Flanders is this week one personality magazine richer, with the launch of Els, dedicated to comic actress Els De Schepper. The magazine is intended to be a parody of celebrity magazines like Oprah and, closer to home, Goedele. If the response of the public is positive, the magazine will continue. Meanwhile, it was also announced last week that film director Erik Van Looy is going to launch his own magazine in January called Erik.

Flanders’ minister-president Kris Peeters, who is also minister for agriculture, last week helped launch the kiwi-berry, a new grape-sized fruit variety being grown in the region. The Actinidia arguta, also known as the Siberian gooseberry, has a smooth skin and tastes slightly sweeter than a normal kiwi. It is high in calcium and magnesium and contains twice as much vitamin C as a lemon.

Twelve prison officers are employed at a detention centre in Tongeren to guard a total of 0 prisoners, it was revealed last week. The facility, a renovated remand centre, is intended to house 17 young offenders. The first inmate will not arrive until November.

The Flemish government has a total of 38 cabinet heads, just behind the Walloon executive at 43, and ahead of Brussels at 21. Foreign policy minister Kris Peeters and innovation minister Ingrid Lieten each have seven cabinet heads and deputies, interior minister Geert Bourgeois has six and budget minister Philippe Muyters five. Peeters’ Walloon counterpart, Rudy Demotte, has no fewer than 11 cabinet heads and deputies.

Former Ghent police chief Peter De Wolf, dismissed last week by federal interior minister Annemie Turtelboom, will do “everything in his power to restore his reputation” by appealing against the ruling. De Wolf is currently appealing a 12-month suspended sentence for faking an official document when his car was involved in an accident while he was driving drunk. His lawyer said his dismissal, for what Turtelboom called a “grave professional error”, undermined his pending appeal.

Companies and public institutions planning to offer a seasonal flu injection to employees should wait until the end of November to ensure there are enough vaccines for risk groups, the government’s influenza commissioner said last week. Virologist Marc Van Ranst said there were 2.5 million doses of vaccine on order, but media attention focused on swine flu will probably push up demand. Healthy people should postpone their inoculation until the risk groups – the elderly, pregnant women and health-sector workers – have been covered.

VTM’s Jill Peeters has been voted European Weatherwoman of the Year by the world climate conference of the United Nations in Geneva. Peeters was praised for the “expertise” she brings to her reports and “the passion” with which she explains the climate and its effect on the public. At the end of last year she was given an award by the European Meteorological Society.

About 60 female students took part in a protest at the Royal Athenaeum in Antwerp last week on the first day of the new school year. They were demonstrating against the school’s policy of banning the hijab, the Muslim headscarf. A dozen students removed themselves from the school register in protest while a further 37 refused to take off their scarves. “I understand it’s an emotional issue,” said school director Karin Heremans. “But I don’t understand why they would put their headscarf above educational opportunities.”