Category Archives: Belgium

Belgian king expresses ‘deepest regrets’ for brutal colonial rule

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Letter to Democratic Republic of the Congo president hailed as historic by Belgian media

King Philippe of Belgium has expressed his “deepest regrets” for acts of violence and brutality inflicted during his country’s rule over Congo, as the Democratic Republic of the Congo marks the 60th anniversary of its independence.

The letter to the DRC president, Félix Tshisekedi, has been described as historic in the Belgian media, as it is the first time a Belgian king has expressed regret for the country’s colonial past, although it stops short of an apology.

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Thirteen people charged in France over Essex lorry deaths

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Group of mainly French and Vietnamese nationals accused of organising migrants’ journey from Asia

Thirteen suspects arrested by French police over the deaths of 39 Vietnamese people found in a refrigerated lorry in Essex have been charged with people trafficking and manslaughter, a judicial source has said.

Six of the group – mainly Vietnamese and French nationals – were taken into custody on Tuesday in the Paris region, while the alleged key figure in the ring of smugglers was caught in Germany.

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Global report: EU countries block hydroxychloroquine, South Korea fears new spike

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France, Italy and Belgium respond to safety fears around drug; UN issues food insecurity warning for Africa; mosques reopen in Syria

France, Italy and Belgium have all taken steps against the use of hydroxychloroquine in treating patients with Covid-19 as safety concerns over the drug, touted by Donald Trump and Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, continue to grow.

Paris on Wednesday revoked a decree allowing doctors to use the drug with severely ill coronavirus patients, while the Italian and Belgian medicine agencies either suspended or warned against its use except in clinical trials.

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Belgium confirms inquiry into Malta-China spy threat

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Investigation centres on claims Beijing has spied on EU from Malta’s embassy in Brussels

Malta’s ties to China have come under the spotlight after Belgium’s intelligence services confirmed they have been investigating suspicions that Beijing has been spying from the country’s embassy opposite the European commission’s headquarters in Brussels.

A spokesman for Belgium’s homeland security service, the Veiligheid van de Staat, made the unusual disclosure about the existence of the inquiry after the French newspaper Le Monde reported on the suspected espionage by the Chinese state.

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Belgium experiments with ‘corona bubbles’ to ease social restrictions

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UK government also looking at scheme, but experts question whether it will work

It’s been called the four-person puzzle. If you could only have the same four family members or friends to dinner for a few weeks of coronavirus lockdown, who would you choose? That is the dilemma the Belgian government has handed its citizens as it moves to the next phase in easing restrictions on everyday life.

From Sunday, every household in Belgium can invite up to four guests to their home. Two sets of four people make a “corona bubble”, who can visit each other’s homes. No one else is allowed into the domestic social circle. The concept, also being discussed by the British government, opens up the biggest social minefield of the coronavirus lockdown.

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Convicted terrorists less likely to reoffend than other criminals – study

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Research suggests 5% commit another terrorism offence after leaving prison

Convicted terrorists are extremely unlikely to reoffend compared with other prisoners, research by academics and security services in Europe has found.

The research shows that less than 5% of convicted terrorists commit a second terrorist offence after leaving prison. In England and Wales, around 45% of all prisoners will reoffend within a year of release.

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Wolf cubs on way as Belgium becomes ‘wolf crossroads of Europe’

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She-wolf in country’s north is pregnant, and newcomers from France or Italy spotted in south

Belgium is becoming “the wolf crossroads of Europe”, a conservation charity has said as it reported new sightings from France and Germany, while Flemish authorities separately announced the imminent arrival of wolf puppies.

Flanders’ environment minister, Zuhal Demir, announced that a pair of wolves in the north of the country were expecting cubs, four months after arrival in the area of a female wolf, Noëlla, who was billed as “a potential new love” for a previously lone wolf, August.

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Coronavirus: global death toll passes 200,000 as more countries prepare to reopen

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As WHO warns no evidence exists to suggest people can’t catch Covid-19 twice, India, Belgium and Greece among latest countries to ease lockdowns

The global toll from Covid-19 passed 200,000 on Saturday, with over 2.8 million people infected, as the WHO warned against issuing “immunity passports” because there is no evidence people who recovered from the disease are protected against a second infection.

It took more than three months after the coronavirus first emerged for deaths from the disease to pass 100,000, a grim milestone that was reached on 10 April. It took just over two weeks for that toll to double, and worldwide the number of confirmed infections is creeping towards 3 million.

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Is comparing Covid-19 death rates across Europe helpful?

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Belgium appears hardest hit on paper, but not all countries count non-hospital fatalities

Every day, the statistics bring more grim headlines: “Italian death toll passes 20,000”, “Record UK daily death toll”, “Europe’s fatalities pass 100,000”. Across the world, people await national updates on the coronavirus – and compare their country with others.

The comparison game has been especially marked in Belgium, which on paper has the unhappy title of highest number of Covid-19 deaths per capita in Europe. Belgium – population 11.5 million – has counted at least 6,675 deaths since the start of the outbreak, more than Germany, which is nearly eight times more populous.

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Half of coronavirus deaths happen in care homes, data from EU suggests

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Figures from Italy, Spain, France, Ireland and Belgium suggest UK may be underestimating care sector deaths

About half of all Covid-19 deaths appear to be happening in care homes in some European countries, according to early figures gathered by UK-based academics who are warning that the same effort must be put into fighting the virus in care homes as in the NHS.

Snapshot data from varying official sources shows that in Italy, Spain, France, Ireland and Belgium between 42% and 57% of deaths from the virus have been happening in homes, according to the report by academics based at the London School of Economics (LSE).

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Lockdown living: how Europeans are avoiding going stir crazy

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People across Europe are finding increasingly inventive ways to protect themselves against the psychological risks of isolation

In Italy they are singing and sharing recipes. In France, humour is saving the day. In Spain, communal staircases have become the new running tracks, and in Germany, ordinarily disorderly hackers are busy coding corona-busting apps.

As hundreds of millions of Europeans languish in lockdown, people are finding increasingly inventive ways to keep themselves entertained – and to counter what the continent’s psychologists warning are the very real risks of confinement.

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Malian musician Rokia Traoré freed from French prison pending transfer to Belgium

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Traoré is in an international custody battle over her daughter after a Belgian court awarded sole guardianship to the child’s father

Malian musician Rokia Traoré has been released from a French prison, after being detained since 10 March for the alleged kidnap of her daughter in a child custody dispute. Her freedom is dependent on her delivery to Belgian authorities, once travel restrictions related to the coronavirus pandemic are lifted.

Traoré was arrested under a European warrant issued by a judge in Brussels, where a court had ordered her to surrender her five-year-old daughter to the child’s father, Jan Goossens, who is Belgian. Traoré was held in Paris after getting off a plane there.

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Mali music star Rokia Traoré on hunger strike after ‘kidnapping’ arrest

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Musicians including Damon Albarn and Salif Keita call for release of singer, who is in an international battle over custody of her daughter

There are growing concerns for the health of Rokia Traoré, the internationally celebrated Malian singer, who has been on hunger strike at the Fleury-Mérogis prison near Paris since she was arrested on 10 March on allegations of kidnapping her daughter in a child-custody dispute.

Her lawyer, Kenneth Feliho, said: “I am very worried. She is only drinking. She has not been eating for over a week and her immune system is weak.”

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‘Wonderchicken’: oldest fossil of modern bird discovered

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Tiny creature, half the size of a mallard, found in rocks dating back to dinosaur age

Experts have discovered a fossil of the world’s oldest known modern bird – a diminutive creature about half the size of a mallard duck.

Dubbed the Wonderchicken, the remains were found in rocks dating to about 66.8m to 66.7m years ago, revealing that the bird was active shortly before the asteroid strike that wiped out the dinosaurs 66m years ago.

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Belgium enters lockdown over coronavirus crisis – in pictures

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Belgium is the latest country to go into lockdown, with citizens asked to stay at home and limit contact to their closest family. From noon on Wednesday, all non-essential shops and open-air markets closed and people were expected to work at home

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‘Do not let this fire burn’: WHO warns Europe over coronavirus

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Europe now centre of pandemic, says WHO, as Spain prepares for state of emergency

The World Health Organization has stepped up its calls for intensified action to fight the coronavirus pandemic, imploring countries “not to let this fire burn”, as Spain said it would declare a 15-day state of emergency from Saturday.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO director general, said Europe – where the virus is present in all 27 EU states and has infected 25,000 people – had become the centre of the epidemic, with more reported cases and deaths than the rest of the world combined apart from China.

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Belgian woman dies after taking sip of MDMA-laced wine

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Alert issued after woman opens bottle believed to have been used to transport drug

Belgian prosecutors have issued an alert over a woman who died after taking a sip of wine from a bottle suspected of being used to transport the drug MDMA.

The 41-year-old collapsed shortly after opening the French red to enjoy with a colleague after work. She took a sip from a glass, which left an unpleasant taste, and the intake was enough to give her a fatal dose of MDMA, the active ingredient in ecstasy pills.

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‘Devil’s couple’ extradited to Belgium 23 years after murder of Briton

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Hilde Van Acker and Jean-Claude Lacote are facing a life sentence over shooting businessman Marcus Mitchell

Two of Europe’s most wanted criminals, branded the “Devil’s couple” for their murder of a British businessman, have been extradited to Belgium after 23 years on the run.

Hilde Van Acker, 56, and Jean-Claude Lacote, 53, are facing a life sentence for the shooting of Marcus Mitchell, a businessman whom the couple conned out of £500,000.

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UK Brexit negotiator accused of treating Britain and EU as ‘two different planets’

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Verhofstadt says it would be a ‘hell of a job’ to achieve success using David Frost’s approach

Boris Johnson’s chief Brexit negotiator has been accused of treating the EU and the UK as if they are “living on two different planets” after vowing to break all regulatory ties with Brussels.

Guy Verhofstadt, the former Belgian prime minister who has led the European parliament’s approach to Brexit, said it would be a “hell of a job” to secure a successful outcome from the negotiation using the British approach.

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‘Fighting like ferrets in a bag’ as EU tries to plug Brexit cash hole

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UK’s withdrawal has left £62bn hole in bloc’s purse for the next seven years

Presidents, prime ministers and chancellors across Europe will pack their bags later this week in preparation for a long weekend in Brussels. They won’t, however, be taking in the baroque majesty of the Grand Place or savouring the local culinary treats. Instead, they will be preparing for that most infamous of events, a “four shirter”, to use the clothes-packing gauge adopted by male diplomats to measure the length and horror of EU leaders’ summits in the Belgian capital. The thorny subject this time around? Money. And the problem? Britain.

The UK’s withdrawal from the European Union has left a huge €75bn (£62bn) hole in the bloc’s budget for the next seven years, 2021 to 2027. “And now we are fighting like ferrets in a sack,” said one EU diplomat with a sigh.

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