An historic walled farmhouse in Kieldrecht, near Doel in Antwerp province, has been saved from imminent demolition after Flemish heritage minister Geert Bourgeois stepped in to declare the building a protected monument. The protest group Doel 2020, which is fighting the demolition of the entire village to make way for expansion of the Port of Antwerp, applied for two farmhouses to be saved, but the second house had already been irreparably damaged before the decision came.

Owners of personalised number plates are protesting at a plan to change over to a new European number plate on 1 July. The new rule will add a "9" to the letters and numbers on the plate, thereby ruining any personal value of the combination already there. Mobility minister Etienne Schouppe pointed out that for most people the problem arises much later, as the change only takes place when the plates are changed over to a new car.

An Ostend newspaper seller who disappeared after 10 customers missed out on a €73,000 lottery win has returned home. A lottery form filled in by a regular group of 10 players had not been validated, making its winning numbers worthless. After he discovered his mistake, newsagent Martin Daemen, 62, panicked and ran off as far as Dunkirk in Northern France. "I closed the door of the shop and started walking, without even looking where I was going. I still had my slippers on. I didn't care; I just wanted to get away from everything," he said.

Flemish tennis pro Kim Clijsters has won the Laureus Award for Comeback Player of the Year, beating cyclist Lance Armstrong. Clijsters was not at the ceremony in Abu Dhabi to receive the award, considered the Oscars of sports, as she is training to play at Indian Wells in the BNP Paribas Open. "I like that sort of show, especially ifI win," she commented from California. Previous comeback winners include tennis stars Jennifer Capriati, Serena Williams, Martina Hingis and Goran Ivanišević.

The government is setting up a national tip-line for diamond traders to report suspicious activity, following a "tiger kidnapping" earlier this month in which an Indian dealer and his family were held hostage for 18 hours. A similar phone line already exists for workers in the banking and finance industries, who have been targets of tiger kidnappings in the past.

Insurers and windscreen repair companies like Carglass have dealt with four times as many broken glass complaints this winter than usual because of flying debris from damaged roadways. "Some people have been back as many as three times," a Carglass spokesman said.

A graduate of Antwerp's fashion academy has been granted the accolade of dressing both Lady Gaga and Beyoncé in the former's latest video, "Telephone". Emilie Pirlot, 25, was asked in December to provide pieces from her graduating collection for Lady Gaga's show in London. Although the star did not wear the pieces, they clearly made an impression. "The clip proves Lady Gaga has as much to say with her clothes as with her songs," she said. Pirlot's garments feature at the very end of the video.