A black panther continues to roam freely in Belgian woodland. The feline was spotted recently in Malmedy, Luxembourg province, by a local couple walking in the forest. They said it looked like an enormous black cat, but was larger than their 15kg dog. The animal which was first sighted in the area in September is not considered a danger to the public.
An Antwerp hospital has admitted accidentally switching two patients who were due to have operations.The Jan Palfijn Hospital gave one patient the wrong operation and "removed something that could not be put back," while the other man underwent the operation intended for the first patient. Both men are said to be in good health and the hospital has apologised.
The owner of an 80-kilo Vietnamese pot-bellied pig called Flurk has been granted permission to keep the animal in his apartment in Mechelen. His neighbours lodged a complaint with the courts, but the judge accepted the owner's argument that the pig couldn't possibly live anywhere else.
Prince Laurent had his beloved Bernese mountain dog frozen because he could not bear to be parted from him. The seven-year-old hound died from cancer three months ago and was placed in the freezer at Ghent University’s veterinary science department. The royal prince, second son of King Albert, asked for the animal to be defrosted last week in order to make his final farewell.
An Australian chocolate-maker based in Belgium won an award for the best praline in the world at the recent World Chocolate Masters in Paris. The praline 'Balanced' was made by Ryan Stevenson, who works at Le Saint Aulaye patisserie in Ixelles, and contains orange-flavoured caramel, Tonka cocoa bean ganache and Callebaut 'Origine Arriba' chocolate. Stevenson came to Belgium because according to him it is the 'cradle of chocolate'.
A restaurant owner in Leuven has refused to remove a poster in his window that is critical of Silvio Berlusconi. "I got a phone call from the Italian embassy and was told to remove it. I'm not doing it. It's my window."
The 2008 car of the year, the Fiat 500, is failing Belgium's annual roadworthiness test because of lack of road grip, in 50 percent of cases. The pocket-size car with an attractive pricetag of €14-20,000 was launched at the end of 2007. Fiat says the problem exists only in Belgium and the test is at fault.
