A Dutch court has ruled that border police can use ethnicity as one of the criteria for selecting people for checks at the border.

FILE- In this Monday, Feb. 18, 2019, file photo the Peace Palace, which houses the International Court of Justice, or World Court, is seen in The Hague, Netherlands. The United Nations' highest court ruled Friday Dec. 18, 2020, that it will intervene to settle a decades-old border dispute between Latin American neighbors Guyana and Venezuela. The decision by the International Court of Justice means it will now move to judge the merits of the case, which will likely take months or years. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong, File)THE HAGUE – The United Nations’ highest court ruled Friday that it will intervene to settle a decades-old border dispute between South American neighbors Guyana and Venezuela. Venezuela had argued that the world court did not have jurisdiction and refused to participate in legal arguments on the issue held earlier this year.

Unfortunately, the answer is not more than the last few months," Rutte said in a nationally televised news conference. His comments came hours after the Dutch public health institute reported what it called a “worrying rise" in the number of coronavirus infections in the last week. Rutte warned that if infections don't start declining again, he couldn't rule out tightening the current “partial lockdown” in the Netherlands before Christmas. The health institute said the number of new confirmed COVID-19 cases rose by more than 9,000 to 43,103 in a week. In the same week, the number of confirmed COVID-19 deaths dropped from 406 to 338.