By Radio Netherlands
Expatica.com A woman who takes care of children at her home in Belgium has sparked an outcry after her extreme right-wing sympathies were uncovered by media. A portrait of Adolf Hitler hangs in the living room of her Antwerp home, along with the flag of banned neo-fascist organisation the Flemish Militant Order, VMO. A journalist from Flemish TV news programme Terzake filmed inside the woman's home with a hidden camera, pretending to be a father looking for after-school care for his daughter. The care facility is accredited by Child and Family, a national childcare organisation. The woman told the reporter, "I have nothing to hide. I don't agree with the child care policies of Child and Family. They want the children to decide by themselves when they want to sleep." She explained that she wanted "clear rules." "My husband is an old-style Nazi. Not pro-German, but very conservative. He is very interested in WWII." The walls of the living room are lined with shelves filled with books on the Nazi occupation of Europe and fascist memorabilia. "Many parents don't understand us," the woman said. "They say, Heil Hitler, yuck!" She told the reporter that Hitler's ideas were "phenomenal" and said that current trouble with Islamic immigrant families should be handled in the same way that Hitler handled the Jews. "We've got the same problem today. We're being overrun by them." Children should be taught again to obey their parents, she added. "We should send all children to the Hitler Youth, then they will listen again."...(Remainder.)
By AFP
Expatica.com
Schools and day care centres near Brussels were under police guard on Wednesday after an apparent threat was posted on a US Internet site, local authorities said. Hundreds of police were deployed in Mechelen after the message was posted in January on the website www.4chan.org reading: "293 days to go until I strike at KTA Lyceum Mechelen, watch the news." More than 330 police officers wearing bullet-proof vests were deployed early on Wednesday morning, the date believed to correspond to the threat and symbolic for its 09/09/09 formulation, authorities said. A police helicopter also flew over Mechelen, some 30 kilometres north of the capital Brussels, Belga news agency reported. No incident has been reported and the prosecutor’s office will launch further investigations into the threat. The identity of the person responsible for the threat on the discussion website has not been discovered despite a number of arrests in recent days....(Remainder.)
By AFP
Expatica.com A luxury yacht bought by King Albert II is causing controversy after it was revealed that the monarch had not paid VAT on it, as the state budget sinks deeper into the red. Over the summer, Belgian media reported that the 75-year-old king had paid EUR 4.6 million (USD 6.7 million) for the 27-metre yacht and published pictures of him, wearing shorts, at the vessel's helm. Newspapers said that the photos, snapped as the yacht entered the Sicilian port of Lipari, contradicted his warnings on Belgian National Day on July 21 about the "increasingly materialistic" nature of society. National broadcaster RTBF said that the monarch had not paid VAT on the craft in Belgium because it was not registered in the country, or even in Italy, and because it is deemed a military vessel and is therefore exempt. This means that the king can "retain a captain and two crew paid for by the army, and so by the Belgian taxpayer," said Flemish Greens lawmaker Luckas Vander Taelen. In a break with media protocol, an RTBF reporter tried to question the royal couple about the yacht during a garden party at Laeken Palace at the end of last month....(Remainder.)
Reporters working for the VRT's flagship current affairs programme Panorama have discovered that Belgian antique dealers are illegally offering stolen Afghan art for sale. By Expatica.com Many of the profits are channelled to the Taliban. Belgian police and customs are aware of the problem, but little is being done about it. “The traffic in antiquities from Afghanistan resembles the smuggling of diamonds from Africa that are used to finance conflicts. The sale of antiquities and heroine are an important source of funding for the Taliban,” said VRT reporter Peter Brems. In order to make his report entitled "Blood Antiquities" Brems also travelled to Afghanistan. Many Belgian dealers are aware that the art is smuggled out of Afghanistan illegally. Some buyers are also aware that they purchase this art. The antiques are on sale in shops from Brussels to the prestigious resort of Knokke in West Flanders. In Belgium no certificate to authenticate Afghan art is needed. Quizzed about a possible investigation the Belgian police's Axel Poels told the VRT: "We first have to establish whether any crime has been committed. Maybe an investigation will be initiated next week."...(Original.)
The unrest is due to the new rule banning the Muslim headscarf from being worn at school which came into effect on the 1 September this year.
By Expatica.com The police of Antwerp arrested 8 youngsters at the Royal Athenaeum in Hoboken on Monday because they violated a ban on demonstrations. A left wing student organisation gathered before school opening at the Royal Athenaeum in Hoboken to hand out pamphlets and urge students not to accept the headscarf ban. Last Friday the mayor of Antwerp, Patrick Janssens (Flemish socialist), issued a ban on demonstrations at the school and the police quickly intervened. "The police have detained 8 youngsters. A ninth person was detained during protests last week," says a police spokesman. A group of Muslim women also gathered in front of the school, but retreated on to the surrounding streets when the police arrived at the scene. Calm returned to the school and surroundings at about 11am. However, the protest against the Muslim headscarf ban at the school continues. Vandals broke into the school during Sunday night and spray painted slogans on doors of the school. They also threw school books out of the windows. The vandals spray painted the slogan 'No headscarf, no school' onto the school’s entrance. They also smashed a window to get inside the school. "They went in through the side door and went to the administrative offices," said headmaster Chris Weyers. "They sabotaged the internet and jammed some doors. They took some paper and flung it around the hallway. They threw books out of the window."...(Remainder.)
Who's the douche-nozzle that though this was a good idea?
By Desmond Butler
Associated Press via WaPo WASHINGTON -- The European Union is strongly criticizing a congressional proposal to charge a $10 fee to some visitors to the United States and suggesting it may carry a price for U.S. travelers. If it passes, the EU says, some U.S. travelers to Europe could face retaliation. The fee now under consideration in Congress would finance a new U.S. program to promote travel, a burden that the EU believes Americans should bear. "Only in `Alice in Wonderland' could a penalty be seen as promoting the activity on which it is imposed," the European Commission's Ambassador to Washington, John Bruton, said in a statement Friday. One of the bill's sponsors, Democratic Rep. William Delahunt, said the EU was getting too worked up over what he called "a nominal fee." But Europeans see the issue as yet another potential hassle that the United States is preparing to burden Europe's citizens with. Visitors from most European countries have long enjoyed the privilege of visa-free travel to the United States. Early, this year, however, the United States began requiring people traveling to the United States under the visa waiver program to register online at least 72 hours before travel and renew their registration every two years. If the new proposal is passed by Congress and signed into law by the president, it would require all visitors to pay the fee when they register....(Remainder.)
By Carol Rosenberg
The Miami Herald Belgium on Friday became the latest European country to offer asylum to a Guantánamo Bay detainee, announcing that it would resettle a captive now at the prison camps who has been cleared of prosecution by a U.S. court. 
The announcement follows similar deals between the Obama administration and France and Portugal, which last month took in two Syrians for resettlement. Ireland has also agreed to take two detainees seeking third-country asylum. President Barack Obama has ordered the detention facility closed by early next year and the United States has been seeking new nations for dozens of the 226 captives now cleared for release but fearful of return to their native countries because of stigma or ill treatment. A Belgium Foreign Ministry statement Friday did not identify the detainee who would be resettled, or specify his nationality. It said "the individual in question is no longer facing prosecution,'' suggesting he was among 19 detainees still at the remote Navy base who have been ordered set free by federal judges hearing habeas corpus petitions. Belgium said the man would be given a residency visa and work papers in Belgium. It provided no timeline for the transfer but said, as host nation, the government of Belgium would take steps beforehand to ensure the man was successfully integrated into Belgian society. Meantime, the Obama administration is obliged to file a classified report with Congress on the individual's transfer plan....(Remainder.)
Four in ten employees are ready to accept a decrease in salary in exchange for other benefits, according to a study carried out on 1,665 workers by Executive Research and Kern Selection.
By Le Soir
Expatica The study revealed that 44% of the participants would accept a salary decrease in exchange for benefits such as extra holiday, working closer to home or a more interesting position. 57% of people who took the survey said that they would prefer to work within 50km of their home, and more than seven in ten employees declared that they would not want to spend more than an hour commuting to their workplace. 35% of people who participated in the study were actively seeking another job. 28% were ready to change their job within this year and 25% would look for another job next year, according to the study. More than seven in ten of the employees questioned admitted to having applied for a vacant post in their current position. Pharmaceutical and chemical companies, media, energy and communication were the main fields that the participants would have wanted to work in. One in five people also wanted to work in administration....(Original.)
Christine Defraigne has announced a proposal to ban the burkha in Belgium almost five years after a similar text was brought by the MR to parliament, reported Le Soir on Thursday. 
By La Dernière Heure
Via Expatica.com The proposal suggests that wearing a burkha in public in a way that masks or hides the identity of the person under the veil should be prohibited. Violations of this law would result in a penalty charge of EUR 15 to 25 and/or imprisonment of between one and seven days. Defraigne said that women were under no religious obligation to wear the burkha. “The Qur’an does not mention it. Banning women from wearing these items is not refusing Islam as a religion. The burkha and the niqab personify the subjugation of the individual and social dehumanisation.” “For the anthropologist Dounia Bouzar, the burkha, which is already prohibited in some Muslim countries, is not a religious symbol but a uniform which signifies self-exclusion, as well as the exclusion of others.”...(Original.)
Belgium's banking watchdog CBFA has ruled that there are sufficient grounds to warrant a thorough investigation into communication by the Fortis holding last June, when it decided to launch a capital enhancement. 
By Expatia.com At the time Fortis operations included Fortis bank which is now owned by BNP Paribas of France. By creating new shares Fortis raised EUR 1.5 billion. It also decided not to pay a dividend. Shareholders were surprised by these decisions, the possibility of which had always been denied. The following day the Fortis share tumbled 20% on the stock market as confidence in the bank evaporated. This development signalled the start of the demise of Belgium's largest bank. The financial watchdog CBFA has now completed a preliminary investigation into this matter and says that there are sufficient grounds for a thorough investigation. Fortis, if found guilty, could face a hefty fine. The watchdog is also handing information over to the public prosecutor’s office which will decide whether or not to launch a criminal investigation....(Original.)
