Way back in January 2008 we wrote a story about Shin-Chan, a giant Ashera cat (pic) that had been caged up at Schiphol Airport and not allowed to enter the country. The cat had been bought by a couple from Eindhoven for EUR 14,695 (US$22,000) from Lifestyle Pets in the United States.

According to Dutchnews.nl, owner Jeffrey Borrenberg told newspaper De Telegraaf he had never been allowed to know where the cat was and if it was being cared for properly. “This is what we were always afraid would happen,” he said. “Don’t tell me this is not an easy way to get rid of a difficult problem.”

The cat has been in custody for almost two years and just died.

(Link: dutchnews.nl)

Dutch airline KLM is planning to use the leftovers of 50,000 airplane meals to produce electricity. The idea is to convert waste (refuse and food) into oil and then burn in a gas turbine at a new power station on Schiphol Airport grounds. A feasability study is currently being done and a decision will be made at the end of September.

With an investment of less than EUR 10 mln, the power station could process 20 tonnes of waste a day, which is enough to handle the leftover food. The turbine would then be able of providing electricity for 4,000 homes.

(Link: meatandmeal.nl)

Schiphol Airport (aka Amsterdam Airport for those of you who ‘break their tongues’ pronouncing ‘Schiphol’ – try ‘Shrip-pole’ – there, see?) has just opened up a goldfish hotel so travellers can have their fish taken care of while they fly away to warmer pastures. The hotel was the brainchild of well-known travel agent D-reizen and was opened by Olympic long-distance swimming champion Maarten van der Weijden.

The aquarium looks like a hotel, with a tennis court and a pool with a slide. “Goldfish dropped off by travellers will get private suites, so that they don’t get mixed up or get sick,” says D-reizen director Steven van Nieuwenhuizen. And if a fish happens to die while its owners are away, D-reizen will make sure they will be able to take the real dead one home, regardless.

(Link: nrc.nl)

Patent lawyer Arnout Engelfriet says (Dutch) that searches of mobile phones and laptops at the airports by the marechaussee, a form of military police, may be illegal. He refers to the fact that the powers of the marechaussee are the same as those of the regular police, and regular police may only perform searches when they have good reason to suspect a specific wrongdoing. The marechaussee’s actions are part of a test started last year in the hope to lessen the smuggling of child pornography.

According to tech news site Tweakers.net (Dutch), the justice department wanted to keep the test a secret because of expected “legal complications.” Journalist Brenno de Winter discovered that although 900 mobile phones, 62 hard disks and sundry other digital devices were searched, none of the victims were prosecuted on the basis of these searches.

The marechaussee was installed in 1814 by later king Willem I as a successor to Napoleon’s reviled gendarmerie. Its tasks have included policing of citizens from the word go. When the civil police reorganized in 1988, guard and police duties at national airport Schiphol got assigned to the marechaussee. The organization took over guard duties for the royal familie in 1908, a job hitherto performed by the palace’s gardening staff.

(Photo: colargol87, some rights reserved.)

Ron Ledford, an American who survived the plane crash this week at Schiphol airport helped crash victims out of the plane and walked to the nearest hospital. As you may have read, it took the emergency services some 40 minutes to get to the crash for whatever reason.

When the emergency services finally arrived, the man decided to walk to the Lucas Andreas hospital to have himself checked out. He was asked to pay 250 euro for the visit, and since he didn’t have it on him, he claims to have gone to a coffeeshop to ’self-medicate’.

The hospital is looking into this incident and says it will issue a statement. I should bloodly hope so. Amsterdam’s local TV station AT5 met Ron Ledford at a shop downtown where he was being fitted with a free new outfit, thanks to a shop owner who met him and obviously cared about his story (unlike the hospital). He was then brought for more help to the police.

(Link: at5.nl, Photo by flickr.com user Radio Nederland Wereldomroep, some rights reserved.)

Yesterday Schiphol Airport began using new body-scanning machines at security checkpoints, becoming the first major airport to use the technology to find metals and explosives hidden under clothing.The “security scan” system, which uses harmless radio waves to display head-to-toe images of people, is also being used by other airports on a trial basis, but Schiphol is the only one to deploy the technology for regular use at its checkpoints. It takes three seconds to go through the scanner.

Schiphol is one of the world’s most modern airports, with flat-panel screens (as long as the info is somewhere), airport-wide Web access (totally overpriced BTW) and iris scanners already on offer to those who want to bypass passport lines (it’s the baggage check lines that are nasty).

(Link: News.com)