From Ghent to Galway, Amsterdam to Edinburgh, everyone is tiring of rowdy drunkenness. Is this the end of the foreign stag weekend?
Name: The Great Stag Ban.
Age: Recent.
Continue reading...Category Archives: Belgium
Celine Cremer: waterfall and river to be searched for missing Belgian tourist in Tasmania
Police say swift water will be examined on Tuesday ‘before we begin to scale back the search’
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Police will search waterways as they continue looking for the Belgian tourist Celine Cremer, who has been missing for two weeks in remote Tasmanian wilderness.
Officers say they will examine the Philosopher Falls area more closely on Tuesday before scaling back the search.
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Continue reading...Hiker assisting police as search continues for Belgian Celine Cremer in Tasmania wilderness
Investigators say hiker ‘not in any trouble’ but could help determine tourist’s movements prior to her disappearance
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Police are continuing to search for missing Belgian tourist Celine Cremer in north-western Tasmania, a day after a hiker came forward who police hope could provide crucial clues about her disappearance.
Celine Cremer was reported missing on Monday but was last seen on 17 June in Waratah near Cradle Mountain.
Continue reading...Belgian man charged with fatally shooting British girl, 11, in France
Suspect Dirk Raats has been officially put under investigation for murder of Solaine Thornton
A man has appeared in court in France charged with shooting dead an 11-year-old British girl who was playing in the garden of her family home.
The suspect, Dirk Raats, 70, originally from Antwerp in Belgium, has been officially put under investigation for the murder of Solaine Thornton and the attempted murder of her parents, Adrian and Rachel Thornton.
Continue reading...Ex-fraternity members in Belgium found guilty over death of student
Sanda Dia died in hospital in December 2018 after enduring a degrading two-day initiation ritual
Eighteen former members of an elite university fraternity have been found guilty for their role in the death of a student during a brutal and degrading initiation ritual in 2018.
Sanda Dia was 20 when he died in hospital in December 2018 after he and two other first-year students endured two days of vicious hazing to enter the student fraternity, Reuzegom.
Continue reading...Belgium aid worker freed in prisoner swap with Iranian diplomat jailed for bomb plot
Deal to release Olivier Vandecasteele in exchange for Assadollah Assadi raises concerns Tehran’s hostage diplomacy has been rewarded
A Belgian aid worker jailed in Tehran has been released in a prisoner swap with an Iranian diplomat who had been sentenced to 20 years in jail for his role in a plan to bomb an Iranian opposition rally in Paris in 2018.
Assadollah Assadi had served just over two years of his 20-year sentence, and his release will raise questions about whether Iranian hostage diplomacy – the practice of seizing dual nationals as bargaining chips – has been rewarded by the Belgian authorities. The final stages of the deal were negotiated by Oman, but Belgium had been negotiating with Iran over the fate of the diplomat for much longer.
Continue reading...Fears looted Nazi art still hanging in Belgian and British galleries
Leading art museums are reassessing their works after a Belgian journalist traced how a fascist sympathiser acquired a Jewish dealer’s collection
In August 1940, Samuel Hartveld and his wife, Clara Meiboom, boarded the SS Exeter ocean liner in Lisbon, bound for New York. Aged 62, Hartveld, a successful Jewish art dealer, left a world behind. The couple had fled their home city of Antwerp not long before the Nazi invasion of Belgium in May 1940, parting with their 23-year-old son, Adelin, who had decided to join the resistance.
Hartveld also said goodbye to a flourishing gallery in a fine art deco building in the Flemish capital, a rich library and more than 60 paintings. The couple survived the war, but Adelin was killed in January 1942. Hartveld was never reunited with his paintings, which were snapped up at a bargain-basement price by a Nazi sympathiser and today are scattered throughout galleries in north-western Europe, including Tate Britain.
Continue reading...Renovation of Brussels park ignites debate on decolonisation
Triumphal arch in Cinquantenaire park ‘linked to exploitation of Congo’, says cultural group in Belgian capital
For many Belgians, the Cinquantenaire park in Brussels evokes memories of childhood visits to see the stuffed horses of the military history museum, or vintage cars at Autoworld, two institutions on the edge of the park.
The much-loved green space’s cheerful flowers and whimsical follies contrast with the steel canyons and beeping traffic of the adjacent EU quarter, but above all it is an expression of national pride, with a giant Belgian tricolour often suspended underneath a massive triumphal arch. Built in 1880 to mark 50 years of the Belgian state, Belgium’s federal government last month launched a redevelopment plan for the 200th anniversary in 2030.
Continue reading...French left attacks ‘nauseating’ coronation but right gives praise
Jean-Luc Mélenchon also criticises French TV coverage while National Rally MP hails ‘magnificent’ ceremony
Almost 9 million people watched King Charles’s coronation live on TV in France, where the pomp and ceremony sickened the radical left while impressing the far right.
As the French president, Emmanuel Macron, who is close to Charles, attended the service at Westminster Abbey, congratulating the monarchy who he said were “friends to France”, the French media’s massive focus on the event – with souvenir front pages and lengthy TV specials across different channels – caused high emotions across the polarised political landscape.
Continue reading...Europe’s ‘carbon bomb’ petrochemical plant: can it be stopped? – podcast
The environmental law charity ClientEarth and 13 other groups headed into a Flemish court this week in an effort to stop Ineos building a petrochemical plant that would be the biggest project of its kind in Europe for 30 years. Madeleine Finlay hears from correspondent Sandra Laville about how plastics are made, the environmental and health impacts of the process and what needs to be done to get a handle on plastic pollution
Clips: CBS, PBS
Read Sandra Laville’s reporting on this story here
Continue reading...Belgium crushes 2,000 cans of Miller High Life over ‘champagne of beers’ slogan
Comité Champagne asks for destruction of shipment on grounds Miller High Life’s motto infringes champagne’s protected origin
The guardians of champagne will let no one take the name of the bubbly beverage in vain, not even a US beer behemoth.
For years, Miller High Life has used the “Champagne of Beers” slogan. This week, it became clear that for some the name has became impossible to swallow.
Continue reading...Ex-fraternity members back in Belgian court over death of black student
Eighteen people implicated in death of Sanda Dia after brutal initiation that included standing in an icy well
Eighteen former members of an elite university fraternity in Belgium are back on trial over the death of a black student after a brutal initiation ritual.
Prosecutors have asked for sentences ranging from 18 to 50 months in jail for the 18 people implicated in the death of Sanda Dia, a 20-year-old engineering student who died in December 2018 after being forced to drink excessive amounts of alcohol, eat large amounts of fish sauce, and stand in an icy well for hours.
Continue reading...Lavish Flemish epic grips Belgians – but is it history or propaganda?
The Story of Flanders, spanning 38,000 years of the region’s history, is funded by the nationalist government and is accused of stretching the truth
It is blockbuster TV, with Romans and Vikings, knights and Neanderthals, trains and the trenches of the first world war – and a hefty dose of political controversy.
The Story of Flanders, a 10-part history series airing in Belgium’s northern region until March, has been a cultural landmark. But the apparently lavish funding from the region’s government, run by the separatist New Flemish Alliance (N-VA) party, which seeks to make Flanders independent from Belgium, has led to accusations of propaganda.
Continue reading...Tintin drawing by Hergé sells at auction for record £1.9m
Belgian cartoonist’s black and white artwork from 1942 was used for the cover of Tintin in America
An artwork by Tintin creator Hergé has set the world record for the most valuable original black and white drawing by the artist after selling at auction for more than €2m.
The drawing, Tintin in America – created in 1942 – was used for the colour edition of the Belgian cartoonist’s 1946 book of the same name.
Continue reading...Belgian MEP arrested in ‘cash for influence’ inquiry
Police search Marc Tarabella’s safe deposit box and offices as part of anti-corruption investigation
A second MEP has been arrested as part of a criminal investigation into alleged bribery, corruption and money laundering at the European parliament.
Marc Tarabella of Belgium was taken in for questioning after police arrived at his home at about 6am on Friday, according to Belgian press reports. Tarabella has previously declared his innocence.
Continue reading...Virtual aid trip and a policy quiz: the European Commission tourist experience
Brussels exhibition is latest EU effort to appeal to the public by seeking to explain its work
There is a virtual reality plane trip, a quiz, a presentation from the world’s “most powerful woman”, and a souvenir photo: it is all part of the offer at one of the latest tourist attractions to arrive in Brussels – the European Commission exhibition centre.
Experience Europe, which has been open just under a year, seeks to explain the work of the commission, which proposes and enforces EU law, and for many is the epitome of “Brussels”. It is the latest example of how the bloc is trying to appeal to the public. Stung by criticism of being an elite project with bamboozling and opaque processes, the EU has sharpened up communication efforts in the last 15 years. The European parliament opened a visitors’ centre, the Parlamentarium, in 2011, followed by a museum dedicated to European history in 2017.
Continue reading...EU committee votes to lift immunity from two MEPs amid ‘Qatargate’ inquiry
European parliament expected to back committee and strip Marc Tarabella and Andrea Cozzolino of immunity from prosecution
A European parliament committee has voted to lift immunity from two MEPs after a request from Belgian authorities investigating the “Qatargate” bribery and corruption scandal that has shaken the EU assembly.
MEPs on the European parliament’s legal affairs committee voted unanimously with no abstentions on Tuesday to strip immunity from Belgium’s Marc Tarabella and Italy’s Andrea Cozzolino.
Continue reading...Belgian buyer of Europe’s spare tanks hopes they see action in Ukraine
OIP built up a huge private arsenal, banking on there one day being demand for the weapons again
On the outskirts of Tournai, a sleepy medieval town in the gentle, Brueghelian landscape of the French-speaking part of Belgium, there is an unassuming grey hangar, barely hidden behind a fence. Inside are rows upon rows of German-made Leopard 1 tanks and other heavy fighting vehicles – some of the same types of weapons that top Ukraine’s military wishlist.
The hangar belongs to the Belgium defence company OIP and contains one of the biggest privately owned reserves of weapons in Europe. “Many of these tanks have been sitting here for years. Hopefully, now it is the time they finally see some action in Ukraine,” said Freddy Versluys, the head of OIP, as he toured the hangar.
Continue reading...Belgium: family say death of Belgian-Tunisian woman in custody not suicide
Death of Sourour Abouda casts spotlight on treatment of minority ethnic citizens by Belgium’s police
The death of a Belgian-Tunisian woman in police custody earlier this month has been rejected by her family as a case of suicide, while casting a spotlight on the treatment of minority ethnic citizens by Belgium’s police.
Sourour Abouda, a 46-year-old NGO worker, was found dead in a police cell early in the morning of 12 January, after being arrested several hours before. She had been found drunk in the fashionable district of Place Châtelain in Brussels and taken to a police station in the city centre, according to local media reports that have not been officially confirmed.
Continue reading...Greek MEP Eva Kaili to stay in custody after corruption charges, says court
Kaili is one of four charged with corruption and money laundering in relation to Qatar and will go on trial in Belgium
Eva Kaili, the Greek member of the European parliament at the centre of a cash for influence scandal implicating Qatar, will remain in jail pending trial, a Belgian court has decided.
“In its order this morning, the pre-council chamber extended the pre-trial detention of EK by one month,” said a statement from the Belgian federal prosecutor’s office. If Kaili chooses to appeal against the decision within 24 hours, she will appear before a chamber at the Brussels court of appeal within 15 days.
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