The average Belgian last year ate 50kg of meat, confirming the downward trend of recent years, according to the federal economy ministry. In 2005 the average consumption was 58kg, meaning there has been a fall of 13% in eight years. For certain types of meat, the situation is much worse: While pork...

Between 2014 and 2020, an average of 114,000 people are expected to retire in Belgium each year. That is an increase of 30% compared to the period between 2007 and 2010. At this rate, by the end of the decade the pensioner population will have grown by 798,000 people in six years, reports De...

Mehdi Nemmouche, the man accused of shooting four people in the Jewish Museum in Brussels, will be extradited from France to Belgium, according to a ruling by the French Court of Cassation. The 29-year-old Algerian must now be brought to Belgium within 10 days, where officials will proceed with the...

Brussels Environment Institute yesterday removed 500kg of dead fish from the water at King Baudouin Park. The extreme heat of the past week caused the water level to fall to dangerous levels. The fish were gathered near a drain in one of the park’s recently reconstructed canals. Unable to move from...

Belgium sent more than €6 million to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), to assist Palestinian refugees in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, says minister of development Jean-Pascal Labille. The money should enable UNRWA to finance its activities and to meet...

The Brussels prosecutor is to carry out a full investigation of an incident in the municipality of Forest in which a man is alleged to have thrown his son to his death from an 11th-floor apartment in Avenue Minerve (pictured), before killing himself in the same way. According to investigators,...

The fact that Muslims don’t eat or drink between sunrise and sunset during Ramadan doesn’t have a negative influence on their health, according to research at the University of Leuven. On the contrary, the researchers found positive effects. A team led by professor Lode Godderis followed up the...

The federal foreign affairs ministry has responded to criticism this week from the brother of one of the six Belgian victims of the MH17 air disaster. A ministry spokesperson said it had done everything in its power to keep relatives informed, even during the long weekend of National Day. “We had...

Police in the Brussels West zone, which includes Jette, Ganshoren, Koekelberg, Berchem-Sainte-Agathe and Molenbeek Saint-Jean, have seized 3kg of cannabis discovered in a cafe in Molenbeek, the Brussels prosecutor’s office said. The manager of the cafe, a 20-year-old man, was arrested and detained...

The Belgian Football Association will allow several new features to be added to the game in time for the upcoming football season, its Referee Department announced during a press conference. Starting next season, Belgium’s Jupiler Pro League will use vanishing spray during matches, a spray that is...