Category Archives: Belgium

Riot police break up illegal party in Brussels park using tear gas and water cannon – video

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Clashes erupted as riot police in Belgium used tear gas and water cannon to disperse revellers at an illegal party in Brussels' Bois de la Cambre park.

The event, dubbed 'La Boum 2', was a sequel to the fake festival arranged as an April Fools' Day joke at the same park on 1 April – and was held in defiance of the government's Covid-19 restrictions. A collective called 'L'abîme Team', the organiser of the event on social media, unsuccessfully tried to seek permission for the gathering, local media reported.

On 23 April, Belgium pressed ahead with plans to allow restaurant and cafe terraces to reopen on 8 May despite warnings from health officials that hospital saturation was starting to resemble that of Italy at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. From 8 May, up to 50 people will be also allowed to attend an outdoor event. More than 23,000 people out of in Belgium's 11 million population have died of Covid-19, with about 3,500 daily infections

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How continental Europe is emerging from Covid lockdown

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Countries across Europe are starting to relax coronavirus restrictions as case numbers fall

Counting on an accelerating vaccination campaign to keep new infections in check, much of continental Europe has announced plans for a gradual exit from lockdown over the coming weeks as case numbers begin to fall. Here is where things stand:

Belgium (at least one vaccine dose administered to 25% of whole population) aims to permit outside dining in restaurants and bars again on 8 May, with a mandatory 10pm closing time and tables limited to groups of four. Non-essential shops and hairdressers reopened on Monday.

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Colombia’s cartels target Europe with cocaine, corruption and torture

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Armed Belgian police raids have lifted the lid on a sinister new front in the drugs war

At 5am on a chilly Tuesday morning last month, 1,600 police officers and balaclava-wearing special forces, bristling with arms and battering rams, were ordered into action around the Belgian port city of Antwerp.

More than 200 addresses were raided in what was the largest police operation ever conducted in the country and potentially one of the most significant moves yet against the increasingly powerful narco-gangs of western Europe.

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The eggs factor: Belgian pop star finds fame again from rural Irish exile

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Philippe Robrecht was living the quiet life with his wife and hens when stardom came calling back

Something odd happened to Philippe Robrecht while hunkered down in lockdown on Inishbofin, a tiny island with just 170 inhabitants off Ireland’s Atlantic coast: he became, again, a pop star.

The 55-year-old musician and singer had not made an album in almost a decade and was all but forgotten in his native Belgium when the Covid-19 pandemic reached Ireland last year.

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Curfews and quarantines: Europe faces another Easter of Covid restrictions

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From France to Spain, Germany to Greece, tight rules are in place to contain the spread of coronavirus

Europe may not be subject to the drastic lockdown measures introduced to combat the first wave of coronavirus a year ago, but many countries still face another Easter of greatly reduced meeting and movement.

In France, new restrictions come into effect across the country from 7pm on Saturday that limit travel to within 10km (six miles) of home, absent one of the allowed “imperative” reasons. Sworn declarations known as “attestations” will be necessary for anyone travelling outside these rules.

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EU leaders push back against bloc’s plans to halt Covid vaccine export

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More sceptical member states hope ‘stick will never be used’ amid concerns over supply chain

EU leaders are likely to shy away from supporting the use of new powers to block Covid vaccine shipments to countries such as the UK with better jab coverage than the bloc, according to a draft statement ahead of a meeting of EU leaders today.

The European commission has increased its scope for blocking vaccine exports but disquiet among capitals is set to be reflected in a muted statement at the end of the virtual summit on Thursday evening.

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Yellow review – a gripping epic about fascism in Belgium

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Available online
Part two in NTGent’s Sorrows of Belgium trilogy is a visually arresting account of the rise of the Rex party and the horror of the second world war

Director Luk Perceval’s Sorrows of Belgium trilogy charts three dark chapters in the nation’s history, starting with colonial oppressions in the Congo in Black (produced by NTGent in 2019) and ending with the Brussels terrorist attacks of 2016 in Red (yet to be staged). The second instalment, Yellow, dramatises the rise of the fascist party Rex, which led to collaboration with Nazi occupiers.

What is immediately arresting in NTGent’s live-stream, with English subtitles, is the cinematic quality of the production. It is exquisitely filmed by Daniel Demoustier in the theatre, though not always on the stage. Shot almost entirely in black and white with some intermittent hues of yellow, it seems variously like a dance and a series of sorrowful tableaux of human suffering and collective delusion. Camera angles draw us into the roused faces of Belgian fascists, circling them dizzily as they spit out their rhetoric, and then drawing away to show them as a choreographed ensemble. Annette Kurz’s set design seems more like a moving painting, with the actors often performing on or around a table that serves as a miniature stage.

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EU parliament strips Carles Puigdemont and two other Catalans of immunity

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Spain seeking extradition related to separatists’ role in organising 2017 independence referendum

The European parliament has voted to lift the immunity of the former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont and two of his ministers, taking them a step closer to extradition and prosecution in Spain.

MEPs voted by 400 to 248 with 45 abstentions in the case of Puigdemont and 404 to 247 with 42 abstentions regarding Antoni Comín and Clara Ponsatí, respectively the former health and education ministers in Puigdemont’s government.

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Belgium considers U-turn on Oxford Covid vaccine for over-55s

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Several European countries opted not to give the jab to older age groups due to lack of data

People over the age of 55 in Belgium could be given the Oxford/AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine, as the government seeks to “reset” its heavily criticised vaccination programme.

Belgium joined Germany, France, Poland and Italy last month in only giving the vaccine to younger groups due to a comparative lack of data on its efficacy in the older age ranges in the Oxford/AstraZeneca clinical trials.

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Open sesame: Alibaba’s push into Europe a mixed blessing for Liège

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Apart from the pollution, there are concerns the Chinese firm’s new airport hub may not revive the fortunes of the Belgian region

Braving an ominously grey sky, Ine Brants, 33, perches precariously at the top of a stepladder at Liège airport’s perimeter fence. “Ah, the green queen,” she says, raising the long lens of her camera to Challenge Airlines’ green-liveried jumbo jet as it flies into view. “You can get a 747 rush hour here. It has definitely got busier since coronavirus.”

Brants’ lens is capturing the Alibaba effect. Quietly over the last three years, Liège, Belgium’s third largest city, has been transformed into a launchpad for the Chinese e-commerce group’s push into the European marketplace, a dynamic boosted by the coronavirus pandemic. It is a cause for celebration for some and worry for others.

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Storm Darcy brings heavy snow and travel disruption to Europe – video

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Authorities in the Netherlands declared a rare 'code red' emergency for the entire country as it was hit by its first proper snowstorm in more than a decade.

In the UK, amber and yellow weather warnings for snow were issued by the Met Office with widespread travel problems expected

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EU could block millions of Covid vaccine doses from entering UK

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European commission says new mechanism will give national regulators power to refuse exports

Millions of doses of coronavirus vaccine could be blocked from entering Britain from the EU within days after Brussels said it had to respond to shortages emerging in member states.

Following reports of a lack of doses across the bloc, the European commission announced plans to give national regulators the power to reject export requests. The development raises concerns over the continued flow of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, for which the UK has a 40m-dose order, from its plant in Belgium.

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Germany to push on with Covid travel ban plan as EU tries to coordinate rules

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Berlin planning to ban travel from UK, Portugal, Brazil and South Africa to stop spread of variants

Germany is planning a near-total ban on travellers from Britain, Portugal, Brazil and South Africa as European governments increasingly move to bar entry from countries where more contagious Covid-19 variants are rampant.

Berlin’s initiative came as EU interior ministers met to discuss a more coordinated approach to international travel restrictions.

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‘The music industry kills artists’: Damso, Belgium’s biggest rap star

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With multi-platinum No 1 albums including topics such as suicide and the psychology of paedophiles, the Congolese-Belgian MC has carved his own lane with total determination

‘The questions that I ask myself about death aren’t about dying, they’re about death in this life.” Damso doesn’t really do small talk. Engaging and magnetic even through a computer screen, the 28-year-old Congolese-Belgian rapper is sporting a flamboyant shirt and a considerable amount of jewellery as he ponders the nature of existence. “There are people who are alive, but live like they’re dead,” he says. “They don’t strive to go further. But I know life is really short because I’ve seen people die just like that, in the street. So this question speaks to me: how can we be absent from our own lives?”

This is Damso’s first interview for an English-speaking audience, but we barely mention any of the achievements his team send over to illustrate how successful he is. When his fourth album, QALF, dropped in September 2020 without a whisper of promotion, it generated 14m streams in 24 hours, making him the most streamed artist in the world that day. “The music won,” he says simply.

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Dozens of residents die at Belgian care home after Santa visit

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Twenty-six residents have died and 85 more have tested positive for coronavirus since visit in Mol

At least 26 residents of a Belgian retirement home have died since a visit by a volunteer dressed as Saint Nicholas who has since tested positive for Covid-19.

The deaths at the Hemelrijck home in Mol, near Antwerp, have prompted the local municipality to criticise the “completely irresponsible” organisers of the festive visit, although the cause of the infection is not yet certain.

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Coronavirus live news: Boris Johnson to hold crisis meeting as India joins countries banning flights from UK

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India joins France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Ireland, Bulgaria in flight bans over new strain; US aid bill should have votes to pass

That’s all from me, Caroline Davies. Thank you for your time. Handing over now to my colleague Aamna Mohdin.

The chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation, Ken Marsh, has said there is “no way” officers will be knocking on the doors of “normal” households in London to check coronavirus restrictions were being followed now the city is in Tier 4.

“We won’t be knocking on people’s doors at all, unless there is a large group and noise, ie a party or something like that.

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Multiple European countries ban travel from UK over new Covid strain

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WHO tells members to redouble efforts to stop spread as Israel turns away UK passport holders

European countries have begun to close their doors to travellers from the UK after the discovery of a fast-spreading strain of Covid-19 in England.

As the World Health Organization called on its members in Europe to step up measures, countries including France, Germany, Ireland and the Netherlands announced bans on travel from the UK.

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Belgian minister tweets EU’s Covid vaccine price list to anger of manufacturers

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Pharmaceutical companies complain of breach of confidentiality after amount EU has agreed to pay for leading vaccines goes public

A Belgian minister has blown the lid off a sensitive and commercial secret – the price that the EU has agreed to pay for the leading Covid vaccines.

Belgium’s budget state secretary, Eva De Bleeker, posted the price list on Twitter, with the amounts of each vaccine that her country intends to buy from the EU. The tweet was quickly deleted, but not soon enough to prevent interested parties taking screenshots, which have now made it public knowledge.

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Painting in Brussels hall turns out to be an original by Flemish master Jacob Jordaens

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Experts say ‘incredible discovery’ is the earliest known version of the early 17th century artist’s Holy Family works

A painting that hung for decades in a municipal building in Brussels has been authenticated as the work of Flemish master Jacob Jordaens.

After analysis including dendrochronology – dating works from the wood panels they are painted on – experts determined that it is the oldest known version of The Holy Family by Jordaens, painted in the early 17th century.

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Belgium says Brussels mosque infiltrated by Moroccan spies

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Mosque’s application for special recognition is refused after advice from security services

The Belgian government has refused permission for the Grand Mosque in the EU quarter of Brussels to be recognised as a local faith community, claiming that the place of worship has been infiltrated by Moroccan spies.

The decision to deny the application was made by the justice minister, Vincent Van Quickenborne, following advice from the security services, according to media reports. Recognition as a faith community secures financial support and assistance from the government.

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