Last night Queen Beatrix attended the opening of the annual Holland Dance festival at the Lucent Dance Theater in The Hague. The queen was accompanied by the prince of Orange, princess Máxima, prince Constantijn and Princess Laurentien. Princess Máxima wore the grey Natan dress that she first wore during Prinsjesdag in 2004 while princess Laurentien looked smashing in a green creation.
Click on image to see photo at PPE
Click on image to see photo at PPE
It is widely known that queen Beatrix is fond of any form of dance, as is her sister Margriet. The younger generation as also hooked, the daughters of the crown prince attend ballet classes and recently princess Máxima took her daughters to a (private) rehearsal of the National ballet in Amsterdam.
During the festival, the 50th annversairy of the Holland Dans Theater will be celebrated. During this 12th edition of the dance festival over 70 performances and 100 workshops will be given. The festival will end on November 15th with a parade of 1200 amateur dancers.
More information about the festival can be found here.
Marengo Dutch Royals Prince Constantijn, Prince of Orange, Prince Willem-Alexander, Princess Laurentien, Princess Máxima, Queen Beatrix, Royal Ballet
Click on image to see hpoto at haagsallerlei.nl
Princesses Máxima and Laurentien of The Netherlands had several public engagements during the last two days. On Tuesday night princess Máxima visited the new Culturalis Theater in the Schilderswijk in The Hague.
The Culturalis is an amateur theater for young people. The princess arrived at the theater on the Hobbema street at 8PM and left two hours later. She opened the theater by hitting on an Indonesian gong. For the occassion the princess wore a pink dress from Natan that she recently also wore during her visit to New York.
Yesterday princess Máxima visited two projects of the Orange Fund. She visited the foundation Ster and the foundation Two Get There. both of them are active to help vulnerabe children in The Netherlands. Ster organises holidays for insecure children from 8 to 13. Two Get There stimulatues langiage development of children. Both foundations are supported by the Orange Fund, of which princess Máxima is the patron.
Click on image to see photo at PPE
While Máxima visited these projects, princess Laurentien was in Rotterdam to launch her childrens book ‘Mr Finney en de wereld op zijn kop‘ (Mr. Finney and the world upside down). The book has been illustrated by Sieb Posthuma and together they presented the book to the press. The princess was accompanied by her husband, prince Constantijn. Princess Irene of The Netherlands, sister of queen Beatrix, also attended the presentation.
More about the book at: www.mrfinney.nl
Marengo Dutch Royals Prince Constantijn, Princess Irene of the Netherlands, Princess Laurentien, Princess Máxima, The Orange Fund
The image of the much troubled building project of the holiday house of the prince of Orange and his wife in Mozambique will be dealt with by professionals. In The Netherlands there has been a lot of commotion about the project on the Machangulo peninsula in Mozambique. There were various claims of corruption, embazzlement, intimidation and violance against locals which already caused the prince to start a foundation that deals with the project.
Click on image to see picture at www.eo.nl
After the criticism of the last weeks the project it has been decided that apart from the Government Information Service (RVD), three other spokesmen will be involved with the information about the project from now on. As newspaper ‘Telegraaf‘ reports, the communications advisor Frans van der Grint of the renowed PR agency Hill & Knowlton, has been appointed as spokesman for the Machangulo Trust Office. The Trust office was created this summer to represent the business interests of the Prince in the Machangulo project. “Given the great interest and the many questions from the media, the Machangulo Trust Office thought it was wise to appoint a new communications adviser” commented Van der Grint.
Apart from the foundation, the building project also hired a PR agent for the project in Mozambique. They are busy in hiring another one in The Netherlands too. The Dutch PR agent will be dealing with the Dutch press. The RVD emphasizes that they will be the only ones talking on behalf of the prince of Orange and his wife.
In the mean time, political magazine HP/De Tijd immidiately criticized the choice for the PR firm Hill & Knowlton. In an article in their online edition they list some remarkable earlier assignments of the firm. In 1954 they placed an advertisement in 400 US newspapers, claiming that smoking is not lethal. The article also lists other examples.
The discussion about the holiday house of the prince and princess has been dragging on since July 2008. The public debate in The Netherlands has turned against the project and one negative article after another appears in the Dutch press. It remains to be seen if these spokesmen can change the present mood among the public and the press.
More about the Machangulo project in this thread at the Dutch forum at TRF.
Marengo Dutch Royals Mozambique, Prince of Orange, Prince Willem-Alexander, Princess Máxima, Residences
The RVD yesterday confirmed that HRH Princess Ariane, the youngest daughter of TRH The Prince of Orange and Princess Máxima, was admitted to hospital yesterday with respiratory problems resulting from an infection to her upper breathing system.
In the press release, the RVD stated that Princess Máxima spent the night at the hospital with her daughter, and that the two-year-old will be released Friday morning, Dutch time.
This is not the first time Princess Ariane has been admited to hospital because of breathing issues. In May 2007, a month after her birth, Ariane was taken to the Leiden University Medical Centre with what was believed to be a lung infection. She spent four days in the medical centre and was treated for a bacterial and viral infection.
Princess Máxima in the meantime has cancelled her attendance at this morning’s opening of the “The Qi of China” exhibition at the Amsterdam Tropical Museum.
Click here to remain updated on Princess Ariane’s condition.
JessRulz Dutch Royals Hospital, Princess Ariane, Princess Máxima
Click on image to see photo at telegraaf.nl
The Dutch-Argentinian pilot Julio Alberto Poch, who was arrested in Valencia on tuesday has been reported to the police by collegues after a discussion about Jorge Zorreguieta, father of princess Máxima of The Netherlands. Magazine ‘Página 12′ even ‘thanks’ the princess in one of their sub head lines, which says: ‘Gracias Máxima’. Poch is accused of being one of the pilots of the airplanes that dropped opponents of the Videla regime in the Atlantic Ocean.
According to newspaper ‘La Nación’, Julio Poch revealed his past to his collegues during a discussion they had in 2007 in restaurant Gado Gado on Bali. The conversations started about princess Máxima, and later about her father Jorge Zorreguieta and his role during the Videla dictatorship. Poch said that none of the people attending the dinner party had an idea what had happened in Argentina. He explained that it was a war, and during a war people get killed,. He also told about his role on the so-called ‘vuelos de la muerte’, the death flights on which political opponents first got drugged, after which they were thrown in the Atlantic Ocean. One of his collegues later said to press agency TelamP “(He) told me how aboard his plane, people who were still alive were thrown off with the intent of executing them” .
Click on image to see photo at AD.nl
His collegues took the matter to the police, after which an investigation after Poch’s role during the Videla regime started. Poch was arrested on tuesday in Valencia, Spain, during his last return flight to Valencia before he was set to retire. Spanish police detained him during a 40-minute stopover before he was due to fly back to Amsterdam.
Marengo Dutch Royals Human Rights, Jorge Zorreguieta, Princess Máxima
HRH Princess Máxima was appointed Monday September 21st by the United Nations’ Secretary-General, Ban Ki-Moon, as his Special Advocate for Inclusive Finance for Development. The appointment was made official at the United Nations Head Quarters in New York City, where Ki-Moon praised the Princess.
“Your extensive knowledge and expertise makes you a perfect choice for this important undertaking. You will be able to work for the well-being of so many people who need the United Nations,” he said. In her new role, Princess Máxima will advise the Secretary-General on financial matters regarding developing countries, as well as travel the globe extensively to promote inclusive finances.She will also work to ensure that financial services are available to all, not just developed nations.
This position is not HRH’s first role in the United Nations. In 2005, she was a member of the Advisors Group for the International Year of Microcredit. A year later, she joined the Advisors Group on Inclusive Financial Sectors, and was a member of the group’s executive committee. Working with roles in finance draws on HRH’s previous knowledge and experience in the banking industry. Prior to her 2002 marriage to the Prince of Orange, Máxima worked in New York and Brussels for the Deutsche Bank as an investment banker.
Click here to read more about HRH’s new UN role.
JessRulz Dutch Royals Ban Ki-Moon, Princess Máxima, United Nations, United States of America
Click to see the article
Today Princess Mathilde and her Dutch colleague, Princess Maxima, officially opened the new Museum M, the renovated city museum of Leuven, one of the oldest cities in the Low Countries, which hosts one of the oldest universities of Europe. The Princesses, whose names start with an M, like the name of the museum, took the time to talk to the people who had turned up to greet them. As usual when they are together, they seemed to have a lot of fun while cutting the ribbon to declare the museum opened.
When they were greeting the crowds, three Flemish extremists started shouting anti-Belgian slogans. They were instantly removed by the police and arrested.
The museum currently hosts a collection of the Flemish Primitive artist Rogier Van der Weyden, one of the most important painters of the Medieval Low Countries. It is located both in old and new buildings.
See here for a thread about the visit.
See here for the website of the museum.
You can find an article of the event in Dutch here.
LadyLeana Belgian Royals, Dutch Royals Princess Mathilde, Princess Máxima
TRH the Prince of Orange and Princess Máxima have concluded their week-long visit to New York City, in celebration of the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson’s voyage aboard the Half Moon which discovered the city.
Click to see the image at NY400.nl
After their incredibly busy Tuesday and Wednesday schedules, Thursday was a relatively quiet day for the royal couple. The pair had seperate meetings on water management and micro-finance, the Prince and Princess’ pet areas respectively, at the United Nations Headquarters. Prince Willem-Alexander and Princess Máxima then visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where they were shown around the Johannes Vermeer exhibition – Vermeer’s Masterpiece The Milkmaid – by the Met’s curator Walter Liedtke.
The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam has loaned the Met Vermeer’s most famous painting, The Milkmaid, to be apart of the exhibition, while there are also a further five Vermeer pieces on show. Liedtke said that the Prince and Princess showed particular interest in the Vermeer paintings, before they moved on to the New York Stock Exchange, where they were treated to a dinner. At the Stock Exchange, the Prince and Princess were briefed on the economic crisis.
Friday, September 11th, began as a solemn day on the royal couple’s program. Read more…
JessRulz Dutch Royals 9/11, Exhibition, Four Freedom Awards, Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama, Official Visit, President Obama, Prince of Orange, Prince Willem-Alexander, Princess Máxima, United States of America
TRH the Prince of Orange and Princess Máxima have begun their week-long official visit to New York City, in celebration of the 400th anniversary of the founding of New Amsterdam, present-day NYC. Tuesday September 8th was the couple’s first official day in the city (they attended the wedding of Bernardo Guillermo over the weekend), and the first stop was the USS Intrepid, where the Prince and Princess were greeted by Mayor of NYC, Michael Bloomberg, and the US Secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Click to see the image at Daylife
Here, speeches were made by the Prince, the Mayor and Mrs Clinton. Prince Willem-Alexander said that, “Arriving in New York is always a great pleasure…because the better you know the Big Apple, the more you love this wonderful city,” before going on to talk about the 1609 voyage of the Half Moon from the Netherlands to New Amsterdam. He also spoke of the values brought to the New World, which are still present in New Yorkers today. “There is no doubt in my mind that New York will emerge from this crisis stronger…New Yorkers are hard-working optimists who have always been able to find new opportunities,” Prince Willem-Alexander said, regarding the current global financial crisis. Following the speeches, Princess Máxima was presented with a glass bowl by Mrs Clinton, and a 21-gun salute took place.
From the Harbour, Prince Willem-Alexander and Princess Máxima flew via helicopter to the oldest military academy in the US, West Point. Read more…
JessRulz Dutch Royals Hillary Clinton, Official Visit, Prince of Orange, Prince Willem-Alexander, Princess Máxima, United States of America
The holiday villa of the prince of Orange in Mozambique is causing more problems than expected by the prince and his wife. As newspaper ‘De Volkskrant’ reported on Saturday, many things went wrong with the building project in nature area Machangulo, on a peninsula in Mozambique. The project now turned into such a mess that the Dutch prime minister J.P. Balkenende advised the prince to move his private investments to a ’safe’ foundation.
Click on image to see picture at vandaag.be
The new foundation, called ‘Stichting Administratiekantoor Machangulo’ (foundation administration office Machangulo) is located at Noordeinde Palace in The Hague. New problems around the project are now an issue of the foundation, not of the crown prince. Added to that, before taking any serious steps around this project the prince has to ask approval of the members of the foundation and of the prime minister. According to the Government information service (RVD) this comparable to the procedure that government ministers have to follow to secure their business interests.
The project already saw a lot of setbacks. Project developer Dave Dahlmann all of a sudden vanished into thin air after it became clear he had committed fraud in the past. He did not open separate bank account for the project Machangulo. The millions that were invested by the ‘happy few’ ended up at the bank account of Dahlmann’s 21 year old daughter. It is not clear how much money disappeared and whose money it was. Several investors in the project, among them friends of the prince, didn’t take any risk and immediately sold their share of the project to somebody else. Read more…
Marengo Dutch Royals Mozambique, Prince of Orange, Prince Willem-Alexander, Princess Máxima, Residences
