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      Opening of Europe’s longest hyperloop track rekindles hype over futuristic trains

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · 2 days ago - 13:57


    Operators hope Dutch test track will help prove feasibility of high-speed tube transport system

    The longest hyperloop test track in Europe has opened, raising faint hopes once more that the maglev meets vacuum tube transport technology could be the future.

    Operators said the facility would help prove the hyperloop’s feasibility, saying it could allow a 10,000km (6,200-mile) network of high-speed tubes to be in place around the continent by 2050.

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      Geert Wilders won’t be Dutch PM, but he can still harm Europe. Here’s how to stop him | Ties Dams

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · 4 days ago - 07:00

    The far-right leader will cheerlead for Putin and relaunch his culture war with the EU. But his incendiary narrative about it is also his weakness

    Despite winning the Dutch elections last year, the far-right leader Geert Wilders has reluctantly given up on the prospect of becoming prime minister after his prospective coalition partners blocked his path. This may seem like a victory against the far right, but think again: as leader of the biggest party in the upcoming coalition, Wilders will be conducting from the wings. And free of day to day prime-ministerial responsibilities, he is likely to ramp up his decades-long culture war against the European Union.

    Forming a coalition government in the Netherlands has always been a rocky road, but this time it has taken an unexpected turn. Since Wilders’ PVV won a shocking quarter of the popular vote in November he had looked set to become prime minister. The populist Farmer-Citizen Movement and centre-right New Social Contract – as well as the downsized ruling liberal-conservative VVD – could have gone into a government with Wilders as its head.

    Ties Dams is an essayist and political theorist at the Clingendael Institute and Leiden University’s Europa Institute

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      Lewis Ferguson challenges wounded Scotland to play with ‘fire in our bellies’

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · 6 days ago - 22:30

    • Midfielder wants response against Northern Ireland
    • ‘You want to go out there and put things right’

    Lewis Ferguson is clear Scotland will be fuelled by anger against Northern Ireland on Tuesday after being embarrassed by the Netherlands in Amsterdam.

    The 4-0 defeat at the Johan Cruyff Arena came after Scotland dominated until conceding against the run of play five minutes from the break. The visitors lost their shape and rhythm allowing the Dutch to exploit their laxity and score three goals in the last 18 minutes via Georginio Wijnaldum, Wout Weghorst and Donyell Malen.

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      Wijnaldum and Weghorst on target as Netherlands thrash wasteful Scotland

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · 7 days ago - 21:53

    At the Johan Cruyff Arena Steve Clarke would not demand pretty ­football, only a Scotland victory after five games without enjoying one. Instead, the run is now six as the manager oversaw an embarrassing fourth loss of this run and must now target Tuesday’s visit of Northern Ireland to Hampden Park to stop the slump.

    His side were profligate and Netherlands clinical, Georginio Wijnaldum’s 72nd-minute header joining Tijjani Reijnders’s first-half opener and emulated by finishes from Wout Weghorst and Donyell Malen, as Scotland’s European Championship preparations suffered a body blow.

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      Netherlands v Scotland: international football friendly – live

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · 7 days ago - 19:02

    The teams have been named, and tonight’s starting XIs look like this:

    Netherlands: Flekken, Frimpong, Geertruida, van Dijk, Ake, Wieffer, Wijnaldum, Reijnders, Simons, Depay, Gakpo. Subs: Verbruggen, de Ligt, Schouten, Weghorst, Timber, de Roon, Veerman, Blind, Malen, Koopmeiners, Dumfries, Bizot.
    Scotland: Gunn, Tierney, Hendry, Porteous, Robertson, McTominay, Gilmour, Patterson, Christie, McGinn, Shankland. Subs: Kelly, Clark, Gordon, Ralston, Cooper, Dykes, Adams, Souttar, Armstrong, Ferguson, Taylor, McLean.
    Referee: Erik Lambrechts (Belgium).

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      Dutch project tells wartime stories of intrepid ‘England voyagers’

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Thursday, 21 March - 05:00

    Hundreds of Engelandvaarders took various routes from occupied Netherlands to Britain to fight in second world war

    They travelled over land and water, braving the North Sea, trekking across the Pyrenees or fleeing north through Sweden to reach Britain and join the fight against the Nazis.

    Now a project at the Dutch national archives, opening on Thursday, is for the first time publishing the stories of 2,150 “England voyagers”. These brave Dutch men and women escaped the occupied Netherlands during the second world war and found their way to London to volunteer.

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      Dutch airline KLM misled customers with vague green claims, court rules

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Wednesday, 20 March - 14:08

    Operator also found by Amsterdam court to have painted ‘overly rosy picture’ of sustainable aviation fuel

    The Dutch airline KLM has misled customers with vague environmental claims and painted “an overly rosy picture” of its sustainable aviation fuel, a court has found.

    In a greenwashing case brought by the campaign group Fossielvrij, the district court of Amsterdam ruled on Wednesday that KLM had broken the law with misleading advertising in 15 of the 19 environmental statements it assessed. They include claims that the airline is moving towards a “more sustainable” future and statements on its website about the benefits of offsetting a flight.

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      Pip Simmons obituary

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Sunday, 17 March - 12:23

    Experimental British theatre director whose confrontational style often featured loud rock music, nudity, blasphemy and free dance

    There was a short period in the British theatre – 1968 to 1973 – when everything changed as the American counterculture took root in the performing arts, music and journalism in Europe. The Pip Simmons Theatre company, along with the Portable Theatre of David Hare and Tony Bicât, Nancy Meckler’s Freehold company and the People Show of Jeff Nuttall and Mark Long, were the main theatrical movers.

    These startup companies were the enterprises – guerrilla groups, you might say – that toured in vans and small lorries to the burgeoning new arts labs and centres around the country, in the wake of influential US companies such as the Living Theatre and the Open Theatre that had been touched by the post-Stanislavsky “poor theatre” theories of the great Polish guru Jerzy Grotowski .

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      Europe’s champion sitters: Even the sporty Dutch are falling victim to ‘chair-use disorder’

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Sunday, 17 March - 05:00

    Long hours spent at desks and sofas leads to 21,000 deaths a year in the Netherlands from cardiovascular disease, diabetes and cancer

    The Dutch are perceived as a nation of healthy giants, leaping on their bikes to cycle energetically across flat lands. But new research suggests they are in fact the “sitting champions of Europe”, with a sedentary lifestyle that causes thousands of early deaths.

    Health experts are calling for urgent action to stop so-called “chair-use disorder” spreading across western countries. A report by the research organisation TNO, published on Friday, found too much sitting costs the Netherlands €1.2bn (£1bn) annually and leads to 21,000 premature deaths a year from cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and cancer. It is riskier, researchers found, to be a lawyer than a lorry driver.

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