Bombs Explode In IKEA Stores Across Europe
Photo: Sbotig (CC)
IKEA’s business has been booming. Although no one was significantly injured, this coordinated attack had alarm clocks exploding in three different European countries. Via Reuters:
French, Belgian and Dutch police have launched investigations after minor explosions struck IKEA [IKEA.UL] stores in each country late on Monday in what appears to have been a coordinated attack.
No one was seriously hurt in the blasts at the world’s biggest furniture retailer, although two workers in Belgium suffered minor injuries.
Rigged alarm clocks blew up in IKEA stores in Ghent in Belgium and Lille in France, and there was an explosion in a bin outside the IKEA store in Eindhoven in the Netherlands.
The alarm clocks were linked to small amounts of gunpowder, and prosecutors said they did not think that the bombers had intended to cause significant injury.
“Federal police with dogs did a sweep of other stores but there was nothing suspect that was…
Belgium Marks One Year Without Full Government
Photo: Didier Misson (CC)
Breaking Iraq’s record of 289 days, Belgium reaches a year without an entire government. BBC reports:
As Belgium marks one year without a government, European Council President Herman Van Rompuy has called the political impasse “extremely pitiful”.
The former Belgian prime minister told the De Standaard newspaper that the country would need a full government soon to decide on economic policy.
Member states are required to put long-term economic planning past the EU.
Caretaker Prime Minister Yves Leterme has said three more months might be needed to form a governing coalition.
Mr Leterme succeeded Mr Van Rompuy as prime minister in November 2009, but resigned in April 2010 after his government collapsed.
[Continues at BBC News]
Bring Out Your Dead – And Put Them Down Drain
From Sky News/Yahoo:
Undertakers in Belgium have said they want to save the environment by liquefying corpses instead of cremating them.
It has been claimed the process of dissolving the dead in a caustic potash solution would use less energy than a crematorium – it would also not emit any harmful carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
The body sludge could then be given to relatives to flush away as a final goodbye.
The Flemish Association of Undertakers is now trying to get permission to carry out the green procedure, which is known as chemical hydrolysis.
Bodies are dissolved by placing them in a container of water and salts. The mixture is then pressurised and after about two hours, all that remains is mineral ash and a liquid gunk.
But the idea is controversial in a country which has strong religious beliefs.
Many people associate the idea with something out of a gangster movie – an awkward…
Could Belgium Split Apart?
From Global Post:
It’s been a bad couple of days for Belgium.
On Thursday the government collapsed, plunging the country into a renewed political turmoil; politicians from the French-speaking south and Flemish north cast doubt on the country’s survival; Flemish separatists sang for independence in the parliament; and the press around Europe warned the country is teetering on the brink of disintegration.
Then, on Friday, one of Belgium’s best-known churchmen, the bishop of the beautiful medieval city of Bruges, resigned after admitting he had “sexually abused a boy who came from my close circle of friends.” The revelations added to the sense of malaise that has gripped the kingdom.
“Is there still any point to this country?” asked the leading French-language newspaper Le Soir.
“We are a country gone mad,” exclaimed Deputy Prime Minister Laurette Onkelinx as the fifth government in three years came tumbling down.
The crisis could hardly have come at a worse time,…
‘Comatose’ Man Was Actually Awake For 23 Years
This is a pretty horrifying fate…reminds me of the video for the Metallica song ‘One.’ From the Telegraph:
A Belgian man diagnosed as being in a coma for 23 years was actually conscious the whole time. Rom Houbens was simply paralysed and had no way to let doctors caring for him what he was suffering.
“I dreamt myself away,” says Houben, now 46, who was misdiagnosed as being in a persistent vegetative state after a car crash. Doctors and nurses in Zolder deemed him a hopeless case whereby his consciousness was considered “extinct.”
When he woke up after the accident he had lost control of his body, “I screamed, but there was nothing to hear,” he says.
