The Amandine – a Belgian Trawler
17 December 2012 | Places
My recent visit to Belgium was in pursuit of King Leopold II’s Belgian Congo connections in Brussels and Ostend. I was only a few steps out of the Ostend train station when I came upon the Amandine, the last Ostend fishing trawler to operate in Icelandic waters. L...
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Enclaves & Exclaves – Belgium/Netherlands
8 December 2012 | Places
Last year I blogged about visiting the National Library in Canberra, Australia and finding out about enclaves and exclaves along the borders between India and Bangladesh and between Belgium and the Netherlands. While I was in Belgium continuing my pursuit of King Le...
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Dancing in the Glory of Monsters
16 June 2011 | Media
Jason Stearns’ book Dancing in the Glory of Monsters tries to unpick the story of ‘The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa.’ Clearly a near impossible task, because you’re still left fairly bemused at the end how all these events – from the Cold War to t...
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