Dutch MPs back the Libyan weapons embargo deployment, while Dutch arms sales boom. It’s good for toddlers to leave home, MPs’ voicemails leak and photos tell stories. It’s all in the Dutch dailies.

MPs back ‘Libya’ deployment
NATO is no nearer a decision on who should lead the operations to enforce the UN no-fly zone over Libya, says de Volkskrant. So far, the alliance has only agreed to impose the UN weapons embargo against the Libyan regime, limiting Dutch participation to that area. The Dutch military contribution to the enforcement of that embargo got the support of a majority of MPs yesterday, we are told.

The government had to rely on support from the opposition to get a majority of MPs behind its plans for a major Dutch deployment to police the embargo, reports De Telegraaf. The Freedom Party (PVV), which has an agreement to back the minority coalition cabinet from the parliamentary benches, came out against deployment.

The PVV had supported the UN resolution against Libya and was ridiculed by the other parties for its apparent U-turn. D66 democrat leader Alexander Pechtold was taunting: “The PVV reckons that, because others are saving the bacon, we [the Dutch] can get away with doing nothing.”

Trouw, meanwhile, says that while the coalition members are arguing about what their aims are, Gaddafi’s troops are fighting their way to ensure a stalemate on the ground. After more than five days of a no-fly zone, it complains, Gaddafi’s forces are anything but weak and the rebels a long way away from “their quick march on Tripoli”.

Dutch military hardware sales
With all the talk about the military hardware being deployed to protect ordinary people from a dictator, nrc.next picks up on the fact that the Netherlands is a major player in the international weapons trade, especially considering how small a country it is.

The Dutch are a peaceful folk you’d say, the paper tells its educated young readership, but, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, only Israel and Sweden earn more from the export of weaponry [per head of the population]. Naval shipbuilding is key, with the Dutch cornering the market in patrol vessels and their attendant complex electronics.

The Netherlands also makes a killing in the market for second-hand military hardware. With all the cuts and reorganisations, especially following the end of the Cold War, surplus F16 fighter jets, army equipment and naval ships are sold off, for example to minor NATO partners in South America and the Middle East.

Nrc.next points out the irony that, while Dutch pacifists rejoice every time the Defence machine is cut, the result is that the Netherlands goes higher up the list of military hardware suppliers.

Crèches good for kids
Young children who are sent to good crèches are cleverer, more social and have more self-confidence than children who stay at home, says today’s AD. University of Amsterdam research shows such kids develop stronger social skills through daily play sessions with other youngsters.

“They look at what others do and imitate it, but also challenge each other,” says development psychologist Elly Singer. “That gives them a head start.” That head start depends of course on the quality of the crèche, where playing together has to be stimulated and supervised.

Ms Singer does believe that it’s better for babies up to the age of six months to stay at home with their parents. She advocates a full half year of parental leave: “Parents experience a lot of stress when separating from their children after three months, and that has its effect on the child.”

Voice-mail gaffe
The papers all pick up on an embarrassing affair which came to light yesterday. Television journalists managed, explains de Volkskrant, to listen to the voice-mail messages of a number of politicians including Foreign Minister Uri Rosenthal.

In order to listen to the messages recorded via their mobile phones, a central number has to be called and a code keyed in. The trouble was that none of the politicians had bothered to change the default code, which meant anyone familiar with the brand of mobile phone, and so the default code, could access the messages.

“This is extremely unfortunate,” Mr Rosenthal tells AD, “and shouldn’t have happened.” Alexander Pechtold, leader of the opposition D66 party admits, “I didn’t even know there was a code. It’s a good job it wasn’t made use of on a large scale”. AD gives the last word to a security expert: “This is really stupid,” is his opinion.

A photo speaks a thousand words
The majority of the papers reserve space on their front pages for photographs of Elizabeth Taylor who died yesterday aged 79. Most go for early film-studio portraits of what AD calls the British-American Hollywood legend. De Telegraaf gushes that she was the last great film goddess.

De Volkskrant bucks the trend, relegating its coverage of her “50 films and eight marriages” to an inside page. It prefers to devote most of its front page to a photo of the Vice President of Tepco, the company which runs Japan’s stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant.

Norio Tsuzumi, with two other Tepco executives, is bowing low to an elderly man sitting among blankets with other evacuees in a building that looks like a warehouse. The left-of-centre daily says it was the first time Tepco had openly apologised for what the paper understatedly calls “the problems” caused by the nuclear plant.