Dutch politics are not usually considered important in the US capital, and very little heed was given to the collapse of the fourth Balkenende cabinet over the weekend. Dutch speed skater Mark Tuitert’s Olympic gold made it to prime time on Saturday, but three paragraphs on page 16 of The Washington Post on Sunday were all the attention the Dutch political drama received.

But those who closely follow Obama’s policies on Afghanistan were eager to learn more about the split in the coalition. Bruce Riedel, Larry Korb and J. Alexander Thier fear the withdrawal of all Dutch troops will encourage other allies to also abandon Nato’s Afghanistan mission. They predict conservative criticism of Obama will grow. And they feel the little political influence the Netherlands had in Washington will diminish further.

“The irony is that this comes to the time when the battle finally is turning in favour of Nato,’’ Riedel said. He understands the Netherlands has “stretched their military to the absolute limit”. But finds it “frustrating” that Canada could follow suit and withdraw its troops as well – posing serious problems for Obama. “The big worry for the Obama administration is that is this could cause a domino effect. I know that’s in their mind,” he said.

Moreover, the Afghan war has become very unpopular in the US itself – although approval ratings have risen in recent months. “The weariness is growing here at home, especially among the president’s own party. And the symbolism of a major ally leaving now will be particularly difficult for the president,” Riedel said.

Larry Korb (Centre for American Progress) added the decision fans the flames of conservative critics of the president. In his election campaign, Obama argued his popularity abroad would mean he could get more international support for US policies than his predecessor George W. Bush. But the results so far have been disappointing.

Read more here.

Related articles by Zemanta

• When the Dutch Pull Out of Afghanistan, Can the French and the Germans Be Far Behind? (themoderatevoice.com)
• Dutch Pull-Out From War Expected After Government Collapse (nytimes.com)
• Dutch May Pull Afghan Troops (online.wsj.com)

The Netherlands hopes to conduct safety checks using special ‘see-through’ security scanners on air passengers bound for any destinations. Currently, these scanners are only used on flights bound for the US.

Justice minister Ernst Hirsch Ballin announced the move to his European colleagues speaking at a meeting in the Spanish town of Toledo on Thursday. The Netherlands is seeking the support of other EU-countries, before implementing the scanners that can see through clothing to detect explosives and other contraband.

EU-countries are currently at liberty to deploy the scanners as they see fit, but Hirsch Ballin pushed for European regulations on the matter, saying they would do much to improve the efficiency of security checks and provide clarity for passengers. The European commission hopes to propose regulations governing their usage to EU-countries this spring.

According to Hirsch Ballin, the security scanners should become mandatory on all European airports. Not all of his colleagues are fully convinced they should be. They want to await the results of a study into the scanners health and privacy concerns. According to Hirsch Ballin, his colleagues were “mostly interested” in Dutch experiences with the technology

Germany, which initially had its reservations, is said to start experimenting with the scanners soon. As soon as a European agreement has been reached, the Netherlands intends to start a phased introduction of the scanners on all flights emanating from the Netherlands. First all flights bound for the US will be effected (requiring 75 scanners in all), the scanners will then be deployed on all intercontinental flights, and finally all intra-European flights.

Hirsch Ballin was unable to determine the number of scanners this would require.

Read more here.

Gies became part of legend on August 4, 1944, the day Anne Frank and most of her family were reported to the authorities in an act of betrayal and deported from their hideaway in an 17th century home on Amsterdam’s historic canals.

After the Franks were gone, Gies gathered some of their belongings, including a small red-chequered diary, and kept them hidden in a drawer for the remainder of the war. In June 1945 she handed the book over to Otto Frank, Anne’s father.

Gies, born Hermine Santruschitz, came to the Netherlands as an anaemic, malnourished 11-year-old from her native Vienna, hoping to recuperate while living with a Leiden foster family. Not only did Gies regain her health, she felt so at home in the Netherlands that her parents agreed to let her stay here.

She later moved to Amsterdam, where she applied for a job at Opecta, Otto Frank’s conserve business. Gies and her – then prospective – husband’s family were close to Otto.

When Frank’s oldest daughter was called on for forced labour in Germany in July of 1942, the Frank family decided to go into hiding. Otto knew Miep would come to his aid if need be. “Once or twice in a lifetime, people exchanges glances that cannot be described in words. We exchanged such a glance,” Gies said later.

On June 3, 1945, their eyes met again. “We faced each other silently until Otto Frank finally said, in a calm voice: ‘Miep, Edith won’t be coming back. But I have good hopes for Margot and Anne.’ ‘Yes, good hope,’” I parroted, trying to sound encouraging. “Why don’t you come in?’” Frank ended up staying with the Gies family for seven years, after which he moved to Switzerland.

Miep and her husband Jan shunned publicity until 1987, when she co-authored the book Anne Frank Remembered, with the American writer Allison Leslie Gold.

Read more here.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Miep Gies, Protector of Anne Frank, Dies at 100 (nytimes.com)
• Miep Gies, Anne Frank protector, dies at 100 (cnn.com)
• Miep Gies obituary (guardian.co.uk)

Nine north-western European countries are planning a giant underwater energy grid in the North Sea linked to wind farms, tidal power stations and hydroelectric plants.

Thousands of kilometers of high-tech energy cables are set to be laid on the seabed of the North Sea in the coming ten years, in what will become Europe’s groundbreaking energy park.

The cables would link existing and new windmills off the German and British coasts with Belgian and Danish tidal power stations and Norwegian hydroelectric plants. The €30-billion project would compensate for the irregular nature of renewable energy and provide a steady flow to the countries involved.

Germany, Great Britain, France, Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands, Belgium, Ireland and Luxembourg are behind the project. Their respective energy ministers last month signed a so-called North Seas’ countries offshore initiative, just as the international climate change summit in Copenhagen was kicking off.

“We’re already the world leader in offshore wind here in the UK and today’s announcements bring new funding and expert direction to grow this vital new industry,” Philip Hunt, the British sustainability minister, said in December.

Berlin sees itself as the driving motor behind the scheme. “For Germany, as a country with ambitious offshore-development plans, this initiative has great importance. It focuses on network connection and integration, which is crucial for wind energy to reach consumers and to make offshore energy generation a success,” German minister for economy and technology Rainer Bruderle said on Wednesday (5 January) in a press release.

He added that the idea came about during a meeting of French, German and Benelux representatives on energy issues.

Read more here.

Related articles by Zemanta

• European countries to combine renewables in massive grid effort (green.venturebeat.com)
• Renewable energy? It’s an offshore thing (guardian.co.uk)
• Beyond Copenhagen (flanderstoday.eu)

From now on, the threat of a terrorist attack on Dutch soil is only “limited”. Over the past two years the threat was “substantial”, but Muslim extremists prefer to seek refuge across the border, an analysis of the Netherlands’ National Anti-Terrorism Co-ordinator published on Tuesday has revealed.

Politicians in The Hague and other potential targets can breathe a sigh of relief. According to the Dutch intelligence agency (AIVD) local networks of radical Muslims such as the notorious Hofstad group were weakened over the past year by internal divisions and a lack of leadership.

The Netherlands is rarely being mentioned in video threats issued by jihadist groups, despite the rise of anti-Islam opposition politician Geert Wilders. His controversial film Fitna caused a lot of commotion last year, but it seems to have gone off the jihadist radar since.

The judgment that the Netherlands is no longer a “preferred target” does not imply that the threat as a whole has got smaller, AIVD’s Director of Internal Security Wil van Gemert warns. If anything, the threat has moved elsewhere.

“There are still plenty of radical youths and people who warmly sympathise with the struggle. But we also see that they are more focused on conflict areas abroad. I’m referring to Pakistan, Afghanistan and Somalia. People are talking about travelling to those areas, or are actually there to receive training.”

Earlier this year four men from the Netherlands were arrested and sent back, because they were allegedly on their way to a jihadist training camp in Somalia.

Read more here.

The wax museum at Balongsari depicts the violent Dutch action at Ragawede on December 9, 1947. Photo Ahmad

A group of Indonesian women are suing the Dutch state for the execution of their husbands by Dutch soldiers 62 years ago, reports NRC Handelsblad.

It is the first time that victims of the Indonesian struggle for independence (1945-1949) have taken legal action against the Netherlands. According to their Dutch lawyer, Liesbeth Zegveld, the women want the Netherlands to recognise the unlawfulness of its actions and financial compensation for their loss.

Indonesia, a Dutch colony since 1800, was occupied by Japan during the Second World War. After the war ended the Dutch tried to restore colonial rule, but they faced a nationalist revolt. Indonesia gained its independence in 1949, after five years of what the Dutch called “police action.”

On December 9, 1947, Dutch soldiers attacked the village of Ragawede on the island of Java, killing hundreds of male villagers. Prisoners and people attempting to flee were shot.

Their widows are now sueing the Dutch state, not just for the killings, but also for failing to investigate the murders. Zegveld: “The military and civilian authorities, for opportunistic reasons, decided not to prosecute the officer in charge at Ragawede, major Wynen.”

The Netherlands have apologised for the Ragawede massacre several times, but it has never accepted legal responsibility.

Until a few months ago, most people in Holland had never heard of Machangulo, Mozambique. But the remote peninsula has been making headlines ever since Dutch Crown-Prince Willem-Alexander announced plans to build a holiday home there. The Dutch media have reported allegations of corruption, threats and even shots being fired. But how much of this is true? RNW’s Eric Beauchemin travelled to Machangulo to investigate.

Read here.

Justice minister Ernst Hirsch Ballin described the new policy on Friday as “strict but fair”. “We want to prevent girls being brought to the Netherlands under duress,” he told NRC Handelsblad.
After a years-long decline the number of import marriages went up 30 percent in the past year to 15,000. “Society is coming under further pressure,” said integration minister Eberhard van der Laan.
Import brides is a term used for marriages between Dutch residents of foreign (mostly Turkish and Moroccan) origin and people from their respective countries. The import of partners is seen as an obstacle to the integration of ethnic minorities into Dutch society.

Under the new system, potential import brides and grooms will have to meet higher criteria for command of the Dutch language, and they will have to undergo job training once they’re in the Netherlands.

In other measures:

-Dutch nationals or residents wanting to bring their partners to the Netherlands will first have to take the integration exam themselves;

-Marriages between first cousins and between aunts and nephews and uncles and nieces will no longer be allowed. A bill is being prepared to ban all marriages between blood relatives to the 4th degree;

-In order to prevent marriages of convenience, liaison officers from the immigration services will be stationed at the Dutch embassies of the countries of origin. They will simultaneously interview both partners if their is a suspicion of fraud;

-The cabinet is looking into ways to raise the minimum age for recognition in the Netherlands for marriages concluded abroad from 15 to 18.

A unique court case opens on Thursday in Haarlem: for the first time in the Netherlands, a man is on trial for female genital mutilation. A 30-year-old man of Moroccan origin is charged with mutilating his daughter.

During a pro forma hearing earlier this year, the public prosecutor read the charges:

“The accused is charged with wilfully and severely abusing his child. He is charged with inflicting grievous bodily harm on his  daughter, Zoë, born in 2003, by cutting away the labia minora and the clitoris using scissors or another sharp implement.”

The accused, Mustafa el M. (surname withheld for legal reasons) denies everything, including the charge that he repeatedly beat and bit the child in the face and on the arms.

Female genital mutilation is a criminal offence in the Netherlands, and it is outlawed by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. But victims often remain hidden, because the cutting takes place in a closed family setting.

Vanessa Penn is a policy advisor at the Dutch Child Protection Council, a department of the Justice Ministry, and a specialist in the field of female genital mutilation:

“It isn’t often properly detected, so the Child Protection Council doesn’t deal with many cases. It’s estimated that around fifty girls a year undergo genital cutting, but not all of these cases are referred to the Child Protection Council and the practice is not reported to the police often enough – rarely or never. It’s a criminal offence and falls under abuse. It’s a deliberate injury to health and a form of abuse, and if parents are involved it’s an aggravating circumstance.”

Mustafa M.’s defence lawyer sees the five-year-old daughter’s statement as highly questionable and has applied for a second opinion from a legal psychologist. The girl and her sister have been taken into care.

The ‘Prejudice’ soccer team in the eastern Dutch town of Enschede has come together for the first time: homosexuals, Moroccans, disabled people – basically a squad of people representing almost every group in the Netherlands that’s ever encountered discrimination on the football pitch. Their first opponents? Former players from a local high-ranking team.

But this is not about winning (well, not all about winning)…