Dutch cars will get a sticker that says how much they pollute. Towns will be able to use this information to change their parking policies; dirtier cars will pay more. More »
Three weeks after Coca-Cola introduced new bottles here in the Netherlands, the soft drink giant raised prices of bottles this week with 40%, while many consumers have complained about the flimsiness of the new one-time-use bottles. More »
Yesterday we visited our friends Mike and Tina in the small town of Werne in the Münsterland area in Germany, where we had a nice tour of the historic center. More »
Shopkeepers outside the center of Leiden protested against a city plan to allow shops in all of Leiden to open their stores to customers on Sundays. Until now this was only allowed in the city center. More »
Three years after the start of the U.S.-oriented news.google.com, Google launched a Dutch version of their news portal on 26 January. Surprisingly, this has upset Dutch newspapers, who believe that Google should have asked them for permission to index their articles. More »
Last week science fiction writer Ray Bradbury challenged the city of Los Angeles to build monorails to relieve the congested freeways; sometime in the next five years, he wrote, all traffic across L.A. will freeze. More »
CNN Europe today changed their TV look. The familiar American red and blue interface has been replaced by a much more British, simple, boxy look. More »
Last night a Liberian cargo ship off the coast of the island of Terschelling lost dozens of containers in a heavy storm. The Dutch island’s beaches are now littered with stuff; the lost containers reportedly contained shoes, hammers, corned beef, aluminum suitcases, toys and … hamburgers. The police of the mainland town of Harlingen has sent a ‘mobile unit’ to the island to assist the island’s police force in preventing people from stealing the Liberian hamburgers. More »
CBS reported today that last year the Netherlands saw a population growth of only 30,000, the lowest since 1900. The scant growth is largely due to the large number of emigrants. More »
Otters are rare in the Netherlands; the last native one was killed in a road accident in 1988. Since 1992 Staatsbosbeheer (National Forest Preservation) has been trying to reintroduce the otter in Dutch waters. Today five new ones were introduced in the Overijssel nature park De Wieden. More »