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MONDAY, APRIL 28, 2013
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Dutch Crown Prince Willem Alexander and Dutch Queen Beatrix wave to well wishers from the balcony of Royal Palace in The Hague, Netherlands. It is revealed April 15 that Netherlands' Crown Prince Willem-Alexander will become king when his mother Queen Beatrix abdicates at the end of April 2013, and will earn a king's salary of 825,000 euro (1.1 million US dollars) which is more than twice the salary of the president of the United States.
Dutch queen to abdicate this week
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AMSTERDAM — He's evolved from a beer-loving student dubbed Prince Pils to an International Olympic Committee member and respected U.N. water expert. Now comes the ultimate transformation for Dutch Crown Prince Willem-Alexander: He's about to become king.
Queen Beatrix's handover to her son after a 33-year reign has triggered a frenzy of orange-tinted patriotism across the Netherlands, while also relegating a debate about the monarchy's role in this egalitarian society. Willem-Alexander,
who tured 46 on Saturday, has been groomed for the monarchy all his life, but he has also carved out a busy career, parts of which he will now have to give up in favor of his largely ceremonial job a head of state.
head of state.
"It looks like the political role the monarchy plays is more likely to decrease than to increase."
In an interview that aired earlier this month, Willem-Mexander, a father of three daughters, seemed to have no regrets about leaving behind his old life and insisted — with a touch of good humor — that being king is a job with substance.
hoping Willem-Alexander's inven-
titure will be the country's last.
"We will have to await political developments — there is draft legislation to get him out of the government — then there is not much left apart from cutting ribbons and the question is whether his daughter will want to do that in 20 years," said Anjo Clement of the New Republican Society. "We don't think so. We think he will be the last Dutch king."
"Because even what is sometimes sarcastically called ribbon-cutting can be meaningful," he said.
The Netherlands' small republican movement says it will protest on Tuesday in Amsterdam and is
While the Dutch monarch formally is part of the country's government, his or her powers are limited. Until the last elections. Queen
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Leiden University professor
Beatrix helped in forming new governments after the vote by appointing an adviser to steer coalition-building negotiations. Lawmakers have now taken away that power.
"It looks like
the political role the monarchy plays is more likely to decrease than to increase," said Henk de Velde, a professor of Dutch history at Leiden University.
Willem Alexander will become king the moment his mother signs abdication papers Tuesday morning in Moses Hall of the Royal Palace on the Dam, the central square in downtown Amsterdam.
That will be followed by an investiture ceremony at the 15th-century New Church next door to the palace. There, Willem-Alexander
will swear allegiance to the Dutch constitution and people in a ceremony attended by both houses of Dutch Parliament, as well as guests including royalty from around the world and commoners from across the Netherlands.
Thousands of orange-clad subjects — the Dutch royal dynasty is the House of Orange-Nassau — will cram into the square in front of the palace to cheer their departing queen and the new king as part of a day-long celebration across this country of nearly 17 million.
One notable absence will be among the family of Willem-Alexander's popular Argentine-born wife, Princess Maxima — who will soon be queen. Her father, Jorge Zorregueta, was an agriculture minister in the military junta that ruled Argentina with an iron fist in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
His past in the brutal regime meant that he also was not invited to Willem-Alexander and Maxima's 2002 wedding.
"It was clear that if my father could not come for the wedding then it was very clear: This is a constitutional celebration so my father doesn't belong there," Maxima said in a recent interview.
Around a million people will be on the streets of Amsterdam, sparking a huge crowd control operation involving some 10,000 police and other security services. The air space over the city will be closed on the day.
The last time the Netherlands got a new monarch, when Beatrix ascended the throne in 1980, demonstrators protesting chronic housing shortages fought pitched battles with riot police through the city's historic center.
Willem-Alexander's investiture also comes four years to the day after an unemployed recluse, Karst Tates, tried to slam his car into an open-topped bus carrying members of the royal family during the Queen's Day national holiday.
Tates killed himself and seven bystanders and left members of the House of Orange gasping in horror as they watched the attack, before being whisked away from the scene.
Amsterdam mayor Eberhard van der Laan — himself a republican — said security will be tight, but should not intrude too much on festivities on the streets and canals of the Dutch capital.
"You have to accept certain risks," he said in an interview with The Associated Press. "Because otherwise people will think of this city: 'What's going on here?' This isn't my city anymore. This is a city for dignitaries only."
Organizers have promised to keep a lid on the costs, given the troubled economic climate in the Netherlands. Unemployment has been climbing rapidly in recent months as the trading nation continues to be buffeted by the European economic crisis.
Willem Alexander will be the first Dutch king since Willem III died in 1890. He follows on from three queens, Beatrix, Juliana and Wilhelmina, whose reigns spanned the entire 20th century.
WORLD
Late actor reportedly served in Nazi SS unit
BERLIN — Reports that the late German actor Horst Tappt, best known for his longtime role as dapper TV sleuth Stefan Derrick, served in a feared Nazi SS unit prompted at least one European broadcaster to announce Saturday that it would drop the "Derrick's" rums from its schedule.
Dutch TV station MAX pulled reruns of the show, which was produced from 1974 to 1998, after daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung published documents Friday showing the actor had been in the SS during World War II.
"Derrick" was one of the most widely syndicated German TV shows, broadcast in over 100 countries including China, Australia, France and Norway.
"We are not going to honor an actor
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Tappert had spoken of his wartime service as a medic in an interview 10 years before his death in 2008. But he didn't mention that his unit was part of the elite SS Armored Infantry Regiment 1, nicknamed the "Skulls" after the emblem they wore.
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like this who has lied about his past," Dutch public broadcaster NOS quoted MAX chairman Jan Slagter as saving.
In 2006, German Nobel literature laureate Guenter Grass admitted in an autobiography that he had been a member of the SS in the final months of the war. The revelation hurt Grass' image as one of the 'moral consciences' in post-war Germany.
The SS is known to have committed atrocities during World War II but it was unclear from the newly discovered documents whether Tappert was directly involved.
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The hidden history of prominent Germans' involvement in the war has become a subject of public debate again in recent years, after being largely ignored for decades.
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again," he said. "For us it's not an urgent matter because he's dead."
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Peter Grune, a spokesman for German public broadcaster ZDF that co-produced the show's 281 episodes, said nobody at the station had known of Tappert's SS pasf.
Earlier this year ZDF broadcast a three-part drama about the war, accompanied by a public campaign that urged Germans to seek out survivors of the Nazi period and ask them about the role they played at the time.
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Robert Downey Jr, and Susan Downey arrive at the world premiere of Marvel's "Iron Man 3" at the El Capitan Theatre last Wednesday, in Los Angeles.
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'Pain and Gain tops weekend US box office sales
LOS ANGELES — "Iron Man 3" was the heavy-lifter at theaters with a colossal overseas debut that overshadowed a gang of mercenary bodybuilders in a sleepy pre-summer weekend at the domestic box office.
The Marvel Studios superhero sequel starring Robert Downey Jr. got a head-start on its domestic launch first Friday with a $195.3 million opening in 42 overseas markets, distributor Disney reported Sunday.
Director Michael Bay's "Pain & Gain," a true-crime tale of bodybuilders on the make, muscled into first-place domestically with a $20 million debut.
"You don't know that you could ever repeat the kind of experience we had a year ago, and here the Marvel team brought together another incredible movie," said Dave Hollis, head of distribution for Disney. "We've had this as a pattern for Marvel films to kind of let momentum internationally help signal to the domestic audience that the film is coming, something big is coming."
The Paramount release starring Mark Wahlberg, Dwayne Johnson and Anthony Mackie knocked off Tom Cruise's sci-fi adventure "Oblivion" after a week in the No. 1 spot. Universal's "Oblivion" slipped to secondplace with $17.4 million, raising its domestic total to $64.7 million.
A passion project for Bay, who has made Paramount a fortune with his "Transformers" franchise, "Pain & Gain" was shot for a modest $26 million, spare change compared to the director's usual budgets.
Lionsgate's all-star nuptial comedy "The Big Wedding" tanked at No. 4 with just $7.5 million. The ensemble cast includes Robert De Dri, Niane Keaton, Robin Williams, Susan Sarandon and Katherine Heighl, but the movie was almost universally trashed by critics and held little interest for audiences.
That topped the $185.1 million start for Marvel's "The Avengers," which opened in 39 markets over the same weekend last year a week ahead of its record-breaking domestic debut of $207.4 million.
Paramount, which distributed the earlier "Iron Man" movies and still has a financial stake in the comic-book flakes after Disney bought Marvel, had a small-scale success with "Pain & Gain."
The movie has the director taking a breather from his usual sci-fi action spectacles for a story based on a kidnapping-extortion caper carried out by bodybuilders in the 1990s. Yet "Pain & Gain" still has Bay's usual visual flair, and the reviews generally were better than what he's used to.
"With that kind of budget, to open to $20 million the first weekend is a very strong opening," said Don Harris, Paramount's head of distribution. "You see what a director really in his prime, at the top of his game, can do with a small budget, what he can make a movie look like."
"Oblivion" was down a fairly steep 53 percent from the movie's $37.1 million domestic debut the previous weekend.
Overseas, "Oblivion" took in $12.8 million to lift its international haul to $134.1 million and worldwide total to just under $200 million.
Hollywood's domestic downturn continued, with revenues totaling $90 million, off 18.5 percent from the same weekend last year, when "Think Like a Man" led with $17.6 million, according to box-office tracker Hollywood.com.
Receipts have trailed 2012's for most of the year, with 2013 domestic ticket sales running at $2.9 billion, nearly 12 percent behind last year's.
That pattern could continue as Hollywood opens its summer season domestically this coming weekend. Despite a huge haul expected for "Iron Man 3," the film will be competing against that gigantic start over the same weekend last year for "The Avengers," the only movie to open with more than $200 million domestically.
"Iron Man 2" debated with $128.1 million over the first weekend in May 2010. Hollywood.com analyst Paul Dergarabedian has been pegging the "Iron Man 3" potential at $125 million-plus, though the mammoth international start could fire up domestic prospects even higher.
"This ups the ante in a big way for "Iron Man 3," Dergarabedian said. "It just raises the profile of the film. It raises expectations. But to expect something in the realm of $207.4 million? Well, the fact that we're even talking about it is really amazing."
Said Disney's Hollis: "I wouldn't even want to get ahead of ourselves on something like that. But to say we're encouraged by the results this weekend would be a gross understatement."
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Hollywood.com. Where available, latest international numbers are also included. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.
1. "Pain & Gain," $20 million.
2. "Oblivion," $17.4 million ($12.8 million international).
3. "42," $10.7 million.
4. "The Big Wedding," $7.5 million.
5. "The Croods," $6.6 million ($13.1 million international).
6. "G.I. Joe: Retaliation," $3.6 million ($10.2 million international).
7. "Scary Movie 5," $3.5 million ($6.7 million international).
8. "Olympus Has Fallen," $2.8 million ($4.2 million international).
9. "The Place Beyond the Pines," $2.7 million ($1.1 million international).
10. "jurassic Park" in 3-D, $2.3 million ($410,000 international).