“Belgium is climbing out of the depths,” said prime minister Elio di Rupo in his State of the Union speech yesterday. In an upbeat message to the House of Representatives, he said that the government had “regained trust” but that there was still important work to be done. the prime minister was...

Flanders is in the top three in Europe when it comes to satisfaction with life, according to the latest Flemish Regional Indicators (Vrind) published yesterday by the Flemish government. Other figures indicate that the region is making progress on economic sustainability and on the numbers of young...

The multidisciplinary transplant team of Leuven’s University Hospital has succeeded in preserving a pair of donor lungs for more than 11 hours before transplantation. That is the longest period known worldwide. The multidisciplinary transplant team of Leuven’s University Hospital has succeeded in...

Belgium's federal government has saved €15m on energy after awarding utility company Electrabel a contract last year for a group purchase on behalf of 1,500 public buildings, SeeNews reports. According to Servais Verherstraeten, state secretary for the public buildings administration, bundling...

Police in Belgium have launched a series of inspections at sheep farms in the area outside Brussels in order to obtain information about people who plan to slaughter a sheep in their own home as part of celebrations to mark the Feast of Sacrifice (Eid Al-Adha) which falls today, several Belgian...

Belgium is the top packaging recycler among all 27 EU member states, according to figures from 2011 released by Eurostat, reports Recycling International . Belgium tops the table with a rate of 80.2%, followed by the Netherlands and Germany on, respectively, 71.9% and 71.8%. At the bottom of the...

Fashion designer Christian Louboutin yesterday won his legal battle Monday to stop an extremist campaign featuring his signature red-soled shoes. The poster by far-right Flemish group Women Against Islamisation shows the bare legs of former Miss Belgium – and now Vlaams Belang senator - Anke Van...

Originally from Auderghem, 44-year-old Laurence Couturier moved to Saint-Gilles after she finished studying. She later found somewhere to live in Schaerbeek, but when she felt the itch to buy her own house, she wanted to move closer to her roots. “Via my grandmother’s hairdresser I got word of a...

Belgium has won the first world blind wine-tasting competition for teams, with Denmark and England finishing second and third, the event’s organisers said. Philippe Ketelslegers, Filip Mesdom, Eric Derenne and Serge Condens took top honours at the competition held in the south-western French town...

Police discovered two kilograms of cocaine in the luggage of a Brazilian drug trafficker at Brussels Airport, the Brussels prosecutor’s office announced yesterday. The Brazilian drug smuggler was stopped at customs at Brussels Airport on Saturday night; the drugs were found hidden in the false...