ROTTERDAM (ANP) - De flink opgelopen prijzen van olie en gas door de Iranoorlog zetten de chemische industrie in Nederland verder onder druk, stellen brancheorganisaties. Het afgelopen jaar sloten fabrieken al de deuren in de Rotterdamse haven, mede door hoge kosten.
"De chemische industrie maakt intensief gebruik van olie en gas, zowel als grondstof als voor energie", legt hoofd Klimaat & Energie van brancheorganisatie voor de chemische industrie VNCI Mark Intven uit. "Daardoor raken de huidige koersstijgingen bedrijven in de sector op twee van hun meest cruciale kostenfactoren."
Toch zijn de eerste signalen uit de Nederlandse markt nog niet zo heftig als tijdens het uitbreken van de oorlog in Oekraïne, stelt Intven. "Maar de ontwikkelingen zijn wel degelijk zeer ongunstig voor de industrie."
De chemische industrie staat sinds het uitbreken van de oorlog in Oekraïne in 2022 onder druk. Volgens ING-econoom Bert Colijn kan een langdurige stijging van de energiekosten "de hoop op herstel de grond inboren".
England have lost three out of four Six Nations games
Captain Itoje calls for senior players to step up in Paris
Maro Itoje has called on his England side to show their character as they seek to salvage some pride from a dismal Six Nations campaign against title-chasing France in Paris on Saturday.
Itoje’s rallying cry comes with England staring down the barrel of what would be their worst Six Nations if they fail to win away to France for the first time since 2016. Les Bleus will almost certainly successfully defend their title with a bonus-point victory but will know exactly what they have to do by the time kick-off arrives.
Continue reading...The path to this reckless war was paved by the collapse of accountability in Washington
Since he reclaimed the White House, Donald Trump loves being compared with a monarch with unprecedented powers. “LONG LIVE THE KING!” Trump said on social media last year, after his administration tried to kill congestion pricing in New York. In October, the US president posted an AI-generated video of himself dumping brown sludge on protesters who participated in a daylong mass protest, known as “No Kings”, against his administration. In the video, Trump wore a crown and was flying a fighter jet labeled “KING TRUMP”.
He has also launched a relentless campaign of self-aggrandizement, plastering his name and face on government buildings, including the Kennedy Center and the US Institute of Peace. Trump demolished the White House’s East Wing and is overseeing plans to replace it with an enormous ballroom; the National Park Service designated the president’s birthday as a free-admission day at national parks; and the US treasury is poised to issue $1 coins featuring Trump’s image to commemorate the 250th anniversary of America’s independence later this year.
Continue reading...If the long-mooted third instalment of the 80s sword and sorcery series finally gets off the ground, it could be Arnie’s chance to go from ageing action hero to cinematic totem
If you’re a fan of 1980s and 1990s Arnold Schwarzenegger, his late-era career has probably come as a bit of a disappointment. The Austrian oak was once Hollywood’s most reliable tool for punching killer robots, but he’s never really had his Unforgiven moment. Despite an absurdly influential run of science fiction and fantasy movies, Schwarzenegger has missed out on the sort of grizzled, late-career reckoning that might have deconstructed his own youthful myth, just as Clint Eastwood’s epic 1992 western confronted the very legend the actor-director spent decades building.
It’s not as if Hollywood hasn’t tried. In fact, studios have spent the last decade or so trying to produce Schwarzenegger’s “old warrior” phase, as if prodding the action hero myth with a stick to see if it still roars. The problem is, nothing has quite landed. Terminator: Dark Fate turned the T-800 into a retired drapery salesman reflecting on his own violent past. Maggie had him as a grieving father in a quiet zombie family drama. Aftermath is essentially a sombre meditation on grief that briefly veers into revenge thriller territory. None quite managed to become the monument to the Schwarzenegger enigma that the actor’s era-defining body of work seemed to demand. If Arnold fans wanted the sort of late-career statement that turns an ageing action star into a cinematic totem, they instead got an increasingly mortal-looking man who turns up in mid-budget streaming thrillers looking faintly concerned.
Continue reading...Na de Wende moest de voormalige DDR integreren in een nieuw, westers en kapitalistisch systeem. Zo ook de voetbalclubs uit het oosten. Dat lukte nauwelijks: vandaag telt de Bundesliga slechts één club met DDR-wortels. Voetballiefhebber en sportjournalist Mathias Liebing schreef er een boek over. „De DDR was de schurk die verslagen was.”