Dutch expats quit Libya - but not all of them. How to spell a dictatorial name? Pirates on trial in Rotterdam. A Dutch Grammy winner’s homecoming. And, we all make mistakes.

No surprise that nearly all today’s papers lead with Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi’s continued refusal to stand down.

No trains - boat and planes
However, from a very Dutch point of view, the main Libya story in today’s papers concerns efforts to get the Netherlands’ expats out of the country. Trouw says on its front page that around 70 Dutch folk wanted to get on yesterday’s Dutch Royal Air Force emergency flight out of Tripoli airport but are in fact still stuck in Libya. The plane eventually took off with no more than 32 Dutch on board, although it also had some 50 other European nationals.

De Telegraaf reports on one of those people still stuck in Libya, 33-year-old Peter-Jan Kwakernaak. He’s a drilling manager on an oil rig along Libya’s Mediterranean coast and, as the paper tells us, “one of the last Westerners remaining in the area”.

One family member managed to speak to him by phone and tells the paper: “The locals have attacked the police station and now they’re walking round armed with automatic weapons. They’re looting the oil rigs and stealing company cars.”

Mr Kwakernaak has reassured the folks back home that he’s quite safe at the moment: “And I haven’t seen any violence against expats. But they [the local population, ed.] are starting to steal anything they can get their hands on.”

Shifty character, shifty spelling?
Much more frivolously, I’m afraid, and without wishing to make light of what may already be a real disaster for Libya, I was struck about how the Dutch press seems totally divided about how to spell the Libyan leader’s name. No doubt this happens in many languages when translating from, say, Arabic, Hindi, Mandarin or Farsi.

AD, for instance, leads with “Khadaffi fights on”; Trouw says “Kadafi opts for civil war”; de Volkskrant has “Kadhafi calls for brute force”; De Telegraaf’s front page headline is “Gadaffi grinds on”, while free paper Metro says: “Dictator Kaddafi won’t budge”. These spelling differences aren’t mistakes, by the way. For a real ‘media mistake’ I refer you to the end of this press review!

Pirates in Rotterdam
Today’s nrc.next reports on a complicated but interesting issue: who should prosecute pirates. We’re not talking Johnny Depp movies, either. No, the trial of five Somalis charged with piracy in the Indian Ocean starts in Rotterdam this very day. The key aspect? The Netherlands has no direct interest in the case.

The paper tells us five other men from Somalia were tried and convicted of attempted piracy last year, but the ship they attempted to hijack was sailing under the flag of the Netherlands Antilles, formerly part of the ’greater’ Kingdom of the Netherlands, so in that case there was a connection.

In this new case, the tenuous link is that these pirates – who boarded and hijacked a South African sailing yacht – were detained by the Dutch navy. South Africa didn’t want to prosecute the five, so the Dutch authorities decided to put them on trial here.

Today’s nrc.next provides three reasons why the country is right to do this. Firstly: countries have ‘universal jurisdiction’ when it comes to taking action against pirates, so the Netherlands has every right to launch this trial.

Secondly, it focuses attention on the need for an international solution. The paper says other pirates ‘caught in the act’ are avoiding trial because other countries aren’t bothering to prosecute them. The Netherlands is bringing them to trial, but is also suggesting the creation of an international piracy tribunal in east Africa, close to Somalia. Thirdly, trials like this are meant to have a deterrent effect.

But then nrc.next tells us why this kind of practice is not such a good idea: “If South Africa doesn’t want to prosecute the Somalis, why should the Netherlands have to?” After all, such trials are complicated, take up court time and cost a lot of money.

The paper also challenges the alleged deterrent effect, saying it doesn’t work. It suggests it would be better to spend the money on tackling the root of the problem in strife-torn and lawless Somalia which, as things stand, provides “an inexhaustible supply of pirates”.

Grammy man from Spijkenisse
On a lighter note, free commuter daily Metro reports on the big welcome for Dutch DJ Afrojack (age 23 and real name Nick van de Walls) when he came home to Spijkenisse (near Rotterdam) after picking up a Grammy music award in the United States last weekend.

The prestigious prize came for his remix of Madonna’s hit Revolver. He worked on the recording together with French DJ and producer David Guetta - a name more than familiar to followers of RNW’s own Euro Hit 40 show (excuse the little promo!). Indeed, he shares the Grammy with Monsieur Guetta, for whom young Afrojack is full of praise: “He’s become family to me. He’s really a super-relaxed guy. Just someone who loves to make music… just like me!”

We all make mistakes
If you follow the media – of any kind – you can’t help but notice those occasional mistakes. It may just be a typo, but sometimes they are totally factual mistakes too. A story that caught my eye in today’s AD concerns 81-year-old Coby Hovius, a Dutch lady with a passion for Britain and for British royalty. Old but sprightly, Coby’s fully set on heading off to London for the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton this April.

AD tells us that Coby’s love of British royalty goes back some way, because she also went to the coronation of Elizabeth II on 6 February 1952. Huh?

The paper doesn’t quote Coby on this, so I must assume it’s the report’s author who’s got the facts totally wrong: February 1952 was the month in which King George VI died and his daughter succeeded him, her coronation took place about 18 months later, in June 1953. Just another reminder that you shouldn’t believe everything you read in the papers (or on websites!).