Researchers at the faculty of bio-engineering science at the University of Ghent have created a new laboratory which will allow them to produce small quantities of chocolate. The lab is capable of producing up to 4kg of chocolate while maintaining a high standard of quality - something that is normally extremely difficult in small quantities. As well as chocolate, the lab can also produce praline filling.

A campaign offering subsidies to encourage drivers to fit soot-filters to older diesel cars has attracted precisely one applicant since being introduced in March, the Flemish environment ministry said. The government offers up to €400 to pay for fitting the filter, but this does not cover the full cost.

Flemish people make by far the most requests for euthanasia, according to an article by two VUB professors in the journal BMC Public Health. Flemings represent 82% of the candidates, compared to only 18% French-speakers. In addition, more Flemings die as a result of a medical decision; more die by the ending of a treatment or the refusal to begin a new treatment; and more die as a result of an increase in pain medication.

About 40 beer lovers turned out at the weekend at the warehouse of gueuze brewer Armand De Gelder in Halle, to help pour away 55,000 litres of the amber nectar. The beer was ruined after a thermostat broke down two weeks ago and allowed the brew to go higher than its maximum temperature. But all is not lost: the gueuze will now be used as a basis for the distillation of a batch of genever. The brewer was less than delighted: "It hurts that I have to make something as worthless as genever from such a noble drink as gueuze - the best beer in the world, though I say so myself," he commented.

The Antwerp diamond industry, which two weeks ago was pleading for government help, will be giving away free diamonds at the World Exhibition in Shanghai next year, the man in charge of the Belgian pavilion has confirmed. "Every week we'll raffle off a diamond after a contest with questions about Belgium," said Leo Delcroix, the former defence minister. The Antwerp diamond industry will pay." The industry will have its own stand at Shanghai, complete with a diamond-cutting workshop.

King Albert II celebrated his 75th birthday last weekend, marking the event privately with his family in Laken. The king earlier in the week became Belgium's oldest ever reigning monarch, overtaking the record set by Leopold I in 1865.

A group of residents of the town of Lummen have demanded the removal of a tiny chapel to the Virgin Mary nestling in the trunk of an ancient oak tree - because it interferes with their witchcraft rituals. Witches were once burned by Catholics in the vicinity of the tree, referred to locally as the Thousand-Year Oak, the protestors say. The shrine was constructed and put in place by another local man. The town council meanwhile has rejected the witches' complaints.