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WORLD NEWS Friday 14 January 2022

Dutch king won't use carriage criticized for colonial image

By MIKE CORDER the past it has been used minimum" the monarch
Associated Press to carry Dutch monarchs could have said.
THE HAGUE, Netherlands through the streets of The "He says the past should not
(AP) — The Dutch king Hague to the state open- be looked at from the per-
ruled out Thursday using, ing of Parliament each spective and values of the
for now at least, the royal September. present ... and I think that's
family's "Golden Carriage," "There is no point in con- a fallacy because also in
one side of which bears a demning and disqualify- the historical context slav-
painting that critics say glo- ing what has happened ery can be seen as a crime
rifies the Netherlands' colo- through the lens of our against humanity and a
nial past, including its role in time," the king said. "Simply violent system," he said.
the global slave trade. banning historical objects "I think that argument is of-
The announcement was and symbols is certainly not ten used as an excuse to
an acknowledgement of a solution either. Instead, a kind of polish away the vio-
the heated debate about concerted effort is need- lent history of it."
the carriage as the Neth- ed that goes deeper and The Netherlands, along with
erlands reckons with the takes longer. An effort that many other nations, has
grim sides of its history as unites us instead of divides been revisiting its colonial
a 17th-century colonial su- us."Anti-racism activist and history in a process spurred
perpower, including Dutch co-founder of The Black by the Black Lives Matter
merchants making vast for- Associated Press Archives in Amsterdam, movement that swept the
tunes from slaves. message. goods to a seated young Mitchell Esajas, called the world after the death of
"The Golden Carriage will One side of the vehicle is white woman who symbol- king's statement "a good Black man George Floyd in
only be able to drive again decorated with a paint- izes the Netherlands. sign," but also the "bare the United States. q
when the Netherlands is ing called "Tribute from the The carriage is currently
ready and that is not the Colonies" that shows Black on display in an Amster-
case now," King Willem- and Asian people, one of dam museum following
Alexander said in a video them kneeling, offering a lengthy restoration. In

Majority of COVID patients in German

ICUs not vaccinated

BERLIN (AP) — Most CO- ICU patients whose vac- of ICU patients were fully
VID-19 patients in intensive cine status was known had inoculated, it said.
care in German hospitals received no protective About 72.3 % of the Ger-
aren't vaccinated, data shots against the coronavi- man population has re-
published on Thursday indi- rus. Unvaccinated people ceived at least two jabs,
cates. make up about a quarter while 45.1% have also had
The data from Germany's of the German population. a booster shot.
intensive care association Almost 10% were only par- Germany's independent
DIVI showed that 62% of tially vaccinated while 28% vaccine advisory panel on
Thursday endorsed booster
shots for children and ado-
lescents aged 12 to 17.
The expert committee said
children in that age range
should receive the mRNA
shot made by Pfizer and its
German partner BioNTech
at least three months after
their last vaccination.
Germany has seen a
steady rise in cases in re-
cent weeks as the Omi-
cron variant has started
spreading throughout the
Associated Press country.q