AD’s headline shows its full support for the fund-raising efforts: “Donations arriving in the right place”. According to the paper, 93 cents of every euro donated will go to Haiti. In an editorial, AD says that after the 2004 tsunami in Asia many people are under the impression that their donations will not be well-spent by the aid organisations. However: “This is not the time to hold extensive debates. Rumours and preconceived notions are no excuse not to give. Haiti will be irretrievably lost without global support”.

 

Nrc.next apparently agrees. Its headline reads: “Giro 555 - Have you made a donation yet?” According to the paper, “Tonight is the night of the benefit broadcast for Haiti. Even after having been confronted with the disaster for days, it is still necessary.” Nrc.next writes that “the Netherlands is a generous country, as evidenced by earlier fund-raisers for disaster areas”, but adds that “It helps that this was a natural disaster. We give more freely to victims who cannot be blamed for their misfortune”.

 

De Telegraaf, true to its reputation as a tabloid, focuses more on the celebrities presenting the telethon than on the disaster itself. Its front page has a photograph of the three hosts of tonight’s fund-raiser “making a fist for Haiti”. The national fund-raiser is a fantastic initiative”, exults TV host Beau van Erven Dorens.  

 

Today’s edition of de Volkskrant does not even mention the Haiti telethon. Instead it has on its front page three shocking pictures, the first of which shows the body of a young girl who was shot dead a by police officer after she stole some wall decorations from a destroyed shop. The second photograph shows her father carrying her body home and the third her mother crying out in anguish when she sees her daughter’s body.

 

Trouw has relegated Haiti to a page-three background interview with International Emergency Management Professor Eelco Dijkstra on the nature of disaster relief and the apparent inability of the international community to learn from past mistakes: “We know it’s located on a fault line, and could have made preparations. The aid organisations already had a presence there. They could have joined forces, for instance in buying generators, the construction of earthquake-proof buildings and in creating stockpiles of aid supplies which would have enabled them to give help immediately when it’s needed.”

 

And if the situation in Haiti did not bring you down, the next news item will. Trouw reports that after having remained stable for ten years, the mental health of the rural Dutch has begun to deteriorate: “Villagers now more depressed”, the paper’s headline reads. A large-scale screening of the population shows that people in the countryside are more often in low spirits than the average city slicker.
 
A shocking 8 percent of all residents of small villages suffered from a bout of depression in the past year, compared to a mere 5 percent in the cities. As recently as 1996, the situation was exactly the opposite. Trouw writes that the reversal of mental fortunes is blamed on the increasing pace of life in the countryside due to increased mobility and the introduction of the internet. However, you may take some comfort in the thought that the mental health of the Dutch population as a whole has remained stable over the past ten years.

 

AD has a report on our former national airline KLM, these days part of KLM-Air France, which has recently decided to charge obese passengers for an extra seat, albeit at a 25 percent discount. A KLM spokesperson looked on the bright side: “It’s great, isn’t it? Now they are sure to get a seat.” However, AD writes that “the fatties themselves are really furious”. One of the ‘fatties’ in question, Jos Blik, from Amsterdam, who weighs in at an ample 200 kilos, envisages embarrassing discussions between obese passengers and cabin crew about whether they are they actually too big to fit in one seat. “It’s already so embarrassing. This is just another case of adding insult to injury”.
 
KLM says that in the past, there have been instances where it was unable to seat a passenger because they were too big for one seat, while a second was not available. The new policy reportedly guarantees that obese passengers will be able to actually reach their destination. However, Mieke van Spanje, the chair of the Obesitas Association, does not see it that way. She calls the policy “unethical” and “Hopefully a very early April Fools Day joke”. Ms Van Spanje says airlines should have two seats for obese people on every jetliner. “Because they are now making their problem our problem”.

 

De Telegraaf reports that Socialist Party MP Emile Roemer supports her point of view: “Do midgets get a short-people discount when two can fit in one seat? Do pregnant women have to pay extra? No, of course not. It proves this is a clear case of discrimination”. His party has demanded the transport and public health ministers find out whether the new KLM policy violates European aviation regulations.

 

Poverty in the Netherlands
In De Telegraaf, Deputy Social Affairs Minister Jetta Klijnsma warns that more than a million-and-a-half Dutch people are at risk of sliding into poverty as a result of the economic crisis. “The figures show that we may have the worst of the crisis behind us, but the lower income earners and those who will lose their jobs in the coming period are in for hard times”.
 
According to the deputy minister, affected families will see their incomes halved. “And they are not just minimum wage-earners, but average-income families can get into serious trouble when they lose their jobs because of their relatively high fixed expenses”. Ms Klijnsma hopes local councils will work even harder to fight poverty. She fears that if more right-wing parties get elected to councils in the local elections on 3 March, they will economise on debt relief and the fight against poverty. The cabinet has earmarked 130 million euros for local councils to spend on debt relief until 2011 and an additional 350 million euros for the fight against poverty. In some districts, one in three toddlers now grows up in poverty. 

 

The University of Twente and the Technical University in Delft are collaborating on the development of a ‘robot suit” which will allow paraplegics to walk again, reports Trouw. The prototype of the ‘Mindwalker’ is to be ready for trials in three years. The suit will be operated by the patient’s brain signals which will be picked up by a special helmet. The scientists involved in the project say they will try to make the suit invisible from the outside, but failing that will strive to make it as beautiful and stylish as possible.