Expansion quickly peaked however, and the European powers who had carved up the New World set about testing each other in dynastic conflicts and colonial rivalry. The English were the main rivals of the Dutch on the high seas, and there were several wars between the two in the 17th and 18th centuries. In 16651667 the Dutch sailed up the River Medway and sank the British fleet moored there. The 18th century saw Amsterdam grow into the foremost financial center in the world, but the seeds of decline had already been planted. When the English colonies in New England rose up in revolt against the British, they found ready Ailies in the Dutch. From their colonies in the Caribbean they sent caches of arms and ammunition. The British were furious and went to war in 1780, destroying the Dutch navy and signaling a sudden decline in power and influence from which the Netherlands never recovered. Trade suffered to such an extent that in 1791 the VOC went into liquidation. In the latter part of the century there were anti-Orange demonstrations by pro-French factions in the country, and in 1795 Napoleon Bonaparte took the Netherlands in his epic march across Europe. Under the yoke of another foreign power, and with trade at an all time low, the Golden Age was truly dead. The Return of the House of Orange Napoleon installed his brother Louis as King of Holland and he chose to take the fine Town Hall on Dam Square as his palacenow the Koninklijk Palace. But only four years later he fled the city after civil disturbances broke out when he raised taxes. When Napoleon's bubble burst and French power began to wane, William of Orange emerged from exile and was proclaimed king in 1813. Amsterdam had to work its way out of economic decline, but throughout the 19th century the city grew steadily. Industrialization changed the city. With the building of the Central Station at the end of the century, Amsterdam turned its back on its seafaring past and looked towards the mechanical age for its future. The station was built over the old harbor wall and some of the oldest canals in the city center were filled in to allow better access to motorized vehicles. Dam Square was landlocked for the first time in its history.

How many times did the English and Dutch fight each other?

On to the Twentieth Century: The British extended their control over the peninsula by putting together the whole panoply of colonial administrationcivil service, public works, judiciary force, police force, post office, education, and land regulationwith teams of British administrators, teachers, engineers, and doctors to go with it. At the same time, the tin industry, dominated by Chinese using labor-intensive methods in the 19th century, passed increasingly into Western hands, who employed the modern technology of gravel pumps and mining dredges. Petroleum had been found in northern Borneo, at Miri, and in Brunei, and the Anglo-Dutch Shell company used Singapore as its regional depot for its oil supplies and exports. But the major breakthrough for the Malay economy was the triumph of rubber, when Singapore's new garden director, Henry Ridle ("Rubber Ridley" to his friends, "Mad Ridley" to all doubting Thomases) had developed new planting and tapping methods and painstakingly spread his faith in rubber around the peninsula. World demand increased with the growth of the motor-car and electrical industries, and sky-rocketed during World War I. By 1920, Malaya was producing 53 percent of the world's rubber, which had overtaken tin as its main source of income. The Malay ruling class again took a back seat. Together with effective control of the rubber and tin industries, the British now firmly held the reins of government. The sultans were left in charge of local and religious affairs, content with their prestige, prosperity, and security. The census of 1931 served as an alarm signal for the Malay national consciousness. Bolstered by a new influx of immigrants to meet the rubber and tin booms of the 1920s, non-Malays now slightly outnumbered the indigenous population. The Great Depression of 1929 stepped up ethnic competition in the shrinking job market, and nationalism developed to safeguard Malay interests against the Chinese and Indians rather than the British imperial authority. Though hampered by the peninsula's division into the States and the Straits Settlements, relatively conservative Muslim intellectuals and community leaders came together at the Pan-Malayan Malay Congress in Kuala Lumpur in 1939. In Singapore the following year, they were joined by representatives from Sarawak and Brunei. Teachers and journalists urged the revival of the common Malay-Indonesian consciousness, split by the Anglo-Dutch dismemberment of the region in the 19th century. This spirit became a factor in the gathering clouds of war.

What caused the Malay ruling class to take a back seat?

(Financial Times) -- The increasing amount of personal information that can been gleaned by computer programs that track how people use Facebook has been revealed by an extensive academic study. Such programmes can discern undisclosed private information such as Facebook users' sexuality, drug-use habits and even whether their parents separated when they were young, according to the study by Cambridge university academics. In one of the biggest studies of its kind, scientists from the university's psychometrics team and a Microsoft-funded research centre analysed data from 58,000 Facebook users to predict traits and other information that were not provided in their profiles. The algorithms were 88 per cent accurate in predicting male sexual orientation, 95 per cent for race and 80 per cent for religion and political leanings. Personality types and emotional stability were also predicted with accuracy ranging from 62-75 per cent. Facebook declined to comment. The study highlights growing concerns about social networks and how data trails can be mined for sensitive information, even when people attempt to keep information about themselves private. Less than 5 per cent of users predicted to be gay, for example, were connected with explicitly gay groups. Michal Kosinksi, one of the report's authors, told the Financial Times that the university's techniques could easily be replicated by companies to infer personal attributes a person did not wish to share, such as sexual orientation or political views: "We used very simple and generic methods. Marketing companies and internet companies could spend much more time and resources, and hence get much higher accuracy than we did." Last week , the EU agreed to water down proposals for a radical overhaul of data privacy regulation. The move reflects governments' reluctance to impede internet businesses that might spur economic growth, and follows fierce lobbying from technology companies including Facebook and Google. Personal data has become big business. Wonga, the UK online lender, makes credit judgments within seconds based on thousands of pieces of information, including an applicant's Facebook profile. Tesco, the supermarket chain, this month started to use its customers' shopping histories to sell targeted online advertising. The report also revealed some unexpected correlations -- such as people who liked 'curly fries' having higher IQs, while those who like Facebook's "Sliding on Floors With Your Socks On" page were unlikely to use drugs.
What does the EU's agreement to water down proposals for a radical overhaul of data privacy regulation signify?