An 18-year-old from Bruges is the new Miss Belgium. Cilou Annys, who was already serving as Miss West Flanders, took the title on the evening of 10 January at the Knokke Casino. The competition put 20 contestants through the traditional swimsuit and questions rounds, as well as musical numbers and, for the first time, a lingerie round. Runners-up were Lien Aernouts from Averbode and Binta Telemans from Schaarbeek. The 80th winner in the title’s history, Annys studies business translation in Ghent.

The Ghent University Hospital has become the first medical centre in the country to offer routine consultations for women intending to become pregnant. The consultations are open to women with no fertility problems to create the best conditions for a healthy pregnancy. Usually, midwife Ilse Delbaere said, women only visit a doctor some weeks after conception, even though the first weeks are a very important period.

Media director Mieke Berendsen last week became the first senior figure to fall to cuts promised by the incoming general manager of the Flemish public broadcaster VRT. Berendsen, whose background is in advertising and marketing, had been with the broadcaster for less than four years but came under fire for the number of managers and outside consultants in her department.

The director of Tourism Flanders in New York, Dan Benjoseph, has been officially reprimanded for sending out an invitation to a reception that featured a map of Flanders with Brussels in the area of Antwerp and the area to the south of Flanders named as “France” instead of Wallonia. Tourism minister Geert Bourgeois said the error was “neither structural nor intentional” anddescribed the outrage in the French-speaking part of the country as “exaggerated”.

A member of governing party CD&V has introduced a bill to scrap the requirement of two witnesses to the act of marriage, described by Raf Terwingen as “outdated”. In recent years, the requirement for official witnesses has been abolished in the cases of bequests, birth announcements and death certification. “Sometimes witnesses are simply plucked off the street or out of a café,” Terwingen said.

Gerrit De Backer, 84, last week poured the last pintje in café In Den Vos in Oomberzen – 325 years after the establishment firstopened. De Backer, whose mother’s family traces its ownership of the café to the 18th century, has decided to devote his time to his hobbies after 38 years behind the bar. “I’m saying goodbye to part of my life,” he said, “but a man can’t stand still forever.” The building has been sold, but the new owner’s plans are not known.

Ghent University professor Marleen Temmerman has been nominated for a Lifetime Achievement award by the British Medical Journal. Temmerman, also a member of the Senate, acts as an expert on women’s sexual health in the developing world, with particular attention to the problem of Aids in Africa. Visitors to the BMJ website can vote for their choice. www.bmj.com