Hendrika van G., a 44-year-old woman from Middelharnis, stood trial on Monday for structurally abusing and neglecting her five children for years. Almost daily photos show five smiling kids, neatly arranged by age. But the reality was quite different, the children told the police, Rijnmond reports. The children describe their mother as unpredictable and irritable, saying she often subjected them to physical and verbal violence. One daughter said: “I always felt unsafe, sad, humiliated, rejected. My entire childhood I had the idea that I was different.” The young woman still struggles with PTSD and panic attacks. The case came to light six years ago, when the youngest child ended up in the hospital with severe malnutrition. Immediately after admission, the child started eating and growing, but that stagnated again when she went home. Child Protection Services intervened and found a severely neglected household, with clutter everywhere and no space for the children to play. Neighbors reported often hearing the woman shouting and the children, but also having almost daily photo shoots with them in the garden, even in the freezing cold or pouring rain. Youth care also later noticed that when the mother entered the room, the children immediately sat down in a row. The OM demanded community service of 240 hours, a suspended prison sentence of three months, and three years of guidance and treatment against the woman. The woman received a sentence reduction because it took so long to bring the case to court. The OM also wants her to pay the damage claims from her children, two of whom have asked for 6,000 and 7,000 euros in compensation. The court in Rotterdam will rule on March 3. © 2012-2025, NL Times, All rights reserved. “The Road,” features a detail of a new painting by the artist David Hockney who celebrated his eightieth birthday last year with a retrospective at the Metropolitan Museum of Art He spent several years drawing on an iPad—a phase that yielded a handful of New Yorker covers—and his more recent work plays with photography His latest cover adapts “Tall Dutch Trees After Hobbema (Useful Knowledge) 2017,” which is itself a riff on “The Avenue at Middelharnis,” a seventeenth-century work by the Dutch artist Meindert Hobbema Hockney recently sat down to answer a few questions about the cover and his new work Hockney’s “Tall Dutch Trees After Hobbema (Useful Knowledge),” currently on view at Pace Gallery.Photograph by Krista Schlueter for The New YorkerMeindert Hobbema’s 1689 painting “The Avenue at Middelharnis,” which is on display at the National Gallery.Courtesy The National Gallery I told JP [Hockney’s companion]—just look up Hobbema we found the painting and made a proof (it was quite good!) It’s an interesting dialogue with another work How did you land at this idea of cutting out parts of the canvas I had done things with reverse perspective before stuff like “Kerby (After Hogarth),” in 1975 I call that “useful knowledge.” It only became useful recently Hockney outside Pace Gallery.Photograph by Krista Schlueter for The New YorkerThe term comes up a lot in your recent work The problem with perspective is this: you’re an immobile point you can be a moving person—you can see all sides of things from a single point What made you return to the technique in a committed way he was shot by mistake,” and began looking at his work But that essay gave me an awful lot of confidence “Annunciation I” and “Annunciation II.” The paintings belong to a triptych in which Hockney first experimented with hexagonal canvases.Photograph by Krista Schlueter for The New YorkerAre you still doing stuff on the iPad that after thirteen hundred comes fourteen hundred comes fifteen hundred That was someone who didn’t have an ear for numbers Lawrence Weschler’s Profile of the artist Andrea K. Scott on the Met retrospective Hockney’s iPad covers. one of the Netherlands’ most cherished traditions unfolded on Saturday with contrasting scenes of celebration and tension across several towns While the event proceeded peacefully in Vianen protests and clashes overshadowed festivities in Middelharnis and Yerseke In Yerseke, four people were arrested during the Sinterklaas arrival due to disturbances surrounding a protest by the activist group Kick Out Zwarte Piet (KOZP) which involved about 20 activists opposing the inclusion of fully blackface-painted Zwarte Piet characters and a 30-year-old man from Kruiningen were detained on charges of throwing food a 31-year-old man from Colijnsplaat was arrested for incitement nearly 100 counter-protesters disrupted the demonstration the municipality of Reimerswaal issued an emergency order granting police the authority to clear individuals from the area to prevent further escalation KOZP staged another protest near the harbor where Sinterklaas arrived around 2 p.m The protest attracted dozens of counter-protesters and threw eggs and apples at the activists Police made at least four arrests related to minor offenses The heavy police presence included officers on the ground The Sinterklaas procession in Middelharnis continued on schedule despite the tense atmosphere with large crowds gathering along the quaysides the national Sinterklaas arrival in Vianen The steamship carrying the saint faced minor setbacks when it temporarily got stuck under a bridge and made an unscheduled detour to Ameide before finally arriving in Vianen around midday Mayor Sjors Fröhlich greeted Sinterklaas upon his arrival and the event proceeded with a parade through the historic town center “It all went very well,” said a spokesperson for the municipality of Vijfheerenlanden “We look back on a fantastic arrival.” The atmosphere remained festive and cheerful with no reports of demonstrations or safety concerns the docking area for the steamship became crowded but the event ran smoothly without needing to close any sections of the parade route KOZP activists in Yerseke were escorted to their bus by police with demonstrators leaving the harbor under police supervision Meindert Hobbema – The Avenue at Middelharnis 1689 Above image: Meindert Hobbema – The Avenue at Middelharnis 1689 Vincent Van Gogh arrived in London in 1873 Taking up residence in Stockwell and walking the daily commute across the river to Covent Garden and his work at the art dealership Goupils confused and disillusioned with the world of employment Though at the time he had no aspirations of becoming an artist it was this three year period in the capital that would inform his innermost sensibilities as both artist and person and which provides the context for a re-exploration of his work for Tate Britain’s new exhibition Van Gogh imbibed British culture with voracious interest From the literary works of George Eliot and Charles Dickens (Van Gogh had read A Christmas Carol nearly every year since he was a boy) to the paintings of Constable and John Everett Millais his insatiable appetite for discovery was fed by a city that was the epicenter of industrial development and radical thought It was in London that Van Gogh declared himself to be surrounded by the workhouses and abject poverty of a newly industrialised city he first encountered the religious and humanitarian ideologies that would remain an integral part of him until his death in 1890 While the exhibition includes Van Gogh’s time in Arles his later admission to Saint-Paul asylum and the posthumous influence of his work on British post-modernism it is these formative years in England that provide the most compelling insight The genesis of his style and subject matter are traced back to the moody and melancholic paintings of Meindert Hobbema (which he saw at the National Gallery and inspired his recurring motif of solitary figures on tree-lined avenues) and Gustave Dorē’s print series of the squalid conditions amongst London’s working classes which Van Gogh praised for portraying a “reality more real that reality” are shown to have left indelible marks on his conscience as well as provoking an interest in contributing some form of humanitarian relief how often I would stand on the Thames Embankment and draw as I made my way home from Southampton Street in the evening” – Vincent Van Goph It was this compulsion to help and highlight working class suffering that is evidenced in later paintings of prisoners (Prisoners Exercising) war veterans (Old man with umbrella and watch) and his Sien series on the destitute and pregnant sex worker Sien Hoornik (who Van Gogh employed as muse for an entire winter) Van Gogh would turn to the life of a missionary in southern Belgium when poor health and the support of his brother and life-long confidante Theo Profoundly affected by his experience in London the ensuing nine years would act as a form of urgent self-medication in which he was dismissed as deranged and his work considered valueless the exhibition includes how the idea of Van Gogh as a tortured and alienated artist was propagated by the aftermath of the Second World War When an exhibition of his opened in 1947 (the last time Tate held a Van Gogh show) it was the stories of his mental anguish and suicide that drove interest in his art this exhibition demonstrates above all else the timeless appeal of a compassionate The EY Exhibition: Van Gogh and Britain is on at Tate Britain until 11 August 2019. Tickets can be booked online here. Visitors familiar with the august halls of the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge will find that things have changed Where has Titian’s savage Tarquin and Lucretia gone Other Old Masters are jostling for attention in the face of the provocative intrusion of works by David Hockney The Avenue at Middelharnis (1689) borrowed from the National Gallery has been given a drastic make-over by Hockney The context is the first exhibition of his art that concentrates on his radical ideas about seeing This seemed like a suitable theme for a great university when I proposed it to the Heong Gallery in the University of Cambridge’s Downing College from where it was to be taken up with transformative power by the mighty Fitzwilliam The Avenue at Middelharnis (1689) by Meindert Hobbema Hockney was ploughing his own furrow as a painter of the seen world consciously operating both within and against the great tradition of naturalistic art at a time when Abstract Expressionism ruled the roost is a metre-high study of a skeleton made at the age of 22 at the Royal College of Art The position of the drawing in the long tradition of academic teaching is evident for all its preciously personal draftsmanship who had “never seen such a beautiful drawing” It is Hockney’s paradoxical form of anarchic traditionalism that lies behind the exhibition’s juxtaposition of Hockney’s portraits with assertive likenesses by Joshua Reynolds and William Hogarth Hockney’s skittish iPad drawings of flowers dazzle in one of the greatest of all galleries of flower paintings Claude Monet’s light-filled canvases and Hockney’s serial images of Normandy in blossom reinforce each other’s radiant presence David Hockney's After Hobbema (Useful Knowledge) (2017) is based on Hobbema’s 17th century painting The Avenue at Middelharnis © David Hockney Underpinning our enterprise is his 2001 book Secret Knowledge: Rediscovering the Lost Techniques of the Old Masters in which he argues that European art for four centuries was dominated by a “camera culture” in which the spectator is constrained to act as a “one-eyed cyclops” The optics of linear perspective had merged with images made using camera obscuras and concave mirrors His quest involves more than just looking at paintings He restlessly experiments with the optical tools available to artists both as part of his research and to achieve his own individual ends above all in his 12 Portraits After Ingres In a Uniform Style (1999-2000) large coloured drawings of warders in the National Gallery made using a 19th-century device the uniformed warders observe us disconcertingly The series sprang from his observation of portrait drawings by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres which he became convinced utilised the camera lucida Hockney's 12 Portraits after Ingres in a Uniform Style (1999-2000) © David Hockney most notably when Poussin’s Extreme Unction (around 1637-42)—exhibited with a reconstruction of the stage-like box the artist used to articulate forms and light in space—is compared to Hockney’s recent “digital drawings” of large interiors within which objects and figures are manoeuvred like pieces on a chessboard Hockney’s escalating rejection of linear perspective climaxes in his exploration of “reverse perspective” which draws inspiration from Pavel Florensky (1882-1937) The Russian theologian and theorist claimed that the non-optical rendering of form and space in traditional Russian icons was retrospectively validated by Cubism and modern physics Where do I as a historian stand in all this most notably in claiming that icons are about seeing “real space” rather than spiritual realms in which optical rules are inapplicable I also think that cameras were directly used less extensively than Hockney believes while agreeing that a pervasive “photographic” mode existed before the inventions by Henry Fox Talbot and Louis Daguerre I discovered years ago that no companion is more compellingly perceptive than Hockney on a tour of an art gallery Above all I take sustained delight in his insatiable quest to refresh how we use our eyes as dynamic agencies in space and time • Hockney’s Eye: the Art and Technology of Depiction, Heong Gallery and Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, until 29 August • Martin Kemp is an art historian and emeritus professor of art history at the University of Oxford from the best biography to the artist's “radical” investigations into art history—selected by the critic (and longtime friend) Martin Gayford video14 September 2020Caravaggio used a camera? David Hockney's controversial claim reframes narrative of Western art historyIn behind-the-scenes footage from an award-winning documentary the British artist discusses how mirrors and lenses were used by Old Masters to create proto-photographic images Prompted by requests for capacity from distributed energy resources Stedin sought to develop a green and digital gas-insulated substation The Netherlands distribution system operator supplies most of the Randstad area the Port of Rotterdam area and the Botlek industrial area These are high-density urban areas with a complex infrastructure and a high dependency on energy Stedin also supplies energy to low-density urban areas which have a high penetration of distributed energy resources (DERs) All these areas require continuous availability of energy The initial aim of Stedin’s Middelharnis II green and digital gas-insulated substation (GIS) project was to expand an existing substation with an additional 50-kV section in a sustainable and innovative way the utility also wanted to reduce its carbon footprint so it ultimately decided to ban the use of SF6 This changed the utility’s goals for the 50-kV GIS project The first goal was to replace the use of SF6 with green gas for grid (g3) which has an impact of less than 99% on the global warning potential (GWP) compared to SF6 A second goal was to innovate in the digital substation by installing low-power instrument transformers (LPIT) as sensors instead of conventional sensors that use large quantities of steel and copper Stedin has been able to obtain more modeled useful data out of the substation through the IEC 61850 standard used for the interface of the LPIT measured values the digital substation is a key element of the operating system in the smart grid by making it possible to improve network management and predict the cost of the energy transition The utility believes digital substations will become indispensable for business and operational processes medium-voltage and low-voltage networks can be combined and used to optimize the energy supply system a stable standard must be used to exchange the measured values to ensure system reliability and create a vendor-independent ecosystem Rogowski coils and capacitive dividing technologies were used interoperable multivendor setup was not easily achievable for Stedin until the IEC 61850-9-2 and IEC 61689-9 standards were released These standards clearly and concisely describe which measured value streams are used and this information enabled Stedin to start applying LPITs three feeders are equipped with LPITs as follows: The GIS product installed in the Middelharnis II project is an SF6-free solution based on a mixture containing fluoronitrile CO2 and O2 An environmentally friendly alternative gas mixture to SF6 g3 was developed for high-voltage transmission equipment The GIS in Middelharnis II has the same ratings footprint as state-of-the-art SF6 but with a drastically reduced environmental impact of more than 99% less gas GWP g3 products operate with no restriction under the same temperature range as SF6 products the basic building block is the IEC 61850 process bus and the concept of distributed in/out (I/O) for protection and supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) reporting Implementing the process bus in a GIS converts the current and voltage measurement to digital messages by using the LPIT directly The general concepts of IEC 61850 process bus network architecture simplify control and protection testing posing less risk than with a conventional GIS Standard GIS today use conventional CTs and VTs for analog measurement an analog merging unit (AMU) is installed to convert the analog current and voltage measurement to digital messages for a greenfield project where a new GIS will be installed the LPIT offers state-of-the-art technology and improvement The two major principles used in GIS LPIT are the Rogowski and capacitive technologies namely Rogowski electronic current transformer (RECT) and capacitive electronic voltage transformer (CEVT) the Rogowski sensor used in the Middelharnis II GIS is manufactured on a printed-circuit board (PCB) as the nonmagnetic material is the main driver for achieving a reliable and predictable sensor that can reach a perfect homogeneity of the windings It offers stable and outstanding accuracy and linearity measurement The sensor is not sensitive to environmental factors so a unique sensor is used for the metering application with rated currents ranging from 100 A rms to 5000 A rms large fault currents up to 63 kA rms with full asymmetry The CEVT also is designed in a double-sided PCB as a ring electrode near the enclosure The CEVT provides advantages like long-term stability extremely high thermal stability and tolerance to primary conductor vibrations The CEVT and RECT can be installed in a stand-alone or combined mode The CEVT and RECT sensors are connected to a primary converter (PC12) that converts the primary signal in a digital frame to the XMU (LPIT merging unit) which subsequently gives the process bus digital output of IEC 61850-9-2 sampled value streams The process bus sampled value streams can be used by all process bus applications PC12 has been installed on top of the embedded cubicle on the GIS for easy access The heart of a digital substation solution is the network system architecture Installing the same communication protocol IEC 61850 throughout the whole substation lowers the costs for maintenance installation and operation as well as provides faster communications Network devices that manage real-time data exchange for protection and control applications will satisfy high-level system requirements — since their failure could impact those applications the solution relies on high-availability automation networks defined by the IEC 62439-3 standard which specifies two redundancy protocols — the parallel redundancy protocol (PRP) and the high-availability seamless ring (HSR) — for double-star and dual-ring architectures PRP architecture has been selected at both the station level and process level to provide a safe highly interoperable and reliable network architecture To yield the highest accuracy and granularity from such protection and control applications the system heartbeat is addressed by the IEEE 1588 precision time protocol (PTP) standard which synchronizes clocks throughout the network by achieving clock accuracy in the sub-microsecond range making it suitable for protection and control systems The primary time source relies on time broadcast by atomic clocks from a dedicated time server within the substation It receives the time signal from the outside GPS and GLONASS satellites provide the highest accuracy Configuration of an IEC 61850 substation at the system level is a comprehensive engineering process and even more so with the process bus It not only involves IED configuration tools and a system configuration tool but it also requires a correct understanding of the configuration process and data flow The focus on the configuration tool is to provide a comprehensive solution — to manage from configuration to device deployment — to guarantee project execution by means of an integrated process IEC 61850 is a standard that provides methodology and modeling of substation automation systems Stedin’s approach to the configuration was to model the system using the object-oriented method Stedin conducted a pilot project on its new green and digital GIS to demonstrate and test new technologies as well as benefit from operational experience The most important requirements for the protection automation and control system were as follows: monitor and diagnosis (M&D) equipment installed on the 50/13-kV transformer was integrated in the protection The M&D system monitors the dissolved gas analysis (DGA) protection and enables Stedin to observe the condition of the transformer on-line An important topic during the testing and commissioning procedures was how to test the LPITs as the simple secondary injection testing of currents and voltages is not possible the primary converter is equipped with a dedicated test input that makes it possible to test the converter as well as the merging unit up to the process bus in a safe manner it is important to know that testing of individual IEDs connected to the process bus also can be completed easily and safely the protection no longer functions on primary values and tripping will not occur in the event of a fault The Middelharnis lI project has demonstrated the potential offered by digital substations and it is evident to Stedin that digital is the future Real and fully digital substations can be realized both easily and efficiently It will require additional skills in return for the increased benefits which were anticipated and fulfilled in the Middelharnis ll project The application of an LIPT chain requires clearly specified accuracy classes and requirements for each device replacement parts of this chain must be the same and subject to intensive testing Unexpected was the skill competency of the existing personnel who were used to installing and testing conventional CTs and VTs With the introduction of LPITs and process bus the protection functions will fail to operate correctly Differential protection comprising different source types leads to phase differences This needs adjustment in the protection devices and is still quite an undiscovered topic promotional material from some vendors claim that their products are IEC 61850-9-2 compliant there are a relatively large number of vendors whose products are compliant with this standard Stedin is on a mission to create an environment filled with new energy More and more of its customers are generating sustainable energy and the utility must be adequately prepared to implement the latest technologies Stedin is developing a sustainable energy system that will be reliable and affordable in the long term The authors wish to acknowledge the technical support and advice received from Bruno Castagne and Jacques van Ammers of General Electric in the preparation of this article René Troost graduated as an electrical engineer and started his career in telecommunications  With extensive experience and expertise in the protection Troost is currently responsible for substation automation policy and an active member of the Dutch Committee of the IEC TC57 (NEC57) and the CIGRE Technical Committee 57 WG10 which deals with power system intelligent electronic devices Pascal Eversteijn graduated as an electrical engineer and started his career in 2009 with Stedin in the area of protection relays his work extended to secondary equipment for protection Eversteijn is responsible for managing the areas of Dordrecht and Goeree-Overflakkee He participated in several tenders for protection automation and control systems and telecommunication and has been involved in innovative pilots involving these systems René Troost ([email protected]) graduated as an electrical engineer and started his career in telecommunications Pascal Eversteijn ([email protected]) graduated as an electrical engineer and started his career in 2009 with Stedin in the area of protection relays In the Netherlands Vattenfall is constructing its so far largest hybrid energy park featuring an efficient combination of wind turbines Vattenfall is currently constructing its largest hybrid energy park Once operational this farm will consist of 6 wind turbines 115,000 solar panels and 12 sea containers with batteries the construction of the solar panels started in June and the batteries are currently being tested off-site The amount of green electricity that the energy park will produce corresponds to the annual consumption of 39,000 households To view this content please click here to allow marketing cookies Watch this video from Dutch hybrid power farm Haringvliet to learn about the many advantages offered by a hybrid park. The battery facility then provides the additional service of maintaining a balance on the system when it comes to operating frequency and storage of excess electricity” The Haringvliet project is special as it is the first of its kind within Vattenfall. It is centred around maximising the use of renewable energy, reducing costs, and having as little impact on the environment as possible by optimising synergies between the technologies it took two months to complete all six turbines of Energy park Haringvliet Zuid site manager: “Last winter saw lots of rain and wind Then the coronavirus outbreak slowed down our work we connect cables with teams of three or four colleagues due to distancing restrictions we could only use two people at a time and we were able to pick up the pace and eventually limit our delays” At the moment the turbines are being tested and optimised before they will be commissioned the first piles for the solar panels were driven into the ground followed by the assembly of the first 20 of 115,000 solar panels of Energy park Haringvliet Zuid Once operational the solar panels alone will produce enough to supply 12,000 households with green electricity construction manager of the solar park: "We always carry out an extensive quality check on the first set of panels We'll be working until October to finish the other 114,980 solar panels" Energy Park Haringvliet Zuid is one of Vattenfall’s nature-inclusive solar parks Vattenfall has considered the experiences of cyclists and walkers in the area: they were allowed to contribute ideas for the construction of a cycle path and a view hill and the solar panels were no higher than 1,5 metres so that all passers-by can see over them At the moment Vattenfall is installing beehives At their factory, supplier Alfen is preparing 12 sea containers containing 288 BMW batteries and the necessary peripherals These are the same batteries that are used in the BMW i3 electric car The 12 MW energy storage system is designed to keep the electricity grid in balance and can be used as storage of renewable power in the future explains: “All batteries and other equipment will be installed in the containers at the factory so that as little work as possible will have to be done on site and the transport of the containers is planned for this summer” In addition, there will also be a battery substation at the energy park connecting all the systems and the entire energy storage system to the rest of the energy park “Once all the containers and the substation have been placed and connected to the substation of the entire energy park a second on-site test period will follow” Ross Williams concludes: “With Vattenfall’s ambition to enable fossil-free living within one generation Energy Park Haringvliet-Zuid will play a huge part in fulfilling that ambition from 2021 onwards when it becomes fully operational I am convinced we will see many more parks like Haringvliet in all of our markets in the future.  Hybrid parks – new opportunities with multi-technology facilitiesBattery storage systemsOur environmental responsibility After successfully testing multi-use offshore practices at Danish Kriegers Flak in the Baltic Sea Vattenfall and its project partners are now bringing the pioneering WIN@sea project to the .. When Swedish Bruzaholm wind farm is completed this autumn it will not only produce fossil free power It will also be a shining example of how partnering can spur innovative ideas Artificial intelligence combined with drones offers significant advantages for offshore wind Advanced AI technologies not only enhance safety and efficiency of offshore activities but also .. Contact us LinkedIn YouTube Instagram Facebook Vattenfall is a European energy company with approximately 21,000 employees For more than 100 years we have electrified industries supplied energy to people's homes and modernised our way of living through innovation and cooperation More about Vattenfall Connecting decision makers to a dynamic network of information Bloomberg quickly and accurately delivers business and financial information The Haringvliet energy park in Middelharnis Photographer: Jeffrey Groeneweg/AFP/Getty Images 2023 at 10:36 AM EDTBookmarkSaveLock This article is for subscribers only.Power prices in the Netherlands turned negative on Wednesday with the market so overloaded with green electricity that consumers are getting paid to use the excess supply Prices fell to as low as -€739.96 a megawatt-hour between 1 and 2 p.m with the weighted average staying negative for every hour from 10 a.m The surge of clean electricity has outstripped demand showcasing power grids’ struggle to accommodate large variations in renewables The arrival of Sinterklaas, a cherished Dutch tradition, unfolded across the Netherlands on Saturday, with contrasting scenes of festive celebrations and protests. While Vianen welcomed the saint without disruptions, the nearby town of Middelharnis saw demonstrations and heightened security due to ongoing tensions surrounding Zwarte Piet the activist group Kick Out Zwarte Piet (KOZP) staged a protest against the continued use of blackface makeup for Zwarte Piet characters The Goeree-Overflakkee municipality implemented stringent security measures to ensure the event proceeded peacefully Officials worked closely with the event organizers and emergency services to safeguard what Mayor Ada Grootenboer-Dubbelman described as “a smooth and joyful children’s celebration.” The mayor issued a stern warning to potential counter-protesters earlier in the week after receiving reports of plans to disrupt the KOZP demonstration “I urge everyone not to do so,” Grootenboer-Dubbelman said “This children’s celebration is absolutely not the place for tensions The presence of KOZP at other Sinterklaas arrivals remains uncertain Group leader Jerry Afriyie confirmed that KOZP recently sent over 30 letters to municipalities where Zwarte Piet is still featured Afriyie noted that “constructive conversations” have taken place with several local governments While KOZP did not protest in De Lier and ’s-Gravenzande in the Westland municipality this year police intervened when Zwarte Piet supporters attacked KOZP demonstrators with eggs and cans during the Sinterklaas arrival in De Lier KOZP joined forces with XR Zeeland and Zeeland Kan Het to stage another protest against Zwarte Piet during the local Sinterklaas arrival had not received confirmation from KOZP about their attendance as of Saturday morning it was still unclear whether the protest would go forward,” said a spokesperson for the municipality officials had been anticipating the possibility of a demonstration and had begun preparing measures to ensure safety Further details about the protest's progression are expected later in the day KOZP also acknowledged that despite plans to protest at thirteen other locations these demonstrations were ultimately called off after successful negotiations with local Sinterklaas committees and municipalities we trust that these locations will now host inclusive celebrations for all children,” the group said KOZP emphasized its collaborative approach noting that while the intention behind traditional Sinterklaas celebrations is positive “We are pleased that these committees are working with us to ensure a safe and inclusive celebration,” the group added They plan to evaluate the progress with the municipalities next year Sinterklaas's traditional arrival on his steamship unfolded without incident the saint disembarked at the Passantenhaven in the fortified city greeted by a crowd of approximately 20,000 people after which he paraded through the city center accompanied by his helpers Sinterklaas and his Piets enjoyed performances by a local dance school and a trampoline demonstration Vianen reported no signs of protests or controversies “We have not received indications of large-scale demonstrations about national issues,” the municipality announced earlier this week