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Peter de Vries, Dutch Crime Reporter, Dies After Being Shot

Peter de Vries, Dutch Crime Reporter, Dies After Being Shot

AMSTERDAM — A Dutch crime reporter who was shot in the head in a brazen attack in central Amsterdam last week as he was leaving a television studio, died of his wounds on Thursday, his family said in a statement. The reporter, Peter R. de Vries, was 64.

“Peter has fought until the end, but has been unable to win this battle,” the statement, carried by the Dutch broadcast news service RTL Nieuws, said. “We are indescribably proud of him and at the same time inconsolable.”

Mr. de Vries, a well-known public figure in the Netherlands, was shot on the evening of July 6 by an unknown assailant. The attack led to broad condemnation in the country, where drug related crime and shootings have steadily increased over the last decade. European leaders have condemned the shooting, which raised questions about protections for journalists.

The police arrested two men last week in connection with the attack after stopping them in a car on a nearby highway. The police identified the suspects as a 35-year-old Polish citizen and a 21-year-old from Rotterdam. The police have said they believe the younger man was the gunman

Both suspects appeared in court in Amsterdam on Friday and they remain in custody.

Ferd Grapperhaus, the Dutch justice minister, called Mr. de Vries a “brave man” and said his death was “nothing less than a direct attack on our society.”

Mr. de Vries, who had hosted a televised crime show for nearly two decades and has long been known in the Netherlands for solving cold cases, had said he regularly received death threats.

The television show on which Mr. de Vries appeared before he was shot last week did not air last Friday, after threats from criminals who said they wanted to target the studio using automatic weapons or a rocket launcher, according to Dutch news media. The show has resumed its daily episodes, but will be recorded elsewhere, the network reported.

Mr. de Vries began his journalism career in 1978 at De Telegraaf, a popular Dutch newspaper. A decade later, he published a book on the kidnapping of the beer magnate Freddy Heineken. He covered many high-profile cases, including the 2005 disappearance of an Alabama teenager, Natalee Holloway, in Aruba, a Caribbean island that is part of the Netherlands; and a decades-long investigation into the rape and murder of an 11-year-old boy, Nicky Verstappen.

His television show, “Peter R. de Vries, Crime Reporter,” which began in 1995 and aired for 17 years, was his real breakthrough.

Most recently, Mr. de Vries had set up a foundation in the hopes of solving the 1993 disappearance of Tanja Groen, a young woman who vanished on her way home from a party. On Tuesday, Dutch public television aired a special program where viewers donated hundreds of thousands of euros to the cause.

Mr. de Vries, who was also the director of a law office, had been an adviser over the past year to a key witness in a trial over killings said to have been ordered by a criminal organization. The main defendant in the case, Ridouan Taghi, who is accused of leading the organization, was arrested in Dubai in 2019.

Derk Wiersum, a lawyer for the same key witness in that trial, was killed in Amsterdam in 2019. The witness’s brother was shot dead in 2018.

Amsterdam and other Dutch cities have been the scene of several shootings over the past decade in which criminals have targeted either each other or those interfering in their crimes. The nearby port of Rotterdam is one of the key gateways for importing cocaine into Europe, and the country is a leader in the illegal production of amphetamines and crystal meth.

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Dutch courtroom guidelines Shell should minimize carbon emissions by 45% by 2030

Dutch court rules Shell must cut carbon emissions by 45% by 2030

A cyclist passes oil silos at the Royal Dutch Shell Pernis refinery in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, on Tuesday, April 27, 2021.

Peter Boer | Bloomberg | Getty Images

LONDON – A Dutch court ruled on Wednesday that oil giant Royal Dutch Shell must cut its CO2 emissions by 45% by 2030 compared to 2019.

This is a much larger reduction than the company’s current goal of reducing its emissions by 20% by 2030.

The landmark ruling comes at a time when the world’s largest corporate emitters are under immense pressure to set short-, medium- and long-term emissions targets that are compatible with the Paris Agreement. The climate agreement is widely recognized as extremely important to avoid an irreversible climate crisis.

According to Shell’s current climate strategy, the company aims to become a net zero issuing business by 2050. The company has set itself the goal of reducing CO2 emissions by 45% by 2035.

A Shell spokesman said the company “fully expects to appeal today’s disappointing court ruling”.

“We are investing billions of dollars in low-carbon energy, including charging electric vehicles, hydrogen, renewables and biofuels,” the spokesman said via email. “We want to increase the demand for these products and expand our new energy business even faster.”

Shell shares traded 0.2% higher in London. The share price is up nearly 10% since the start of the year, after falling nearly 40% in 2020.

“A turning point in history”

The lawsuit was filed in April 2019 by seven activist groups – including Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace – on behalf of 17,200 Dutch citizens. Subpoenas in court alleged Shell’s business model “endangering human rights and lives” by threatening the goals set out in the Paris Agreement.

Under the Paris Agreement, adopted in 2015 and signed by 195 countries, states agreed on a framework to prevent global temperatures from rising by more than 2 degrees Celsius, although the agreement aims to limit global temperature increases by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Roger Cox, an environmental advocate on the case, said in a statement that the ruling marks “a turning point in history” and could have dire consequences for other major polluters.

Meanwhile, Sara Shaw, Friends of Earth’s international program coordinator for Climate Justice and Energy, hoped the ruling would “spark a wave of climate disputes against major polluters, forcing them to stop fossil fuel extraction and burning”.

Mark van Baal, founder of the Dutch group Follow This, told CNBC via email that the judge’s verdict shows that “Big Oil can no longer deny the crucial role it must play in the fight against climate change”.

At Shell’s general meeting last week, shareholders voted overwhelmingly in favor of the company’s energy transition plans. Crucially, however, a growing minority opposed the strategy, insisting that the oil giant had much more to do in the fight against climate change.

Activist investor Follow This said at the time that the outcome would likely mean Shell would have to revise its climate targets yet again.

According to Reuters, the case is the first in which activists have taken a large energy company to court to force it to revise its climate strategy.

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Dutch Authorities Resigns After Advantages Scandal

Dutch Government Resigns After Benefits Scandal

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, one of Europe’s longest-serving leaders, and his cabinet resigned on Friday over a report highlighting his government’s systematic failure to protect thousands of families from overzealous tax inspectors.

Mr Rutte and his cabinet will continue to lead the government as caretakers. The general elections are planned for March. His center-right party is currently leading the polls. The other parties in his coalition that were also affected by the scandal are not expected to call for earlier elections because of the coronavirus pandemic.

“Mistakes have been made at all levels that have resulted in great injustice for thousands of families. Innocent people were criminalized and their lives were destroyed, “said Rutte in a press conference. “This cabinet has taken full responsibility.” Mr Rutte said the report that led to the downfall of the cabinet was “tough as nails” but “fair”.

Mr Rutte submitted his resignation and that of his entire cabinet after cycling to see King Willem-Alexander van Oranje. He had served his third term as Prime Minister and had headed the Netherlands since 2010. If his party receives the largest share of the vote in the upcoming election, he can take up a fourth term.

The report, the result of an investigation that also interviewed Mr Rutte, concluded that innocent families had suffered “unprecedented injustice”, some of whom were forced to repay large amounts of childcare benefits immediately.

In many cases, an administrative error such as a missing signature was enough for the tax authority to label parents as fraudsters and fine families with up to tens of thousands of euros, the report says.

“Basic principles of the rule of law have been violated,” she concluded, blowing up both government and parliament for creating “rock-hard laws” that had little room for individual cases to be fairly considered.

The chairman of the parliamentary committee that led the investigation, Chris van Dam, said the system put in place to track down benefit fraud is “a mass process with no room for nuance”.

In a separate investigation, the Dutch data protection authority came to the conclusion that tax inspectors had discriminated against citizens with dual nationalities.

Former Vice President of the Dutch State Council, Herman Tjeenk Willink, added to the allegations of systematic failure by calling on parliamentarians to also take responsibility for voting in the strict laws.

“You should look yourself in the mirror,” he wrote in a comment in the NRC Handelsblad, “and question your own role in the matter.”

Insiders expected that Mr. Rutte would easily shake off any criticism. “Yes, it’s a shame this happened under Rutte’s responsibility,” said Joost Vullings, a political commentator, “but if anyone knows how not to be ashamed, it’s our prime minister.” He will go all out to win the upcoming elections. ”

Mr Rutte said last month that the tax campaign described in the December report was “shameful” and that the government had announced that nearly 10,000 families will receive compensation of € 30,000 or about $ 36,500 each. Earlier this week, Mr Rutte insisted that the government should not resign as it could weaken the nation’s response to the pandemic.

The Netherlands has been grappling with the coronavirus since March, and its inability to contain the spread of the disease has highlighted what many are calling systemic problems with overregulation. Like many countries in Europe, the Netherlands is also blocked.

A November report ranked the government as one of the world’s leading tax havens for large companies, so the persecution of individuals for relatively small amounts did not go unnoticed.

This duality and others in Dutch politics underscore the drawbacks of the Dutch polder model, a system where every important decision is reviewed by every institution, representative or even person involved. The result is always a compromise.

“This matter is an example of a systematic error that has emerged from our coalition policy where each party scores points for its own supporters,” said Sheila Sitalsing, a commentator for de Volkskrant, “but the final compromise can no longer be implemented . ” for those who have to work with it every day. ”

Ms. Sitalsing also said voters have been rewarding politicians who promise stricter rules for two decades. “So that’s what you get,” she said of the child benefit scandal.

Families referred to by the tax authority on Tuesday increased pressure on Mr Rutte by asking his cabinet to step down in an open letter published in the Trouw newspaper.

“What needs to be done is clear: everything should be fixed and cleaned up,” said a group of families. “We don’t think the current cabinet is capable of that.”

In a move that is unique in the Netherlands, the families filed criminal charges this week against five politicians, including Finance Minister Wopke Hoekstra and Economy Minister Eric Wiebes, for their role in the matter. If convicted, they face up to six months in prison.

“We have brought criminal charges because the victims I represent have been ruined. Some became homeless as a result of these guidelines. These politicians have been extremely negligent, ”said Vasco Groeneveld, a lawyer who represents 20 victims. “Every time I open your files, shivers run down my spine. These people were treated terribly. “

Mr Wiebes, who was finance minister in a previous cabinet, will resign immediately and not stay in the caretaker government, NOS reported.

On Thursday, opposition leader Lodewijk Asscher, a former minister of social affairs, resigned for his role as leader of the Dutch Labor Party. His resignation increased the pressure on Mr. Rutte to reconsider his position.