Comments for ReportingfromBelgium

Comment on 12000 people run in Hasselt by daria

daria — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 21:15:54 +0000

Of course! Living in Hasselt I see a lot of running people. Children and adult have their training in gyms, in parks, even around the small ring of Hasselt.

To my mind, it’s very healthy to run on the open air. Running helps you to get fit and also provides you with good mood)) I think Hasselt is suitable place for such competitions because there are many comfortable tracks here. Maybe someone thinks that it’s more important to run just for yourself, but I’m sure that just competitions and this element of contest play an important role too: you feel yourself inside the process, you can evaluate your running achievements you even can improve your self esteem.

By the way, each of us can start to run at any age! On this site http://www.sport.be/starttorun/2009/nl there are some useful tips for beginners about how to warm up, cold down, some nutritional advises and also some running routs in Belgium.

So, thank you for this material because not a lot of media covered this event)

Comment on VENDETTA vs BELGACOM by Leon

Leon — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 16:34:49 +0000

He did not object to the restrictions on use of personal data, he objected to the traffic quotas imposed on costumers of Belgacom. They restrict the growth of internet-based economy (e.g. online movie rentals and software sales) because the quotas are not growing with the demand for larger files.

Comment on What Belgium would have done? by ricardo

ricardo — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 23:49:25 +0000

An interesting article, you were straight and you defended your point of view. Some of the topics are quite controversial thou, they will surely bring up a lot of discussion; as it has happened with me. I will write my opinion about the main points of the text, always respecting your ideas.

First of all let’s talk about your statement that the Spanish opposition is always trying to criticize the government in a non constructive way. True, many chances of effective government have been lost because of this. But what I doubt is that opposition in Belgium doesn’t make this kind of mistakes, yes they are good diplomats, but lets remember that not so long ago alarms of the country dividing in two pieces rang mightily.

Their problem is rooted in their very identity, or lack of identity, of their nation. Spain suffers this situation also, but with a number of small national identities confronting the Spanish one. But let’s not lose the point, what I tried to say before is that politics are politics after all, no matter where they live.

Another complicated part of the article is where you write that Belgium would have send a negotiator to deal with the pirates, and no media debate would have arise. I agree with you that the Spanish government lacks political sensibility when having to play their act out of the spotlight. But I think that Belgians are easier to shock and move into debate than what you think.

Spain has a lot to learn from many countries, including Belgium, but, as the Spanish saying goes, comparisons are always hateful…

Comment on Belgium – Unity in Diversity by clara

clara — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 18:56:33 +0000

Diversity is the keyword.

I guess it´s almost impossible to describe the social-personality shared by Belgians without making any mistake… And to estereotype is sometimes so easy, but as well not so fair.
I don´t agree with you about the fashionable and patient Belgians. This might be in Hasselt or in other Flemish cities, but if you go to Wallonia you won´t find many people who fit in that description…
Is not only the language, it´s also the way of live and of thinking. You know: first was the language and then the culture, built throught the first one.
It´s clear that there is a lot of diversity in Belgium, but do you think there is a real unity? Something more than tones of politicians in the Parliament trying to build bridges between the separated comunities?
Here you can see an overview about the possible partition of Belgium: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_of_Belgium

I cannot predict how long will both comunities (Flanders and Wallonia) remain together. What I can say is that, from my point of foreigner-living-in-Belgium view, the tension will finally split up Belgium in, at least, two countries. When? I don´t know…

Comment on Belgian nuclear reactors will maybe stay open longer by tiia

tiia — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 17:07:44 +0000

This was a really interesting peace of news to read. It reflects the public opinion in Austria being against nuclear energy. I wonder, what is background of this opinion. Interesting enough, this story would’nt be news in my home country. At the moment Finland is not only keeping the existing ractors going, but even building more. The new plant should have been ready last spring, but because of delays of the supplier, the new dead line is 2012. When it is finished, this will be the biggest plant in the world. There are plans to continue building new plants, but this has not been accepted in the parliament yet. This is a bit absurd, since according to many polls, most of the people are actually against nuclear power. The arguments pro more nuclear power seems still to stronger among the powerkeepers.

Comment on Mexican flu doesn`t skip Belgium by maria

maria — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 13:26:44 +0000

Is it flu epidemic or pandemic of panic?
This topic got an interesting continuation. The World Health Organization is accused of conspiracy. The first one to sound the alarm was Danish newspaper “Dagbladet Information”. The article said that consultants of WHO, supported the idea of mass vaccination, received huge fee for promotion specific medications. One of them was Albert Osterhaus, known as Dr Flu (Mr Flu), who runs an internationally renowned virus lab at Erasmus Medical Center in the Netherlands.
Magazine “Science” published an article in which the “virus hunter” was accused of using fears of flu to develop vaccine business. It was found out that the “spreader of panic virus” owns a 9.9% share in ViroClinics, a Rotterdam spinoff from his lab that is involved in vaccine development. News was so shocking that the Dutch House of Representatives had even started an urgent debate about the issue. They say that in this case Osterhaus can’t be a governmental consultant of swine flu situation anymore.

Comment on DO YOU WANT TO BE A STUDENT? COME TO BELGIUM! by mariadolores

mariadolores — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 16:29:21 +0000

Spanish and Belgium education are very different in a lot of aspects. The first one is that Spain was a dictatorship until 1975 and only some people could go to the school. That´s why in Spain there are a lot of people in the 60’s who have never studied. It doesn´t happen in Belgium. Most of people have been studied at least the secundary school. So, in Spain there aren´t a lot of people who speaks languages fluently. But, last years government is trying to make education better. Nowadays there are more bilingual school than five years ago, children start to learn languages before than some years ago and teachers are trying to involved children in new technologies. This year public schools lend a computer for free to primary school children. I think that it´s a good idea because children learn to use computers and they learn to take care of them because next year other children will have to use it.
On the other hand, it´s true that Spanish University and Belgium University are really different. In the Spanish Public University there are about one hundred people in class, so is very difficult to have a relation between teachers and students. In Belgium there are more contact between teachers and students and they can do the lessons more interesting and enjoyable because everybody can participate and discuss about the topics.
I’m agree with Alicia about the low level of the culture in Spain. There are a lot of University students who don´t know who are the most important politics in the world or where is Berlin, for example. But they know everything about Big Brother or gossip programms in television. In Spain young people love television and most of the programms in television have a ver low cultural level. It´s really awful!
Spanish people have to work hard to rise the education level, but I think that everybody have to work in it because we sometimes are lazy and goverment actions don´t operate.

Comment on Languages in Belgium by Alicia

Alicia — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 15:29:20 +0000

I am also from Spain and I agree with almost every aspect from this article.
Belgium has three different areas in which they speak three different languages; in my country there are also a few different languages but they are only spoken in some provinces, and only locals can speak them (Gallegos in Galicia, Eskers in Basque country, Catalan in Cataluña etc.). But they also speak Spanish (the official language) – it’s not like here in Belgium – if you go to the Walloon part and you are from the Flemish one you have to speak in French. In my opinion, it doesn’t do a harm because people in Belgium try to adapt, be flexible and be trilingual.
The situation in Spain is different but I understand that it wouldn’t be objective to compare a strong language like French or also Dutch (spoken in Belgium and Holland) with Gallegos or Eskers (as I mentioned – only spoken in some provinces).
But if we talk about the Belgians’ interest in learning Spanish, I am not impressed at all because it’s valuable to have a knowledge of this language when travelling to not only Spain but almost every country in South America and Central America. Yes, it is not the official language of Guyana, Belize and neither Filipinas but an important number of the population speak it.
All the things considered, I think, the Belgium education system is one of the best in the Europe – learning many languages since you are a child – it’s a good way to achieve a fluent level in a short time. I hope with a time, Spain will follow the way of Belgium.