Today's Dutch papers report on an immigration debate with a twist, a tragic infant death, the airborne battle against cannabis crops and the big screen version of one of the Netherlands' worst ever natural disasters...

Heated debate on cost of immigrants
Immigration and integration were once again the order of the day in the Dutch parliament yesterday, as MPs gathered to debate the issue of how much non-Western immigrants are costing the Netherlands. The debate was instigated by Geert Wilders' Freedom Party, whose hard-line position on Islam and integration has been dominating the political discussion on these issues.

NRC-next reports that, as usual, emotions were running high. The Freedom Party lambasted the government for "not giving a damn about democracy", while the D66 Democrats and GreenLeft slammed the Freedom Party for having "abject intentions" and "only being interested in its own political message".

Dubious intentions and the right to know
However, things weren't quite as black-and-white as they seemed. NRC-next points out that Geert Wilders' party succeeded in putting his political rivals in "a tricky, ambivalent position". On the one hand, critics were falling over each other to cast doubt on the Freedom Party's intentions, accusing them of "creating divisions in society" and "backing certain groups into a corner". But on the other hand, they were forced to concede the point that the Dutch constitution defends every MP's right to demand the best possible information from the government.

And, the paper observes, the government did not appear to be doing its best on that front. Integration Minister Eberhard van de Laan sought to take the moral high ground, insisting "We do not keep accounts on the value of human beings". But this proved a difficult position to maintain, especially since the Dutch statistical office did carry out a study into the cost of migration as part of a parliamentary inquiry back in 2003. The minister went on to compound the problem by admitting that the government's decision not to answer all of the questions submitted by the Freedom Party in full was "partly a political one". All in all, the paper concludes, the debate has given Geert Wilders enough ammunition to reinforce his anti-establishment position, one that still has him riding high in the opinion polls.

Infant death prompts chilling report
AD reports that the Health Inspectorate is launching an investigation at the Westfries Hospital in the town of Hoorn, following an official inquiry into the tragic death of a two-day-old baby girl in May. Under the headline "Major errors suspected after death of four babies", the paper reveals that three other child fatalities have since been reported, one by the hospital itself and two by concerned parents.

In the case of the newborn baby who died in May, the hospital sent the parents home even though contractions had started and the mother was suffering from diabetes and had a problematic pregnancy when expecting her first child. When they returned the next day, a conflict between a midwife and gynaecologist meant that when complications arose, the response came too late.

The paper says that "Reading between the lines of the dry medical terminology... the report gives a chilling account of events". It points to "a string of wrong decisions. If that negative chain of events had been broken at some point, all would have been well". But in a hospital where the communication is described as "completely out of balance" the medical report of baby Biendiya Ramgoelan concludes with the heartbreaking statement "Died in her parents’ arms."

Airborne police hunt down cannabis crops
De Volkskrant features a photo of a police helicopter hovering high above a sea of green crops. Closer inspection reveals that there are two different crops being grown in the field: one is corn, the other cannabis. Beneath the headline "Searching for weed in a cornfield" the paper reports that "illegal growers are becoming ever more inventive in camouflaging their plants" and that since August the police have discovered 45,000 cannabis plants growing in cornfields at 94 separate locations.

The discoveries have sparked wider fears about the "criminalisation of rural areas". De Volkskrant suspects that the economic crisis means that farmers are more likely to be persuaded to give over some of their land to growing illicit crops. There's no doubt about the money to be made. The plants discovered to date represent a street value of some 10 million euros. The paper talks to the police, who explain how the situation can escalate from relatively innocent beginnings. "At first, the criminals tell the farmers that the plants will only be there for six weeks. But once they've got their foot in the door they keep coming back and the farmers never get rid of them... Blackmail and intimidation are all part of the game."

National trauma hits the big screen
Trouw devotes a full page to the filming of the worst natural disaster to hit the Netherlands in recent times: the North Sea flood of 1953, when the combination of a spring tide and a fierce northwesterly storm inundated much of the southern Netherlands and claimed 1,836 lives. The paper reports that while every Dutchman and woman has seen archive footage of the disaster on TV, it has taken 56 years for someone to adapt this national trauma for the big screen "not just because of the sensitivities involved ... but also due to the sheer cost of recreating the disaster. It was only in 2008 that computer technology became advanced enough to recreate images of farmhouses being torn apart and water swirling over the dykes."

The film is being premiered in Vlissingen this evening at the town's Film by the Sea festival. Trouw points out that while most audiences will experience The Storm as an exciting disaster movie, some spectators still remember the events first-hand. It talks to journalist and MP Kees Slager, who was 14 at the time and attended the very first showing of the film this week. While he gives the filmmakers some credit, he complains that the film doesn't capture the disaster as he remembers it. "I missed the intense cold and the biting wind. The water was freezing and many of the victims died of hypothermia. No one went into the water unless they had to. But the heroine of the film wades right through it and you barely see her teeth chatter."