Money down the drain. That is what the journalists at De Standaard and VRT sometimes say whenever a new opinion poll is published in which everything has stayed the same. Now and then, however, these polls do show new trends, sometimes so surprising that people find them hard to believe.
The chief of Ghent’s police, Peter De Wolf, has been suspended from his post after allegations that he falsified a declaration regarding a road accident in which he was involved.
Anja Hermans has been sentenced to eight months in prison, a €1,100 fine and an exclusion order to keep her from the vicinity of the Doel nuclear power plant after she breached security about a dozen times to draw attention to the fact that security at the facility was so inadequate.
The fate of a controversial viaduct which would pass only metres above houses in central Antwerp was thrown into doubt last week when a report on the plan strongly supported alternatives. Critics greeted the report as a victory, and one minister in the Flemish government pushed for a quick decision and for alternative plans to be scrapped.
The best known of Flanders’ Trappist beers is Westmalle, and, remarkably, for all its global renown, it is still brewed traditionally at the Abbey of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, a pleasant bike ride from the beautiful town of Turnhout.
Airport services • Aviapartner Airport services company Aviapartner was due this week to announce an agreement with its banks that will help bring the company back from the edge of bankruptcy. Last week Aviapartner reached agreement with staff on the withdrawal of 12 vacation days, part of a package designed to avoid redundancies and pay cuts. Aviapartner is suffering from a severe debt burden and a drop in demand as a result of the economic crisis.
Fewer than half of all new entrants to the workforce start with a full-time job, according to research carried out by the Leuven-based research bureau Steunpunt WSE. Of the 164,000 young people who entered the workforce for the first time in 2006, 18.9% were temping and 32.2% had taken a part-time job. Just under half – 48.9% – were starting off in fulltime employment.
Although the young people of New York five years ago chose to call their new organisation the Muslim Leaders of Tomorrow (MLT), many of them are really the Muslim leaders of today. They are perhaps not presidents of countries, but the members of this now international non-profit organisation is working on issues those leaders are failing to successfully tackle: improving employment options and cross-cultural relationships in their communities and stopping the radicalisation of their young people.
The mixing and matching of different labels or of fashion with other forms of art has never been so popular. But since when did it become boring for a designer to be confined to one brand? And when did we begin expecting fashion brands to produce all kinds of side products?
Benjamin Franklin, as all American schoolchildren quickly learn, is one of America’s “Founding Fathers” and his likeness graces the US $100 bill. Franklin’s achievements in science, diplomacy and other areas still stand after centuries. And all this is due to the flight of hard-working Flemish weavers, who left their homeland with little but a dream for a better life in a new land and the hope to practice their faith.
