Corine Bastide drank rainwater from chewing gum container to keep hydrated in heatwave
A Belgian woman survived six days trapped in her overturned car without food during one of the country’s hottest periods on record.
Corine Bastide came off the road and crashed into woods last week near the south-eastern city of Liège. Family friends who were putting up missing posters days later spotted her vehicle and alerted authorities.
Continue reading...Highs in Germany, Netherlands and Belgium exceeded for second time in 24 hours
Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium have recorded all-time national temperature highs for the second day running and Paris has had its hottest day ever as the second dangerous heatwave of the summer sears western Europe.
The extreme temperatures follow a similar heatwave last month that made it the hottest June on record. Scientists say the climate crisis is making summer heatwaves five times more likely and significantly more intense.
Continue reading...All-time records in Germany and Luxembourg could also fall in continent-wide heatwave
The Netherlands and Belgium have recorded their highest ever temperatures as the second extreme heatwave in consecutive months to be linked by scientists to the climate emergency advances across the continent.
The Dutch meteorological service, KNMI, said the temperature reached 39.1C (102F) at Gilze-Rijen airbase near the southern city of Tilburg on Wednesday afternoon, exceeding the previous high of 38.6C set in August 1944.
Continue reading...Imanuelle Grives, 34, from Netherlands was found with drugs at Belgian festival
A Dutch actor arrested for drug dealing has claimed that large amounts of cocaine and ecstasy found at her rental flat were “an experiment” to help her prepare for a TV role.
Imanuelle Grives, a 34-year-old who has worked in TV and film, was stopped by police at the Belgian electronic music festival Tomorrowland, where she was found to be carrying a large quantity of drugs, according to prosecutors. A later search of an Airbnb property she was renting in the area revealed more than 20g of cocaine, about 100 ecstasy pills, ketamine and MDMA.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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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