It won't be on top of the blog roster for long.
"Dutch king says welfare state is gone; Delivers message of personal responsibility" by Toby Sterling | Associated Press, September 18, 2013
AMSTERDAM — King Willem-Alexander delivered a message to the Dutch people from the government Tuesday in a nationally televised address: The welfare state of the 20th century is gone.
The bankers stole that, too, huh?
In its place a ‘‘participation society’’ is emerging, in which people must take responsibility for their own future and create their own social and financial safety nets, with less help from the national government.
Yes, tax money is for bankers and the war machine!
The king traveled past waving fans in an ornate horse-drawn carriage to the 13th-century Hall of Knights in The Hague for the monarch’s traditional annual address on the day the government presents its budget for the coming year. It was Willem-Alexander’s first appearance on the national stage since former Queen Beatrix abdicated in April and he ascended to the throne.
‘‘The shift to a ‘participation society’ is especially visible in social security and long-term care,’’ the king said, reading out to lawmakers a speech written for him by Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s government.
We do participate -- and government doesn't listen anyway!
‘‘The classic welfare state of the second half of the 20th century in these areas in particular brought forth arrangements that are unsustainable in their current form.’’
So where does the royal family's money come from?
Rutte may be hoping that the pomp and ceremony surrounding the king and his popular wife, Queen Maxima, will provide a diversion from the gloomy reality of a budget full of unpopular new spending cuts he revealed later in the day.
What an a$$hole!
Kill the king, cut him down, the king is dead, long live the king!
A series of recent polls have shown that confidence in Rutte’s government is at record low levels and that most Dutch people — along with labor unions, employers’ associations, and many economists — believe the Cabinet’s austerity policies are at least partially to blame for a worsening Dutch economy, even as recoveries are underway in neighboring Germany, France, and Britain.
The Dutch are not dumb.
After several consecutive years of government spending cuts, the Dutch economy is expected to have shrunk by more than 1 percent in 2013, and the agency is forecasting growth of just 0.5 percent next year.
‘‘The necessary reforms take time and demand perseverance,’’ the king said. But they will ‘‘lay the basis for creating jobs and restoring confidence.’’
The king said Tuesday that some costs for the care of the elderly, for youth services, and for job retraining after layoffs will now be pushed back to the local level, in order to make them better tailored to local circumstances.
That is actually a GOOD IDEA! The less centralization the better.
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Also see: Belgium installs its seventh king, Philippe I
"Stolen art wasn’t burned, lawyer says" by Nicolae Dumitrache | Associated Press, August 14, 2013
BUCHAREST — The trial of six Romanians accused of stealing masterpieces from a Dutch museum was adjourned for a month Tuesday, shortly after it began, with the chief suspect’s lawyer denying claims the paintings have been burned to ashes.
The paintings, by Picasso, Matisse, and Monet, among others, were stolen last year from Rotterdam’s Kunsthal gallery.
Forensic experts at Romania’s National History Museum have examined ash from the stove of Olga Dogaru, the mother of the chief suspect, Radu Dogaru. According to authorities, she initially said she burned the paintings to protect her son but later denied having done so.
Speaking after Tuesday’s hearing at the Bucharest Tribunal, Radu Dogaru’s lawyer, Catalin Dancu, said a new ‘‘expert report’’ would clarify the situation. ‘‘I tell you now that you will be surprised that they are not burned,’’ Dancu said, adding that he did not know where the paintings are now.
Dancu said his client had proposed a deal with Dutch authorities by which he would hand over five of the seven pictures, but that the Dutch had refused any deal unless all seven were handed over.
The seven paintings were stolen in October in the biggest art heist to hit the Netherlands for more than a decade.
Thieves broke in through a rear emergency exit of the Kunsthal, grabbed the paintings off the wall, put them in sacks, and fled — all within minutes....
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"Netherlands liable in deaths" September 07, 2013
THE HAGUE — The Dutch Supreme Court ruled Friday that the Netherlands was liable for the deaths of three Bosnian Muslim men during the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, even though its forces there were part of a UN peacekeeping mission.
The decision upheld a 2011 appeals court judgment that was seen as setting a worrying precedent for countries providing troops for United Nations peacekeeping forces, because it held the Dutch state responsible for events that happened during a UN mission.
The case was brought by Hasan Nuhanovic, an interpreter who lost his brother and father, and relatives of Rizo Mustafic, an electrician who was killed. They argued that all three men should have been protected by Dutch peacekeepers.
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