The opening of the Brussels World's Fair was only 24 hours away, and, despite seven years of planning and 16 months of frenetic construction, the 470-acre showcase was still a littered building site. “We'll never make it,” muttered a French official—and in fact the French were not ready on opening day.
Tag Archives: brussels
BELGIUM: Achille’s Heel
“Smiling Achille” van Acker went to his native Bruges to celebrate 25 years of happy marriage. Then he came back to Brussels to face a crisis in the uneasy union of Socialists, Liberals and Communists which he had held in precarious balance for three months.It was a member of his own Socialist party, Senator Henri Rolin, stubbornly fighting Minister of Justice Adolphe van Glabbeke over a secondary juridical matter, who brought about the downfall of Premier van Acker's Government
Big Pharma Faces a Crackdown in Europe
The pharmaceutical industry is one of the few sectors around that appears to be weathering these difficult times with relative ease.
China-India Competition: Is a Military Clash Inevitable?
By sheer demographics, it’s the world’s most important relationship. China and India comprise 40% of humanity and boast economies that are expected to loom large over the 21st century.
London Lacking in Clean Air? Blame Europe
Call it the Air Wars. For the past 18 months, the city of London has failed to meet air-quality limits set by the European Commission .
Support wanes for Blair EU presidency
Tony Blair’s chances of becoming the European Union’s first full-time president were in serious trouble late on Thursday as a Brussels summit opened with a chorus of criticism from his own supposed center-left allies.
Al Qaeda priority: Western targets
Between late July and early December of 2008 four members of a Belgian-French group returned to Europe from the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region. On December 11, Belgian counter-terrorism police launched one of the largest operations in the country’s history, arrested six people and charged them with participation in a terrorist group.
Somali PM: Anti-pirate patrols not working
Somalia’s prime minister told CNN Thursday that the international naval patrols in the Gulf of Aden are not solving the problem of piracy in the region. Prime Minister Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke pointed to the recent increase in pirate attacks as evidence, and called for the U.N. arms embargo on Somalia to be lifted so the government can fight back against the pirates and local militant Islamist groups
Second Swiss bank loses billions
Switzerland’s Credit Suisse has joined the list of banks revealing disastrous results for 2008 after it reported losses of $7.1 billion (8.2 billion Swiss francs). The officials told CNN that the alleged cell had connections to a senior al Qaeda operative who helped orchestrate the 2006 “Airline Plot,” widely recognized as al Qaeda’s most serious terror attempt since the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.