Carolijn Brouwer makes history as first woman to win Volvo Ocean Race

DutchNews, June 25, 2018

Photo: Volvo Ocean Race

Dutch sailor Carolijn Brouwer has become the first woman to win the round-the-world Volvo Ocean Race following a dramatic finish in Scheveningen on Sunday. 

Brouwer’s Dongfeng Race Team passed Team Brunel in the final hour of the last stage from Gothenburg to The Hague on Sunday, denying her countryman Bouwe Bekking a first victory in eight attempts. 

‘It was an insane race. The main thing was to keep a cool head and we managed that,’ said Brouwer, 44, who was trimmer in a crew skippered by Frenchman Charles Caudrelier. 

‘It was the most important race of my career,’ she said. ‘It’s a dream come true. We pulled it off.’ 

Originally from Leiden, Brouwer currently lives in Australia and has competed in the Olympics with both Dutch and Belgian crews. 

The Volvo Ocean Race lasts eight months across 11 stages spanning 45,000 miles. The rules were changed this year to encourage more mixed crews by restricting the size of all-male teams to seven. Mixed teams could have up to 10 members while all-female crews had a maximum of 11. 

Brunel, which finished fourth in the stage and third in the overall standings, was one of two Dutch crews participating in the nine-month race. The other crew, sponsored by AkzoNobel and skippered by Simeon Tienpont, took second place on the final stage to secure fourth place overall.

Crocodile takes woman during night swim in Australia

Yahoo – AFP, 30 May 2016

Crocodiles are common in Australia's tropical north and they kill an average

of two people each year (AFP Photo/William West)

A woman is feared dead after being seized by a crocodile during a late-night swim at a beach in northern Australia as her friend struggled to save her, police said Monday.

The women went for a stroll on Thornton Beach on Sunday evening in the far north of Queensland state before making a fateful decision to take a dip in an area known to be infested with crocodiles.

"The woman was swimming with a female friend, also in her 40s, at 10.30pm when the incident occurred," police said in a statement.

Nine News cited witnesses as hearing the woman yell "A croc's got me, a croc's got me!"

Senior Constable Russell Parker said the women -- Australians visiting the area -- were in the water when one of them was grabbed, with her friend desperately trying to drag her to safety.

"They decided to take a swim in the ocean just in waist-deep water and at that point, we believe that a crocodile has taken one of the women, taken hold of her," he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

"Her friend tried valiantly to drag her to the shore but unfortunately wasn't able to do so and the woman subsequently disappeared.

"Now her friend raised the alarm with a nearby business and they subsequently contacted the police."

Data on most commonly occuring animal-related deaths in Australia 

(AFP Photo/John SAEKI)

A rescue helicopter was sent up with thermal imaging equipment but was unable to find her.

Parker added that the surviving woman was "very, very shaken and shocked" but appeared to have escaped with only grazes.

The Brisbane Courier-Mail said Thornton Beach was next to a creek where croc-spotting tours were organised, and there were plenty of warning signs throughout the vicinity.

The attack is not the first in the area. A giant crocodile known as Big Jim took local postal worker Beryl Wruck in 1985 when she had a late-night swim about an hour's drive from Thornton Beach.

Crocodiles are common in Australia's tropical north and kill an average of two people each year.

Earlier this month, a desperate fisherman threw spanners and spark plugs to fight off circling crocodiles after his friend drowned when one of the animals overturned their small boat near Darwin.

Crocodile numbers have increased since the introduction of protection laws in 1971, with estimates putting the Northern Territory's population in the wild at about 100,000.

Women to Power Sri Lanka’s Mangrove Conservation Plan

Jakarta Globe, Amantha Perera, Jun 08, 2015

A worker carries a sack of plastic bottles collected from the beach for a
 recycling project during World Environment Day in Colombo, Sri Lanka
on June 5, 2015. (Reuters Photo/Dinuka Liyanawatte)

Colombo, Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka’s new mangrove protection scheme, the world’s first country-wide initiative, is relying on women like Michel Priyadarshani, head of a fisherwomen’s group in eastern Ambantotam village.

Priyadarshani and her colleagues did not understand the importance of mangroves for the ecosystem, including the fish population, until they benefited from a program offering microcredit in return for looking after the coastal forests.

“Now we know — and from us, our husbands and our community also have become aware,” Priyadarshani said.

Since 1997, Sudeesa, a national organization that works to protect coastal ecosystems, has given women living near mangrove forests financial assistance — mainly loans of $50 to $2,000 each — incentivizing them to care for the delicate trees.

Now the program is about to go island-wide. Sudeesa, together with the Sri Lankan government and US-based environmental conservation group Seacology, recently launched a five-year, $3.4 million mangrove preservation initiative.

Sri Lanka is the first nation to promise to protect all its mangroves, experts said.

Mangrove trees grow in saltwater, forming a vital part of the natural cycle in coastal lagoons. Fish and other marine creatures like prawns use the deep roots as breeding areas.

The forests protect coastal communities from abrupt tidal shifts and storms, while slowing shore erosion.

“People who live near mangroves tell us the trees act as a buffer against the wind and heavy rains, breaking their intensity just before they make landfall,” said Douglas Thisera, director for coastal conservation at Sudeesa, formerly known as the Small Fishers Federation of Lanka.

Mangrove swamps also store carbon, sequestering it in the top few meters of underwater soil and keeping it there longer than other trees.

Micro-loans

K D Wijitha, who runs a group bringing together women from 23 villages in the northwestern Kalapitiya area, said they had learned to look after the mangrove forests.

“We make sure that they are safe,” she said.

Thanks to the Sudeesa program, Kristina Jospin from Samadigama village in northwestern Puttalam District received training and financial aid to operate a small bakery, which allows her to support her sick husband and four children.

Sudeesa credit officer Suvinetha de Silva said the program usually targets the poorest women, who are unable to seek credit from banks.

The new national scheme aims to set up 1,500 community groups around Sri Lanka’s 48 lagoons, which will offer alternative job training and micro-loans to 15,000 people. The groups will be responsible for the upkeep of designated mangrove forests.

Pilot projects showed a high success rate, said Duane Silverstein, executive director of Seacology. Almost 2,000 loans were made to women, with a repayment rate of over 96 percent.

“With very small loans of around $100, several of the women were so successful that they already employed additional women,” he said.

Half of loan recipients under the new program will be widows, while the rest will be male and female school dropouts.

Seacology and Sudeesa officials said each community group will be responsible for around 8.5 hectares of mangrove forest. The government has agreed to provide rangers to patrol the forests.

The program also plans to replant 3,885 hectares of mangroves.

The new government of President Maithripala Sirisena has brought the island’s 8,815 hectares of mangroves under the Forest Ordinance Act, making it illegal for anyone to exploit them for commercial purposes.

“It is an extremely vital decision because now all mangroves around the island can be protected with the active participation of the Forestry Department,” said Sudeesa chairman Anuradha Wickramasinghe.

Prawn damage

Some three decades ago, Sri Lanka had at least 98,842 acres of mangroves, Thisera said. But the bulk has been destroyed due to commercial exploitation and firewood use.

“The biggest threats to mangroves in Sri Lanka include prawn farms, which have been greatly curtailed in recent years, collateral damage from the civil war, and impoverished people cutting down mangroves to use or sell as charcoal,” Seacology’s Silverstein said.

The worst damage occurred in the northwest of the island nation, where commercial prawn farms took off in the 1990s. But most of these farms have been abandoned in the last few years due to the spread of disease.

The new mangrove protection scheme plans to introduce other trees that can provide an alternative fuel source, such as coconut husks.

Silverstein said the government’s enthusiasm for protecting the mangrove forests could push other countries in the region to follow suit.

Defense Secretary B.M.U.D. Basnayake told Silverstein the national armed forces could help with replanting efforts.

Sudeesa’s Wickramasinghe said the program’s success would depend on how far local communities buy into it.

“We have to make them understand the mangroves are a boost to their lives and their incomes,” he added.

Thomson Reuters Foundation

ROC Navy shows off warship living quarters for servicewomen

Want China Times, CNA 2015-01-04

One of the women's bunk rooms on the
ROCS Ma Kong. (Photo/Chang Kuo-wei)

The tough life of serving on a military vessel has not deterred Taiwan's servicewomen, a small but growing minority in the armed forces, from joining the Navy.

The Navy has implemented new measures that ensure the safety of female sailors. Their life at sea was shown to reporters Thursday in a rare media tour of a Kidd-class destroyer.

On the ROCS Ma Kong, each women's bunk is located at the back of a passageway to give them privacy. The rooms have drinking water dispensers, washing machines and a sink. Surveillance cameras are installed in front of the door to each bunk room.

Asked by the local media whether it is more difficult for women to get used to life on a military vessel, Lt Yen Jih-lin, who serves on the Ma Kong, said there is not much difference. She said women in fact enjoy more privileges on board, referring to the above amenities.

Another facility on the Ma Kong shown to the media was a gym, a feature found only on the Kidd-class destroyers.

There are about 16,000 servicewomen in Taiwan's military, representing 10.51% of all military personnel, a record high, President Ma Ying-jeou said during a military promotion ceremony in late December.

For Maritime Minister Susi, Work Starts Now

Jakarta Globe, Kennial Caroline Laia, Oct 28, 2014

Marine and Fishery Affairs Minister Susi
Pudjiastuti. (Antara Photo/Prasetyo Utomo)

Jakarta. Indonesia’s new Marine and Fishery Affairs Minister Susi Pudjiastuti announced she plans to issue both short- and long-term programs that will improve the welfare of the nation’s fishermen.

The ministry’s first move, she added, is to identify both current and potential problems plaguing Indonesia’s maritime sector, before mapping out targets for the next five years.

“I am neither an expert or an academic [on the matter]; I just want to work fast and show good results,” Susi told reporters in Jakarta on Tuesday.

“For a long-term program, I will focus on mapping issues related to illegal fishing, aquaculture and marketing. I will also look into matters surrounding tariff barriers and our maritime products,” Susi was quoted as saying by Kompas.com.

These campaigns have the shared aim of working towards the benefit of Indonesia’s fishermen, she explained, adding that results would not be instantaneous as she still needs to coordinate with directorate generals and division heads of her ministry and compile the necessary data.

The short-term programs, meanwhile, will strive to change the mindset of both companies and individuals involved in the country’s marine industry.

“There are several small steps that we can [immediately] take. Again, we want to focus on helping our coastal fishermen,” Susi said. “But want to teach them to become more business minded.”

Susi conceded the success of these programs would partly depend on the government’s efforts to improve and expand on the nation’s infrastructure, including airports, as transportation is key to the distribution of Indonesia’s fisheries products.

President Joko Widodo surprised the nation on Sunday when he placed the businesswoman at the helm of the ministry of maritime affairs and fisheries — an area, critics claim, she knows very little about.

The 49-year-old has made no efforts to deny or disguise her status as a high-school dropout. She established her own fish vendor in Pangandaran, West Java, at the tender age of 18, unknowingly creating a small business that would flourish into ASI Pudjiastuti Marine Products.

Susi expanded into the aviation business in 2004 with ASI Pudjiastuti Aviation and Susi Air, the latter of which has managed to settle into a niche market by flying to remote regions that are not serviced by larger commercial airlines.

Japan whaling town sued by dolphin activists

Yahoo – AFP, Shigemi Sato, 15 May 2014

Sarah Lucas (L), founder of Australia for Dolphins, and US dolphin activist

 Ric O'Barry, who appeared in the Academy-award winning documentary

"The Cove", speak to the press in Tokyo on May 15, 2014

Animal rights activists said Thursday they had sued a major Japanese whaling town internationally condemned for its dolphin hunts for banning "foreign-looking" visitors from its whale museum.

Sarah Lucas, head of "Australia for Dolphins," filed a lawsuit on Tuesday at the regional court of Wakayama, western Japan, where the town of Taiji is located, demanding an end to "discrimination based on race" and about seven million yen ($69,000) in damages, she told a news conference.

The activist said she visited the museum in February to check on the condition of an extremely rare albino dolphin calf, named Angel by her group, which was caught in January and has been kept in a "cramped, abusive show tank."

But a ticket officer turned her away by with a sign in English that read: "Please note that anti-whalers are not allowed to enter the museum."

Lucas added she knew other foreigners who had been given the same treatment.

"The museum has not allowed law-abiding people, who wished to see Angel, to enter and turned some people away purely on their appearance," she said, calling the act a violation of the Japanese constitution which bans discrimination based on race.

Ric O'Barry, an advocate for the protection of dolphins worldwide who appeared in the Academy-award winning documentary "The Cove", which focused on the town's whaling, said the action "ramps up the pressure on the Taiji government to bring an end to these inhumane hunts once and for all."

Long history of hunting

The 2009 movie graphically documented the dolphin culling in Taiji, arousing international condemnation, with a number of foreign activists including members of the international environmentalist group Sea Shepherd based there to protest the culling.

The town has depended on coastal whaling for four centuries, and local fishermen also corral hundreds of dolphins into a secluded bay to kill them for meat or sell them to aquariums and dolphinariums.

The annual dolphin catch sparked renewed global criticism after newly arrived US ambassador to Japan Caroline Kennedy tweeted her concern earlier in January at the "inhumaneness" of the hunt.

O'Barry, an American who found fame first in the 1960s for catching and training five dolphins for the well-known TV series "Flipper", has latterly fought against keeping the mammals in captivity, and said: "Angel is living in hell."

"This one small dolphin has become a global representative of the thousands of dolphins slaughtered and captured each year in Taiji."

Lucas said there are a number of people who have been refused entrance and can provide evidence to the lawsuit, but did not say exactly how many.

But the museum's director, Katsuki Hayashi, told AFP by telephone: "We have no intentions to discriminate against anyone with the sign."

"We aim to protect the town's culture, assets and fishery," he said. "We welcome (foreigners) who are clearly tourists."

Defenders of the hunt say it is a tradition and point out that the animals it targets are not endangered, a position echoed by the Japanese government.

They say Western objections are hypocritical and ignore the vastly larger number of cows, pigs and sheep butchered to satisfy demand elsewhere.

Yoko Ono asks Japan dolphin fishermen to stop

Google – AFP, 20 January 2014

This picture taken on April 19, 2012 shows a cove in Taiji town, Japan, made

 famous by the film "The Cove" which depicts the annual cull of dolphins (JIJI

PRESS/AFP/File, Jiji Press)

Tokyo — The Japanese widow of John Lennon on Monday added her voice to pleas to dolphin fishermen that they stop their hunt, days after the US ambassador to Tokyo waded into the row.

Yoko Ono published an open letter to the men of Taiji, the small town made famous by the Oscar-winning film "The Cove" which depicts the annual bloodbath, in which she urged them to halt the cull for the "future of Japan".

Ono said the hunt, in which scores of animals are corralled into a cove, with the prettiest selected for sale to aquariums and the rest butchered for meat, was damaging the reputation of Japan.

Yoko Ono, the widow of late British singer John

 Lennon, pictured in Tokyo on December 5, 2013

(AFP/File, Toshifumi Kitamura)

It "will give an excuse for big countries and their children in China, India and Russia to speak ill of Japan," she wrote.

"I am sure that it is not easy, but please consider the safety of the future of Japan, surrounded by many powerful countries which are always looking for the chance to weaken the power of our country.

"At this very politically sensitive time, (the hunt) will make the children of the world hate the Japanese.

"For many, many years and decades we have worked hard to receive true understanding of the Japanese from the world," she said.

"But what we enjoy now, can be destroyed literally in one day. I beg of you to consider our precarious situation after the nuclear disaster (which could very well affect the rest of the world, as well)."

The reference was to the 2011 triple meltdowns at Fukushima after their reactors were swamped by a huge tsunami.

The letter, which was posted on her "Imagine Peace" website and addressed to "Japanese fishermen of Taiji", bore her signature and was dated 20 January, 2014. At the foot, it said: "cc Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe".

Ono's intervention came just days after US ambassador to Japan Caroline Kennedy tweeted her disapproval.

"Deeply concerned by inhumaneness of drive hunt dolphin killing. USG (US Government) opposes drive hunt fisheries," wrote Kennedy, the only surviving child of assassinated US President John F Kennedy, on January 17.

Her comments were welcomed on Monday by fugitive eco-activist Paul Watson, who said he hoped it would help convince Tokyo to put a halt to the practice.

"Hopefully this would put additional pressure to convince the Japanese government that this really has no place in the 21st century," he said.

Watson, who is the founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, is now in the United States where he arrived last year saying he wanted to challenge a court injunction.

Protesters hold dolphin-shaped ballons and anti-dolphin slaughter placards as they

march to the Japanese embassy in Manila on September 2, 2013 (AFP, Ted Aljibe)

Japanese authorities are seeking his extradition and describe methods used by Watson's Sea Shepherd group against whaling ships -- for example blocking the boats' propellers -- as "terrorist" acts.

Watson was arrested in May last year in Frankfurt on a warrant from Costa Rica, where he is wanted on charges stemming from a high-seas confrontation over shark finning in 2002.

The Canadian-born activist fled from Germany but arrived in California on October 28, more than a year later.

Sea Shepherd says around 250 dolphins have been corralled in the cove so far, and that some have been removed, but it is not clear how many have been killed.

Related Article:

US envoy Kennedy tweets concern at Japanese dolphin hunt

Marine Biologist is a Giant in World of Shrimp Medicine

Jakarta Globe, Lisa Siregar, April 03, 2012

Sidrotun Naim, the recipient of a For Women in Science fellowship, is a
 visiting scholar at Harvard University, where she hopes to crack the code
of  the deadly IMNV virus, which last year caused shrimp farmers in Indonesia
losses of up to $200 million. (JG Photos/Lisa Siregar)  

        

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After Aceh was devastated by the 2004 tsunami, its economy had to be rebuilt to meet the demand for food and to provide jobs.  Marine biologist Sidrotun Naim, 32, the “shrimp doctor” to her Acehnese colleagues, is playing a pivotal role in this rebuilding, and in the future health of Indonesian shrimp farms.  

Sidrotun arrived in Aceh’s Pidie district in 2006, after she graduated in marine biology from the University of Queensland in Australia. Working as part of a tsunami rehabilitation program through the World Wildlife Fund, Sidrotun was asked to consult on a shrimp breeding project.

“They said, ‘You’re clever and still young, you must study the shrimp and help us,’ ” Sidrotun said. And so she dedicated herself to shrimp, and helping the people of Pidie and Aceh get back on their feet.

Sidrotun is from a large Javanese family and excelled at school, picking up a number of prestigious scholarships as she furthered her studies. She is thought to be one of the first crustacean pathologists in a country that is one of the biggest shrimp producers in the world. 

Shrimp farming is a high-risk business, with shrimp being highly prone to a handful of illnesses, the most dangerous of which is white spot syndrome, a viral infection that can wipe out an entire broodstock (a term in aquaculture that refers to a group of mature individuals used for breeding purposes) in three days.

Although Indonesia is among the biggest shrimp exporters in the world,  along with China, Thailand and Vietnam, the country still does very little scientific research to support local shrimp farmers. Plenty of studies have been carried out on fish and crabs, Sidrotun said, but not shrimp.

“The shrimp industry began in the ’80s when people stopped catching shrimp and began breeding them,” she said. “But shrimp are prone to illness because of the density of the broodstock.”

In 2009, Sidrotun won a Fulbright scholarship to the University of Arizona in Tucson, a reference laboratory for studying illnesses in shrimp, where she is now completing her master’s thesis on the effects of adding tilapia (a type of fish) to shrimp broodstock. 

After 16 weeks of research in Arizona, Sidrotun found that tilapia can help the health of the stock.  In a regular broodstock, shrimp typically live at the bottom of the pond.

Sidrotun’s experiment involved breeding tilapia above the broodstock by putting them in a large fish net. This improved the quality of the water, as the fish seemed to consume the bacteria before it could filter down to the bottom of the pond and attack the shrimp.

“[Adding tilapia] also adds economic value for our farmers, because they can breed fish, algae and shrimp all in one broodstock,” Sidrotun said.

But the exact reasons behind the results are inconclusive, and she hopes to investigate the results further.

Last week, Sidrotun won a fellowship worth $40,000 from For Women in Science, a collaboration between Unesco and the L’Oreal Foundation in Paris. Sidrotun said she planned to use the fellowship, which was awarded by a jury led by Nobel winners, to fund her postdoctoral studies at Harvard’s medical school, where she is a visiting scholar.

The seventh of 11 children, Sidrotun said her family usually ate rice and tempeh when she was growing up, and rarely indulged in seafood. Her father, Abidullah, was a high school teacher, and is now retired with his wife, Siti Muslichah.

Despite a humble upbringing, half of Sidrotun’s siblings went to school overseas through scholarships, including her third brother, who is now pursuing his studies in management at Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands.

Sidrotun has a  6-year-old son, and is married to Dedi Priadi, who studies psychology at the University of Arizona.

Upon completion of her dissertation and graduation, Sidrotun intends to study IMNV, one of the most threatening shrimp viruses found in Brazil and Indonesia. The virus first appeared in Indonesia in 2006, and has since caused harvest failures costing millions of dollars, she said.

“Last year, our farmers suffered a loss of $150 million to $200 million because of this virus,” she said. 

Upon graduating from the University of Arizona, Sidrotun intends to study how IMNV and shrimp interact. A large number of shrimp survive the virus, and she hopes to discover what allows some shrimp to survive while others die. It is a scientific long-shot, but every major breakthrough begins with a single step.

“To be able to design a system to minimize the risk, we have to understand the virus first,” she said. “I hope in 5 to 10 years, our native shrimp can be more stable, so that traditional farmers can have a more solid bargaining position.”

The fishing industry has not been kind to shrimp farmers, Sidrotun said. The industry will often help farmers start their stocks, she said, but then make them shoulder all the costs for failed harvests.

“It should be the part of the company’s risk and not just farmers, because some crucial things, like disease, are out of their control,” she said.

It might seem like a scientist dedicated to producing healthy shrimp stock would harbor a certain disdain for disease, but Sidrotun speaks about viruses with respect.

“Viruses have been on earth much longer than bacteria and humans have, so we have to understand them,” she said. “Through evolution, humans have become smaller and smaller, but what we don’t know is if viruses have become stronger.”

What we do know, she said, is that unlike plants and animals, which are all built on unchanging  DNA, viruses can mutate and adapt very quickly, which is why they are so difficult to study.

The cure for HIV, for example, continues to elude scientists despite years of research and billions of dollars in funding. But IMNV is more complicated because it is a double-strand, where HIV is a single-strand.

Sidrotun is passionate about improving the understanding of — and someday finding a cure for — IMNV.  She is currently working with Max Nibert at Harvard, who discovered the 3D structure of the virus.

Sidrotun also hopes her research will be useful for scientists invested in study of the rotavirus, which kills about 500,000 children every year worldwide.

She said, “A virus may seem like a minor thing because to us it’s invisible, but it can destroy months of efforts by our local farmers in days, so yes, it’s important.”

Teenager Dekker completes around-the-world sail

BBC News, 21 January 2012

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Laura Dekker was born on a yacht and
began sailing solo when she was 10

A Dutch teenager who set out to become the youngest solo around-the-world sailor has completed her voyage.

Laura Dekker, 16, was greeted by a cheering crowd as she sailed into the St Maarten harbour in the Caribbean after a year at sea.

She left on 20 January 2011 aboard her 11.5m (38ft) boat Guppy.

Before her trip, Ms Dekker won a court case against Dutch social services, who had argued that the voyage could harm her emotional and social development.

Her mother had expressed concerns about the solo voyage, but later lifted her objections.

Ms Dekker was born on a yacht off the coast of New Zealand during a seven-year world trip.

The Guinness Book of Records decided to stop recognising records for "youngest" sailors after the controversy surrounding her bid.

(Photo:ANP)

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Teenage globe sailor takes down Dutch flag

Dutch court gives teenage sailor go-ahead

www.lauradekker.nl

.

There and back again: A map on Laura Dekker's website shows the

dizzying journey she completed by herself

Teenage globe sailor takes down Dutch flag

RNW, 11 January 2012

Photo: Laura Dekker, Hvyes

Solo yachtswoman Laura Dekker has taken down the Dutch flag from her sailing boat and replaced it with a New Zealand one, in response to renewed efforts from Dutch school attendance authorities to force her to continue with her education.

Authorities claim 16-year-old Laura has been doing too little school work. When her father refused to make an appointment to discuss the issue, attendance officers announced they intended to complain to the Dutch council for child welfare.

Laura – who aims to become the youngest person to circumnavigate the world single-handed - is currently crossing the Atlantic Ocean, headed for the Dutch Caribbean island of Sint Maarten where she will complete her journey in her boat, Guppy. It is expected that she will arrive within two weeks provided there are no setbacks.

Battle to sail with authorities

In 2009, when Laura first announced her plans to circumnavigate the globe, Dutch authorities intervened and insisted she should first finish school. The child welfare authorities brought the case to court and a judge ruled that the 13-year-old was too young to travel alone. Laura then ran away and took a plane to St Maarten, where she was arrested and sent back to the Netherlands.

In July 2010, a judge gave her permission to carry out her plans - provided she agreed to a number of conditions, including continuing her secondary-school education through an online teaching programme set up for Dutch-speaking children abroad.

Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant reports her lawyer, Peter de Lange, “is furious about the latest action of the school attendance enforcement officers.” Laura has had enough of Dutch authorities, he says. “She was almost put into care. And now this.”

A Dutch court had ordered authorities to take temporary guardianship of Laura when she was 13, while her case was being assesed by psychologists.

Turns back on Dutch citizenship

Officially, Laura does not have to comply with Dutch regulations concerning her education, as she is no longer registered as a Dutch citizen. She holds New Zealand citizenship because she was born on a boat there while her parents were sailing around the world.

De Volkskrant says the World School, which organises the education by correspondence, is afraid a precedent will be set if they don’t intervene. “Laura is contending with an 80-year school attendance battle. Compulsory school attendance is sacred in the Netherlands.”

Related Article:

Dutch court gives teenage sailor go-ahead

www.lauradekker.nl

2 women share 1st kiss at US Navy ship's return

Associated Press, by Brock Vergakis, Dec 21, 2011

Petty Officer 2nd Class Marissa Gaeta, left, kisses her girlfriend of two years, 

Petty Officer 3rd Class Citlalic Snell at Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek 

in Virginia Beach, Va., Wednesday, Dec. 22, 2011 after Gaeta's ship returned

 from 80 days at sea. It ís a time-honored tradition at Navy homecomings - one 

lucky sailor is chosen to be first off the ship for the long-awaited kiss with a loved

 one. On Wednesday, for the first time, the happily reunited couple was gay.

(AP Photo/The Virginian-Pilot, Brian J. Clark)

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VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (AP) -- A Navy tradition caught up with the repeal of the U.S. military's "don't ask, don't tell" rule on Wednesday when two women sailors became the first to share the coveted "first kiss" on the pier after one of them returned from 80 days at sea.

Petty Officer 2nd Class Marissa Gaeta of Placerville, Calif., descended from the USS Oak Hill amphibious landing ship and shared a quick kiss in the rain with her partner, Petty Officer 3rd Class Citlalic Snell of Los Angeles. Gaeta, 23, wore her Navy dress uniform while Snell, 22, wore a black leather jacket, scarf and blue jeans. The crowd screamed and waved flags around them.

"It's something new, that's for sure," Gaeta told reporters after the kiss.

"It's nice to be able to be myself. It's been a long time coming."

For the historical significance of the kiss, there was little to differentiate it from countless others when a Navy ship pulls into its home port following a deployment. Neither the Navy nor the couple tried to draw attention to what was happening and many onlookers waiting for their loved ones to come off the ship were busy talking among themselves.

David Bauer, the commanding officer of the USS Oak Hill, said that Gaeta and Snell's kiss would largely be a non-event and the crew's reaction upon learning who was selected to have the first kiss was positive.

"It's going to happen and the crew's going to enjoy it. We're going to move on and it won't overshadow the great things that this crew has accomplished over the past three months," Bauer said.

The ship returned to Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Fort Story following an 80-day deployment to Central America. The crew of more than 300 participated in exercises involving the militaries of Honduras, Guatemala Colombia and Panama as part of Amphibious-Southern Partnership Station 2012.

Both women are Navy fire controlmen, who maintain and operate weapons systems on ships. They met at training school where they were roommates and have been dating for two years, which they said was difficult under "don't ask, don't tell."

"We did have to hide it a lot in the beginning," Snell said. "A lot of people were not always supportive of it in the beginning, but we can finally be honest about who we are in our relationship, so I'm happy."

Navy officials said it was the first time on record that a same-sex couple was chosen to kiss first upon a ship's return. Sailors and their loved ones bought $1 raffle tickets for the opportunity. Gaeta said she bought $50 of tickets, a figure that she said pales in comparison to amounts that some other sailors and their loved ones had bought. The money was used to host a Christmas party for the children of sailors.

Snell said she believes their experience won't be the last one for gays and lesbians in the military.

"I think that it's something that is going to open a lot of doors, for not just our relationship, but all the other gay and lesbian relationships that are in the military now," she said.

Snell is based on the USS Bainbridge, the guided missile destroyer that helped rescue cargo captain Richard Phillips from Somali pirates in 2009.

Online: Brock Vergakis can be reached at www.twitter.com/BrockVergakis

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September 19, 2011. (Credit: Reuters/Larry Downing)

About the Challenges of Being a Gay Man – Oct 23, 2010 (Saint Germain channelled by Alexandra Mahlimay and Dan Bennack) - “You see, your Soul and Creator are not concerned with any perspective you have that contradicts the reality of your Divinity – whether this be your gender, your sexual preference, your nationality – or your race, ethnicity, religious beliefs, or anything else.”

"The Akashic System" – Jul 17, 2011 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll) - (Subjects: Religion, God, Benevolent Design, DNA, Akashic Circle, (Old) Souls, Gaia, Indigenous People, Talents, Reincarnation, Genders, Gender Switches, In “between” Gender Change, Gender Confusion, Shift of Human Consciousness, Global Unity,..... etc.)