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You are here: Home News Dutch News Dutch news in brief, Monday 5 January 2009

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05/01/2009Dutch news in brief, Monday 5 January 2009

Find out what’s the latest news in the Netherlands in the roundup of today’s press from Radio Netherlands.

Dutch seized by ice fever
Monday's papers are dominated by ice skating as the entire country seems to have gone skating mad.

De Telegraaf reports that hundreds of people are injured while skating and the emergency services had to work overtime to deal with all the accidents, including "broken bones and cuts and bruises".

The populist daily also reports that ambulance and fire crews had a great deal of difficulty reaching the injured due to all the cars parked along the riverbanks.

However, according to Trouw’s report, Alphen aan den Rijn's fire services commandant said people who ignore warnings and go skating on thin ice should be made to pay the costs of the rescue operation.

PM says enquiry into support for Iraq war is senseless
Both AD and Trouw report Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende's Sunday night interview on Dutch television in which he said that a parliamentary enquiry into Dutch support for the US-led invasion of Iraq is "senseless".

The Protestant daily reports this is the Prime Minister's first public response to a vote in the Senate, which called for clarity on the issue just before Christmas and threatened to demand an enquiry if they were not furnished with satisfactory answers. Trouw quotes the Prime Minister as saying "What more will it add to the information that we already have?"

AD says Balkenende pointed out that the lower house had discussed Dutch support for the Iraq war 16 times, and the 10 attempts to initiate a parliamentary enquiry have all been defeated.

Trouw also covers a radio interview with NATO chief Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, who maintained that he didn't get the top job in exchange for Dutch support for the war.

The NATO head said: "Absolute rubbish. If there was a kernel of truth in the story, then neither the German chancellor nor the French president would have voted in favour of my appointment".
 
MPs criticise colleague for preaching violence
De Telegraaf reports that Conservative VVD and Christian Union MPs have severely criticised their Socialist Party colleague Harry van Bommel for calling for an Intifada and "preaching violence against Israel".

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