News rooms rushed into action yesterday after next year’s budget got leaked earlier (than usual). The country’s financial prospects are looking gloomy. The cabinet proposes a burqa ban. JC may not be the saviour of Ajax after all. And is nose picking bad for you?

Budget for 2012 leaked one day too early
All the papers are bursting with news over the new budget after it accidently leaked out yesterday afternoon. The document was not supposed to be published under embargo until today. So how did that happen?

AD asks Bram Talman whose twitter message sent the news rooms reeling. Well, it was childishly simple. All Mr Talman had to do was take the URL of last year’s budget document and change the year. “I typed in 2011 and there it was.”

Every year, there is a fuss about the embargo on the government’s budget plans. The cabinet generally leaks the measures that make it look good.

The opposition had asked for the document to be made public early this year. But as there are almost no measures to be gleeful about, the government appeared to want to keep the plans under wraps for as long as possible. Trouw writes only the queen’s speech is still secret, but then it is not finished either.

Read the RNW coverage of the story

The Netherlands’ financial prospects look gloomy
So now it is out what’s in it? Well, it’s not good news, I’m afraid. De Telegraaf headlines with “Breadwinners foot the bill”. Trouw writes: “Scenario is even more gloomy”. De Volkskrant warns: “No one will not feel the crisis”.

Even nrc.next, which usually avoids reporting on the same topics as the other papers, says the leaked document “shows little vision”. It prints miniature pages of the budget all over its front page.

Purchasing power will fall by one percent. For people living on private pensions this figure will be 1.5 percent. Unemployment will go up. The budget deficit will drop to 2.9 percent (just below the three percent thresh hold that eurozone countries are forbidden to exceed).

There will be a billion euros more to be paid in taxes. Child benefit will go down, although low income families will receive more. Health care premiums will go up. Even the royal family faces a cut in its budget, reports De Telegraaf, although it appears to have spent 300,000 euros revamping its website.

Trouw points out that in spite of the far-reaching cuts that have already been made, there will be more cuts in 2012. To recover, the economy would have to grow by 1.5 percent per year – which the paper calls an illusion.

Nrc.next describes the plans as conservative, but says they could have been more right-wing. De Volkskrant illustrates government spending and income figures with a jack-in-the-box. Jack’s holding a knife.

The Netherlands is to introduce a burqa ban
The news that the cabinet is discussing a burqa ban today has almost been snowed under. But in the proposal, women caught wearing the garment which covers the body from head to toe could face a 380-euro fine. If the plans go ahead, the Netherlands will be the third European country to ban the controversial Islamic dress.

In Trouw Freedom Party MP Joram van Klaveren says even though there are only about 200 women at most who wear burqas, it is not symbolic politics. “It’s still 200 too many as far as we're concerned.” He says the fine is high enough and if it is not, then it can always be increased.

In response, Green Left MP Tofik Dibi says the proposal is only being made to please the anti-Islam Freedom Party. He says it is usually Muslim converts or rebellious women who wear burqas, although he admits there are probably a couple of women among them who are oppressed by their husbands.

But he says the oppression of women should be resolved by helping them integrate. He points out that Amsterdam police chief Bernard Welten has already said he will not be asking his officers to hand out fines to women in burqas – they have better things to do.

Dutch Muslim women need not fear; French businessman Rachid Nekkaz has come to their rescue. He has set up a million-euro fund to pay the fines.

Read the RNW coverage of the story

JC no saviour for Ajax?
His initials may be JC, but people may be starting to doubt whether football legend Johan Cruijff will be Ajax’s saviour after all. AD writes that it appears that with his authoritarian style he has trod on the toes of the Amsterdam football club once again.

Earlier this week he apparently walked into a board meeting with his candidate for the new club boss at his side. But the board had already scrapped the man in question, Tscheu la Ling, from its list. As a result, former international player Edgar Davis walked out, saying he wanted to keep to the items on the agenda - apparently unimpressed by Cruijff’s bulldozer tactics.

The strange thing is, when asked about the board meeting in a chat show, Cruijff didn’t make any mention of problems during the meeting. Incidentally, he missed a board diner to join the chat show as the only guest. And during this week’s Champions League match, he also chose not to sit with the other board members.

In was only a couple of weeks ago that a delegation from Ajax flew specially to Barcelona, where the former number 14 is coach, to give the honorary member a last chance to cooperate with the club and help solve its management problems. AD asks how long the other board members will put up with him.

Is nose picking bad for you?
Nine out of ten people pick their noses, but is it bad for you? Trouw asks. Well, you would think if so many people do it then it can’t do any harm. But they are wrong, the paper writes. Our noses are absolutely wriggling with bacteria and all that picking can damage the membranes in our nostrils – which can only be fixed by an operation.

The worst effects are listed in the Journal of the National Medical Association from 1963. Nose picking causes nose bleeds, chronic infections, perforations and even nose cancer. What? Nose cancer? No scrap that last one, ear, nose and throat specialist Susanne Rienartz tells the paper. Back in the 1960s medics had no idea how cancer developed.

So the answer is yes, nose picking can do damage – but it won’t kill you. So what about that really disgusting habit – you got it – eating the snot. Seeing we swallow most of the snot we produce that cannot really do much harm. By the way, the paper prints a photo of the Netherlands’ most illustrious nose picker – one of the royal princesses in her younger days – I think it’s Princess Amalia.