Amsterdam - A group of Dutch nudists called off a special church service to be held in a nudist park after receiving threats, a spokesman for the group said Friday.

In June, the Christian Gan Eden nudists held their first church service at the Flevo-Natuur nudist park in Zeewolde in the eastern Netherlands and planned to hold a second service.

However, the group was hit by numerous emails and phone calls, many of them threatening, the Gan Eden spokesman said. The church service was called off and the group shut its website down.

Amsterdam - Once high and mighty, Dutch banks chastened by the credit crisis are now entangled in fierce competition for the savings of ordinary thrifty Dutch citizens.

According to statistics from the Dutch Central Bank (DNB), the Dutch had a combined 259 billion euros on private savings accounts in July 2008, a number that had been growing consistently despite the meltdown in other parts of the financial industry.

The trend marks a complete shift from the 1990s, when the Dutch stock exchange increased substantially at the expense of traditional saving, suddenly considered old-fashioned.

Amsterdam - Representatives of cities from around the world and environmental experts met in Amsterdam Tuesday to discuss sustainability of municipalities.

Amsterdam - Short selling on the Dutch stock exchange will be prohibited for the next three months, Dutch Finance Minister Wouter Bos announced early Monday on Dutch television.

Short selling is when investors sell stock they borrowed from its owners, speculating the stock will lose value. If indeed it does, they can repurchase the same stock cheaper, increasing their profits.

Short selling by investors is believed to have played an important role in the ongoing global credit crisis. The US, Britain and several other countries have also imposed a temporary ban on the practice.

It marks the first time since the global credit crisis began in the summer of 2007 that the Dutch government has actively intervened in Dutch markets.

Amsterdam - Men, not women, are to blame that young adults remain bachelors against their will. Women aren't perfect, but men have no idea how to treat women.

Men are all too often rude and selfish - yet that only hides the fact that they are actually very insecure and have no idea what love and sex are really about.

This was the message from most dating coaches at the Real Man Conference at a two-day international convention in Amsterdam on the art of seducing women.

Many of the 430 participants agreed with the coaches: not women but men have a problem, and it's time they improved themselves.

Amsterdam - Hundreds of would-be womanizers from more than 25 countries attended the opening of Amsterdam's Real Man Conference on Saturday, billed as the "biggest event on seducing women ever."

More than 320 participants gathered to hear pick-up tips from a range of speakers - advertised as "a dozen of the finest womanizers" on the conference website - at the two-day event being held at the RAI Conference Centre in Amsterdam.

Amongst the speakers were individuals such as AFC Adam, Sean Messenger, Zan Perrion and Johnny Soporno. The advertised ticket price was 297 euros.