Spanish elections tomorrow are going to be an absolute nailbiter. Trumpist insanity might win or refuse to accept a non-majority.
The Fox-style hate campaign, by much of the media against Sanchez, is pretty recognisable from the Netherlands. It worked against Sigrid Kaag and is now starting against Frans Timmermans.
There's so many little things the new #Dutch xenophobic rightwing / anti-environment government will make worse.
Here's one most people will have missed:
In the early 2000 my "farmer" classmates got diesel cars as their first vehicle. They'd fill it up with "red diesel", a very cheap (no sales & excise tax) fuel legally only to be used in farm vehicles.
Despite stern warnings only one of them ever had its fuel checked. He received a small fine.
The only positive I can see from Geert Wilders coming out on top is that he can no longer claim to be the underdog. We'll see all his true colours now he has proper voting power.
I can only hope that people will see how truly nasty and divisive his politics is, and move much further left at the next election.
Which, if we're being honest, will probably just mean voting for the VVD again. Still, better VVD than PVV.
The Dutch government is considering withdrawing from Facebook altogether over serious concerns about how the social media platform handles data security.
“Boeken lezen is van grote waarde voor mens, samenleving én economie. Boeken zijn de dragers van onze cultuur en laten mensen van jongs af aan ook andere werelden en gezichtspunten zien. Taalvaardigheid en geletterdheid maken het verschil in de ontwikkeling van mensen, op school en op de arbeidsmarkt”
What started as a peaceful walkout this morning by hundreds of university staff, professors, lecturers in protest against police violence against students last week is now developing and escalating once again.
The riot police are here, hundreds of them are blocking the entrance to the university. After the university staff finished their rally, the students went in and they have built some tents right into the main hall.
The police are now coming in and [the students] are trying to block the police. They managed for a few minutes but now the police car van is driving towards the entrance and everyone here is very much hoping that the same scenario that happened last week is not repeated here.
The protests are against the war in Gaza and they’re also demanding the university to cut ties with Israeli universities but also to protest against police violence and what they say is a violation of their rights to demonstrate.
So far I’ve only seen peaceful protesters and the police is coming in and of course, there’s a lot of trauma after what happened last week so the situation is quite agitated.