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Netherlands



  • Dutch Government Announces Study of Slavery Apology Fund

    While other European nations have made payments in atonement for massacres in their overseas colonial possessions, this initiative would be the first effort at reparations for participation in the transatlantic slave trade itself. 


  • Lessons from the 18th Century Dutch Republic

    by Matthijs Tieleman

    The history of the Dutch Republic demonstrates that polarization can gradually destroy a country from within and can easily be exploited by foreign actors. The embrace of political pluralism by every citizen is the key antidote to the rot of polarization.


  • Remembering our Greatest Mission

    by William Lambers

    It was an operation over the Netherlands near the end of World War II. It was not bombs they were dropping — it was food.



  • Lawyers hint at possible recovery of stolen Dutch art

    BRUSSELS — Paintings worth tens of millions of dollars that were stolen last October from an art museum in the Netherlands have not been burned, and a Romanian gang behind the theft wants to cut an unspecified deal with the authorities so the artwork can be returned, lawyers for the defendants said on Tuesday as they went on trial in Romania.“Our clients want to tell where the paintings are, but they want to make a deal,” one of the lawyers, Radu Catalin Dancu, told reporters in Bucharest after a judge ordered the trial adjourned until next month. “We cannot say anything more than that.”



  • Dutch fisherman catches Panzerfaust

    If you want to go fishing in Germany, you had better watch what you put on your hook. It's a lesson that a Dutch tourist learned on Sunday when, instead of using bait, he decided to try using a magnet.His fresh catch was probably more than he bargained for. The fisherman reeled in a World War II-era Panzerfaust anti-tank shell in a shallow stream in Seifhennersdorf in the eastern state of Saxony....

  • Time Again for Repayable Taxes?

    by Robert E. Wright

    Denarius of Sabina Augusta, Roman Republic era. Credit: Dartmouth College.Today, legislators facing budget deficits must decide the degree to which to cut spending, increase taxes, or borrow. All three can have negative effects on the economy and legislators’ individual prospects for re-election. Gridlock has resulted on more than one occasion.Until a few centuries ago, governments regularly resorted to additional fiscal techniques. One was to pillage other countries. That does not work well anymore because most wealth today takes the form of flighty human capital, not easily appropriated physical stuff. Moreover, wars have grown too expensive and too destructive to make them paying propositions.



  • New Dutch queen daughter of junta minister

    BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — Prince Willem-Alexander’s ascension to the Dutch throne in April promises to be a shining moment on the world stage for his wife, Maxima, and her home country of Argentina. But there will be a glaring absence at the ceremony.Queen Beatrix’s announcement this week that she’ll step aside and let her son become king raised new questions about the future queen’s father, Jorge Zorreguieta, one of the longest-serving civilian ministers in Argentina’s 1976-1983 military dictatorship.Maxima’s parents already missed out on their daughter’s 2002 wedding to avoid offending Dutch sensibilities about human rights violations by the South American junta. Anticipating more unpleasant questions, Maxima told the prime minister that her parents won’t attend her swearing-in as queen, either....



  • Queen Elizabeth II not expected to follow Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands into retirement

    LONDON — One European queen has announced her retirement. Any chance Europe’s most famous queen — Elizabeth II of Britain — might join her?Not likely, experts say....Author Robert Lacey, who has written several books about the British monarchy, said Beatrix’s decision would likely firm up Elizabeth’s resolve.“It would reinforce her feeling that the Dutch don’t know what monarchy is about, and that she should go on forever,” he said. “The crown is a job for life in the British system.”...