Archive

Posts Tagged ‘Netherlands’

The Netherlands Second Country to Codify Net Neutrality After Chile

June 9, 2011 Comments off

osnews

I’ve been keeping you up to date about the situation around net neutrality in The Netherlands – and today, everything finally came to its logical conclusion. During a debate in our lower house, most of the kinks were ironed out, and our minister of economic affairs, Maxime Verhagen, will now turn net neutrality into law. This means that after Chile, The Netherlands will be the second country in the world to do so.

I already told you that Verhagen wished to comply with the lower house’s demands, but I failed to make the clarification that he just wanted to prohibit carriers and ISPs from throttling and blocking, without actually turning it into a law. During today’s debate, he faced an almost unanimous lower house asking for net neutrality to actually become a full-grown, big-boy law.

The only party against net neutrality was the Read more…

EU ministers scramble to deal with cucumber crisis

May 30, 2011 Comments off

expatica

EU agricultural ministers Monday struggled to come to terms with a deadly bacteria outbreak suspected of stemming from contaminated cucumbers that has already killed 12 in Germany.

“One problem with Spanish cucumbers, and all of Europe is trembling,” Belgium’s minister Sabine Laruelle said on the sidelines of an informal meeting in Debrecen, eastern Hungary.

At least 12 people have died in Germany following an outbreak of enterohaemorrhagic E. coli (EHEC) found on imported cucumbers.

And several hundred more are being treated in hospitals for the highly virulent strain of bacteria, which can result in full-blown haemolytic uraemic syndrome (HUS), a disease that causes bloody diarrhoea and serious liver damage and which can result in death.

Around Europe, other cases — real or suspected — have been reported in Denmark, Sweden, Britain, the Netherlands, Austria, France and Switzerland, all of them apparently stemming from Germany.

Dutch agriculture minister Henk Bleker said Read more…

Europe is facing the worst drought in century

April 26, 2011 Comments off

thewatchers

Traditional Easter fairs in the east and the north of the Netherlands have been cancelled because of the risk of fires posed by the extraordinarily dry weather affecting northern Europe....

Traditional Easter fairs in the east and the north of the Netherlands have been cancelled because of the risk of fires posed by the extraordinarily dry weather affecting northern Europe. In the eastern half of the country, one of Europe’s biggest traders, outdoor family barbecues, smoking and camp fires are a strict no-no.

In the Swiss canton of Zurich, officials began moving trout this week from the river Toess before their habitat dried up. This year threatens to bring “one of the most significant droughts since 1864,” the year when records began in Switzerland. The drought in western Switzerland over the last 12 months is as severe as those recorded in 1884 and 1921. Several cantons have also imposed bans on lighting fire in and close to forests. A grass shortage could also lead to a Read more…

The Rule of Gold after the Financial Collapse

March 15, 2011 Comments off

www.batr.org

 

“You can own silver and gold but never any fiat currency issued by someone else”
Peter Cajander

 

 

goldimf.gif
 

In a secular world, the operative “Golden Rule” is “He Who Has the Gold Makes the Rules”. The condition of the global financial banking system is untenable. The aggregate amount of debt worldwide is anyone’s guess. The introduction of derivatives and counter claims pushes the chain of obligations into the unknown. All that is left is for central banks to create mountains of uninterrupted counterfeit money to roll over and delay the inevitable. The IMF chart of World Currency Reserve is a skyrocket line to oblivion. It does not reflect a healthy stockpile of treasure, but certainly manifests a new debt machine running to infinity. The Bullion Vault explains this reality in the following manner.  

“Sure, the Fed can create money. But it can’t create Read more…

U.S., NATO worry about European defense cuts

February 28, 2011 Comments off

www.twincities.com

BERLIN — First, Germany announced that it would suspend its draft, ending one of the touchstones of its post-World War II society. Then Britain and France, frequent rivals since at least the Norman Conquest, announced plans to share military equipment and research. And smaller countries across Europe are cutting defense budgets and shrinking militaries that were never large to begin with.

European policymakers say that the cuts are necessary given their financial straits, and that training, not sheer numbers, is what matters in a post-Cold War world.

But some top officials, including the U.S. defense secretary and the NATO secretary general, worry that the changes could burden the United States by reducing the number of European troops available for NATO missions and other military efforts around the world. NATO’s ability to function as a collective defense pact may be Read more…