Word: asscher
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...just one small piece of a much more ambitious cleanup initiative. A wall map in City Hall shows a block-by-block plan that aims to halve the size of the red-light district over the next few years by shutting scores of brothels, according to Deputy Mayor Lodewijk Asscher, who has spearheaded the campaign. "People think just because the windows are transparent that the place is transparent," says Asscher. "But there is still a lot of abuse and trafficking of women...
...have largely vanished from these streets and been replaced by a profusion of sex shows, erotica stores, pornography cinemas and at least 150 brothels. Amsterdam's sex industry is worth tens of millions of euros per year, officials say. From this year onward, those funds are theoretically taxable, but Asscher admits that while prostitutes' income taxes could bring the city millions in revenues, few are likely to pay up - underlining the city's position that legalizing the sex industry has done little to unravel criminals' control over...
...City Hall, Asscher says prostitution and the use of soft drugs will still be widely tolerated under the new plan, but that criminals will not be. The neighborhood could boom once the sex industry is "substantially diminished," he says. "Real estate investors realize this is a beautiful part of the capital that has great potential...
...Cohen and Asscher have not explained which of these prostitutes or the thousands of others will survive the red-light district's transformation. But the city's plans have already jolted many into contemplating a different future for themselves. Monika says she thinks she will one day find a regular job - the kind she could tell her parents about. After a decade working as a prostitute, Irina has begun studying to be a Russian-language tour guide around Amsterdam. And Van Brunschot, the company executive, says he has grown tired of waiting for the city to change his neighborhood. Earlier...
...about $400 million worth of the precious stones. Last week, at their biennial convention in Manhattan, members of the World Federation of Diamond Exchanges predicted that U.S. diamond sales would rise at least another 10% this year, and they looked forward to continued scarcity. Says Amsterdam's Louis Asscher, former chairman of the International Diamond Manufacturers Association: "There won't be any queuing up at Tiffany's or Cartier's, but good diamonds will be harder to find than ever...
| 1 |