Nothing comes more to mind in August than holidays. So before I depart, happy but exhausted, for my annual holiday, allow me to focus on Belgian tourism across the Channel. One of the great pleasures of being Ambassador is that people can’t wait to tell me in glowing terms about their stay in the...

Police in Brussels have received an official complaint for serious homophobic offences committed by police officers on Friday night outside the Brussels Summer Festival, a police spokesperson has confirmed. Two gay men said on their Facebook pages that they had been verbally abused and beaten up by...

A 16-year-old boy from Tongeren, Limburg province has been identified as one of the trolls who sent taunts to Hannah Smith the day before she died, writes the Daily Mail’s Nick Fagge . Hannah’s father, David Smith, said he had seen evidence the teenager, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was...

More than 5,600 complaints for extortion were lodged with the Belgian police last year, compared to 2,858 in 2011, Het Belang van Limburg and De Gazet van Antwerpen report today. “This increase is significant," says Kaatje Natens, spokeswoman of the Federal Police, who partly blames the rise on the...

Professor Iven Mareels, Dean of the School of Engineering at the University of Melbourne, has been made a Commander in the Order of the Crown of Belgium for services to engineering and science, writes the Melbourne Engineer’s Annie Rahilly . The honour was conferred by the Belgian ambassador to...

The 2012 Tour de France winner and Olympic champion Bradley Wiggins will be the star name on the start line of the Eneco Tour, which begins in Koksijde on the Belgium coast today, reports SuperSport . Fresh from his return from injury and illness at the Tour of Poland, which ended a week ago,...

While the town of Verviers once blazed a trail as an international wool manufacturer, a luxury hotel is continuing the tradition of technological innovation as Belgium’s only hotel to be heated by geothermal energy. The four-star Hôtel Verviers approaches its third anniversary with plenty to...

Pierce Brosnan’s non-Bond filmography can be a tad surprising, taking in a sci-fi spoof (Mars Attacks!) and an Abba-based musical (Mamma Mia!), which earned him a Golden Raspberry, chiefly for his ‘interesting’ singing voice. Bless. Love Is All You Need , a Danish rom-com directed by the Oscar-...

The legal minimum wage in Belgium, which stands at €1,502 gross per month, is the second highest in Europe, just behind Luxembourg (€1,874), Le Soir and De Standaard report today, citing figures from Eurostat. The Belgian minimum wage increased by 29% in ten years in Belgium and by 36% in...

Belgium has ratified the 2001 Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage, the organisation’s website reports. This ratification is an important step in the development of the Convention as it illustrates the growing international support for this instrument and for the...