Features | Online edition of Daily News

Amsterdam is the capital and largest city of the Netherlands, located in the province of North Holland. Pic. courtesy: Google

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located in North-West Europe. It is a parliamentary democratic constitutional monarchy. The Netherlands borders the North Sea to the North and West, Belgium to the South and Germany to the East. The capital is Amsterdam and the seat of government is The Hague.

The Netherlands in its entirety is often referred to as Holland, although North and South Holland are actually only two of its twelve provinces. The word Dutch is used to refer to the people, the language and anything pertaining to the Netherlands.

The Netherlands was one of the first parliamentary democracies. Among other affiliations the country is a founding member of the European Union (EU), NATO, OECD and WTO. With Belgium and Luxembourg it forms the Benelux economic union. The country is host to five international courts: the Permanent Court of Arbitration, the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, the International Criminal Court and the Special Tribunal for Lebanon.

The first four are situated in The Hague as is the EU's criminal intelligence agency Europol and judicial co-operation agency Eurojust. This has led to the city being dubbed "the world's legal capital". The Netherlands has a capitalist market-based economy, ranking 15th of 157 countries according to the Index of Economic Freedom.

The Netherlands is a geographically low-lying country, with about 20 percent of its area and 21 percent of its population located below sea level, with 50 percent of its land lying less than one metre above sea level.

Significant land area has been gained through land reclamation and preserved through an elaborate system of polders and dikes. Much of the Netherlands is formed by the estuary of three important European rivers, which together with their distributaries form the Rhine-Meuse-Scheldt delta.

Most of the country is very flat, with the exception of foothills in the far southeast and several low-hill ranges in the central parts.

Courtesy: Wikipedia

Many Species: One Planet, One Future

Dear children,

World Environment Day is very important to all of us as the environment is a part of us and we are a part of the environment. This is a good opportunity to focus on how to protect our environment so that the younger generation can live safely. We cannot abuse the environment around us and expect Mother Nature not to react.

We can see the drastic environmental changes taking place around the world due to human carelessness and greed. Tackling the oil spill disaster which is taking place in the Gulf of Mexico is a big challenge that even US President Barack Obama is facing today. The spill is the biggest the US has ever seen with an estimated 12,000 barrels of oil gushing out daily into the ocean off the southern coasts of the United States.

Those who watch the news on TV cannot forget the loss of lives and damage caused by the earthquake in Haiti and China.

Remember we discussed how European airlines came to a halt with the eruption of the volcano in Iceland.

In Sri Lanka main event in connection with World Environment Day will be held at Bandaranayake College Gampaha.

Around the world, street rallies, bicycle parades, 'green' concerts, essay and poster competitions in schools and tree planting, recycling and clean-up campaigns are some of the activities organised to commemorate the day.

World Environment Day is a day that stimulates awareness of the environment and enhances political attention and public action. It was the day that United Nations Conference on the Human Environment began.

The United Nations Conference on the Human Environment was from June 5-16, 1972. It was established by the United Nations General Assembly in 1972.The first World Environment Day was on 1973.

World Environment Day is hosted every year by a different city with a different theme.

World Environment Day 2010 theme is 'Many Species: One Planet, One Future' and it will focus on Biodiversity- Ecosystem Management and the Green Economy.

Dear children don't forget to give a helping hand to this campaign to protect environment. Children must keep their environment clean, grow plants and tend to them. Let us not put off for tomorrow what we can do today. After all, we can't put a price on the environment. What would life be without environment.

- Aunt Anji

Slow and steady wins the race

Once a hare challenged
A tortoise, "Let us have a contest
In race" jokingly
With the haughty motive of
Ridiculing the slow movement of
The tortoise
But the brave tortoise said
Confidently, "I am ready to accept
Your challenge"
Let's run the race now itself.
Then the hare burst into laughter
For the foolish agreement
However the tortoise suggested," let's appoint
Two judges - one from your family
One from my family"
The hare simply agreed to that condition
One elderly hare came forward as a judge
On behalf of the contesting young hare
While an aged tortoise very slowly appeared
To the scene on behalf of competing youthful tortoise
Both judges whistled to start the race

Then the race started
The tortoise kept on moving towards the goal
With the slow pace but steadily
The hare ran fast for a while but paused
At a stage and slept for a while
Thinking that the tortoise would not reach the goal
So soon or so speedily
Unfortunately the hare enjoyed a sound sleep
Being oblivious of the race
When the sleeping hare was called aloud
By the judge - the elderly hare
It excitedly awoke from her slumber
And watched the tortoise getting closer to the goal
So the hare ran with a terrible speed
To reach the fixed goal
Just before the tortoise touched it

At last the two impartial judges declared
The tortoise won the race
So the haughty over confident
Hare suffered humiliation at last

Rimsa Farwin Meeadh, Vision International School, Kandy


Scenery Fathima Rifla, 6B Sailan International school, Negombo	Rain Udeepa Wijemanne, 2E Royal College, Colombo	Village P Anitha, 6G Kingston College International Mutuwal


Flower Garden Ishini, LKG Learnium International School, Colombo 7	Bright Day V Divya, 6G, Kingston College, International Mutwal	Helicopter Lakindu Sithkalu Hope House Pre-school Colombo 2	Barbie Akshavi Asokan, Grade 4 Kingston College International Wellawatte

The Prefect Day of Devi Balika Vidyalaya Colombo 8 was held recently at Vimala de Silva hall recently. Here prefects at the swearing ceremony. Picture by Saman Sri Wedage