| Developer | Belgian Government |
|---|---|
| Type | Videotex |
| Launch date | 1986 |
Bistel, acronym for Belgian Information System by Telephone, was a Belgian equivalent of Prestel and Minitel on a smaller scale, established in 1986 at the initiative of the then Prime Minister Wilfried Martens.
It was a federal government service that gave access through videotex to Belga telex news releases, to a press review, judicial databases JUSTEL and CREDOC, economical databases ECOTEL and BUDGETEX.
In 1988, Bart Halewijck, a former PM cabinet adviser and municipal councillor for the same CVP party in Gistel, used the passwords he had kept to view sensitive government informations and showed it to a friend, then to a journalist from De Standaard to prove the security failures. This led to a judiciary "Bistel Case". In spite of recommendations, all passwords had not been changed every six months and many were still the same after two years. Halewijck and his friend, as there was then no specific penal provisions for such crimes, were charged for forgery and use of forgery, theft of energy with burglary, forgery by an official of a telegraphic despatch (an article of the Belgian Penal Code never used since 1911) and destruction of State property. [1] The two first ever "Belgian hackers" got only light penalties but the case showed the urgent need for a specific legislation. [2]
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Georges Prosper Remi, known by the pen name Hergé, from the French pronunciation of his reversed initials RG, was a Belgian cartoonist. He is best known for creating The Adventures of Tintin, the series of comic albums which are considered one of the most popular European comics of the 20th century. He was also responsible for two other well-known series, Quick & Flupke (1930–1940) and The Adventures of Jo, Zette and Jocko (1936–1957). His works were executed in his distinctive ligne claire drawing style.
The King Baudouin Stadium is a sports ground in Brussels, Belgium. Located in the north-western district of the City of Brussels, it was built to embellish the Heysel/Heizel Plateau in view of the 1935 Brussels International Exposition. It was inaugurated on 23 August 1930, with Crown Prince Leopold attending the opening ceremony. The stadium hosted 70,000 at the time. Its name honours King Baudouin, Leopold's son and successor as King of the Belgians, from 1951 to his death in 1993.
Gistel is a city and municipality located in the Belgian province of West Flanders.
Marc Paul Alain Dutroux is a Belgian convicted serial killer, serial rapist, and child sexual abuser. Initially convicted for the abduction and rape of five young girls in 1989, Dutroux was released on parole after just three years' imprisonment. He was arrested again in 1996 on suspicion of having abducted, tortured, and sexually abused six girls aged between 8 and 19, four of whom were killed. Dutroux's widely publicized trial ended with his conviction on all charges in 2004; he was subsequently sentenced to life imprisonment.
The Crab with the Golden Claws is the ninth volume of The Adventures of Tintin, the comics series by Belgian cartoonist Hergé. The story was serialised weekly in Le Soir Jeunesse, the children's supplement to Le Soir, Belgium's leading francophone newspaper, from October 1940 to October 1941 amidst the German occupation of Belgium during World War II. Partway through serialisation, Le Soir Jeunesse was cancelled and the story began to be serialised daily in the pages of Le Soir. The story tells of young Belgian reporter Tintin and his dog Snowy, who travel to Morocco to pursue a gang of international opium smugglers. The story marks the first appearance of main character Captain Haddock.
Red Rackham's Treasure is the twelfth volume of The Adventures of Tintin, the comics series by Belgian cartoonist Hergé. The story was serialised daily in Le Soir, Belgium's leading francophone newspaper, from February to September 1943 amidst the German occupation of Belgium during World War II. Completing an arc begun in The Secret of the Unicorn, the story tells of young reporter Tintin and his friend Captain Haddock as they launch an expedition to the Caribbean to locate the treasure of the pirate Red Rackham.
The Seven Crystal Balls is the thirteenth volume of The Adventures of Tintin, the comics series by Belgian cartoonist Hergé. The story was serialised daily in Le Soir, Belgium's leading francophone newspaper, from December 1943 amidst the German occupation of Belgium during World War II. The story was cancelled abruptly following the Allied liberation in September 1944, when Hergé was blacklisted after being accused of collaborating with the occupying Germans. After he was cleared two years later, the story and its follow-up Prisoners of the Sun were then serialised weekly in the new Tintin magazine from September 1946 to April 1948. The story revolves around the investigations of a young reporter Tintin and his friend Captain Haddock into the abduction of their friend Professor Calculus and its connection to a mysterious illness which has afflicted the members of an archaeological expedition to Peru.
France 3 is a French free-to-air public television channel and part of the France Télévisions group, which also includes France 2, France 4, France 5 and France Info.
There are 27 municipalities with language facilities in Belgium which must offer linguistic services to residents in Dutch, French, or German in addition to their single official languages. All other municipalities – with the exception of those in the bilingual Brussels region – are monolingual and only offer services in their official languages, either Dutch or French.
RTL is a French commercial radio network owned by the RTL Group. Founded in 1933 as Radio Luxembourg, it broadcast from outside France until 1981 because only public stations had been allowed until then. It is a general-interest, news, talk and music station, broadcasting nationally in France, French-speaking Belgium, and Luxembourg. Until 2022, RTL was also broadcast on long wave frequency 234 KHz from Beidweiler which could be picked up in large parts of the continent. It has a sister station called Bel RTL tailored for the French Community of Belgium. As of 2018, RTL is France's most popular radio station with an average of 6.4 million daily listeners that year.
Robert Jonathan Schifreen is a former UK-based computer hacker and magazine editor, and the founder of IT security awareness training programme SecuritySmart.co.uk. He was the first person charged with illegally accessing a computer system, but was acquitted because there was no such specific criminal offence at the time. Later in life he became a computer security consultant, speaking at many conferences on information security and training banks, large companies and universities in the UK on IT security. In 2014 he began developing the software on which SecuritySmart runs from scratch which reached completion and product launch in June 2016.
The Catholic Church in Belgium, part of the global Catholic Church in Belgium, is under the spiritual leadership of the Pope, the curia in Rome and the Episcopal Conference of Bishops.
The Belgian Resistance collectively refers to the resistance movements opposed to the German occupation of Belgium during World War II. Within Belgium, resistance was fragmented between many separate organizations, divided by region and political stances. The resistance included both men and women from both Walloon and Flemish parts of the country. Aside from sabotage of military infrastructure in the country and assassinations of collaborators, these groups also published large numbers of underground newspapers, gathered intelligence and maintained various escape networks that helped Allied airmen trapped behind enemy lines escape from German-occupied Europe.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) rights in Belgium are seen as some of the most progressive in Europe and in the world. In 2021, ILGA-Europe ranked Belgium as second in the European Union for LGBT rights protection, behind Malta.
The Belgian stay-behind network, colloquially called "Gladio", was a secret mixed civilian and military unit, trained to form a resistance movement in the event of a Soviet invasion and part of a network of similar organizations in North Atlantic Treaty Organization states. It functioned from at least 1951 until 1990, when the Belgian branch was promptly and officially dissolved after its existence became publicly known following revelations concerning the Italian branch of the stay-behind network.
Belgium participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 2005 with the song "Le grand soir" written by Alec Mansion and Frédéric Zeitoun. The song was performed by Nuno Resende. The Belgian entry for the 2005 contest in Kyiv, Ukraine was selected through the national final Finale Nationale Concours Eurovision de la Chanson 2005, organised by the Walloon broadcaster Radio Télévision Belge de la Communauté Française (RTBF). In the final on 20 March 2005 which featured two competing entries, "Le grand soir" performed by Nuno Resende was selected as the winner after gaining 50.2% of the public televote.
Abdelkader Belliraj is a Moroccan-Belgian citizen who was found guilty in 2009 of arms smuggling and planning terrorist attacks in Morocco.
Despite being neutral at the start of World War II, Belgium and its colonial possessions found themselves at war after the country was invaded by German forces on 10 May 1940. After 18 days of fighting in which Belgian forces were pushed back into a small pocket in the north-west of the country, the Belgian military surrendered to the Germans, beginning an occupation that would endure until 1944. The surrender of 28 May was ordered by King Leopold III without the consultation of his government and sparked a political crisis after the war. Despite the capitulation, many Belgians managed to escape to the United Kingdom where they formed a government and army-in-exile on the Allied side.
The COVID-19 pandemic in Belgium has resulted in 4,767,730 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 33,982 deaths.
Jean-Michel Nihoul better known as Michel Nihoul was a Belgian businessman and convicted felon. During the 1990s and 2000s, he was the subject of a media and legal case in connection with the Marc Dutroux Affair, but was acquitted with a Nolle prosequi in 2010 for alleged involvement in child abduction. But Nihoul was sentenced to five years' imprisonment for drug trafficking and criminal association.
