Not surprisingly yesterday’s horrific bomb attacks on the Moscow underground dominate all of the Dutch papers today. Moving photographs of dazed and bloodied survivors feature on many of the front pages. “Attack strikes the heart of Russia” is NRC Handelsblad’s headline. Trouw leads with “Terror strikes Moscow underground” and warns that “Russia will have to live with the threat of new attacks for years to come”.

 

Beneath a chilling photograph of a burnt-out underground carriage littered with bodies, de Volkskrant describes the scene as one of “smoke, panic and blood”. De Telegraaf says the Russians have responded to the bombings with “angry, stoic resignation”. It reports that the usual masses of passengers were to be seen crowding into the underground train in the evening rush hour. A busker strumming his guitar responds “Why should I stop playing? Will that bring back the dead?”

 

NRC.next takes a different tack on its front page, with a serene photo of the snow-covered peaks of the North Caucasus accompanied by a warning that the poverty in the region "could well be the cause of yesterday's attacks on Moscow’s metro".The paper comments that Moscow “has been rudely awakened from its dream of security" and that anyone listening to last year’s warnings by rebel leaders in the North Caucasus “knew last year that it would soon be Moscow's turn."

 

The other papers also go in search of the reasons behind the attacks. De Telegraaf argues that “the Kremlin has been presented with the bill for its failing policy in the Caucasus”. Trouw presents Chechen rebel leader Doku Umarov as “the likely mastermind behind the attacks” and quotes him as saying in February “We will show the Russians that the war [in the Caucasus] is returning to their homes.”

 

De Volkskrant columnist Bert Wagendorp notes that “you have to be careful when showing understanding for people who unapologetically blow others to kingdom come, with revenge as their motive and despair driving them on.” But he goes on to quote murdered Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaja – a chronicler of the human rights abuses in the North Caucasus - who said “Blowing yourself up is a way of expressing your pain.” And concludes “This too is a part of the truth.”

 

As the Netherlands’ political parties gear up for the June elections, their campaigns are never far from the news. Today’s papers take a long hard look at the Christian Democrats’ newly published manifesto which seems to be receiving a lukewarm response. The left-wing de Volkskrant describes it as “a very cautious programme which avoids difficult choices and concrete proposals”. Trouw reckons plans such as government cutbacks and imposing tougher sentences on criminals mean “the Christian Democrats are leaning to the right” but criticises the party for “showing too little ambition when it comes to reforms”.

 

The main message, according to AD, is that the party wants to save 18 billion euros over the next four years, but for the moment it’s remaining tight-lipped on the exact nature of any cutbacks. NRC.next also reckons that the party is “aiming for the right” and asks the question on everyone’s lips: “Will this programme see the Christian Democrats return to government?”

 

Governing the Netherlands means forming coalitions and the paper reckons that, in its present form, the party’s manifesto makes cooperation with the biggest parties – Labour and the right-wing Freedom Party – very difficult indeed, “unless it is prepared to smooth off some of the programme’s hard edges in the weeks to come”.

 

Yesterday saw the launch of Dutch Railways’ much trumpeted new internet facilities on intercity services, described by Trouw as an effort to “tempt passengers into the train”. Transport Minister Camiel Eurlings presents the service –which is currently free of charge thanks to a government subsidy of 15 million euros – as “a mega bargain”, while the head of Dutch Railways describes the online intercities as “trains that bring the whole world on board”.

 

But the customers and journalists who climbed aboard yesterday weren’t all that impressed. De Volkskrant notes wryly “Dutch Railways hit the virtual highway: delays here too”. It quotes one disgruntled customer who complains “The connection is incredibly slow. The web page I opened five minutes ago still hasn’t loaded.”

A spokesman for the provider – T-Mobile Nederland – is keen to play down the problems “This is an extreme situation. The whole train is full of people who all want to try out the internet.” But as AD notes, even when functioning normally, customers will have no access to sites such as YouTube, for the simple reason that “the system can’t cope” with downloading video clips.

 

Under the headline "toilet camera surveillance is taking things too far", de Volkskrant asks a number of academics what they think of the news that Dutch Railways and Amsterdam's public transport service have been using security cameras to monitor behaviour in their toilets.

 

Dutch Railways has installed cameras to find ways of improving toilet hygiene, while in Amsterdam, cameras have been used to track down a public transport worker who was writing death threats on the walls of the staff toilet.

 

Professors at Tilburg University slam the measures as "the most far-reaching form of camera surveillance imaginable", "unacceptably naive" and "out of all proportion". They muster some sympathy for the use of cameras to catch the malicious vandal in Amsterdam, but even then they warn the case would not hold up “if it went to the European Court of Human Rights".