In The Netherlands, where a recent poll showed that 53% of the Dutch have doubts about nuclear energy, construction of three new reactors has been postponed.

The demonstration was part picnic, part protest march and part folk festival. Nearly 10,000 people, carrying accordions, flutes, guitars and a fluttering forest of posters and signs, gathered for a “festival of life” at the small Italian town of Montalto di Castro, 80 miles north of Rome, the site of…

At the Indonesian consulate in Amsterdam ended the hostage taking by S. Mollucan terrorists. 25 hostages walked out, soon afterward their seven captors surrendered to Dutch police.

Shortly after noon last Friday, the bright flag of the self-proclaimed South Moluccan Republic—red, with green, white and red bars—was pulled back inside a window of the Indonesian consulate in Amsterdam. Minutes later, 25 hostages—ten women and 15 men, most of them Indonesian—walked out of the…

At week’s end, South Moluccan gunmen who had taken over a railroad train finally surrendered after 13 days and released 23 hostages. Dutchmen grew more and more outraged.

In eastern Holland, dark-skinned parishioners were shocked and frightened when rocks shattered windows in their church. A 16-year-old Indonesian girl was attacked by young Dutch toughs. Dutch newspaper offices and The Netherlands Justice Ministry were flooded with thousands of letters, many of them demanding a government decision to, as one…

South Mollucan terrorists held train passengers hostage. Demanding the Dutch help them gain independence from Jakarta. The Moluccan headache is a heritage of the old days of empire.

Early last Tuesday morning, six men carrying machine guns, a pistol and a hunting rifle boarded a four-car electric “milk train” at the Dutch town of Assen. Shortly after it left Beilen, ten miles away, the terrorists stopped the train and seized the passengers as hostages. As police and Dutch…

The army of The Netherlands is fully unionized. The union started off by demanding better pay for underpaid conscripts and soon began pushing for better working and living conditions.

Aside from the comic-strip troops of Al Capp’s Lower Slobbovia or the G.I.s who stumble through maneuvers at Camp Swampy with Beetle Bailey, the 70,000-man army of The Netherlands is probably the raunchiest-looking fighting force in the world. In startling contrast to the red-jacketed guardsmen who stand stiffly at attention…

Over the past 18 months Amsterdam has changed from merely a drug-using city to the chief narcotics distribution point in Europe. Drug traffic moved to the NL because of its liberal attitude.

Actor Gene Hackman and a crew of narcotics agents and drug pushers out of Central Casting are currently in Marseille filming The French Connection II, a sequel to the award-winning 1971 dope flick. But as any real narc could tell them, this time they have the wrong location. For the…

Originally forbidden until 3 a.m. Monday, driving is now permitted after 8 Sunday evening. Police report a dramatic rise in calls to break up fights among families forced to stay together.

For Americans, nondriving Sundays are still a novelty; for many Europeans, they already are part of the regular round of life. Over the past month or so, six European countries—Belgium, The Netherlands, West Germany, Switzerland, Italy and just this week, Denmark —have flatly forbidden all Sunday driving, except for…

The Netherlands is the only European nation under a total Arab oil embargo. Den Uyl was coming under increasing public pressure for the bravely outspoken ways of his government.

THE NETHERLANDS

When Dutch Prime Minister Joop den Uyl arrived at Amsterdam’s Olympic Stadium last week to attend the Holland-Belgium soccer match, a chorus of boos and catcalls rose from the capacity crowd of 65,000. A week earlier he probably would have been cheered.

The difference a week made lay…

The reform-minded Dutch government canceled all military parades planned for the Queen Juliana’s 25-year reign celebrations. It would “not fit the mentality” of the Dutch.

Much as the Dutch like the clatter of wooden shoes on cobblestone streets, they have always detested the clicking of military heels. It reminds them of the years of Wehrmacht occupation. They would prefer the army to walk softly, the way resistance fighters did during World War II.

Thus the…

So far, the most spectacular high jinks of Women’s Lib have taken place in The Netherlands. The Dutch fighters, many of them chic and in their 20s, call themselves Dolle Minas.

“From the way he treats us, it is easy to see that God is a man.” So said Madame de Tencin, Montesquieu’s mistress. Historically hampered by archaic laws and antique moral codes, European women have accepted their lot much more readily than their American counterparts. Recently, however, growing numbers, taking…

In carribean countries, like Curaçao, riots or demonstrations have hit one West Indian land after another. “They didn’t kill us, but they stole our culture,” said leader Stanley Brown.

Tourist brochures fancifully refer to it as the “eighth continent,” a palm-fringed paradise of emerald bays, gleaming beaches and sybaritic hotels. Just beyond the thin strips of sand, however, lies a very different West Indian world, one of discontent and outright anger.

Listen to Evan X. Hyde, 22, a summa…

Kabouters, or Pixies, led by ex-provo leader Roel van Duijn, won several seats in city council elections throughout The Netherlands last week.

I IKE other Western capitals, Amsterdam has had its quota of student barricades, tear gas volleys and police baton charges. The youthful protesters, who used to be known as Provos (for provocateurs), rioted over almost everything from Crown Princess Beatrix’s lavish wedding in 1966, when they tossed smoke bombs at…

Migrants move northwards. A Dutch newspaper has referred to them as “our new slave generation.” The Netherlands, with 60,000 migrants, has modified its welfare legislation.

They are outsiders, set apart by birth, language, national identity and poverty. A Dutch newspaper has referred to them as “our new slave generation.” They have been ridiculed as “spaghetti eaters” in Hamburg and “devil foreigners” in Stockholm. There are 6,000,000 of them in northern Europe—migrant workers from Italy,…

In The Netherlands, which is a traditionally tolerant country, patience of the Dutch has been worn thin by the calculatedly outrageous antics of the “provos” (provokers) in recent years.

NOT since the 1930s, when Adolf Hitler rallied the German people with his guttural call for Ruhe und Ordnung, has Western Europe been so preoccupied with the problem of law and order. This fact is curious in itself, since Europe is suffering from none of the specific agonies that are…

Walter Maass writes about Dutch resistance, humor and trains in his book The Netherlands At War: 1940-1945. Maass’s book is orderly and stolid as the people he writes about.

THE NETHERLANDS AT WAR: 1940-1 945 by Walter B. Maass. 264 pages. Abe-lard-Schuman. $6.95.

For most Americans, the story of The Netherlands during the second World War is the story of a life in the attic: The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank. What this concise new history…