Countries don’t always set aside enough money to pay for the pensions they promise. One country appears to have found a better way: The NL, “the globe’s No. 1 pensions country.”

In early June, the Organization For Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)–the club of the world’s wealthy and almost wealthy nations–released a 208-page document perversely titled Pensions at a Glance. Inside is a rundown of how generous OECD members are to their burgeoning ranks of retirees.

The U.S. is…

Euthanasia has been openly debated and researched for more than 20 years in Holland, which has a record of pragmatism in dealing with thorny social issues like drugs and abortion.

Frans Swarttouw, former chairman of the Fokker aircraft company and one of the Netherlands’ most colorful businessmen, bid an unusual farewell to his countrymen a few weeks ago. Stricken with throat cancer, the executive, 64, who once characterized an entrepreneur as “a guy who works hard, drinks himself into the…

U.S. cities look to Europe for livable streets. To achieve peaceful coexistence between cars and people, the Dutch are rearranging conventional streets into sidewalkless Woonerven.

U.S. cities look to Europe for livable streets

Boston can be a nightmare for motorists: a spaghetti tangle of twisting alleys, tree-sentineled boulevards and cramped, one-way lanes. But it can be equally harrowing for the poor pedestrian. Consider Appleton Street in the South End. Some years ago drivers discovered they…

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…

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…

Last week millions of fish died in the river Rhine, victims of the worst case of pollution in the river’s history. Germans failed to sound the alarm sooner. The Dutch were furious.

The Rhine is one of the world’s most scenic and storied waterways. It was a commercial route before Christ, and Julius Caesar first spanned it with a bridge in 55 B.C. Along its picturesque banks, flanked by medieval castles, are Drachenfels, the cliff where Siegfried slew his dragon, and the…

Technical skill is just a question of hard work; a consistent, defined style is something else again. The nine-year-old Netherlands Dance Theater, is not only expert—it is also stylish.

Technical skill for a major ballet company is just a question of hard work; a consistent, defined style is something else again. The nine-year-old Netherlands Dance Theater, which just finished a two-week Manhattan engagement and is off to another in Mexico City, is not only expert—it is also…

At Rotterdam’s Europoort, with there massive oil refineries, deepened the port’s sea channel to accommodate larger tankers.

THE NETHERLANDS

Although Middle East oil production is near its prewar level, the refineries of Western Europe will continue to feel the pinch for some time to come. Reason: until the Suez Canal is un plugged, oil tankers must take a two-week detour around the Cape of Good Hope. At…

Figure skater Sjoukje Dijkstra put on a dazzling performance in Cortina, Italy. Sjoukje: “It’s just working hard that makes you good.”

The lilting strains of Johann Strauss’s Graduation Ball wafted through Cortina, Italy, as a sturdy blonde girl glided around the open-air rink. The music leaped, and the girl leaped too—a twisting “double axel” that sent her hurtling through the air until she glided back on the ice. The music…

Queen Wilhelmina died. An account of her life and work.

In her first appearance as Queen of The Netherlands, Wilhelmina Helena Pauline Maria stood on the balcony of her palace in Amsterdam and stared with a small child’s wonder at her cheering subjects.

“Mama,” she asked, “do all these people belong to me?” “No, my child,” replied the Queen-Regent, “it…

For the last seven years editorial cartoonist, Fritz Behrendt, has thrust repeatedly at world Communism with one of the sharpest and most therapeutic pens in all of Europe.

On Amsterdam’s ancient, influential, and conservative Algemeen Handelsblad (literally “general commercial newspaper”), the convictions of a stocky displaced German named Fritz Behrendt stick out like battle flags. To hear Behrendt tell it, the whole world is sick, and he is just the doctor it needs. “There are a lot of…

Last week Philips presented its latest progress report on Philips’ amazing comeback. A short account on the history and current status of the electronics company from Eindhoven.

When Nazi Panzer divisions overran The Netherlands in World War II, one of the places they headed for first was the great Philips company electric works at Eindhoven. But hours before their arrival, 25 top Philips scientists and executives slipped away via British destroyers, carrying with them vital secrets that…

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…

A report on the life and work of painter Piet Mondrian. 13 years after Mondrian’s death his recognition is reaching new heights.

WHETHER they know it or not, the architect, the layout artist, the sign painter, and even the counter girl who wraps a candy box asymmetrically with a gay ribbon all owe a debt to a lone Dutchman named Piet Mondrian. Cubist Mondrian’s crisp, rectilinear paintings, once scoffed at as being…

A report on painter Frans Hals, the artist who caught his fellow Dutchmen at their swashbuckling best, whether downing a glass of Haarlem beer or decked out in their Sunday finery.

WHAT the broad-bottomed, solidly middle-class burghers of The Netherlands asked of their artists in the 1600s was not classic grandeur but homey detail. Proud and prosperous, they wanted their portraits to be a frank and meticulous likeness, with full attention to the fine stuffs, starched ruffs and ribboned cuffs that…