Twenty-five police officers turned out to break up a fight between 300 scouts and a wedding party in Zaventem at 2.00 on April 18. One person was hospitalised. The trouble started when wedding guests started mingling with the scouts who were staying in a church hall opposite the venue.

Walloon casinos and associated taxes have gone unsupervised since January 1 because of a bungled transfer of powers from the federal tax ministry to the Walloon Region. Sixty-five tax agents have been twiddling their thumbs since the transfer because the necessary paperwork has not been signed. The offices meant to receive half the agents are without computer software. The rest of the agents were meant to be placed in existing departments but these have no space for the newcomers.

Brussels is the most congested city in Europe, according to a study by navigation equipment producers TomTom. The capital came top in the study reviewing 60 European cities. Brussels Secretary of State for Mobility Bruno De Lille took the opportunity to stress that urgent measures need to be taken including congestion charging and finalising the regional express train network.

A Brussels judge ruled that using English computer lingo in official court documents went against the country’s strict language legislation. Court cases in Brussels must be conducted in either French or Dutch, according to the law. Google successfully moved to get a defamation case thrown out last week because of the appearance of words like ‘blog’, ‘blogspot’, ‘user id’ and ‘host address’ in the case documentation.

A thief was sentenced to 200 hours of community work and a €1,100 fine for stealing drugs from the disused former Antwerp Justice Palace. Around 166 ecstasy pills, 1.5kg of hash and 30 grams of cocaine were left behind at the Palace when evidence was transferred to the new courthouse, according to the court clerk.