Understandably, Japan’s calamities still dominate the Dutch papers, as they must surely do across the globe. But the situation in Fukushima is causing a great deal of nuclear introspection elsewhere too.

Angela “Nuclear U-turn” Merkel?
Germany’s federal government, for example, is temporarily closing down seven of the country’s oldest nuclear reactors. A decision taken purely, as de Volkskrant tells us, because of the crisis in Japan. It says the plants will be subjected to safety checks over the next three months.

All things nuclear have been controversial with our eastern neighbours since at least the 1970s, and they remain so. Chancellor Angela Merkel had – controversially - decided to keep some old reactors operational longer than originally planned. So, de Volkskrant wonders whether this new move “is a sign of a ‘turning point’ in the nuclear policy of the centre-right government, or merely a ‘trick’ as the left-wing opposition is describing it.”

With elections in three German states this month, you can see why some are suspicious about the decision. After all, as today’s nrc.next writes, “such a rapid change of direction is unheard of in German politics”

An editorial in today’s Trouw says Ms Merkel’s decision is: “Nonsense. It’s totally unclear what exactly went wrong in Fukushima […][ but it’s clear that […] scenario could never happen in Germany. The German government’s decision can only help feed fear and mistrust.”

Not-so-nuclear Netherlands
As nrc.next shows us with a handy visual guide, the Netherlands now has only one nuclear power station in operation, compared to 17 in Germany, seven in our other immediate neighbour Belgium, 58 further south in France and 19 “across the pond” in the United Kingdom.

As in Germany, nuclear energy has been a target of much opposition here in the Netherlands, but unlike Germany, that has died down almost completely in recent years. Previous Dutch governments followed the anti-nuclear sentiment and did not build any new reactors.

A small change came, as nrc.next reports, in 2006 when the then government decided the remaining plant at Borssele –in the coastal province of Zeeland – would stay open longer than planned. The paper tells us that it’s only under the current centre-right government that the “possibility of new construction” has been brought up: a utility company wants to build a new plant in Borssele and the cabinet looks on this “favourably”.

Given the situation now, however, there’s little doubt that Ike Teuling of environmental organisation GreenPeace is right in one respect - for nrc.next says “she is certain that the debate about atomic power will now flare up again.” This, despite the headline claim in de Telegraaf’s item on the “home-grown” nuclear power industry that “Borssele can take a knock”.

Paedophile network without porn
The domestic stories are all buried deep inside today’s papers, though one at least has significant worldwide connections. Today’s nrc.next, among other papers, reports on yesterday’s court appearance by a 37 year-old man from the town of Krommenie, not far from Amsterdam, who is reported to have operated a web server that helped “customers” across the globe obtain child pornography.

Surprisingly – at first glance that is – the paper also tells us that he’s only charged with committing sexual acts with an underage (14) boy in Brazil in 2009 and with having child pornography stored on his own computer.

AD, which gives the story even greater prominence, explains things more satisfactorily. The paper reports that, according to Europol, the arrest of this man provided police with some 71,000 IP or web addresses of people that used his network in a total of 109 countries. It appears the man, known as Amir I., cooperated fully with the authorities after his arrest, hence the wealth of information.

There’s been some confusion though, mainly between the Dutch police and Public Prosecutor’s Office. AD reports that local police described him as the “main suspect” in connection with the running of an international child-porn network. However, when he appeared in court yesterday, the Public Prosecutor attempted to correct that.

It turns out that Amir ran a very popular site for people with a sexual attraction to underage boys. He made sure, though, that no pornography was actually exchanged through the site itself. However, it clearly provided a forum for like-minded paedophiles to make contact and exchange material in other ways. The fact that the site wasn’t used to distribute porn explains the more “limited” charges brought against him in court.

AD closes with a quote from Amir’s mother: “My son needs help[…] I’ve been saying that for years. But all those psychologists didn’t want to know. Ultimately he got into trouble, and fled to Brazil […] I’m not trying to say he’s innocent. But as a mother this destroys you. After all, your child goes on being your child.”

Bone parks
A somewhat gruesome story is featured by several papers: concerning human remains that have been turning up in two public parks in the eastern part of Amsterdam. As De Telegraaf informs us, Amsterdam East district council is now trying to clean up a mistake whereby sand taken from a local cemetery was used in the parks and people started to find bits of human remains.

The council thought it could save 20,000 euros by not buying fresh sand. It’s not uncommon here for graves to be “emptied out” a relatively short time after they are “filled”, and the “bits” found in the parks are certain to have come from people buried between 1963 and 1974.

The responsible councillor tells De Telegraaf – unsurprisingly: “This should never have happened”, while one of the staff working to clean up the gruesome sand says, ”We’ll never get rid of it all.”

So, probably two places you'll want to avoid should you be visiting Amsterdam any time soon.