tracing the origin of the hugely costly pile rot plaguing about 1,300 home owners in the historic river town east of Rotterdam. The municipality has offered the affected home ...
Largest dictionary in the world, all Dutch, now online
Publish Date: Mar 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
LEIDEN – The largest dictionary in the world, het Woordenboek der Nederlandschen Taal, which lists the Dutch language with up to 400,000 separate words, can now be consulted online, reports the University of Leyden. Described as a...
River town Rhenen to celebrate 750 years as a city
Publish Date: Mar 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
RHENEN – The Utrecht city on the banks of the Rhine will create a dedicated foundation to take charge of plans for its 750th anniversary celebrations coming up next year. The municipality reasons that such festivities will put the...
Queen Beatrix first Dutch royalty on state visit to Turkey
First ambassadors appointed in 1612
Publish Date: Mar 07, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
ANKARA, Turkey – The relationship between the Netherlands and Turkey date back a lot further than the arrival of tens of thousands of Turkish migrant workers in the Netherlands in the 1960s and 1970s. In fact, in 2012 it will the 400th anniversary of the bilateral ties dating from the first appointments of ambassadors. The recent visit by Queen Beatrix to Turkey is the first state visit by Dutch royalty, however.
Muslim candidate runs obscure campaign for office
Only seeks support in mosques
Publish Date: Mar 07, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE - A Muslim woman who is running for a seat on the provincial estate in South Holland does not want to be interviewed or have her picture taken. She only campaigns in mosques.
Oldest cemetery in India legacy of Dutch colonial empire
Restored with Embassy help
Publish Date: Mar 07, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
FORT KOCHI, India - The Dutch Cemetery in Fort Kochi, the oldest European cemetery in India, was reopened recently after extensive renovation work. The 284-year-old cemetery is considered to be a valuable source of information of hundreds on Europeans, both the Dutch and the English, who died in India on while business for their colonial empires.
First Muslim immigrants join Dutch cabinet as junior ministers
Controversy over dual citizenship
Publish Date: Mar 07, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
AMSTERDAM - As a city councilman, Ahmed Aboutaleb, the son of a Moroccan clergyman, helped immigrants find jobs, put their toddlers in school to learn Dutch and doled out stern advice: integrate or leave.
Speed skating keeps producing world championships for the Dutch
Publish Date: Mar 07, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
INNSBRUCK – The Dutch are considered giants in the speed skating sport, frequently landing all-round world championships in such endurance races. In 114 years, Dutch speed skaters won such a world title 28 times, mostly since 1966...
Some Dutch immigrant farmers in Denmark heading home
Publish Date: Mar 07, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
DRACHTEN – Some Dutch immigrant farmers who settled in Denmark over the past two decades are repatriating back to the Netherlands. Social isolation has been identified as a contributing factor but economics seem to be the greater ...
Harbour city largest municipal real estate owner
Publish Date: Mar 07, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
ROTTERDAM – Europe’s greatest harbour city owns the largest real estate portfolio of all the 450 municipalities in the Netherlands. Soon, the entire portfolio, including schools, recreation facilities, offices and investment prope...
Home often nearby for Dutch soldiers thanks to Pro Rege
Publish Date: Mar 07, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
APELDOORN – Pro Rege, the Christian volunteer group that gives military personnel a home away from home, is continually moving further from its home base to fulfill its mission. Founded in an age when soldiers appreciated a home n...
Barrier dam also prerequisite to reclaimed fertile polders
Publish Date: Mar 07, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
KORNWERDERZAND – The Afsluitdijk, a 32.5-kilometre long barrier dam doubles as a major highway. It has saved the inland coastal regions of the Zuiderzee (now the Ijsselmeer) much anxiety over potential flooding since it was comple...
Dutch club has room to grow among tall people
Publish Date: Mar 07, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
GOUDA – In other groups 2-metres tall John Hekelaar likely would rate among the tallest. Not so, in the Klub Lange Mensen (KLM), Tall People Club, which admits any male as member when over 1,90 metres. For females the threshold is...
Balkenende IV cabinet tackles ethical issues and huge bureaucracy
Publish Date: Mar 07, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE – Newly installed Premier Jan Pieter Balkenende who presides over his fourth cabinet in five years, hopes there will be more stability around the cabinet table in the coming years. The new coalition is made up of three e...
Specialty ship builder IHC Holland leases additional shipyard
Firm flourishes in niche markets
Publish Date: Feb 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
SLIEDRECHT - The IHC Holland Merwede shipbuilding firm is doing so well that it had to find another wharf, following the reopening of Van der Giessen-De Noord in Krimpen. IHC now has reached an agreement with the financially troubled Alblas Scheepsbouw in Hendrik Ido Ambacht to lease its site and take on its workers as well.
Queen Elizabeth marks Quadra centennial of Amsterdam church
Services for four hundred years
Publish Date: Feb 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
AMSTERDAM - Queen Elizabeth II marked the 400th anniversary of Amsterdam's English Reformed Church, the oldest English speaking congregation outside Britain, in a low key visit to the Netherlands recently. The British monarch attended a one-hour church service together with Queen Beatrix.
Fast skating Dutch claim WK titles for both divisions
Publish Date: Feb 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
HEERENVEEN – Dutch skaters Sven Kramer and Ireen Wüst re-established Dutch supremacy at the recent world championships where they respectively skated away with first place in the men’s and women’s divisions. Kramer placed first on...
Merger of adjoining peat bogs could create largest EU park of its kind
Publish Date: Feb 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
MUGGENBEET – For a small country, the Netherlands has will pleasantly surprise sightseers with its variety of different landscapes and regions. Less well known are the rolling hills of Limburg, the forested areas of the Veluwe and...
New railway route to connect young town with old cities
Publish Date: Feb 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
KAMPEN – Work has started on a new railway dubbed the Hanze-line. The new line will connect Lelystad, one of the youngest cities in the Netherlands, with Overijssel’s capital Zwolle, a formerly strategic Hanseatic League member. T...
Illustrious shipping company opens European head office
HAL returns to Rotterdam
Publish Date: Feb 07, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
ROTTERDAM - The Holland America Line (HAL), once the most famous shipping company in Rotterdam, known for ships with names such as Rotterdam, Nieuw Amsterdam, Ryndam, Maasdam and Statendam, is returning to Rotterdam after a decades-long absence.
Pension fund ABP reports another banner year
Publish Date: Feb 07, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
HEERLEN – Dutch pension fund ABP has concluded another top year, earning a 9.5 percent return on its massive portfolio. ABP which looks after much of the civil service and the education sector, manages $270 billion, with investmen...
Harbour Works invites Rotterdam to join its anniversary
Publish Date: Feb 07, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
ROTTERDAM – Rotterdam’s municipal Port Authority, the organization that spearheaded the growth of a small inland port into the largest port in Europe and one of the most modern facilities anywhere, is turning 75 this year. The por...
Church buildings task force requests emergency plan from cabinet negotiators
Publish Date: Feb 07, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
WOUDRICHEM – The national Future Church Buildings Task Force has fired off a letter to each of the three political parties who currently are negotiating a new coalition accord, urging them to start protecting church buildings from...
Memberships in political parties on the rise in election years
Publish Date: Feb 07, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE – The percentage of officially politically-aligned voters may be rather small, but there is a significant variation in the level of support from year to year. A documentation centre on political parties in the Netherland...
Vlaardingen searching for the earliest fort of Holland
Publish Date: Feb 07, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
VLAARDINGEN – Archeologists in this town near Rotterdam are hopeful they will unearth traces of its earliest structures, those of ten to thirteen centuries ago. They specifically are looking for evidence of a fort – the oldest in ...
Ways of the owl key to drop in wind turbine noise pollution
Publish Date: Feb 07, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
MARKNESSE – The modern-day, clean energy producing wind turbines parks which tower over the Dutch landscape are bothersome to nearby residents who especially complain about noise pollution. The Dutch National Aerospace Laboratory ...
Dutch pilot training consolidates at Springfield, Ohio
Publish Date: Jan 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
VOLKEL – The training of Dutch F-16 fighter pilots will soon take place at the Springfield Air National Guard Base in Ohio where the current Arizona program also will be consolidated. Dutch pilots usually start their training loca...
Departing Finance Minister Zalm cut Dutch debt load
‘Best in Europe’
Publish Date: Dec 27, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE - Politicians from across the political spectrum have paid tribute to the country’s longest serving finance minister, Conservative Liberal Gerrit Zalm, who did not seek re-relection.
Socialist Party declines negotiations for a cabinet role
Publish Date: Dec 27, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE – Political insider Hoekstra who was commissioned by Queen Beatrix to survey the options for the formation of a new cabinet following the recent general elections in the Netherlands, has advanced to Phase II of his work....
Newly elected Chamber stops deportation of asylum seekers
Publish Date: Dec 27, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE – The newly elected Second Chamber of the Dutch parliament has engineered a stop to the deportations of asylum seekers who after many years in limbo in the Netherlands are being sent back to countries who do not want the...
Road excavators discover another ancient burial site
Publish Date: Dec 27, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
NIJMEGEN – Excavators working on a new intersection have unearthed yet another Iron Age burial site, complete with human bones as well as traces of cremated remains. In total, six graves were discovered, including one belonging to...
Flashing speed recorders make way for an undetectable digital system
Publish Date: Dec 27, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
AMSTERDAM – Violators of Dutch traffic laws soon will be subjected to a highly automated control system. The current camera boxes atop the so-called flitspalen (literally flash poles) which catches speeding traffic are being repla...
Relational packages increasing popular for Christmas giving
Publish Date: Dec 27, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
LEIDSCHENDAM – Employers in the Netherlands have bought into the concept of giving Christmas packages to their employees. The concept has grown in popularity over the years. In two weeks, 4.7 million such packages were delivered t...
Churches and supermarkets bypass the banks with their coin needs
Publish Date: Dec 27, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
GOUDA – Dutch churches and supermarkets have found a practical way of circumventing bank service charges for taking in and for dispensing coins. A non-profit church agency pioneered a coin counting system, even supplying the hardw...
Dutch rank average in European tolerance grade
Publish Date: Dec 27, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
NIJMEGEN – A study by three Radboud University sociologists has found that the tolerance level among the Dutch for ethnic minorities is not as high as intellectuals would have the world believe. The researchers who also compared D...
OECD recommends tolling Dutch roads
Publish Date: Jan 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
PARIS – The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development thinks it knows the answer for Dutch traffic woes. Saying the Dutch economy suffers from the country’s inability to solve freight transportation problems, it recomm...
North Holland wants borders adjusted to take in Antilles
Publish Date: Jan 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
HAARLEM – Now that several Antilles islands have agreed to continue as municipalities within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, officials at the Province of North Holland see a new opportunity to expand their territory, claiming clos...
Authorities to force problem youths into life skill camps
Publish Date: Jan 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE – A task force on Unemployment among youths has concluded that Dutch authorities can force problem youth into life skill camps. The task force based its advice on research by a university and a group of legal experts. Th...
College offers courses to niche developing farmers
Publish Date: Jan 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
DELFT – Numerous Dutch farmers have branched out in niche markets on the farm. While some now operate small campgrounds on the yard, others have opened agri-stores for home-made or local products or offer workshops on their expert...
Municipal governments keep merging into larger entities
Publish Date: Jan 08, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
RIJSWIJK – The number of municipalities in the Netherlands continues on its downwards slide, faster than anywhere else in Europe. Since the Dutch started consolidating small local entities into larger units over forty years ago, t...
New Year Day’s Polar Swim at Scheveningen called off
Publish Date: Jan 08, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
SCHEVENINGEN – The main Polar Bear swim on the Dutch coast, in very rare move, was cancelled just hours before the crowd was scheduled to dash into the frigid North Sea water. Organizers along with rescue experts had concluded tha...
Archeologists unearth a stretch of border road built by Romans
Publish Date: Jan 23, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
HOUTEN – Could the recently unearthed stretch of the Roman border road between Utrecht and Geldermalsen still be older than the proverbial one to Kralingen (zo oud als de weg naar Kralingen)? Dutch archeologists discovered stretch...
Commission in Zeeland weighs proposals to return land to nature
Publish Date: Jan 08, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
MIDDELBURG – A commission chaired by former Philips top man Prof. F.A. Maljers has nominated a part of the Braakmanpolder, near the Dow Chemical plant, as the area to be turned over to nature. According to environmental regulation...
Respect and tolerance key in royal Christmas message
Publish Date: Jan 08, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE – Queen Beatrix used her traditional and widely-watched Christmas message to call on the Dutch public to show respect for one another. Treat your neighbour the way you want to be treated yourself. She acknowledged that d...
Arabian Gulf holds much promise for entrepreneurial dredgers
Publish Date: Jan 08, 2007
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
AALST – Flemish dredging contractor Jan de Nul has landed an order to build an island near the Arabian Gulf city of Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates. The Flemish firm edged out well-known Dutch competitor Boskali...
Noorda’s file sharing concept became computer industry standard
Novell pioneer succumbs at age 82
Publish Date: Nov 23, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
OREM, Utah - Ray Noorda, widely known as the driving force behind Novell and the so-called "Father of Network Computing," died recently of complications from a debilitating disease. He was 82. According to Governor Jon Huntsman Noorda launched what would become Utah's technology sector and left behind a monumental legacy…”
New rules for hand luggage at all EU airports in effect
Schiphol implements changes
Publish Date: Nov 23, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
SCHIPHOL - New rules for hand luggage have been in effect at all EU airports since November 6. Liquids, gels and aerosols only are allowed in hand luggage in small quantities, if correctly packaged. These rules apply to all passengers departing from or changing planes at EU airports.
Rabobank acquires California-based Mid-State Bank & Trust
Network expanded with 48 offices
Publish Date: Nov 23, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
ARROYO GRANDE, California - The Netherlands-based international cooperative financial services provider Rabobank has signed an acquisition agreement through which Mid-State Bank & Trust will become part of the Rabobank Group. Upon completion of the regulatory process, which is expected in the second quarter of 2007, Mid-State will be merged into Rabobank’s community banking subsidiary in California.
Dutch insurer Aegon to fully acquire U.S. colleague Clark
Already partners for years
Publish Date: Nov 23, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
BALTIMORE, Maryland - A U.S. subsidiary of giant Dutch insurance group Aegon will acquire Clark, Inc., a company specializing in life insurance and other benefit programs, for approximately $293 million. With a 13 percent stake, Aegon already is Clark’s largest shareholder. The transaction is subject to normal closing requirements.
Almost half of all Dutch workers hold a part-time job only
Publish Date: Nov 23, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
VOORBURG - Dutch workers score the highest in Europe with a part-time job only. Almost half worked less than 35 hours a week, while the European average is 18 percent. Most part-timers are women: 75 percent of them had a part-time...
KLM’s monopoly to Surinam broken by daughter Martinair
Publish Date: Nov 23, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
SCHIPHOL - A first ever scheduled flight by Dutch airline Martinair recently touched down in Paramaribo, the capital of the South American country of Surinam. The flight ended a decades-old monopoly enjoyed by the airlines of The ...
Dutch and French ministers differ on role of NATO
Publish Date: Nov 23, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
BRUSSELS - Dutch Defense Minister Kamp recently took exception to statements made by his French colleague Alliot-Marie who believes that the European Union is the most important organization to guarantee security in Europe. Kamp f...
Dutch carry the least personal loan debts from all Europeans
Publish Date: Nov 23, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
AMSTERDAM - Only six percent of the Dutch are overdrawn at the bank or have taken out a personal loan. Their number ranks lowest of all countries in the European Union. Only sixteen percent of the Dutch think that getting a loan i...
Tax department celebrates 200th anniversary with exhibit
Publish Date: Dec 07, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
ROTTERDAM - A special exhibition in the Tax and Customs Museum pays attention to 200 years of federal taxation in the Netherlands. Before 1806, collecting taxes was the domain of provinces and municipalities. In that year, Finance...
Achterhoek begins pilot project for rededicating farm buildings
Publish Date: Dec 07, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
AALTEN - The eastern Dutch border region known as ‘Achterhoek’ is taking the ongoing problem of abandoned or surplus farm buildings and land serious. It has set up a pilot program for the viable reuse of rural buildings and fields...
Municipality taken to court over homes damaged by pile rot
Publish Date: Dec 07, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
DORDRECHT - Owners of homes damaged by so-called pile rot are taking the municipality to court in a test case. They claim that the city, through proven poor maintenance of leaking drains and sewers, is responsible for lowering the...
Captain Vancouver’s ancestral castle to become a hotel
Publish Date: Dec 07, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
COEVORDEN - The local castle once owned by the forebears of 17th century English explorer Captain George Vancouver will reopen as a luxury hotel in 2009. The municipality, which used the building as city hall for decades, has sold...
Sint Nicolaas receives Fellowship at Roosevelt Academy
Visit after landfall in Middelburg
Publish Date: Dec 07, 2006
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MIDDELBURG - The Roosevelt Academy in this Zeeland provincial capital has bestowed the first ever Visiting Honorary Fellowship on Dutch icon Sint Nicolaas. Recently the saint - affectionately known as well as ‘Sinterklaas’ in the Netherlands - arrived in the country via the city of Middelburg in an event televised throughout the country.
Queen Beatrix witnesses repeat of 1776 first salute to U.S. flag
November 16 Statia-America Day
Publish Date: Dec 07, 2006
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SINT EUSTATIUS - Queen Beatrix, on a ten-day tour of the Dutch Antilles, witnessed a friendly U.S.-Dutch exchange of navy salutes as a modern-day re-enactment of the historic November 16, 1776 flag incident when the Dutch government through a local commander was the first to de facto recognize the independence of the United States.
Willem de Kooning's painting Untitled XXV sells for record $27 million
Dutch-American’s 1977 work
Publish Date: Dec 07, 2006
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NEW YORK, NY - A painting made in the mid-1970 by Dutch American artist Willem de Kooning fetched a record $27 million at a recent auction by Christie’s in New York. ‘Untitled XXV,’ with its dramatic and powerful colours, sparked a fierce bidding war.
Six Royal family members attend 25th Stuyvesant Ball
Netherlands-America Foundation celebration
Publish Date: Dec 07, 2006
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NEW YORK - Princess Margriet and her husband Pieter van Vollenhoven and two of theirs sons with their spouses recently attended the 25th anniversary Peter Suyvesant Ball of the Netherlands-America Foundation. The Van Vollenhovens are the patrons of the Foundation.
Dutch Commissioner Kroes ‘Top EU Woman to Watch’
Wall Street Journal survey
Publish Date: Dec 07, 2006
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BRUSSELS - European Commissioner for Competition, Neelie Kroes (65), ranks sixth on a list of the Top 50 Women to Watch, compiled by The Wall Street Journal. The Dutch former cabinet minister is the only politician on the list of fifty and the highest-ranked European.
Amsterdam hockey team hires two Dutch Canadians
Joins three Canucks and one U.S. player
Publish Date: Dec 07, 2006
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AMSTERDAM - Local ice hockey team Amsterdam Tigers has added Matt Korthuis to its roster, which weeks earlier had been expanded by another Dutch Canadian, Jamie Schaafsma. The two make up a North American contingent of five players for the Tigers.
Dutch pensioners living abroad enjoy a much longer lifespan
Canadian seniors top the list
Publish Date: Nov 07, 2006
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AMSTELVEEN - Dutch citizens over 65 years of age who spend their retirement abroad, live longer than their counterparts remaining in the Netherlands. According to the Sociale Verzekeringsbank (SVB), a semi-government entity administrating Old Age Pensions (AOW), the average lifespan of those living abroad tops those staying at home by 18 months.
FBI re-opens cold case of huge 1990 Boston art theft
Rembrandt and Vermeer paintings purloined
Publish Date: Nov 07, 2006
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BOSTON, Massachusetts - The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has begun a new investigation into an unsolved art theft, committed in 1990 at the local Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. The FBI will ask the public’s help through a countrywide poster campaign. Despite a multitude of tips since 1990, the case which likely is the biggest art theft in U.S. history, remains unsolved.
Dutch Air Force reinforces Canadians ground troops on demand
Battleground Afghanistan
Publish Date: Nov 07, 2006
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OTTAWA - Dutch F16 jets and Apache helicopters repeatedly have come to the assistance of Canadian ground troops in the Afghan province of Kandahar. The Canadians have about 2,000 soldiers in the area. Thus far, there have been over 40 Canadian casualties.
‘Bride Flight’ film project receives Dutch government subsidy
Story about 1953 KLM flight to New Zealand
Publish Date: Nov 07, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
AMSTERDAM - A 2007 film project on immigration, has landed $2.4 million in subsidies through two film funds in the Netherlands. ‘Bride Flight’, to be directed by Ben Sombogaart, is the story of three young Dutch women who with a 23 others in 1953 traveled on a special KLM-flight to New Zealand to join their future husbands already living in that country. The international press covering the trip, dubbed the KLM plane ‘Bride Flight.'
Dutch American Pama heads board Leeuwarden soccer club
Executive to re-build organization
Publish Date: Nov 07, 2006
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LEEUWARDEN - This past summer, when Alex Pama started his new job as General Manager of local Second Division soccer team Cambuur Leeuwarden, he had little idea of the organizational and financial chaos he was to discover at the club. For years, the former board of governors struggled with rapidly dwindling income, several near bankruptcies, lack of sponsorship renewals and dismal athletic results. Now it is up to Pama to rebuild the organization.
Water Board seeks volunteer guards for ‘dike brigade’
Publish Date: Oct 23, 2006
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DORDRECHT - The area’s Water Board is inviting people to join its volunteer dike army, a group of people charged with checking and guarding the area’s dikes during storms, heavy rainfall or the threat of flooding. The Board manage...
Turkish-Dutch politician wants public debate on Armenian genocide
Publish Date: Oct 23, 2006
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THE HAGUE - A Turkish-Dutch member of the Second Chamber for the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) wants the Turkish community in the Netherlands to enter into a dialogue on the alleged Armenian genocide. Mr. Çörüz has not taken a...
U.S. Foundation takes Dutch historian Geert Mak on tour
West and East Coast lectures
Publish Date: Oct 23, 2006
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WASHINGTON, DC - Prolific Dutch author, journalist and historian Geert Mak is embarking on a lecture trail with stops at universities in Washington, New York, Boston, Grand Rapids, Los Angeles and San Francisco. The lectures are an initiative of New York-based Netherlands-America Foundation.
Pre-1985 children of non-Dutch father gain Dutch citizenship
Minister relents in mixed-nationality case
Publish Date: Oct 23, 2006
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THE HAGUE - Most if not all children born prior to 1985 from a union between a Dutch mother and a non-Dutch father, may be eligible for Dutch citizenship. Immigration Minister Rita Verdonk granted the exemption in response to pressure by members of nearly all political parties in the Second Chamber.
Dutch immigrant Aay appointed first Professor of Meijer Chair
‘Country of origin’ gets new focus at Calvin College
Publish Date: Oct 23, 2006
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GRAND RAPIDS, Michigan - Henk Aay (61) has become the first holder of the Frederik Meijer Chair in Dutch Language and Culture at Calvin College. The new Professor was born in the Netherlands, and at age thirteen settled with his family in Canada where he graduated with a BA in geography and planning from Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario.
WWII bunkers on North Sea beach could house surf enthusiasts
Velsen waves huge draw
Publish Date: Oct 23, 2006
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VELSEN, the Netherlands - A local entrepreneur who manages a group of four WWII bunkers built for the German Wehrmacht in the dunes of this North Sea resort, wants to turn them into a surfers’ paradise of sort. Surfing enthusiasts from all over Europe highly rate the waves off the coast near this community just north of the port of IJmuiden, where the pier creates a perfect surfing and kite-surfing environment.
Hotel names suite after Dutch Strauss orchestra leader Rieu
André endorses room in his hometwon
Publish Date: Oct 23, 2006
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MAASTRICHT, the Netherlands - Guests of the Hotel Derlon in this southernmost Dutch provincial capital from now on can opt to stay in the André Rieu suite, named after the world renowned Limburg orchestra leader and violinist. Recently, the musician gave his approval to the top-class hospitality unit concept.
Rijksmuseum’s Golden Age art collection on three-state tour
Rembrandt exhibits in Ohio, Arizona and Oregon
Publish Date: Oct 23, 2006
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DAYTON, Ohio - The exhibition ‘Rembrandt and the Golden Age; Masterpieces from the Rijksmuseum’ recently opened in the Dayton Art Institute. Running until January 7, 2007, the show is part of a huge series of events celebrating the 400th anniversary of Rembrandt’s birth.
Light pollution to be lowered by removing one million lighting poles
Publish Date: Oct 07, 2006
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UTRECHT - Municipalities are urged to remove or dim one million street lights within five years. The Foundation Nature and Environment and the Provincial Environment Federations contend that streetlights at rural roads and highway...
Amsterdam museums set up immigrant integration projects
Publish Date: Oct 07, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
AMSTERDAM - The municipality has enlisted the help of the city’s Municipal Museum and the Historical Museum to develop orientation programs for new citizens. The project ‘City & Language’ will try to familiarize newcomers with the...
Housing costs Belgian border region higher because of Dutch migration
Publish Date: Oct 07, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
TILBURG - In the last ten years, over 33,000 more people moved from the Netherlands to Belgium than the other way round. Much of the migration resulted from the considerably lower cost of housing in Belgium, including rental units...
Dutch tourists no longer bring own food along on trips
Potatoes disappear from suitcases and trailers
Publish Date: Oct 07, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
AMSTERDAM - For decades it was very common for Dutch holiday travelers to take along food that could be categorized as ‘typically Dutch.’ Especially those loading up their cars and trailers for a trip to France, Spain and Italy, were known to take potatoes - often as much as a sack full or more - cheese, and items such as chocolate sprinkles in their luggage, often to the dismay of fellow travelers.
Dutch marine experts haul decommissioned Russian nuclear submarines
Highly specialized ships take vessels to scrap yard
Publish Date: Oct 07, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
BREDA – An international Dutch maritime transportation firm has swayed a nay-saying Russian defense minister from his hard line decision to keep moth-balled nuclear powered submarines at their decommissioning base. Dockwise, which owns a fleet of fifteen of the world’s eighteen highly specialized semi-submergible heavy duty carriers, has won the contract to move three nuclear submarines to a scrap yard. The reluctance of the Russians to move the submarines stems from a tragedy in 2003 when nine members out of a crew of ten died aboard a submarine which sank while being towed.
Traditional pub reopens for additional years after renovation
Building nearly 500 years old
Publish Date: Oct 07, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
BREDA, the Netherlands – The pub De Roode Hert (the Red Deer) has been at the same location since its opening day. So have many other businesses but none as long as the Breda café which has been in operation since the year 1518. A so-called brown and traditional establishment, De Roode Hert has seen 31 pub owners come and go.
Traffic to Dutch online encyclopedia quadruples in two years
Wikipedia Nederland popular reference
Publish Date: Oct 07, 2006
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DEN BOSCH, the Netherlands – Traffic to the Dutch version of online encyclopedia Wikipedia continues to grow unabated. Wikipedia Nederland now is the sixth most-visited Dutch website. The Dutch reference site still has further growth potential, notes online researcher Multiscope in its analysis.
The Netherlands considered leader in fight against poverty
Evaluation per capita and economy
Publish Date: Sep 23, 2006
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WASHINGTON - The Netherlands tops the list of the world’s twenty-one richest nations when considering how much they help poor countries build prosperity, good government and security. The Commitment to Development Index (CDI) rates each rich country in seven policy areas, which then are averaged for an overall score. Last year, the CDI paced the Netherlands second overall.
U.S. embassy moves to location in nearby Wassenaar
Leaves city centre within five years
Publish Date: Sep 23, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE - A final decision has been made to build a new United States Embassy at a location on the outskirts of the city. The municipality of The Hague has designated the former dog racing track in Wassenaar as the site for the new embassy building, which is scheduled to open in 2011.
Fugitive Vancouver accountant nets eight years in jail ’down under’
Australian jury convicts Walters/Hofman on all counts
Publish Date: Sep 23, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
CAIRNS, Australia – The Cairns District Court has sentenced a 71-year old Dutch Canadian to an eight-year prison term following his conviction by a jury. Dutch national Piet Cornelius Walters, in Canada and the Netherlands known as Fred Siebold Hofman, was found guilty of all 13 charges of dishonestly obtaining an advantage as a director of Drury Management Pty Ltd. and one of dishonestly causing a detriment, between September 1999 and August 2002.
Transients were institutionalized at Veldzicht in the early 1800s
Site a new heritage villagescape
Publish Date: Sep 23, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
OMMERSCHANS, the Netherlands – The re-education ideals of the early 1800s may have waned but the site where Dutch transients and their families were placed to be taught to become productive members of society recently was designated a heritage villagescape. A sprawling estate, Veldzicht includes dormitories, farmsteads, employee housing – from the director to estate border watchmen – a church building, a cemetery and treestands. Centuries earlier, the site had been part of a defense line.
Dutch cooperative charts way for reintroduction of madder culture
New opportunities for natural dyes
Publish Date: Sep 23, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
STEENBERGEN, North Brabant – Synthetic colouring agents killed the viability of the madder crops in the late 1800s. With the rising interest in natural colouring agents Turks rood, as it once was known, is making a comeback in Dutch agriculture. The Steenbergen-based farmers cooperative Rubia Pigmenta Naturalia BV is spearheading the reintroduction with an 100 hectare crop. Meekrap as it is called in Dutch, at one time was grown particularly in Zeeland, the South Holland islands and Noord-Brabant and was used by textile producers for centuries.
Thirteenth-century bell oven dug up in centre of Utrecht
Publish Date: Sep 07, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
UTRECHT - Archeologists have found a unique, 13th-century oven made of bricks that served to make some of the smaller bronze bells for the Romanesque church in the centre of town. During construction of a new city heating system, ...
Over 10,000 complaints about disrepair of bike lanes
Publish Date: Sep 07, 2006
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UTRECHT - Last year, the Cyclists Union received 10,000 complaints about conditions of bicycle lanes throughout the country. The association passed the remarks on to the affected municipalities and road repairs were made since in ...
Queen welcomes 200 at first ever Naturalization Day
Publish Date: Sep 07, 2006
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THE HAGUE - Just over 200 new Dutch citizens officially were welcomed as such by Queen Beatrix and Integration Minister Verdonk. The ceremony took place in The Hague, one of the municipalities hosting the first-ever Naturalization...
Dutch emigrants honour liberators with 18-bell carillon
Enhancement London Veterans Park
Publish Date: Sep 07, 2006
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LONDON, Ontario – Local Dutch Canadian involvement with Canadian war veterans goes back decades and is about to get a huge boost on September 22, when the community unveils and dedicates an 18-bell carillon at the city’s Veterans Garden, across the street from City Hall. Cast in the Netherlands by specialized foundry Eysbouts, the bells will be mounted on an 8-metre high stainless-steel pole made by a local manufacturer.
Winnipeg’s Dutch community celebrates heritage with Hollandse Feestdagen
Venue located at Devries Rd
Publish Date: Sep 07, 2006
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WINNIPEG, Manitoba – The Manitoba Dutch have scheduled a mid-September three-day weekend event, Hollandse Feestdagen, to showcase Dutch heritage and culture. The organizers working under the auspices of the Dutch Canadian Society of Manitoba (DCSM) promise the event to be a thrilling experience for the entire family.
Flocks of grazing sheep tend to Dutch urban green corridors
Top quality lawn care assured
Publish Date: Sep 07, 2006
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HEERENVEEN, the Netherlands – Former agricultural journalist Diederik Sleurink has gone ’back to the land’ while fellow farmers are being squeezed on all sides in the Netherlands. They battle production quotas, the possible return of agricultural land to unregulated nature, the bureaucracy of animal waste disposal rules, the plans for emergency flood plain reservoirs, and the pressures of new transportation corridors and numerous new subdivisions, reasons for many to pull up stakes for other countries or simply to retire. Sleurink and a few others instead are bringing farm animals back to the city.
Emigrant backs plan to name streets after resistance men
Alkmaar initiative stirs Sherry Todd
Publish Date: Sep 07, 2006
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ALKMAAR - A private initiative to name more streets in this picturesque Noord-Holland town after local resistance men killed by the Germans during World War II has resonated well with at least one Alkmaar emigrant, now living in the U.S. Recently, Sherry Todd (nee De Jong) arranged to have flowers laid at a monument in memory of five Alkmaar heroes who were executed in regional neighbour Zaandam on March 10, 1945.
Edmonton Dutch deli closes doors for good after 53 years
Van’s a community institution
Publish Date: Aug 23, 2006
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EDMONTON, Alberta – One of the oldest Dutch deli and import stores in Canada, an institution in Edmonton, has closed its doors for good after 53 years. Van’s Deli, originally known as Van’s Meats Supply, was started by Dutch emigrant butcher and entrepreneur Jan Vandervelde, one year after arriving from Groningen. Later, his son Jake continued the local retail business while Vandervelde Sr. supplied a wholesale line of sausages and meat cuts to stores throughout much of western Canada.
Party of eighteen Canadians join aunt’s centennial back home
Occasion for prime family time
Publish Date: Aug 23, 2006
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HEEMSE, the Netherlands – She kept in touch with family abroad for decades, and even made a number of visits to Canada. When “tante Stien” Hofsink (nee Brink) recently turned 100, eighteen Canadian nephews and nieces made a special trip to the Netherlands to help celebrate the memorable occasion. Well over one hundred other family members attended the birthday and the family reunion.
Philips tops three Dutch entries on list of best global brand names
Called a ‘turnaround’ brand
Publish Date: Aug 23, 2006
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AMSTERDAM - An annual list of the 100 best global brand names by value ranks electronics giant Philips in 48th place. The company is one of three Dutch brands on the list, compiled by Business Week and Interbrand survey. Bank and insurance group ING has reached 85th place, four rungs higher than energy giant Shell. A fourth Dutch company listed in last year’s survey, Heineken, failed to make the 2006 list.
Arab TV station broadcasts Dutch ‘road movie’ of recent immigrants
U.S. discovery trip by multicultural group
Publish Date: Aug 23, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
AMSTERDAM - An eight-part television series about the experiences of a group of Dutch high school students traveling in the U.S. has been acquired for broadcasting by well-known Arab-language television station Al Jazeera. The series ‘Couscous & Cola’ was directed by Maartje Nevejan.
IMF gives Netherlands high marks for government policies
Publish Date: Aug 23, 2006
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WASHINGTON - The International Monetary Fund is satisfied that the policies of the Dutch government are leading to a lower deficit and an improving economy. The IMF suggests that the Dutch government should aim for at least a one ...
Majority of youths in large cities has non-Western heritage
Publish Date: Aug 23, 2006
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AMSTERDAM - Most people aged 20 years and younger in Amsterdam, The Hague and Rotterdam have a non-Western background. In the three largest cities in the Netherlands one in three of the general population has such roots. Ten years...
Post offices join in final guilder currency exchange drive
Publish Date: Aug 23, 2006
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AMSTERDAM - Guilder coins can only be exchanged for the ‘new’ euros until December 31, 2006. Besides the four offices of the Dutch central Bank (DNB), all post offices in the country will be able to assist people in a last-ditch e...
Passengers of Dutch railway NS soon can watch onboard television
Publish Date: Aug 23, 2006
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UTRECHT - This December, the Dutch Railways (NS) will begin its own version of offering onboard television programs. Some 1,200 cars in the so-called Intercity network will be equipped with airplane-style monitors. Passengers prim...
PTT wants to cut down home delivery to five days a week
Publish Date: Aug 23, 2006
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AMSTERDAM - The former Dutch PTT postal services, now called TNT Post, wants the European Union to ease its regulations for home delivery. In the Netherlands, as happens in a number of other EU countries, mail gets delivered six d...
Water boards warned for shifting inland dikes during drought
Publish Date: Aug 07, 2006
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THE HAGUE – Water control boards across the country, called waterschappen, have been urged to inspect inland dikes, especially the ones sitting on peaty soil. The continued drought could undermine their ability to withstand pressu...
The Hague pioneers with internet-only official wedding preparations
Publish Date: Aug 07, 2006
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THE HAGUE - One third of all couples who married in The Hague last year, used the municipality’s new website to arrange the procedure prior to the official civic wedding ceremony. The internet site allowed them to ‘take out a lice...
Exhibit examines how Nazis used Rembrandt for propaganda campaigns
Publish Date: Aug 07, 2006
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AMSTERDAM - During the occupation of the Netherlands from 1940 to1945, the Nazis used the life and art of 17th century painter Rembrandt van Rijn for Aryan propaganda. One of the many exhibits during the Rembrandt 400 Year highlig...
Shell now ranks third on annual Fortune 500 global list
Raised a notch since last year
Publish Date: Aug 07, 2006
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THE HAGUE - Dutch-British energy giant Royal Dutch Shell has gained one spot on the annual list of the 500 largest companies worldwide, compiled by U.S. magazine Fortune. Shell now ranks third with estimated revenues of $306.7 billion.
American submarine rescued stranded Dutch crew in South China Sea
July 1945 event reenacted in Ohio
Publish Date: Aug 07, 2006
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CLEVELAND, Ohio – In world submarine history, the U.S.S. Cod and the Dutch 0-19 after more than 60 years remain a class to themselves. Their July 1945 encounter recently was reenacted at an Ohio maritime museum, thousands of miles away from the original rescue point. The Cleveland program further fostered the bond between Northeast Ohio's Dutch community and the U.S.S. Cod Submarine Memorial.
Material on elusive Dutch American family discovered in researcher’s own attic
Internet contact hits pay dirt at home
Publish Date: Aug 07, 2006
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WEESP, the Netherlands – If the Netherlands Genealogical Society NGV had been a baby in 1946, he or she now likely would have retirement plans. Instead, the leading Dutch genealogy group at age sixty generously benefits from huge numbers of baby boomers who have been infected by the family research virus and therefore have become a boon to NGV membership rolls. Such roots research is greatly facilitated by the popularity of a prime tool: a computer connected to the Internet.
Dutch surplus church building offered for sale to U.S. televangelist
Realtor sees opportunity for Schuller
Publish Date: Aug 07, 2006
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PEPERGA, the Netherlands – Former Dutch-American Henk Erkelens who operates a realty firm in Amstelveen near Amsterdam, thinks U.S. history buffs should take ownership of the Reformed church building of Peperga where about 400 years ago, famed Dutch colonial official Peter Stuyvesant was baptized. As Nieu Netherlant governor, Stuyvesant was an influential member of the early era of the Reformed presence in America.
British cadets follow Line Crossers’ route of Allied soldiers
Hazardous road to freedom in 1944/5
Publish Date: Aug 07, 2006
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BRUCHEM, the Netherlands – Keeping the memory alive is the prime objective of the WW2 Escape Lines Memorial Society. The British group recently organized a tour in the area between the Great Rivers of the Netherlands, following the 1944-1945 escape routes to the liberated South used by hundreds of soldiers left behind enemy lines.
Queen Beatrix and Belgian Prince visit 100-year old rifle club
Publish Date: Jul 24, 2006
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STRAMPROY - The highlight at the recent 100th anniversary celebrations of the Limburg rifle club OLS was the visit of Queen Beatrix and Belgian Prince Filip. The cross-border club held a party during which some 45,000 people witne...
Location discovered of long-lost island in Frisian Sea
Publish Date: Jul 24, 2006
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WARFFUM - On the heels of the ‘discovery’ of the Frisian island Bosch, the same researcher has dug up evidence of another such island. ‘Monks Longeye’ had been mentioned on 15th century maps when it even housed a small chapel. Loc...
Re-development former Dutch oilfields not before 2009
Publish Date: Jul 24, 2006
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ASSEN – The resumption of pumping oil from the fields near the Drenthe village of Schoonebeek could take begin as early as 2009. The oilfields were abandoned ten years ago, when it became economically unfeasible to tap the thick o...
Trail of large-scale models HAL liners finds dead end in U.S.
Used for promotion in 1950s
Publish Date: Jul 24, 2006
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ROTTERDAM - Former Holland America Line (HAL) employees and other aficionados thus far have come up dry in their quest for long-lost large-scale models of the legendary HAL-ships. Made in the 1950s, the 12-metres long replica’s were used to promote HAL’s cruises throughout Europe and the U.S. It is feared that the models eventually were dismantled and scrapped in the 1970s, likely in North America. The researchers welcome any information or trace about this.
Maintenance work filmed at Dutch war cemeteries in Southeast Asia
August 15th premiere of documentary
Publish Date: Jul 24, 2006
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JAKARTA - The hostilities of World War Two officially ended on August 15, 1945, when Japan surrendered to the Allies. The effects of the conflict continue to be relevant however for the survivors of those who paid the ultimate price with their life, so their memory will live on. Dutch officials in various Southeast Asian countries continue to attend ceremonies regularly to mark the anniversary of Japan’s surrender.
Entire shop stewards committee picks CLAC as its new union
Orca Bay’s blockbuster trade
Publish Date: Jul 24, 2006
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VANCOUVER, BC – A new coach is not the only change at the Vancouver Canucks. Various ice hockey stars have packed their bags for different sports teams, some perhaps not willingly. Another departure occurred at Orca Bay, the team’s owners, is its Unite Here Local 40, when over 400 employees of the company voted about 77 percent in favour of joining Local 501 of the Christian Labour Association of Canada (CLAC).
Dutch TNT embarks on postal expansion drive in post-monopoly era
Publish Date: Jul 01, 2005
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
AMSTERDAM - Dutch postal services and parcel delivery company TNT aggressively is expanding its foothold in other EU countries - notably in the U.K. and Germany - as its monopoly in the Netherlands is due to expire next year. At t...
Enkhuizen celebrates 650th birthday as a city in grand fashion
Publish Date: Jul 07, 2006
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ENHUIZEN - Year-long celebrations are under way in Enkhuizen, a historic city on the banks of the IJsselmeer. Granted city rights in 1356, Enkhuizen has evolved from a 13th century village on a peninsula called West-Friesland, to ...
Government reduces possible payouts for disaster victims
Publish Date: Jul 07, 2006
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THE HAGUE - Stating that most people will be able to get calamity insurance, the government is paring down its financial responsibility towards victims of various types of disasters. The earlier ‘generous’ payouts could tempt peop...
Record amount of recyclable paper collected last year
Publish Date: Jul 07, 2006
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THE HAGUE - With 2.5 million tons of recyclable paper collected last year, the Netherlands is among the top three in the world and has achieved a recycling rate of 77 percent. The amount of ‘old paper’ amassed has increased since ...
Dutch, Belgian dredgers try to penetrate Chinese market
Publish Date: Jul 07, 2006
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BEJING - Assisted by Dutch Junior Minister for Economic Affairs Schultz van Hagen, representatives of the four largest dredging firms in the world are trying to gain a foothold in the lucrative Chinese market. Together, Boskalis a...
Valuable VOC information source being prepared for Internet access
Mega project covers 650,000 employees
Publish Date: Jul 07, 2006
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LEIDEN, the Netherlands – Data processors will be busy over the next few years adding the information of all seagoing employees of the United East Indies Company (VOC) to one huge database. When completed, the system is expected to hold key information on 650,000 employees. The database will be accessible through the Internet and is part of a mega project, “Uitgevaren voor de Kamers van de VOC” (Embarked for the Chambers of the VOC). It can be found at http://voc.websilon.nl.
Bradford and area served by Dutch store entrepreneurs for over fifty years
Purveyors of a transplanted Dutch experience
Publish Date: Jul 07, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
BRADFORD, Ontario – The re-opening of the local Dutch store, renamed Dutch Treats, brings to mind again the extent of progress since pioneering entrepreneurs introduced Dutch imported products to the area in the early 1950s. Nearly everywhere, the early pioneers loaded their Dutch products in cars or vans and called on immigrant households to sell to customers at the door. That is how John Bonsma established his business in Newmarket, from where eventually he called on about 500 customers each month, covering an area from Georgetown to Port Perry, and from Bradford to Toronto. Bonsma sold his Variation Store to the Veenstra family in 1954. The Tjoelker family also owned the store for a while. The last owner, Coby (Niemeyer) DeBruin for years ran the business until it was closed.
Church organist Feddema keeps playing beyond eightieth anniversary
Succeeded father at age nine
Publish Date: Jul 07, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
DAMWOUDE, The Netherlands – Dutch musician Arnold Feddema recently celebrated his eightieth anniversary as organist of the local Reformed church. Playing twice on Sundays, over one hundred official services a year, Feddema estimates he accompanied the GKNs congregation more than eight thousand times. The figure does not include all the weddings and funerals he observed from the organ bench.
Half of all Dutch emigrants return home within eight years
Nearly 5,000 repatriated in six months
Publish Date: Jul 07, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
AMSTERDAM - Almost 5,000 Dutch emigrants have returned home during the first six months of this year alone, an increase of 600 over the same period last year. According to the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), half of all emigrants return to the Netherlands within eight years of their original departure for a better life elsewhere.
U.S. architects study Dutch haystacks for authentic exhibit
Hudson Valley gets new open-air museum
Publish Date: Jul 07, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
OMMEN - Haystacks at farms in and around this Overijssel town, and at many other places in the Netherlands will serve as examples for an ‘authentic’ Dutch haystack to be erected in the Hudson Valley, where an open-air museum is being prepared for a 2007 opening. Experts from Hudson Valley Vernacular Architectures recently were in the Netherlands to study the way the Dutch for centuries have built haystacks.
Dredging pond for remnants WWII locomotive comes up empty
Future site for houseboats
Publish Date: Jul 07, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
DEVENTER – And the mystery remains unsolved. The recent search for a German locomotive presumably derailed by the Dutch resistance during World War II did not produce any indication that such a behemoth actually is sitting at the bottom of a local pond. A developer, planning to use the large pond called Holterkolk to moor houseboats, hired divers to descend into the murky depths to eliminate any surprises while developing the body of water, in Dutch called a kolk.
Border provinces celebrate rise of Duchy Brabant 900 years ago
Publish Date: Jun 23, 2006
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LEUVEN - The local governments of all municipalities in the Belgian provinces of Flemish Brabant and Antwerp as well as the Dutch province of Noord-Brabant recently celebrated the foundation of the Duchy of Brabant nine centuries ...
Romans may have used Naaldwijk as 1st century naval base
Publish Date: Jun 23, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
AMSTERDAM - Researchers deciphering the fragment of a bronze plaque unearthed in Naaldwijk two years ago, suggest that the now-landlocked town in the 1st century served as a base for the Roman river fleet. The text on the plaque i...
Abraham Kuyper’s birthplace raising funds for commemorative monument
Initiative by new foundation
Publish Date: Jun 23, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
MAASSLUIS - Plans to honour nineteenth-century statesman Dr. Abraham Kuyper with a statue in his place of birth are going ahead despite a $100,000 shortfall for casting the bronze sculpture and for moving it from Hungary to this Zuid-Holland community. A local foundation had taken over the initiative for the monument, after city council had nixed the proposal last year.
Opijnen honours crew of WWII US Air Force bomber with monument
Sole survivor at unveiling
Publish Date: Jun 23, 2006
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OPIJNEN - This Betuwe community on the banks of the Waal River has joined numerous other towns and villages in the Netherlands with a monument honouring Allied men and women who took up arms against the brutal Nazi-regime which overran much of Europe in the early years of WWII. Opijnen specifically remembers the eight-member crew of a USAAF B-17 bomber who perished when their plane crashed nearby on July 30, 1943. The ‘Man-O-War’ co-pilot 2nd Lt. John P. Bruce, who had survived the crash together with pilot Keene C. McCammon, attended the unveiling of the B-17 monument together with McCammon’s widow and U.S. Consul General Michele Bond.
Rep. Hoekstra to co-chair Dutch Congressional Caucus
Recipient prestigious award
Publish Date: Jun 23, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
NEW YORK – U.S. Congress now has a bipartisan Congressional Caucus on the Netherlands, which will work to preserve and enhance the existing relationships between the United States and the Netherlands.
Massive hay barn fire at dairy attracts large crowd
Popular farmgate outlet hit
Publish Date: Jun 23, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
LYNDEN, Washington – A massive hay barn fire at Lynden’s best known dairy farm caused some anxious moments recently as fire fighters were handicapped in battling the blaze. Fourteen fire engines and water pumpers, as well as up to 40 firefighters fought the blaze at Edaleen Dairy, a popular outlet for farmgate products owned by the Brandsma family.
Early Mass abruptly ends after celebrant drinks wine
Poisoning fells priest
Publish Date: Jun 23, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
ROME – An early Mass at the Church of the Frisians nearly ended in tragedy recently when the celebrant, an Italian priest, abruptly ended the service when he fell ill after drinking from the chalice. Hastily taken to a nearby hospital, the clergyman slowly is recuperating from his nearly fatal ordeal.
Maritime history of inland sea highlighted in landscape newest province
Flevoland marks its treasures
Publish Date: Jun 23, 2006
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SWIFTERBANT, the Netherlands – To alert the public to its long history, a local group in the country’s newest province has designed markers to post on historical sites. Unlike other provinces, Flevoland’s treasures – shipwrecks - are hidden from view, buried under several feet of soil. So far, over 430 of such sites have been found, some holding wrecks dating back to the early 1300s.
Dutch 1940 war veteran receives medal at 2006 Friendship Day
Thanks to efforts by son-in-law
Publish Date: May 23, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
BURLINGTON, Ontario – Much of the attention at the Canada Netherlands Friendship Day each year is on the liberation of the Netherlands by mostly Canadian Allied soldiers, in the Spring of 1945. The 2006 Burlington city hall commemoration reached a bit further back with a 1940 Dutch army conscript belatedly receiving his Mobilisatie Oorlogskruis. The well-attended event included members of the current Canadian Armed Forces as well as WWII veterans and a range of dignitaries.
Entrepreneur DeVos commencement speaker at newly named Kuyper College
Amway-cofounder brings gift
Publish Date: May 23, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
GRAND RAPIDS, Michigan - During commencement exercises for the newly renamed Kuyper College, the former Reformed Bible Institute, its president Dr. Nicholas V. Kroeze announced that commencement speaker Rich De Vos had come with a major gift for the school. The gift in memory of Jack Van Laar, who held a professorate in music at the College from 1952 to 1988, funds the faculty chair for the new Music and Worship major at Kuyper College. The Chair is named after Mr. Van Laar.
Mainline Presbyterian seminary adds collection on Dutch theologian to its library
Church historian Puchinger specialized in Kuyper
Publish Date: May 23, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
PRINCETON, NJ – North American students of educator, theologian and political leader Abraham Kupyer, who dominated life in the Netherlands for decades in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, can opt for research at a PCUSA institution before deciding to head for the Netherlands. Princeton Seminary has more than 32,500 books on Dutch theology, political history, and literature in its library collection, thanks to a private American donor and to the estate of Dr. George Puchinger, head of the Historical Documentation Center for Dutch Protestantism, who died in 1999.
Queen Beatrix ‘among ten richest heads of state’
Forbes magazine estimates
Publish Date: May 23, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
WASHINGTON - Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands is ranked tenth on a list of the world’s wealthiest heads of state as compiled by Forbes magazine. The list is controversial, since no actual figures or financial details are known about any of the ranked monarchs and presidents.
Paccar-owned Dutch truck builder DAF has record sales
Rebounds after trying years
Publish Date: May 23, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
EINDHOVEN, the Netherlands - The DAF truck manufacturing company has accomplished record sales and profits last year. Sales figures show revenues of $4.3 billion, up from $3.8 billion in the previous year.
Radio program Arbeidsvitaminen longest running in the world
‘Vitamins for work’
Publish Date: May 23, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
HILVERSUM, the Netherlands – Dutch broadcasters have set a new world record. A radio program of the AVRO broadcasting association officially has been named ‘the longest running, national radio broadcast program in the world.’ The designation earned ‘Arbeidsvitaminen’ an entry in the Guinness Book of World Records. Freely translated, the program’s title could read ‘Vitamins for work.’
New website provides entry into all Frisian reference books
Publish Date: May 23, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
LEEUWARDEN - Reference books on Frisian cultural and literary history now can be accessed on a new website, www.wumkes.nl. The internet portal has been set up by the Fryske Akademy and the provincial archives Tresoar. Both institu...
Seven new eco-ducts planned for Gelderland province
Publish Date: May 23, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
KOOTWIJK - The provincial authorities of Gelderland want to build seven so-called eco-ducts to ensure the preservation of wildlife in the Veluwe nature reserve. Eco-ducts are passages over thoroughfares for wildlife trekking from ...
Urban Dutchmen outnumber rural area residents
Publish Date: May 23, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
VOORBURG - More people (6.8 million) these days live in urban settings than in rural communities (6.5 million). The remainder of the 16.6 million inhabitants live in so-called transition areas: large villages and commuter clusters...
Operation Manna monument honours Allied food drops
Huge 1945 relief mission
Publish Date: Jun 07, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
ROTTERDAM - A colourful steel monument was unveiled recently acknowledging Operation Manna, the huge food drop operation over the Nazi-occupied and hunger-stricken western part of the Netherlands in late April and early May 1945. The monument was created by artists of the group Observatorium and symbolizes stacks of food parcels inside the cargo hold of Allied bombers. A huge bronze plaque tells the story of Operation Manna.
Inventor artificial kidney Kolff receives his 13th Honorary Doctorate
Honoured at N.Y. State University
Publish Date: Jun 07, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
NEW YORK - Dutch American physician and inventor, Dr. Willem Johan Kolff (95) who developed the world’s first kidney dialysis machine, received a Honorary Doctorate from the State University of New York recently. The degree is Kolff’ thirteenth such recognition for his pioneering work, received, both in the Netherlands and his adoptive U.S.A.
Queen Beatrix up for new challenge after countrywide tour
Visited all twelve provinces
Publish Date: Jun 07, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
DELFT - During her 2005-jubilee year, during which Dutch Queen Beatrix celebrated 25 years as her country’s monarch, she visited communities in all twelve provinces. Calling her royal tour ‘a great gift,’ the Queen ended the extensive schedule of visits in Schipluiden, Naaldwijk and ’t Woudt, all three located just southwest of the city of Delft, in what is known as the Westland.
Emigrating Dutch family took 2nd century pottery along
Well-traveled Amphora back in Eindhoven
Publish Date: Jun 07, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
EINDHOVEN - A 2nd century amphora and a drinking vessel discovered when a regional canal was dug in the 1930s, have found their way back from Australia to Eindhoven, courtesy of a Dutch Canadian living in Calgary, Alberta. Johanna Bates-van der Zeijst, a lawyer who specializes as a literary consultant, donated the pieces to the city of Eindhoven and told of the provenance of the pottery since 1930.
‘Hometown’ Winterswijk honours artist Mondrian with monument
Residence for twelve years
Publish Date: Jun 07, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
WINTERSWIJK, the Netherlands - Dutch-born abstract painter Piet Mondriaan who in 1940 migrated to the U.S., recently was honoured with a sculpture in this eastern Dutch town where he had lived between the ages eight and twenty. Amersfoort-born Mondriaan died in New York in 1944 at the age of 82.
‘Achterhoek’ invests millions to attract even more visitors
Publish Date: Jun 07, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
LICHTEVOORDE - Being one of only three rural areas in the Netherlands with an increased number of tourists last year, the ‘Achterhoek’ want to do even more. The region in the extreme eastern part of Gelderland has earmarked $100 m...
Romans may have used Naaldwijk as 1st century naval base
Publish Date: Jun 07, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
AMSTERDAM - Researchers deciphering the fragment of a bronze plaque unearthed in Naaldwijk two years ago, suggest that the now-landlocked town in the 1st century served as a base for the Roman river fleet. The text on the plaque i...
Establishing national agriculture museum goal existing collections
Publish Date: Jun 07, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
BEESD – Decrying that an agricultural society such as the Netherlands lacks a National Agriculture Museum, three specialized museums are banding together to establish such an institute. A site has been found for the new museum: a ...
Wind turbines increasingly part of the EU power grid
Publish Date: Jun 07, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
LUXEMBOURG - Since 2000, electricity generated by wind turbines throughout the European Union has increased by 150 percent. It makes up for five percent of all capacity, as it does in the Netherlands alone. Most of the electricity...
Needed migrants given easier access to Dutch residency
Publish Date: Jun 07, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE - A new points system will give talented migrant workers and students better opportunities to live and work in the Netherlands, if they are needed. Based on a new set of criteria, such people will be allowed a residency ...
Time-honoured traditions enhance event in young city
Dutch Market for twentieth time
Publish Date: May 08, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
EDMONTON, Alberta – Centuries-old traditions and entertainment of the Netherlands will rub shoulders with contemporary goods and merchandise at the upcoming annual Dutch Spring Market at Edmonton, a city now aged just over 100 years. The Schagen-based Westfrisian folk dance group has been booked for a performance each hour, while vaandelzwaaier Martien Opsteen will show his skill at banner throwing (a medieval ceremony adhered to in Bakel, North Brabant, from as far back as 1296) four times.
Dutch small town couple happily settled on isolated farm in rural Ontario
More than “exchanging” a country
Publish Date: May 08, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
LONDON - Immigration offered enterprising individuals ample opportunity at pioneering in far-away places, using other languages, immerging into different traditions and culture. As the impressions of World War Two still lingered, many people from the densely populated western part of the Netherlands had been taught to surmount hardship and deprivation.
Cache of ceased private letters reveals Dutch social history
London discovery significant
Publish Date: May 08, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
LONDON - Researchers who are tracing all aspects of the history of the Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie (United East Indies Company, also known by the acronym VOC) call the batch of 18 private letters between officer Harmanus Kikkert and his wife Aagje Luijtsen of Texel the ’discovery of the century.’ The letters, which were found in British national archives date from 1776 to 1780, when the Netherlands was at war with the United Kingdom. Intercepted by the enemy, the correspondence lifts the veil of love life between marriage partners who because of the husband’s work would not see each other for years.
Holten commemoration marks 61st anniversary of liberation
Canadian War Cemetery
Publish Date: May 08, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
HOLTEN – The 61th anniversary of the liberation of the municipalities of Apeldoorn and Voorst by the 48th Highlanders of Canada recently was commemorated at the Canadian War Cemetery in this Overijssel community.
Polish Brigade awarded highest Dutch military honour for WWII heroism
One of Prince Bernhard’s last wishes granted
Publish Date: May 08, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE - A Dutch military honour which has not been awarded since 1952, will be bestowed on the First Polish Independent Parachute Brigade (Samodzielna Brygada Spadochronowa), to recognize its wartime efforts to help liberate the Netherlands. Survivors and other representatives will receive the Military Willem’s Order from Queen Beatrix on May 31. The Queen is the Grand Master in the Order.
Groningen sailors rescued in Caribbean by Dutch freighter
Scholtens couple on world trip shipwrecked
Publish Date: May 08, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
CAYMAN BRAC - At and Dia Scholtens, a Groningen couple on a years-long voyage around the world with their sail boat Angelique, recently had to be rescued from their sinking vessel. They were sailing towards the Cayman Islands in the Caribbean. The Scholtens were plucked from the ‘Angelique’ by the crew of a passing freighter, coincidentally owned by a shipping company based in their home province in the Netherlands.
Concerns over noise send fighter jets for training to Canada
Publish Date: May 08, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE - F-16 and other fighter jets from a number of air bases in the Netherlands again will use Canadian air space to conduct war games - such as ‘Maple Flag’ - and other necessary air trials, together with jets from other NA...
Police collects outstanding tickets with tow trucks
Publish Date: May 08, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
AMSTERDAM - Police in the Dutch capital have pioneered an effective way to collect outstanding parking and other traffic tickets. A tow truck prominently follows officers on collection duty to the offenders’ homes, a presence whic...
DVD set shows visual history former Dutch State Mines
Publish Date: May 08, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
HEERLEN - The history of the former coal mines in the district and that of the lives of the miners has been assembled on a series of DVDs issued on behalf of DSM, the giant chemical company which originally was the mines’ operator...
New electronic passport contains chip with digital face scan
Publish Date: May 08, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
HAARLEM - The latest version of the new Dutch passport employing electronic scanning capabilities and - in the future - a fingerprint, will be available this Summer. The document will be embedded with a chip containing personal da...
Dutch foreign aid ballooned to record $5.13 billion last year
Publish Date: Apr 23, 2006
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PARIS - The Dutch government paid a record $5.13 billion last year in aid to developing countries, representing 0.82 percent of the Gross National Income. In 2004 and 2005, the Netherlands was one of very few countries in the worl...
Image of WWII stance VU theologians not borne out by facts
Publish Date: Apr 23, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
AMSTELVEEN - Research by Reformed Christian theologian Aalders into the role of his former colleagues at the Free University Amsterdam during World War II indicates that the 1940s professors were not the fire-eating pocked resista...
WWII veterans remain the focus for travel firm owner Verstraete
Tours include battle fields
Publish Date: Apr 23, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
If Baldwin Verstraete were to be asked to summarize the focus of his Verstraete travel and cruise business, he may well decide on this four-word line his business used in recent tour advertisements for WWII veterans and their families: Keeping the memory alive. Taking former Canadian soldiers for a return visit to battlefields and other significant places increasingly has become his specialty. He still arranges such tours, even though WWII veterans now are aged 80 and over.
Grandnephew pays tribute to WWII casualty Gaele Visser
Dutch Canadian buried at Holten
Publish Date: Apr 23, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
A Dutch Canadian immigrant who in 1942 at the age of 21 enlisted with the Dufferin Haldimand Rifles will be remembered at the Burlington City Hall flag raising ceremony on April 29. Gaele Visser’s grandnephew Jordan Slump in various ways has raised the legacy of the soldier who was shot and killed near Wilhelmshaven in Germany on April 23, 1945, two weeks short of the end of WWII in Europe. Visser is one of the thousands of Canadians buried at the Holten war cemetery in the Netherlands.
Realtor Feenstra promotes Dutch tulips as new symbol of friendship
Canada-wide initiative
Publish Date: Apr 23, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
OAKVILLE, Ontario – Say it with flowers. Realtor Case Feenstra wants to say it with lots of tulips throughout Canada at any or all of the thousands of war memorials as a symbol of enduring gratitude and friendship. Feenstra envisions 11,000 fellow realtors nationally selling bags of tulips in support of his Shelter Blooms concept. Royal Lepage Shelter Foundation set up a volunteer committee to help promote the campaign.
Golden anniversary for Canada’s largest multiple wedding
Blenheim home to Dorssers clan
Publish Date: Apr 23, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
BLENHEIM, Ontario – The Dorssers family firmly put their new hometown on the North American map, fifty years ago this April 28. Then, under the watchful eyes of a battalion of frenzied photographers, cameramen and journalists, and by extension, the continent, six of the 15 Dorssers’ children tied the wedding knot at the local St. Mary parish church. The North American wedding of the year was preceded by an all-expenses-paid appearance of the couples on Garry Moore’s New York-based game show, “I’ve got a Secret.’ The wedding also was widely shown at movie theatres and was included in Polygoon theatrical news in the Netherlands as well.
Illinois students to replicate Kolff’s first artificial kidney machine
‘Original’ in Dutch museum
Publish Date: Apr 23, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
CHICAGO, Illinois – Students at a U.S. technology institute will replicate the world’s first dialysis machine. A team headed by local physician Dr. Willem Kolff at a Kampen, the Netherlands hospital, invented machine in 1943. The students however do not face similar difficulties as Kolff’s group, which was working under wartime conditions in an occupied country whith shortages of all kinds.
Latest luxurious Holland America cruise ship ‘Noordam’ off on maiden trip
Noordam history covers a century
Publish Date: Apr 23, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
NEW YORK – The names of old and familiar Dutch passenger liners live on in ever larger and more luxurious cruise ships. The recent launching of the Noordam by Holland America Line, now U.S. owned, heralds the introduction of a fourth generation ship, with more than a century of history. Built in Italy and registered in the Netherlands, the ship has New York as its homeport. The latest Noordam joins the ‘Oosterdam’, the ‘Zuiderdam’ and the ‘Westerdam’ at the Carnival Cruises-owned subsidiary.
Netherlands universities welcome more foreign students
Over 70 institutions accredited
Publish Date: Apr 23, 2006
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THE HAGUE - Last year over 6,500 foreign students applied for a temporary residence permit, up ten percent over 2004. The IND, the Dutch Immigration and Naturalization Service, grants such permits.
Dutch immigration history author VanderMey dies suddenly at age 65
Community loses its premier chronicler
Publish Date: Apr 07, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
BRANTFORD, Ontario – The premier chronicler of the Dutch-Canadian experience whose cherished books grace shelves in tens of thousands of homes and libraries particularly in Canada, but also in the Netherlands and the USA, has died suddenly. Former daily newspaper editor and author Albert VanderMey had turned 65 two weeks before his death.
Target date 2012 for upgrading Dutch railway system
Publish Date: Apr 07, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
UTRECHT - The massive drive to upgrade the railroad lines, railway schedules, and infrastructure will not be finished until 2012. With 6,550 kilometres of railways (mostly double tracked) in a grid spanning 2,800 kilometres, and a...
North American immigrants excluded from Dutch citizenship tests
Publish Date: Apr 07, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
AMSTERDAM - All aspiring newcomers to the Netherlands must first learn citizenship principles and pass a final test before applying for resident status. The same applies for immigrants already in the country who are on social assi...
Dutch Australian entrepreneur discovers unknown brother in hometown
Siblings placed in foster homes
Publish Date: Apr 07, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
ADELAIDE, Australia – Two brothers, living in different continents, are busy bridging sixty years of separation. Although both attended the same Apeldoorn technical school at the same time decades ago, Fred Bolsenbroek and Bert Willemsen had no inkling that they were related, let alone siblings who were born a year apart. The two men recently met for the first time as brothers, when Willemsen travelled to the Netherlands from Australia where he owns The Dutch Shop in Adelaide.
‘Weather history’ book centres on 17th century Cruquius
Publish Date: Mar 23, 2006
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CRUQUIUS - The newest volume in an ongoing series of history books on the weather in the Netherlands during the previous Millennium, has 17th century meteorologist Nicolaus Cruquius as the protagonist. In his fifth book, author Ja...
Naval Air Force fought heroic but hopeless battle against Japan
New book examines MLD role in defense of Netherlands East Indies
Publish Date: Mar 23, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
DALLAS, Texas – The Netherlands, the world’s third largest empire behind Great Britain and France, was a nation of seven million people which, among other others, ruled over 100 million Indonesians on the other side of the globe. In the Netherlands East Indies, just 300,000 Europeans from many countries oversaw a vast business empire especially noted as one of the world’s largest suppliers of oil. Yet it was an empire, which in 1941, had neither the economic nor military might to repel a determined enemy. Imperial Japan had behind it a 20-year build-up to war. Rebuffed when the Dutch cut off oil supply in 1940**, Japan invaded the Netherlands East Indies (NEI) soon after the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, in a desperate bid for oil, particularly needed to continue Japan’s decade-long war on Mainland China.
Kroft diary documents Canada-bound move step by step
Sharing the Story of Emigration
Publish Date: Mar 23, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
SUDBURY, Ontario – For many children of immigrant parents, the process of leaving home and family in the Netherlands always will remain an obscure part of family history. Why did they really leave and what was all involved? Most people did not record the many steps it took before they saw their country’s coastline disappear behind the horizon. Fewer still described the emotions of the numerous farewells of family, friends and neighbours. In a postwar society where most items still were rationed, few people spent their hard-earned money on a camera and pictures.
Dike innovation offers solution to New Orleans flood areas
‘Dutchdam’ is folding emergency flood barrier
Publish Date: Mar 23, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
WOUBRUGGE - An innovation which earned designer Corné Rijlaarsdam a development award from the Dutch government recently, could provide solutions to flood-prone Louisiana and other such danger zones around the world. The ‘Dutchdam’ is a folding emergency barrier, which can be deployed quickly and with relative ease if water levels rise.
Dutch speedskater Sijm wins main races at Sylvan Lake marathon
Professionals expected to return in 2007
Publish Date: Mar 23, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
SYLVAN LAKE, Alberta - The recent, fourth annual Spitz Sylvan Lake Ice Marathon attracted a great turnout for the two-day tour and race events at extreme low temperatures. Organizer Evert van Benthem, a two-time winner of the Eleven Cities Marathon in Friesland, the Netherlands, promised that the 2007 edition of the 200K race will see Dutch and other European professional skaters participate again.
‘Holland’ as brand name worth $792 billion
Tenth on Anholt Nation Brands Index
Publish Date: Mar 23, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
AMSTERDAM - The name value of the Netherlands has been calculated at $792 billion. If ‘Holland’ were a brand name, it would be ranked tenth on the list of the most valuable country names in the world.
‘Urban Marine’ wages guerrilla war in problem neighbourhoods
City provides carte blanche
Publish Date: Mar 23, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
ROTTERDAM – The major Dutch port city of Rotterdam has gained wide attention for its controversial innovations, adapting policies to meet the serious problems of crime and drug addiction. In 2002, plagued by serious problems, the municipality following an electoral upheaval, hired six people to help solve crime and drug use in a number of lower-class neighbourhoods. These so-called ‘urban marines’ were given carte blanche in dealing with citizens and municipal offices, and answer only to Rotterdam’s Mayor Opstelten.
Dutch-owned Flatiron wins major NC highway contract for bypass
Bridge to span wetlands and river
Publish Date: Mar 23, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
WASHINGTON, North Carolina - Longmont, Colorado-based Flatiron Constructors has secured a $192 million joint venture contract to build the new Washington Bypass in North Carolina. Flatiron, a subsidiary of Dutch construction giant BAM leads the project with a 60% share.
Annual Auschwitz commemoration remembers 59,500 Dutch Jews
Publish Date: Mar 07, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
AMSTERDAM - The newly declared January 27 UN Holocaust Remembrance Day has been observed in the Netherlands for decades. The annual Auschwitz commemoration in Amsterdam remembers the 60,000 Dutch Jews who were shipped to the death...
Manna flight may be reenacted after 2005 attempt failed
Publish Date: Mar 07, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
VLAARDINGEN - A commemorative flight, which on Queen’s Day 2005 was to drop ‘Liberty Bread’ on a well-attended site in this community near Rotterdam, may see another attempt this April 29. Last year, the pilot of the historic B-25...
Government kicks off ’anti-terrorism’ campaign
Publish Date: Mar 07, 2006
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THE HAGUE - A new, national anti-terrorism campaign urges citizens to be alert and thus diminish the potential for terror attacks against or within the Netherlands. The campaign is supported by television and radio info-mercials, ...
Expansion Menno Simons’ monument draws support worldwide
Publish Date: Mar 07, 2006
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WITMARSUM - The monument to church reformer Menno Simons who was born in this Frisian village in 1496, will be overhauled and expanded to include a ‘Menno Park.’ The park will get a transparent contour replica of the first small M...
Dutch brewer Grolsch contracts new distributor in the U.S.
Anheuser-Busch takes over
Publish Date: Mar 07, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
ST. LOUIS, Missouri – Royal Grolsch and Anheuser-Busch Inc. have signed an agreement, which gives the Dutch brewer access to the U.S. market through the marketing and sales network of the American beer giant. Until recently, Grolsch was distributed in the U.S. by Stamford, Connecticut-based United States Beverage LLC.
Sixteenth-century Zeeland tapestry named one of 50 best in the world
Likely to be exhibited in New York in 2007
Publish Date: Mar 07, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
MIDDELBURG, the Netherlands - A tapestry made by a local artisan around the year 1600 and now part of the collection of the Provincial Museum of Zeeland, has been named one of the 50 most important tapestries in the world. The curators of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York gave their assessment of the artwork.
Community roots and heritage served by large Dutch product line
Customers are stores’ ambassadors
Publish Date: Mar 07, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
NEW WESTMINSTER, BC - Filling the community’s need for imported groceries, cheeses and deli products was the goal of Hollands Shopping Centre’s founder John de Haas even before his September 1947 passage to Canada was booked. Initially a peddler of such goods to newly arrived Dutch immigrants, it was not until February 1958, that the De Haas family opened its own store. Current owner Tako Slump who came to Canada over 35 years later, wants everyone to join him in celebrating the store’s 48th anniversary. All those turning 48 this year are invited to drop by the store on or before March 16 for their free package of top-of-the-line stroopwafels.
Hans Brinker expert may write book about American character
Fascinating sideline for skating enthusiast
Publish Date: Mar 07, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
DRACHTEN, the Netherlands - A Dutch municipal official who as a hobby for forty years collected books about skating, could not resist starting another collection after running across a copy of Hans Brinker or the silver skates by American author Mary Mapes Dodge. The book fascinated him, especially after he became aware of its popularity and how widespread the children’s classic had been distributed throughout the world.
New Dutch spelling rules meet with heavy resistance
Publish Date: Feb 23, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE - Teachers and journalists throughout the country are ignoring the newest spelling rules as introduced recently in the so-called ‘Green Booklet.’ Calling the new rules ‘confusing once again,’ editors of newspapers and ot...
Integration test for immigrants starts before leaving home country
Publish Date: Feb 23, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE - People from non-EU countries who want to settle in the Netherlands will need to complete integration tests. Starting in March, the tests will be conducted at a Dutch embassy or consulate in their home countries. The t...
Netherlands and Australia celebrate 400 years of ties
Publish Date: Feb 23, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE – The uninterrupted - warm - relations between the Netherlands and Australia go all the way back to the 1606 landing of a group of sailors from Dutch ship Duyfken on the shores of what later became known as Australia. Th...
Over 120,000 Dutch citizens emigrated in 2005
Publish Date: Feb 23, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
VOORBURG - A record number of 121,000 people left the country last year, ten percent more than in 2004. Over half of them were born in the Netherlands. Of those foreign-born Dutchmen that departed, the vast majority returned to th...
Dutch War Brides formed vanguard of massive post-war immigration
February 1946 Mauretania II arrival remembered
Publish Date: Feb 23, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia – The arrival of the troop transport ship Mauretania II at Pier 21 in the harbour of the Nova Scotia port on February 9, 1946, marked the start of a huge move of War Brides and their dependents to Canada. That year, 45,000 War Brides and their children, mostly babies, crossed the gateway to a new life, among them about 1,800 Dutch women. A recent ceremony in Halifax commemorated this significant chapter in Canada’s postwar history.
Sportsman Michael Chong to stickhandle sensitive Canadian cabinet portfolio
Co-founder high-profile Dominion Institute
Publish Date: Feb 23, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
GUELPH, Ontario – The recently re-elected Ontario Member of Parliament Michael Chong who widely was considered a potential cabinet minister is Canada’s new President of Queen’s Privy Council. Chong who was born into the family of a Chinese-Canadian physician and his Dutch-born wife, also has been sworn in as Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs and Sports in the Conservative Harper cabinet.
Bronze plaques acknowledge fallen of 1942 Java Sea Battle
Over 900 names at Surabaya memorial
Publish Date: Feb 23, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE - Fifteen bronze plaques engraved with the names of the 915 Dutch sailors who died in the Battle of the Java Sea on February 27 and 28, 1942, will be unveiled at Kembang Kuning, the Dutch Memorial Cemetery in Surabaya, Indonesia.
Oldest person in the Netherlands visited immigrant daughter in U.S.
Woman turns 111
Publish Date: Feb 23, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
BUNNIK, the Netherlands – Former globetrotter Alexandrina van Donkelaar-Vink at 111 years of age recently became the oldest person in the Netherlands. Van Donkelaar earlier for six years lived on the Dutch Antilles island or Curaçao and traveled a number of times across the Atlantic as well to visit her daughter who then lived in San Francisco, California.
Canadian-owned oil terminal likely to change hands
Largest storage facility in Amsterdam
Publish Date: Feb 23, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
AMSTERDAM - Dutch liquid bulk logistics giant Vopak has become a lead contender to acquire all of the European assets of Canadian-owned World Point Terminals. The Canadian firm owns 280 oil tanks in the port of Amsterdam, with a combined capacity of 8 million barrels, or 1.3 million cubic metres.
Agriculture could forever disappear from traditional peat soil areas
Publish Date: Feb 07, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE - Many former peat bogs now are returned to nature, pushing farmers off these former land reclamations. Agriculture is bound to disappear from these ’wetlands’ to concentrate in other areas of the country. This especiall...
Internet access to old colonial maps proves invaluable
Publish Date: Feb 07, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
AMSTERDAM - Maps from Indonesia’s colonial times as the Dutch East Indies, last year helped relief organizations find their way to tsunami-stricken areas. The Indies maps, together with old maps charting other former Dutch colonie...
Walking ‘around-the-block’ remains most popular leisure activity
Publish Date: Feb 07, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
HILVERSUM - To most people, a regular stroll ‘around-the-block,’ remains the most popular walking exercise in the Netherlands, followed by a city-walk and a longer nature walk. A recent survey suggests that the woods in the centra...
Kota Inten in 1948 opened Canada-bound ship schedule
Nova Scotia elated with new arrivals
Publish Date: Feb 07, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
Tens of thousands of young men from rural Canada had enlisted in the army during World War II, to join the troops overseas. Officials at home did not expect that many of these men, once discharged, would take up farming again.
New Netherland’ first ship the ’Onrust’ becomes replica project
Natives helped crew build new ship
Publish Date: Feb 07, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
SCHENECTADY, NY – A stranded 17th-century Dutch explorer made North American history in 1614, when he and his crew with the help of local natives built a ship as a replacement of the one which had burned down, the result of a mishap. This year, a group of history buffs and artisans will build a replica of Adriaan Block’s Onrust (Dutch for Restless).
Dutch Masters honoured in The Hague’s Painters District
Reproductions enhance street signs
Publish Date: Feb 07, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE - Some of the street signs in the city’s blue-collar neighbourhood ‘Schilderwijk’ have been enhanced with reproductions on metal of the most famous works of the Dutch painters after whom streets were named. Among the Dutch masters so honoured are Johannes Vermeer, Carel Fabritius, Jacob van Ruysdael and Meindert Hobbema.
Pick-your-own tulips a new concept in Dutch horticulture
First fields open this Spring
Publish Date: Feb 07, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
MARKNESSE - A grower in this community in the Noordoostpolder, one of the country’s prime farming districts, has hit on a novel idea to bring tourists to his bulb fields. This Spring, people will be able to help themselves - for a fee - to a bunch of tulips they cut themselves at a dedicated field, owned by entrepreneur Daniëls.
Eleven centuries-old Woudrichem celebrates its 650 years of city charter
Fortress protected access to rivers
Publish Date: Jan 23, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
WOUDRICHEM – At 650 years of age this year, Woudrichem is a relative newcomer among Dutch cities of which the vast majority was granted a city charter in medieval times. The North Brabant city is fairly unique among these historic places because it is one of a small group of cities, which has been preserved fairly well. Located in the river-logged region known as 'The Land of Heusden and Altena,' Woudrichem is across the river from the famed castle Loevestein.
Amsterdam invests $122 million in its bicycle ‘population’
Publish Date: Jan 23, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
AMSTERDAM - To stimulate the use of bicycles on the city’s congested streets and thoroughfares, Amsterdam has earmarked $122 million to be spent in the next five years. The program calls for more, improved and guarded bike parking...
‘Roman Route’ highlights city’s history of 20 centuries ago
Publish Date: Jan 23, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
NIJMEGEN - A new tourist route will familiarize visitors of the Charlemagne City (also known as Keizerstad which refers to Emperor Karel de Grote who ruled much of Europe around the year 800) with its Roman heritage. Information m...
Blijdorp Zoo remodeling for its 150th anniversary
Publish Date: Jan 23, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
ROTTERDAM - Work is under way on a number of improvements and new buildings for the Blijdorp Zoo, which in 2007 will celebrate its 150th anniversary. The zoo will open a new restaurant, aviary, greenhouse and a polar bears’ exhibi...
New book tells story of WWII resistance man Taconis
Publish Date: Jan 23, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
ROTTERDAM - ‘A Relatively Intense Character’ is the title of a book on Thijs Taconis, who worked for the Dutch Resistance until his arrest in 1942. He and many other intelligence agents were killed in the Mauthausen death camp two...
Eating habits of Dutch have switched to dining out on foreign fare
National dishes on steep decline
Publish Date: Jan 23, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
AMSTERDAM - A continuing trend since the 1950s has made the Netherlands a country of gourmands, who like to eat out or take out and dine on dishes from foreign shores, the more exotic the better. Gone are the days when the Dutch in general ate at home, enjoying typically Dutch dishes.
‘Royal location’ a contender to house Rien Poortvliet collection
Museum in artist’s hometown
Publish Date: Jan 23, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
SOEST - Among the dozen or so venues interested in housing the collection of drawings, paintings and artifacts from well-known artist Rien Poortvliet is a museum in his hometown of Soest. Museum Oud Soest wants to become the successor of the Poortvlietmuseum, which will close at the end of this year.
Growing cranberries no longer an exclusive for Dutch island
Brabant competition for Terschelling
Publish Date: Jan 23, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
OSS - It is believed that cranberries were introduced to the Netherlands by chance in 1839, when a cargo vessel sank off the Frisian island of Terschelling. There, the berries, dumped in the dunes by disappointed beachcombers, found fertile soil, eventually creating a limited agricultural endeavour that until now remained an exclusive for the northern island.
Apeldoorn still needs to clear much wartime ammunition
Publish Date: Jan 09, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
APELDOORN - A subsidy by the government will allow the municipality to continue clearing a WWII munitions depot and its surroundings near the village of Hoog Soeren. Work had been halted because of a dispute over funding. The depo...
New municipal party leader sees end to ‘Walletjes’
Publish Date: Jan 09, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
AMSTERDAM - Lodewijk Ascher, the new Labour Party leader in municipal council, wants to rid the city of its red light district as a tourist attraction. In his recent book about ‘New Amsterdam,’ Ascher asks people to consider that ...
Namesakes of 17th century De Witt brothers gather at museum
Publish Date: Jan 09, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
DORDRECHT - Hundreds of people with the names of Johan or Cornelis de Witt, including spelling variations, recently converged on a local museum, which organized the gathering. The Dordrecht Museum is holding a successful and well-...
New website contains records on three Dutch WWII prison camps
Publish Date: Jan 09, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
AMSTERDAM - A website from the Dutch Institute for War Documentation - www.kamparchieven.nl - contains newly released individual records and other information on all people who were imprisoned in the three Dutch concentration and ...
‘Maternal exhibit’ in birthplace Leiden opens Rembrandt Year
Publish Date: Jan 09, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
LEIDEN - Official commemorations of the 400th anniversary of the birth of famed Dutch painter Rembrandt van Rijn recently began with the opening of an exhibit in Leiden’s Museum De Lakenhal. ‘Rembrandt’s Mother, Myth and Reality’ ...
Dutch government requires culture knowledge test of immigrants
Integration a long process
Publish Date: Jan 09, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE – Would-be immigrants hoping to establish residency in the Netherlands and eventually obtain Dutch citizenship, first must follow a course about Dutch society, its institutions and history. They also need to pass a special test on Dutch language and culture, the Second Chamber of Parliament has decided. The new test will cost $420 and is thought to require 250 to 350 hours of study.
Logistics arm no longer central to TNT business activities
Company rethinks corporate strategy
Publish Date: Jan 09, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
AMSTERDAM - Dutch firm TNT wants to sell its logistics arm in order to focus on its mail and parcel delivery endeavours. It plans to sell the $4 billion business early this year, pending shareholder approval.
Dutch soldiers to give military salute again when abroad
Defense Chief General Berlijn:
Publish Date: Jan 09, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
THE HAGUE - Members of the all-professional Dutch Army should return to the age-old custom of saluting, especially when abroad on military missions. According to Defense Chief of Staff, Air Force General Berlijn, foreign partners in peacekeeping missions fail to understand the casual attitude displayed by Dutch soldiers towards their superiors, especially the officers of foreign contingents.
Manitoban receives Hendricks Award for dissertation
NNP honours Mark Meuwese
Publish Date: Jan 09, 2006
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ALBANY, New York - Dr. Mark P. Meuwese of Winnipeg, Manitoba, has become the 18th recipient of the New Netherland Project’s Hendricks Award. He was recognized for his 2004 dissertation, for which he received his PhD in History at the University of Notre Dame.
Netherlands becoming a real ‘Frogland’ again in the world
Amphibian population increases
Publish Date: Jan 09, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
AMSTERDAM - The Netherlands, as a term of endearment to many of its own citizens, for quite some time has had the nickname Kikkerland (frog land). It refers to the country’s unstable weather and the wet soil, the occasional inundation of meadows, pastures and other low-lying areas, where supposedly only frogs could prosper. Perhaps the term also had a prophetic connotation, since in recent years the amphibian population of the country, the frogs and the toads, actually are thriving again, while elsewhere in the world, these creatures are dwindling in number.
Regional Dutch whisky distiller suspends all exports of brand
‘Frysk Hynder’ too popular at home
Publish Date: Jan 09, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
BOLSWARD - A local, private distiller of a single-malt whisky has suspended export sales of his first-ever product. Aart van der Linde no longer sells his ‘Frysk Hynder’ whisky outside of his home province of Friesland.
New Albany store sells fries and croquettes the Dutch way
Convention venue enriched
Publish Date: Jan 09, 2006
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
ALBANY, NY - Two New York residents and a transplanted Dutchman are trying to make Albany residents and visitors familiar with typical snacks from the Netherlands. The three men recently opened ‘The Frying Dutchman’ which caters to visitors of events staged at the Washington Avenue Armory Sports and Convention Arena.
Voluntary realignment of farm land has 1,700 acres change hands
Publish Date: Dec 23, 2005
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
GROOTEGAST - A voluntary land consolidation project in the western region of the Province of Groningen has seen over 1,700 acres change hands last year, involving fifty farmers. Both the central government and the province pay for...
May 1940 Grebbe Line history exhibited in local barn
Publish Date: Dec 23, 2005
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
WOUDENBERG - A private initiative to preserve some of the history surrounding the famed Grebbe Line has been realized in the barn of a retired area farmer. Fulco Ploeg with the extensive cooperation of the local historical society...
Tilburg named ‘most sustainable’ community in the country
Publish Date: Dec 23, 2005
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
TILBURG - This western Brabant community of 190.000 people has been named ‘the most sustainable’ in the country. The honour was bestowed by COS Nederland, an association which promotes awareness of and participation in internation...
World’s greatest manufacturer sits next door to the Netherlands
Industrious neighbour an asset
Publish Date: Dec 23, 2005
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
WASHINGTON - Which of these three nations is the world's top exporter: China, Japan or the United States? The answer: none of the above. World trade's quiet achiever is Germany, which usually tops the export tables with its steady sales of large ticket goods such as industrial machinery, automobiles, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, advanced medical devices and information technology software and hardware. Much of Germany’ export moves through Rotterdam, benefiting the Dutch economy.
Former head of Dutch electronics Philips giant helped save Jews
End of family dynasty with death
Publish Date: Dec 23, 2005
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - The former head of Dutch electronics giant Philips who helped save the lives of hundreds of Jewish workers during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands in World War II, has died at the age of 100.
Shell contributes part of revenues to rebuilding New Orleans
U.S. delegation to visit Delta Works
Publish Date: Dec 23, 2005
Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill
NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana – How to rebuild devastated Louisiana dikes and infrastructure is the prime motive of a large U.S. official delegation for visiting the Dutch Delta Works, which itself was built following a major flood. Dutch Ambassador to the U.S., Boudewijn van Eenenaam, recently visited New Orleans where he reiterated his country’s offer of assistance to the stricken area. Van Eenenaam was shown the devastation by U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu (D-Lousiana). A meeting at which the Ambassador spoke, was attended by over thre