This week a team of researchers from Leuven University (KUL) and the Catholic University College Kempen (KHK) in Geel will travel to Singapore to explain a new way of monitoring dementia patients which could revolutionise the way their experience of pain is treated. Full story
Adults should be forbidden from smoking in the presence of children, even in their own homes, according to a proposal launched last week by Open-VLD senator Patrick Vankrunkelsven, who is a doctor. According to the senator, about 116,000 children in Flanders live in households where one or both parents smoke. “I know I’m bringing up a sensitive point,” he said. “But I think it’s the job of the government to protect those children. Smoking in an enclosed space in the presence of children should be outlawed, and there is one reason: because it is mortal.”Full story
Antwerp is the world’s second-best city to live in, along with Brussels, according to a survey carried out by human resources consultancy ECA International. Top of the list was Copenhagen, which also came first last year. All of the cities in the top 20 are European, while Kabul and Baghdad came last. --Full story
Police are investigating the apparent sabotage of two aircraft that were being maintained at Brussels Airport by Sabena Technics, the Zaventem-based company that once formed part of the national airline. One of the aircraft was confirmed as a military C-130 transport plane, while the other belonged to Brussels Airlines. Full story
Think cricket and you probably think of rural England. Village greens, spotless whites, the thwack of willow and polite applause. But cricket might not be so quintessentially English after all. In fact, the news of late suggests it originated in...can you guess? Flanders.Full story
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. Full story
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.Full story
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. Full story
Leuven University has filed a complaint with the police in an effort to stem the flow of emails from across the world reacting to a fake news story which appeared to carry the University’s imprimatur. Full story
The Flemish League Against Cancer last week launched its bi-annual campaign “Kom op tegen kanker” (Come Up Against Cancer) 20 years after it was set up. This year’s theme returns to an earlier preoccupation: research into cancer in children. Every year about 300 children in Belgium are diagnosed, with 80% finding a cure. A priority for funding this year will be clinical tests for possible treatments. Full story
