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Over 25% of supermarket products labeled as wholegrain are not actually made from the complete grain of a cereal plant, according to spot checks made by the Dutch food safety board. Producers have now been warned they are breaking the law by misleading consumers and face a fine if they fail to change the labeling or adapt their products, the government agency said on Tuesday. In total, the NVWA looked at 190 wholegrain products on sale at the seven big...

A man who threw a Molotov cocktail at the Israeli embassy in The Hague in March has been jailed for 2.5 years, broadcaster NOS reported on Tuesday. The 25-year-old was arrested several minutes after the attack thanks to security camera footage. He later admitted throwing an olive oil bottle filled with petrol and a lit piece of cloth at the building. The attack caused a fire on part of the frontage of the building and surrounding shrubbery but caused minimal...

A Dutch watchmaker from Grootschermer has taken up the challenge of repairing a Rolex watch lost by a British farmer 50 years ago and thought to have been eaten by a cow. The watch was found last month by someone using a metal detector on land still owned and farmed by James Steele who is now 95. Steel lost the watch in the early 1970s when he “suddenly realised” its bracelet had broken and told reporters that “a cow could...

The quality of breast cancer checks in the Netherlands threatens to deteriorate because of the high pressure of work, health ministry inspectors warned on Tuesday. While the system currently works well, the organisation – Bevolkingsonderzoek Nederland – has been given three months to come up with an improvement plan. The agency sends out more than a million invitations for breast cancer screening a year. The shortage of staff is leading to high absenteeism, less personalised attention and lower safety standards,...

Slimming drug Wegovy should not be included in the basic insurance package because its long-term health benefits are unclear and it will also boost costs, the Dutch healthcare institute has said in recommendations to health minister Fleur Agema. Pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk filed a request for Wegovy to be admitted to the basic insurance package last year. Wegovy, which contains the appetite suppressant semaglutide, is effective, the organisation said, but it is unclear which patients will benefit most from its...

Some 45,000 walkers started this year’s Nijmeegse Vierdaagse on Tuesday, the four-day march which is now in its 106th edition. The first walkers left Nijmegen at 4 am as the sun rose. Walkers will cover either 30, 40 or 50 kilometres a day, depending on their age and experience. In total, people with 86 different nationalities are taking part and five of the marchers are over the age of 91. Key facts about the four day marches The Red Cross...

The Netherlands will decide on a meeting-by-meeting basis whether to attend EU events in Hungary rather than a formal boycott, prime minister Dick Schoof has told the Telegraaf. On Monday the European Commission said senior civil servants rather than top officials will attend informal meetings hosted by Hungary while the country holds the EU’s rotating presidency. This follows visits by Hungary’s pro-Russian prime minister Viktor Orbán to foreign leaders in Russia, Azerbaijan, China, and the United States in what he...

A family from Uzbekistan, which includes two children born in the Netherlands and two who grew up here, have been given temporary leave to stay while their last-ditch appeal is considered. The Babayants family had been due to be deported on Monday but a court in Arnhem said that they can remain in the Netherlands while waiting for a final ruling. The family came here some 10 years ago. Children’s rights campaign group Defence for Children argues that the rights...

There is an eerie resemblance to his native Sierra Leone in the Netherlands these days,  but it’s not too late to do something about it, says author, columnist and broadcaster Babah Tarawally. “The Netherlands is on the operating table”, was the opening line of my recent lecture in The Hague to an audience of students from abroad. It took me back to an incident at a hospital some 20 years ago. A gland in my neck had been playing up...

“He was truly one of a kind.” With these words, the daughter of murdered journalist Peter R de Vries announced the unveiling of an extraordinary statue in the heart of Amsterdam. Three years to the day after the celebrated journalist died – murdered probably in connection with his role in the Netherlands’ largest gangland trial – a monument to his work and life now stands. Metres away from the Lange Leidsedwarsstraat, where de Vries was shot in the back of...