B Ladybug is back

Het gloednieuwe 'autoschip' B Ladybug van de Singaporese rederij Ro Ro Line, legde voor het weekend aan in het Vrasenedok van de Antwerpse haven. Het werd er volgeladen met rollend materieel. Havenschepen Marc Van Peel overhandigde kapitein Tena Radieo enkele geschenkjes namens het havenbedrijf.

De kapitein vertelde dat zijn reisroute onder meer via de Oost-Afrikaanse kust gaat. Om het schip te beschermen tegen piraten wordt de reling daar ingepakt met prikkeldraad. En dan nog is het oppassen geblazen want de zeerovers komen met snelle boten tot vlakbij het schip. Ze schieten met een soort bazookas enterhaken op het nochtans zeer hoge dek en kruipen langs een touw naar boven. 'De matrozen moeten dag en nacht waakzaam zijn om de touwen door te hakken', vertelde de kapitein. Volgens hem breidt de plaag van de piraterij zich nog uit.

De B Ladybug kan 7.600 stuks rollend materieel vervoeren. Dat zijn zowel auto's, vrachtwagens en tractoren als bulldozers, kranen, bussen en machines voor bouw en wegenbouw. Ook worden zware tuigen, stalen liggers, rollen papier, generatoren tot meer dan 300 ton op speciale diepliggers aan boord gebracht en vastgesjord. 'Iedere meter van de twaalf dekken wordt gebruikt', zegt Antwerpenaar Raymo Shimizu, line manager van agentschap TRS die de rederij vertegenwoordigt in de Scheldestad. Hij puzzelt met een ondervinding van 15 jaar perfect ineen waar de binnenrijdende wagens en vrachten moeten staan. Michel Koster verkoopsdirecteur van TRS, vertelt dat op 24 uren tijds in de Antwerpse haven meer dan 2.000 m2 van de 15.000 m2 laadoppervlakte wordt geladen. Voordien was het schip al vracht gaan inslaan in Groot-Brittannië en het Duitse Bremerhaven.

Vanuit Antwerpen vertrekt de 232 meter lange B Ladybug naar het Suezkanaal om langs de (gevaarlijke) Afrikaanse kust tot Kenia te gaan en vervolgens langs Singapore tot China. Een reis van 35 dagen. 'Wij wensen U een goede vaart' zei havenschepen Van Peel, terwijl hij de kapitein een beeldje van de 'Buildrager' overhandigde en een minicontainer met Antwerpse pralines.

source: nieuwsblad

Charleroi Airport

From Saturday 30th of July onwards travelers can pay 4 euros to use a priority lane to take the plane at the airport of Charleroi (Brussels South Charleroi Airport). That way they can more quickly through security checks. Travelers can buy the access to this priority lane on the website of the airport or on a desk in the middle of the terminal, the airport said.

The system has been around for a few months for Jetair customers, but now the system can also be used by other passengers, if they pay four euros.

With this new service Charleroi airport wants to increase the comfort of the passengers, "especially that of frequent flyers", says Laurence Lermineau from Charleroi airport. He added that 5 percent of the airport's customers fly more than 10 times per year.

The king is pissed off

For the first time the Belgian king Albert showed his human side during his speech on yesterday, for the Belgian National Day, 21st of July. He clearly expressed his disappointment regarding the political situation in his country.

Belgium is without a government for more than 14 months now, breaking every international record, including Irak and Afghanistan, and the negociations over the formation of the next government keep on failing.

Nobody has ever seen King Albert this angry. Several times King Albert repeated that he is extremely worried. The political situation is endangering the role of Belgium within the EU, the quality of life of the Belgian people, and the confidence of foreign investors.

It is remarkable however that King Albert sounded more angry in the dutch version of his speech than in the french version. I think he is not too fond of Bart De Wever. The latter probably could not care less about the speech and was lying on the couch next to his cat as you can see in the below video.

New traffic sign for bikes

Belgium is introducing a new traffic sign which allows bikers to ignore a red traffic light. Under certain circumstances bikers will be allowed to turn right. This is quite remarkable, allthough it already exists in the US for cars since a long time.

The secretary of state of mobility, Etienne Schouppe (CD&V) introduced the traffic sign this week. It is still unknown how many signs will be end up in the streets. Each city decides independently whether it will use them or not. Bruno De Lille (groen), Brussels' secretary of mobility already confirmed that Brussels will use the signs.

Visit Belgium!

source: visitbelgium.com

Nuevo fracaso para formar Gobierno en Bélgica

El rechazo al nuevo plan para formar Gobierno en Bélgica ha vuelto a poner sobre la mesa la posibilidad de convocar elecciones anticipadas en el país, sumido en una profunda crisis política desde hace más de un año.

La negativa de los independentistas de la N-VA, ganadores de los pasados comicios de junio de 2010, a negociar sobre la base de la nueva propuesta de reforma del Estado ha generado un verdadero "caos" en la escena política belga, asegura el diario flamenco "De Morgen, que se cuestiona si llamar de nuevo a las urnas sería una solución.

"Preparen las urnas", titula el rotativo francófono "La Libre Belgique", según el cual todos los posibles escenarios conducen finalmente a convocar de nuevo elecciones anticipadas.

Sin embargo, los democristianos flamencos (CD&V) del primer ministro en funciones, Yves Leterme, recalcaron esta mañana su negativa a convocar nuevos comicios y reiteraron que la N-VA y los socialistas del PS, los dos partidos más votados en los últimos, deben encontrar una solución.

La incapacidad de la N-VA para negociar es otra de las ideas presentes en las páginas de la prensa francófona hoy, donde vuelve a surgir además la idea de intentar formar un Ejecutivo sin los soberanistas flamencos, a pesar de que los democristianos flamencos (CD&V) ya han adelantado que no apoyarán una coalición en la que no participen los ganadores de las elecciones.

El diario francófono "Le Soir" publica hoy un duro editorial contra la decisión del líder de la N-VA, Bart De Wever, y le acusa de "falta de valor" y de "mentir" tanto a francófonos como a sus electores en Flandes.

"Bélgica ya no tiene sentido. Bélgica ya no vale la pena. Bélgica ya no es un [...]

source: noticias.com

Why Belgium has no government

(By Fareed Zakaria, CNN) 

Here in the United States, our politicians seem unable to agree on anything. Well, there's one country that's more divided than we are, so divided in fact its people can't even decide on who should run it.

Belgium has now gone through some 385 days without a functional government. Listen to its story. There might be some lessons in it for us.

click here to see the video

When Belgium last went to the polls, now more than a year ago, the party that won the most seats was called the New Flemish Alliance. The alliance's main aim is to split the country in two - not politically but physically.

You see a slight majority of Belgium's population, the Flemish, speaks Dutch and lives in the north of the country in Flanders. A minority of the country speaks French and lives in the south of the nation in Wallonia. And the winning party wants to take their majority and split into an independent nation.

Already the country is divided at every level, almost every public service you can think of, schools, hospitals and they are split along the lines of language. There are French schools and Flemish schools, Flemish hospitals and French hospitals and so on.

Then Brussels, it is the capital of Belgium and the Flanders, but Brussels is French speaking, which is why it is also the capital of the European Union. So if you partition the country, the French-speaking capital would end up in the Dutch-speaking Flanders.

All clear?

You wouldn't normally compare Belgium with Iraq, but that's the country with the previous longest record without a government.  For 249 days the Iraqi Parliament could not decide how to form a government and then it took another 40 days for that government to actually assume power. Iraq's democratic experiment was much maligned at the time. It was falling down while taking its baby steps of democracy.

But the Belgians have had a bit more practice. The country gained its independence and started its current form of government in 1830.

So you think we are divided?

Well, now you know about the Belgians, but they're still surviving.

How? Well, the people of Belgium seem to do is grin and bear it. Some Belgians quite literally did that, stripping down in the cold winter to make a point.

On February 17th, the day when by some counts Belgium overtook Iraq as the country with the most days without a government, Belgians marked it in style: street parties, deejays tuning out music, funky costumes, they had it all.

And there were some political messages. In Dutch-speaking Flanders, locals handed out free French fries while in French-speaking Wallonia, you could swig some free beer.

Some went as far as to create a fake government website. It had this message, "Government not found. The requested government was not found in this country, please come back...well...later."

We live in an era of unrest and political uncertainty in many parts of the world. So you have to hand it to the people of Belgium. They're taking it in their stride with an admirable sense of humor.

Waar in Europa wordt het hardst gewerkt?

Gezien de slechte economische situatie van Griekenland en Portugal heb je misschien de neiging te denken dat in deze landen minder hard gewerkt wordt. Niets is echter minder waar …

De Grieken werken gemiddeld 40,5 uur per week, de Portugezen zijn goed voor 40,2 uur per week. Ter vergelijking: in België werken we ‘slechts’ 39,2 uren per week. Dat staat in het Europese arbeidsmarktrapport 2010 van Eurostat, het statistiekbureau van de EU.

Mannen werken over het algemeen wel harder, zo lijkt het. In ons land presteren zij gemiddeld 39,8 uren/week, vrouwen ‘maar’ 38,2 uren/week.

Toegegeven: we zouden liever werknemer zijn in Denemarken dan in het Verenigd Koninkrijk. Gemiddeld moet in het eerste 4,5 uur per week minder gewerkt worden.

Als het een troost kan zijn: in België moeten we gemiddeld nog steeds 1,2 uur per week minder werken dan in de rest van Europa. Het Europees gemiddelde bedraagt immers 40,4 uur/week.

Source: Job@ en Eurostat

Beer Paradise

The small country of Belgium produces more beer styles than any other country in the world. The book "All Belgian Beers" lists 752 different beers and only 42 are lagers. The rest are top frermenting ALES.

The Belgian Tourism Agency promotes Belgium as "beer paradise", and they are absolutely right!

So whilst Belgium may be home to the worlds biggest brewing company (AB Inbev, owners of Stella, Becks, Budweiser etc), it also has a huge number of small independent and very traditional brewers. So what do these`small independent breweries produce?

• Most concentrate on producing "ales" not lagers with alcohol strengths from 3% to 12%, with colours from nearly white to black.
• There are 6 abbeys that produce beers to earn money to maintain their abbeys. And only these 6 can call their beers "Trappist".
• There are commercial breweries who produce beers named after abbeys (paying them for the use of the name) or beers brewed to taste similar to the Trappist ales.
• There are old brown beers - which are aged for several years.
• There are beers that are brewed using wheat and barley rather than just barley that are naturally cloudy and are very refreshing.
• There is a very old tradition in Belgium for using fruit, particularly cherries in the brewing proccess.
• There are very strong beers, which are more wine than beer!
• There are beers brewed by spontaneous fermentation - that's using yeast blowing around in the atmosphere
• Some breweries use herbs and spices in their beers
• And there are beers blenders who mix beers to get the tastes they want
• And we could go on

So here is some help and advice to get you started

Most of these beers are naturally conditioned in the bottle - this means the beer is not pasteurised but is still a living beer. The bottle will contain a small amount of yeast, so that the taste continues to develop in the bottle.

So during transportation the yeast may have been disturbed and will need to settle back to the bottom of the bottle. So please store upright for at least 24 hours before opening.

Don't worry about needing to drink these beers soon after buying in case they go off just check the best before dates, they will normally be a good time away (possibly several years).

Getting ready to sample a beer or two

Wheat beer must be kept in a fridge before drinking.
Blond and Amber beers should be kept in a fridge before drinking.
Dark and Fruit Beers should be kept in a COOL 'pantry' or fridge before drinking.
Remember the beer has a sediment so bottles should be poured carefully into a glass that will hold the contents of the bottle.

The custom with Wheat Beer is to empty the bottle into the glass, including the sediment. It will be cloudy, it is intended to be.

With other Belgian ales there is some disagreement but the norm is to pour the contents slowly down the side of a glass, to get a reasonable head, but leave the last couple of millimetres in the bottle so not adding the sediment to produce a clear beer.

In a Belgian bar you will be brought the beer and the appropriate branded glass. The waiter will pour the beer for you, and leave the empty bottle and filled glass in front of you with the brand logos pointing away from you, so other drinkers can see what good taste you have! We have the special glasses for some of the beers, there are many shapes and many will swear the right glass improves the taste; it may be all in the mind but!

One very important statement though - these beers should not be drunk from the bottle. They are developed and brewed to be sipped out of an appropriate glass.

Source: the Belgian Beer Shop Malta

Españoles en Belgica

Hay miles de Españoles en Bélgica. Me ha gustado mucho el reportaje de RTVE sobre los Españoles en Bélgica.


Entrad en la pagina de RTVE para ver el vídeo!

Belgium For Dummies

No better post to start with than this one. This video shows exactly what Belgium is all about. Not clear? Don't worry, that is normal.

Belgium blog created

hello everybody,

After the Valencia Blog and the Malta Blog, we are excited to open this new destination blog, Belgium. One thing Belgium has in common with Valencia and Malta: it is a great place to live and work with many expat communities especially in Brussels and Antwerp. Belgium is such a multicultural place to be that all nationalities can feel at home very quickly. 


Globexs helps you with housing solutions and destination services. Please visit our website on www.globexs.com to check out how it works, and why we can be very useful to you. Subscribe to this blog and you will receive weekly posts with interesting things to know about Belgium and its expats.

Hope to see you soon in Belgium!

best regards,

Globexs