A policy barring foreign tourists from buying marijuana in the Netherlands went into effect in parts of the country today, with attention focused on the southern city of Maastricht, where a cafe was warned over violating the ban and around 200 smokers marched in protest.

DANNY MORRISON’S piece entitled ‘Republicans no dunces in a land of slow learners’ (Irish Examiner, June 21) is an unworthy ex post facto justification for years of IRA murder and mayhem during which thousands died and tens of thousands of lives were ruined.

One person was killed and 37 injured today when a Dutch passenger train collided head-on with a Belgian freight train.

Five children have died in a house fire in Holland.