Brussels cemeteries were placed under extra surveillance last week after a number of valuable bronze and marble grave ornaments were damaged or stolen from the cemetery in Laken. Police suspected metal thieves, but a local organisation specialised in funerary art pointed out that the missing pieces showed that the thieves knew very well what they were taking. “They clearly picked out the best pieces, the ones they would most easily be able to sell,” said Marcel Celis of Epitaaf.

Ghent mayor Daniel Termont has invested €100,000 in a new TV police series to be shown on VTM in the autumn. Code 37 refers to the article of the penal code dealing with sex crimes, and the show promises to be darker than the popular Flikken, which finished last month after shooting in Ghent for 10 years. The new series stars Veerle Baetens, star of last year’s TV soap series Sara. The mayor, recalling the tourist income generated by the popularity of Flikken, also supplied police officers as consultants to the production and let them use a disused school as police headquarters.

A new TV channel called Acht takes to the airwaves on 18 May for digital TV viewers in Flanders. The channel promises a range of programmes bought in from HBO in the US, which produced series like The Sopranos, Six Feet Under and The Wire. Acht is owned by Concentra, which publishes Gazet van Antwerpen and Het Belang van Limburg.

Ghent city council will introduce veggiedag from next year – vegetarian-only school meals every Thursday. “We want to teach our children that you don’t have to eat meat every day,” said education alderman Rudy Coddens. School meals already offer a vegetarian option every day, which will not change with the new initiative.

Germain Daenen, who was sentenced to 25 years in prison in June of 2002 for the murder of government hormones inspector Karel Van Noppen, was released on parole last week. Livestock trader Daenen was found guilty of acting as messenger between Alex Vercauteren, the dealer who ordered Van Noppen killed, and Albert Barrez, who fired the fatal shots. Daenen is forbidden to work in any company related to the food industry and still has to pay sizeable damages to Van Noppen’s family.

The new rector of Leuven University is Mark Waer, who won 54% of the vote in a second-round ballot against Koen Geens, former cabinet head of Flemish minister president Kris Peeters. Waer, a kidney specialist and immunologist, was vice-rector under outgoing rector Marc Vervenne, who received a negative evaluation in December, which meant his term could not be renewed.

The HTC Magic with Android operating system (the so-called iPhone killer) will be available in Belgium from June, to be sold exclusively via the Proximus network. The HTC Magic supports wifi and 3G and offers instant access to Google applications like Gmail, Google Maps and YouTube.