The Dutch Pension Plan

In the Netherlands, pensions are scrupulously funded and are required to tally their liabilities with brutal honesty. Credit Jon Reinfurt

Imagine a place where pensions were not an ever-deepening quagmire, where the numbers told the whole story and where workers could count on a decent retirement.

Amsterdam's Plan to Pay Alcoholics in Beer is Just 'Dutch Pragmatism'

An unusual Dutch initiative aims to put an end to one of Amsterdam's worst nuisances -- those bawdy, loitering alcoholics -- by employing them in a kind of street cleaning corps. The problem, though, is that the state-financed Rainbow Foundation behind the project pays the self-professed chronic alcoholics in beer for their labor. 

Radical Reform: Dutch iPad Schools Seek to Transform Education

Plenty of schools use iPads. But what if the entire education experience were offered via tablet computer? That is what several new schools in the Netherlands plan to do. There will be no blackboards or schedules. Is this the end of the classroom?

Think different. It was more than an advertising slogan. It was a manifesto, and with it, former Apple CEO Steve Jobs upended the computer industry, the music industry and the world of mobile phones. The digital visionary's next plan was to bring radical change to schools and textbook publishers, but he died of cancer before he could do it.

Dutch Man Said to Be Held in Powerful Internet Attack

Dutch authorities say police officials in Spain have arrested a man believed to be connected to an online attack on a spam-fighting site that snarled the Internet last month.

While the authorities did not give the full name of the man in a statement published on a Dutch government Web site, they identified him as “S.K.” A source close to the investigation, who was not authorized to speak publicly, confirmed that the arrested man was Sven Olaf Kamphuis, a 35-year-old Dutch man who has been the spokesman of a group that was protesting a European antispam group’s tactics.

US Patriot missile battery crews arrive in Turkey

The "Patriot" surface-to-air missile system is presented during a media day by the German Armed Forces in Warbelow, northern Germany, on December 18, 2012. (AFP Photo / Bernd Wustneck)

A group of 27 US troops has arrived in Turkey to operate NATO Patriot surface-to-air (SAM) missile batteries. At least six of those will be deployed along the country’s border with Syria.

The troops arrived in the southeastern province of Gaziantep on Thursday and were taken to a local hotel by Turkish security forces, local media reported.