country:netherlands

Dutch engineering giant cancels East Jerusalem project
Barak Ravid
Haaretz, 6th September 2013
▻http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-and-defense/.premium-1.545605

Dutch infrastructure giant Royal HaskoningDHV announced Friday that it has decided to withdraw from a project it planned with the Jerusalem municipality because it will be built over the Green Line.

Two weeks ago, Haaretz reported that the Dutch government has asked the company, Holland’s largest engineering company to rethink its participation the sewage treatment plant because the project was based on the Palestinian side of the 1967 border, and that this would violate international law.

In a statement issued Friday, the Dutch company said that it had “advised the client it has decided to terminate the contract for the Kidron wastewater treatment plant project.” It added that “the project is in the early stages of the preliminary design phase.”

Royal HaskoningDHV carries out its work with the highest regard for integrity and in compliance with international laws and regulations," it stated. “In the course of the project, and after due consultation with various stakeholders, the company came to understand that future involvement in the project could be in violation of international law. This has led to the decision of Royal HaskoningDHV to terminate its involvement in the project.”

The Dutch government warned Royal HaskoningDHV about the possible consequences of carrying out projects for Israeli companies in East Jerusalem or the West Bank, Haaretz reported last month.

Dutch Foreign Ministry officials told Royal HaskoningDHV that such a project would violate international law, leading the company to consider pulling out of the project to avoid financial, legal and image problems.

In the project, a sewage treatment plant would be built to battle the pollution in the Kidron stream, which runs from the Mount of Olives and the village of Silwan in East Jerusalem toward the settlement of Ma’aleh Adumim and the Dead Sea. The plant is to be built in Area C, under full Israeli military and civilian control.

A senior Israeli Foreign Minstry official told Haaretz that in the past two weeks there have been discussions with the Dutch government in an effort to solve the crisis, including talks with the Netherlands’ ambassador in Tel Aviv, Caspar Veldkamp. The Israeli ambassador to the Netherlands, Haim Divon, has also held talks with senior officials at the Dutch Foreign Ministry. At this stage it’s still unclear if the efforts by Israeli diplomats will lead to the resumption of the project. 

Two weeks ago, Haaretz reported that The Netherlands’ government contacted Royal HaskoningDHV and recommended that it reconsider taking part in the project. The project was supposed to involve Mati, a subsidiary of Hagihon, the municipality’s water and sewage company. In the project, a sewage treatment plant would be built to battle the pollution in the Kidron stream, which runs from the Mount of Olives and the village of Silwan in East Jerusalem toward the settlement of Ma’aleh Adumim and the Dead Sea. The plant is to be built in Area C, under full Israeli military and civilian control.

Foreign Ministry Spokesman Yigal Palmor said in response that the project meets all the requirements of Israeli and international law. “The decision of the Dutch company to back away from the project indicates that political pressure that has nothing to do with law was applied to it,” Palmor said. “The result of the intimidation and harassment of the company is that Palestinian residents will be denied an important public service. It is hard to see how this serves a European interest.”

PLO Executive Committee member Dr. Hanan Ashrawi welcomed the company’s move, saying, “This project deepens Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem, consolidates its occupation of the West Bank and constitutes another obstacle to the establishment of an independent and sovereign Palestinian state in the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital.”

“I commend the Dutch government for translating its opposition to Israel’s disastrous settlement policy into action, which is in line with EU policy, and for urging Royal HaskoningDHV to end its participation in this illegal project,” said Dr. Ashrawi.

“We call on international corporations to terminate their projects and activities with links to the military occupation and to the illegal settlements."

#BDS

All 9866539 buildings in the Netherlands, shaded according to year of construction:
►http://dev.citysdk.waag.org/buildings #maps

http://tiles.citysdk.waag.org/v2/bag/13/4207/2692.png

Slavery compensation: Caribbean nations propose Mau Mau model | World news | guardian.co.uk
▻http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/26/caribbean-countries-slavery-compensation-claim

Leaders of more than a dozen Caribbean countries are launching a united effort to seek compensation from three European nations for what they say is the lingering legacy of the Atlantic slave trade.

The Caribbean Community, a regional organisation, has taken up the cause of compensation for slavery and the genocide of native peoples and is preparing for what would likely be a drawn-out battle with the governments of Britain, France and the Netherlands.

It has engaged the British law firm of Leigh Day, which waged a successful fight for compensation for hundreds of Kenyans who were tortured by the British colonial government during the so-called Mau Mau rebellion of the 1950s and 1960s.

#Caraïbes #esclavage

EU decision: How a terror attack backfired on Hezbollah
By Barak Ravid
Haaretz, 23rd of July

▻http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.537318

The European Union’s decision to list Hezbollah’s military wing as a terrorist organization is the fruit of a lengthy diplomatic, legal and intelligence campaign waged jointly by Israel, Britain, the United States, the Netherlands and Canada. A cache of bombs discovered in Nazareth, a 150-page legal document, and dozens of secret visits and phone calls to various leaders were among the key factors contributing to the decision.

The campaign began after the bombing in Burgas, Bulgaria, last July, which killed five Israeli tourists and one Bulgarian. As intelligence indicating that Hezbollah was to blame accumulated, the Foreign Ministry decided the time was ripe for action.

Jahsonic’s microblog : Allegory of the Five Obstinate Monsters is the...
▻http://jahsonic.tumblr.com/post/55164825767/allegory-of-the-five-obstinate-monsters-is-the

http://25.media.tumblr.com/a840f055b98bc86e1b8c06c86d4fa416/tumblr_mprptvFclc1qz4yqio1_1280.jpg

Allegory of the Five Obstinate Monsters is the informal title of a satirical print which in its country of origin, The Netherlands, is actually known as De Warminiaen.

Note that stupiditas is also included. Folly!

#allegorie #monstre #gravure

Zionism’s first political assassination - This Day in Jewish History
By David B. Green
Haaretz
▻http://www.haaretz.com/news/features/this-day-in-jewish-history/this-day-in-jewish-history-zionism-s-first-political-assassination.premium-

On June 30, 1924, poet, legal scholar and journalist Jacob Israel de Haan was gunned down in Jerusalem, a murder apparently carried out by the Haganah, the pre-state Zionist militia, to stop de Haan’s anti-Zionist activities. The story of Jacob de Haan’s life – and death – is one of the more surprising, if not bizarre tales of pre-state Jewish life in Palestine.

Jacob de Haan was born on December 31, 1881, in Smilde, in the northern Netherlands. His family was traditional – his father was a ritual slaughterer and cantor – and he was said to be one of 18 children.

ZAM Chronicle: an online investigative magazine on and from Africa
▻http://africasacountry.com/launch-of-the-zam-chronicle-an-online-investigative-magazine-on-and

This month sees the launch of #The_ZAM_Chronicle, a new monthly online investigative magazine with a highly ambitious mission: “to be a platform for grassroots, crowd-sourced observations on and from the African continent.” The ZAM Chronicle is born out of the Netherlands-based #Zam_Magazine, which Africa is a Country readers will remember for its [...]

#FEATURED #Hot_News #Latest #MEDIA

Voices from the borders | A blog on migration issues between the Netherlands, Belgium, France and the United Kingdom

▻http://voicesfromtheborders.wordpress.com

Un blog à sur l’asile, la migration au nord de la France, la Belgique des Pays-Bas à fréquenter régulièrement

Via la liste Migreurop

Voices from the borders
A blog on migration issues between the Netherlands, Belgium, France and the United Kingdom

http://voicesfromtheborders.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/cropped-patras-cabane-141.jpg

#migrations #asile

Practical measures to reduce irregular migration

This synthesis report summarises the main findings of the national reports for the EMN Study on Practical Measures to Reduce Irregular Migration undertaken by EMN national contact points from 22 Member States (Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom) plus Norway. The overall purpose of this study was to provide an overview of existing approaches, mechanisms and measures to reduce irregular migration in the EU and Norway. In particular, its aim is to inform policymakers and practitioners about the practical measures that have proved effective and proportionate in addressing the issue of irregular migration and to contextualise national policies and practices within the overall EU policy framework. A further aim was to present the available statistics and the methods of data collection used by Member States to estimate the irregular migrant population

▻http://bookshop.europa.eu/en/practical-measures-to-reduce-irregular-migration-pbDR3012126

#migration #réduire_migration_clandestine #Europe #Norvège #statistiques

Throwing Money at Nukes - NYTimes.com
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/27/opinion/throwing-money-at-nukes.html?ref=opinion

The United States has about 180 B61 gravity nuclear bombs based in Europe. They are the detritus of the cold war, tactical weapons deployed in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey to protect NATO allies from the once-feared Soviet advantage in conventional arms. But the cold war is long over, and no American military commander can conceive of their ever being used. Even so, President Obama has put $537 million in his 2014 budget proposal to upgrade these bombs. When all is said and done, experts say, the cost of the rebuilding program is expected to total around $10 billion — $4 billion more than an earlier projection — and yield an estimated 400 weapons, fitted with new guided tail kits so that they are more reliable and accurate than the current ones.

This is a nonsensical decision, not least because it is at odds with Mr. Obama’s own vision. In a seminal speech in Prague in 2009 and a strategy review in 2010, Mr. Obama advocated the long-term goal of a world without nuclear arms and promised to reduce America’s reliance on them. He also promised not to field a new and improved warhead.

...

Moreover, as Congress slashes spending on far more defensible programs like food stamps and Head Start, Mr. Obama’s $537 million request for the B61 bomb in 2014 is 45.5 percent higher than the 2013 figure; the $7.86 billion request for all weapons-related activity in the National Nuclear Security Administration, a semi-independent agency within the Department of Energy that oversees the nuclear warhead programs, is 9 percent above the amount Congress appropriated in 2012.

Mr. Obama’s profligacy apparently has its roots in 2010. That is when the president made a Faustian bargain with Senate Republicans who demanded that he invest more than $80 billion in the nuclear labs as a condition of their allowing the New Start arms reduction treaty with Russia to be approved. It is a mystery why he would feel bound by this commitment at a time when limited dollars should be directed toward real needs, and when Republicans have obstructed him at every turn on those needs.

...

A se demander si #Obama n’aurait pas inventé les Républicains s’ils n’existaient pas.

The Last Frontier of Globalization: Asylum and Citizenship in the Netherlands

Teklay, Danait (2012) “The Last Frontier of Globalization: Asylum and Citizenship in the Netherlands,” Macalester International: Vol. 30, Article 13.

Available at: ▻http://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/macintl/vol30/iss1/13

#migration #asile #Hollande #Pays-Bas #citoyenneté

G4S feels fresh pain as the Dutch throw fewer into jail - Business News - The Independent
▻http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/g4s-feels-fresh-pain-as-the-dutch-throw-fewer-into-jail-8606884.html

The Netherlands’ prison population fell from 14,100 in 2005 to 11,000 in 2009, and is expected to drop below 9000 by 2015. As a result, the country is planning to close 30 jails, one of the reasons that forced G4S to admit its profit margins will be lower than expected this year. A shocked City sent the shares in the world’s biggest security firm down nearly 15 per cent.

#prison #ppp

Hunger strike in Holland :

Sixty detained asylum seekers have been refusing to eat and drink in a Rotterdam prison since May 6, in protest at the “inhumane detention of refugees”.

A week ago 20 asylum seekers in a detention centre in Schiphol also began a hunger strike, with 10 still refusing to feed themselves.

The main reason for the protest is the difference in the treatment of asylum seekers on the basis of how they arrive in the country. Those who arrive by plane are incarcerated, sometimes for more than six months, while those who arrive over land borders are not.

The UNHCR and the organisation for refugees VluchtelingenWerk argue that the incarceration and treatment of refugees at Schiphol is more severe than is permitted under international law.

▻http://www.presseurop.eu/en/content/news-brief/3752291-hunger-strike-spreads

#migration #asile #réfugié #centre_de_rétention #grève_de_la_faim #Rotterdam #Pays_Bas #Hollande

How a German Elementary School Taught Sex Ed [Graphic] - Lindsay Abrams - The Atlantic
▻http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/04/how-a-german-elementary-school-taught-sex-ed-graphic/275344

...

Actual studies have proven that six-year-olds’ imaginations can be just as graphic as the images in Wo kommst du her?, only less anatomically accurate:

http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/food/wajs_a_650970_o_f0002g.jpg

That’s from a 2012 study that asked children in the U.S., the Netherlands, England, and Sweden to draw pictures explaining where babies come from. The Dutch boy who drew the above picture did better than most — American kids got nowhere near as close to understanding what was going on, and invariably invoked God in their explanations. One U.S. boy said, “I think [babies] are made by a mom and a dad, but I am not sure how; maybe during special time when they are alone.”

...

Obama accused of nuclear U-turn as guided weapons plan emerges | World news | guardian.co.uk
▻http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/apr/21/obama-accused-nuclear-guided-weapons-plan

Barack Obama has been accused of reneging on his disarmament pledges after it emerged the administration was planning to spend billions on upgrading nuclear bombs stored in Europe to make the weapons more reliable and accurate.

Under the plan, nearly 200 B61 gravity bombs stockpiled in Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy and Turkey would be given new tail fins that would turn them into guided weapons that could be delivered by stealth F35 fighter-bombers.

“This will be a significant upgrade of the US nuclear capability in Europe,” said Hans Kristensen, a nuclear weapons expert at the Federation of Nuclear Scientists. “It flies directly in the face of the pledges Obama made in 2010 that he would not deploy new weapons.”

#oblabla

Netherlands recalls 50,000 tonnes of meat | World news | The Guardian
▻http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/apr/10/netherlands-recalls-meat

Fifty thousand tonnes of meat destined for human consumption has been recalled by Dutch authorities in a move that could draw in several British businesses, according to officials at the UK’s Food Standards Agency.

Investigators in the Netherlands said the origin of the meat at Wiljo Import and Export and Vleesgroothandel Willy Selten was unclear. Dutch officials said 130 companies in the Netherlands and 370 more across Europe were affected by the recall, and there is no health risk at this point.

On Tuesday Asda recalled tens of thousands of cans of corned beef after finding traces of the veterinary painkiller phenylbutazone, commonly known as bute. It is illegal for bute to enter the food chain.

The FSA has also revealed that 22 horses slaughtered for food at UK abattoirs since the end of January – one in 50 of the total – tested positive for bute.

#viande #pharma

Up to 600 Europeans fighting in Syria: study | Al Akhbar English
▻http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/600-europeans-fighting-syria-study

As many as 600 Europeans have joined the rebels fighting government forces in Syria, a British study found.

Jihadists from 14 European countries including France, Germany, Britain and the Netherlands are among those to enter the conflict, according to research published Tuesday by the International Center for the Study of Radicalization (ICSR) at King’s College London.

“Between 140 and 600 Europeans have gone to Syria since early 2011,” said researcher Aaron Y. Zelin.

Up to 441 Europeans are still in the country, he added.

The ICSR’s lowest estimates consist solely of confirmed individuals, while higher estimates include unverified estimates provided by government and media sources.

The ICSR based the figures on some 250 “martyrdom notices” posted on jihadi websites as well as hundreds of Arab and Western media reports.

It estimated that as many as 134 fighters from Britain have headed to Syria, along with up to 107 from the Netherlands, 92 from France and 85 from Belgium.

Others came from Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Finland, Spain, Sweden, Albania, Austria, Bulgaria and Kosovo.

“There is no ’true census’ of foreign fighters, and publicly available sources are inevitably incomplete... and will probably remain so for years to come,” said Zelin.

The study dismissed Syrian government claims that many of the fighters battling against troops loyal to President Bashar al-Assad are foreigners, estimating that they make up less than ten percent of the opposition.

Zelin also stressed that not all foreigners fighting in Syria are Muslim extremists.

“Not everyone who has joined the Syrian rebels is Al-Qaeda, and only a small number may ever become involved in terrorism after returning to Europe,” he said.

“That said, it would be wrong to conclude that individuals who have trained and fought in Syria pose no potential threat.”

Last month the Netherlands raised the threat of a terror attack to “substantial”, saying the increased risk stemmed mainly from jihadi returning from fighting in Syria.

(AFP)

Comparaison de coûts médicaux entre 12 pays

U.S. pays most for doctors, drugs, hospital, childbirth - UPI.com
▻http://www.upi.com/Health_News/2013/03/26/US-priciest-for-doctors-drugs-hospital/UPI-97371364345838

Les comparaisons sont fondées sur des bases assez différentes : d’un côté les États-Unis par analyse statistique des coûts constatés (ce qui permet d’avoir des éléments tels que le premier quartile et le 95ème centile), pour les 11 autres pays par relevé de tarif fourni par une assurance-maladie par pays.

Healthcare prices for Canada, New Zealand, Switzerland and the United Kingdom were paid from the public sector and one health plan in each country, while prices for Australia, Chile, the Netherlands, Spain and South Africa were from the private sector and represent prices paid by one private health plan in each country.

Prices for France and Argentina were a blend of public and private sector with the data provided by one health plan in each country.

U.S. prices were calculated from a database of more than 100 million paid claims that reflect prices negotiated between thousands of providers and almost 100 hundred health plans

Coût d’une consultation chez le médecin

http://i.imgur.com/2ZE4iC5.jpg

Coût total d’un accouchement

http://i.imgur.com/wyf2EAW.jpg

Coût total d’une césarienne

http://i.imgur.com/ujX2XF1.jpg

Le document d’ensemble ▻http://www.ifhp.com/documents/2012iFHPPriceReportFINALMarch25.pdf

Netherlands divided over Angolan teen asylum seeker

The case of an 18-year-old Angolan asylum seeker has proved tricky for the Dutch parliament, as politicians debate whether Mauro Manuel should be given the right to remain in the Netherlands.

▻http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-15533921

#asile #migration #Hollande #Angola #jurisprudence

10 companies profiting the most from war
►http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/03/10/10-companies-profiting-most-from-war/1970997

10. United Technologies (UTX) — aircraft, electronics, engines
Arm sales: $11.6 billion, total sales: $58.2 billion
Gross profit: $5.3 billion, total workforce: 199,900
United Technologies makes a wide range of arms — notably military helicopters, including the Black Hawk helicopter for the U.S. Army and the Seahawk helicopter for the U.S. Navy. The company was the biggest employer in the top 10 though arms sales accounted for just 20% of revenue. UTX also produces elevators, escalators, air-conditioners and refrigerators. International sales comprised 60% of the company’s revenue in 2012.

9. L-3 Communications (LLL) — electronics
Arm sales: $12.5 billion, total sales: $15.2 billion
Gross profit: $956 million, total workforce: 61,000
Some 83% of L-3 Communications sales in 2011 came from arms sales, but this was down from what it sold the prior year. The company has four business segments: electronic systems; aircraft modernization and maintenance; national security solutions; and command, control, communications, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. Among many products manufactured, the company has become a major provider of unmanned aircraft systems.

8. Finmeccanica — aircraft, artillery, engines, electronics, vehicles and missiles
Arms sales, $14.6 billion, total sales: $24.1 billion
Gross profit: $ -3.2 billion, total workforce: 70,470
Italian company Finmeccanica makes a wide range of arms, including helicopters and security electronics. Nearly 60% of the company’s sales in 2011 were in arms. Finmeccanica lost $3.2 billion in 2011. The Italian company is currently fending off allegation that it paid bribes to win an approximately $750 million contract to provide 12 military helicopters to the Indian government in 2010. The then-head of the company, Giuseppe Orsi, was arrested in February but has denied wrongdoing. Other executives, including the head of the company’s helicopter unit, have been replaced, and the company has delayed the release of recent financial results.

7. EADS — aircraft, electronics, missiles and space
Arm sales: $16.4 billion, total sales: $68.3 billion
Gross profit: $1.4 billion, total workforce: 133,120
The European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company (EADS), based in the Netherlands, had sales in 2011 roughly in line with the prior year. Arms sales comprised just 24% of the company’s revenue. EADS and BAE Systems unsuccessfully attempted to merge for $45 billion in 2012, which would have created the world’s largest aerospace company. The deal collapsed in October after German Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed concerns about the merger.

6. Northrop Grumman (NOC) — aircraft, electronics, missiles, ships, space
Arm sales: $21.4 billion, total sales: $26.4 billion
Gross profit: $2.1 billion, total workforce: 72,500
Northrop Grumman’s 2011 arms sales comprised about 81% of total sales even after a sharp decline in arms sales year over year. The company attributed the decline to reduced government spending on defense projects. Nevertheless, the company was more profitable than in the prior year.

5. Raytheon (RTN) — electronics, missiles
Arm sales: $22.5 billion, total sales: $24.9 billion
Gross profit: $1.9 billion, total workforce: 71,000
Raytheon, based in Waltham, Mass., is one of the largest defense contractors in the U.S. The company makes the Tomahawk Cruise Missile, among others. Arms sales comprised about 90% of the company’s sales in 2011 though they as a total they were lower than in the prior year. The slide hasn’t let up. Total sales in 2012 fell 1.5%, and Raytheon is expecting sales to fall 3% in 2013, a projection which doesn’t take into account the effects of mandated budget cuts. The company can rely on overseas customers to somewhat offset weak sales at home. As of January, approximately 40% of the company’s backlog was booked overseas. The company expects approximately a 5% increase in international sales in 2013.

4. General Dynamics (GD) — artillery, electronics, vehicles, small arms, ships
Arm sales: $23.8 billion, total sales: $32.7 billion
Gross profit: $2.5 billion, total workforce: 95,100
With 18,000 transactions in 2011, General Dynamics was the third-largest contractor to the U.S. government. Of those contracts, approximately $12.9 billion worth went to the Navy, while an additional $4.6 billion went to the Army. The company’s arms sales in 2011 comprised 73% of total sales. Arms sales in 2011 were slightly below 2010 levels. The company makes a host of products, including electric boats, tracked and wheeled military vehicles, and battle tanks. The company announced layoffs in early March, blaming mandated federal budget cuts.

3. BAE Systems — aircraft, artillery, electronics, vehicles, missiles, ships
Arm sales: $29.2 billion, total sales: $30.7 billion
Gross profit: $2.3 billion, total workforce: 93,500
BAE Systems was the largest non-U.S. company based on arms sales. Arms sales represented 95% of the company’s total sales in 2011 even though they were lower as a total of overall sales compared to the prior year. The products BAE sells include the L-ROD Bar Armor System that shields defense vehicles and the Hawk Advanced Jet Trainer that provides sophisticated simulation training for military pilots. In 2013, the company said its growth would likely come from outside the U.S. and Great Britain — its home market. BAE noted that its outlook for those two countries was “constrained,” likely due to the diminished presence in international conflicts and government budget cuts.

2. Boeing (BA) — aircraft, electronics, missiles, space
Arm sales: $31.8 billion, total sales: $68.7 billion
Gross profit: $4 billion, total workforce: 171,700
Boeing was the second-largest U.S. government contractor in 2011, with about $21.5 billion worth of goods contracted. The Chicago-based company makes a wide range of arms, including strategic missile systems, laser and electro-optical systems and global positioning systems. Despite all these technologies, just 46% of the company’s total sales of $68.7 billion in 2011 came from arms. Boeing is the largest commercial airplane manufacturer in the world, making planes such as the 747, 757 and recently, the 787 Dreamliner. The company is also known for its space technology — Boeing had $1 billion worth of contracts with NASA in 2011.

1. Lockheed Martin (LMT) — aircraft, electronics, missiles, space
Arm sales:$36.3 billion, total sales: $46.5 billion
Gross profit: $2.7 billion, total workforce, 123,000
Lockheed Martin notched $36.3 billion in sales in 2011, slightly higher than the $35.7 billion the company sold in 2010. The arms sales comprised 78% of the company’s total 2011 sales. Lockheed makes a wide range of products, including aircraft, missiles, unmanned systems and radar systems. The company and its employees have been concerned about the effects of the “fiscal cliff” and sequestration, the latter of which includes significant cuts to the U.S. Department of Defense. In the fall of 2012, the company planned on issuing layoff notices to all employees before backing down at the White House’s request.

Netherlands calls on stores to label products from Israeli settlements - Israel News | Haaretz Daily Newspaper
▻http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/netherlands-calls-on-stores-to-label-products-from-israeli-settlements.prem

The Dutch government has for the first time called for retail chains in the Netherlands to state the origin of products from West Bank settlements, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. This makes the Netherlands, one of Israel’s greatest friends in Europe, the second country in the European Union, after Britain, to recommend such labeling.

The Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs issued a directive Wednesday to all retail chains in the country, stating that it wished to clarify procedures regarding the labeling of products from the settlements and to assist consumers. “The decision was made after consulting the European Commission,” the document said.

Dutch minister [Secretary of State] slams Pope for gay hate Christmas message « MasterAdrian’s Weblog
►http://masteradrian.com/2012/12/24/dutch-minister-secretary-of-state-slams-pope-for-gay-hate-christmas-me

Dutch minister [Secretary of State] slams Pope for gay hate Christmas message
Netherlands foreign affairs minister Frans Timmermans blasts head of the Catholic Church for gay marriage attack
24 December 2012 | By Matthew Jenkin
Netherlands foreign affairs minister Frans Timmermans blasts Pope for gay marriage attacks

Dutch foreign affairs minister Frans Timmermans has slammed the Pope for attacking gays in his annual Christmas message.

The head of the Catholic Church is calling on faith groups to unite against same-sex marriage, saying the legislation which is being passed around the world is a threat to the survival of the human race.

However, Netherlands foreign affairs minister Frans Timmermans has blasted Pope Benedict XVI over his continuing homophobia.

‘If every person is unique, as the Pope’s representative said in Dublin last week, then why should that unique person not have the right to stand up for their own sexual orientation?’ Timmermans told RTL.

‘Why can Romeo marry Juliet but not Julius?

‘Marriage between two people of the same sex is having respect for the uniqueness of the individual.’

The Netherlands was the first country in the world to legalize gay marriage in 2001.

Gay rights group COC is urging Timmermans to campaign to have the Vatican lose its special position within the United Nations.

A Dutch Facebook group called ‘No flowers for the pope’ has also been set up calling on the Netherlands to stop its tradition of sending flowers to the Holy See at Easter.

In his festive speech, the pope said the ‘traditional family’ must be protected, and stressed all faiths, even non-Christian religions, must come together to stop marriage equality.

He added that gay and Trans people were destroying humanity itself, saying they are ‘manipulating their God-given gender to suit their sexual choice’ and destroying the ‘very essence of the human creature’ in the process.

Earlier this month, in comments released for the upcoming World Day of Peace 2013 in January, the Pope said gay people, like abortion or euthanasia, was a threat to justice and world peace.

Globalisation: Going backwards | The Economist
►http://www.economist.com/news/business/21568753-world-less-connected-it-was-2007-going-backwards?fsrc=scn%2Ftw%2

the world is less integrated in 2012 than it was back in 2007. These are the conclusions of the latest DHL Global Connectedness Index, which found that the Netherlands is the most globalised of 140 countries (see chart), just ahead of Singapore; landlocked Burundi is the least. (North Korea was not ranked.)

(...) no group overestimates global connectedness more than company bosses.

#mondialisation #data

Map: Which of the world’s monarchies allow female royal succession

►http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2012/12/04/map-which-of-the-worlds-monarchies-allow-female-royal-succession

Posted by Max Fisher on December 4, 2012

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/files/2012/12/monarchies-succession2.jpg

Sometime in the early sixth century, the king of a small Frankish tribe called the Salii, who lived in parts of present-day Belgium and the Netherlands, asked a handful of local elders to put together laws for their society. What became known as the Salic Laws formally codified such traditions as inheritance, criminal punishment, and royal succession: Only a male heir, according to the laws, could take the throne.

The king who had commissioned them, Clovis the First, went on to conquer much of modern-day France and Germany. His Salic Laws were passed down, first orally and then in Latin, and gradually became the basis for much of Europe’s legal practices. That included the requirement of male royal succession, which endured for centuries in Europe, including in the United Kingdom, which began the process of repealing it last year.

#cartographie #cartographie-radicale #système-politique

Twitter / GazaYBO : Voted against: Israel, Nauru, ...
►https://twitter.com/GazaYBO/status/274274944295268352

Voted against: Israel, Nauru, Palau, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Panama, Canada, Czech Republic and the U.S.