Richard Reid, aka the shoe bomber, told authorities he bought the explosives in the Netherlands and hid them in his shoes himself. But one French official says he bought the explosives in Paris.

The evidence is mounting that would-be shoe bomber Richard Reid, once thought to have acted alone, actually had the support of an Islamist terror network. French authorities now believe the network included a Parisian cell that has so far eluded detection. Reid tried to blow up an American Airlines flight…

According to R. Gunaratna, an expert on terrorism at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, Reid’s reason for choosing the NL. is that it has become a center of al-Qaeda activity.

It was the scream that people noticed. Monique Danison, an American college student, had just finished lunch on American Airlines Flight 63 from Paris to Miami when she heard a woman cry out in terror. “When someone screams the way she did,” says Danison, “you know something bad is happening.”…

Different cultures have different views on whether adult-adolescent sex is always wrong. In the Netherlands, the law allows children ages 12 to 16 to make their own decision about sex.

It’s easier not to ask too many questions about pedophilia. The questions make you blush; some of the answers make your skin crawl. But it seems that almost daily we see another grown man tell his story and weep, suddenly becoming the terrified kid he once was. All the…

John Malone dominated the U.S. cable-TV industry as CEO of TCI. But the European TV market is different. Endemol doesn’t work with a single pay-TV provider in the Netherlands.

Monopolist. Bully. Cowboy. John Malone has heard it all before. As he dominated the U.S. cable-TV industry for much of the past three decades, the CEO of Denver-based TeleCommunications Inc. (TCI) was called plenty of names, including some that can’t be printed here.

Skeptics said he was naive to think…

CEO Holthuis’ tiny OctoPlus, based in the Netherlands, has helped biotechs chemically package 25 drugs to reach bodily ZIP codes and, once there, work efficiently.

JOOST HOLTHUIS Drug Courier

The best-designed drug is useless if it can’t go where it’s needed, say, in the brain or lungs. CEO Holthuis’ tiny OctoPlus, based in the Netherlands, has helped biotechs chemically package 25 drugs to reach bodily ZIP codes and, once there, work efficiently. The seven-year-old private…

Asymptote, NY-based architects, built HydraPier, an exhibition pavilion at the Harlemmermeer: A two-winged structure sits on an artificial lake created on land reclaimed from the sea.

We live in an era that puts little stock in stability. Solidity and permanence read as rigidity and torpor. The future will be only more unruly, tossed and pulled by disparate forces like a piece of bread among sea gulls. So where does this leave architects, whose work is all…

The chairman of scandal-tainted NL.-based Royal Ahold stepped down following national outrage over his failure to inform investors of the new contract he gave new CEO Moberg.

Outrage about executive salaries is missing a couple of decimals in Europe. In September New York Stock Exchange boss Dick Grasso resigned amid a backlash over his $188 million deferred-compensation package. Around the same time, the chairman of the world’s third largest food retailer, scandal-tainted Netherlands-based Royal Ahold (whose…

Where do you go if you want to see the original The Girl with a Pearl Earring, the Johannes Vermeer? Caltech professor Williams’s website has gathered a wealth of information about him.

You’ve read the book and seen the movie, but where do you go if you want to see the original The Girl with a Pearl Earring, the Johannes Vermeer painting that inspired both? Art enthusiasts can go to www.cacr.caltech.edu/~roy/vermeer where Caltech professor Roy Williams has gathered a wealth of information…

It was Khan who initiated Pakistan’s crucial breakthrough when he stealed centrifuged plans from Urenco, which indisputably formed the basis of Pakistan’s nuclear success.

Dapper Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan was always a man with a mission–even if it was long shrouded in obscurity. Some 30 years ago, he allegedly stole blueprints for enriching uranium from the top-secret Dutch lab where he worked. For decades, his team in Pakistan labored behind heavily guarded…

KLM can fly to the U.S. only from its home country, the NL., but would prefer to operate from Paris or London as well. With the upcoming merger with Air France, the market is forcing the issue.

Memo to the COO: Update Your Resume

According to a new study, chief operating officers can be likened to your appendix. Not only are they unnecessary, but they can also turn into expensive problems. The study, which will appear later this year in Strategic Management Journal, concludes that companies with…

Erasmus University researchers found that men and women with the highest levels of homocysteine had twice the risk of suffering a fracture compared with those with the lowest levels.

Brittle bones can be more than just a bother for anyone who is getting on in years. About 10 million Americans have osteoporosis–a gradual thinning of the bones–and 1.5 million of them will suffer a fracture this year. That’s why doctors were so interested in a pair of…

The Dutch $1 billion philanthropist Van Leer Group Foundation focuses on helping young children. It has blazed a trail by spending 95% of its grant money outside its home country.

To celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Bavarian machinery company his grandfather set up in 1901, Richard Scheubeck and the firm’s other family owners decided to create a charitable foundation. They put in $1.1 million, and Scheubeck encouraged the company’s suppliers and business partners to make donations. With more than…

The right-wing coalition government proposed closing radical mosques, ramping up monitoring of foreign imams and stripping suspected extremists of their Dutch passports.

Vincent van Gogh’s great-grandnephew is shot and stabbed to death in broad daylight on the edge of a city park. Streets fill with tens of thousands of angry protesters. Islamic schools are attacked and mosques vandalized and set ablaze–with a severed pig’s head left as a calling card outside…

Khan stole centrifuge designs from his employer in the 1970s and used them to develop Pakistan’s nuclear program. He later passed them on to other countries.

Not long ago, Abdul Qadeer Khan used to walk into a wooded park across the street from his mansion in Pakistan’s capital city and feed the monkeys who lived there. That was when he was a national hero and a multimillionaire, owner of a fleet of vintage cars and properties…

34 years ago in TIME: Announcing its first foreign head last week was a big step for Sony. If the Dutch can produce goods of excellent quality, said Akio Morita, the Japanese could do it too.

Announcing its first foreign head last week was a big step for Sony, the Japanese electronics giant that was founded and run for years by AKIO MORITA.

A young businessman named Akio Morita made his first trip outside Japan in 1953 to investigate export prospects for his struggling little electronics…