The week in brief: 24 April

There will be no train traffic between Brussels South, Central and North (pictured) stations from 29 April to 1 May due to construction works, Infrabel has announced. This is the first time that the link has been closed in 32 years. Trains to the coast will be diverted via Denderleeuw, Schaarbeek and Brussels Airport. Other connections will be replaced by more frequent trams on lines 3 and 4.

RSC Anderlecht and KRC Genk have failed to reach the Europa League semi-finals, losing matches last week to Manchester United and Celta Vigo. Anderlecht pushed United into extra time at Old Trafford, when Sofiane Hanni equalised after Henrikh Mkhitaryan’s early strike, but Marcus Rashford’s 107th-minute goal settled it for the English side. And while Leandro Trossard’s strike for Genk cancelled out Celta’s early lead in their draw at the Luminus Arena, last week’s 3-2 victory for the Spanish side meant they advanced to the semis on aggregate.

The cost of deploying military personnel on the streets of Belgium has topped the €100 million mark, defence minister Steven Vandeput has reported. Security was first increased in the aftermath of the attack on Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris in January 2015 and saw its biggest surge following the terrorist attacks at Brussels Airport and the Brussels metro in March 2016, when 1,800 soldiers were sent in to support police.

A live badger has been spotted in the Sonian Forest for the first time in 24 years, according to camera images collected in the woods’ Brussels section. In 2007, four dead badgers were recorded as road-kill, suggesting the animals were active in the forest. Access to eco-ducts has since made it possible for them to move around more safely. The animal is nocturnal and avoids contact with humans.

Federal minister for the North Sea, Philippe De Backer, intends to cancel the latest three wind turbine projects off the Flemish coast – Seastar, Mermaid and Northwester II. The cost of offshore windmill parks has dropped significantly since the contracts were signed, with examples in the Netherlands and Germany much lower than in Belgium, all the way down to a German project with no state support at. The three Belgian projects would have cost the state €3 to €5 billion each.

The waterbus between Vilvoorde and Brussels will run weekdays starting on 1 May, Toerisme Vlaams-Brabant has announced. It will operate until the end of October. In addition, the boat will run at weekends between 1 July and 15 August. The waterbus started operating in 2013 and last year carried more than 30,000 passengers along the Zennekanaal. A ticket is €2 or €3, depending on the number of zones travelled.

Dutch retail chain Hema is the first to announce a move from Nieuwstraat to the new Mint shopping centre on Muntplein, currently under construction. The works will provide space for 30 new shops covering 15,000 square metres, all accessible from the street side. The new centre is due to open later in the year.

The exterior panels of the Van Eyck brothers masterpiece “The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb” are now available to view in ultra-high resolution online, thanks to a co-operation between Lukas Art, Sint-Baaf’s cathedral in Ghent, which houses the altarpiece, and Google Arts & Culture. The interior panels are still being restored and will be available in 2019.

A new weekly market has been launched in the European quarter of Brussels. The market of local and artisanal products will take place every Wednesday on Jean Reyplein, opposite Leopoldpark, from midday to 21.00.

All of Belgium’s three regions have offered to house the European Medicines Agency, now located in London, following the departure of the UK from the European Union. The three proposed locations are Diegem in Flemish Brabant, Brussels City and Louvain-la-Neuve in Walloon Brabant. The top candidates are currently considered to be Brussels and Milan.

Only 20% of children entering pre-school in Flanders are toilet-trained, according to a survey by Antwerp University, while in 1960, the figure was 90%. The reasons, according to the study, are that parents who both work full time have no time for potty-training and the arrival of the disposable nappy, which makes it easier to postpone. The phenomenon was confirmed by family association Kind & Gezin, but it estimated the proportion to be closer to 50%.

Works have started on the construction of the new cruise ship terminal in Neder-Over-Heembeek in Brussels. The original start was planned for 2015. The terminal – taking up 240 metres of canal-side and 12m wide – is due to be completed in 2018. The port of Brussels hopes it will handle 35,000 cruise passengers, three times as many as land in Brussels at present.

Photo: T Thielemans/Wikimedia