11/10/10 - On Tuesday 30 Belgian women are joining an international march to Bukavu in support of the women of Congo, who have suffered terrible abuse in recent years.

7/10/10 - A new exhibition of the work of James Ensor, the Ostend painter of British extraction opens, at the ING Culture Centre in Brussels this weekend.

The discovery of a new born baby abandoned in a subterranean garage in Ghent has invigorated the debate about allowing women to give birth anonymously.

Figures published by the daily Het Belang van Limburg show that the Belgian tax service is on course to send out a record number of tax statements by the end of the year.

Belgian rail traffic is disrupted today as a result of industrial action by the socialist trade union. The protest will primarily affect freight services, but is also impacting on passenger services.

7/10/10 - Belgium has extradited a terrorist suspect belonging to the Basque separatist group ETA. In the course of Thursday it was understood that a Spanish magistrate intended to release Luis Maria Zengotitabengoa on bail.

Eurostar, the company that operates high speed trail services between London and Brussels and Paris is ordering ten new trains. The contract has been awarded to Germany's Siemens.

The caretaker government has announced that this year's budget defict will total 4.8% of the country's GDP, the sum of all the goods and services produced in the country over the past year.

6/10/10 - It was Prime Minister Yves Leterme’s birthday on Wednesday. To mark this event VRT Radio MNM gave him a new goat to add to his herd. The goat is called Joëlle, just like the Francophone Christian democrat leader, Madam Non!

Vendredi, le gouvernement flamand a fait le premier pas en vue de numériser et de centraliser les archives audiovisuelles à Gand. Avec la nouvelle bibliothèque et le centre pour nouveaux médias, ces archives constitueront une partie du "Krook" (Gand), un projet ambitieux qui verra le jour en 2015 près de "Het Zuid". Une asbl spécialement créée à cette fin, De Krook, aura pour tâche de mettre sur pied avant l'été prochain un plan stratégique opérationnel qui devra devenir un modèle pour les archives audiovisuelles numériques. La ministre des Médias Ingrid Lieten (SP.A) explique qu' "à l'ère de l'imprimé, nous avions des archives nationales et une bibliothèque nationale. Il n'existe encore rien de tel pour l'ère numérique. Des documents neufs s'ajoutent constamment - la VRT, les chaînes commerciales et diverses instances culturelles s'emploient depuis quelques années à créer des archives numériques - mais le matériel est dispersé à travers toute la Flandre. En outre, il n'existe pas d'accords clairs sur la manière de mettre ces richesses audiovisuelles à la disposition du public". Il y a tout d'abord une masse de patrimoine audiovisuel ancien, sur des supports analogiques comme la pellicule ou la vidéo, qu'il faut numériser d'urgence sous peine de le voir se détériorer. Les seules archives de la VRT contiennent 170.000 heures de film et 160.000 heures de vidéo, mais d'importantes quantités de matériel sont également aux mains de compagnies théâtrales, de musées et de l'ensemble du secteur du patrimoine.

 La centralisation rend la numérisation et l'archivage nettement plus efficaces et moins coûteux, poursuit Lieten. Mais l'utilisateur en bénéficiera également, car toutes ces ressources audiovisuelles seront désormais bien plus faciles à consulter, via une archive aussi accessible que possible. Toutefois, l'opération n'est pas gratuite, car il faut rémunérer les droits d'auteur sur le matériel. Selon la ministre, le règlement est comparable à celui d'une bibliothèque : l'utilisateur paie une fraction des coûts, les pouvoirs publics le reste.

 La demande et la consultation de matériel audiovisuel se feront en ligne. La ministre admet que cette numérisation des archives audiovisuelles ne fait pas précisément de la Flandre une pionnière. L'Institut National de l'Audiovisuel en France et Beeldengeluid.nl aux Pays-Bas en font déjà autant. Numériser une heure d'images coûte 80 à 120 euros, et même en temps de crise, Lieten estime que ce coût se justifie. Car si rien ne se fait, la mémoire collective risque de se perdre, sans compter que l'histoire plus récente doit elle aussi être archivée.

On Friday the Flemish government took its first steps towards a central digital audiovisual archive in the city of Ghent. In addition to the new library and centre for new media, it will operate as a department of Krook in Ghent, an ambitious project to be built by 2015. As a special organization, De Krook has been commissioned to deliver a strategic operational plan as blueprint for the digital audiovisual archive by summer. Minister of Media, Ingrid Lieten (SP.A), explains: “During the print era we had a national archive and national library. No such facility has been established for the digital era. More material is continually added and the Flemish Radio and Television Broadcaster (VRT), commercial stations and a number of cultural institutions have been working on a digital archive for a number of years. The body of data is however located throughout Flanders, with no specific arrangements with regard to making it available to the public.” Our first responsibility is to digitize the wealth of audiovisual treasures currently on film and video or else it will be lost. The VRT alone sits with an archive of 170,000 hours of film and 160,000 hours of VHS recordings. Theatre companies, museums and the entire heritage sector also have huge resources of material.

Centralising all digitizing and archiving will be much more cost-effective, Lieten maintains, adding that it will be to the benefit of consumers as they will have much easier access to the material via the new archive. Access will not be free of charge, as most material carries a copyright. According to the minister it will run on a similar basis as a library, with the consumer paying a portion of the cost and the government the remainder.

Accessing and consulting the audiovisual material will occur online. The minister admitted that Flanders is not breaking new ground with its audiovisual archive, as France already has its Institut national de l'Audiovisuel and in the Netherlands there is Beeldengeluid.nl . Digitizing one hour of footage costs in the region of 80 to 120 euros. During a time of economic crisis this is a responsible investment, she argues. If we fail to do this, a collective Flemish memory could be lost forever. Moreover, our more recent history would also be lost without it.

Flemish socialist supremo Johan Vande Lanotte has accused the Flemish nationalists of torpedoing the political talks because they want to change partners and not because of lack of progress on reform of the finance law.

King Albert today starts his consultations with political leaders ahead of a new initiative to free up the stalled government formation process.

6/10/10 - Belgian Interior Minister Annemie Turtelboom (Flemish liberal) is examining whether the police can be equipped with Tasers. A taser is an electric shock weapon that may cause temporary paralysis in victims. At present the weapon may only be used by the police’s special intervention squad.

The Prime Minister, Yves Leterme, turned 50 today. Speaking on Studio Brussel's morning show he predicted that a government could be in place within weeks.

The 28-year-old was studying at the University of Leuven. He failed in his first year, but forged a document to show that he successfully passed the exams.

In a ranking of the best business cities in Europe, issued by real estate consultants Cushman & Wakefield, London retains the number 1 spot.

05/10/10 - Arendonk, in the Kempen area in northern Flanders, is the scene of military exercises of European troops. The training sessions for military operations gave some passers-by a fright, as things were looking real.

05/10/10 - At the ASEM meeting between European and Asian leaders in Brussels, the Chinese and Japanese Prime Ministers bumped into each other after dinner in the Royal Palace. Their unscheduled encounter was the first face-to-face meeting since relations soared after a maritime dispute. They agreed to start new high-level talks.

9/10/10 - Every single day woodland the size of one and a half soccer pitches is cut down.