Dutch central bank moves gold bars out of U.S. and Canada, citing ‘crisis preparedness’

The Dutch central bank (DNB) has transferred approximately 86 metric tons of gold out of the U.S. and Canada to the U.K., seeking to shore up its contingency planning in view of “increasing geopolitical unrest.”

Just over one-quarter of the central bank’s gold reserves held in New York and Ottawa had been shifted to London between March and August, DNB said Wednesday.

The transferred gold is now stored with the Bank of England because gold stored there must meet international trade standards and is recognized as “the world’s most easily tradable gold,” DNB said, adding that the move strengthens its “crisis preparedness.”

By contrast, DNB said the gold bars held in the U.S. and Canada could not be utilized as quickly and directly in a crisis situation.

“With this relocation, we have improved the tradability of our gold reserves. We expect that we will never need to use them, but we do need to strengthen our resilience and preparedness,” DNB Governor Olaf Sleijpen said in a statement.

The move comes amid a blockbuster rally in gold prices and continued U.S.-Iran geopolitical tensions over the strategically vital Strait of Hormuz, with a comprehensive settlement agreement far from certain.

Read the rest here.

Legalized Child Murder in the Netherlands & Anglican Liturgy for Euthanasia

Netherlands does the unthinkable: euthanize a young child

Anglican Church of Canada to offer special liturgy for euthanasia deaths

This is demonic. 

HT: Dr. Tighe

Terminally ill children in the Netherlands can now be euthanized against their will

On February 1, a Dutch law allowing the euthanasia of terminally ill children went into effect. The law legalizes the killing of children ages one through 12 who are deemed to be “suffering hopelessly and unbearably.”

Previously, the country allowed euthanasia of children older than 12, along with infants under age one who could be killed if their parents and doctors agreed and they faced an illness labeled as terminal or faced serious suffering. In 2023, lawmakers passed a controversial expansion of the eligibility guidelines to include children of all ages.

According to reports, the new guidelines state that “the child’s opinion should be sought as far as possible in a way appropriate to the child’s understanding and age,” though parents can decide to have their child euthanized in conjunction with a doctor even if the child is unwilling or unable to consent.

Read the rest here.

HT: Dr. Tighe

Dutch bishops update wording of the Lord's prayer

November 30, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) – Dutch Catholics are raising alarm bells after the bishops of the Netherlands and Belgium changed the words to the Our Father in a way that they believe amounts to an "ideological reinterpretation of the text."

Dutch Catholics who still attend weekly Mass heard a newly-worded Our Father last Sunday that no longer asked God the Father, as Jesus taught, “to lead us not into temptation” but, instead, “not into trial.”

Vox Populi, an orthodox Catholic lay group, is organizing a petition advocating the traditional translation. “Why would this ‘reform’ be necessary now? There is not a single pastoral need to come up with a ‘new common Dutch-Flemish translation’ of the ‘Our Father.’”

Recent Dutch Catholic history is so marked by destructive innovation that in 1996 one faithful scholar declared the situation had long passed the “crisis” phase and achieved “ruin.”

The former translation of the Latin “temptationem” was “bekoring,” or “temptation.” The new version replaces that with “beproeving,” which means in English, “test,” “ordeal,” or “tribulation.”

Read the rest here.

And the hits just keep on coming...

Americans gave their lives to defeat the Nazis. The Dutch have never forgotten.

MARGRATEN, Netherlands — They haven’t forgotten. For 70 years, the Dutch have come to a verdant U.S. cemetery outside this small village to care for the graves of Americans killed in World War II.

On Sunday, they came again, bearing Memorial Day bouquets for men and women they never knew, but whose 8,300 headstones the people of the Netherlands have adopted as their own. 

For the American relatives of the fallen, it was an outpouring of gratitude almost as stunning as the rows of white marble crosses and Jewish Stars of David at the Netherlands American Cemetery. Each grave has been adopted by a Dutch or, in some cases, Belgian or German family, as well as local schools, companies and military organizations. More than 100 people are on a waiting list to become caretakers. 

Read the rest here.

Going Dutch: How to run a functional pension system

Imagine a place where pensions were not an ever-deepening quagmire, where the numbers told the whole story and where workers could count on a decent retirement.

Imagine a place where regulators existed to make sure everyone followed the rules.

That place might just be the Netherlands. And it could provide an example for America’s troubled cities, or for states like Illinois and New Jersey that have promised more in pension benefits than they can deliver.

“The rest of the world sort of laughs at the United States — how can a great country like the United States get so many things wrong?” said Keith Ambachtsheer, a Dutch pension specialist who works at the University of Toronto — specifically at its Rotman International Center for Pension Management, a global clearinghouse of information on how successful retirement systems work.

Read the rest here.

God Save The King

AMSTERDAM — To the cheers of tens of thousands of people crammed shoulder to shoulder outside the royal palace, Willem-Alexander of the House of Orange-Nassau became the Netherlands’ first king in 123 years on Tuesday as his mother, Queen Beatrix, ended a 33-year reign with the stroke of a pen, signing the act of abdication in a chandeliered chamber at the royal palace. 

Read the rest here.

In Holland Evidence of Europe's Resurgent Right

AMSTERDAM — Europe’s most controversial politician lives in a government safe house fitted with a panic room and guarded round the clock. A self-avowed foe of Islam who compared the Koran to Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf and called for a ban on Muslim immigrants, he travels by bulletproof car and rarely talks with journalists — choosing instead to funnel messages directly to supporters via Twitter and a personal blog.

But when Geert Wilders — dubbed “Mozart” for his bleached-blond bouffant hair – brought down the Dutch government last week in an extraordinary show of force by Europe’s resurgent far right, it wasn’t over his high-profile war on Islam. Instead, it was part of his emphasis on another belief he and his Freedom Party now see as almost equally dangerous: an integrated Europe.

Read the rest here.

Dutch court upholds ban on foreign tourists buying pot

AMSTERDAM — A Dutch court on Friday upheld a new law that will prevent foreign visitors from buying marijuana in coffee shops across the Netherlands, potentially ending the decades of “pot tourism” for which this city and others became universally known.

A group of coffee shops had challenged the government plan, launched after southern cities in the Netherlands complained of increased levels of drug-related crime. The decision means that coffee shops in the south must stop selling cannabis to foreign tourists by May 1, while Dutch and foreign residents will be eligible for a “weed pass” that allows them to purchase it legally. The plan is to be rolled out to other Dutch cities, including the popular tourist center of Amsterdam, by next year.

Read the rest here.

That's OK. California will happily take the tourism.

Peter van Uhm: Why I chose a gun

A brief but powerful speech. Click here to watch it in full. (I tried to embed it but it does not fit on the blog and tinkering with the code failed to fix it.)

On this date in 1840...

William II of Orange-Nassau became King of the Netherlands.

Netherlands: All Doctors Must be Complicit in Euthanasia Killing

I have been fighting the international campaign to legalize and normalize doctor-prescribed/administered death since 1993, and this much I know: Once euthanasia is let in the door, ultimately, enough is never, ever enough.

Par exemple: Euthanasia activists often assure that no doctor will be forced to participate in medicalized killing. But I have been warning that this right of conscience is really an expedient, intended to give false assurance while the euthanasia consciousness gestates and matures.

And now the very pro euthanasia Dutch Medical Association (KNMG) has stated that all doctors have a professional duty to be complicit in euthanasia–either by killing legally qualified patients directly who ask, or if they don’t want to do the deed personally, by referring suicidal patients to a death doctor who they know will kill.

Read the rest here.

Iceland Declares Independence from International Banks

Iceland is free. And it will remain so, so long as her people wish to remain autonomous of the foreign domination of her would-be masters — in this case, international bankers.

On April 9, the fiercely independent people of island-nation defeated a referendum that would have bailed out the UK and the Netherlands who had covered the deposits of British and Dutch investors who had lost funds in Icesave bank in 2008.

At the time of the bank’s failure, Iceland refused to cover the losses. But the UK and Netherlands nonetheless have demanded that Iceland repay them for the “loan” as a condition for admission into the European Union.

In response, the Icelandic people have told Europe to go pound sand. The final vote was 103,207 to 69,462, or 58.9 percent to 39.7 percent. “Taxpayers should not be responsible for paying the debts of a private institution,” said Sigriur Andersen, a spokeswoman for the Advice group that opposed the bailout.

A similar referendum in 2009 on the issue, although with harsher terms, found 93.2 percent of the Icelandic electorate rejecting a proposal to guarantee the deposits of foreign investors who had funds in the Icelandic bank. The referendum was invoked when President Olafur Ragnur Grimmson vetoed legislation the Althingi, Iceland’s parliament, had passed to pay back the British and Dutch.

Under the terms of the agreement, Iceland would have had to pay £2.35 billion to the UK, and €1.32 billion to the Netherlands by 2046 at a 3 percent interest rate. Its rejection for the second time by Iceland is a testament to its people, who feel they should bear no responsibility for the losses of foreigners endured in the financial crisis.

Read the rest here.

Libya seizes NATO troops

Three Dutch marines were being held by authorities in Libya after they were captured by forces loyal to Moammar Gadhafi while trying to rescue stranded workers, officials said Thursday.

The trio were surrounded by armed men and captured Sunday after landing near Sirte in a Lynx helicopter that was on board the navy ship HMS Tromp, which is anchored off the Libyan coast to help evacuations from the conflict-torn country, Dutch Defense Ministry spokesman Otte Beeksma told The Associated Press.

News of the marines' detention by Gadhafi came a day after the Libyan Human Rights League estimated the death toll in the conflict stood at 6,000, the Egyptian newspaper Al-Masry Al-Youm reported.

On Wednesday, anti-government rebels fought off forces loyal to Gadhafi — who were supported by airstrikes — in a fierce battle for Brega, a strategic oil facility 460 miles east of Gadhafi's stronghold in Tripoli.

On Thursday, witnesses told Reuters that a warplane had again bombed Brega while about 50 miles to the east rebels shored up the defenses of the town of Ajdabiya with rocket launchers, anti-tank aircraft guns and tanks.

Read the rest here.

In Dutch elections, division and a shift to the right

THE HAGUE — After the first election in a euro-zone country since the European economic crisis, Dutch voters found themselves divided politically on Thursday and surprised by the surge in popularity of an anti-immigrant party.

With no party winning a majority in the 150-seat Parliament, the result of Wednesday’s voting is likely to mean a long and difficult negotiation over a new governing coalition that could contain three or more parties.

The pro-business Dutch Liberal Party had 31 seats and the center-left Labor Party 30, with 98 percent of the votes counted. But the far-right Freedom Party led by Geert Wilders demanded a share of government after it came in third with 24 seats, more than doubling its representation in the 150-member Parliament.

“We want to be part of the new government,” declared Mr. Wilders, whose party wants to end immigration from Muslim countries and ban new mosques.

“The impossible has happened,” he told a party gathering. “The Netherlands chose more security, less crime, less immigration and less Islam.”

The front-page headline Thursday in the NRC Next newspaper declared “A divided Netherlands.”

“Never has the voters’ message been so mixed,” NRC Next said in an editorial. “A stable governing coalition with three parties does not seem possible.”

Read the rest here.

Attempted Regicide

H.M. Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands

Five persons have been killed and at least a dozen seriously hurt in what appears to have been an assassination attempt on H.M. Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands and other members of the Dutch Royal Family. The attack occurred during a parade honoring H.M. on the occasion of Queen Day, a national holiday in the Netherlands. The assassin attacked by driving his car through police barricades and aiming at an open air bus carrying the Queen and members of the Royal Family. In the course of his attack the driver plowed into numerous bystanders and eventually crashed his car.

Please pray for all those affected by this crime.