- Bayern hit nine, Real Madrid and Liverpool win as new Champions League kicks off
- Author John Grisham joins bid to save Texas death row inmate
- Venezuela arrests fourth American over alleged 'plot' against Maduro
- 'Happy' Mbappe strikes on Madrid Champions League debut win over Stuttgart
- Man Utd hit Barnsley for seven in League Cup rout
- Dolphins quarterback Tagovailoa facing concussion layoff
- Stylish Liverpool strut past Milan in confident Champions league opener
- Kane scores four as Bayern put nine past Zagreb in the Champions League
- Mbappe strikes on Madrid Champions League debut win over Stuttgart
- More than 3,600 food packaging chemicals found in human bodies
- Harris calls Trump as assassination scare sparks tensions
- Dow edges down from record as some eye a smaller Fed rate cut
- Sommer vows Inter will 'defend with all we have' to stop Haaland
- Report links meatpacking companies to 'war on nature' in Brazil
- Bolivian ex-leader Morales, backers set out on weeklong protest march
- Smith grateful to McCullum for launching his England career
- Arizona to ask court to rule on voting rights
- Villa make perfect start on Champions League return after 41-year absence
- Israeli supply chain infiltration likely behind Hezbollah pager blasts: analysts
- Rodgers backs Celtic to be 'really competitive' in Champions League
- Spacewalk an 'emotional experience' for private astronauts
- Storm Boris toll rises to 22 in central Europe
- Nine dead, 2,800 wounded as Lebanon's Hezbollah hit by pager blasts
- Boeing, union resume talks as strike empties Seattle plants
- Over 3,600 food packaging chemicals found in human bodies
- Australia's Zampa accepts Ashes chances remote as 100th ODI looms
- UN General Assembly debates call for end to Israeli occupation
- Marseille complete signing of French international Rabiot
- Easterby to fill in as Ireland coach while Farrell is with the Lions
- Hezbollah in Lebanon hit by wave of deadly pager blasts
- Postecoglou taken aback by criticism of his second season success claim
- US, European stocks rise on retail sales, rate cut expectations
- Fendi sees Roaring 20s at Milan Fashion Week in challenging times
- Ronaldo's Al Nassr part ways with coach Castro
- Scottish government backs Glasgow to stage troubled 2026 Commonwealth Games
- Storm Boris toll rises to 21 in central Europe
- Instagram, under pressure, tightens protection for teens
- Inflation slows again in Canada to 2%
- US, European stocks rise on eve of Fed rate decision
- EU bans Algerian spread toasted on social media
- Sean 'Diddy' Combs charged with racketeering, sex trafficking
- Trump returns to campaign trail after assassination scare
- Activist urges repatriation of Native Americans dead in Paris 'human zoo'
- US retail sales see slight rise, beating expectations
- US Fed begins two-day meeting set to end with rate cut
- Exploding Hezbollah pagers wound hundreds across Lebanon
- Runners-up Yokohama thrashed 7-3 in AFC Champions League goal fest
- Sean 'Diddy' Combs to plead not guilty to racketeering, sex trafficking
- Jihadist group claims rare attack on Mali capital
- 'I am a rapist,' Frenchman tells trial over mass rape of wife
Dutch farmer protests reap populist support
Dutch farmers' rowdy protests against government climate plans have caused a stir at home and abroad, with populists worldwide jumping on the bandwagon and even former US president Donald Trump backing them.
"We take all the support that we can get," says Jaap Kok, a 62-year-old cattle farmer standing in a meadow full of cows near Barneveld in the central Netherlands' farming belt.
The farmers have wreaked havoc for weeks, dumping manure and garbage on highways, blockading supermarket warehouses with tractors and rallying noisily outside politicians' houses.
They oppose plans to cut emissions of nitrogen in the Netherlands -- the world's second-biggest agricultural exporter after the United States -- by reducing livestock and closing some farms.
While a small group has been blamed for much of the unrest, there have also been large protests involving thousands of tractors.
With the protests garnering global headlines, right-wing figures have been quick to voice support. As well as Trump, they include French far-right leader Marine Le Pen, and Dutch far-right politicians Geert Wilders and Thierry Baudet.
"I would have preferred that the support came from the left but from the right is fine too," said Kok, whose own farm risks closure.
"Farmers are always the scapegoat."
- 'Very angry' -
The tiny Netherlands produces huge amounts of food thanks to industrialised farming -- but at the cost of being one of Europe's largest greenhouse gas emitters.
That is especially true of nitrogen, with much of this blamed on ammonia-based fertiliser and cattle-produced manure. Agriculture is responsible for 16 percent of all Dutch emissions.
Nitrogenous gases play an important role in global climate change. Nitrous oxide is a particularly potent greenhouse gas as it is over 300 times more effective at trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide.
The Netherlands' flat landscape sitting just above sea level makes it vulnerable to extreme weather.
In July the Netherlands recorded its third-highest temperature since records began -- 39.4C in the southern city of Maastricht.
Nitrogen-containing substances are also blamed for damage to plant and animal habitats.
Following a 2019 court ruling that the Netherlands was not doing enough to protect its natural areas from nitrogen pollution, the Dutch government said in June that the only way to meet climate goals by 2030 was "radical" cuts to farming.
This would involve a reduction in particular of around 30 percent to the Netherlands' herd of some four million cows.
The government has offered some 25 billion euros to help farmers adapt -- but has also warned that some closures are possible.
"The farmers are very angry," said Jos Ubels, vice president of the Farmers Defence Force (FDF), one of the groups coordinating the demonstrations.
"In history, every time there is a problem with a minority they have to shout really hard to be heard, so this is what we are doing."
Ubels said his group was not responsible for the roadblocks, saying that it was "just organised by local farmers -- they are very angry because they are played with."
Prime Minister Mark Rutte recently called the protests "life-threatening", yet there is a groundswell of support.
- 'Climate tyranny' -
Upside-down Dutch flags -- a symbol of the farmers' movement -- can be see hanging from many houses, lamposts and road bridges.
The Farmer-Citizen Movement (BBB), a centre-right party founded in 2019, would increase its current one seat in parliament to 19 according to latest opinion polls.
But their campaign is also going global.
The FDF's Ubels was in Warsaw last week for talks with Agriculture Minister Henryk Kowalczyk, of Poland's right-wing Law and Justice Party-led populist government.
"I will support the position of Dutch farmers in maintaining production... and I hope that their government will change its mind," Kowalczyk said in a statement.
Trump's backing has also been a boost.
"Farmers in the Netherlands of all places are courageously opposing the climate tyranny of the Dutch government," Trump told a rally in Florida in July.
In the Netherlands, a recent farmers' demo in Amsterdam brought also drew many conspiracy theorists and Covid-sceptics.
British comedian-turned-YouTuber Russell Brand recently told his 5.8 million followers that the Dutch farm plan was part of the "Great Reset" -- a conspiracy theory alleging that world leaders orchestrated the pandemic.
The support "says a lot" and shows the government's "absurd" plans "don't hold water", says Wim Brouwer, a farmer in Barneveld and local president of the main Dutch agricultural union LTO.
"The biggest problem is that we have been innovating in agriculture for years, but it's never enough," he sighed.
P.Costa--AMWN