By contrast, the real news of the day, the fact that Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende has survived the Iraq debate in parliament, gets just 71 words in a tiny report half the size of the average advert. However, on page 7, there is a more extensive report which informs us that “Prime Minister gets the full blast” but an opposition vote of no confidence did not stand a chance as the coalition parties have a two-thirds majority in parliament.

 

The debate was sparked by last month’s report of the Davids parliamentary inquiry which concluded that when the cabinet decided in 2003 to give political support to the US-led invasion of Iraq there was no international mandate and the cabinet failed to fully inform parliament, a mortal sin in Dutch politics which should lead to the resignation of the minister(s) involved.

 

However in Tuesday’s debate, the prime minister said: “Did everything go right? No? Could it have been done better? Yes, but at the time the cabinet had good reasons to do it this way”. In other words: we don’t care about the rules, ‘cause we have a majority. 

 

Trouw, which has dedicated half its front page to the Iraq debate, writes that the coalition may have survived this debate, but is not yet out of the danger zone. The next obstacle on its path will present itself in a few days. Deputy Prime Minister Wouter Bos (Labour Party leader) has said that the cabinet must take a decision on the Dutch military mission to Uruzgan on Friday. Labour wants to bring the boys back home, but the Christian Democrats favour agreeing to a NATO request to extend the Dutch presence in Afghanistan by one year for a training mission elsewhere in the country.

 

Royalty watchers among our readers will be pleased to learn that Trouw has dedicated the other half of its front page to four paintings of Princess Máxima by amateur artists. The CODA museum in the town of Apeldoorn currently hosts an exhibition of 200 portraits of the princess, all painted by amateurs. “The painters find the princess a congenial woman”, says museum director Carin Reinders, “It is reflected in the way she is being portrayed, she is radiant”.

The fact that the amateur painters had to make do with photographs and videos of the princess is clear from the fact that the exhibition includes eight almost identical portraits of Máxima wearing a red beret. Director Reinders sees a story in every painting: “Like the one in which Máxima winks. Her face has traits of that of her mother in law, Queen Beatrix. It is an interpretation, but it seems just like she is winking at her future role as queen”.

 

AD reports that prominent Internet forum Ouders Online (Parents Online) finds many parents are reluctant to discuss parenting problems during visits to health centres* for fear of being branded problem families.

 

Ouders Online Director Justine Pardoen even warns parents against discussing educational dilemmas at health centres and advises them to discuss their problems with independent experts.

 

A spokesperson for an association of doctors in youth healthcare confirms a trend of diminishing trust in youth healthcare: “There is a shortage of paediatricians. When parents see a different face on every visit to the health centre it means they are much more likely to be suspicious. And I can understand that after all the questionnaires and the media reports following the death of baby Savanna (A three-year old girl killed by her mother even though she was under the supervision of childcare authorities) parents are under the impression that the hunt for the problem family is up”.

 

Justine Pardoen says that the blunders in the Savanna case have led childcare authorities to become over-zealous in their search for problem families. “If you indicate that you have a problem, they’re immediately all over you. After the Savanna debacle, every aid worker regards parents as potential child abusers. Everything you say is evaluated from that perspective”.

 

Ouders Online says it receives several letters a week from desperate parents unable to get rid of an unwarranted red flag in their files.  

 

*Health centres provide basic medical care for all children between the age of 0 and 4. The health centre monitors the child’s development and gives medical and educational advice. One of its duties is vaccination of baby’s and toddlers against common childhood diseases such as polio and measles.

 

De Volkskrant reports that The Hague has presented a plan to create a safety net for homeowners to protect them from forced sales. Housing Minister Eberhard van der Laan is reportedly enthusiastic about the plan presented by Councillor Henk Kool.

 

The municipal finance company (GBK) will take over mortgages from homeowners threatened with eviction because they can no longer pay their mortgages. The council then pays the lender the liquidation value of the house and asks the lender to forgive the borrower the remaining debt. Councillor Kool says banks are enthusiastic about the plan, because they often get no more than 70 percent of the liquidation value when the property is auctioned off.

 

The homeowner with whom the GBK has negotiated a new, lower mortgage is placed in a debt restructuring programme and has to conclude an agreement with the council on mortgage payments and possible other debts. The plan calls for the homeowner to renegotiate his mortgage on the open market after seven years.

 

Councillor Kool says the plan is not only good news for banks and homeowners, but also for the council: “Large-scale forced sales can lead to additional pressure on the social rented housing market and also on debt restructuring programmes. In addition, auctioned-off properties often end up in the hands of rack-renters, the plan also prevents that”.

 

Nrc.next has a report on ‘reality 2.0’ including a photograph of a few parked cars outside some medium-income homes that could be located anywhere in the Netherlands. One house has a box saying: “This house for sale on Funda (Internet real estate site)”. Another box reads: “Nearest cash dispenser 500 meters on the left”. One of the cars has a box saying “This car for sale on Marktplaats (Marketplace, an Internet trading site for private individuals)”.

According to nrc.next, “You will be able to learn this - and a lot more besides - with the new Augmented Reality technology. Simply by switching on the camera on your mobile phone”. Augment Reality (AR) “will superimpose a layer of digital information on reality, a technique we soon will be using everywhere”.

 

Thousands of people already have mobile phones with GPS and a compass which tells people where they are and which way their camera is pointing. AR just adds more practical information. “Is a house for sale? You will see the asking price on your phone screen. Point your phone at a restaurant and a review will appear on your screen. Want to know the history of a monument? Just point your camera at it”.

 

To avoid total information overload, users will be able to choose between several AR browsers to load different layers of information, much like surfing the web. For some, this new technology does not go far enough: “Who wants to walk about with a phone in front of their face the whole time?” says Melissa Coleman, member of an AR working group at the Royal Academy of Figurative Arts in The Hague. “We have joined forces with the Technical University in Delft on the development of spectacles which will superimpose a layer of additional information on what you see with your own eyes”.

 

At present you still need a backpack to carry the computer that comes with the spectacles, but Ms Coleman says the real AR revolution will begin when small computers have become fast enough for the complex AR calculations and graphics.

 

“We recently organised a furniture show without actual furniture. As soon as you put on the spectacles, you would see 3D renditions of the furniture. It saves shipping costs”. I’m sure it does, but what if I want to find out whether that nice-looking couch is really as comfortable as it looks?