The Dutch immigration and Naturalisation Service (IND) received 58 percent more complaints from applicants last year compared with 2002. Some 8,198 objections to its rulings and operations were filed in 2003 compared with 5,465 the year earlier, according to the IND’s annual report released Tuesday. The service found that 89 percent of the complaints in 2003 were well-grounded, up 2 percent on 2002. The IND said it had taken over a lot of functions in 2003 and this partly explained the spectacular increase in complaints, news agency ANP said.

Eminem sues Dutch firm over ‘substandard’ CD

American rapper Eminem is suing a Dutch firm he claims has issued an unauthorised and substandard CD of his work. He says he did not give permission for Rams Horn BV to sell the CD ‘Eminem is Back’ via its website www.ramshorn.nl. His lawyers will also argue in a court in The Hague on Wednesday that the tracks on the CD are outtakes which were not released previously as they are substandard.

World Press Photo expo opens

The annual World Press Photo exhibition has opened at the Oude Kerk church in central Amsterdam. The exhibition will be on show in Amsterdam until 20 June and will then visit 80 cities around the world. The exhibition shows the results of the World Press Photo contest, held for the 47th time in 2004. In February an independent international jury of experts judged tens of thousands of images and selected the winners for awards in 20 categories. The overall winner for 2003 was a colour image taken by French photographer Jean-Marc Bouju, of the Associated Press. The picture shows a detained Iraqi man comforting his four-year-old-son at a centre for POWs near Najaf, Iraq. The picture was taken on 31 March 2003.

Dutch investment schemes ‘need to modernise’

Dutch financial markets regulator AFM called on the providers of collective investment schemes (CIS) to adopt modern procedures to better serve the interests of their clients. A CIS allows participants to invest, for example, in sector-related funds listed on the stock market rather than buy shares in individual companies. The AFM said a review carried out in the Netherlands last year showed shortcomings in the “field of transparency and prudent working”. However, it said it found no evidence to suggest wide-scale advantage being taken by companies of clients, as has been the case in the US. The AFM has established a committee to come up with proposals to allow the industry “to improve its own sector”.

Officials to slap sex ban on local wood

The local authority in Naarden is to introduce a new by-law to prevent amorous gay and heterosexual couples from using the local wooded recreational area to have sex. The Naardenbos has made a name for itself among enthusiasts of outdoor sex in recent years. An organisation Swinglife even promotes the wood as a place where one can ‘have great fun all day’. The local mayor Peter Rehwinkel told news service nu.nl that he realised gay people in particular experienced problems in finding places where they could meet each other anonymously. “But this place is a recreational area and sexual activities can not be tolerated here,” he said.

[Copyright Expatica News 2004]

Subject: Dutch news