The new International School of Leuven will begin classes in September. A joint venture of the city, the university, the Flemish Institute for Biotechnology and imec research centre, the English-language school will cater to the children of the 10,000 foreign students, researchers and employees of institutions in Leuven. The new school will take over the buildings of the Terbank primary school in the district of Heverlee.

Rail services will resume this Saturday, 29 June, on the section of track between Wetteren and Schellebelle, the site of the accident in which a cargo train derailed last month. Travellers affected by the closed line will receive two Leisure Pass tickets from rail authority NMBS.

A man found guilty of defrauding VAT tax authorities of at least €10 million walked away free from a court of appeal last week after a finding that the judicial system had gone past a reasonable delay for pronouncing sentence. A lack of resources within the justice system led to repeated delays, and the legal limit had long been exceeded. “This ruling is terribly painful,” commented Liliane Briers, spokeswoman for the prosecutor-general. “We put a great deal of time into investigating financial crime, and it leads to nothing.” Federal justice minister Annemie Turtelboom has ordered an investigation.

The archive of the University of Leuven for the period 1425-1797 has been accepted for inclusion in Unesco’s Memory of the World Register. Leuven was one of the two most important universities north of the Alps during the 16th century, and the archive offers an insight, Unesco said, into the workings of a modern university of the period.

The Zwin nature reserve in Knokke on the border of Flanders and Zeeland will close to the public this weekend until 18 August to allow for an upkeep of the natural areas as well as the building of a new visitor centre.

Flemish professor Marleen Temmerman, the director of reproductive health at the World Health Organisation, has been awarded the Prize for Free-Thinking Humanism by the Antwerp-based Humanist and Free- Thinking Association for her “years of effort on a worldwide scale for the rights, health and emancipation of women, characterised by her driven yet humble personal style”. Temmerman was head of gynaecology at the University of Ghent and founded the International Centre for Reproductive Health, with facilities in based in Ghent, Kenya and Mozambique.

American nanny Aubrey Alta Anderson has been convicted in absentia by a court in Bruges of deliberately breaking the wrists of twin babies in her care in Knokke- Heist. The now 32-year-old fled to the US soon after she was suspected in 2011. She was recently sentenced to five years suspended for a similar offence in the US. The Bruges prosecutor said he would request her extradition to serve her sentence here.

The National Botanic Garden in Meise, just outside of Brussels, will come into Flemish government hands next January, after a committee of the Flemish parliament last week officially approved an agreement with the French-speaking community. The gardens, with a collection of more than 18,000 specimens, were originally in federal hands, and the handover to Flanders was agreed in 2001. Difficulties over finance and staff arrangements held up the actual transfer. Frenchspeakers employed when the institution was federal will remain in their jobs and have their affairs handled by a representative of the French-speaking community. The cost of the transfer is estimated at €6.5 million.

Rail authority NMBS has switched to its summer timetable, which runs until 1 September and sees many extra trains travelling to the coast. The NMBS has also brought back the Summer Pass, which offers a one-way trip between any two Belgian stations for a maximum of €7.50.

In De Wulf, the Dranouter restaurant of rising culinary star Kobe Desramaults, has been awarded fifth place in a list of the top 100 restaurants in Europe compiled by the website Opinionated About Dining on the basis of 110,000 reviews.

Health authorities will begin a project in October to detect colon cancer more effectively, especially in the risk group of people aged 56 to 74, said Flemish health minister Jo Vandeurzen. Colon cancer affects some 5,000 people in Flanders every year. Members of the risk group will receive an invitation for an examination every two years, as well as a free kit for taking a stool sample to help early detection.