On October 25, 1555, the grandees of the Habsburg Netherlands gathered in the Great Hall of the Coudenberg Palace in Brussels to witness an extraordinary event. A weary old man with a grey beard and a ...

Chris Vandenhaute knows everyone. As we weave through Brussels city centre together, he has a smile and a wave for almost everyone we encounter on the streets, be it a fellow police officer, a ...

One of the city's great hidden treasures, the Brussels music scene hosts some of the biggest and best up-and-coming artists and bands in the international, European and Belgian scene. Every month, ...

Just like everything else in Belgium, prostitution is a complicated topic. With different rules in different parts of the country, and no clear message on what is and what isn’t allowed, a lot of ...

Understanding Belgium’s divided politics can be a minefield. Two socialist parties, divided by language and pulling in different directions on key areas such as immigration and employment. As the 2024 ...

It’s not easy to find the monument. It lies deep in the forest outside Brussels, away from the busy trails. A circle of 32 young birch trees was planted in a clearing in 2017 in memory of the 32 ...

Woody Allen is synonymous with New York, Federico Fellini loved Rome while Jean-Luc Godard is indelibly linked with Paris. For Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, two-time winners of the Palme d’Or and ...

Manneken-Pis, literally “little man pee,” in the Dutch dialect of Marols or “le petit Julien,” in French, is one of Brussels’ most famous and beloved citizens. But what’s the story behind this iconic, ...

Belgium's prison system is mired in crisis, with overcrowding and understaffing affecting every one of the country's institutions. A journey through the history of Saint-Gilles prison suggests that ...

In the spring, as the coronavirus pandemic reached Belgium and health care workers triaged and treated the throngs of patients sickened by the novel virus, stacks of files began piling up on Jan ...

Machetes, clubs, pickaxes and spears. These were the weapons used by Rwandans as they slaughtered their fellow countrymen during the 1994 genocide. They were used against colleagues, neighbours, ...