Spain will miss deficit target for 2012

As EU leaders agree a new treaty to enforce budget discipline, two countries have announced that they will miss the agreed budget deficit targets set for 2012, these being Spain and the Netherlands.

Dutch court rules against Apple

A Dutch appeals court has rejected Apple’s claim that the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 infringes its design rights and follows a ruling last year in which a judge threw out Apple’s call for an injunction against its rival’s tablet in the Netherlands.

European Court of Justice upholds Dutch coffee shop plans

The European Court of Justice has ruled that Dutch authorities are able to ban foreigners from coffee shops selling cannabis if they so wish, adding that the city of Maastricht was perfectly within its rights when it passed a law in 2005 stopping foreigners entering cafes that sell marijuana.

Alien opera

The first ever Klingon opera is under way in The Hague, Netherlands. The production is at the Zeebelt Theatre and is being performed entirely in Klingon by the Terran Research Ensemble. There are more people in the world who speak Klingon than Esperanto, the hotch-potch language which never really took off, not that that says a lot.

Two for one isn’t bad

The Dutch are still the masters when it comes to reclaiming land, but maybe they will be adding a new string to their bow. The Dutch agriculture minister, Gerda Verburg, has unveiled the world’s largest biomass power plant to run exclusively on chicken sh poultry manure.