The papers are again dominated by two stories: the bankruptcy looming over the DSB bank and the cabinet negotiations over raising the retirement age. Both of these stories are likely to eat up column inches for some time to come as journalists struggled to find new angles.

The blame game starts as DSB saga continues
De Telegraaf begins its coverage of the DSB saga with an accusatory headline: "Zalm knew about it: insurers warned minister in 2002". According to the populist broadsheet, the Dutch Association of Insurers warned then-finance minister Gerrit Zalm and the Netherlands Authority for Financial Markets (AFM) about dubious practices by the bank but no action was taken. The paper says Mr Zalm knew the privately held DSB bank was charging "exorbitant procuration fees" but did nothing about it, noting that despite rumours within the Dutch insurance world, "the minister went to work at the bank a few years later".

De Volkskrant looks at the blame game from a slightly different angle, although the spotlight is firmly focused on the finance ministry. The left-wing broadsheet interviews a DSB employee who claims, "Wouter Bos (finance minister. ed) and Nout Wellink (head of the Dutch central bank. ed) stand foursquare behind the big Dutch banks and it suits them just fine that the DSB is going under". Many people blame Finance Minister Wouter Bos for DSB’s bankruptcy as he refused to bail out the bank. They cannot understand why the finance ministry could find billions for the big five Dutch banks yet failed to hand over a few million to save the DSB.

Definition of 'taxing work' dominates retirement age talks
The retirement age saga is also continuing and the pressure on the cabinet to come up with a deal is mounting; next week the leaders of most of the Parliamentary parties - the exceptions being Socialist party leader Agnes Kant and Freedom Party leader Geert Wilders - are all off on a jaunt and the cabinet want a deal in place before they leave. The government doesn't want to leave the issue on the table to be exploited by the opposition.

As reported yesterday, the coalition parties are close to a deal on raising the retirement age to 67, but want to protect people who perform strenuous jobs. Under the headline, "Cabinet tussle over strenuous work”, De Telegraaf reports that the coalition partners have not yet managed to agree on just what constitutes a strenuous job and how to retrain people so that after 30 years of heavy lifting, they can do something less physically taxing.

AD reports that definition of strenuous labour will be left to the unions and employers to determine. Citing sources close to the negotiations, the paper says the cabinet is working on tightening up the regulations governing working conditions. AD ends its coverage with the optimistic sentence, "the last stumbling blocks will probably be cleared away by the cabinet tomorrow". One can only hope.

Oscar committee rejects Dutch nomination
Several papers cover the news that the Oscar Committee has rejected Holland Film's (the Dutch film commission) initial nomination of The Silent Army for Best Foreign Language Film on the grounds that it's a remake of White Light. According to de Volkskrant, the issue turned into a real soap opera. Last month, a number of Dutch producers, including the producer of A Winter in Wartime, the second film on the shortlist, protested vehemently against Holland Film's decision to nominate The Silent Army and hired a lawyer in order to make the point that the film did not meet the criteria laid down by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Despite that, Holland Film went ahead and nominated The Silent Army.

Claudia Landsberger, managing director of Holland Film tells the paper, "The Academy needs to tighten up its regulations. Even if you read the rules three times you still can't understand them. Nowhere does it say that you cannot nominate a remake of a director's cut."

The new nomination is A Winter in Wartime, and AD interviews director Martin Koolhoven, "It's great news. Because of the arguments about The Silent Army, the media accused us of being bad losers but we were right all along."

Dutch Rail using toxic paint in trains
The government and health authorities are busy telling us that it's better for the environment and our health to travel by train and not by car, but a report in De Telegraaf suggest that train travel could damage your health: "toxic paint used in Dutch Rail trains" screams the headline in the populist paper.

It appears that the colour on the leatherette seating wears off and the only way to solve this problem is to add lead to the dye used to repair the seating. Exposure to lead can cause birth defects and cause permanent learning disabilities and behavioural disorders in children.

The paper says that internal regulations dating from 2002 banned the use of lead-based dyes, but and NS spokesperson tells De Telegraaf, "The use of lead-based dyes is not prohibited, but it's not recommended, we are continuing to look for an alternative."

Amsterdam preparing for 2028 Olympic bid
"City council dreams of Olympic village", headlines De Telegraaf above its coverage of Amsterdam's fairly advanced plans for winning the 2028 Olympics. According to the paper, the cabinet will not decide on which city to put forward as Olympic candidates until the end of next year, but the Amsterdam city council is already looking at two possible locations for an Olympic village.

There are advantages to bringing the Olympics to Amsterdam and councillor Maarten van Poelgeest points out that one particular location would force the city to extend the North-South Metro even further than already planned.

I suspect it might be a sneaky way for the city to ensure that the controversial metro does in fact get finished. The project has always been considered risky; tunnelling under Amsterdam's historic centre, most of which is built on wooden pillars sunk into extremely soggy ground, is very risky indeed and the project has been hit by all sorts of problems ranging from subsidence to dramatic cost increases. Building work started in late 2002 and was originally scheduled to be completed in 2011 with a 1.4 billion euro price tag. It is now scheduled for completion in 2017 and the price tag has jumped to 2.4 billion euros. Perhaps if Amsterdam gets the 2028 Olympics, the north-south line will be finished in time for the Olympic torch ceremony.