The annual "week of the fries" in Flanders, a week set aside to celebrate the chip, has been enhanced this year with the addition of "Frietrock", a rock/pop/folk music festival pairing shows by local musical artists along with stalls dishing out friets. The festival runs the final four days of the week of the fries (3-6 December). More information can be found at www.frietrock.be/.

A former employee in the service population in Herve, Liege Province, was fired for not smiling enough. The woman, employed in the town since 2005, had been evaluated in 2007 and 2009 and received high marks. However, the town's deputy mayor said he had received several complaints accusing the woman of not being very friendly. A group trying to restore the woman to her post have created a meeting raising awareness, creating an invitation titled "Smiled or you're fired!".

Fearing their officers had watched too many Hollywood movies and were "reproducing behavior seen on television", police in Charleroi released a memo urging its staff to use more restraint when using their megaphones. Police are urging officers to use megaphones only when controlling crowds or alerting masses of people of an exceptional event (such as floods) but not to use the megaphones during routine traffic stops.

A university professor in Ghent is proposing a sales tax of three cents per liter of soft drinks as a means for Belgium's fight against obesity. Economist Johan Albrecht calculated a surplus of €36 million could be generated from this tax. Reports indicate obesity is far less a problem in Belgium, where 13 percent of the population is deemed overweight, compared to the United States (34 percent). However, Belgian consumption of soft drinks — high in sugar content — has nearly tripled since the early 1980s.

A German hunter specialised in catching big game has been called in to track down the mystery black panther, roaming the forests of Malmedy since September. Heiko Krannich has already attempted to capture the animal by using a baby panther as bait and is now trying to entice her by hanging up freshly-killed deer and poultry close to her container park feeding ground.