Economic Mission: Dutch Companies Invited to Apply for Economic Mission to Miami - April 17-20

Dutch companies that specialize in innovative solutions in life sciences, healthcare, and sustainable urban solutions are invited to join an economic mission to Miami April 17-20 that will explore opportunities to collaborate with their counterparts in the US and Latin America.

Lilianne Ploumen, the Netherlands’ Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation, will lead the mission with the Netherlands Enterprise Agency, the Netherlands Network for Innovation, Technology and Science, and the Miami Consulate General of the Netherlands.

The mission is intended to introduce and connect promising Dutch IT-driven innovations in life sciences and healthcare to counterparts in the United States and Latin America.Companies and knowledge institutions that are active in sustainable urban solutions, healthcare IT, educational tools in healthcare, or other high-tech solutions with medical applications are welcome to join this mission. IT companies that focus on entertainment, media, gaming, educational technology and finance will also be present at the eMerge Americas conference.

As part of the mission, participants will have the opportunity to attend the eMerge Americas Showcase/Conference April 18-19 and take part in matchmaking and company visits on April 20. IT companies that focus on entertainment, media, gaming, educational technology and finance will also be present at the eMerge Americas conference.

eMerge Americas is a unique platform for the advancement of technology, a forum for idea exchange, and a launching pad for innovations to Latin America, North America, and Europe.

The Netherlands Consulate General in Miami sees opportunities for the Dutch IT and life science and health sectors specifically for the rapidly emerging opportunities in healthcare in the U.S. and Latin America.

Think you might be onto something? Showcase your innovation at eMerge Americas in Miami and compete with other startups from around the globe. With hundreds of angel investors and venture capitalists on the expo floor, the exposure alone is powerful. Winning has its perks, too — up to $175,000 in cash and prizes.

The Netherlands Consulate General in Miami is helping Dutch startups to showcase their technologies. Email Barbara Staals, Miami Consulate General of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, to learn more.

See also: Learn more about the mission (in Dutch), including instructions to apply.and watch video eMerge Video.

Insure-Digest

Netherlands Judiciary: Debt collection agencies poorly regulated and out of control

Dutch Collection Agencies are  out of control

Dutch consumers who find themselves in a debt collection process are not only harassed  by the debt collection agencies,who are poorly regulated in the Dutch judicial system, but will  usually end up deeper in debt.

This shocking finding has become evident from an analysis made by the Dutch Consumer Association (Nederlandse Consumentenbond) of complaints they received at their "Debt Complain Center hotline" which was opened in the spring of this year. On this Hotline more than 200 personal, often deeply disturbing and emotional stories, have disclosed how inhumane people are treated .

The Consumers Association says the situation is totally out of control and Bart Combée, Director of the Dutch consumer association says: “the human dimension in this process is completely lost.

When consumers want to contact the collection agency, they often get no answer or the door slammed in their face. If the collection train starts running, the consumer can usually not stop it, other than by paying”.

The most common complaints about the Dutch debt collection processes are, rapidly increasing and not clearly specified costs. Threatening letters about wage garnishment, foreclosure sales or lawsuits. Even while  the debt collection agencies re not empowered to do so, or when it only concerns a debt of a few euro's.

The Consumer Association wants the Judiciary to establish clear and precise regulations concerning the
procedures to be followed by Dutch collection agencies and also want the Judiciary to firmly intervene when collection agencies violate the rules. It also recommends that companies, collection agencies and bailiffs should be more accessible and willing to offer more customization to the process.

It also wants to see that the intimidating behavior of the collection agencies to be addressed immediately..

Bart Combée, Director of the Consumer association says: 'The human dimension is totally lost in this particular area of the law".

When consumers want to contact the collection agency, they often get no answer, or the door slammed in
their face.

In the Netherlands - once the collection train starts rolling, it wont stop, other than by paying, usually a lot more than expected. This regardless if one disputes a claim".

Dutch law on debt collection (under the hereditary responsibility clause)  even allows claims to be made to people whose debts are not theirs, but debts owed by family members ( parents) who had deceased  

These outdated Dutch legal laws, unfortunately, still remain on the Judicial books in the Netherlands The Dutch Consumer Agency  wants the Netherlands parliament to intervene in this matter but so far noting really concrete or significant has happened.

 Almere-Digest

Netherlands doesn't have enough criminals to fill its prisons as crime to drop - by Senay Boztas

Average Dutch prison cell

The Netherlands is suffering an unusual crime problem: there isn’t enough of it to fill prisons.

Figures from the Dutch ministry of justice released on Monday suggest overall crime will drop by 0.9 per cent a year in the next five years.

Since a third of its 13,500 prison cells are unfilled, this means five prisons will definitely close, and the prison workers' union, FNV, fears 1,900 jail workers will lose their jobs, while 700 could become “mobile” employees based in more than one location.

“More than a third of cells are not used, and the predictions are that it is going to get worse,” said Jaap Oosterveer, a spokesman for the ministry of justice. “Obviously, from a social perspective, it is better because crime is down, but if you work in jails, it is not good news.”

The Netherlands has been innovative in trying to solve its jail problem. It has “leased” spots in jail to Belgium and Norway, so around 300 Belgian criminals have been held at His Dutch Majesty’s pleasure in Tilberg prison.

 Meanwhile, the country signed a new three-year deal with Norway last September, with 240 Norwegian convicts taking up residence at Norgerhaven jail in the prison village of Veenhuizen in Drenthe.

Karl Hillesland, Dutch prisons' director, told the country's broadcaster RTV Drenthe last month that there is even a “small waiting list”, partly due to the success of promotional films shown in Norway.

Everything happens in English, and Mr Hillesland added: “I think the basic values and what we mean about how a sentence should be served is about the same.”

• Crime set to soar overnight as 'cyber' offences included in official total for first time

But, Mr Oosterveer said, this does not solve the “structural problem” of falling crime and extensive prison accommodation, leading to the new plans to close prisons and cut jobs.

The drop in prison sentences is attributed to an older population – less likely to commit crime – and steep fall in violent offences that lead to prison sentences. There are shock exceptions such as the decapitation of Nabil Amzieb two weeks ago in suspected gang violence in Amsterdam, but figures from the Dutch statistics office, the CBS, show a dramatic 10-year drop in crime victim rates.

 One notorious Dutch prison, Het Arresthuis in Roermond, near the German border, has found a new life as a luxury hotel. Margje Spätjens, a spokeswoman, said if more defunct prisons followed suit, “we have set a good example of what they can do”.

She added. “The reaction from guests is mostly positive, although some people are a bit anxious.”

However one Dutch MP Nine Kooiman, told Telegraaf newspaper: “If the government really worked at catching criminals, we would not have this problem of empty cells.”





Read more: Netherlands doesn't have enough criminals to fill its prisons as crime to drop - Telegraph

Global warming: NASA: Global warming now changing how Earth wobbles - AJE News

Global warming is shifting the way the Earth wobbles on its polar axis, a new NASA study says, highlighting what one expert said is the "large" impact humans have on the planet.

According to the study published on Friday in the journal Science Advances, melting ice sheets - especially in Greenland - are changing the distribution of weight on Earth.

As a result, both the North Pole and the wobble, which is called polar motion, have changed course.

"The recent shift from the 20th-century direction is very dramatic," said Surendra Adhikari, lead author at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab.

While scientists said the shift is harmless, it is meaningful.



Read more: NASA: Global warming now changing how Earth wobbles - AJE News

The Netherlands - Sex Education: Worried about your teenage daughter? Move to the Netherlands - by Peggy Orenstein

 There's a solution for parents concerned about their daughters' sex lives: Move to the Netherlands.

OK, maybe that's not the most practical advice. Perhaps, though, we can move a little of the Netherlands here. Because the Dutch seem to have it all figured out.

While we in the United States have the highest teen pregnancy rate in the industrialized world, they have among the lowest. Our teen birth rate is eight times higher than theirs, and our teen abortion rate is 1.7 times higher.

There are some significant demographic differences that affect those numbers: We are a more diverse nation than Holland, with higher rates of childhood poverty, fewer social welfare guarantees and more social conservatives.

ere's a solution for parents concerned about their daughters' sex lives: Move to the Netherlands.
OK, maybe that's not the most practical advice. Perhaps, though, we can move a little of the Netherlands here. Because the Dutch seem to have it all figured out.

While we in the United States have the highest teen pregnancy rate in the industrialized world, they have among the lowest. Our teen birth rate is eight times higher than theirs, and our teen abortion rate is 1.7 times higher.

There are some significant demographic differences that affect those numbers: We are a more diverse nation than Holland, with higher rates of childhood poverty, fewer social welfare guarantees and more social conservatives.

Yet, even when controlling for all that, the difference holds. Consider a study comparing the early sexual experiences of 400 randomly chosen American and Dutch women at two similar colleges — nearly all white, all middle class, with similar religious backgrounds. So, apples to apples.

The American girls had become sexually active at a younger age than the Dutch, had had more encounters with more partners and were less likely to use birth control. They were more likely to say they'd had first intercourse because of “opportunity” or pressure from friends or partners.

In subsequent interviews with some of the participants, the Americans described interactions that were “driven by hormones,” in which boys determined relationships, male pleasure was prioritized and reciprocity was rare.

As for the Dutch girls, their early sexual activity took place in loving, respectful relationships in which they communicated openly with their partners (whom they said they knew “very well”) about what felt good and what didn't, about how “far” they wanted to go, and about what kind of protection they would need along the way.

They reported more comfort with their bodies and their desires than the Americans and were more in touch with their own pleasure.

Here's their secret: The Dutch girls said that teachers and doctors had talked candidly to them about sex, pleasure and the importance of a loving relationship. More than that, though, there was a stark difference in how their parents approached those topics. The American girls' moms had focused on the potential risks and dangers of sex, while their dads, if they said anything at all, stuck to lame jokes. Dutch parents, by contrast, had talked to their daughters from an early age about both the joys and responsibilities of intimacy.

As a result, one Dutch girl said she told her mother immediately after her first intercourse, “because we talk very open[ly] about this. My friend's mother also asked me how it was, if I had an orgasm and if he had one.”

The attitudes of the two nations weren't always so far apart. According to Amy Schalet, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Massachusetts, in the late 1960s the Dutch — like Americans — roundly disapproved of premarital sex. The sexual revolution transformed attitudes in both countries, but, whereas American parents and policymakers responded by treating teen sex as a health crisis, the Dutch went another way: They consciously embraced it as natural, though requiring proper guidance.

Their government made pelvic exams, birth control and abortion free to anyone under 22, with no requirements for parental consent.

By the 1990s, when Americans were shoveling millions into the maw of useless abstinence-only education, Dutch teachers (and parents) were busy discussing the positive aspects of sex and relationships, as well as anatomy, reproduction, disease prevention, contraception and abortion. They emphasized respect for self and others in intimate encounters, and openly addressed masturbation, oral sex, homosexuality and orgasm.

When a Dutch national poll found that most teenagers still believed that boys should be the more active partner during sex, the government added “interaction” skills to its sex ed curricula, such as how to let “the other person know exactly what feels good” and how to set boundaries.

Yet, even when controlling for all that, the difference holds. Consider a study comparing the early sexual experiences of 400 randomly chosen American and Dutch women at two similar colleges — nearly all white, all middle class, with similar religious backgrounds. So, apples to apples.

The American girls had become sexually active at a younger age than the Dutch, had had more encounters with more partners and were less likely to use birth control. They were more likely to say they'd had first intercourse because of “opportunity” or pressure from friends or partners.

In subsequent interviews with some of the participants, the Americans described interactions that were “driven by hormones,” in which boys determined relationships, male pleasure was prioritized and reciprocity was rare.

As for the Dutch girls, their early sexual activity took place in loving, respectful relationships in which they communicated openly with their partners (whom they said they knew “very well”) about what felt good and what didn't, about how “far” they wanted to go, and about what kind of protection they would need along the way.

They reported more comfort with their bodies and their desires than the Americans and were more in touch with their own pleasure.

Here's their secret: The Dutch girls said that teachers and doctors had talked candidly to them about sex, pleasure and the importance of a loving relationship. More than that, though, there was a stark difference in how their parents approached those topics. The American girls' moms had focused on the potential risks and dangers of sex, while their dads, if they said anything at all, stuck to lame jokes. Dutch parents, by contrast, had talked to their daughters from an early age about both the joys and responsibilities of intimacy.

As a result, one Dutch girl said she told her mother immediately after her first intercourse, “because we talk very open[ly] about this. My friend's mother also asked me how it was, if I had an orgasm and if he had one.”

The attitudes of the two nations weren't always so far apart. According to Amy Schalet, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Massachusetts, in the late 1960s the Dutch — like Americans — roundly disapproved of premarital sex. The sexual revolution transformed attitudes in both countries, but, whereas American parents and policymakers responded by treating teen sex as a health crisis, the Dutch went another way: They consciously embraced it as natural, though requiring proper guidance.

 Their government made pelvic exams, birth control and abortion free to anyone under 22, with no requirements for parental consent.

By the 1990s, when Americans were shoveling millions into the maw of useless abstinence-only education, Dutch teachers (and parents) were busy discussing the positive aspects of sex and relationships, as well as anatomy, reproduction, disease prevention, contraception and abortion.

They emphasized respect for self and others in intimate encounters, and openly addressed masturbation, oral sex, homosexuality and orgasm. When a Dutch national poll found that most teenagers still believed that boys should be the more active partner during sex, the government added “interaction” skills to its sex ed curricula, such as how to let “the other person know exactly what feels good” and how to set boundaries.

Dutch teens, on the other hand, remain closely connected to parents, growing up in an atmosphere of gezelligheid, which Schalet translates loosely as “cozy togetherness.” Parents and teens are expected to discuss the children's psychological and emotional development, including their burgeoning sexual drives. As part of that,

Dutch parents permit co-ed sleepovers, which are rare in the U.S. except in the most progressive circles. A full two-thirds of Dutch teens 15 to 17 with a steady boyfriend or girlfriend report that the person was welcome to spend the night in their bedrooms.

That's not to say that it's a free-for-all over there. Quite the opposite: The Dutch actively discourage promiscuity in their children, teaching that sex should emerge from a loving relationship.

Negotiating the ground rules for sleepovers, while not always easy (parents admit to a period of “adjustment” and some embarrassment), provides yet another opportunity to exert influence, reinforce ethics and emphasize the need for protection.

And you can't really argue with the results.

Read more: Worried about your teenage daughter? Move to the Netherlands - LA Times

The Netherlands: Ecommerce in the Netherlands to reach €18bn in 2016

B2C Ecommerce sales in the Netherlands are expected to reach 18 billion euros in 2016. The ecommerce industry was worth slightly more than 16 billion euros last year, but according to the Ecommerce Foundation the online retail industry is expected to increase by 12.1 percent and thus reach 18.014 billion euros.

These are some of the figures the Ecommerce Foundation shared in its latest report about B2C Ecommerce in the Netherlands. The report gives insight in the Dutch online retail industry and how it performed in 2015. According to Ginio Thuij from market research company GfK, the Dutch ecommerce sector has shown some remarkable growth last year. “Online spending increased by 16.1 percent last year, which is remarkable as it has been less than 10 percent in the preceding years.”

Cross-border sales increased by 30%: This growth was mainly due to the fact the online spending on products increased by 22 percent compared to 2014. But cross-border sales also increased significantly, by more than 30 percent. And 23 percent of the Dutch bought at least one item at a foreign website last year. In total, there were 3.2 million Dutch cross-border shoppers, spending a total of 513 million euros abroad.

For more info about the Dutch etail landscape, please visit our special page about ecommerce in the Netherlands.

Read more: Ecommerce in the Netherlands to reach €18bn in 2016

Netherlands: 61% of Dutch voters say no to ratifying EU-Ukraine deal "pushed down the throat of the EU by the US"

Ukraine Referendum: EU needs an independent foreign policy

The majority of Dutch people who went to the polls in the Netherlands on Wednesday April 6  to express their opinion on the proposed association agreement between the EU and Kiev have rejected it, preliminary results and exit polls have shown.

Sixty-one percent voted against the Netherlands ratifying the treaty, which would strengthen economic and political ties between the 28-nation bloc and Kiev, an exit poll conducted by the Ipsos center shows. Some 38 percent of the voters supported the move, the exit poll has shown.

If the turnout surpasses the 30 percent threshold, making the “no” vote valid, the government will reconsider ratifying the treaty, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte has said.

"It's clear that 'No' have won by an overwhelming margin, the question is only if turnout is sufficient," Rutte stated. "If the turnout is above 30 percent with such a large margin of victory for the 'No' camp then my sense is that ratification can't simply go ahead."

Ukraine’s foreign ministry announced that it is examining the results of the referendum, but pointed out that it was a non-binding expression of public opinion and that it will wait for the Netherlands’ final decision on ratification of the EU-Ukraine deal.

“We are counting on the decision to be in the interests of Ukraine, the Netherlands and Europe,” Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mariana Betsa stated.

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian opposition said that the results of the referendum represent disappointment with the Ukrainian government.

“This is like a cold shower for the Ukrainian politicians who believe that loud shouting and wild hopping is more important than efficient work,” Aleksander Vilkul, a leader of the Opposition Bloc Party, said. “This is an assessment to those who think that no one will notice excessive corruption.”

Although Rutte promised that a valid “no” vote would not go ignored, he said that the government would take its time in deciding exactly how to respond to the public’s opinion.

A political analyst in the Netherlands noted that this referendum result was not an Euroskeptic endorsement, as proclaimed by the right-wing Dutch anti-Islamist Geert Wilders, or a pro-Russian declaration, but rather an indication that the majority of Europeans are  tired of being dragged into US political and diplomatic "escapades", be it in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, or elsewhere, and rather prefer to follow an independent foreign policy.

EU-Digest