Now that the body of Milly Boele has been found - a week after she went missing - the popular dailies turn their attention to the flowers and the questions. AD prints a photograph of the 12-year-old’s parents looking at the sea of flowers that is accumulating in her memory.

The same paper criticises the police search with the headline “Police blunders”. It goes on to say the police made crucial mistakes. The last thing that Milly told her mother on the telephone was that a neighbour was at the door, even that he may have had a cat with him. Instead of checking out all kinds of different scenarios, the search should have concentrated on following up this lead, say the critics.

Mass circulation paper De Telegraaf agrees. It prints a photograph of Milly’s murderer, a policeman who lived two doors down. The papers reports that “he drank beer on her grave” with friends at the weekend, while her parents were at their wits end. De Telegraaf also criticises the police, quoting an ex-detective: “Speed is everything if the police want to save the life of a child.” Sniffer dogs should have been brought in. Too much time was wasted following procedures.

Meanwhile, readers are in the dark about how and why Milly was killed. The papers speculate that sexual abuse was probably behind the killing. The policeman had just broken up with his girlfriend. He went to her house and persuaded her to go with him to his house, killed her the same evening and buried her in the garden. According to Trouw, a local TV station was shocked when it found out that a man they had interviewed was the murderer.

Dust settles on Dutch political landscape
Meanwhile in politics, Trouw reports that Rotterdammers will not have to go back to the ballot box, in spite of the staggering number of complaints and chaotic scenes during the recent local elections. Only 2000 votes are open to question and that is less that half the number that would have made a difference to the outcome. Marco Pastors, the leader of local right-wing party Liveable Rotterdam says: “We can live with this.” Although he doesn’t pass the opportunity to perpetuate the uncertainty surrounding the result: “Everyone knows now that we cannot really say which party is the biggest in Rotterdam.”

As the dust settles on Rotterdam’s political landscape, serious shifts are taking place in The Hague, as one political figurehead after the other announces either their departure from politics altogether or that they are not available for a parliamentary seat. Trouw lists 27 of them. According to NRC Handelsblad, a good politician is never at home, referring to former Labour Party leader Wouter Bos’ choice to spend more time with his family. “It seems as if the day of a politician never ends.” The paper quotes a local councillor.

Meanwhile, in de Volkskrant, Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende goes on the offensive after speculation that support for him to lead the Christian Democrat Party in the upcoming general election is waning. “What are you talking about?” he asks journalists after a Christian Democrat meeting in Assen, where he receives a standing ovation for his speech.

Cervical cancer vaccine producer faces fines
Last year, the Dutch government introduced a vaccination programme to prevent cervical cancer. Now the one of the two manufacturers of the vaccine used could face fines for breaking strict marketing laws.

According to Trouw, Sanofi Pasteur MSD which manufactures Gardasil, ignored EU advertising regulations that ban companies from advertising vaccines that are only available on prescription. The company pampered doctors with gifts, sponsored public meetings and paid for magazine articles to be written.

A Health Inspectorate report reveals that the company kept lists of politicians who it needed to lobby to support its cause. The paper cites an email enlisting the help of one MP to put pressure on the government to introduce the vaccination programme. The company tried to prevent the Inspectorate’s report from being made public and wanted the court documents to be kept secret too.

In 2008, both the offices of Sanofi Pasteur and GlaxoSmithKline were raided. Glaxo was also found to have broken the rules. The vaccination programme was severely hampered by a huge internet anti-vaccination campaign which focussed on scare stories. One of the criticisms however, was that legislation for the vaccination programme was being rushed through at a speed seldom seen before.

Angel of Death was victim of rough justice
The case of Lucia B. is one that crops up in the papers every now and then. The former nurse was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2004 for the murder of seven patients. De Volkskrant reports that after spending six years in prison the Public Prosecution Office is now calling for an acquittal. Lucia B. was released after it was found that the deaths could be explained medically and there was no evidence that the nurse, who was dubbed by the press as the “Angel of Death”, was responsible.

The paper calls the case the biggest miscarriage of justice ever in the Netherlands. She was convicted on the grounds of entries into her diary and medical opinions on the deaths of the patients, rather than medical facts. Lucia’s lawyer calls it “a black page in the history of Dutch criminal justice.” The former nurse is pleased with the demand for her acquittal as she still fears being recognised on the street and has lost friends over the matter. Her release did not put an end to suspicions that she might be responsible for the deaths. Being acquitted is something quite different to being released due to lack of evidence.

Amsterdam braces itself for tunnel drilling
Amsterdammers are bracing themselves as the drilling of the metro tunnel in soft sandy layers under the historical heart of the city is due to begin today. At the flip of a switch the head of the drill will begin to turn and the first centimetres of earth will be removed, reports nrc.next. But don’t worry, as a precaution the ground above the first 90 metres has been frozen.

In the 1970s when the first metro line was laid in the Dutch capital, it was all much easier. The town council just demolished all the buildings above the line. They had to put up with a few riots first, mind you. Since then any plans to modernise the metropolitan’s transport system underground were put on hold. That was until a “magic drill” built metro lines in Japan and Germany. In the 1990s, the North-South line found its way back onto the municipal agenda and Amsterdammers voted in favour of the project in a referendum.

But it all went horribly wrong in 2008 when subsidence damaged a number of listed buildings close to the construction site. As a result, public confidence in the project is low. In the last local elections, anti-metro party Save Amsterdam won a seat on the local council. Residents along some parts of the line will be put up in hotels during construction work. Amsterdam’s best known department store De Bijenkorf tried to postpone the drilling until more research could be done.

However, in spite of all the risks and misgivings, drilling is going ahead. The builders of the North-South line say they are confident nothing will go wrong. But just in case, they have had the drill blessed and a statue of Saint Barbara, patron saint of miners and tunnel diggers, guards the entrance to the tunnel shaft. So fingers crossed then!