Tag Archives: Netherlands

Netherlands proposes first curfew since World War Two, flight bans

By Bart H. Meijer

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – The Dutch government on Wednesday proposed the first nationwide curfew since World War Two and a ban on flights from South Africa and Britain in its toughest moves yet to limit the spread of coronavirus in the Netherlands.

Prime Minister Mark Rutte said the curfew, which is largely intended to target new, more infectious variants of the disease, must be approved by parliament, which is set to debate measures against the coronavirus on Thursday.

The flight ban, which Rutte said also will apply to all South American countries, will begin on Saturday. The curfew was expected to take effect this weekend, he said.

“This is a very tough measure, but we are at a crossroads,” Rutte said in a televised news conference. “The British variant doesn’t leave us with an alternative.”

The curfew would allow only people with pressing needs to leave their homes between 8:30 p.m. and 4:30 a.m. local time, Rutte said.

Exceptions include medical emergencies, people who need to be outdoors to carry out essential jobs and walking of pets on a leash. Violators can be fined 95 euros ($115).

The government said it will also require all international travelers arriving by airplane or boat to provide proof of a second negative COVID-19 rapid test, taken just before departure. It had already required a negative test taken within 72 hours of travel.

KLM, the Dutch subsidiary of Air France KLM, said that in response to the requirement it will halt 270 weekly long-haul flights and an undetermined number of European flights to the Netherlands from Friday.

“Based on the information we have this will also count for crew members,” said KLM spokeswoman Gerrie Brand. “We cannot take the risk that crew members get stuck abroad, so we have decided to halt all long-haul flights.”

Schools and non-essential shops have already been shut since mid-December, following the closure of bars and restaurants two months earlier. They will remain shut until at least Feb. 9.

Infections in the Netherlands have decreased steadily in the past three weeks, but health authorities say the new variants will lead to a new surge by next month if social distancing measures are not tightened.

The government currently has a caretaker status, as Rutte last Friday handed his resignation to King Willem-Alexander following a damning report on his cabinet’s handling of childcare subsidies.

Rutte has said he will remain to take decisions on COVID-19 policies until a new government is formed after the March 17 elections, seeking broad support for measures from both coalition and opposition parties.

($1 = 0.8264 euros)

(Reporting by Bart Meijer; Additional reporting by Toby Sterling; Writing by Anthony Deutsch; Editing by Giles Elgood, Angus MacSwan, William Maclean)

Big Mac at a distance: Dutch McDonald’s trials virus-proof restaurant

By Bart H. Meijer

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – Big Macs delivered on meal trolleys, hand sanitizers at the entrance and designated waiting spots to separate customers could become a feature of McDonald’s restaurants in the Netherlands when they are allowed to reopen.

In a trial at a restaurant in the city of Arnhem, McDonald’s has been looking for ways to maintain social distancing when the coronavirus lockdown is relaxed.

“We have tried to figure out how to keep our customers and employees safe, while maintaining a restaurant atmosphere,” McDonald’s Netherlands spokeswoman Eunice Koekkoek told Reuters.

“These are drastic changes, but we hope to make them in a way that customers don’t notice them too much.”

Restaurants, bars and other public places in the Netherlands have been closed since March 15. As of Friday, 39,791 coronavirus cases had been confirmed with 4,893 deaths.

But new infections have been dropping, prompting calls to loosen the lockdown after its current deadline of May 19.

A decision on whether to reopen restaurants and bars is expected around May 12, but Prime Minister Mark Rutte has ruled out a return to normal.

If they do reopen, they will have to keep customers and staff at least 1.5 meters (5 feet) apart to avoid a new wave of infections.

McDonald’s says it could introduce table service, with burgers and fries wheeled to customers on trolleys from which they can pick up their orders.

Other new features would include hand-washing stations at the entrance and a host behind a plastic screen showing customers their place in line.

Many restaurant owners in the Netherlands fear social distancing will simply put them out of business.

But McDonald’s expects its new set-up will work at 180 larger restaurants out of its 252 franchises in the country.

“On average this will allow us to serve around 66% of our normal number of customers,” Koekkoek said.

“We don’t expect reopening to be allowed before June. But even then, we will move in steps. Readjusting 180 restaurants is a tall order.”

About three quarters of McDonald’s 39,000 restaurants worldwide were operational as of Thursday, including almost all its nearly 14,000 outlets in the United States, where drive-throughs are common.

(Reporting by Bart Meijer; Editing by Giles Elgood)

Dutch end-of-life debate flares as coronavirus tests healthcare limits

By Stephanie van den Berg and Anthony Deutsch

THE HAGUE (Reuters) – Doctors in the Netherlands have been advising elderly patients to think twice before agreeing to COVID-19 treatment in hospital intensive-care units, drawing criticism that they are attempting to ration scarce ICU beds.

The affluent Netherlands is rapidly approaching the capacity of its healthcare system just over a month into the crisis, with efforts underway to double the number of intensive care beds to 2,400 by Sunday.

But with thousands of virus patients flooding IC wards, space is expected to run out within days. Hospitals fear the Netherlands will be forced to emulate Italy, where doctors had to make life or death decisions about who received emergency treatment.

Dutch MP’s raised public concerns in parliament on Wednesday after senior citizens complained about calls from doctors who raised questions about intensive care treatment, such as being put on ventilation, if they were to contract COVID-19.

The government of Prime Minister Mark Rutte was asked to clarify its policies and explain what had prompted the calls.

“The elderly are afraid that if they fall ill, they will not be welcome on the intensive care unit and will be left to die at home,” MP Henk Krol, who leads the 50PLUS party for seniors, told lawmakers.

“They think that age alone determines whether or not they will have access to a hospital,” he said.

“NOT BASED ON AGE”

Health Minister Hugo de Jonge, the country’s top official handling the response to the coronavirus crisis, rejected assertions the doctors’ calls were official government policy. He said ‘advanced care planning’ discussions between general practitioners and patients with serious medical conditions were not unusual.

“This is standard practice for doctors. We call it advanced care planning, it means having the conversation with people about ‘what you would want to happen if you get sick’,” De Jonge said.

“Patients can then say ‘if it gets to the point where I need a ventilator, where I need to go into the ICU, I would prefer not to do that’. That is a possibility, but those conversations are not based on the age of patients.”

The Dutch College of General Practitioners (NHG), which represents 12,000 doctors, denied the calls were a response to a shortage of beds.

“Some GPs started calling patients who were taken aback by these questions and because of the timing they think this is linked to a lack of hospital capacity,” Jako Burgers, a practicing GP and spokesman for the NHG, told Reuters.

Burgers said the conversations enable doctors to warn frail patients about the dangers of COVID-19 treatment, which can involve weeks on a ventilator in an ICU and then lengthy rehabilitation.

The Dutch have long had fewer ICU beds than neighbouring European countries, ranking among the bottom five in a 2012 study published in the Intensive Care Medicine journal.

The comparison of available ICU beds per 100,000 inhabitants put Germany at 29, Belgium at 15.9 and the Netherlands well below the European average at just 6.4.

(Reporting by Stephanie van den Berg and Anthony Deutsch; Additional reporting by Toby Sterling; Editing by Giles Elgood)

Flights axed and floods feared as Storm Ciara clobbers Europe

By Kylie MacLellan

LONDON (Reuters) – Storm Ciara lashed Britain and northern continental Europe with heavy rain and wind speeds that reached more than 90 miles an hour (145 kph) in places on Sunday, forcing the cancellation of hundreds of flights, train services and sports matches.

More than 200 flood warnings were issued across Britain, which recorded a maximum wind speed of 93 miles an hour at Aberdaron in Wales. One severe flood warning was put in place in Yorkshire, northern England, where water was predicted to overflow flood defenses and potentially threaten lives.

The storm caused major disruption to transport across the region; in the Netherlands, around 240 flights to and from Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport, one of Europe’s busiest, were canceled as Ciara roared in off the Atlantic with gusts of up to 74 mph (120 kph).

In Germany, where Ciara was named Sabine, about 180 flights to and from Frankfurt airport – about 15% of all planned flights – were axed. Lufthansa <LHAG.DE>, Germany’s largest carrier, said it would cancel short and long-haul flights from Munich airport on Monday until 1200 GMT and 1300 GMT, respectively.

Lufthansa’s budget unit Eurowings said it had suspended flight operations at Hamburg, Berlin, Hanover, Dortmund, Duesseldorf, Cologne and Stuttgart. Meanwhile, some British domestic and international flights were also canceled, from airports including Heathrow and Gatwick.

Train services also fell victim to Ciara’s wrath.

German railway operator Deutsche Bahn warned of severe disruptions and said it would stop long-distance train travel across Germany, Europe’s biggest economy, in the evening.

Britain’s Network Rail said the weather had caused problems across its network, with fallen power lines, trees and even trampolines blocking tracks, and warned people not to travel unless they had to.

SPORT DISRUPTED

All shipping movements in and out of Britain’s Port of Dover on the south coast were suspended and the Humber Bridge in northern England was closed to all traffic for only the second time since it opened in 1981.

London’s eight royal parks, home to more than 170,000 trees, were closed and even the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, a tourist draw, was also canceled.

Sporting events were also hit; Manchester City said its English Premier League soccer match against West Ham was postponed due to “extreme and escalating weather conditions”, while Scotland’s Women’s Six Nations rugby match against England was among the other matches canceled.

All professional Dutch soccer matches were canceled, along with most outdoor sporting events.

(Reporting by Kylie MacLellan in London, Christoph Steitz in Frankfurt and Anthony Deutsch in Amsterdam; Editing by Pravin Char)

Islamic State wives start repatriation case in Netherlands

FILE PHOTO: Women stand together al-Hol displacement camp in Hasaka governorate, Syria, April 2, 2019. REUTERS/Ali Hashisho/File Phoro

Islamic State wives start repatriation case in Netherlands
THE HAGUE (Reuters) – Lawyers for 23 women who joined Islamic State from the Netherlands asked a judge on Friday to order the Netherlands to repatriate them and their 56 young children from camps in Syria.

The women and children were living in “deplorable conditions” in the al-Hol camp in Northern Syria, lawyer Andre Seebregts said in court.

He added that their situation had significantly worsened due to the Turkish incursion into Syria and the possibility of Syrian forces taking control of the camps which were controlled by the Kurds until now.

The Dutch government has stressed that it is too dangerous for Dutch officials to go into the camps and find the women to return them to the Netherlands.

Lawyers for the state repeated that argument in court and added that the women did not have the right to Dutch consular assistance in the camps.

According to the Red Cross some 68,000 defeated fighters of Islamic State and their families are held in the al-Hol camp. They were held under the custody of Syrian Kurdish forces after they took the jihadist group’s last enclave.

According to figures from the Dutch intelligence Agency as of Oct. 1 there are 55 Islamic State militants who traveled from the Netherlands and at least 90 children with Dutch parents, or parents who had lived for a considerable time in the Netherlands, in Northern Syria.

The court will deliver a verdict on Nov 11.

(Reporting by Stephanie van den Berg; Editing by Giles Elgood)

Dutch psychologists helping probe over family found locked away in room

Dutch psychologists helping probe over family found locked away in room
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – Dutch police called in psychologists to help them get to the bottom of what happened to a family found locked away in a farmhouse room where they appeared to have lived in seclusion for years.

Police discovered six people, who claimed to be five siblings and their ailing father, at the farm in the north of the Netherlands on Monday after a tip from a man believed to be a brother who said he had escaped.

Police detained the 67-year-old man believed to be the father of the family on Thursday on charges of unlawful detention, a form of abuse and money laundering. The last charge related to a cache of cash discovered at the farm.

On Tuesday, a 58-year-old man who paid the rent on the farmhouse was taken into custody on similar charges.

“We have called in specialized help,” police spokesman Anthony Hogeveen said on Friday, adding that more than four days after the discovery of the family, investigators were still in the dark about how the family ended up in the room.

“This is an extraordinary situation. With a team of psychologists we are trying to understand what we see,” police chief Janny Knol said in a Dutch television interview.

Police said the children were never registered at birth and had never gone to school, both of which are required by law in the Netherlands. “Basically we know nothing of them,” Knol said.

The six people found in the locked room have been moved to accommodation in a holiday park.

(Reporting by Bart Meijer; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Man held after Dutch family found locked away in secret farmhouse room

Man held after Dutch family found locked away in secret farmhouse room
By Hilde Verweij

RUINERWOLD, Netherlands (Reuters) – A man who paid the rent on a Dutch farmhouse where six members of a family were found locked away in a secret room will appear in court on Thursday on charges of unlawful detention and harming others’ health, prosecutors said.

Five siblings, estimated to be aged between 18 and 25, and a man they identified as their ailing father were found at the farm near Ruinerwold, a village in the province of Drenthe where they had apparently lived in isolation for years.

The 58-year-old suspect, who lived nearby and whose name has not yet been released by authorities, was to be brought before a judge on Thursday, prosecutors said in a statement.

“The man is suspected at this stage of the investigation of involvement in unlawful detention and injuring the health of others,” the statement said.

The mayor of Ruinerwold, Roger de Groot, said the suspect was not the father of the family.

“The man is still in custody and is being questioned,” said Drenthe police spokeswoman Grietje Hartstra. “A lot is still unclear and we are investigating exactly what happened there.”

The family was discovered after one relative, a 25-year-old man and the eldest of the siblings according to local media, sought help at a nearby cafe.

In a statement, police said they found the family in a “small space in the house which could be locked” and that it was unclear whether they were being held against their will.

Investigators have not commented on published reports that the family may have held apocalyptic “end of days” beliefs.

“There is a lot of speculation in the media about what happened, but as police we deal with facts. We still have a lot of unanswered questions,” Hartstra said.

The mother of the children was believed to have died before the family moved to the Dutch farm in 2010, De Groot told reporters. None of the family members was registered as a resident with the municipality, the police statement said.

REMOTE SPOT

The farm is located on a secluded plot of land on the outskirts of the village. Residents were surprised that anyone could have been hidden away for so long in their tiny community without being noticed.

“It’s possible here … (it) is such a remote spot, in the middle of fields,” said neighbor Roelie van Dijk. “You see it can happen anywhere. Not only in a big city but also in the countryside. And perhaps even more in the countryside, where you can hide completely.”

Van Dijk said she and her husband had seen a man driving in and out of the property for years and doing construction work. He always kept the gates closed and never socialized, she said.

Her husband Sjon said he once asked to see how the renovations were coming along, but the man yelled “no” and sped off.

“We tried to make contact, my husband just last week, with the man in the car…(But) he drove on. He went through the gates and locked them again.”

The siblings had apparently lived in makeshift rooms inside the farm and survived partly on vegetables and animals from a secluded garden on the property, local TV RTV Drenthe reported.

(Reporting by Anthony Deutsch and Stephanie van den Berg Writing by Anthony Deutsch; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Dutch police discover family locked away for years on farm

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – Six young adults and their father were receiving medical treatment on Tuesday after Dutch police acting on a tip-off discovered them locked away in a secret room at an isolated farm, officials in the Netherlands said on Tuesday.

The six, aged 18 to 25, and their ailing father were found near Ruinerwold, a village in the northern province of Drenthe, local Mayor Roger de Groot said. They had apparently had no contact with the outside world for nine years.

De Groot said a 58-year-old man, not the father of the children, was arrested at the farm. His role was unclear.

“As far as I know their mother died before they arrived there,” he said. “Police found makeshift living quarters where the family was living in hiding.”

The family, who according to local news reports had been waiting for the end of time, was discovered after one of the siblings escaped and sought help at a nearby cafe.

An employee at the cafe told RTV Drenthe one of the family members, a 25-year-old man, had come in looking scruffy and bewildered with long hair and said he had not been outside for nine years.

“You could see he had no idea where he was or what he was doing,” the cafe owner, Chris Westerbeek, told the broadcaster. “He said he had run away and that he urgently needed help.”

The siblings and their father, who was reportedly bedridden after a stroke, were receiving treatment at an undisclosed location, the mayor said.

“I understand there are a lot of questions,” de Groot said. We have many too. The police are investigating all possible scenarios.”

The siblings had apparently lived in a hidden cellar and survived on vegetables and animals tended in a secluded garden, local TV RTV Drenthe reported.

(Reporting by Stephanie van den Berg; Writing by Anthony Deutsch; Editing by Catherine Evans)

Climate records tumble as Europe swelters in heatwave

A temperature indicator outside of a pharmacy indicates 42 degres Celsius (107.6 Fahrenheit) in Brussels, Belgium, July 25, 2019. REUTERS/Yves Herman

PARIS/LONDON (Reuters) – Soaring temperatures broke records in France, Britain and the Netherlands on Thursday as a heatwave gripped Europe for the second time in a month, in what scientists said were becoming more frequent events as the planet heats up.

Tourists shield themselves from the sun with umbrellas as temperatures reach new record highs in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany, July 25, 2019. REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch

Tourists shield themselves from the sun with umbrellas as temperatures reach new record highs in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany, July 25, 2019. REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch

As a cauldron of hot air from the Sahara desert moved across the continent, drawn northwards by high pressure, Paris recorded its highest temperature since records began and Britain reported its hottest weather for the month of July.

The unusual conditions brought a reduction in French and German nuclear power output, disrupted rail travel in parts of Britain and sent some Europeans, not habitual users of air conditioning in their homes, out to the shops in search of fans.

Health authorities issued warnings to the elderly, especially vulnerable to spikes in temperature.

“It’s very hot at the moment. I saw 42 degrees (Celsius) is forecast for today,” said 19-year-old French tourist Ombeline Massot in the capital’s Montmartre district, where visitors drank chilled bottles of water and fanned themselves.

Shortly after she spoke, the mercury touched 40.6 Celsius (105.08&deg; Fahrenheit) in the French capital, above the previous Paris record of 40.4 C (104.72) recorded in July 1947.

In Britain, the temperature reached its highest for July, hitting 36.9 C (98.42 F), said the Met Office, the national weather service. The temperature, recorded at Heathrow, London, beat the previous July record of 36.7 C (98.06&deg;F).

In the southern Netherlands, the temperature peaked at 40.4 Celsius (104.7 Fahrenheit), topping 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) for the first time on record, Dutch meteorology institute KNMI said. That broke the national record of 39.3 Celsius set the previous day. Before this week, the national heat record of 38.6 degrees had stood for 75 years.

The heat is expected to persist until Friday.

A boy plays with water in a fountain on a hot summer day in Brussels, Belgium, July 25, 2019. REUTERS/Yves Herman

A boy plays with water in a fountain on a hot summer day in Brussels, Belgium, July 25, 2019. REUTERS/Yves Herman

GLOBAL WARMING

Climate specialists said such heatwaves are becoming more frequent as a result of global warming from greenhouse gas emissions.

Britons were facing travel disruption, with trains being forced to slow down to prevent tracks buckling in the heat. Several train operators asked commuters not to travel or set off very early.

A Met Office study found that a heatwave like one that broke records last year was 30 times more likely to occur than in 1750 because of the high amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Since the pre-industrial period, the Earth’s surface temperature has risen by 1 degree Celsius.

“There is a 40-50% chance that this will be the warmest July on record. This heatwave is exactly in line with climate change predictions,” said Dr. Karsten Haustein at the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford.

Peter Inness, Senior Research Fellow at the University of Reading, said: “The fact that so many recent years have had very high summer temperatures both globally and across Europe is very much in line with what we expect from man-made global warming.”

The heatwave in Britain is expected to come to an abrupt end on Friday with thunderstorms forecast for several parts of the country, the Met Office said.

Very high temperatures across Europe coupled with prolonged dry weather has reduced French nuclear power generation by around 5.2 gigawatts (GW) or 8%, French power grid operator RTE’s data showed.

Electricity output was curtailed at six reactors by 0840 GMT on Thursday, while two other reactors were offline, data showed. High water temperatures and sluggish flows limit the ability to use river water to cool reactors.

In Germany, PreussenElektra, the nuclear unit of utility E.ON, said it would take its Grohnde reactor offline on Friday due to high temperatures in the Weser river.

(Reporting by Nina Chestney in London, Richard Lough in Paris, Alexandra Regida in Brussels and Bart Meijer in Amsterdam; Editing by William Maclean and Peter Graff)

Russians, Ukrainian to face murder charges over downing of Flight MH17

FILE PHOTO: A Malaysian air crash investigator inspects the crash site of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17, near the village of Hrabove (Grabovo) in Donetsk region, Ukraine, July 22, 2014. REUTERS/Maxim Zmeyev/File Photo

By Toby Sterling and Anthony Deutsch

NIEUWEGEIN, Netherlands (Reuters) – Three Russians and a Ukrainian will face murder charges for the deaths of 298 people aboard Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 that was shot down over eastern Ukraine in 2014, the international investigative team said on Wednesday.

The suspects are likely to be tried in absentia in proceedings set to start in the Netherlands next March. Dutch authorities said Russia has not cooperated with the inquiry and is not expected to surrender defendants.

“These suspects are seen to have played an important role in the death of 298 innocent civilians,” Dutch Chief Prosecutor Fred Westerbeke said.

“Although they did not push the button themselves, we suspect them of close cooperation to get the (missile launcher) where it was, with the aim to shoot down an airplane.”

The Russian Foreign Ministry denied that it had not cooperated while saying on Wednesday the investigation was intended to damage Moscow’s reputation.

“Once again, absolutely groundless accusations are being made against the Russian side, aimed at discrediting the Russian Federation in the eyes of the international community,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Dutch Justice Minister Ferdinand Grapperhaus said in a letter to parliament the Netherlands had taken unspecified “diplomatic steps” against Moscow for failing to fully comply with legal requests or providing incorrect information.

MH17 was shot out of the sky on July 17, 2014 over territory held by pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine as it was flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur. Everyone aboard died.

The Dutch-led international team tasked with assigning criminal responsibility for the plane’s destruction named the four suspects as Russians Sergey Dubinsky, Oleg Pulatov and Igor Girkin, as well as Ukrainian Leonid Kharchenko. It said international arrest warrants for the four had been issued.

Girkin, 48, a vocal and battle-hardened Russian nationalist, is believed to live in Moscow where he makes regular public appearances. He is a commentator on Russian and foreign affairs via his own website and YouTube channel.

“The rebels did not shoot down the Boeing,” Girkin told Reuters on Wednesday without elaborating.

Ukrainian authorities said they would try to detain Kharchenko, the suspect believed to be on their territory.

“The Russian Federation must now cooperate fully with the prosecution and provide any assistance it requests,” British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said. There were 10 Britons on the flight.

RUSSIAN MISSILE

Most of the passengers were Dutch. The joint investigation team formed by Australia, Belgium, Malaysia, the Netherlands and Ukraine found that the plane was downed by a Russian missile.

Last year Russian President Vladimir Putin called MH17’s downing a “terrible tragedy” but said Moscow was not to blame and there are other explanations for what happened.

Asked if she expected the suspects to attend the trial, Silene Fredriksz, whose son Bryce was on the plane, said: “No, I don’t think so. But I don’t care. I just want the truth, and this is the truth.”

The investigation team said Girkin was a former Russian FSB security service colonel who served as minister of defense of the self-declared Donetsk People&rsquo;s Republic (DNR) in eastern Ukraine in the summer of 2014.

It said Dubinsky was head of the military intelligence agency of DNR, while Pulatov headed a second department of the agency. Kharchenko was head of a reconnaissance battalion for the second department, it said.

Prosecutors have said the missile system that brought down the airliner came from the Russian 53rd Anti-Aircraft Brigade, based in the western Russian city of Kursk.

(Additional reporting by Bart Meijer in Amsterdam; Christian Lowe, Anastasia Teterevleva and Maria Vasilyeva in Moscow; Editing by Mark Heinrich)