A band of Dutchmen formed a group trying to influence U.S. votes in the upcoming elections. “The U.S. President meddles in our affairs. We should meddle in his,” says the organizer.

THE NETHERLANDS

By all accounts there are plenty of Americans who have decided not to vote at all in next month’s presidential election — and lots of others who wish they did not feel that they have to. Across the Atlantic, however, there is a band of Dutchmen who would like…

The Dutch have a severe balance-of-payments deficit, and with wages up 36.5% in three years and living costs climbing 5% annually, inflation is higher than any European neighbor.

Hans Brinker, Holland’s storybook skating whiz, needn’t hock the silver skates — not yet. But the way the Dutch economy is going, the occasion may arise. Holland has a severe balance-of-payments deficit, and with wages up 36.5% in three years and living costs climbing at an annual rate of 5%, the…

In Amsterdam the provos, a well-organized group of young artists, writers, intellectuals and university students, who are opposed to just about everything, started demonstrating.

Like their counterparts at Berkeley, the Provos (provokers) of Amsterdam are always good for a chuckle. A well-organized group of young artists, writers, intellectuals and university students, they are opposed to just about everything. They have urged the government to paint all Amsterdam chimneys white to eliminate smoke and…

Some of Europe’s best mines are being shuttered; the Dutch State Mines are diversifying, already earn more from chemicals than from coal, and are retraining miners to make Daf cars.

Europe’s coal miners, who are as politically potent and as well protected as America’s farmers, are in a querulous mood. In past months, miners have staged angry protest marches in Germany’s Ruhr and battled against truncheon-swinging police in Belgium (toll: two dead). Behind this unrest is an upheaval in the…

In Europe’s wealthiest reigning family, the 400-year-old House of Orange, apple-cheeked Crown Princess Beatrix, 28, was about to marry West German Diplomat Claus von Amsberg, 39.

THE NETHERLANDS

All Amsterdam was agog as the banner with a heart and crown went up across Kalverstraat, the city’s Fifth Avenue. And huisvrouwen goggled from their windows at open-topped limousines bearing 300 royal guests through town for a little prenuptial sightseeing at the Rijkmuseum and the city’s famed…

In The Netherlands the Gasunie marketing combine expects a complete changeover by household gas users to natural Groningen gas by the end of 1966.

WESTERN EUROPE

Europe’s newly discovered riches of natural gas are creating a major upheaval in the world’s fastest growing energy market. Across the Continent, the new gas finds are lighting an investment fever and bringing some chills to a vulnerable competitor, coal. As estimates grow of the size of The…

Princess Irene, got engaged to Carlos de Borbon y Parma. Without the govenment’s approval, she renounced the right of succession and agreed to live in exile. So died a princess.

ōTHE NETHERLANDS

With 17 suitcases, a pair of bright blue skis and a parakeet in a cage, Princess Irene of The Netherlands tripped gaily aboard a chartered KLM airliner last month, unnoticed by the press. Prettiest of four royal sisters and second in line of succession (after Princess Beatrix, 27),…

Europe’s biggest seaport Rotterdam has launched a campaign to pass New York as the world’s biggest port and are busily building a $250 million addition, called Europoort.

The Dutch port of Rotterdam is already Europe’s biggest seaport, and the prosperity of the Common Market pours through it in a growing current of trade. Strategically set astride the Rhine-Maas waterway, which leads to the heart of industrial Europe, Rotterdam handles more cargo than Antwerp, Bremen and Hamburg put…

College freshmen and fraternity pledges, a ritual designed to humiliate them without actually killing them, is sometimes carried to extremes. In the Netherlands a debate was under way.

College freshmen and fraternity pledges are fair game for hazing, a ritual designed to humiliate them without actually killing them. But every so often, the ritual is carried to extremes, someone is badly hurt, and an angry public debate flares. In The Netherlands last week, such a debate was under…

After North Sea flood in 1953 a $650 million plan was made damming up four of the region’s principal sea arms. Fortnight ago the Delta Plan marked its first milestone.

On one calamitous day early in 1953, a howling northwester teamed with a wild spring tide. The resulting floods were the most disastrous to afflict The Netherlands in five centuries. Hardest hit were 1,300 square miles of Rhine and Meuse delta lands in The Netherlands’ southwest, where tidal surges roared…

The longtime indifference of staidest Dutchmen to one of Europe’s worst red-light districts has recently been shaken by a series of brutal murders.

In front of the 14th century Old Church in Amsterdam lies a half-mile-square district of gabled houses, narrow streets and tree-shaded canals known as De Walletjes (little walls). An evening stroller, glancing into ground-floor rooms, sees what appears to be a succession of genre pictures by Vermeer: in each, a…

The Amsterdam underwold took matters into own hand to stop the big gang of Amsterdam’s longhaired teen-age punks, the nozems.

Like big city cops all the way from Manhattan to Tokyo, police in once placid Amsterdam were being run ragged by teen-age punks. Dressed in juvenile delinquency’s international uniform—leather jacket and blue jeans—Amsterdam’s longhaired nozem* liked to roar around the city’s central Dam Square on souped-up motorcycles, scaring…

Ten years ago a road was built on a dike that connected Urk to the mainland and traditions began to change. A new Urk law made it a crime to cuddle after dark along public roads.

Far from the bustle and night life of the big cities, The Netherlands is still dotted with some of the world’s dourest Calvinist communities. Among its grimmest is the former islet of Urk (pop. 5,500), a fishing village on the Zuider Zee. On Sundays, Urkers still separate their hens from…

Last year, 100 drivers and passengers drowned in canals before help arrived. Now, free lessons are given in how to escape from a sunken car.

Along with all the other problems that beset the motorist the world over, drivers in Holland have one added hazard to contend with: the canals. An average of two cars a day slip their brakes, back into or otherwise plunge into the country’s famed waterways. Last year, 100 drivers and…

After two negro boys (10 and 8 ) kissed a white girl and were sent to reform school Dutch pupils sent 12,000 letters to president Eisenhower asking to set the boys free.

Stephanus Saris, 34, a headwaiter by trade, is the kind of man who gets interested in far-off causes. In 1956 he raised $93,000 for Hungarian refugees. Recently, at the Roman Catholic boys’ club in Rotterdam that he helps run, he showed the boys a newspaper clipping. It described how two…