Male Dutch Television Hosts Suffer Through Simulated Birth
Dennis Storm and Valerio Zeno, the hosts of the Dutch TV show “Guinea Pigs”, are no strangers to stomach-churning stunts. They narrowly avoided legal action in 2011 after eating pieces of each other’s flesh on air. But their latest one probably upset their tummies more than those of anyone in the audience.
During their Jan. 14 show, Storm and Zeno shared footage of themselves experiencing simulated labor pains at the hands of some all-too eager female technicians. In order to understand “the worst pain there is” the only way men can, they strapped some electrodes onto their abdomens to experience contractions.
What ensued was cringe-worthy for men and delightful glee for women. Though they started out with intermittent giggles and groans, the pair were clutching pillows and each other in misery by the end of the nearly 10 minute ordeal. The hosts didn’t have to experience the final act of birth (we don’t want to know how they would simulate that), but their sheer agony was enough proof that they got the idea. (via TIME.com)
Policemen drag away a protester who blocked the entrance to a makeshift camp for asylum seekers. A court has ordered a group of asylum seekers, whose applications for political asylum have been rejected by Dutch authorities, to leave the site. The group, who had exhausted their final options against deportation and had rejected other offers for temporary accommodation, set up this camp at the end of September 2012, local media reported. (via Reuters.com)
Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic sits in the courtroom on the first day of his defense against war crime charges at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (via Reuters.com)
Turkish President Abdullah Gul and Dutch Queen Beatrix listen to the national anthem upon Mr Gul’s arrival at the royal palace on his three-day official state visit. (via BBC News)
Dutch Council of State: reconsider anti-dual nationality law
The Dutch Council of State, the government’s highest advisory organ, has rejected government plans for stricter rules affecting dual nationality. The Council says there is no evidence that dropping your former nationality strengthens your loyalty to the new one.
The Council has called on the government to reconsider its plans to make it more difficult for people to hold dual nationality. The council says keeping your old nationality alongside a new one has proved to have a positive effect in the past.
The current Dutch cabinet wants Dutch people who take on a new nationality to drop their original nationality. But the Council opposes the plans as it is not convinced that the new countries where Dutch nationals want to be naturalised find it important for them to give up their original nationality. (via Radio Netherlands Worldwide)
Dutch government in lockdown as AAA-rated country comes unstuck
A hush has descended on a handsome 17th century villa in The Hague where the leaders of the Netherlands’ rightwing minority government are huddled over spending ledgers, debt projections, budget balances, housing market analyses and deteriorating pension fund figures.
Mark Rutte, prime minister and leader of the liberal-conservative VVD party, has imposed a vow of omerta on his colleagues locked away in his official residence until they chart a path out of a worsening public finances debacle.
Europe’s two-year debt and deficit crisis has pitted preachy northern creditors against “feckless” Mediterranean spendthrifts – countries the Dutch are wont to dub the “garlic belt”.
But suddenly the air in Brussels and elsewhere is thick with tales of pots and kettles, glass houses and stonethrowing as the triple-A rated Netherlands comes unstuck.
Rutte launched the three-week retreat for the top members of his government at his residence last week after shock budget projections from the CPB Bureau for Economic Analysis, the old and authoritative thinktank which crunches the finance ministry’s numbers.
The CPB, accustomed to delivering inarguable verdicts on fiscal and budgetary policy, said the Netherlands was in flagrant breach of the new eurozone rulebook and fiscal pact it has been highly instrumental in drafting. (via The Guardian)
Black Dutch comedian Howard Komproe thought it was a good idea to have a Negro Day on March 9th. In Dutch the number 9 is pronounced as ‘negen’, so it rhymes with the Dutch word Neger, or in English Negro.
So he thought if you have a Warm Sweater day, a Redhead Day, or a woman’s day, why not have a Negro day. So Happy Negro day! But is it funny?
On his website negerdag.nl he writes. “Our motto is, ‘Love your Negro’, on this day everyone may act as negro. Or at least the way most people think negroes behave. So for lunch, or breakfast go to KFC, get yourself a gold tooth, don’t work hard, visit your mistress before you go home and don’t be ashamed for your …..
“Twitter your negro adventures, the best Negro tweets will win a unique Negro day T-shirt.” He offers T-shirts with slogans as ‘My father is a negro’, ‘My mother love negroes’, ‘I wish I was a negro’ and a cliché Negro slogan.
He received a lot of negative responses and in a poll 59% of the readers of a large newspaper said they were not amused. (via AFRO-EUROPE)
This impressive free standing tower is the world’s highest climbing wall. The routes aren’t for the faint-hearted - climbers have to scale 121 feet in order to reach the top. (via Telegraph)
A brutal boxing match between two brown hares. Traditionally a sign spring is on its way, the female hare fights off the mating urges of the males by standing on their hind legs and ‘boxing’ with their front paws. (via Telegraph)
