Belgian news in brief, 13 September 2005

Mechelen search for two-year-old’s body

Police started to dig up land in Styvenbergvaart in Mechelen on Tuesday in the hope of finding the body of a two-year-old who went missing nine years ago. Liam Vanden Branden was last seen out playing on 3 May 1996. A 16-year-old has told investigators he remembers seeing two men digging a hole around the time the toddler vanished.

A delegation from the horticultural sector left a 100m-carpet of begonias in front of the office of Flemish minister president Yves Leterme on Monday evening. The gardeners said they want the authorities to give them energy credits this winter in the face of rising petrol prices.

An alligator measuring 2m50 was seized at a home in Limburg after police received a tip-off that dangerous animals were being kept without a licence. The specialist officers from the federal environment unit admitted capturing it and 13 baby crocodiles, also being kept, was a difficult job. However, the animals at the address in Borgloon were finally netted on Monday afternoon and taken to the park Paradisio at Cambron-Casteau.

Experts are using the latest scientific techniques at Liege University Hospital to find out more about three Egyptian mummies that are around 2,500 years old. The mummies, on loan from the nearby Musee Curtius, are this week being subjected to a CT-Scan, among other tests, as part of an exhibition planned for later this month. The analyses could reveal the identity of one of the mummies and more details about the mummy of Priest Ousirmose and a crocodile mummy.

[Copyright Expatica News 2005]

Subject: Belgian news