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Two hippopotamuses at a zoo in Belgium have tested positive for COVID-19. Antwerp Zoo announced Friday that the country’s national veterinary lab confirmed two hippos contracted the disease and that the zoo would be closed until further notice, The Associated Press reported. The infections appeared in a 14-year-old hippo named Imani and a 41-year-old hippo named Hermien.

Criminals thought encrypted Sky ECC cellphones were impregnable, but cops tapped a billion messages, yielding arrests and drug seizures Using supposedly impregnable encrypted phones, the Serbian hit men discussed earlier this year how wind direction and distance could affect the sniper’s bullet and planned their getaway. Unbeknown to them, their messages were also flashing up on the computer screens of a secret police team in Belgium that had hacked into the messenger service, called Sky ECC. The Belgians warned police in Serbia, who whisked the judge to safety. The infiltration was a signature success in efforts by authorities across the...

A 90-year-old Belgian woman died after she became infected with two different strains of COVID-19 at the same time, scientists revealed Sunday. Her case was the first documented of a patient infected with two strains, although the “phenomenon is probably underestimated,” one of the lead researchers said, according to Agence France-Presse. The patient, who was not vaccinated, became sick in March with the Alpha and Beta strains of the virus, which were first identified in the United Kingdom and South Africa, respectively, according to scientists at the European Congress on Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases.

A Danish Muslim woman has been deported to Tunisia for refusing to remove her religious veil while going through security at Brussels Airport, Belgium’s State Secretary for Asylum and Migration has said. The woman landed at Brussels Zaventem Airport on Wednesday on a flight from Tunis, Tunisia. Theo Francken ✔ @FranckenTheo A Danish citizen coming from Tunis refused to take off her niqaab at our border. Police could not identify her. She was sent back to Tunis. 1:53 AM - Sep 16, 2017In a post on Facebook, immigration minister Theo Francken said that the woman had refused to show her...

Belgian Bishops: Divorced & Civilly Remarried May Receive Holy Communion Bradley Eli, M.Div., Ma.Th.  •  ChurchMilitant.com  •  May 30, 2017    54 CommentsGuidelines allow divorced and sexually active laity to follow their own conscience BRUSSELS, Belgium (ChurchMilitant.com) - The bishops of Belgium are saying that divorced Catholics, who are sexually active, may follow their conscience to the Communion rail. On May 24, the Belgian bishops published a pastoral letter in Dutch and French, giving an interpretion of the papal exhortation Amoris Laetitia (AL) that allows divorced and civilly remarried Catholics to decide for themselves whether they should receive the sacraments. The...

A Turkish assailant stabbed and wounded a Belgian politician in Liege, Belgium. Belgian Labor Party (PTB) Spokesperson and federal parliamentarian Raoul Hedebouw was stabbed during the May Day events in Liege. Hedebouw got injured in his leg and taken to hospital after the attack. Belgian press reported that the assailant is Turkish and requested a Turkish speaking translator for his testimony. The assailant is reported to have a prior criminal record at police. Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel condemned the attack on parliamentarian Raoul Hedebouw and expressed his opposition to all forms of violence as he wished Hedebouw a speedy...

Two police officers have been stabbed in Brussels in a possible terrorist incident, Belgian prosecutors say. One officer was stabbed in the neck and another in the stomach, while a third officer who arrived at the scene suffered a broken nose, Belgian broadcaster VRT reports. The attacker was shot in the leg and taken away by ambulance. It comes just hours after two major train stations in the Belgian capital were evacuated following a bomb scare.

ather Jacques Clemens attends a mass at St. Benoit church in Nalinnes, Belgium, July 10, 2016. NALINNES, Belgium A strict daily routine is the recipe for a long life, according to the world's oldest priest, Belgian Jacques Clemens, who will celebrate his 107th birthday on Monday.Clemens, who has also celebrated his 80th anniversary as a Catholic priest, gets up every morning at 5.30 a.m. and goes to bed at 9.00 p.m. When Clemens was about to retire at 75, his bishop asked him to remain in service until they found a successor - he only stopped holding regular church services...

BRUSSELS — As a dragnet aimed at Islamic State operatives spiraled across Brussels and into at least five European countries on Friday, the authorities were also focusing on a narrower but increasingly alarming threat: the vulnerability of Belgium’s nuclear installations. The investigation into this week’s deadly attacks in Brussels has prompted worries that the Islamic State is seeking to attack, infiltrate or sabotage nuclear installations or obtain nuclear or radioactive material. This is especially worrying in a country with a history of security lapses at its nuclear facilities, a weak intelligence apparatus and a deeply rooted terrorist network. On Friday,...

A hostage situation has reportedly erupted in the northern French town of Roubaix, close to the Belgian border, with medical services reporting several gunshot wounds. The town is located approximately one hour west of Brussels.

French authorities have reportedly identified the suspected mastermind of the Paris attacks as a 27-year-old Belgian, who may have also tried to orchestrate earlier thwarted attacks on trains and churches.

A Belgian nurse who helped save hundreds of American soldiers during the Battle of the Bulge at the end of World War II has died aged 94. Augusta Chiwy died on Sunday and will be buried in the town of Bastogne, southeast Belgium on Saturday following a civilian and military ceremony, according to her family. Chiwy, who was born in Belgian Congo in 1921, was portrayed as the character Anna in the book and TV series Band of Brothers. The Battle of the Bulge came during the final stages of World War II when Adolf Hitler launched a major offensive...

In page 3 this Saddam Regime document ISGZ-2004-019744.pdf dated February/3/2003 there is a request to supply Chemical gear for the Chemical group. This document is a letter from an Iraqi “Export and Import Company” Vendor” addressed to the Iraqi Army “Commission Of Equipment” stating his pleasure to provide the Chemical Gear for the Chemical Group and he goes into Chemical gear equipment he can provides. This Chemical Group is part of the Feedaeyeen Saddam as other parts of the document indicate. Beginning of the translation page 3 of the ISGZ-2004-019744.pdf : In the Name of God the Most Merciful The...

Axelle Despiegelaere was just a face in the crowd, watching her Belgium football team prepare to take on Russia in a Group H World Cup game two weeks ago in Brazil. Then the 17-year-old had her photograph taken. The photo went viral, making the rounds on Twitter and ending up in newspapers all over the world.

Belgian beer and waffle-wrapped burgers are on the way to a new Hell's Kitchen bar. The Jolly Monk, a Belgian craft beer spot, is opening this summer at 701 Ninth Ave., the space that was formerly home to the controversial bar Traffic. Hell's Kitchen Hospitality — which owns House of Brews, the New York Beer Company and Oliver's Astoria — envisions the new 74-person bar as a bastion for all things Belgian, from beer to snacks like freshly made waffles. "It's going to be a relaxed atmosphere," said co-owner Patrick Schmidt, who lives in Hell's Kitchen. "We're going to be...

BRUSSELS, December 12, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In 50-17 vote today, the Belgian Senate approved a bill that would allow euthanasia for children. The bill now goes to the House of Representatives for final approval before being sent to the King to be signed into law. Most political observers are predicting the passage of the bill. Currently the law in Belgium allows euthanasia requests for those over 18 and of sound mind, although it is acknowledged that these restrictions are widely ignored. The bill allows euthanasia, with parental consent, for children experiencing intolerable physical pain and who are suffering from a...

It took Kimberly Vlaminck three long years and nine painful laser treatments to finally look like herself again - her face no longer etched with 56 tattooed stars. Vlaminck, a 22-year-old from Belgium, made headlines around the world in 2009 after she emerged from a tattoo parlor with an entire constellation inked on the left side of her face. Initially, then-19-year-old Vlaminck lied to her parents and the media, claiming that she asked a local tattooist for only three stars near her eyes, but he kept adding more and more after she dozed off under the needle.

Interview with Prof. Mark Elchardus of the Free Univ. of Brussels: "At the Brussels secondary schools, almost every second student is a Muslim." “There is a major difference in anti-Semitic attitudes between Muslim students and non-Muslim ones in Dutch-speaking secondary schools in Belgium. About 50% of the Muslim students express anti-Semitic attitudes, as opposed to 10% of the others. These findings resulted from our study in Brussels titled “Youth in Brussels” and studies thereafter in Antwerp and Gent. In general, anti-Semitism is somewhat lower in Gent than in Antwerp and Brussels. “The youths we studied were generally in the age...

Ramón Mercader from Barcelona killed Trotsky with an ice axe in Mexico City. On 20th August 1940, the exiled Leon Trotsky was fatally wounded at his home in a suburb of Mexico City when an ice axe was driven into his skull. He cried out to his guards as they burst into his study, ‘Don’t kill him! He must talk.’ Despite struggling fiercely, and even managing to bite the hand of his assassin, Trotsky died the next day, and the man who wielded the murder weapon was sentenced to 20 years in prison. He insisted throughout his trial and his...

PARIS (Reuters) - Actor Gerard Depardieu has become the latest Frenchman to look for shelter outside his native country after a series of tax hikes by Socialist President Francois Hollande on the wealthy. The "Cyrano de Bergerac" star has bought a house in the Belgian village of Nechin near the French border, local mayor Daniel Senesael told French media on Sunday, adding he had also enquired about procedures for acquiring Belgian residency. ... "I think he wanted to enjoy the atmosphere in Belgium, our identity, the rural, bucolic setting," Senesael told RTL radio. For Depardieu, best known for his roles...