DUTCH NEWS BRIEF

Still no clear picture of cost of royalty

Officially the royal household cost €114m last year, but a number of expenses are still unclear. And according to the Volkskrant, the queen’s household overspent its official budget by €650,000 – a shortfall ‘secretly’ covered by the home affairs ministry.

The 'students' priest' dies aged 91

Jesuit priest Jan van Kilsonk, who came to Amsterdam to work at the Ignatsius college and spent most of his life with young people and students, has died at the age of 91.

Van Kilsonk was a controversial figure, who defended the rights of homosexuals and campaigned against the vow of celibacy for Catholic priests, news agency ANP reports.

We're not talking Park 'n Ride

The number of cars in the Netherlands is set to rise from seven million to nine million, making more parking spaces essential, the [Christian Democrat] party says. The country currently has between nine million and 15 million public parking spaces, news agency ANP reports.

Fingerprint payment already hacked

Equipment used to let customers at an Albert Heijn supermarket in Breukelen pay by fingerprint has already been fooled by a rubber copy, news agency ANP reports, quoting website Webwereld.

A man went through the till system with a rubber copy of someone else’s fingerprint on his own finger. Neither the system nor the till operator noticed, ANP said.

Albert Heijn said the system was being tested so the company could learn from mistakes and make improvements.

No gay relationships at Protestant schools

The Netherlands’ 165 staunchly Protestant schools are standing firm on sacking homosexual teachers who are in a relationship with another man or woman, the Volkskrant reports on Tuesday.

The schools made their standpoint clear in a paper on homosexuality which was presented to education minister Ronald Plasterk on Monday.

Plasterk said the law does allow education on the basis of religious convictions but said he was still in talks with schools about what to do if a gay teacher married.

And finally...
Last gasp

Tuesday 01 July 2008

From today, the Netherlands has joined the majority of the rest of Europe in bringing in a ban on smoking in public places such as shopping centres, in bars, cafés and restaurants.

The catering industry warns that hundreds of small bars will go out of business because of the ban. The pro-ban lobby argues that hundreds of thousands of people who avoided smoky drinking dens will return to take advantage of clean air.

The sight of hardened smokers puffing themselves silly as midnight approached sums up the new puritan mood. Smokers are poor addicts to be pitied.

But even a number of non-smokers think the government has gone to far on this one. Whatever happened to individual freedom? they argue. After all, no one is forcing you to enter a bar where smoking is allowed.

But what the freedom-of-choice lobby forgets is that smoking is not only about individual freedom. It also costs society an awful lot of money. Smokers take more time off work sick and use up a higher proportion of healthcare cash. And just by being, they encourage new smokers to take up the habit.

Of course, tobacco taxes help pay for all that. But perhaps if the government really wants to hammer the message home, it should increase the tax on cigarettes to ridiculous levels. That way smokers will understand that their individual freedom comes at a heavy cost.

(Source: DutchNews.nl)