Amsterdam  - A memorial sculpture was unveiled on Tuesday in the southern-Netherlands city of Riel to honour the "humanity" of a soldier from the German army during World War II.

The initiator of the memorial in Riel in the southern Netherlands, Herman van Rouwendaal, 76, said the sculpture "honours the humanity displayed by a soldier of the German army, or Wehrmacht, during WW II".

Karl Heintz Rosch was an 18-year-old soldier when he saved the lives of two young Dutch children on October 6, 1944.

Amsterdam, Nov 4 : Researchers working at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute KNMI has improved the entire process of measuring, analyzing and interpreting infrasound, which would help them detect events that have ‘inaudible’ sounds like illegal nuclear tests.

Sources of infrasound are often large and powerful, like meteors, explosions, ocean waves, storms, volcanoes, avalanches, earthquakes and nuclear tests.

Infrasound is measured with arrays (series) of highly sensitive microbarometers.

TU Delft PhD student Laslo Evers, who works at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute KNMI, has now improved the entire process of measuring, analysing and interpreting infrasound.

Amsterdam - Guarantees for Dutch savings accounts should be lowered, the Dutch banks said in a letter to Dutch Finance Minister Wouter Bos Monday.

Holders of savings accounts at Dutch banks are guaranteed for up to 100,000 euros (128,500 dollars) per person if a bank collapses.

In October, the sum guaranteed under Dutch law was increased for one year from 38,000 euros per account holder.

The Dutch central bank increased the guarantee to boost consumer confidence in the banking system, which reached a low in early October, when the government nationalized the Dutch division of former Belgian-Dutch Fortis bank and the Dutch subsidiary of Iceland's Landsbanki, Icesave, collapsed.

Amsterdam - Patrons visiting one of the Netherlands' red- light districts may soon find themselves on camera.

One by one, authorities in cities across the country are stepping up their efforts to regulate, scrutinize and generally clean up the country's sex business.

This week the mayors of the cities of Alkmaar and Utrecht followed moves by Amsterdam in 2007 to toughen regulation and reduce the ability of the sex trade to act as cover for and cause of other illegal activities.

Authorities have cited drug-dealing, money-laundering and the trafficking of women as crimes that are to be targeted.

Closed-circuit television (CCTV) surveillance of sex districts is just one method that has been proposed.

Amsterdam - A "substantial" earthquake was felt in the north-eastern Dutch province of Groningen, the Dutch weather research centre KNMI said Thursday.

The spokesman for the KNMI, located in De Bilt in the central Netherlands, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa it was a "relatively substantial" earthquake "approaching 3.5 on the Richter scale."

The KNMI could not yet confirm the exact size of the quake.

Amsterdam - The share value of Dutch insurer Aegon dropped sharply on Tuesday to 2.92 euros (3.63 dollars), down 13.73 per cent, just before closing time.