Indonesian, Venezuelan and Nigerian oil that is destined for Canada and other nonembargoed countries are diverted to Dutch refineries.

Heavy with cargo, low-riding oil tankers bucked through the windblown South Atlantic last week on their way from the Persian Gulf to Philadelphia, Baltimore, Norfolk, New York and other U.S. ports. In a week or so, they will tie up at their destinations—and the U.S. will enter a…

Oil production will be lowered again this month. In The Netherlands, Prime Minister Joop den Uyl pedaled to work on a bike, and a strict ban was imposed on Sunday driving.

Rushing to work last week, John Doe, American, swung his car onto the freeway—only to discover that the posted speed limit had been reduced from 60 m.p.h. to 50 m.p.h. When he stopped at a gas station for a refill, he learned that overnight the price had gone up…

Because of Dutch support of Israel, tanker traffic into Rotterdam, the world’s largest oil port, will be slashed 70% by the end of this month. The ban will be felt in the entire Common Market.

Like a great natural disaster, the oil drought caused by the Arabs’ cutback on production spread ominously through the industrial nations last week. Despite glaring signals of severe shortages ahead, leading consumer countries from Germany to Japan were in disarray. They often worked at cross purposes as each scrambled to…

Five middle-eastern countries extended the oil export embargo to The Netherlands for allegedly offering alternative transit facilities for Soviet Jews emigrating to Israel.

Throughout the cease-fire diplomacy of last week, the Arabs kept tightening their oil blockade of the West. Production cutbacks deepened; export embargoes spread. By week’s end it was clear that after the shooting stops in the Middle East, the U.S., Europe and Japan will still be facing a war of…

Hendrikus Witteveen, 52, was appointed managing director of the IMF. He is also vice president of the Sufi movement, a Muslim sect that is dedicated to mysticism and to meditation.

Economists are often accused of indulging in mysticism; in the case of Hendrikus J. Witteveen (pronounced Wit-uh-vain) it is a simple statement of fact. A brilliant academic who twice was Finance Minister of The Netherlands, Witteveen is also a vice president of the Sufi movement, a Muslim sect that is…

Europeans were treated to the refreshing spectacle of a top Eurocrat, Sicco Mansholt, 4th president of the Common Market Comm., who said precisely what he thought—in plain language.

Europeans last week were treated to the refreshing spectacle of a top Eurocrat who said precisely what he thought—in plain language. He is Sicco Leendert Mansholt, 63, a burly 6-ft. 2-in., 191-lb. Dutch farmer, socialist politician and diplomat who took over last month as the fourth president of the…

The six nations of the European Common Market agreed to move toward a monetary union by Jan. 1, 1981.

“We are like the couple who have an engagement party,” explained The Netherlands’ Foreign Secretary Hans de Koster. “If over the next five years we don’t get married, we return the gifts.” The simile aptly described the momentous agreement last week by the six nations of the European Common…

The arrival of Indonesia’s President Suharto was met with special security measures. It reflects the political tensions among exiled Indonesians in The Netherlands.

The Dutch countryside was in a virtual state of siege. Highways were blocked. The Hague was guarded by helicopters, tanks, bloodhounds and 5,000 state troopers and other police. Could this have been The Netherlands, Europe’s haven of democratic tolerance? “We are taking no chances,” explained a mustachioed constabulary captain. “We…

During the two-day session, a new order for Europe began to take shape. Admission of new members, most notably Britain, agreed. Juliana invited the delegates for dinner at her palace.

As she raised her champagne glass, Queen Juliana of The Netherlands surveyed the guests seated around her palace dinner table: the President of France, the Chancellor of West Germany and the Premiers of Italy, Belgium, Luxembourg and her own country. Said the Queen in a simple toast: “I wish…

Indonesia annexed West Irian last week. Between intimidation and persuasion, the Indonesians managed to win a unanimous vote in favor of annexation.

Indonesia, once a bastion of noisy self-righteous anticolonialism, last week formally took over a remote, primitive piece of real estate that can hardly be considered anything but a colony. By means of a blatantly rigged referendum, the Indonesians annexed West Irian, the western half of the rugged South Pacific island…

Liao Ho-shu, interim chief of Communist China’s mission, persuading Dutch businessmen to invest in China, went to the Dutch police saying he wants to defect to the United States.

It was 4:30 on a cold January morning, no time for a self-respecting resident of The Hague to be on the streets, and the desk sergeant at police headquarters was baffled by the middle-aged Chinese, clad in pajamas and raincoat, who stood before him. From the mixture of broken Dutch…

The Common Market’s agricultural chief, Sicco Mansholt, one of the most controversial men on the Continent, called for an immediate attack on Europe’s agricultural surpluses.

Farmers cross pitchforks with their governments almost everywhere, but the dueling is particularly spirited in Europe’s Common Market. In the six member nations, farmers constitute a politically powerful 16% of the population and have extracted uniformly lavish price supports. This has encouraged overproduction and bulging surpluses of eggs, pork, wheat,…

Hsu Tzu-tsai, chief of Red China’s nine-man delegation to the International Congress for Welding Technique was maltreated, kidnapped and murdered because of trying to defect to the West.

The body first appeared on a sleepy Saturday afternoon in mid-July. A Dutch businessman driving home from work spotted it on the sidewalk outside the house at No. 17 Prince Maurice Lane, a stately residential avenue in The Hague. He stopped. The street was deserted. He ran to the house…

The once bitter enemies, Netherlands and Indonesia have recently begun exchanging public compliments, friendly trade delegations and full resumption of diplomatic relations.

Trade, as well as politics, makes strange bedfellows: Spain and Castro’s Cuba, Britain and Red China, Israel and West Germany. One of the strangest tie-ups these days is between The Netherlands and its former colony, Indonesia, which severed diplomatic relations in 1960 and seemed headed for a full-scale war. The…

The trade-minded Dutch, who are more interested in new profits than in salvaging old concessions, were eager to do business again with Indonesia.

His reception was pointedly restrained, but the dapper, dusky VIP who debarked at the Amsterdam air port last week could hardly expect brass bands. Dr. Subandrio, Indonesia’s Foreign Minister and Deputy Premier, was the highest-ranking official from Djakarta to set foot in The Netherlands since the Dutch bitterly granted his…