After four months of political uncertainty, the Netherlands has a new coalition government. Plans to build wind farms in the North Sea don't sit well with a group of fishermen. The EU decides that all Gouda cheese must be made in the Netherlands. And American soul singer Solomon Burke dies in Amsterdam.
New government
Last June's parliamentary election yielded a highly divided result. The free-market liberal VVD party won the most votes becoming the largest party, but the big winner was the Dutch Freedom Party or PVV, led by anti-Islam MP Geert Wilders. It took more than four months, but VVD leader Mark Rutte has finally pulled together a governing coalition. However, it was no easy task. Rutte had to resort to an unusual configuration, a minority coalition with the Christian Democrats. Collectively, the two parties do not command a parliamentary majority, so they sought support from the PVV. The PVV is not officially a part of the cabinet, but they did participate in the negotiations between the the VVD and the Christian Democrats. A government agreement was forged between the three parties and this week the new government was unveiled.
Fishermen vs. Wind power
As the Netherlands strives to meet European Union strandards for renewable sources of energy, the Dutch have turned to wind power generators. The Netherlands already has around 2,000 wind power turbines scattered around the country. Most of these turbines have been placed on land, but the government wants to expand the number of off-shore wind power generators. The North Sea will likely house a number of these new wind farms, and the areas around the generators will become off-limits to ships. This is a problem for a vocal group of North Sea fishermen, who say the wind farms will block access to the best fishing spots.
Dutch Gouda Cheese
Dutch are known for windmills, wooden shoes, tulips and, to a lesser extent, cheese. That cheese has come to be called Gouda in other parts of the world. The name comes from a Dutch city in the province of South Holland. But until recently, the name "Gouda" did not mean that the cheese was made in the Netherlands. This has now changed, because the European Commission has granted protected status to Dutch Gouda cheese.
Death of Legend
Soul singer Solomon Burke died in Amsterdam this week at the age of 70. He passed away at Schiphol International Airport, minutes after his flight from Los Angeles landed. He had come to the Netherlands to perform with the Dutch band, De Dijk, with whom he had recently recorded an album. Fans of the soul legend mourned his passing this week at a revamped memorial concert at the Paradiso concert venue in Amsterdam.
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Strange, looks fine on my computer, nothing wrong with the vid quality
the video quality is terrible for the second week in a row. the intro images are way too monotonous for the lengthy intro sound clip. and the editing is generally sloppy.... i'm afraid that "this week in the netherlands" used to be great, but, unfortunately, "in from holland" is very poorly executed. English language news is a nice idea though.
Are you actually looking at the right video??
Nothing wrong with either the video quality or the intro (15 secs, nice graphics) or the editing.
A step up from the slightly amateurish approach and '70's look of "This week in the Netherlands".
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