By Staff
Is the end of Belgium near?
That's the kind of foreign story that's important to 10.5 million people who live there, but has trouble penetrating an American news smog driven by Britney, Paris and Lindsay.
Belgium interests me because I visited there.
In fact, we flew into Brussels, now the capital of the European Union, and medieval Brugge was enchanting.
Belgium bears better memories than Germany, Denmark or the Netherlands.
Last year in a hoax that rattled the European nation, a Belgian TV station reported that the Dutch-speaking half of the country declared independence, causing the king and queen to flee.
Four months after June 10 elections, Belgium has no government and efforts to form one are on hold.
Unity appeals by King Albert II have gone ignored. So much for the prestige of a monarchy once hailed as the glue holding this bilingual nation together.
So deadlocked are the Dutch and French-speaking parties over how to proceed that the media and mainstream politicians are bandying about the notion that perhaps a divorce would be preferable.
"I fear it will happen," said Gerard Deprez, a former Christian Democratic leader from French-speaking Wallonia.
Elio di Rupo, the Francophone Socialist leader, said the danger of Belgium disintegrating is greater now than at the time of the elections.
June 10 Christian Democrats and Liberals won 81 of the 150 parliamentary seats and agreed to form a coalition.
But composition of the government stalled in bickering over Flemish demands for more autonomy and redrawing a bilingual Brussels-area voting district.
Dutch-speakers account for 6.5 million Belgians to 4 million Francophones, who have enjoyed broad self-rule since the 1980s. Only Brussels is officially a bilingual region.
Flemish grumble that their wealthier, service-based economy subsidizes the Walloons.
Dutch-speakers disparage the Francophones' dilapidated cities and 14-percent unemployment – double their rate – as the byproduct of Socialist rule.
Dutch-speakers want autonomy in health care, justice and transportation – some of the last bastions of central control from Brussels.
Many feel the next logical step is full independence.
"Living together in one country is impossible if year after year the minority prevents the majority to realize its most important desires," Belgium's largest daily, Het Laatste, opined recently.
A television poll found 46 percent of Flemings leaning toward independence.
Belgium's demise would bring the country, which gained its independence from the Netherlands in 1830, full circle.
Belgium has French-speaking Walloons and Dutch-speaking Flemings – not Belgians.
Its weak national identity is what made the EU attractive.
The U.S. House Oct. 16 strongly backed reporters' right to protect confidentiality of sources in most federal court cases, saying that right is crucial to a free press.
The White House, threatening a veto, said privileges given to reporters "could severely frustrate – and in some cases completely eviscerate – the ability to investigate acts of terrorism or threats to national security."
Source confidentiality is also crucial to such stories as Abu Ghraib, clandestine CIA prisons and shoddy conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
A conservative who co-sponsored the bill, Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., said, "I believe the only check on government power in real time is a free and independent press."
The act, Pence added, "is not about protecting reporters. It's about protecting the public's right to know."
Led Zeppelin's catalog will be available online Nov. 13 and the band, split since drummer John Bonham died in 1980, even signed a separate deal with Verizon Wireless for ring tones.
Only the Beatles are higher-profile holdouts for digital distribution.
More than 1 million Zep fans entered an online drawing for a chance to buy one of 10,000 tickets for a Nov. 26 reunion concert in London with Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones and Bonham's son, Jason.
Doug is the only member of "The Sarah Silverman Program" worthy of a made-up name.
As Silverman's pet in real life, the Chihuahua-pug mix is known as Duck. The rest of the cast includes her real sister Laura, gay neighbors Brian Posehn and Steve Agee and Laura's cop boyfriend Jay Johnston.
Obits: Deborah Kerr, who rolled on a Hawaiian beach locked in a passionate kiss with Burt Lancaster in the 1953 war film "From Here to Eternity," died Oct. 16 at 86 in Suffolk in eastern England.
She was nominated six times for a best actress Oscar. She starred as Anna with Yul Brynner in "The King and I" in 1956.
Joey Bishop, last of the Rat Pack, died Oct. 17 at 89.
The comedian outlived Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Peter Lawford and Sammy Davis Jr.
They appeared together at the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas, in the film "Ocean's Eleven" (remade in 2003 with Brad Pitt and George Clooney) and at President Kennedy's inaugural gala.
On his ABC talk show, started in 1967 as a late-night challenge to Johnny Carson and the "Tonight" show, Bishop's sidekick announcer was Regis Philbin.
Mary Lannoye, 51, state budget director for both Govs. John Engler and Jennifer Granholm, is stepping down as Granholm's chief of staff, which she became in January.
MRSA killing more Americans than AIDS: A dangerous type of staph infection, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, is invasive and resists standard antibiotics.
Jordan had to undergo emergency surgery for it the first weekend in February after his hand swelled up like a red cartoon balloon.
There were 988 reported deaths among infected people in a study reported in the Oct. 17 Journal of the American Medical Association for a rate of 6.3 per 100,000 – equal to 18,650 deaths annually.
AIDS killed 17,011 Americans in 2005.