THE HAGUE (AFP) – Housing is at a premium and so is parking in the Netherlands, but a parking space put up for sale this week for almost half-a-million euros – more than the average home price – has raised eyebrows.

Located in PC Hooftstraat next to Amsterdam’s famous Vondelpark, the indoor space was advertised at EUR495,000 (USD528,000) on the Dutch property website funda.nl.

“We are offering a parking space for sale or for rent on the best known and most exclusive shopping street in the Netherlands,” read the advertisement.

The parking space is also a stone’s throw from major attractions like the Van Gogh Museum and the Rijksmuseum.

Dutch commercial broadcaster RTL Nieuws, which first reported the story, called it “the most expensive parking space in the Netherlands”.

It noted that hundreds of parking spaces were on sale in the Netherlands “but this specific price has… raised eyebrows.”

For those willing to fork out the jaw-dropping amount, the advertisement said the closed-in 18-square-metre space is “well-suited for wider cars” and noted “there’s enough space for the chauffeur and passengers to step out.”

The parking space can also be rented for EUR750 a month.

Estate agent selling the parking space Jeel Heule told RTL he disagreed with those who consider the price to be too high given the lack of other parking available. “For people… in this neighbourhood buying a parking space offers a solution,” Heule said.

The Netherlands, one of Europe’s most densely populated countries with 17.8 million people, is facing an acute housing shortage of some 390,000 homes, according to a recent study.

The average house price was EUR430,000 in the Netherlands last year and someone making the national average wage has been priced out of the Amsterdam market, according to recent studies.

KATHMANDU (AFP) – Nepal’s Supreme Court has ordered the government to limit the number of mountaineering permits issued for Everest and other peaks, a lawyer confirmed on Friday, just as expeditions prepare for the spring climbing season.

The Himalayan republic is home to eight of the world’s 10 highest peaks and welcomes hundreds of adventurers each spring, when temperatures are warm and winds are typically calm.

The verdict was issued in late April but a summary was only published this week.

Lawyer Deepak Bikram Mishra, who had filed a petition urging permits to be curtailed, told AFP that the court had responded to public concerns about Nepal’s mountains and its environment. “It has ordered a limit to the number of climbers… and also given measures for waste management and preservation of the mountain’s environment,” Mishra said.

The verdict’s summary said that the mountains’ capacity “must be respected” and an appropriate maximum number of permits should be determined. The full text of the verdict has not been published and the summary does not mention any specific limit to the number of permits issued.

Nepal currently grants permits to all who apply and are willing to pay USD11,000 to scale Everest, the world’s highest peak at 8,850 metres above sea level. Last year, the country issued 478 permits for Everest, a record high.

A massive human traffic jam on Everest in 2019 forced teams to wait hours at the summit in freezing temperatures, risking depleted oxygen levels that can lead to sickness and exhaustion. At least four of the 11 deaths on the peak that year were blamed on overcrowding.

“We are pressuring the mountain too much and we need to give it some respite,” Mishra said.

The court decision also orders restrictions on the use of helicopters for emergency rescues only.

Helicopters have been frequently used to airlift mountaineering teams to base camps and across hazardous terrain.

PARIS (AP) – French police on Friday peacefully removed dozens of students from the prestigious Institute of Political Studies and Counts (Sciences Po) university who had gathered in support of Palestinians, echoing similar encampments and solidarity demonstrations across the United States (US). The intervention came after police dislodged students at 23 French campuses on Thursday because of pro-Palestinian demonstrations, according to the Prime Minister’s Office.

Students at the central Sciences Po campus in Paris waved Palestinian flags and chanted slogans in support of residents of Gaza. The main building at Sciences Po – France President Emmanuel Macron and Prime Minister Gabriel Attal among its many famous alumni – had been occupied since Thursday evening.

The university administration had closed the main buildings and moved classes online.

Students chanting “Set Gaza free, set Palestine free” held a protest in front of the Pantheon monument, near the elite Sorbonne University, to call for an end to Israel’s offensive in Gaza.

Similar protests by small groups of students were held in recent days at campuses in Lille in the north, Reims in Champagne country and Lyon in the southeast.

Attal’s office said police had been asked to remove students from 23 sites on French campuses on Thursday and “all were evacuated within a few hours.”

A police presence is maintained near Sciences Po to prevent any further blockades, it said in a statement. The protesters said they want an investigation committee to examine the university’s economic ties to Israel to ensure they are not violating international law. The school said administrator Jean Bassères met overnight and Friday morning with students occupying the site to try to find a solution to allow exams to take place.

Failing to find a compromise, Bassères asked police to intervene. Describing it as a “difficult decision,” the school said it “regrets that multiple efforts at dialogue did not allow this to  be avoided.”

Last week, pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli demonstrators faced each other in a standoff in the street outside Sciences Po. Riot police stepped in to separate the groups. The protest ended peacefully after pro-Palestinian students agreed to leave. The school agreed to suspend disciplinary proceedings against protesting students and to organise a town hall over the issue.

LONDON (AP) – German tennis legend Boris Becker was discharged from bankruptcy court in London after a judge found he had done “all that he reasonably could do” to repay creditors tens of millions of pounds on Wednesday.

Becker fell far short of repaying his creditors nearly GBP50 million (USD62.5 million) he owed, but Chief Insolvency and Companies Court Judge Nicholas Briggs said it would be “perverse” not to end the case given the efforts Becker made.

“On the spectrum of bankrupts who range from ‘difficult as possible and doing everything to frustrate the trustee’s inquiries’ to ‘co-operative, providing information and delivering up assets’, Mr Becker clearly falls on the right side of the line,” Briggs wrote. Becker, 56, was deported to Germany two years ago after serving eight months in a London prison for illicitly transferring large amounts of money and hiding GBP2.5 million (USD3.1 million) in assets after he was declared bankrupt in 2017.

He had been convicted in a London court on four charges under the Insolvency Act, including removal of property, concealing debt and two counts of failing to disclose estate. He was acquitted of 25 other charges. Including nine counts of failing to hand over Grand Slam trophies and his Olympic gold medal to bankruptcy trustees.

LONDON (AFP) – The High Court ruled on Friday that the United Kingdom’s (UK) government had acted unlawfully when it approved elements of its plans to meet net-zero targets based on “vague and unquantified” information.

It is the second time in two years that the court has ruled that ministers are not following the UK’s own climate change laws. A judge handed down a similar ruling in 2022.

UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in power since October that year, has faced persistent criticism that he is watering down the country’s commitment to net zero targets after a series of climate policy reversals. Friday’s ruling was prompted by on a legal challenge by campaign groups Friends of the Earth, ClientEarth and the Good Law Project. It means ministers must redraft part of their net-zero plans.

“This is another embarrassing defeat for the government and its reckless and inadequate climate plans,” Friends of the Earth lawyer Katie de Kauwe said.

The groups took joint legal action against the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero over its decision in March 2023 to approve the Carbon Budget Delivery Plan (CBDP). The plan outlines how the UK will achieve targets in the country’s so-called carbon budget, which runs until 2037, as part of wider efforts to reach net zero by 2050. They argued that the relevant secretary of state at the time, Grant Shapps, lacked key information on whether individual policies could be delivered but approved them anyway.

That breached the 2008 Climate Change Act, which requires such due diligence on emissions cutting targets and strategies, said the groups.

High Court Judge Clive Sheldon agreed, calling the plan presented to Shapps for sign-off “vague and unquantified” and saying it lacked “sufficient” information.

AFP – Hamas said its delegation was heading to Cairo to resume Gaza truce talks, as the United Nations (UN) warned that Israel’s threatened assault on the city of Rafah could produce a “bloodbath”.

Foreign mediators have been waiting for the Palestinian militant group to respond to a proposal to halt fighting for 40 days and exchange hostages for Palestinian prisoners.

“The only thing standing between the people of Gaza and a ceasefire is Hamas,” United States (US) Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Friday.

Months of negotiations have stalled in part on Hamas’ demand for a lasting ceasefire and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s repeated vows to crush the group’s remaining fighters in Rafah.

Blinken on Friday also reiterated Washington’s objections to the long-threatened Rafah offensive, saying Israel has not presented a plan to protect the civilians sheltering there.

“Absent such a plan, we can’t support a major military operation going into Rafah because the damage it would do is beyond what’s acceptable,” he said.

Humanitarian groups and the United Nations have also begged Israel to call off an attack on Rafah, where 1.2 million people have sought refuge. World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned on Friday that an incursion into the far-southern city could have dire implications.

“WHO is deeply concerned that a full-scale military operation in Rafah, Gaza, could lead to a bloodbath, and further weaken an already broken health system,” Tedros said on X.

The UN’s health agency announced it was nevertheless making contingency plans, restoring health facilities and pre-positioning supplies.

“This contingency plan is Band-Aids,” said Rik Peeperkorn, the WHO representative in the Palestinian territories.

“The ailing health system will not be able to withstand the potential scale of devastation that the incursion will cause.”

AP – Mexican authorities said yesterday that three bodies were recovered in an area of Baja California near where two Australians and an American went missing last weekend during an apparent camping and surfing trip.

The state prosecutors office did not say whether the bodies were those of the three foreigners, but said the bodies were discovered during the search for the missing men. It also announced that three people who were being questioned in the case of the missing men had been arrested and charged. “Three bodies were found south of the city of Ensenada, and they were recovered in coordination with other authorities during a specialised operation because they were found in a zone of difficult access,” the office said in a statement.

“This was done as part of the search for two Australians and one American reported missing,” the office said. The site where the bodies were discovered near the township of Santo Tomás was near the remote seaside area where the missing men’s tents and truck were found on Thursday on a remote stretch of coast.

The men – identified by family members as brothers Jake and Callum Robinson from Australia and American Jack Carter Rhoad – went missing last Saturday. They did not show up at their planned accommodations over the weekend. The United States (US) State Department said: “We are aware of those reports (of bodies) and are closely monitoring the situation. At this time we have no further comment.”

Baja California prosecutors had said on Thursday that they were questioning three people in the case. On Friday, the office said the three had been arrested and charged with a crime equivalent to kidnapping. It was unclear if they might face more charges.

AP – The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) yesterday charged an auditing firm hired by Trump Media and Technology Group just 37 days ago with “massive fraud” – though not for any work it performed for former president Donald Trump’s media company.

The SEC charged the accounting firm BF Borgers and its owner, Benjamin F Borgers, with “deliberate and systematic failures” in more than 1,500 audits. The charges include failing to abide by accounting rules, fabricating documentation to cover up its shortcomings, and falsely stating in audit reports that its work met audit standards.

To settle the SEC charges, BF Borgers agreed to pay a USD12 million fine while its owner agreed to pay a fine of USD2 million, according to the SEC.

Benjamin Borgers did not immediately return a call seeking comment. BF Borgers and Benjamin Borgers also agreed to permanent suspensions, effective immediately, that will prevent them handling SEC-related matters as accountants.

Trump Media named BF Borgers as its auditor on March 28, according to the company’s most recent annual report filing.

The company disclosed at the time that BF Borgers had also handled its audits before the company went public by merging with a cash-rich shell company called Digital World Acquisition Corp The company had previously cycled through at least two other auditors one that resigned the account in July 2023 and another that was terminated by the board in March, just as it was re-hiring BF Borgers.

In a statement, Trump Media said it “looks forward to working with new auditing partners in accordance with today’s SEC order.”