Free Republic

WASHINGTON: The famous African explorer Dr David Livingstone might have been impressed, even if the agenda was suspect. Pakistan’s disgraced nuclear proliferator-hero Abdul Qadeer Khan traversed the breadth of Africa in his hey day as a nuclear salesman , going to as romantic a getaway as Casablanca in Morocco and as remote an outpost as Timbuktu in Mali.   US officials might dearly like to get hold of Khan’s travel agent, or simply his itinerary, since he seems to have pretty much charted his own course during his profligate proliferating days. According to accounts now surfacing in the Pakistani media,...

The Dutch Provincial Reconstruction Team in Kunduz teaches Afghan students 'rule of law'.

In a chilling parallel to the scandal sweeping Britain’s towns and cities, where a multitude of girls have been lured into sex-for-sale rings run by gangs, the Dutch pimps search out girls at school gates and in cafes, posing as ‘boyfriends’ promising romance, fast car rides and restaurant meals. The men ply their victims with vodka and drugs. They tell them lies: that they love them and their families don’t care for them. Then, the trap set, they rape them with other gang members, often taking photos of the attack to blackmail the girl into submission. ... Hard-line criminal behaviour...

"Mommy, what's that???" For anyone reading this, it shouldn’t come as a big surprise that Dutch food has yet to sweep the globe. Although pockets of the Dutch can be found scattering the world, delectable Dutch cuisine never seemed to have caught on. “Fancy I pick up some Dutch food on the way home from work?” or “Wow, you have got to try this new Dutch restaurant in SoHo!” are phrases you will never hear uttered. Isn’t it odd that a nation of traveling, colonizing, patriotic, emigrating folk never managed to sow their own culinary seeds? C’mon, who are we...

The Dutch-Italian boat Stefano Chiarini which is part of the international flotilla to Gaza carries some 8 activists from The Netherlands. Dutch journalists (including one from Trouw) also applied, but they have all backed out of the Flotilla. What’s going on? “What we talked about confidentially last night appeared this morning in the Telegraaf! A journalist has leaked our information!” Anne de Jong (30) looked around furiously. In the Iliada-hotel in Gouvia, Corfu 14 people were sitting: 8 activists, 2 documentary-makers and 4 journalists. They were supposed to go along on the Dutch-Italian boat to Gaza.

Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders defended his views about Islam in an intense and extensive interview with The Daily Caller. “Because I spoke out against the ideology called Islam already for almost 10 years now, I was marked for death,” Wilders, who was in Washington to promote his latest book, “Marked for Death: Islam’s War against the West and Me,” told TheDC. “If you speak the truth — and I believe people should speak the truth about Islam — you pay a very heavy price.” Islamist clerics issued fatwas calling for Wilders death after he began speaking out against Islam. He...

'Up to 11 boys were castrated while in the care of the Dutch Roman Catholic church in the 1950s to rid them of homosexuality, a newspaper investigation has said. A young man was castrated in 1956 after telling police he was being abused by priests, the newspaper reported. The justice minister is investigating the role of the government at the time. Last year, an inquiry found thousands of children had been sexually abused in Dutch Catholic institutions since 1945. Dutch MPs called for an inquiry after the report was published in the NRC Handelsblad newspaper at the weekend.'

The Dutch like their euthanasia — but sure are sensitive when a prominent person describes the horrors that medicalized killing has unleashed. Latest example: Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum criticized Dutch euthanasia in an interview with James Dobson, stating in part: Ten percent of all deaths, and half of those people are euthanized involuntarily, because they are old or sick. And so elderly people in the Netherlands don’t go into a hospital. They go to another country. The Dutch media pounced, mocking Santorum for charging their doctors with “murdering” the elderly on “a grand scale.” Alas, he asked for it...

The Dutch government Tuesday banned the use of khat, a leaf native to East Africa chewed for its stimulant properties mainly by the Netherlands' sizeable Somali community. "The drug khat is banned," the Dutch Immigration, Health and Justice departments said in a joint statement. Khat is grown in the Horn of Africa and has for centuries been chewed by users in Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and Yemen. "The problem lies especially within the Somali community, which is much larger than the Kenyan or Yemeni communities within our country," immigration department spokesman Frank Wassenaar told AFP, adding there were about 27,000 Somalis...

Two Dutch TV hosts claim they ate chunks of each other’s flesh because they wanted to find out what human meat tastes like, all in front of a studio audience. The feat will air on Dennis Storm and Valerio Zeno’s new show, “Preojfkonijen,” which translates to “Test Rabbits.” -snip- A chef fried a hunk of Storm’s buttocks, and a piece of Zeno’s abdomen, both carved off earlier by a surgeon, in a pan with sunflower oil, skipping salt and pepper to preserve the meat’s natural taste.

The EU does not seem to apprehend the nature of the Iranian nuclear program. The Dutch helped it happen. On October 21st 2003 the EU and Iran signed an agreement called the Tehran Declaration which stated the following: "The Iranian authorities reaffirmed that nuclear weapons have no place in Iran’s defense doctrine and that its nuclear program and activities have been exclusively in the peaceful domain". Last week's publication of the latest IAEA report not only showed the futility of signing this kind of agreement with a fanatical Islamist regime but it also delivered the ultimate proof of the bankruptcy...

A Dutch professor at Maastricht University has been given a grant of €300,000 ($417,000) to "grow" a hamburger in a lab, reports the BBC. Mark Post is attempting to grow synthetic meat in a lab using muscle stem cells. Post has said that his goal is to turn meat production from a farming process to a factory process. According to Gizmodo, he can only currently grow meat a few millimeters thick due to having no way of getting nutrients to the muscle cells. However, he is hoping to introduce a new process to allow his portion sizes to increase. In...

Dutch National Railways is introducing emergency plastic bags for passengers to urinate in as part of its first-aid provision on some commuter trains. Spokesman Jeroen von Geusau told the BBC "wee bags" would be installed on commuter trains without toilets. He said the bags were for use in emergencies such as power failures. "When you have to wait three or four hours on a train, then it is quite logical you have some people aboard who need to go to a restroom," he said. "It is like when a plane is circling above London for two hours." About 16% of...

For centuries, almost all carrots were yellow, white or purple. But in the 17th century, most of those crunchy vegetables turned orange. Why? It may have to do with Dutch politics. Next Nature explains: In the 17th century, Dutch growers cultivated orange carrots as a tribute to William of Orange – who led the the struggle for Dutch independence – and the color stuck. A thousand years of yellow, white and purple carrot history was wiped out in a generation.Although some scholars doubt if orange carrots even existed prior to the 16th century....

NORTH BRABANT, Netherlands, August 24, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A Dutch priest is standing his ground after following directives from the country’s bishops that anyone who opts for euthanasia is not entitled to a church funeral, according to Radio Netherlands. Father Norbert van der Sluis, from the parish of Liempde in North Brabant, denied the Catholic rite of funeral to a man who ended his life through euthanasia, reports ANP. Van der Sluis said that he felt bound to uphold the rules which the Dutch bishops have agreed upon. “When it comes to euthanasia, my answer has to be no,” he...

UPDATE 1 — North Korea releases Dutch stamp dealer accused of subversive activities By BNO News PYONGYANG/UTRECHT (BNO NEWS) -- North Korea on Saturday released a Dutch stamp dealer after he was earlier accused of subversive activities during a business trip to the country, a family friend told Dutch media on Sunday. Willem van der Bijl, 59, who is the owner of a post stamp collection shop in the Dutch city of Utrecht, traveled to the Asian country in early July to buy North Korean stamps and paintings. He was scheduled to fly back to the Netherlands on July 30...

Missing Dutch tourist appears in North Korean newspaper By BNO News PYONGYANG (BNO NEWS) -- A Dutch tourist who has gone missing during a business trip to North Korea appeared in a state-run newspaper on Wednesday to praise the country's recent elections. Willem van der Bijl, 59, who is the owner of a post stamp collection shop in the Dutch city of Utrecht, traveled to the Asian country in early July to buy North Korean stamps and paintings. He was scheduled to fly back to the Netherlands on July 30 but never took the flight. A report from the state-run...

Dutch Jews are beginning to wonder what's coming next after the lower house of the Netherlands parliament voted Tuesday to approve a ban on ritual slaughter of animals for kosher and halal meat. The bill, sponsored by the country's Animal Rights Party, stipulates that livestock must be stunned before slaughter. In Jewish law, meat must by prepared through ritual slaughter before it can be declared kosher. Likewise, Islam requires similar procedures for halal meat but does not prohibit slaughter after stunning. A possible loophole in the new law – which has yet to pass the upper house of the parliament...

Okay. So it’s too late for some fried brains – but better late than never. From Reuters: Now, a Dutch commission has found that hashish and marijuana on sale in the Netherlands contain around 18 percent of THC, the main psychoactive substance, and advised the health minister that anything above 15 percent put drugs on a par with heroin or cocaine. “I've been very worried for years about the THC concentration, especially if it is so high. We will take a serious look at it," Health Minister Edith Schippers told public broadcaster NOS. “The addictive consequences are much stronger and...

The Dutch government says it will abandon the long-standing model of multiculturalism that has encouraged Muslim immigrants to create a parallel society within the Netherlands. A new integration bill which Dutch Interior Minister Piet Hein Donner presented to parliament on June 16, reads: "The government shares the social dissatisfaction over the multicultural society model and plans to shift priority to the values of the Dutch people. In the new integration system, the values of the Dutch society play a central role. With this change, the government steps away from the model of a multicultural society." The letter continues: "A more...