DutchNews Podcast

It's been a week of courtroom drama in the Netherlands as Geert Wilders calls for his race-baiting trial to be thrown out for political interference, a doctor is cleared of murder in a landmark euthanasia case, a woman seeks redress for having her baby taken away from the state in the 1960s and a key MH17 witness becomes a pawn in a prisoner exchange. We also look back at Oranje's historic 4-2 win...

The podcast team look back over a summer of blistering heat and bristling with ophef: who poisoned the plants in Thierry Baudet's office? Why does Haarlem have a problem with globetrotters? And was the king wise to come out as a redbeard? We also look at how Amsterdam became a paradise for cocaine dealers, why the Labour party has done a U-turn on student funding and Ronald Koeman's return to Hamb...

There's plenty to shout about in our last podcast before the summer break as five cities bid to host next year's Eurovision, a children's playground is forced to close because of complaints about noise, a proposed Holocaust memorial sparks local protests and the Dutch women's football team are cheered all the way to the final. In our discussion we take the pulse of the coalition at the halfway poi...

It's been a week of big-name casualties as the law finally caught up with celebrity gangster Willem Holleeder and Frans Timmermans saw a top European job slip through his fingers. While Queen Maxima came under fire for her silence in a meeting with Saudi Arabia's crown prince, one cyclist in Groningen probably wishes she'd kept quiet when police stopped and fined her for using her phone. And it's...

Cheese, canals and cycling - the podcast team tries to identify the DNA of Dutch identity in a week when the Dutch sense of order was turned on its head. The 112 emergency services hotline broke down, the women's football team won a match with a late penalty and a midsummer Elfstedentocht was staged in 30-degree heat. We also look at moves to atone for two dark episodes in the nation's history, th...

For every action there must be an equal and opposite reaction, as a university in Eindhoven demonstrated this week with its plans for women-only job applications. We discuss the proposals and the ensuing social media firestorm in this week's podcast, as well as bringing you up to speed with the criminal inquiry into the downing of flight MH17, the Dutch women's World Cup campaign and the first nat...

We're living on the edge in this week's podcast, and not just because the pinautomaten in Albert Heijn have broken down. The king weighs into the Irish border issue that has been stirred up again by Brexit, Jeroen Dijsselbloem drops a bombshell into the pension talks, universities are accused of setting the bar too low and YouTube causes ophef by taking down the wrong type of Nazis. In sport the w...

This week we look at how a rogue news agency flapping its wings stirred up an international media storm about a Dutch teenage girl's death. We also bring you news of some real storms that exposed one of the country's largest cocaine labs, Ivanka Trump flying into The Hague to near-universal disappointment, two healthy developments in football and an apology from Mark Rutte to the people of Groning...

We ask the hard-hitting questions on this week's podcast. What happened in the Eerste Kamer elections? Why are the Hell's Angels so upset this week? How will Sinterklaas arrive next year? Does Brabant really smell like anise? And, in the discussion, is anyone at the EU riding a dragon?

In this week's podcast we try to unravel the logic behind a European election debate that featured two men who weren't in the running but not the leader of the winning party, the blunder that led to hundreds of children being sent to the wrong secondary school, and the end-of-season football relegation play-offs. Duncan Laurence's Eurovision victory inspires an archetypal Dutch discussion about sp...

Plenty of sea changes in this week's podcast as Mark Rutte takes the fight to Thierry Baudet, Sybrand Buma becomes the second coalition party leader to abandon ship in mid-term and Amsterdam's mayor decides not to impose a booze ban on the city's canals. The Hague opts out of the cabinet's plan for legalised cannabis cultivation, there's a poignant edge to Ajax's title celebrations and the food sa...

The podcast returns from a two-week break to commiserate with Ajax fans over their shock exit from the Champions League, catch up with Forum voor Democratie's fruitless search for a senate leader and find out why the tourist board has started telling visitors to get out of Amsterdam. We also bring you the latest on the arrest of a suspected serial killer and why organic labelling is less wholesome...

This week on the podcast we try to piece together the debris after an explosive week for Forum voor Democratie, find out why so many MPs claim to live in Limburg and catch up with the campaign to ban a homophobic American Holocaust denier from Amsterdam. There's also news of the neck-and-neck Eredivisie title race and some mysterious vandalism on Texel. In our discussion we give you the lowdown on...

As the country gears up for the Easter weekend, the podcast team checks on the progress of the fledgling provincial governments and asks if fears that the housing market is overheating are well grounded. We also look at Ajax's rejuvenation in Europe, what sank Amsterdam's last floating flower business and how one of the country's most decorated soldiers poured home-made fertiliser all over his rep...

Cheese and chips are on the menu in this week's podcast as the Chinese are accused of stealing the Netherlands' digital secrets, Donald Trump threatens to raise the tariffs on Gouda and Edam and the country is warned of a growing obesity crisis. We also ask why Enschede council bailed out its football club, why the Dutch are taking over Britain's railways and whether your tax demands will be arriv...

This week's podcast has good news for Brits wanting to vote in the European elections, bad news for parents with unvaccinated children in The Hague and fake news about Amsterdam's coffeeshops that generated some home-grown ophef. We also look at why the justice department faced a grilling over a gruesome murder, how Ajax finally got back on top for 24 hours and how much you might have to fork out...

Foreign interference looms large in this week's podcast as tulip growers tell tourists to stop trampling through their fields, the Dutch and Australian governments begin a series of highly awkward talks with Russia on the investigation into flight MH17, a Picasso is recovered from the clutches of the international underworld and Oranje's bright young upstarts are taught a familiar lesson by the Ge...

Thierry Baudet's success in the provincial elections stirred up plenty of ophef (as well as sparking a speech strung together from off-cuts of Oswald Spengler and rejected Nick Kershaw lyrics), but has it really changed the political landscape? We dissect the results and discuss the implications for Mark Rutte's cabinet on this week's podcast. Plus the latest on the Utrecht shooting, which is now...

In a week when the government agreed to bring in a "polluter pays" tax on CO2 emissions, the atmosphere turned poisonous at an Amsterdam school where staff are accused of having terrorist sympathies and in the fishing community of Urk, where a mob descended on the home of a migrant family. Mark Rutte nears the end of his tether over Brexit, though if if he's hopping mad or stockpiling Marmite he'l...

Plenty of ground to cover in this week's podcast, from Ajax's swashbuckling conquest of Madrid to Wopke Hoekstra's peacemaking mission to Paris and a setback for Albert Heijn in Belgium. Dutch ministers call for short-haul flights to Brussels to be scrapped, IS fighter Yago Riedijk is told he'll have to find his own way back to Arnhem and Willem Holleeder's long career as the Netherlands' most not...

A week of impulse buys and dodgy transactions is capped by the Dutch government increasing its stake in Air France-KLM, sparking ophef in Paris and causing the airline's share price to take a nosedive. We do our best to untangle the can of worms that was opened by Wopke Hoekstra's surprise move. Elsewhere, 90,000 bottles of vodka marked for Kim Jong-Un are seized in Rotterdam, new migrants are war...

The sound of doors slamming shut runs through this week's podcast as the Netherlands says it will turn away returning IS fighters, Venezuela closes its border with Curacao and a Dutch journalist has a full-on crockery-smashing row with a Fox News host. We also find out how the cabinet got its fingers burned over energy bills and discuss whether compelling children from immigrant families to attend...

A blockbuster edition of the podcast this week as the Dutch government sends in Stef Blok to wrestle with a muppet named Brexit and try to beat Venezuela's aid blockade by going through Curacao. We also hear how Ajax took pride from a home defeat, Amsterdam's mayor raised the stop sign to red light tourism and a Dutch entrepreneur's flour bomb blew up in his face. In our discussion we review the c...

There's an end of days feel to the podcast as we review a week in which schoolchildren took a collective day off to demand urgent action on global warming, just days after MPs agreed to talk about it for a bit longer. We also look at why a no-deal Brexit could trigger medicine shortages in the Netherlands, a setback for British expats and Dutch shoemakers and perhaps the most alarming news of all...

It's a high-stakes edition of the podcast as political parties are banned from receiving foreign donations, the government sees an €8 million Rubens painting go west and cyclists face €95 fines for using mobile phones. In sport, physiotherapists' goldmine Robin van Persie leaves Ajax's €75 million man chasing shadows in the Klassieker, while FC Utrecht call time on Dick Advocaat's lucrative career...