A quote from Ansa Med, 3 December 2007

[A] poll, published by the Milliyet daily today, shows that 69.4% of the Turkish women wear a veil, compared to 64.2% in 2003. Of these 16.2%, up by 3.5% compared to 2003, cover completely the hair with what is called 'turban', considered a religious symbol in Turkey. The women who wear 'carsaf' [the Turkish niqab], a large black veil that covers from head to toe, increased from 1.2% to 1.3%, while those who wear only a scarf are now 59.5% compared to 51.9% in 2003. Many women, especially in the rural areas, wear the veil out of a cultural tradition and not necessarily out of religious or ideological reasons. The poll shows that most of the women who choose to wear veil are aged between 18 and 28.

A quote from Reuters, 3 December 2007

Financial markets have attached a risk premium to Belgium. The extra yield they require to hold its 10-year government bonds rose to 22 basis points over the euro zone's benchmark Bunds on Monday, its highest level since the June election.
Leterme’s Flemish Christian Democrats, the Flemish Liberals and their French-speaking counterparts have now failed twice to form a government, with no clear alternative.

The parties were busy laying the blame on each other, but none ruled out another try, possibly with Leterme. “I’ve seen him dubbed ‘Leterminator’. He’ll be back,” said [Prof Carl] Devos [of Ghent University].

A quote from Stratfor Intelligence, 3 December 2007

Belgium now formally moves into political no-man’s-land.

Since its deadlocked parliamentary elections six months ago, Belgium has been in political crisis, with the government of Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt limping along in a caretaker capacity. The plurality winners of that election – the Christian Democrats of Flanders, led by Yves Leterme – have proven unable to form a government because of disputes over how much power to devolve to the country's two fractionalized regions: Dutch Flanders in the North and French Wallonia in the South. Leterme informed the country’s head of state, King Albert II, of the situation Dec. 1, and now the country is awaiting a ruling on its future. […]

Update: This afternoon, Guy Verhofstadt, who has been Belgium’s caretaker Prime Minister since the 10 June general elections (which he lost), paid a second emergency visit to King Albert II. Earlier today the King’s suggestion that Mr Verhofstadt be given expanded powers was met with indignation and criticism from leading constitutional experts. Prof. Paul Van Orshoven lambasted the idea during the radio news at noon.

The King has now decided to appoint Mr Verhofstadt as “informateur.” The latter’s task is to inform the King, within a short period of time, about possible ways to solve the Belgian political crisis. The King, who in Belgium has more powers than royalty in other democracies, will then decide what to do. There is, however, no solution to the crisis as long as the French-speaking Wallloon minority keeps vetoing the democratic demand of the Dutch-speaking Flemish majority for more autonomy  and for a restriction of the welfare subsidies which flow from free-market oriented Flanders to socialist-dominated Wallonia. 

Belgian television reports that today, on the 176th day of Belgium’s political crisis, the Belgian king, Albert II of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, has bestowed “urgent” powers, including dealing with “international matters,” on Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt, whose Liberal-Socialist coalition was battered in the general elections on 10 June. This is in violation of the Belgian Constitution which does not provide for extended powers to governments without a parliamentary majority. Probably the European Union authorities in Brussels back this unconstitutional move by the Belgian King. The King, however, has been careful not to make any official announcement after meeting Mr Verhofstadt this morning.

A quote from The Daily Mail, 30 November 2007

A grandfather has been given a prison sentence for racial harassment after calling a Welsh woman “English”. Mick Forsythe used the term during an argument over a scratched car in his Welsh home town. He called the vehicle’s owner, Lorna Steele, an “English bitch”. She and her husband took great offence at the jibe and decided to take him to court. The 55-year-old former lorry driver was found guilty of racially aggravated disorderly behaviour, and received a ten-week prison sentence suspended for 12 months. […]

A quote from The [London] Times, 3 December 2007

“[S]elective sex abortion”, a practice outlawed in India in the 1980s, is still widespread and being used by some women living in England and Wales. Between 1990 and 2005 almost 1,500 fewer girls were born to Indian mothers in England and Wales than would have been expected for that group, researchers say. This represents one in ten girls “missing” from the birth statistics for Indian-born women having their third or fourth child. […]

85% to 90% of the people in Brussels are French-speaking, according to French-speaking politicians and Wikipedia. But is it true? Not so, says Freddy Neyts, a Dutch-speaking citizen from Brussels and husband of former minister Annemie Neyts. He did some calculations based on census data from the Belgian Directorate-General of Statistics (Statbel) and presented them last Tuesday at a debate in Brussels. The result: during the day 44% of the people in Brussels are French-speakers. At night, when commuters and tourists have left, this mounts to 48%. The numbers are summarized in the following table:

A quote from The Sunday Telegraph, 2 December 2007

Only one in five [British primary] schools are planning to perform a traditional nativity play this year. They are now outnumbered by schools that say they will be either putting on a non-religious play, such as Scrooge or Snow White, or giving no performance at all. [...]

On November 29th, 185 citizens filed a joint petition [PDF, in Dutch] with the Belgian Constitutional Court in order to annul newly modified racism and anti-discrimination legislation.

The 185 citizens are men and women of all ages, from all Belgian Regions (to wit, Flanders, Wallonia and Brussels) and representing a broad cross-section of the Belgian population. Among them, there are unemployed persons as well as managers, independent professionals, employees, civil servants, lawyers, students and retirees. A number of petitioners work in the media or publish regularly. One of their chief concerns was the abrogation of free speech by the new legislation.

A quote from Prof. Nathan Alexander at Intellectual Conservative, 3 November 2007

This move towards authoritarianism, Paul Belien argues in his book, […] is also why Belgium, a state in which private interests have historically superseded those of the public, is admired by the unelected bureaucrats who will control the looming European superstate. […]