Lukashenko now tries with kindness. He spoke to imprisoned opposition leaders and granted them house arrest in lieu of a cell. But it shouldn’t help. The time to talk seems to be over, the EU is pulling the sanctions out of the closet and even ally Russia is growing criticism. Tom VenninkOctober 12, 2020, 20:23…
Students listen to classical music while studying in the Concertgebouw.Image Guus Dubbelman / de Volkskrant In the Main Hall of the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, the sound of piano playing mingles with that of tapping on keyboards. When a mobile phone rings, everyone looks up in shock. 210 students are blocking the hall for the upcoming exam…
Half a million households currently have problematic debts.Image ANP XTRA Half a million households currently have problematic debts. On average, it takes five years for people to seek help. The average debt would then have risen to about 40,000 euros with fourteen creditors. After that, it will take more than a year before all creditors…
A home care nurse helps an elderly lady still living at home with early dementia.Image Hollandse Hoogte / Frank Muller / Zorginbeeld Two years ago, De Jonge announced a law that would tackle the ‘free choice of doctor’. This concerns the reimbursement that the health insurance pays if a patient chooses a care provider with…
A shopkeeper closes a shop in Kalverstraat. Image ANP The intelligent lockdown officially started on March 23, but the catering industry and schools were already closed by March 15. A week and a half later, the number of Dutch people who were infectious to others reached its peak (167,367), according to estimates by the RIVM…
Villagers of Bathmen stay at a distance from each other at the milkman on the Brink.Image Marcel van den Bergh / de Volkskrant A friend of a friend got it first. This was followed by two other friends who played handball together, after which the corona virus also appeared to have struck the football club….
Angela Merkel just before taking the floor at a press conference about the corona virus.Image AFP In proportion to the increase in the number of corona infections, the frequency with which government leaders give press conferences is increasing. A day after Mark Rutte announced the ‘partial lockdown’ in the Netherlands, his German colleague Angela Merkel,…
Marc Torbey Helou visits several times a week to check on the reconstruction in the Karantina district.Image Diego Ibarra Sánchez The man who is resurrecting entire streets in Beirut is in an electric wheelchair. Marc Torbey Helou (33) is unable to walk and barely uses his arms. His phone, which rings constantly, because Marc is…
Image Javier Muñoz Those concerned about the age of the men vying for the US presidency on Nov. 3 can take comfort in the fact that they will both bring a younger vice president with whom the world will almost certainly be better off than them. That Mike Pence (61), unlike his boss, does not…
US annoyance at the behavior of NATO ally Turkey on the international stage has been compounded by Turkey’s unconditional support for Azerbaijan in the conflict with Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave. Defense Secretary Mike Pompeo said on Friday that the Turks are only making matters worse by “putting their firepower into what is already a…