The Labour Party joins the Freedom Party in banning ritual slaughter - and, inadvertently, joins the orthodox Protestants, too, in blocking internet porn. The Dutch dailies give less coverage to Greece's parliamentary confidence vote and turn to art instead. KLM puts chips on the environmental menu.

Labour Party chooses animals over members
Ritual slaughter is making headlines again as the decision by the Dutch Labour Party (PvdA) yesterday to support a proposed ban has moved it a step closer to reality.

"After intense and heated debate, the PvdA has rallied behind the call for a ban," reports AD. Together with the Democrat D66 party, Labour is "searching for an acceptable alternative". Meaning it will be attempting to come up with an appropriate wording to placate many of its Muslim and Jewish members.

At the weekend Labour Party members had called on their MPs to reject the bill - proposed by Marianne Thieme's Animal Rights Party - which will outlaw Kosher and Halal slaughter methods.

But Labour MP Martijn van Dam was succinct and unequivocal, states AD: "Our principle is basically that animals have to be anaesthetised, also during ritual slaughter."

“The adjustments to Thieme’s text sparked off a furious and fiery debate” between the Labour Party and D66. In the end, both parties spoke of an “improvement” on the original.

“Non-anesthetised ritual slaughter is still possible if the animal doesn’t suffer any additional pain” opens de Volkskrant. “We are trying to ensure that religious freedom is not unnecessarily restricted,” says D66 MP Stientje van Veldhoven. Sounds like they’re back to square one.

“Religious freedom should have its limitations,” says Ms Thieme in nrc.next’s double-page opinion spread on the issue. “Stress isn’t always a bad thing in emergency situations. In fact, it leads to natural pain relief through the production of endorphins,” argues an anaesthetist professor.

“The government should ban this slaughter method from the Middle Ages. We don’t live in the Stone Age anymore. We don’t stone people to death and we don’t allow ritual slaughter,” proclaims the Freedom Party’s Dion Graus.

...and joins the orthodox Protestants in parliament
And it seems that all this furious debate left Labour’s Martijn van Dam in a rather stunned state. According to AD, “yesterday clearly wasn’t his best day.”

He accidently let his party vote in favour of a motion proposed by the SGP orthodox protestant party which contained an amendment allowing internet providers to block websites showing violence or porn if this jars with their ideological principles. When it came to voting time, he gave the – wrong - signal to his Labour peers and the motion was passed.

The D66 Democrats are rightly perplexed. “Now we’re stuck with this loophole in the law which companies like KPN and Vodafone may use to their advantage to block sites they don’t like,” sighs MP Kees Verhoeven.

Red art, red beard
In a front-page spread Trouw writes about a new art form: “daring design” or “dwarsdesign”. For 11 weeks, “we have heard little about Chinese artist and dissident Ai Weiwei... but in Rotterdam he jumped out like a jack-in-the-box.”

The Netherlands Architecture Institute (NAi) in Rotterdam is holding an exhibition of 144 framed letters written by the Chinese authorities in response to the artist’s protests about the unsafe buildings which collapsed during the devastating earthquake in Sichuan in 2008. More than 5,000 children died there when school buildings caved in.

All of the letters come with an official red stamp and none of them answer the questions posed by Mr Ai. When the dissident was arrested and his studio was searched, the letters had already been sent to be framed.

Meanwhile, AD reports that the self-portrait of Vincent van Gogh viewed each year by hundreds of thousands of tourists and art lovers is actually a painting of his brother. There are two main giveaways – the ears and the beard. “The famous ear of Vincent van Gogh is fat and fleshy”, while the ear in the painting is smooth, and Vincent’s beard was red. In the painting, it’s light blond.

Insuring the will of the people
Insurance company FBTO – part of the Dutch Achmea financial services group – didn’t consider snow tyres to be part of a house's contents when a claimant’s home burnt down. It opened up the case to internet visitors – not necessarily FBTO customers - who voted overwhelmingly against the insurer’s stance. FBTO then did a U-turn and paid out.

NRC Handelsblad reports on the insurance company, which originated from a group of farmers, that’s profiling itself as a friend of the people. Last month, 12 claim cases were published online in a kind of 'virtual court' where users were asked to give their opinion.

“If 60 percent of the people think we should have paid compensation, then we will,” says chairperson Ellen Faber, “and we’ll adjust our policy accordingly.”

Does FBTO not fear bankruptcy at this rate? Well, take the case of a father who made a claim when his son went on the rampage in the school chemistry lab, destroying equipment.

This time, NRC exclaims, a majority of the online jury agreed with the insurance company, voting against the father. “People are much stricter than we think. They’re consistent and like to chide others for their behaviour or value system,” says Ms Faber.

A democratic insurance voice, or simply pitting one claimant against the other?

French flies
Passengers tired of the stale sandwiches and dried-out meals served on some airplanes will at least soon be treated to the whiff of chips on KLM flights from Amsterdam to Paris. Well, not quite...

Starting this September, De Telegraaf writes on its front page, KLM will be the first airline company to fly its Boeing 737 aircraft on used chip fat obtained from restaurants and snack bars, which otherwise would go to landfill.

"A global first for the Netherlands and a spectacular breakthrough for the aviation industry," says KLM's CEO Camiel Eurlings.

The oil from the French fries will be half-mixed with kerosene. "That way we don't need to make any adjustments to the engines, but we'll be flying a good deal cleaner," reassures Mr Eurlings, who was once the Netherlands' transport minister.

Anyone for Dutch-French flies?