Category Archives: Belgium

Belgian monks finally launch website to sell ‘world’s best beer’

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Beer lovers will still have to travel to St Sixtus abbey to pick up their allotted crates

It has been described as the world’s most sought-after beer. Just over 5,000 barrels are brewed annually by the 19 Trappist monks of St Sixtus abbey in Westvleteren, Flanders, and drinkers tempted by the regular appearance of its darkest brew at the top of the world rankings must travel in person and on appointment to pick up their allotted two crates.

But even the reclusive brothers are having to change with the times – to an extent. In order to stay one step ahead of those seeking to sell on their beer at steeply inflated prices, the abbey has announced it is going digital. A website has been set up where customers can order their two crates, with priority given to recent and new customers.

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Belgium investigates right-to-die group offering ‘suicide powder’

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Last Will provides advice to members on how to obtain lethal drug to end their lives

Belgian prosecutors are to investigate a right-to-die group that has been offering advice on the use of a “suicide powder”.

The Last Will group, which has about 23,000 paying members with an average age of 69, was blocked by the Dutch authorities last year from helping approximately 1,000 people purchase the lethal drug but continues to offer advice on legal ways to obtain it.

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Belgian king’s meeting with far-right leader sparks controversy

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First such audience since 1936 comes after Vlaams Belang wins 18 seats in election

The leader of Flanders’ far-right separatist party has had an audience with the king of Belgium for the first time in the modern political era.

According to Belgian media, 1936 was the last time a far-right leader held an official meeting with the king.

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Belgian monks resurrect 220-year-old beer after finding recipe

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Grimbergen Abbey brew incorporates methods found in 12th-century books

It has taken more than 220 years but an order of monks at Grimbergen Abbey, producers of a fabled medieval beer whose brand was adopted by mass producers in the 1950s, have started to brew again after rediscovering the original ingredients and methods in their archives.

In a sign of the significance of the news for beer-loving Belgians, the announcement was made by the abbey’s subprior, Father Karel Stautemas, in the presence of the town’s mayor and 120 journalists and enthusiasts.

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Nazi rhetoric and Holocaust denial: Belgium’s alarming rise in antisemitism

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Report shows 39% of Belgian Jews have been harassed, with some fearing to wear the kippa in public

The doors of the Jewish Museum of Belgium, in Brussels, never used to be locked during daytime visiting hours. That all changed after a day in May 2014 when a jihadi gunman shot dead four people during an attack on the museum in one of the country’s most shocking terrorist atrocities.

Nearly four years after the attack, antisemitism has again been making headlines in Belgium, a country that symbolises Europe’s diversity. Not only is the capital, Brussels, home to the EU institutions and Nato, Belgium is made up of three linguistic groups (French, Dutch and German), making it something of a laboratory for European compromise.

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Empty North Sea gas fields to be used to bury 10m tonnes of C02

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Ports of Rotterdam, Antwerp and Ghent to pipe greenhouse gas into vast under-sea cavities

Three of the largest ports in Europe – Rotterdam, Antwerp and Ghent – are to be used to capture and bury 10m tonnes of CO2 emissions under the North Sea in what will be the biggest project of its kind in the world.

The ports, which account for one-third of the total greenhouse gas emissions from the Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg region, would be used to pipe the gas into a porous reservoir of sandstone about two miles (3km) below the seabed.

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Brussels EU museum accused of banning staff from drinking and speaking

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MEP claims some House of European History staff subjected to ‘slave labour’

The EU-funded House of European History, a £47m museum celebrating the continent’s integration, has been accused of forcing contract staff to work seven days a week and ask for permission to drink water.

MEP Dennis De Jong has claimed that staff have endured bans on sitting, speaking or drinking during their 10-hour shifts looking after visitors.

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Youth climate strikes to take place in more than 100 countries

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Movement inspired by Greta Thunberg has snowballed, as Belgian workers join strike

Hundreds of thousands of children are expected to walk out of their classrooms on Friday for a global climate strike amid growing anger at the failure of politicians to tackle the escalating ecological crisis.

Children at tens of thousands of schools in more than 100 countries are due to take part in the walkouts which began last year when one teenager – Greta Thunberg – held a solo protest outside the Swedish parliament.

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Italian police reveal ‘€3m painting’ stolen from church was a copy

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Masterpiece by 17th-century artist Brueghel the Younger was swapped to foil heist

The heist appeared to have gone entirely according to plan. The thieves broke into the display case in an Italian church on Wednesday morning and made off with a €3m painting by the 17th-century Flemish artist Pieter Brueghel the Younger.

But police revealed that night there had been one hitch – the snatched artwork was a copy.

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Women’s cycling race forced to pause after lead rider catches men’s race

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  • Nicole Hanselmann made up gap on male racers
  • Men’s race had set off 10 minutes before women

A cycling race in Belgium was thrown into disarray when the leader of the women’s race, which set off 10 minutes after the men’s, almost caught up with her male counterparts and found herself in danger of being impeded by their support vehicles.

Related: Elinor Barker wins fourth world track cycling title in Poland

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Germany paying pensions to Nazi collaborators in UK and Belgium

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Belgian parliament asks Berlin to stop payments to non-Germans who pledged allegiance to Hitler

Nearly 75 years after the second world war, Germany is still paying monthly pensions to collaborators of the wartime Nazi regime in several European countries including Belgium and Britain, according to Belgian MPs and media reports.

The foreign affairs committee of the Belgian parliament this week voted in favour of a resolution urging the German federal government to put an immediate stop to the payments and publish a full list of those receiving them.

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Green MEPs held after anti-nuclear protest at Belgian military base

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UK’s Molly Scott Cato among those held after action over stockpiling of US nuclear bombs

Three Green MEPs – including one from the UK – have been arrested after breaking into a Belgian military airbase to protest against its stockpiling of American B61 nuclear bombs.

The MEPs – Molly Scott Cato, Michèle Rivasi and Tilly Metz – unfurled a banner on a runway for F-16 fighter jets at the Kleine Brogel base in the east of the country calling for a nuclear-free Europe, before being taken into custody.

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‘I’ll talk, but then I have to call Putin’: steakhouse at centre of EU spy alert

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Flabbergasted owner says EU must have been referring to his place when warning diplomats to avoid a Brussels restaurant

Eleven years since opening his restaurant in the shadow of the European commission’s vast Berlaymont headquarters in Brussels, Philippe Weiner can safely boast that the Meet Meat Steak and Wine House is a firm favourite of the better-fed Eurocrat.

Sharp-suited diplomats and officials flock to its minimalist dining room for lunch and dinner. The president of the European council, Donald Tusk, and his team have been known to enjoy the kitchen’s meat offerings, best served à point or saignant.

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Bank sewer burglars left gold bars strewn across vault floor

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Man, 27, held over Antwerp bank raid as details emerge of thieves making off hastily after alarm sounded

Burglars who broke into a bank in Antwerp’s diamond quarter by crawling through tunnels and a sewage pipe left gold bars strewn across the floor of the main vault after apparently being disturbed during the raid.

They also left behind vital clues including a mattress, extension cables, pneumatic hammers and a grinding wheel that has been traced through its serial number to a shop in the Netherlands.

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Ivory Coast ex-president Gbagbo released to Belgium

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Prosecution may appeal the acquittal by ICC on charges of crimes against humanity

Former Ivory Coast president Laurent Gbagbo has been released on bail to Belgium following his acquittal by the International Criminal Court in The Hague on charges of crimes against humanity, the court said Tuesday.

Belgium said on Saturday that it had agreed in principle to host Gbagbo pending a possible prosecution appeal against his acquittal, but that final arrangements were being made.

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Burglars use sewage pipes to break into Antwerp bank

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Sewers act as connection between tunnels dug from nearby building and into vaults

Detectives in Antwerp have been searching the sewers under the Belgian city for clues after burglars apparently used them to break into a bank before fleeing without trace, in a criminal caper fit for the big screen.

An initial investigation suggests the thieves started out in a building opposite the BNP Paribas Fortis bank in the early hours of Sunday morning. They then dug a tunnel 4 metres (13ft) long to connect with a sewage pipe running under the road.

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Belgium agrees to take in former Ivory Coast president

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International criminal court freed Laurent Gbagbo on Friday after his shock acquittal

Belgium has agreed to take in the former Ivory Coast president Laurent Gbagbo following his acquittal at the international criminal court in The Hague, a foreign ministry spokesman has said.

Karl Lagatie confirmed the agreement on Saturday, and added that he did not know if the ex-president was already in Belgium.

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‘Lost Michelangelo’ goes missing from Belgian church

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Police called after 16th-century painting disappears days before expert due to visit

It is a storyline worthy of a Hercule Poirot whodunnit. After confiding in just 20 trusted people of his suspicion that a painting in his church was a lost masterpiece, a priest in the small Flemish town of Zele, 45 miles north of Brussels, has had to call in the local police over its sudden disappearance.

Pastor Jan Van Raemdonck, 61, turned to the detectives after two women laying flowers in the nave of the Sint-Ludgerus church last Friday morning discovered that the 16th-century painting, known as the Holy Family, had gone missing from its usual position by the altar.

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Why ‘good populism’ is the wrong strategy to fight ‘bad populism’ | Cas Mudde

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Many traditional parties are trying to co-opt the agenda of the radical right in order to defeat them. But various elections in 2018 reveal the limits of that approach

After the Dutch parliamentary elections of March 2017, the prime minister, Mark Rutte, triumphantly declared that “good populism” had defeated “bad populism”, a claim eagerly and uncritically repeated in media around the world. It confirmed received wisdom that the best way to defeat the populist radical right, is to co-opt a moderate version of their agenda, while excluding the party itself.

Few cared that Rutte’s claim rested on dubious empirical grounds: compared with the 2012 election, Rutte actually lost big (-5.2%), whereas Geert Wilder’s Party for Freedom (PVV) made gains (+3.0%) and was joined by a new far-right party, Forum for Democracy (FvD), with 1.8%, making their combined scored of 14.9%. That’s less than one percentage point lower than the PVV’s high score of 15.45% in 2010.

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Mother of student held over Ortega protest in global plea for help

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Family of activist Amaya Eva Coppens, 24, appeal for help to ‘stop the repression’ of Nicaraguan government

The mother of a medical student facing more than 20 years in prison for protesting against the Nicaraguan government is appealing to the international community to put pressure on president Daniel Ortega’s regime.

Amaya Eva Coppens, a Belgian-Nicaraguan dual national, is due to stand trial in the capital Managua after being “abducted” in a raid by more than 30 riot police and paramilitaries on 10 September.

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