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The German chemical company Covestro has announced it will cut 260 of the 976 jobs at its site in Antwerp due to the decline in profitability of polycarbonate production and the need for structural adjustments in an environment of global overcapacity. #emploi #restructuration #industriechimique (translated)

Covestro has announced it will cut 260 jobs at its site in Antwerp, while hundreds of employees are blocking access to the GSK sites in Wavre and Rixensart in protest against the announced layoff of 1,217 employees by the pharmaceutical group. #GSK #protestation #licenciements (translated)

Stefan Willems shared a message from Grégory de Walque, commercial director of car-sharing platform Poppy, about the damage to shared cars in Brussels and Antwerp. De Walque wrote that Poppy had reached its record number of rides on Friday because the metro was not running and thousands of people used the app to get to work. By the end of the day, according to him, eight vehicles had been destroyed, two of which were completely burned out. He wrote that the damage was caused by rioters, not by protesters, and that this was the second time this year for Poppy. In his message, De Walque countered three reactions that he claimed to have often read under videos of the destruction: that shared cars belong to no one, that Poppy is insured, and that a large company would hardly notice a few destroyed cars. He stated that every Poppy is used hundreds of times a year and referred to research from Brussels Mobility, according to which each Poppy replaces 11.5 private cars among regular users. According to De Walque, Poppy was not insured for this kind of damage, and each destroyed car represented a direct loss. The costs of the destruction, he said, were higher than the revenue from Poppy's best day ever. He also wrote that the company had only had one profitable year since its inception and that the fleet consisted of 2,500 cars. De Walque wrote that the team would get the damaged cars back on the road, even during a strike. He asked Brussels, according to him, to help keep the shared cars available. #autodelen #Brussel #mobiliteit (translated)

Lawyer Alex Buelens is locking himself in for 24 hours in the new prison of Antwerp, De Kade, to observe the detention possibilities and reintegration conditions from the inside and thus stimulate a broader debate about the humanity of detention and the conditions for detainees. #Justice #Prison #DignitéHumaine (translated)

The Dutch drug lord Jos Leijdekkers, nicknamed Bolle Jos, is a convicted criminal of 35 years who lives in Sierra Leone and has been sentenced to 103 years in prison in the Netherlands and Belgium, while he is suspected of building a cocaine empire connecting Latin America with the ports of Antwerp and Rotterdam. #Cocaïne #TraficDrogue #SierraLeone (translated)

Frank Peeters wrote that the attack on Filip Dewinter in Antwerp and the chaos and destruction in Antwerp and Brussels during the so-called student protests indicated, in his opinion, a turning point. He stated that the government no longer had control over the situation and that a total civil war had become possible in Belgium, just like in other Western European countries. Peeters wrote that EU migration policy had made this possible and called for a departure from the EU. #exitEU #Antwerpen #burgeroorlog #EU (translated)

Denkewel commemorated the Fall of Antwerp in 1914. He wrote that the Schlieffen Plan became bogged down, after which the British expeditionary force and Antwerp came into view. Heavy artillery, including the Dicke Bertha, forced the Belgians into a strategic retreat, according to him. https://t.co/Js8wFhTTfH #ValVanAntwerpen #geschiedenis #België (translated)

The author argued that only a hard approach would pay off and wrote that the Vlaams Belang had cleared the way for a zero-tolerance policy in Antwerp. According to the author, a stricter policy was long overdue, as the situation had been allowed to escalate too much, and it was time for law and order. https://t.co/w1xoepfr1r #Antwerpen #recht #orde #BE (translated)

The author wrote that the Antwerp police wanted to deploy 1000 officers on New Year's Eve to deter rioters with 'Operation Nemesis'. According to the author, the name referred to the Greek goddess of righteous vengeance. The author described the approach as 'controlled intimidation' and wrote that Vlaams Belang had been asking for this for years. The message ended with the unfinished words: "Let's show who." #Antwerpen #Oudejaar #Veiligheid #BE #GR (translated)