In the
township of Overloon, seven hundred asylum seekers live in a former jail. They mainly originate from Syria and
Eritrea. The central body which deals
with asylum seekers, the COA, houses them in mixed groups. After some Syrians complained about drunk
Eritreans, the latter beat everybody who wasn’t black with sticks. Fourteen people were wounded and three
arrested. The COA denies that it was an
ethnic conflict, but the asylum seekers claim it was.
Rotterdam
mayor, Ahmed Aboutaleb, who is a Muslim, says that youngsters who want to
travel to Syria should be allowed to do so.
However, they should never be allowed to return again to the
Netherlands. His opinions oppose those
of the Dutch government. Aboutaleb
considers that if somebody perceives the Dutch society as morally corrupt, the
Dutch should not restrain him. He should
only return his passport. 
The chairman
of the FNV trade union, Ton Heerts, says that employers exploit employees on a
major scale. He claims that billions are
stolen in this way. He mentioned in
particular large companies such as Albert Heijn, Shell, and AkzoNovo. Heerts
said that the main problem is that collective labor agreements are not
respected. He saw huge problems with
subcontractors who were paid less than what they were entitled to. The
employers’ organizations, VNO-NCW and MKB Nederland, consider that Heerts is
exaggerating.
Due to a
security leak at the police, a large number of extremely confidential police
files have become accessible on Google. The
files contain information on murders, robberies, criminal organizations and
jihadi suspects. The files originated
from a secret police unit and were accessible until last Tuesday. The leaked files contain many names,
photographs, and addresses of dozens of suspects. Also available were details about the police
force itself, such as the names and phone numbers of detectives and
prosecutors. At fault is an internet
manager of the police. For reasons that
remain unclear, he put the files on a non-secure, private website of a family
member. After all this became known the police removed the files.
Both Allied
and German soldiers are buried in the Haelen cemetery. For the first time, the local Jewish
community has included German soldiers in its commemoration services. The Honorary Consul of Israel, Benoit Wesly,
laid a wreath on behalf of Israel. The Orthodox rabbi of the Dutch army recited
a prayer. Joop Fransman, the chairman of
the CJO, an umbrella body of Dutch Jewish organizations, criticized the
commemoration and said that victims and not the perpetrators should be
commemorated. [While the German army was
not in itself a criminal organization, it has participated in a large number of
war crimes, including the murdering of Jews in the Holocaust.]
SBM Offshore
is paying a $240 million fine to settle with the prosecution. This has been
announced by both the prosecution and the company. It concerns bribes paid to officials in
Angola and Equatorial Guinea between 2007-2011.
Bribes were probably paid in Brazil as well. There are further questions about possible
bribes paid in Malaysia, Iraq, Kazakhstan, and Italy. The accounting firm of SBM Offshore who
approved the annual accounts is KPMG.
Earlier, KPMG was involved in the corruption scandal of the building
company, Ballast Nedam.“Parts of Amsterdam are sleazy”. This was said by the Mayor of London, Boris
Johnson (Conservative). He said so in a
meeting in the London neighborhood, Waltham Forest. He said that the bad environment is due to
the tolerant drug policy. 
In Zwolle,
almost 40 soccer fans have been arrested, among which 31 are Ajax Amsterdam
fans. It is not clear what the Ajax fans
were doing in Zwolle, as their club was not playing there. Around the PEC Zwolle stadium, a fight broke
out between the two groups of fans, with a variety of weapons, including metal
pipes. Stones and glass were thrown as well. A 16 year
old Dutch jihadi girl has been arrested in Hungary. The girl is of Moroccan origin and lived in
the Dutch town of Tilburg. She carried
false identity papers and the Hungarian terror office, TEK, says that on social
media sites she had many contacts who are Islamist extremists. She had intended to participate in the armed
fight in Syria and to carry out acts of terror.
The girl has been handed over to the Dutch authorities.
During the
soccer game between FC Den Bosch and FC Oss, 12 fans were arrested. They were charged with vandalism, fighting,
and setting off heavy fireworks. Already
before the beginning of the game, fans of the two clubs fought with each other. When the special police unit intervened, the
police officers were assaulted. It was
decided to send 3 buses of fans back to Oss.
However, when they started to vandalize the bus, the driver stopped and
ended the trip.
People dressed up as black Pete no longer
dare to appear in some neighborhoods of Rotterdam and Schiedam. This was said
by Rob Garnier of the company Kostuum Verhuur Schiebroek which rents out the
clothing for Black Pete. The aggression has started a few years ago.
