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Dutch report
by Euro Reporter
2012-11-13 11:51:30

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Dutch teenagers sentenced in "Facebook murder"

Two Dutch teenagers were sentenced to two years in juvenile detention and three years of compulsory therapy on Monday for ordering the death of a girl after an argument on Facebook. The case, known in the Netherlands as the "Facebook murder", has caused widespread debate about the role of social media in violent crime.

The victim, identified only as 15-year old Winsie, was fatally stabbed in January at the request of the boy and girl, who were aged 17 and 16 respectively at the time. Winsie had argued for weeks with the girl, and they had swapped insults on the social networking site.

"The defendants are guilty of a particularly serious criminal offence. The fact that a friendship between two young girls can turn into deep hate and ultimately into murder being incited is shocking and hard to comprehend," a court in the city of Arnhem said in a statement.

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Dutch experts warn vs. unethical spa practices

A senior expert from The Netherlands is urging the local government and Spa and Wellness Association of Cebu (Swac) to work together to eradicate unethical and illegal practices in spa and wellness centres in Cebu so that the industry will not lose high-value clients like Europeans. PUM (Manager Deployment Programme) Netherlands senior expert Janny Beeuwkes-Berends said in an interview over the weekend that Cebu’s spa and wellness centres is getting a bad reputation among European tourists because of some illegal practices. Berends said she got feedback from tourists that some massage centres here offer “happy endings” or sexual favours for pay after a massage.

“You (Cebu) will miss so many things just because of this. Tourists come here not because of high quality of spa and wellness services but because of women and “happy endings,” she said. Berends said the practice ruins the reputation of spa and wellness centres, especially that they are using this as front for other illegal practices like prostitution. Berends is in Cebu for two weeks to conduct technical training and assistance for Swac. She said she aims to help upgrade the spa and wellness industry become at par with international standards. She said this is her second visit for the Swac. PUM connects with entrepreneurs in developing countries and emerging markets with experts from the Netherlands who have at least 30 years of experience in a business environment. These senior experts voluntary to do short-term consultancy projects.

The operation is funded by the Dutch government and its private sector. PUM has about 4,000 experts in their database. “Spa is for wellness and health not for happy endings. But if these practices will persist they should not be identified under the umbrella of spa and wellness. If they want “happy endings” then they should operate somewhere else,” said Berends. Department of Trade and Industry - Cebu provincial director Nelia Navarro pledged to work with Swac to investigate this concern. “We know that we don’t have a very good image abroad but we are doing our best to change these bad impressions,” Navarro said.

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Former Dutch PM Van Agt: Jews should’ve had state in Germany

Former Dutch Prime Minister Dries Van Agt reportedly said that the Jewish state should have been established in Germany. “Jews need a safe place. Why couldn’t they get a safe place in Germany at the time?” Van Agt said Nov. 8 during a seminar in Nijmegen, according to the Dutch daily Telegraaf.

The paper described Van Agt, the prime minister in the early 1980s and a harsh critic of Israel, as a “pro-Palestinian activist.” Jack de Vries, a lawmaker for Van Agt’s party, the centrist Christian Democratic Appeal, is quoted as telling the Elsevier weekly that he “nearly fell from the chair” when he heard Van Agt’s words.

“This remark reflects very little respect for history, especially considering the timing -- the 74th anniversary of Kristallnacht,” De Vries said. Van Agt later told Elsevier that he "only said it would be more logical for Jews to have gotten a piece of land in Germany" as "the Middle East had nothing to do with World War II." In 2008, Van Agt spoke at rally in Rotterdam that featured a speech via satellite by Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh.

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Emanuel Paparella	2012-11-13 15:15:35
Actually, the argument of a piece of land for the Jews in Europe was initiated by the Saudis and proposed to FDR. It was felt by the Saudis that the Jewish problem was a distinctly European problem and that the solution was not the final one as proposed and implemented by Hitler and his henchmen. It was not an Arab problem but a European problem and should be solved on European soil. Granted that the proposal is not so as bizarre as it seems if one respects the historical record. But wait a minute, why were the Jews in Europe in the first place? Did they decide to emigrate there on their own? No, they were forcibly evicted from their ancestral land of Palestine by the ancient Romans around 70 AD. and forcibly brought to Rome. The Dutch have the wrong place. To respect history, the present Romans, some of them proud of being descendants of the ancient Romans, in order to make due reparations for an ancient wrong against the Jews ought to make the whole of Rome a Jewish territory independent of Italy, just as the Vatican and San Marino are independent within Italy. I suspect however that such a solution would make neither the Pope nor the modern Romans very happy nor do we know if the Jews would gladly accept to give up their ancestral land and become Romans for a second time. My oh my, is history complicated. It gets even more complicated when one wears biased lenses.