Dutch news in brief, 17 August 2005

We need more EU flags

MEP Maria Martens feels there are not enough EU flags on display in the Netherlands. She has been campaigning for 18 months to have have more union flags displayed here but it not totally happy with the results to date. Martens, of the Christian Democrat Party (CDA), said on Wednesday holidaymakers had noticed that far more EU flags are flown at hotels and local government buildings in other member states.

Angry man raids dog pound

A 42-year-old man stole 20 dogs from the animal sanctuary in Hengelo on Tuesday night, the police said. The man told police he acted out of ill-will towards the centre but the police did not say why he was angry. A witness saw the man drive up to to the centre at 11.30pm. Police officers traced his car registration plate and he was drunk when they found him at his house. One of the dogs was lying dead, possibly bitten to death by another dog.

Newspaper scraps 90 jobs

The new ‘Algemeen Dagblad’ (AD) newspaper — a combination of the national AD and seven regional papers — is scrapping 90 full time positions. The number of redundancies will be kept to 20 as several employees are availing of an early retirement scheme.

Private windmill park get go ahead

Building work on a private windmill park with 70 turbines will begin in Biddinghuizen at the end of August. It will provide 30 megawatts of power, sufficient for 25,000 households. The park is an initiative by businesses and local people, who feel that the cost of linking up to a local energy company is too high.

RTL claims round one in TV war

Commercial broadcaster RTL has expressed satisfaction in the battle for viewers in the Netherlands. Five days after the launch of rival channel Talpa, RTL boss Fons van Westerloo said that the “the war of words is now over, now we can talk about deeds”. Presenter Beau van Erven Dorens defected from the RTL Boulevard show to become a co-presenter of Talpa’s NSE celebrity news show. On Tuesday evening, 258,000 people watched NSE but 796,000 people tuned in to RTL Boulevard which is now presented by Daphne Bunskoek. RTL has three television stations: RTL 4, RTL 5, RTL 7.

Number of suicides dropping

The number of suicides in the Netherlands has dropped sharply since 1984, Health Minister Hans Hoogervorst told Parliament in a letter on Wednesday. There were 1,902 suicides in 1984 and 1,514 last year. However, suicides more often occur in a psychiatric hospital than elsewhere.

Subject: Dutch news