For all that the article mentions Brexit, it doesn’t really cover it. The press is covered by ITAR regulations (section 2B004) because it’s a dual American-Belgian company and US technology, and therefore requires an export licence.

The US Department if Coomerce delegates the issuing of export licences from Belgium to the three regions: the Brussels-Capital Region, Flanders, and Wallonia.- which is why the government has the power to block it.


HTTPS://www.bis.doc.gov/index.php/do...cessing-1/file

https://www.bis.doc.gov/index.php/al...ol-information

Can't let you get away with including Poirot in that list!

AL 1. Delete ‘motorway’.

A glowing subject nontheless and did not realise we relied on the Flemish helping our nuclear power.

Ze Pill ??? :) interesting and the sex sorry The Sax ....

Last time I was in Belgium was for Sanicole Air Show back 2009 as old mate of mine, shes a VSO in their Land Component invited me over...was invited to her wedding few years later on but couldnt make it.. Interesting that regardless of whether you wanna fly F-16 (soon to be F-35A / A400M/ NH90 or grab an FN rifle and lead a platoon / company / tank battalion or command a small patrol vessel, had to go through their Renaissacelaan (Royal Military Academy) 4 year commissioning course (the cadets split into naval college in final year??) then earn a degree as well as the Kings Commission. I have visited the Renaisscelaan in the mid 1990s....

I was slightly bemused and saddened at the state of the villages with buildings falling apart and not being rebuilt. Even the parking lot at Zaventum International looked like it was falling apart judging by the bricks crumbling.

On a darker note, their law enforcement / gendarmarie have not fared well in the 80s/90s with the Brabant killers and a predator network found uncovered due young girls found-in-the-basement leading to a pretty much internal affairs investigation of a major police station especially their detective division damn near shut down (1995).

On another negative note, their NH90 problems.... beyond that everything is tickety boo

cheers

…
Eddy Merckx
FAL

And street lighting on their autoroutes. i like that.
I was visiting family based in SHAPE recently, I did not notice any bad motorway driving, but then I spent over 5 years driving in France, The Belgians do love their priority to the right though!
For the record the Belgians did not actually invent the Pill, but they were the first to produce one that worked, a chap called Ferdinand Peeters
Other notables:
In 1672, the Flemish Jesuit missionary Ferdinand Verbiest made the first automobile ever. It was a small model that ran on steam and was made for the Chinese Emperor.
A Belgian electrical engineer and inventor Charles Van Depoele invented the electric railway. His first railway was laid in Chicago in 1883
And how about THE BIG BANG What's now known as The Big Bang Theory was presented for the first time in 1927 by a Belgian priest and scientist called Georges Lemaître.

“ And how about THE BIG BANG “

Think that was prior to the Pill.

Stromae.

Glad to see that even with our best effort, it's hard to hate the Belgians! :)

The Stampe SV4

My first powered aircraft solo was under the supervision of a Belgian instructor, does that count as being a worthwhile national attribute?

Better than my first solo in a glider. The RN instructor on that occasion climbed out after I'd just done a winch launch circuit and as he did so he remarked that I was too bloody dangerous for him to fly with so I'd better go off on my own . . .

I remember my first glider solo. I forgot to kick off drift, and veered down the runway at Gaydon in a cloud of smoke.
As I came to a stop the instructor jumped out of his Land Rover and dashed over to me. I started to say that I was fine, but it turned out that he was only interested in the tyre....

I voted leave and one of the reasons was that I lived in Belgium for a year and the bureaucratic mess that Belgium was inspired me never to be part of it by choice. Looks like it hasnt changed.

SABENA (remember them ?). Such A Beastly Experience, Never Again.

Must be something in the water. Families posted to SHAPE endure the same bureaucratic nightmare without even having to engage with the Belgian authorities.

Pax, what did the Romans ever do for us ....................................................

Why don't we buy a Isostatic press from China
 

Why don't we buy a Isostatic press from China.

I am sure they copied the Belgium one years ago.

In the 1980's the Chinese 'borrowed' a lot of US Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) embargoed computers to design fighter aircraft.

I was speaking to Chinese somebody who got out of China in the 1980's who was so impressed by the DEC computers he used in China for fighter development.

He joined DEC.

I always wondered if he was still working for the Chinese government.

If we had Belgium's view in 1914 and then again in 1939 we wouldnt have the problem as there wouldnt be a Belgium