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Meanwhile, similar incidents of the police being targeted by fireworks were reported in Belgium and two youngsters died in an accident involving home-made explosives in Germany. At least two people were killed in the Netherlands in a string of violent incidents on New Year’s Eve that Dutch police are calling "unprecedented". In the southeastern city of Nijmegen, a 17-year-old was killed in an incident involving fireworks shortly after midnight but police have given no further details. And in the town of Aalsmeer south of the capital Amsterdam, a 38-year-old was killed in another incident involving fireworks which is still being...

The New Year festivities in the Netherlands left two people dead, saw 'unprecedented' violence against police and destroyed a 19th century Amsterdam church. A 17-year-old boy from Nijmegen and a 38-year-old man from Aalsmeer were killed in fireworks accidents. Three others were left seriously injured. One person has been arrested in connection to the teenager's death, but authorities have not yet revealed any information on the suspect's identity and an investigation is ongoing.

A group of Western and allied states issued a joint statement condemning the Israeli security cabinet’s approval of 19 new communities in Judea and Samaria, stating that the move was "part of a wider intensification of the settlement policies in the West Bank." The statement, issued by Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Iceland, Ireland, Japan, Malta, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, and the United Kingdom, described the decision as a unilateral action and claimed that such steps "not only violate international law but also risk fueling instability." According to the statement, the decision risks undermining "the implementation of the Comprehensive...

Chaos reportedly erupted in Amsterdam late Sunday night as masked attackers stormed a Hanukkah concert, sending concertgoers into panic. The assault comes just hours after a deadly assault on Bondi Beach (Australia), where over 15 Jews have been killed during a Hanukkah event. Eyewitnesses described terrified attendees fleeing the venue as security forces arrived to secure the area. “This is an appalling attack on innocent people celebrating their faith,” said one member of the public who witnessed the event. Emergency services were reportedly on site to assist those affected, so far no deaths have been reported. Sources suggest that the...

Spain, Ireland, Slovenia and the Netherlands announced their withdrawals Thursday from next year’s Eurovision Song Contest after organizers decided that Israel will be allowed to compete. Organizers of the pop music spectacle, which draws millions of viewers globally, met earlier Thursday to discuss Israel’s participation, amid calls for the country to be excluded over the war in Gaza and threats from some members to boycott. An independent United Nations inquiry concluded in September that Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza and that the country’s top leaders have incited genocide. The Israeli government has maintained it is conducting the...

A teenager died after she was tied up and thrown into a swamp to drown in an honour killing because her Western behaviour shamed her family, according to prosecutors in the Netherlands. Ryan Al Najjar's brothers have now been put on trial for her murder, while her father, who is accused of ordering the killing, fled the country to return to Syria. Mohamed, 23, and Muhanad Al Najjar, 25, are charged with taking part in the horrific crime against their 18-year-old sister, whose body was found gagged with her hands bound behind her back, ankles taped together, and submerged in...

A Dutchman has won the award for the most authentic French fries. Photo Credit: Joyce Panda via Unsplash IN a delicious upset, for the first time, a non-French person has won the top prize for the world’s most authentic French fries, at the third edition of the annual International Chip Competition, held in Arras, France on Saturday, September 27. Dutch chef Siem van Bruggen took home the gold for the most flavourful fries, beating out 32 other contestants from multiple countries and competing across five harshly-judged categories: authenticity, creativity, family, chip sauce, and global fries. Van Bruggen is a renowned...

Microsoft has terminated a set of services for the Israeli military after an investigation suggested Israel was using the company’s cloud computing technology for mass surveillance of Palestinians. In a statement posted the company’s blog, Microsoft President Brad Smith said the company had “ceased and disabled a set of services to a unit within the Israel Ministry of Defense.” The move comes after an investigation by The Guardian and Israel’s +972 Magazine in early-August reported that Israel’s military intelligence unit, known as 8200, relied on Microsoft Azure to store millions of phone calls made by Palestinians in Gaza and...

The Protestant Church in the Netherlands (PKN) on Monday issued a declaration condemning anti-Jewish statements made by the German church reformer Martin Luther five centuries ago. In a text published at a seminar in Utrecht on Monday, the PKN declares that Luther's anti-Jewish statements were "unacceptable" and part of the "dark pages" of Lutheran church history. Rabbi Raphael Evers of the Dutch Jewish umbrella organization NIK welcomed the declaration, saying: "I sometimes get the question whether the excuses now are still necessary, given the declaration by the Lutheran World Federation back in 1983. However, I fear that warning against anti-Semitism...

LONDON (AP) — The Netherlands added itself Friday to a list of countries pressuring organizers of the Eurovision Song Contest to drop Israel from the contest because of its war in the Gaza Strip. Dutch broadcaster AVROTROS, one of dozens of public broadcasters that collectively fund and broadcast the contest, said it would not take part in next year’s competition in Vienna if Israel participates “given the ongoing and severe human suffering in Gaza.” “The broadcaster also expresses deep concern about the serious erosion of press freedom: the deliberate exclusion of independent international reporting and the many casualties among journalists,”...

85 percent of women in Amsterdam avoid specific places in the city because they feel unsafe, AT5 reported after surveying over 2,100 Amsterdam residents. Men included, around 70 percent of Amsterdammers have areas they consider dangerous. On average, Amsterdammers give how safe they feel in the city at night a 6 out of 10. But that comes with the warning to avoid certain places in the dark. City parks were most often mentioned, specifically Vondelpark, Sarphatipark, and Oosterpark. “You have less of an overview there, and there are fewer people around,” one respondent said about going to a park at...

The Van Gogh Museum, the beloved Amsterdam home to many masterpieces by one of the 19th century’s most famous painters, said it could be forced to close if the Dutch government doesn’t appropriate more money to a much-needed renovation. The museum threatened closure on Wednesday via press release, an unusual measure that the institution said was necessary because the government is “not keeping the promise” it inked with the Vincent van Gogh Foundation in 1962. The foundation owns most of the artworks on view at the museum, including iconic paintings such as The Potato Eaters (1885). Signed after the artist’s...

The U.S. Coast Guard achieved a milestone with the offload of a record 76,140 pounds of illicit narcotics, valued at $473 million, at Port Everglades on Monday. This marks the largest quantity of drugs offloaded in Coast Guard history. Coast Guard Cutter Hamilton’s crew offloaded approximately 61,740 pounds of cocaine and 14,400 pounds of marijuana, preventing an estimated 23 million potential lethal doses from reaching the United States.

The representatives for Netherlands and Egypt at the embassy. The Netherlands has returned stolen artifacts to Egypt in a show of solidarity. Photo Credit: Egyptian embassy of the Netherlands IN a move reflecting international solidarity, the Netherlands has handed over a collection of Egyptian artifacts dating back to ancient Egyptian civilisation. The Egyptian Embassy in The Hague received the artifacts from the Dutch National Museum of Antiquities following confirmation that the archaeological artifacts had been obtained illegally. The artifacts, which included a myriad of pottery items, are representative of the artistic and artisanal diversity of ancient Egyptian craftsmen. The move,...

...with the elections less than 90 days away, a surprising development has emerged in the opinion surveys: Suddenly, the small center-right Christian Democratic Appeal, or CDA, is surging,...

The Netherlands’ counter-terrorism authority has included Israel in its latest report as one of the state actors assessed to pose a threat to the country’s security. The country is thus placed alongside Iran, North Korea and Turkey, among others. The Netherlands’ National Coordinator for Counterterrorism and Security (NCTV) published on July 17, 2025, its annual report “Assessment of threats from state actors 2025” (Beoordeling Dreigingen door Staatactoren 2025), where Israel is listed for the first time as a security-threatening actor. Israel’s placement on the list is linked to assessments that the country uses informal methods to influence public opinion and...

President Donald Trump has told Canada that if it recognizes Palestine as a state, it’s jeopardizing a trade pact with the U.S. The threat is more than leverage for talks. It’s a reminder that the West is giving up on civilization and needs to be rousted from its slumber. “Canada has just announced that it is backing statehood for Palestine,” Trump wrote Thursday on Truth Social. “That will make it very hard for us to make a trade deal with them.” Canada is not the only Western nation that feels the need to recognize the terrorist-controlled Gaza Strip, which, with...

Dutch lawyer Arno van Kessel was leading a civil lawsuit against Bill Gates, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, and Klaus Schwab over alleged COVID vaccine-related crimes, he was recently arrested by Dutch special forces in a late-night raid and jailed without formal charges.

There was a kind of hilarious article last week that I had up in our headlines section. I forget what sort of snarky comment I'd added to the headline for it, but what it boiled down to was pissy progressives packing up and moving to the Netherlands because TRUMP.Number Of 'Trumpugees' Leaving America Continues to RiseA week ahead of a crucial Supreme Court decision which delivered yet another blow to the United States' transgender community on Monday, Grover Wehman-Brown was in the midst of packing ahead of their big move to Europe.Since President Donald Trump's first electoral victory in 2016,...

Thousands of businesses and households are waiting to connect to the Dutch grid, forcing network operators to ration power in an early indicator of what other European countries are likely to suffer as the speed of electrification increases. . . . The Netherlands is among the countries in Europe to have moved fastest to electrify critical parts of the economy after it in 2023 ended production at its giant onshore gasfield, Groningen.