Posts from ‘September, 2009’

The almost neurotic obsession with the burqa continues a pace, now Amsterdam Mayor Job Cohen has waded in.  In an interview with Dutch newspaper Trouw he says women who fail to get jobs because of their burqas should be exlcuded from receiving unemployment benefits.
read more…

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This week on Curious Orange (the radio show)…
Islam not on the menu at Ramadan feast
Muslims in the Netherlands have been given a hard time of it recently, so it is perhaps natural that they are trying to counter some of the bad press they receive. All over Amsterdam, communities are organising iftar feasts, where people [...]

This is a really interesting film on climate change, rising sea levels in particular, and the threat to the Netherlands.
It was made by the Delta Commission a Dutch government body set up to look into the threat.  What with all the hot air coming out of the UN about good intentions to try and save [...]

In an RNW interview the Dutch PM - Jan Peter Balkenende - calls for the banks to stop paying lip service to ending the bonus culture and actually take action. Nice sentiments, but will this ever happen? For the time being it looks like business as usual.

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You’ve heard about the red light district of Amsterdam, but how does it work and what are the rules on prostitution in Amsterdam and the rest of the Netherlands? This handy FAQ from the RNW site should help.
The Netherlands is well-known as being a country where prostitution is allowed. But recently there have been a [...]

From our partners at Expatica.com
Alarmed by the side effects of its tolerant approach to soft drugs, the Dutch government announced plans this week to limit drug tourism by reserving hundreds of cannabis-vending coffee shops for locals.
Faced with the dilemma of criminal control over cannabis cultivation and the “nuisance” created by millions of [...]

This week on Curious Orange (the radio show)…
Utrecht’s Hoog Catherijne shopping centre is hardly the sort of place you’d expect to find hordes of homeless people - but ten years ago that’s exactly where they lived.
Thanks to a multi-agency approach that involved the creation of hostels for ex-addicts, there’s now a bed for everyone in [...]

The Amsterdam Animation Festival is about to open in the capital and for this fifth annual event the organisers are promising no less than a mix of  ’sinners, sex-fiends, politicians and perverts.’
Sounds like it might be worth a look.
The KLIK  Amsterdam Animation Festival is staged across a number of venues. See here for details.

 
 
 
Adult only cartoons are [...]

The university year is just starting up and that means freshers are finding their way in the big bad academic world. Those wanting to join student societies, similar to US college fraternities, often have to go through humiliating initiation rituals - see this You Tube from Amsterdam.  It’s in Dutch, but the pictures speak for themselves.

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There’s a heated debate going on here in the Netherlands about the cost of foreigners - in particular non-Western immigrants.This from the Radio Netherlands site

Is it possible or even desirable to make a cost-benefit analysis of immigration? This is the awkward debate being waged in Dutch politics after the far-right Freedom Party demanded to know [...]