Amsterdam

Website posts fake apologies on behalf of bankers, politicians

Amsterdam - Bank account holders who feel let down by their account managers can now turn to a Dutch website to get a belated - but also fake - apology from top financial managers and politicians.

Dutch creative web design company Category 1, the initiator of the frivolous website www. shootabanker. com, says that too many bankers who contributed to the global financial crisis have not even bothered to apologize to their customers.

"The public should have heard more of an apology," said Jonne Kuyt of Category 1, based in the central Netherlands city of Utrecht. "People are very disappointed."

Website visitors fill out their name and e-mail address and the name of the person they want an apology from.

Do not accept your bonus, Dutch ING asks management

Do not accept your bonus, Dutch ING asks management Amsterdam - Dutch ING Bank has asked its top 1,200 managers not to accept their bonuses for the year 2008.

Quoted in Dutch daily newspaper Volkskrant on Monday, ING's Jan Hommen, who will formally be appointed as chief executive officer in April, said many managers are prepared not to accept their bonus.

Hommen, who spoke about a "moral appeal" to ING's managers, said the Dutch bank would only pay bonuses during 2009 "after a new reward system has been established."

Israeli, Palestinian human rights groups receive Dutch award

Israeli, Palestinian human rights groups receive Dutch award Amsterdam - An Israeli and a Palestinian human rights organization on Friday received Holland's prestigious Geuzen Medal in the city of Vlaardingen in the south-west Netherlands.

The Geuzen Medal award has been awarded yearly since 1987 by the Geuzen Resistance Foundation, which was established in memory of the Netherland's Guezen resistance group that fought the Nazis during World War II.

The prize is awarded to persons or institutions dedicated to advancing democracy and opposing tyranny, discrimination, and racism.

Man wanted in German mob murders arrested in Amsterdam

Man wanted in German mob murders arrested in Amsterdam Amsterdam - The chief suspect in a Mafia hit one and a half years ago at a German pizzeria has been arrested in the Netherlands, police said Friday.

Giovanni Strangio, 30, was taken into custody late Thursday in Amsterdam, said police in Duisburg, the western German city where the six murders took place in August 2007.

Strangio's brother-in-law, who was also accused in the murders of members of a rival clan in the southern Italian criminal organization 'Ndrangheta, was arrested in November, also in Amsterdam.

Dutch school children mark Anne Frank 80th birthday with diary

Dutch school children mark Anne Frank 80th birthday with diaryAmsterdam  - Pupils of an Amsterdam elementary school on Thursday received the first copy of a so-called transfer diary marking the start of the memorial year of Anne Frank's 80 birthday on June 12.

The diary of the Jewish teenager, published as "The Secret Annex" in 1947, is one of the most famous documents recounting the Nazi persecution of the Jews during World War II.

To commemorate Anne Frank upcoming 80th birthday, the Dutch Anne Frank Foundation launched a national diary writing competition among Dutch elementary schools.

Dutch police puzzled by mutilated porpoises washed ashore

utch police puzzled by mutilated porpoises washed ashore Amsterdam - Dutch police on Thursday said the sudden increase of mutilated porpoises washing onto the Dutch coast remains a mystery.

Between December and early March, more than 113 of the mammals had washed ashore on the northern Dutch coast. Almost half of them were severely mutilated, the cadavres showing multiple knife cuts or being cut in entirely half.

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