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| One in four Dutch egg farmers in financial trouble |
9/7/2014 |
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One in four egg farmers in the Netherlands is at risk of going bankrupt because of low egg prices and high feed costs, farming organisation LTO said at the weekend. In addition, many farmers have made considerable investments to be ready for the ban on battery egg production within the EU which came into effect in January 2012.‘At the same time, the supply of eggs within the EU has gone up sharply,’ LTO spokesman Hugo Bens told broadcaster Nos. ‘There are a lot more farmers now in Germany and Germany was always an important export market for us. The loss of that export market has also pressured egg prices,’ he said. Egg farmers normally need to replenish their flocks every 18 months. A large farmer would need €450,000 to replace his 100,000 hens but many no longer have any reserves and banks are also more difficult about lending, Nos said.
Social housing rents have gone up over 9% in two years
The average rent for a rent-controlled home in the Netherlands has risen over 9% since July 2013, when landlords were allowed to put up their prices by more than the rate of inflation. This July, average rents rose by 4.4%, the national statistics office CBS said on Thursday. Tenants earning over €43,000 faced increases of up to 6.5%.Six out of 10 low-income tenants were given the maximum rent rise of 4%, the CBS said. Private landlords were less likely than housing corporations to increase rents by the maximum amount allowed.The average increase in rent for homes costing more than €700 a month – which are no longer non-rent controlled - was 2.9%, the CBS said.
Caesarians too often used for breech babies: research
Just 8% of pregnant women with a breech baby are being offered help to turn the child round in some parts of the Netherlands, despite its high success rate in cutting Caesarian births. On average 75% of pregnant women undergo an attempt to the turn the baby around, and that is successful in up to 50% of cases, researchers Ageeth Rosman and Floortje Vlemmix say in Thursday’s Volkskrant. Turning a baby reduces the risk of the mother having to undergo a Caesarian section. Better information for mothers and training for midwives could reduce the number of breech babies at birth by 300 a year to 4,500, the researchers say. ‘A Caesarian is an operation,’ Radboud university professor Frank Vandenbussche told the paper. Bonding ''After a Caesarian, the baby is often less fit and its lungs can be less well developed. In addition, the bonding beween mother and child can be more difficult because the mother cannot move freely,'' he said. Even though turning breech babies is recommended, Rosman and Vlemmix found there is a shortage of specialised midwives in some parts of the country. Some midwives do not offer the process and others fail to convince pregnant women of the benefits. In addition, Rosman said, some women have decided they want a Caesarian delivery and a breech baby then becomes a good excuse.
Dutch security service broke privacy rules with web forum hacks
Thursday 04 September 2014 The Dutch security service AIVD broke privacy laws in its research into social media and wrongly hacked into website forums to gather information on all users, regulators said on Thursday. The report by the security service regulator CTIVD says five hacking operations were not properly motivated and were therefore unlawful. The hacks were carried out on behalf of foreign security agencies, the NRC reports.In four other investigations, privacy regulations were broken disproportionately, the CTIVD said. ForumsThese were large general web forums without a radical or extremist tint, and the privacy of a large number of ordinary citizens was wrongly invaded. The CTIVD did not mention any forums by name but the NRC cites website Maroc.nl as a possible example. At the time the NRC first reported on the scandal, home affairs minister Ronald Plasterk said the hacking was within the law.In a reaction to the findings, Plasterk said he had instructed the AIVD to tighten up its procedures but stressed research into websites is necessary to allow the security service to do its job properly.
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