Category: News

So, now we know; we have a really strict immigration law in the Netherlands and an even stricter immigration minister.
Yes, you may enter the country but you you must tell the truth about your name, place of origin en age. If you don’t, you won’t get access, even we if we find out years later.

Does that sound harsh? Well, how many other countries act the same way; US they are erecting a fence on their south border, Denmark act the same way, Germany ditto, UK ditto, who else?

The attitude of the minister has lead to some controversy in the last couple of years. Nevertheless she is a popular politician simple because she is straightforward and she does was says she will do.
Unfortunately, with taking away the Dutch citizenship from Hirsi she has taken one step to far. Yes she has lied about her age, origin en name, but she has done a lot of good for the Dutch society, asked a lot of critical questions, ruffled a lot of feathers and as a result is under 24 hour protection program.
In this case the minister should have said; Yes, you have lied, on that fact you should be kicked out, but taking in account your role in Dutch society and the fact as a result you need 24 hours protection we will grant you the Dutch Citizenship.

The Dutch parlement has pressed the minister to reconsider her decision or she can leave.

Link: BBC News website.

The French government has decided to change the laws that prevent the merger of two major French energy producers; Suez and Gaz de France. The French government will have a large say in this new company. The Italian energy producer Enel has recently expressed interest in a merger with Suez. It is a well known fact that the French hold to opinion that it is in the interest of the French economy if the Energy sector remains in French hands. The fire of your economy is your energy producer. An opinion which is also held by other countries like; USA, China, Russia, Italy, Spain, Germany, …
Conclusion is that this can only be seen as an protectionist move. The question is what the European Union is going to say about this. I think Nellie Smit won’t be pleased!

Recently the Dutch government decided to change the structure of the Dutch energy market. It was decided to split up the current structure in which the producers are also owner of the grid. They decided to put the network in Government hands and flush the energy producers onto the ‘free’ market. A move which is inline with the wish of the European Union to open up the energy market. The Dutch energy producers protested against this move as stripping them of their network would lower their net-value dramatically and make them vulnerable for hostile takeovers.
Experts warned the Government that this would mean that the bigger energy producers in the market would buy the Dutch producers and the Netherlands would loose its independance in that market area. A scary idea if you look how a Russian company like Gasprom is using their monopoly position to pressure their customers.
Other experts said that big takeovers would not happen soon, and if it happened it would be good for the shareholders.

I guess this means that within three years the energy sector of the Netherlands will be sold to France and Russia and the rest of Europe will have implemented protective measures to keep the energy sector in their own hands.

Recently a cartoon appeared in the German newspaper ‘Der Tagesspiegel’. Subject of the cartoon was the discussion in Germany whether the German army should take on the task of providing security during the World Football Championships. It depicted the four Iranian football players fitted with explosive belts flanked by four German soldiers. Off course the Iranian reacted on this cartoon and demanded an apology, something I can understand.
More interesting was how the cartoon was published in an Iranian newspaper. Below you can see the original cartoon and below that how it was published in Iran. Spot the difference.

Original.

Iranian publication.

© Martin Rowson 2005/Guardian

It is becoming more and more clear that the whole excitement about the cartoons is one big constructed media event.

1. It is far from true that Mohammed has never been depicted. In the past hundreds of paintings, drawings and other images of Mohammed have been created over the centuries, with nary a word of complaint from the Muslim world. Follow this link to a Mohammed Image Archive.
2. The cartoons which were send to the middle-east as ‘proof’ of the our blasphamies included some pictures which were never published by the Danish newspaper. Instead they included pictures of a Pig-Squealing Championship (follow this link).

Some 200 pieces of art are to be returned to the heirs of the original owners.

It is not known what the heirs are going to do with the paintings. A large number of them can be seen in the current collection of Dutch museums.
Strangly enough the paintings are not returned to the heirs on ‘legal’ grounds but on ‘moral’ grounds. In two earlier occasions the return was denied on legal grounds because the paintings were not sold under pressure and a fair price was given for them. On this third occasion the return on legal grounds was again denied. The state department responsible for art decided nevertheless to give the paintings back.
You can also read the full story here.

New drugs legislation accepted in Italy.

On Wednesday the Italians accepted a new law which takes away the difference between harddrugs and softdrugs. From now on you can be put behind bars up to 20 years for the possession of softdrugs. Fines go up €260.000.

Read here (in Dutch).

If you can receive the BBC 2, I would have recommened you to watch a program by Boris Johnson. The program is called; Boris and the dream of Rome and could be seen on Sunday evening. Could be because the last of the series was broadcasted tonight.

It is about the simmularities between the historical Rome and the European Union we are trying to build these days. The historical Rome unified an area larger than the current European Union and somehow they did it without a big army or many civil servants.
Of course the question he is trying to answer is; what can we learn from the Romans and is the European Union going to succeed or is it going the wrong way? It is fascinating to see how many problems which the Romans had are similar to the ones we have today.

News headline on the BBC News website ‘Danish embassy torched in Syria‘.

It is a reaction which you could have expected. The bad thing is my first reaction is; Screw them, if they think they can burn down our ambassies and get away with it, I say; I hope they publish the fucking the cartoons everywhere!

New Zealand newspapers have also decided to publish the cartoons because they think their readers have a right to know what all the fuzz is about. South Africa newspapers are being forced by courts not to publish the cartoons.
Now you can see that the issue is political and not religious. If it were religous these kind of outbursts would have happened in November last year when the cartoons were first published.
Now that it is political; publish the cartoons and talk!