Netherlands

The European Commission on Tuesday stated the French government is allowed to contribute €4 billion to help keep Air France afloat.

In February, Ryanair lost a legal fight in the EU General Court against state aid being granted to Air France and Sweden's SAS through national schemes. Ryanair is still seeking to contest the German government's bailout of Lufthansa, as well as similar schemes in Spain, the Netherlands, Denmark and Portugal.

Oil prices jumped about 6% on Wednesday after a ship ran aground in the Suez Canal, and worries that the incident could tie up crude shipments gave prices a boost after a slide over the last week. The situation is affecting the connections of other ships that carry oil and may now have to look for alternative routes, reveals "Bloomberg" this Wednesday, March 24th.

The Evergreen container with 400 meters in length and 220 thousand tons was stranded when making the connection between China and the port of Rotterdam in the Netherlands, worthless the several attempts to get it afloat again.

In 2021's World Happiness Report, Finland has retained the number 1 position.

In second place, Iceland jumps forward 2 places from 4th last year. Denmark and Switzerland move down 1 to third and fourth place respectively, with The Netherlands and Sweden jumping forward 1 to fifth and sixth place respectively.

Germany makes great strides in 2020, gaining 8 places on last year, moving to 7th place.

Several European countries, inclduing France, Italy, Cyprus, Latvia, Portugal, Germany, the Netherlands and Lithuania will resume administering AstraZeneca's Covid-19 vaccine in the following days after European Medicines Agency (EMA) announced the vaccine was "safe and effective".

Emer Cooke, head of the EMA, said that while "a small number of cases of rare and unusual but very serious clotting disorders" were uncovered, the agency did not find that the vaccine caused an increase in the risk of blood clots.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte and his right-wing liberal party VVD have won the parliamentary elections. According to the first forecasts on the TV channel NOS on Wednesday evening, the VVD will be by far the strongest force in the Second Chamber of Parliament with about 23 percent and 35 of the 150 seats. Rutte could become head of government for the fourth time after ten years.

Dutch engineer and inventor of the cassette tape Lou Ottens has died at the age of 94 on 6 March 2021 in his hometown Duizel, Netherlands. For his entire career, he worked for Philips, where he served as the head of the product development department

As the first European country, the Dutch parliament has passed a non-binding motion declaring the treatment of the Uyghur Muslim minority by China genocide.

The Dutch motion said that actions by the Chinese government such as "measures intended to prevent births" and "having punishment camps" fell under United Nations Resolution 260, generally known as the genocide convention.

According to research by scientists at the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance, Bitcoin mining consumes around 121.36 terawatt-hours (TWh) electricity per year in order to generate new Bitcoins and verify transactions on the blockchain.

This ranks Bitcoin’s electricity consumption above Argentina (121 TWh), the Netherlands (108.8 TWh) and the United Arab Emirates (113.20 TWh) - and it is gradually creeping up on Norway (122.20 TWh).

The Netherlands is planning test events to determine whether live events with audiences can be held safely. The test also includes two outdoor festivals.

Data and information on the risk of contamination at large events will also be collected. The events include soccer matches, a cabaret show and a conference, as well as two outdoor festivals.

Each of the festivals will feature 1500 visitors, who will have to show a negative Corona test beforehand. At the entrance, body temperature will be measured and a portion of the ravers will be randomly subjected to a Corona quick test.

Everyone will also receive a lanyard with a special tag that will make it possible to record contacts with others and their duration. Apart from that and the pre-festival procedure, as well as the use of mouth-nose protection, the festival is supposed to proceed like a "normal" festival. On the site you can move freely and there are several stages.

Defqon.1 has to pause for another year. After the World Club Dome Winter Edition, the Ultra Miami and the Coachella 2021 Corona had to be canceled due to Covdid-19, now the first Dutch major event follows suit. The Defqon.1 Festival in Biddinghuizen has been affected.

The gigantic festival, which annually attracts hardstyle fans from all over the world, was planned for June 25-27 and was to take place under the motto "Primal Energy".

As the government of the Netherlands plans to end coal-based electricity, the German RWE corporation seeks to obtain compensation based on the controversial Energy Charter Treaty signed in 1994.

"This is not the first time a fossil fuel company tries to get tax payers to pick up the bill for bad business decisions and it won’t be the last if we fail to act," reacted the director of Climate Action Network Europe, Wendel Trio.

On Saturday, 4,130 new coronavirus cases were announced in The Netherlands by the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM).

With these, the total number of cases since the pandemic started is now 1,001,826.

Global environmental justice campaigners heralded a Dutch court's ruling Friday that Royal Dutch Shell's Nigerian subsidiary must pay punitive restitution to Nigerian villages for oil spill contamination that brought death, illness, and destruction to Nigerian farmers and communities.

Friends of the Earth said the ruling exceeded all expectations and marked the first time a multinational had been instructed by a Dutch court to uphold a duty of care for foreign operations.

The devastation, as Friends of the Earth International (FOEI) has previously described, has been vast:

Between 1976 and 1991, over two million barrels of oil-polluted Ogoniland in 2,976 separate oil spills. While oil production has ceased, pipelines operated by Shell still traverse the land, creeks and waterways. Leakages—caused by corroded pipelines as well as bandits—mean that the area is still plagued by oil spills.

Andrey Esipenko has defeated chess World Champion Magnus Carlsen, playing his first classical game against him. He chose the most important move sequence in the Najdorf Variation of the Sicilian Defense and executed a typical piece sacrifice on b5 in the middlegame. Soon after, the Norwegian gave the material back; however, the white position was on the verge of winning. Esipenko achieved victory with precise and confident play.

A 56-year-old woman has tested positive for Covid-19 in New Zealand, after being released from government managed isolation following two negative tests. The woman arrived in Auckland on 30 December after travelling in Spain and the Netherlands for four months.

The woman was released on 13 January and travelled around south Northland with her husband, visiting as many as 30 locations, including popular holiday spots, AirBnBs, and shops.

The Dutch airline KLM will suspend all its intercontinental flights and some European routes from Friday now that the Netherlands requires a rapid coronavirus test before entry.

New requirements mandated by the government require passengers to obtain a negative Covid-19 rapid test result no later than four hours prior to departure to the Netherlands. In addition, passengers must also have a negative result from a PCR test conducted within 72 hours from their flight's departure to be let into the country.

Prime Minister Mark Rutte's government stepped down on Friday after it emerged that officials had wrongly pursued thousands of people over welfare fraud. A parliamentary report called it an "unprecedented injustice" to claw back tens of thousands of euros without giving the accused a chance to prove their innocence. The pressure on Rutte's four-party coalition to resign had increased on Thursday when the leader of the opposition Labour party, Lodewijk Asscher, quit.

Rutte said the government would continue to lead the country's COVID-19 response team until elections already scheduled for March.

The ham sandwiches of British truck drivers are also affected by the new Brexit trade rules. The BBC on Tuesday showed Dutch TV footage of customs also checking drivers' provisions. Customs officials in Hoek van Holland explain to the drivers in the report of the channel NPO1 that they are no longer allowed to export animal food from the UK.

After a new strain of Covid-19 was detected in the UK, several European countries have imposed a landing ban on British flights. Trains to Belgium have also been banned.

The Netherlands have banned British Flights until January 1. Italy's foreign minister has announced that his government joins the ban on flights. Austria and Germany are planning to impose similar measures, but no immediate details are currently known.

The Netherlands imposed a five-week strict lockdown nationwide on Monday. Nonessential businesses, eateries, schools and cultural places will remain closed. The lockdown is set to end on January 19th.

Dutch PM Mark Rutte: "We have to bite through this very sour apple before things get better. The reality is that this is not an innocent flu as some people — like the demonstrators outside — think. But a virus that can hit everybody hard."