The last obstacle to a rightwing coalition is removed as Christian Democrat dissidents back down, Geert Wilders’ trial goes ahead despite “unfortunate” remarks by the judge, and the Netherlands braces for a frog invasion.

No more talking – it’s testosterone time
“The time for talking is over, the time for action has arrived,” populist De Telegraaf announces dramatically. All the papers lead with the news that the two Christian Democrat “dissidents” Ad Koppejan and Kathleen Ferrier have finally agreed to toe the party line, removing the final obstacle to a VVD-CDA coalition resting on the parliamentary support of Geert Wilders’ far-right Freedom Party.

“It is my conviction that we will be giving up a core value of our party if we agree to this government construction.” That was what Kathleen Ferrier said at the CDA conference on Saturday – and just to rub it in, nrc.next blows up this quote to fill its entire front page. Three days later the Christian Democrat MP, daughter of the first president of Suriname after the former Dutch colony became independent, has agreed to “not to block the formation” of the cabinet.

Nrc.next also gleefully reminds us of fellow dissident Ad Koppejan’s Saturday speech: “In a divided country, we mustn’t give Wilders a platform with this construction to preach his message of hatred against Islam.” He now explains that “our objections stand”, AD reports, and the two dissidents will “judge it on its actions”. They say they’ll be keeping a critical eye on the government’s every move, particularly when it comes to immigration and integration policy. “So they should,” comments Geert Wilders, “they’re paid to do that.”

The upshot is that the opposition is “increasingly cynical about the cabinet’s stability,” says Trouw. The coalition will already have to look elsewhere for support on policies that aren’t to Mr Wilders’ taste – anything to do with the European Union for example. But now, with its flimsy one-seat majority, it will have to turn to the right-wing orthodox protestant SGP for support when it comes to Mr Wilders’ beloved tough measures on immigration.

Despite all the controversy, the papers are unanimous. By the middle of next week, the Netherlands will have Mark Rutte as its new prime minister, at the head of what Trouw describes a “rightwing, testosterone cabinet”.

Wilders trial judge’s remark “unfortunate”
“An unfortunate choice of words.” That was the verdict of the court which weighed up Geert Wilders’ objections to comments made by the judge in his incitement to hatred trial, de Volkskrant reports.

On the first day in court, Judge Jan Moors had been peeved at Mr Wilders’ insistence on maintaining his right to silence, on the advice of his lawyer. The presiding judge pointed out that he had often been accused in the media of making statements but dodging public debate, and it looked rather like he was doing the same thing in court. Mr Wilders and his lawyer immediately said the court was biased and called for the judges to be replaced.

However, a separate ‘court of objection’ has given the trial the green light to go ahead with the same judges. Today, the court will probably have the pleasure of watching Mr Wilders’ anti-Islam film Fitna, says De Telegraaf. But from now on “Judge Moors will have to watch his words,” as the paper puts it. And as far as Mr Wilders’ lawyer is concerned, the incident leaves a “stain” on the trial.

“The Wilders case is about the precise use of words,” de Volkskrant comments. “Judges therefore have to be particularly careful with their choice of words, but instead, in political terms, Judge Moors is now damaged. And this when it would have been better never to have brought the case anyway.”

Indignant Indonesian president calls off visit
Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was due to be arriving in the Netherlands today, de Volkskrant and Trouw report. But at the last minute the president called off his visit because a Hague court is hearing a case today brought by the government in exile of the Republic of the South Moluccas, or RMS. This group is trying to have him arrested on human rights abuse charges.

The president had his bags packed and the plane was ready to leave, says de Volkskrant. And according to Trouw, caretaker Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende and Queen Beatrix had been looking forward to the visit for ages. Nevertheless, at the last minute Mr Yudhoyono said he wasn’t going to come if it meant risking arrest.

Mr Balkenende assured him that he would “enjoy immunity on the basis of international agreements” anyway, says Trouw. But the Indonesian president was too miffed that the Netherlands should be holding such a court case during his visit – after all, as de Volkskrant points out, Indonesia sees the RMS as a “terrorist movement”.

Some MPs suspect the decision might also have been influenced by the anti-Islam leader Geert Wilders’ role in the new Dutch coalition, says de Volkskrant. But in Mr Yudhoyono’s words, the cancellation was about “our self-respect as a nation”.

"Dutch" physicist wins Nobel Prize with pencil and sticky tape
“Oh shit, the Nobel prize!” This was physicist André Geim's response to the news that he and a colleague had been picked as this year’s winners of the prize for physics, popular daily AD reports.

Mr Geim was born in Russia, and the prize-winning research was done at the University of Manchester. But as far as all the Dutch papers are concerned, these are just details: it’s another Nobel Prize for the Netherlands. After all, De Telegraaf points out, he’s a naturalised Dutch citizen and holds a chair at both the Radboud University Nijmegen and Delft University of Technology.

The two scientists won the prize for discovering what Trouw describes as “the thinnest and strongest material in the universe”, graphene. How did they do it? According to Trouw they drew a line in pencil, stuck a strip of sticky tape on it, then pulled off the tape and looked at it with a “special light” to see if they could find any graphene.

When he started work in Nijmegen in 1994 Mr Geim quickly proved to be an “exceptionally good physicist with an extreme intuition for crazy ideas,” the paper reports. In fact he has already won an alternative Ig Nobel prize in 2000 – for floating a frog in a magnetic field.

Frogs invade
Perhaps André Geim’s frog-floating invention could be put to good use as a weapon to repel an invasion. AD reports that the Netherlands is at risk of being flooded by a kind of immigrant that up to now has escaped Geert Wilders’ attention: the American bullfrog. Apparently some of these “harmful amphibians” escaped from a garden centre and are now happily breeding in a pond in the southern province of Limburg. And they could prove to be a “small natural disaster”.

The pond’s owner, Fré Jacobs, first noticed the frogs in August when he heard a noise that was “a cross between a mooing cow and the racket of a vuvuzela” – remembering the South African football horns that swept the country during the World Cup. And now the pond is thoroughly infested with the bullfrogs and their tadpoles.

Apparently the frogs are a danger to indigenous fauna because of their voracious appetite – they’ll gobble anything from fish to other amphibians and even ducklings. “Please keep my address secret,” Mr Jacob’s asks the paper. “I don’t want any disaster tourism.”