title: Lesch–Nyhan syndrome

text: Importantly, evidence suggests that one or more lesions in striatal dopaminergic pathways may be central to the neurological deficits, especially the choreoathetoid dyskinesia and self-mutilation. 6-hydroxydopamine toxicity in rodents may be a useful animal model for the syndrome, although this is not proven.


title: Lesch–Nyhan syndrome

text: However, the link between dopamine and purine synthesis is a nucleotide called guanosine triphosphate or 'GTP'. The first step of dopamine synthesis is GTP cyclohydrolase, and significantly a deficiency of this step produces a syndrome that has a neuropathology similar to LNS. Thus a lack of HGPRT may produce a "nucleotide deficiency" (specifically: GTP deficiency) disorder, resulting in dopamine deficiency.


title: Lesch–Nyhan syndrome

text: Another animal model for LNS has been proposed to arise from oxidative damage, caused by the hyperuricemia accompanying LNS. This is based on the theory that uric acid is a powerful reducing agent and likely an important human antioxidant, in high concentration in blood. Thus, it has been suggested that free radicals, oxidative stress, and reactive oxygen species may play some role in the neuropathology of LNS.


title: Lesch–Nyhan syndrome

text: However, some evidence suggests against a role for uric acid in the neuropathology of Lesch–Nyhan syndrome:


title: Lesch–Nyhan syndrome

text: Similarly, uric acid does not penetrate the blood–brain barrier well. However, oxidative stress due to uric acid is now thought to figure in metabolic syndrome, atherosclerosis, and stroke, all syndromes associated with high uric acid levels. Similarly, Superoxide dismutase ( "SOD" ) and SOD-mimetics such as TEMPOL ameliorate the effects of hyperuricemia. Likewise, 6-hydroxydopamine (the putative animal model for Lesch–Nyhan's neuropathy) apparently acts as a neurotoxin by generation of reactive oxygen species. It may be that oxidative stress induced by some other oxypurine such as xanthine causes the disease.


title: Lesch–Nyhan syndrome

text: When an affected individual has fully developed the three clinical elements of uric acid overproduction, neurologic dysfunction, and cognitive and behavioral disturbances, diagnosis of LNS is easily made. Diagnosis is less easy in the early stages, when the three features are not yet obvious. Signs of self-injurious behavior (SIB), results of pedigree analysis and novel molecular biology with genetic testing (called as Diagnostic triad for LNS), often confirms the diagnosis. Suspicion often comes about when the developmental delay of the individual is associated with hyperuricemia. Otherwise, the diagnosis should be alleged when developmental delay is associated with kidney stones (nephrolithiasis) or blood in the urine (hematuria), caused by uric acid stones. For the most part, Lesch–Nyhan syndrome is first suspected when self-inflicted injury behavior develops. However, self-injurious behaviors occur in other conditions, including nonspecific intellectual disability, autism, Rett syndrome, Cornelia de Lange syndrome, Tourette syndrome, familial dysautonomia, choreoacanthocytosis, sensory neuropathy including hereditary sensory neuropathy type 1, and several psychiatric conditions. Of these, only individuals with Lesch–Nyhan syndrome, de Lange syndrome, and familial dysautonomia recurrently display loss of tissue as a consequence. Biting the fingers and lips is a definitive feature of Lesch–Nyhan syndrome; in other syndromes associated with self-injury, the behaviors usually consist of head banging and nonspecific self-mutilation, but not biting of the cheeks, lips and fingers. Lesch–Nyhan syndrome ought to be clearly considered only when self-injurious behavior takes place in conjunction with hyperuricemia and neurological dysfunction.


title: Lesch–Nyhan syndrome

text: The urate to creatinine (breakdown product of creatine phosphate in muscle) concentration ratio in urine is elevated. This is a good indicator of acid overproduction. For children under ten years of age with LNS, a urate to creatinine ratio above two is typically found. Twenty-four-hour urate excretion of more than 20 mg/kg is also typical but is not diagnostic. Hyperuricemia (serum uric acid concentration of >8 mg/dL) is often present but not reliable enough for diagnosis. Activity of the HGPRT enzyme in cells from any type of tissue (e.g., blood, cultured fibroblasts, or lymphoblasts) that is less than 1.5% of normal enzyme activity confirms the diagnosis of Lesch–Nyhan syndrome. Molecular genetic studies of the HPRT gene mutations may confirm diagnosis, and are particularly helpful for subsequent 'carrier testing' in at-risk females such as close family relatives on the female side.


title: Lesch–Nyhan syndrome

text: The use of biochemical testing for the detection of carriers is technically demanding and not often used. Biochemical analyses that have been performed on hair bulbs from at risk women have had a small number of both false positive and false negative outcomes. If only a suspected carrier female is available for mutation testing, it may be appropriate to grow her lymphocytes in 6-thioguanine (a purine analogue), which allows only HGPRT-deficient cells to survive. A mutant frequency of 0.5–5.0 × 10 is found in carrier females, while a non-carrier female has a frequency of 1–20 × 10. This frequency is usually diagnostic by itself.


title: Lesch–Nyhan syndrome

text: Molecular genetic testing is the most effective method of testing, as HPRT1 is the only gene known to be associated with LNS. Individuals who display the full Lesch–Nyhan phenotype all have mutations in the HPRT1 gene. Sequence analysis of mRNA is available clinically and can be utilized in order to detect HPRT1 mutations in males affected with Lesch–Nyhan syndrome. Techniques such as RT-PCR, multiplex genomic PCR, and sequence analysis (cDNA and genomic DNA), used for the diagnosis of genetic diseases, are performed on a research basis. If RT-PCR tests result in cDNA showing the absence of an entire exon or exons, then multiplex genomic PCR testing is performed. Multiplex genomic PCR testing amplifies the nine exons of the HPRT1 gene as eight PCR products. If the exon in question is deleted, the corresponding band will be missing from the multiplex PCR. However, if the exon is present, the exon is sequenced to identify the mutation, therefore causing exclusion of the exon from cDNA. If no cDNA is created by RT-PCR, then multiplex PCR is performed on the notion that most or all of the gene is obliterated.


title: Lesch–Nyhan syndrome

text: Treatment for LNS is symptomatic. Gout can be treated with allopurinol to control excessive amounts of uric acid. Kidney stones may be treated with lithotripsy, a technique for breaking up kidney stones using shock waves or laser beams. There is no standard treatment for the neurological symptoms of LNS. Some may be relieved with the drugs carbidopa/levodopa, diazepam, phenobarbital, or haloperidol.


title: Lesch–Nyhan syndrome

text: It is essential that the overproduction of uric acid be controlled in order to reduce the risk of nephropathy, nephrolithiasis, and gouty arthritis. The drug allopurinol is utilized to stop the conversion of oxypurines into uric acid, and prevent the development of subsequent arthritic tophi (produced after having chronic gout), kidney stones, and nephropathy, the resulting kidney disease. Allopurinol is taken orally, at a typical dose of 3–20 mg/kg per day. The dose is then adjusted to bring the uric acid level down into the normal range (<3 mg/dL). Most affected individuals can be treated with allopurinol all through life.


title: Lesch–Nyhan syndrome

text: No medication is effective in controlling the extrapyramidal motor features of the disease. Spasticity, however, can be reduced by the administration of baclofen or benzodiazepines.


title: Lesch–Nyhan syndrome

text: There has previously been no effective method of treatment for the neurobehavioral aspects of the disease. Even children treated from birth with allopurinol develop behavioral and neurologic problems, despite never having had high serum concentrations of uric acid. Self-injurious and other behaviors are best managed by a combination of medical, physical, and behavioral interventions. The self-mutilation is often reduced by using restraints. Sixty percent of individuals have their teeth extracted in order to avoid self-injury, which families have found to be an effective management technique. Because stress increases self-injury, behavioral management through aversive techniques (which would normally reduce self-injury) actually increases self-injury in individuals with LNS. Nearly all affected individuals need restraints to prevent self-injury, and are restrained more than 75% of the time. This is often at their own request, and occasionally involves restraints that would appear to be ineffective, as they do not physically prevent biting. Families report that affected individuals are more at ease when restrained.


title: Lesch–Nyhan syndrome

text: The Matheny Medical and Educational Center in Peapack, NJ, has six Lesch–Nyhan syndrome patients, believed to be the largest concentration of LNS cases in one location, and is recognized as the leading source of information on care issues.


title: Lesch–Nyhan syndrome

text: Treatment for LNS patients, according to Gary E. Eddey, MD, medical director, should include: 1) Judicious use of protective devices; 2) Utilization of a behavioral technique commonly referred to as 'selective ignoring' with redirection of activities; and 3) Occasional use of medications.


title: Lesch–Nyhan syndrome

text: An article in the August 13, 2007 issue of "The New Yorker" magazine, written by Richard Preston, discusses "deep-brain stimulation" as a possible treatment. It has been performed on a few patients with Lesch–Nyhan syndrome by Dr. Takaomi Taira in Tokyo and by a group in France led by Dr. Philippe Coubes. Some patients experienced a decrease in spastic self-injurious symptoms. The technique was developed for treating people with Parkinson's disease, according to Preston, over 20 years ago. The treatment involves invasive surgery to place wires that carry a continuous electric current into a specific region of the brain.


title: Lesch–Nyhan syndrome

text: An encouraging advance in the treatment of the neurobehavioural aspects of LNS was the publication in the October, 2006 issue of "Journal of Inherited Metabolic Disease" of an experimental therapy giving oral S-adenosyl-methionine (SAMe).


title: Lesch–Nyhan syndrome

text: This drug is a nucleotide precursor that provides a readily absorbed purine, which is known to be transported across the blood–brain barrier. Administration of SAMe to adult LNS patients was shown to provide improvement in neurobehavioural and other neurological attributes. The drug is available without prescription and has been widely used for depression, but its use for treating LNS should be undertaken only under strict medical supervision, as side effects are known.


title: Lesch–Nyhan syndrome

text: The prognosis for individuals with severe LNS is poor. Death is usually due to kidney failure or complications from hypotonia, in the first or second decade of life. Less severe forms have better prognosis.


title: Lesch–Nyhan syndrome

text: Michael Lesch was a medical student at Johns Hopkins and William Nyhan, a pediatrician and biochemical geneticist, was his mentor when the two identified LNS and its associated hyperuricemia in two affected brothers, ages 4 and 8. Lesch and Nyhan published their findings in 1964. Within three years, the metabolic cause was identified by J. Edwin Seegmiller and his colleagues at the NIH.


title: Wastewater

text: Wastewater is water generated after the use of freshwater, raw water, drinking water or saline water in a variety of deliberate applications or processes. Another definition of wastewater is "Used water from any combination of domestic, industrial, commercial or agricultural activities, surface runoff / storm water, and any sewer inflow or sewer infiltration". In everyday usage, wastewater is commonly a synonym for sewage (also called sewerage, domestic wastewater, or municipal wastewater), which is wastewater that is produced by a community of people.


title: Wastewater

text: As a generic term wastewater may also be used to describe water containing contaminants accumulated in other settings, such as:


title: Ecclesiology

text: In Christian theology, ecclesiology is the study of the Church, the origins of Christianity, its relationship to Jesus, its role in salvation, its polity, its discipline, its eschatology, and its leadership.


title: Ecclesiology

text: In its early history, one of the Church's primary ecclesiological issues had to do with the status of Gentile members in what had become the New Testament fulfilment of the essentially Jewish Old Testament church. It later contended with such questions as whether it was to be governed by a council of presbyters or a single bishop, how much authority the bishop of Rome had over other major bishops, the role of the Church in the world, whether salvation was possible outside of the institution of the Church, the relationship between the Church and the State, and questions of theology and liturgy and other issues. Ecclesiology may be used in the specific sense of a particular church or denomination's character, self-described or otherwise. This is the sense of the word in such phrases as Catholic ecclesiology, Protestant ecclesiology, and ecumenical ecclesiology.


title: Ecclesiology

text: The word "ecclesiology" was defined in the 19th century as the science of the building and decoration of church buildings and is still used in that sense in the context of architectural history.


title: Ecclesiology

text: The roots of the word "ecclesiology" come from the Greek , "ekklēsia" (Latin: "ecclesia") meaning "congregation, church" and , "-logia", meaning "words", "knowledge", or "logic", a combining term used in the names of sciences or bodies of knowledge.


title: Ecclesiology

text: The similar word "ecclesialogy "first appeared in the quarterly journal "The British Critic" in 1837, in an article written by an anonymous contributor who defined it thus:


title: Ecclesiology

text: However, in volume 4 of the Cambridge Camden Society's journal "The Ecclesiologist", published in January 1845, that society (the CCS) claimed that they had invented the word "ecclesiology":


title: Ecclesiology

text: "The Ecclesiologist" was first published in October 1841 and dealt with the study of the building and decoration of churches. It particularly encouraged the restoration of Anglican churches back to their supposed Gothic splendour and it was at the centre of the wave of Victorian restoration that spread across England and Wales in the second half of the 19th century. Its successor "Ecclesiology Today" is still, , being published by The Ecclesiological Society (successor to the CCS, now a registered charity).


title: Ecclesiology

text: The situation regarding the etymology has been summed up by Alister McGrath: "'Ecclesiology' is a term that has changed its meaning in recent theology. Formerly the science of the building and decoration of churches, promoted by the Cambridge Camden Society, the Ecclesiological Society and the journal The Ecclesiologist, ecclesiology now stands for the study of the nature of the Christian church."


title: Ecclesiology

text: Catholic ecclesiology today has a plurality of models and views, as with all Catholic Theology since the acceptance of scholarly Biblical criticism that began in the early to mid 20th century. This shift is most clearly marked by the encyclical "Divino afflante Spiritu" in 1943. Avery Robert Cardinal Dulles, S.J. contributed greatly to the use of models in understanding ecclesiology. In his work Models of the Church, he defines five basic models of Church that have been prevalent throughout the history of the Catholic Church. These include models of the Church as institution, as mystical communion, as sacrament, as herald, and as servant.


title: Ecclesiology

text: The ecclesiological model of Church as an Institution holds that the Catholic Church alone is the "one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church", and is the only Church of divine and apostolic origin led by the Pope. This view of the Church is dogmatically defined Catholic doctrine, and is therefore "de fide". In this view, the Catholic Church— composed of all baptized, professing Catholics, both clergy and laity—is the unified, visible society founded by Christ himself, and its hierarchy derives its spiritual authority through the centuries, via apostolic succession of its bishops, most especially through the bishop of Rome (the Pope) whose successorship comes from St. Peter the Apostle, to whom Christ gave "the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven". Thus, the Popes, in the Catholic view, have a God-ordained universal jurisdiction over the whole Church on earth. The Catholic Church is considered Christ's mystical body, and the universal sacrament of salvation, whereby Christ enables human to receive sanctifying grace.


title: Ecclesiology

text: The model of Church as Mystical Communion draws on two major Biblical images, the first of the "Mystical Body of Christ" (as developed in Paul's Epistles) and the second of the "People of God." This image goes beyond the Aristotelian-Scholastic model of ""Communitas Perfecta"" held in previous centuries. This ecclesiological model draws upon sociology and articulations of two types of social relationships: a formally organized or structured society (Gesellschaft) and an informal or interpersonal community (Gemeinschaft). The Catholic theologian Arnold Rademacher maintained that the Church in its inner core is community (Gemeinschaft) and in its outer core society (Gesellschaft). Here, the interpersonal aspect of the Church is given primacy and that the structured Church is the result of a real community of believers. Similarly, Yves Congar argued that the ultimate reality of the Church is a fellowship of persons. This ecclesiology opens itself to ecumenism and was the prevailing model used by the Second Vatican Council in its ecumenical efforts. The Council, using this model, recognized in its document "Lumen gentium" that the Body of Christ subsists in a visible society governed by the Successor of Peter and by the Bishops in communion with him, although many elements of sanctification and of truth are found outside its visible structure.


title: Ecclesiology

text: From the Eastern Orthodox perspective, the Church is one, even though it is manifested in many places. Eastern Orthodox ecclesiology operates with a plurality in unity and a unity in plurality. For Eastern Orthodoxy there is no 'either / or' between the one and the many. No attempt is made to subordinate the many to the one (the Roman Catholic model), nor the one to the many (the Protestant model). In this view, it is both canonically and theologically correct to speak of the Church and the churches, and vice versa. Historically, that ecclesiological concept was applied in practice as patriarchal pentarchy, embodied in ecclesiastical unity of five major patriarchal thrones (Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem).


title: Ecclesiology

text: There is disagreement between the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople and the Patriarchate of Moscow on the question of separation between ecclesiological and theological primacy and separation of the different ecclesiological levels:


title: Ecclesiology

text: Historical development of the Church of the East outside the political borders of the Late Roman Empire and its eastern successor, the Byzantine Empire, resulted in the creation of its distinctive theological and ecclesiological traditions, regarding not only the questions of internal institutional and administrative organization of the Church, but also the questions of universal ecclesiastical order.


title: Ecclesiology

text: Martin Luther argued that because the Catholic Church had "lost sight of the doctrine of grace", it had "lost its claim to be considered as the authentic Christian church". This argument was open to the counter-criticism from Catholics that he was thus guilty of schism and the heresy of Donatism, and in both cases therefore opposing central teachings of the early Church and most especially the Church father St. Augustine of Hippo. It also challenged the Catholic doctrine that the Catholic Church was indefectible and infallible in its dogmatic teachings.


title: Ecclesiology

text: There is no single "Radical Reformation Ecclesiology". A variety of views is expressed among the various "Radical Reformation" participants.


title: Ecclesiology

text: This was in direct contrast to the hierarchical, sacramental ecclesiology that characterised the incumbent Roman Catholic tradition as well as the new Lutheran and other prominent Protestant movements of the Reformation.


title: Ecclesiology

text: Some other Radical Reformation ecclesiology holds that "the true church [is] in heaven, and no institution of any kind on earth merit[s] the name 'church of God.'"


title: Partition of Belgium

text: The partition of Belgium is a hypothetical situation, which has been discussed by both Belgian and international media, envisioning a split of Belgium along linguistic divisions, with the Flemish Community (Flanders) and the French-speaking Community (Wallonia) becoming independent states. Alternatively, it is hypothesized that Flanders could join the Netherlands (Greater Netherlands movement) and Wallonia could join France (Rattachist movement) or Luxembourg.


title: Partition of Belgium

text: Complicating questions of partition are the status in a partitioned Belgium of Brussels (an autonomous bilingual region, geographically located in the Flemish half of the country) and the minority German-speaking Community.


title: Partition of Belgium

text: The territories corresponding to the modern Belgian, Dutch and Luxembourgish states are collectively called the Low Countries. They emerged at the end of the Middle Ages as a set of more or less independent fiefdoms loosely linked to the Kingdom of France and the Holy Roman Empire. The southern part of this region—the Southern Netherlands, the Prince-Bishopric of Liège, the Imperial Abbey of Stavelot-Malmedy and the Duchy of Bouillon—was partitioned both politically into many fiefdoms, and linguistically into the Romanic and Germanic Sprachräume. The feudal borders did not match the linguistic borders, and some fiefdoms were divided into Francophone and Germanic regions. However, the ruling aristocracy, which usually spoke languages other than the population, did not much bother about these language-related disparities. After the 1581 secession of the Dutch Republic in the northern Low Countries, French progressively emerged in the Southern Netherlands under the influence of the Habsburg nobility and, later, of the French invasions, as the upper class language, not only at the court but also in the administration and in the political circles.


title: Partition of Belgium

text: Antagonism between speakers of French and Dutch increased after the independence of Belgium in 1830, when residents of the Southern Netherlands rebelled against the newfound hegemony of the northern provinces of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands. Major European powers were divided in opinion over the fallout of the revolution. Ultimately, the state of Belgium, composed of provinces of both French-speaking and Dutch-speaking people, gained independence as a buffer state between France and the Netherlands. French became the sole official language. Dutch speakers demanded equal rights beginning in the late 19th century, but these were only introduced gradually throughout the 20th century. While postage stamps became bilingual in 1893, it was not until 1967 that an official Dutch version of the Constitution was accepted. Since independence, socio-economic imbalances have fueled resentment between the two communities.


title: Partition of Belgium

text: Since the 1960s, separate regions have been created based on the country's linguistic division. As a result, minorities in certain areas (in and around Brussels and along the language border) claim to be disenfranchised in local government and services. Along with the usual left–right political division, there is also a linguistic division, causing a double party system which complicates coalition creation on the national level. The crisis over the formation of a coalition government in the aftermath of the 2007 elections, coupled with the unsolved problem of the Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde electoral district and the rise of extremist political parties, has given a fresh impetus to the issue, with recent opinion polls showing sizable support for a partition. However, support for a unified state remains among the majority of Belgium's people. Unitarists claim that the monarchy, strong national institutions, and the geopolitical importance of the linguistically and ethnically mixed Brussels serve as unifying elements, while separatists rather claim these factors (and the considerable state debt) serve merely as obstacles to an inevitable partition. Some political observers have suggested that a possible partition of Belgium may be a blow to the European Union model of diverse cultures working together.


title: Partition of Belgium

text: According to a 2019 opinion poll by the Flemish newspaper Het Belang van Limburg, 28.4% of the population supports a partition of Belgium whereas 62.7% opposes it; the remaining 8.8% having no opinion; ignoring those without opinion, this would leave 31.2% in favour and 68.8% opposed to partition. However, the opinion poll was limited to the Flemish province of Limburg, which is considered somewhat less Flemish nationalist, especially compared to Antwerp Province.


title: Partition of Belgium

text: As no census exists, there are no official statistics on Belgium's three official languages or their dialects. Various criteria, including the language(s) of parents, of education, or the second-language status of foreign born, may affect suggested figures. An estimated 59% of the Belgian population speaks Dutch (often colloquially referred to as "Flemish"), and French is spoken by 40%. Total Dutch speakers number 6.23 million, concentrated in the northern Flanders region, while French speakers comprise 3.32 million in Wallonia and an estimated 870,000 (85%) of the officially bilingual Brussels-Capital Region. The German-speaking Community is made up of 73,000 people in the east of Wallonia; around 10,000 German and 60,000 Belgian nationals are speakers of German. Roughly 23,000 more German speakers live in municipalities near the official Community.


title: Partition of Belgium

text: The Capital Region having bilingual status obliges its authorities to attend to people and organisations in French or Dutch language as these prefer, and to show street names in both languages on the plates, but does not allow a bilingual school as education belongs to either the French Community or the Flemish one. Geographically, it is an enclave in the Flemish Region, though near Wallonia. Constitutionally, it is a politically distinct Region, while within its boundaries both the Flemish and French Communities exercise their authority. Historically, the local language of Brussels was Dutch, and Dutch remained the vernacular language of a majority of inhabitants until around 1950.


title: Partition of Belgium

text: Dutch is mainly spoken by approximately 150,000 residents, or a 15% minority, at most. The city has strong economic ties with surrounding Flanders, and many Dutch-speakers commute to Brussels for work; but, at the same time, the expanding suburbs of Brussels led to a majority of French-speakers in six Flemish villages.


title: Partition of Belgium

text: The territory of Belgium is the southern part of the historical region called Low Countries. The Low Countries emerged at the end of the Middle Ages as a very loose political confederation of fiefdoms ruled in personal union by the House of Habsburg: the Seventeen Provinces. The largest components of this union were the Duchy of Brabant, the County of Flanders, the County of Hainaut and the Duchy of Luxembourg. The Prince-Bishopric of Liège was almost an enclave within the Seventeen Provinces. The prince-bishopric was not formally included in the Habsburgs' dominion but was, since the time of Emperor Charles V, strongly influenced by its Habsburg neighbors. The border which emerged after the Dutch Revolt and the Eighty Years' War split the Seventeen Provinces into the Dutch Republic and the Spanish Netherlands. In particular Brabant and Flanders were divided into northern and southern components. Though the fiefdoms constituting the Southern Netherlands were more or less ruled by a single reigning House, they were all quite distinct. Different traditions and dialects of Dutch and Walloon appeared. Within the largest fiefdoms like Liège, Flanders and Luxembourg, several distinct languages and dialects were in use.


title: Partition of Belgium

text: The feudal borders partitioning Belgium during the Ancien Régime have nothing in common with the partitioning lines which currently separate the Belgian federal entities. The French disbanded these feudal entities and replaced them with departments during the French occupation from 1794 to 1815. The new entities or departments mirrored, approximately, the language border. For instance the new division separated the bilingual kernel of the Prince-Bishopric of Liège into two more or less monolingual regions. The only major exceptions were the bilingual Dyle and Forêts departments. The departments would eventually become the provinces of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands and later on of Belgium. The name of the provinces were inspired by the roughly corresponding medieval fiefdoms. In particular, the Dyle department became the province of Brabant, that is the most southern part of the older duchy of Brabant.


title: Partition of Belgium

text: In 1815, the territory now constituting Belgium was incorporated into the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, which had been created to rehabilitate and consolidate the former Seventeen Provinces and serve as a buffer against any expansionist ambitions of France. However, this placed the Catholic Belgian provinces, including French-speaking Wallonia, under Dutch-majority rule and a Calvinist Dutch king. The Belgians had little influence over their lives and resented Dutch control and domination over economic, political and social institutions, sentiment that culminated in revolution in 1830.


title: Partition of Belgium

text: Major European powers (which included France, Prussia and the United Kingdom) were divided over their response to the revolution of the Belgian people against the Dutch royal authorities. France favored the secession of Belgium from the Netherlands, hoping to annex all or at least part of the area, which was also the aim of most of the Belgian insurgents. After this proposal had been rejected by the other European powers, which supported the continued union of the Netherlands, Charles de Flahaut, a French diplomat, proposed a partition of the Southern Netherlands (most areas of modern Belgium). To this end, the parts of the provinces of Liège, of Limburg and of Namur east of the Meuse river as well as the cities of Maastricht and Liège and the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg would go to Prussia. Part of the province of East Flanders, nearly all of the province of Brabant, the province of Hainaut and the province of Namur west of the Meuse would be assigned to France. The province of Antwerp—except the city of Antwerp itself—and the province of Limburg, west of the Meuse river—except Maastricht—would remain with the Netherlands, as would a small part of the province of Brabant, the former Oranje Lordship of Diest. West Flanders, most of East Flanders, including Zeelandic Flanders, and the city of Antwerp were to form the Free State of Antwerp, under British protection.


title: Partition of Belgium

text: However, this plan was rejected as absurd by the French ambassador to the United Kingdom, Talleyrand, who cited the danger posed by a British base on the European mainland. Belgium was subsequently established as an independent Kingdom. According to Flemish and Walloon nationalists, it was established as a ‘buffer state’ to check the ambitions of France. Wallonia and Flanders did not exist in 1830. The National Congress of the Kingdom chose a German prince, Leopold I of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, as the Head of State. A historian of the Belgian revolution said that "in Belgium, there are parties and provinces, but no nation. Like a tent erected for one night, the new monarchy, after sheltering us from the tempest, will disappear without a trace." This opinion is however not shared by the overwhelming majority of historians.


title: Partition of Belgium

text: The language border separating the Germanic and Romance "Sprachräume" moved over the centuries which preceded the establishment of the Belgian state over an area between the Ardennes and the more or less straight line going from Aachen to Calais on the one hand and the much less populated frontier from Aachen to Arlon via Malmedy. However, this frontier has not much changed since the 18th century. For example, in the communes of Mouscron and Comines-Warneton, French seems to be dominant at least since 1761. The frontier splitting the older province of Brabant and the Hesbaye moved regularly during the 17th and 18th centuries. Some communes, such as Hélécine, switched from Dutch to French and others, such as Herstappe, switched from French to Dutch. The Voeren have a long Flemish tradition and, in the Land of Herve, several communes which used to use Germanic dialects switched to French during the 18th century, as for example, Berneau and Warsage, both now part of Dalhem and Saint-Jean-Sart, a hamlet of Aubel.


title: Partition of Belgium

text: Prior to the 20th century, this language border did not merely distinguish speakers of Belgian French, standard Dutch and standard German, as today, but between Romance and Germanic dialect continua. The Germanic "Sprachraum" was made of different components such as West Flemish, East Flemish, Brabantic, Limburgish, Ripuarian (transitional dialects between Limbourgish and Ripuarian are called Low Dietsch), Moselle Franconian dialect of Trier and Luxembourgish. The Romance sprachraum was made of Picard, Walloon (with four distinct dialects around the cities of Charleroi, Namur, Liège and Bastogne), Lorrain and Champenois. Due to mass education and the expansion of modern media such as television, the mid-20th century saw a uniformization of the different language regions, leading to the domination of the standard languages in their respective domains. In Wallonia, French became the dominant, priority language (local dialects being seldom used). Elsewhere in the Low Countries, the local dialects survived better, at least in private use.


title: Partition of Belgium

text: The historical language border in the Low Countries corresponds to the frontier between populations whose majorities spoke distinct languages. However, the ruling upper classes most often spoke French. As was the case in many European noble courts, French was historically the nobility's language. This was also the case most of the rest of the Low Countries. Several sovereigns of the region, notably including Maria Theresa of Austria, succeeded in making French not only the language of the court but also of their administrations. For instance, while the major part of the population of Luxembourg speaks Luxembourgish in a private context, the administrative language of Luxembourg is French. As another example, the motto of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is the French phrase: "Je maintiendrai", because the language of the Orange-Nassau reigning family was French until 1890. In Flanders, until the beginning of the 20th century, many upper class Flemish burghers, such as Maurice Maeterlinck or Suzanne Lilar, used French as their first language. Another example is the University of Ghent which was a French-speaking institution until 1930.


title: Partition of Belgium

text: The language areas were established in 1963. The division into language areas was included into the Belgian Constitution in 1970. The border between the language areas is the so-called Belgian language or linguistic border. It is based on the actual language border between the sprachräume but is not utterly identical. Through constitutional reforms in the 1970s and 1980s, regionalisation of the unitary state led to a three-tiered federation: federal, regional, and community governments were created, a compromise designed to minimize linguistic, cultural, social and economic tensions. The authority of the Regions and Communities is limited to some language areas:


title: Partition of Belgium

text: This territorial issue, in particular around Brussels, is a source of tension between the Belgian communities.


title: Partition of Belgium

text: Currents of Belgian nationalism began to emerge in the late 19th century, seeking to overcome the ethnic and linguistic divide and create a national culture. Historian Henri Pirenne asserted that Belgian identity was not defined on racial, ethnic or linguistic lines, but in the civilizational community of the Belgian people. Supporters of a partition of Belgium argue that the synchronized attempts to forge a national identity and culture have been unable to forestall ethno-linguistic rivalries.


title: Partition of Belgium

text: French was the only official language of Belgium until 1898, even though Flanders was and still is predominantly Dutch-speaking. The government's long refusal to acknowledge Dutch as an official language led to hostilities between Flanders and the French-speaking bourgeoisie who held both political and economic power. These hostilities gave rise to the Flemish movement, which began as a literary and cultural organization, but later became a political movement that called for legal recognition of Dutch and for social emancipation of the Flemish people. The 1898 Equality Law made Dutch an official language of Belgium, but it did not become the sole official language of Flanders until 1921. The Frenchification of Brussels was at that time in full expansion. To this day, French remains the language of the aristocracy.


title: Partition of Belgium

text: While a Walloon industrial and mining base developed during the 19th century, the largely agrarian Flanders area trailed in socio-economic development, leading to widespread demands for regional autonomy and the correction of imbalances in taxation, social services, and representation. The deterioration of the Walloon industrial base in the late 20th century occurred parallel to the growth of service and technological industries in Flanders, aggravating socio-economic tensions. Modern Fleming demands center over the alleged over-taxation of Flanders and insufficient autonomy and complaints over the concentration of social services in Wallonia, causing a so-called "stream of money" from Flanders to Wallonia. The Flemish movement has inspired the growth of Flemish nationalist political parties such as the Volksunie (People's Union) which split into different parties including the Vlaams Blok (succeeded by the Vlaams Belang), the New Flemish Alliance (N-VA) and FlemishProgressives. While the N-VA seeks greater autonomy and favours the independence of Flanders, possibly in a confederate state, the Vlaams Belang is more clearly separatist.


title: Partition of Belgium

text: The Walloon movement arose in the 19th century along with the language disputes; French-speakers sought the preservation of the French language and culture as the defining creed of the country. French-speaking politicians (who were sometimes elected in Flanders) and other influential citizens opposed the Flemish demands for the recognition of Dutch and wished to maintain a centralized government to prevent regionalization. On the other hand, the Walloon politician Jules Destrée reacted in 1912 to the process of minorisation of Wallonia and asked explicitly for a splitting of Belgium along linguistic lines. However, Destrée was using the word "separation" in French in the sense of federalization (), and not in the sense of complete partition. "The New York Times" explained that Destrée was afraid of the domination of the Flemings within Belgian institutions.


title: Partition of Belgium

text: The Flemish historian Maarten van Ginderachter wrote that the Walloons were "excluded from the national power, between 1884 and 1902 there was only one Walloon in the Belgian government at any time".


title: Partition of Belgium

text: After the division of Belgium into two clearly separate linguistic areas, and after the economic decline of Wallonia, two more or less separate currents have formed. One is a more regional Walloon movement, demanding to maintain the solidarity between the richer north and the poorer south, but also increasingly stressing the separate cultural identity of Wallonia. Another current is merely Francophone and pro-Belgian, but not regional as such, mainly based on the French-speakers of Brussels and especially of the surrounding rim municipalities which are effectively suburbs of Brussels but situated in Flanders. The two movements have in common the support of the French language, support of the Belgian state and opposition to further federal devolution. A minority of Walloons, however, support increased independence. Flemish nationalists have claimed that the French-speaking "Belgicists" of Brussels and its suburbs do not have common interests with the Walloons, but that these two parties have formed a quid-pro-quo alliance to oppose the Dutch-speaking majority. According to this analysis, Walloon politicians would allegedly give political support to the French-speaking politicians of Brussels (and its surroundings) in return for receiving economic support to Wallonia.


title: Partition of Belgium

text: Since the 1960s, Belgian political parties and civic organizations have witnessed bifurcation of membership and organizations between Walloon and Flanders. Ethnic tensions affect the working of local governments, which often pass laws prohibiting the use of the language of the respective minority populations in official functions. For example, municipal council meetings in Flanders must take place in Dutch, even if a majority of the council is French-speaking. On the other hand, Dutch-speaking citizens of the Flemish municipalities close to Brussels claim their position is being undermined by the minority rights of French-speaking settlers. Significant pressures in living conditions have kept the two main communities separate and confined to their majority regions; stark ethnic and linguistic segregation has emerged in Brussels, the capital and largest city of the country. Ethnic tensions have affected some of the city's surrounding municipalities, which are situated in Flanders, but have had a great influx of monolingual French-speakers as a result of suburbanisation. These Dutch-speaking "facility municipalities" are obliged to offer local government services in French, meaning health-care and public amenities are divided on linguistic lines, and in some municipalities the original French-speaking minority is believed to have become a majority.


title: Partition of Belgium

text: The main reason for Brussels being mainly French-speaking was the low social prestige of the Dutch language in Belgium during the 19th century and the severe discrimination against both Dutch as a language and the Flemings. French was, at that time, the language of the administration, government, culture, law and education. From 1880 onwards, more and more Dutch-speaking people became bilingual and passed only French on to their children, resulting in a rise of monolingual French-speakers after 1910. Halfway through the 20th century, the number of monolingual French-speakers carried the day over the (mostly) bilingual Flemish inhabitants. Only since the 1960s, after the fixation of the Belgian language border and the socio-economic development of Flanders was in full effect, could Dutch stem the tide of increasing French use.


title: Partition of Belgium

text: One idea is that the city rejoins Flanders in which Brussels is geographically and economically embedded. Proposals include a guarantee that the linguistic rights of the French-speaking population in Brussels are safeguarded.


title: Partition of Belgium

text: Another idea is that Brussels would form a union with Wallonia, often referred to as Wallobrux. One problem is that the regions do not border each other, as Brussels is an enclave in Flanders. Some French-speaking politicians therefore demand that a corridor be made between the two territories (see the topic of the extension of Brussels below).


title: Partition of Belgium

text: Another idea is that Brussels would become a "European [capital] district", similar to Washington D.C. or the Australian Capital Territory, run by the EU rather than Flanders or Wallonia. The Union's structure, however, has no experience at governing at this level at present. To fulfill this solution in practice, Brussels would probably need to be an independent city-state which could join the EU on equal footing with other EU member states. The possible status of Brussels as a "city-state" has been suggested by Charles Picqué, Minister-President of the Brussels-Capital Region, who sees a tax on the EU institutions as a way of enriching the city. However, the Belgian issue has generated very little discussion within the EU bodies.


title: Partition of Belgium

text: A controversial issue, complicating the "city-state" scenario, is the possible extension of the Brussels capital region into the surrounding municipalities within Flemish Brabant and Walloon Brabant. This proposal is not necessarily linked to a split-up of Belgium.


title: Partition of Belgium

text: Some have, however, suggested that these wealthy areas would make the city financially viable as an independent state, potentially give it around 1.5 million inhabitants, an airport and forest within its boundaries, and make it three or four times larger than the current capital region. Currently, Brussels is the most important seat of EU institutions, but the EU has no formal capital. It has been claimed that a large and independent status may help Brussels advance its claim as the capital of the EU.


title: Partition of Belgium

text: The enlargement of the Brussels capital region is supported by many French-speakers in the Flemish municipalities with facilities for French-speakers surrounding Brussels. As a result of suburbanisation and an influx of French-speakers and EU officials from Brussels, these municipalities have in recent decades become increasingly French-speaking to an extent that French-speakers now form a majority in some municipalities. In contrast, an extension of the bilingual region is out of the question for the Dutch-speaking inhabitants of these communities and for virtually all Flemish political parties, who say that these newer inhabitants should respect and adjust to the language of the region they are moving into. In fact the facilities now in place were initially established in order to ease the adaptation of the French-speaking to living in a Flemish area.


title: Partition of Belgium

text: Similar to a "Greater Brussels" region, the electoral district of Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde consisted of Brussels and 35 surrounding municipalities in Flanders. Prior to its dissolution, this district was the last remaining entity in Belgium that did not coincide with provincial borders, and as such had been deemed unconstitutional by the Belgian Constitutional Court. The district was a conflict issue for several years, and a major political problem in the cabinet formation crisis of 2007–2008. In July 2012, following the 2010–2011 Belgian government formation, Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde was split into two parts as part of the sixth Belgian state reform.


title: Partition of Belgium

text: Another proposition is the establishment of a condominium of the Flemish and the French-speaking Communities of Brussels, where both sides would govern Brussels together for national and international issues. For all local territorial policies, Brussels would be fully autonomous. For all 'non-territorial' public services (as culture, welfare and education), each community would enjoy autonomy. This idea is in general popular among Flemish politicians, such as socialist politician Louis Tobback and nationalist Bart De Wever.


title: Partition of Belgium

text: Such an arrangement existed for several centuries in Maastricht. Shortly after 1200 this city received dual authority, with the prince-bishops of Liège and the dukes of Brabant holding joint sovereignty over the city. In 1284, this dual authority was formally endorsed in a constitutional agreement, the 'Alde Caerte' ('Old Charter'). After some disputes in the interpretation, this was elaborated further in 1356 with the Doghter Caerte ('Daughter Charter'). These institutional arrangements then survived until the French Revolution.


title: Partition of Belgium

text: This dual authority ensured a relatively stable and prosperous institutional environment for nearly six centuries (from 1204 till 1794). The citizens from Maastricht had to choose between the Brabant nationality (and jurisprudence) and the Liège nationality. Each had its own judges and public services. Something similar would be the case if Brussels became a condominium governed by the two major communities, the French-speakers and the Flemings.


title: Partition of Belgium

text: The small German-speaking Community of Belgium in the east is in fact more an observer than a player in the difficult negotiations between Flanders and Wallonia. The region of Eupen-Malmedy was given to Belgium in the aftermath of the First World War. (The former German city of Malmedy and the surrounding villages are Walloon and therefore are not part of the German-speaking Community.) The territory consists of two parts with a total area of about . Apart from being linked by the route of the disused Vennbahn railway, which runs as a Belgian exclave through German territory, the two parts are not connected. Approximately 75,000 people live there. The conflict between Walloons and Flemings provided the German-speaking Community with considerable autonomy. Although the region is too small to play a role in the negotiations, it obtained an autonomy similar to that of its larger neighbors. The German-speaking Belgians now have a parliament and a government with four ministers and a minister-president.


title: Partition of Belgium

text: Four theoretical scenarios are usually considered in the event that a partition of Belgium would occur: remaining with Wallonia, sovereign statehood, reattachment to Germany, or attachment to Luxembourg. The community is part of the Walloon Liège Province and, per se, would stay so in the event of partition. This status quo solution is the most probable, although it is uncertain whether or not the German-speakers could maintain their cultural and political rights in the long term in an otherwise monolingual francophone country. The other three possibilities would become realistic only if Wallonia were to seek unification with France. Since the community used to be part of Germany, "reunification" seems to be the logical step to take (the region borders the German states of North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate). However, opponents to this idea argue that the autonomy of the region would be lost in Germany as much as it would be in France, though giving the region the status of a German Bundesland could alleviate this issue (cf. Saarland). Because of the strong cohesion of the regional population, however, some would prefer the creation of an independent state. They argue that the new country would, for example, be five times as large and more than twice as populous as Liechtenstein. Opponents say this would lead to the creation of a new undesired tax haven. The last option would be to merge with Luxembourg. Supporters of this scenario underline that many from St. Vith currently commute to Luxembourg and that a union with the rich Grand Duchy would be economically profitable. However this would leave the northern part of the community around Eupen as an exclave of Luxembourg. Minister-president Karl-Heinz Lambertz is said to have supported such a project. He, however, has refuted this and has committed himself to the continued union with Belgium. In an interview with the German TV-channel ZDF in February 2011, he listed the four aforementioned options concerning the future of the German-speaking Community.


title: Partition of Belgium

text: The parties with long lasting participation in the Belgian governments, that is the Christian Democrats, the Liberals and the Socialists, as well as the Green parties, usually refuse to speak openly about a possible partitioning of Belgium. This question seems to be taboo on the Belgian political scene and is only discussed from time to time by mainstream politicians in order to menace the other community, not unlike the atomic bomb threat during the Cold War context. In particular, on September 6, 2010, after long lasting negotiation for the formation of the federal government, most leaders of the French-speaking Socialist Party simultaneously declared that they now consider the partition of Belgium as a realistic alternative solution to the Belgian problems. This openly separatist point of view expressed by the French-speaking Socialists is analysed by some, including French-speaking liberals and most Flemish politicians, as an idle threat which aims at forcing progress in communitarian negotiations. The heart of the problem is not the partition of Belgium but its federalization also called regionalization or communitarization. This process of devolution, which began in the 1960s due to the pressure of the Flemish movement and, to a lesser extent, of the Walloon movement, is called in the Belgian context the "state reform". While most Francophones argue that the state reform is unnecessary, virtually all Flemish political parties demand a severe reform of the Belgian state. In particular the N-VA and a part of the Flemish movement want to apply the so-called Maddens Doctrine in order to enforce the Francophones to require such a state reform.


title: Partition of Belgium

text: Socialist Party Different (sp.a), the Flemish socialist party, states on its website that it believes an independent Flanders is not necessary. It does support the devolution of a number of additional responsibilities, such as the railways or the policy of employment. Open Flemish Liberals and Democrats (Open VLD) want more socio-economic and financial autonomy for Flanders, a homogenous division of responsibilities, more cooperation between the communities and regions and a strong federal state. Green, the Flemish green party, wants another round in the state reform, but only if it leads to more solidarity, a better functioning of the institutions and more democracy. It states on its website that it doesn't want to reform for the purpose of reforming. Green wants Belgium to remain a federal state and considers the cooperation between different communities within one state to be a challenge rather than a problem. It also pleads for federal loyalty and respect for the rulings of the Constitutional Court and wants to see a more homogenous division of responsibilities.


title: Partition of Belgium

text: The Francophone Socialist Party (PS) and Christian democrats (cdH) promote the conservation of the current Belgian welfare state, and therefore oppose any further regionalisation of the federal social policies. The Reformist Movement, the Francophone liberal party, stresses in its manifesto that the Flemings are intending to split most of the solidarity mechanisms that exist between the Belgians. They also state that they minimize the importance of the Brussels-Capital Region as a constitutional component of the federal state. Their approach is to build strong links between the different components of the French-speaking part of Belgium, including Brussels and Wallonnia as well as the municipalities with a French-speaking presence around Brussels and in Voeren. The aim of this approach is to create a strong autonomous Francophone component within the federal state. Écolo, the Francophone Green party, supports an improvement of the political links between the communities. They suggest, among other things, the creation of a national electoral arrondissement for the election of part of the federal parliament.


title: Partition of Belgium

text: In Flanders, several large parties openly call for a partition of the country. Until the 2010 federal elections, the largest was the far-right party Flemish Interest. Since 2010, the largest Flemish nationalist party in Belgium is the more moderate New Flemish Alliance (N-VA). N-VA does not openly advocate the partition of Belgium, instead proposing a confederalist solution, where the center of power would shift to the regional governments, while certain tasks such as e.g. the army, diplomacy or the national football competition would remain on the Belgian level. Another openly separatist moderate party that emerged in 2007 is List Dedecker, which was relatively successful in the 2007 federal and 2009 regional elections, winning several seats, but subsequently lost all of them again in the 2014 federal and regional elections, due to the large success of the N-VA . In Wallonia and Brussels, only the Wallonia-France Rally party is openly separatist. This party, which has no elected representative at either the national or regional level, promotes the partition of Belgium and a union of Wallonia and Brussels with France.


title: Partition of Belgium

text: Several small parties with no or very few seats at the parliament campaign explicitly for the unity of the Belgian state. The conservative Belgian Union promotes a stronger federal government and a return to the Belgian unitary state which existed in the 1960s. The far-left Workers' Party of Belgium also supports the unity of Belgium since it considers the federalisation of the country as an employers' attack at the welfare state and the unity of the trade unions. The Francophone far-right Front National is also explicitly opposed to the partition of Belgium.


title: Partition of Belgium

text: There are several Walloon representatives of the Socialist Party in the Walloon Parliament who are in favour of the Walloon Regionalism, also in the Walloon Government such as Eliane Tillieux and Jean-Claude Marcourt for instance, i.e. two socialist ministers on the four of the Walloon Government. The Walloon wing of the General Federation of Belgian Labour are in favour of more powers for the Regions.


title: Partition of Belgium

text: The Belgian general election, 2007, resulted in no political party or coalition gaining enough seats to form a working majority. The crisis continued for 196 days, leaving Belgium without a government with a popular mandate. While prime minister Guy Verhofstadt's lame duck ministry remained in power as caretaker, several leading politicians were nominated without success by the King to build a stable governmental coalition. Flemish politician Yves Leterme had been the prime candidate to lead the national government, but a political gaffe would prove to be his undoing. Asked to sing the Belgian national anthem in French at National Day celebrations, instead of the Brabançonne Leterme started to sing the "Marseillaise", France's anthem. Leterme's error drew condemnation from the different communities, aggravating distrust and separatist sentiments.


title: Partition of Belgium

text: Eventually, after 196 days, the parties finally succeeded in forming a new government. In December 2008, another crisis related to the Fortis case, erupted, again destabilising the country and resulting in the resignation of Belgian Prime Minister Yves Leterme. The new Herman Van Rompuy-led government brought a brief period of fragile stability, but ended when Van Rompuy left his office to become the first full-term President of the European Council. The succeeding Leterme II government fell in April 2010 over the lack of progress on resolving the BHV issue.


title: Partition of Belgium

text: Although most Flemish political parties describe their demands as limited to seeking greater regional autonomy and decentralization of government (save for members of the Vlaams Belang party, who called for a splitting of the country and claim of a national identity, culture and institutions, and claim Belgium is an "unnatural" and "artificial" state, formed simply as a buffer between France and other European powers during 19th century conflicts), some public opinion polls performed during the communautary crisis showed that approximately 46% of Flemish people support secession from Belgium. Other surveys indicated only 12% of the Flemings want the end of Belgium, whereas 37% want more responsibilities to be devolved to communities and the regions. Many French-speakers maintain that there is sufficient regional autonomy and that Flemish demands are exaggerated and separatist in nature. However, the diversity of Brussels and its significant economic and geopolitical importance in the Western hemisphere as the headquarters of the European Union and NATO, make it a unifying force, making partition unlikely at least for the near future. In response to heightening domestic and international speculation regarding the country's future, the Belgian government launched a public relations campaign through its embassies worldwide to assuage concerns and fight speculation that Belgium's division is impending, as indicated by numerous recent public opinion polls. The King of the Belgians rejected notions and speculation over a change in the nature of the Belgian state as part of proposals for the formation of a working government.


title: Partition of Belgium

text: On November 18, 2007, an estimated 25,000 people marched in Brussels to support the unity of Belgium. The march was organized by Marie-Claire Houart whose petition calling for unity was signed by 140,000 Belgians.


title: Partition of Belgium

text: The Belgian Chamber of Representatives on November 22, 2007, rejected the consideration of a proposed resolution to dissolve Belgium. The resolution had been introduced on October 29 by Bart Laeremans, Gerolf Annemans, Filip De Man and Linda Vissers (Vlaams Belang) and called upon the federal government to "take without delay the measures necessary for the purpose of preparing the break-up of the Belgian State, so the three communities—Flemings, Walloons and Germans—can go their own separate ways." Most Flemish parties voted against the consideration of the proposal. The three members of the New Flemish Alliance abstained, together with three members of CD&V.


title: Partition of Belgium

text: In 2007, Polls in "Editie NL", a Dutch news program on the commercial station RTL 4 and newspaper "De Dag" in the Netherlands showed that between 45% and 77% of Dutch nationals (the results of the two different polls) would support a merger of their country with Flanders. However a similar poll performed by Synovate Nederland in 2010, showed that only 20% of the Dutch support a union between the Netherlands and Flanders. A comparable poll held in 2007 in France showed that a majority of French citizens would support a merger of Wallonia with France, if Belgium ceased to exist. However, French politicians have ruled out any interference into the inner Belgian debate.


title: Partition of Belgium

text: After the Open Flemish Liberals and Democrats (Open VLD) left the government on April 22, 2010, Prime Minister Yves Leterme offered his resignation to King Albert II. An election were then called for June 13, amid fears that coalition-building would once again be protracted. In Flanders, the New Flemish Alliance (N-VA) party won a plurality with 27.8% of votes, while the winning party in Wallonia was the Socialist Party. Both parties, along with other parties, negotiated a state reform during the 2010 Belgian government formation.


title: Partition of Belgium

text: Although seven parties (N-VA, CD&V, sp.a, Groen!, PS, cdH, and Ecolo) were participating, the negotiations were led by the main winners, Bart De Wever (N-VA) and Elio Di Rupo (PS). The large number of implied parties was due not only to the multipolar Belgian political landscape but also to the will of the Flemish parties to reform the state and, hence, to change the constitution, which can be modified according only to very restrictive rules including a two-thirds majority vote in the Lower House.


title: Partition of Belgium

text: Some in the international media saw this election as evidence that Belgium would be partitioned. On September 9, 2010, a poll taken by RTL showed that a third of the French-speaking population supported the beginning of preparations for the country's partition. On September 13, "Het Laatste Nieuws" published the result of a poll within the Flemish population. According to these results 60% of the Flemish did not desire an independent Flemish state and 26% were willing to support a partition. A similar poll taken on September 25, 2010, by "La Libre Belgique" showed that 40% of the Belgians were willing to return to a unitary Belgium (as the country was before the state reform of the 1970s). This percentage is to be compared with the 12% of the Belgians wanting a partition of the country and the 32% who desired a further federalization. The poll also showed that a unitary Belgian state was supported by 22% of the Flemish, 50% of the Brusselers and 51% of the Walloons, and that 16% of the Flemish wished a split of Belgium. It is interesting to compare this with the 40.8% of Flemings who voted for a party advocating Flemish independence during the 2010 election. In any case, the vast majority of the Belgians want a change: only 8% agree with the current Belgian federal system. The Belgians who participated in this poll were also asked which scenario they would prefer in the event that a partition of Belgium did occur. An independent Flanders together with a union of Brussels and Wallonia was supported by 35% of the Belgians. The creation of three small states (Flanders, Brussels and Wallonia) was preferred by 23%, a union between France and Wallonia was supported by 14%, and a union between Flanders and Brussels together with an independent Wallonia by 12%. In Flanders, 27% supported a three-state scenario and 26% supported a union between Flanders and Brussels. Those who had no preferred scenario numbered 25%. The majority of Walloons (53%) agreed with a union between Brussels and Wallonia while a minority (21%) supported a merge with France. Only 10% of the Walloons prefer an independent Walloon state. In contrast, the Brusselers were divided between a union with Wallonia (39%) and a city-state scenario (34%).


title: Partition of Belgium

text: On October 4, 2010, De Wever (N-VA) left the negotiations. His exit put Di Rupo's Plan B for Belgium, i.e. a partition of Belgium along the borderline of the French Community, under a new light and many, particularly in the French-speaking part of the country, started to speak openly about its concrete implementation. Plan B is the continuation of Belgium with Brussels and Wallonia only and the departure of Flanders from the Belgian federation. On October 10, Elio Di Rupo stated on television what his plan was: first, asking the Flemish population whether it was willing to secede; second, asking the population in Brussels and Wallonia whether they intended to remain united within Belgium. He also stressed that in either case citizens living in municipalities with linguistic facilities should also be asked. He however underlined that he did not desire such an extreme response but that this scenario should not be ignored. Di Rupo's declarations on television have been broadly discussed in the French-written press: according to Le Soir, the country had never been so close to a split than this day; less alarmist "La Libre Belgique" observed that the negotiations are deadlocked and considered Di Rupo's move a good way to define the point that the Francophones are not ready to negotiate further. However "La Dernière Heure", "L'Avenir" and Flemish columnists in "De Morgen", "Het Laatste Nieuws", and "De Standaard" condensed Di Rupo's Plan B down to a tactical move in order to put the pressure on the negotiations and redefine the relations between PS and MR. The Plan B proposed by Di Rupo was developed by Christian Berhendt, a specialist of constitutional law at the University of Liège. According to Berhendt, a hypothetical partition of Belgium is constrained by the fact that no political party is ready to split Belgium at the cost of separating from the numerous international organizations to which Belgium is affiliated. These constraints are such that a splitting of the country would require the modification and ratification of a huge number of treaties. The interpenetration of the Belgian entities is so complicated that, in comparison, the peaceful splitting of Czechoslovakia appears quite simple. According to Berhendt several scenarios are therefore impossible: a unilateral secession of Flanders would be rejected by countries fearing secession of their own minorities, such as China, Russia or Spain, because this would create a precedent they cannot allow; the creation of an autonomous European district in Brussels is not a realistic perspective because the European Union, as it is now, is not able to administer such a large city; a scenario where Flanders and Brussels would form a union is unlikely either because, according to Berhendt, the French-speakers will never agree on such a treaty. For Marc Verdussen (Université Catholique de Louvain), two doorways are open: Plan B1, Belgium dissolves into two entities Flanders on the one hand and a new Wallonia-Brussels state on the other; and Plan B2, Flanders secedes and a residual Belgian state continues with Brussels and Wallonia. Though it is clear that Plan B2 is favorable to the Francophones, it is not evident that it would be accepted by the Flemings and by a hypothetical international tribunal. According to the Gewif ("Groupe d'études pour la Wallonie intégrée à la France"), Di Rupo's Plan B is not viable because the new Brussels-Wallonia would inherit an unbearable debt. The Gewif therefore argued that only a union with France would be possible. On September 13 "Le Soir" published a five-page article on the possible consequences. According to this analysis, the largest burden on the shoulders of the new Brussels-Wallonian state would be unemployment (17% of the workers; to be compared to 8% in Flanders) and state debt (€150 billion, 106% of GDP). However Le Soir's columnists observed that the new state would have a huge GDP per capita (€31,000) and would rank 7th among the 27 EU states. Nevertheless, this would be only due to the inclusion of Brussels where the GDP per capita numbers more than €60,000.


title: Jackbox Games

text: Jackbox Games, Inc. (formerly Jellyvision Games, Inc.) is an American video game developer based in Chicago, Illinois, best known for the "You Don't Know Jack" series of quiz-based party video games and "The Jackbox Party Pack" series. Founded by Harry Gottlieb, the company operated as Jellyvision Games from 1995 until its closure in 2001. After seven years of dormancy, Jellyvision Games was revived in 2008, and the company rebranded as Jackbox Games in 2013.


title: Jackbox Games

text: Jackbox Games was founded in 1989 by Harry Gottlieb as an educational entertainment company called Learn Television. Prior to developing "You Don't Know Jack", the company created a children's trivia game called "That's a Fact, Jack!". In 1995, the company rebranded as Jellyvision and developed the first edition of "You Don't Know Jack"; originally a PC game, its success established a franchise, and Jellyvision produced numerous installments of "You Don't Know Jack" from 1995 through 1998.


title: Jackbox Games

text: In 2001, the computer game market shifted, as players moved from personal computers to home consoles of the sixth generation, affecting the demand for CD-ROM games. Jellyvision attempted to enter the marketplace with console-based versions of "You Don't Know Jack", but these games were unsuccessful. Jellyvision Games was shelved, and the following year Gottlieb launched a new company called the Jellyvision Lab. Pivoting away from games, the Jellyvision Lab focused on business software, developing a technology called the "interactive conversation interface" inspired by the voice-driven interface of "You Don't Know Jack". These interactive conversation products were a success, in part because of the "You Don't Know Jack" series' popularity.


title: Jackbox Games

text: In 2008, as networked consoles and mobile devices became popular, Jellyvision Games was relaunched as a subsidiary of the Jellyvision Lab, hiring Mike Bilder to lead the studio. The company released an iOS application of "You Don't Know Jack" and, in partnership with THQ, a console version in 2011. The studio later developed a Facebook version of the game, allowing them to continuously provide new trivia; later, the game expanded to include a standalone mobile application that allows data sharing and competition with the Facebook version. The game, now defunct, was awarded the "Social Game of the Year" at the 2012 Spike Video Game Awards.


title: Jackbox Games

text: Near the end of 2011, Jellyvision Games was spun off into a separate company. The studio rebranded as Jackbox Games in June 2013, and announced that it would continue to focus on developing social games, for mobile devices and home entertainment devices like Roku and Ouya.


title: Jackbox Games

text: During this time, the company allowed the game to be played using smartphones and tablets as controllers, rather than actual game controllers. Jackbox released more apps including "Clone Booth" (a humorous photo-manipulation app) and the games "Lie Swatter" (a find-the-lies game of unusual facts) and "Word Puttz" (a word game). The studio released "Fibbage: The Hilarious Bluffing Party Game" on the Amazon Fire TV and as a digital-only title on Xbox One, PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 in September 2014.


title: Jackbox Games

text: "Fibbage" proved successful with players, particularly using streaming media services like Twitch. In October 2014, the company packaged "Fibbage", "You Don't Know Jack", and three other games that were designed to be played with others over a stream. This was the first "Jackbox Party Pack", and they have continued working on this approach, releasing a new "Party Pack" each year through 2022.


title: Jackbox Games

text: Around mid-March 2020, Jackbox Games experienced a large increase in traffic due to the stay-at-home limitations of the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: Jackbox Games

text: Jackbox Games was founded to bring back Jellyvision's premiere title, "You Don't Know Jack", which prior to 2011 had not been published since 2002. The revival sought to take advantage of newer technologies such as modern consoles and mobile gaming tied with Facebook integration. Jackbox Games has brought three of these standalone titles to market:


title: Jackbox Games

text: "The Jackbox Party Pack" games are individual collections of several party games, designed for online play by multiple people, including large audiences, via streaming websites like Twitch. Since 2014, Jackbox has released a new set of games in these packs each year, with a total of ten packs currently released.


title: Jackbox Games

text: Jackbox Games developed additional games initially geared to mobile devices after the success of the Facebook-based "You Don't Know Jack" game. These have been released as individual titles, while some have been then featured as part of "The Jackbox Party Pack".


title: Jackbox Games

text: "Lie Swatter" is a single player game for mobile devices that presents the player with a number of statements which may be true or false, and the player is required to determine which ones are lies and "swat" them. The player earns points for correctly guessed answers (i.e. not swatting true statements and swatting false ones).


title: Jackbox Games

text: A multiplayer version of "Lie Swatter" has been included in "The Jackbox Party Pack," which supports up to 100 players.


title: Jackbox Games

text: "Clone Booth" is a photo app for mobile devices that allows one to take a photo and then have that digitally manipulated into a number of stock historical images which then can be shared via mobile devices.


title: Jackbox Games

text: "Word Puttz" is a single player game for mobile devices. On each level, the player is presented with a miniature golf hole, including a tee and a cup; other obstacles may also be present. The objective is to create words using a given set of letter tiles to create a path from the tee to the hole, in the manner of "Scrabble". The player is scored based on how few words they use, as well as point values of those letters in the words.


title: Jackbox Games

text: "Fibbage" is a party game played by at least two players and up to eight players via a streaming channel. It is broken into three rounds. In the first two rounds, each player has an opportunity to pick one of five randomly generated categories, and then all players are presented with an obscure fact with a missing word or phrase. Each player secretly provides the answer to the missing phrase, trying to craft an answer that appears legitimate. If players enter the correct answer, they are told of this and encouraged to enter a false answer. If a player doesn't enter a legitimate answer before the timer runs out, they can press the "lie for me" button and get two choices. The game then presents all players' answers and the correct answer randomly. Players must then select the correct answer. If the player selected the correct answer, they score points, while if other players have selected that player's fake answer, they also score points for each player that selected their answer. If the player selected the lie the game wrote itself, they lose points. In the final round called "The Final Fibbage", the game provides one last question for all players to answer. The player with the most points at the end wins. Following each question, players have the opportunity to mark one or more answers as favorites, and the player with the most favorites is shown at the end of the game.


title: Jackbox Games

text: Improved versions of "Fibbage", offering new questions/prompts and additional features, have been included in various "Jackbox Party Packs".


title: Jackbox Games

text: "Quiplash" is a party game played by at least three players and up to eight players via a streaming channel. It is broken into three rounds. In the first two rounds, players are given two prompts to supply a humorous answer for; each prompt is seen by two random players. Then, the prompt and the two provided answers are shown, and players and the audience vote on which is funnier, with the players that provided the answers given points on how many votes they get. If a player's answer gets all of the other players' votes and, if there is an audience, a majority of the audience's votes, that player gets a "quiplash" and earns bonus points. However, if two players that see the same prompt enter the same thing, they get a "jinx" and they don't get any points. The final round called "The Last Lash" has all players reply to the same prompt, and players subsequently select three of the answers as the funniest. The player with the most points at the end wins.


title: Jackbox Games

text: "Quiplash" is the first game to feature an audience. Jackbox Games used a Kickstarter approach to fund development of the game, with the March 2015 campaign seeking and finishing with over from over 1,600 backers. Enhanced versions of "Quiplash" featuring new prompts have been included in various "Jackbox Party Packs".


title: Jackbox Games

text: "Drawful 2" is a standalone game released on June 21, 2016, for Windows, OS X, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, and Xbox One. It follows the same format of "Drawful" from "The Jackbox Party Pack" and is played by at least three players and up to eight players. Players are presented with a silly phrase they must try to draw out on a canvas. The picture is then shown to all players, who attempt to guess the original phrase, with points awarded to players who select that phrase, and to players who have their response voted as the "correct" phrase. "Drawful 2" has added features, such as allowing players to use two colors for their drawings. The game includes support for user-generated phrases which are created in a similar party-oriented manner as the game itself, which then can be shared with other players via a code.


title: Jackbox Games

text: "Quiplash 2 InterLASHional" was released on April 8, 2020, as a newer version of "Quiplash 2" that was originally released in 2016 as part of "The Jackbox Party Pack 3". Jackbox developed the "InterLASHional" version following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic that forced many people to stay home on lockdown; the various "Jackbox Party Packs" had become popular games played over streaming network services to help people pass the time and created a large influx of players. Jackbox saw that many of these were non-English speakers, leading them to decide to create the standalone of "Quiplash 2" with translations for French, Italian, German, and Spanish in addition to English.


title: Dean Schneider

text: Dean Schneider (born October 3, 1992) is a Swiss animal sanctuary founder and social media personality based in South Africa.


title: Dean Schneider

text: Schneider studied finance and at age 21, became an entrepreneur and created his own financial planning company. After three years, he had over fifty employees. Schneider was a banker and financial planner in Switzerland before moving to South Africa in 2017 to establish a wildlife sanctuary and rehabilitation center, Hakuna Mipaka (Swahili for "no limits"). It is a 400 ha (4 square kilometer) estate for lions born in captivity. A separate area hosts zebras, impalas, kudu, hyenas, baboons and cheetahs.


title: Dean Schneider

text: Before moving to South Africa, Schneider flew to Africa more than a dozen times to visit land, make contacts, seek sponsors, and develop a 70-page management plan while waiting for grants. Schneider shares, on social media, interactions with wildlife with the support of a personal assistant and a content manager.


title: Dean Schneider

text: , Schneider has 10 million followers on Instagram. He spends up to seven hours a day on Instagram and answers approximately 800 comments and posts in different languages. Schneider was inspired by Steve Irwin to help people connect with wildlife. In May 2020, UK's "The Times" newspaper reported that Schneider is the subject of an animal abuse investigation by South Africa's animal welfare agency with regard to a video Schneider had uploaded of himself striking at one of his lion cubs with his fist after one of its claws caught on his face, that led to bleeding above his right eye. Schneider defended his actions and blamed those critical of him for this kind of false and incomplete understanding of the situation and explained that the lion was unharmed and he was teaching it about boundaries. There is no official record for any investigation about this event.


title: Bloomsday

text: Bloomsday is a commemoration and celebration of the life of Irish writer James Joyce, observed annually in Dublin and elsewhere on 16 June, the day his 1922 novel "Ulysses" takes place in 1904, the date of his first sexual encounter with his wife-to-be, Nora Barnacle, and named after its protagonist Leopold Bloom.


title: Bloomsday

text: The English compound word "Bloomsday" is usually used in Irish as well, though some publications call it .


title: Bloomsday

text: The first mention of such a celebration is to be found in a letter by Joyce to Miss Weaver of 27 June 1924, which refers to "a group of people who observe what they call Bloom's day – 16 June".


title: Bloomsday

text: On the 50th anniversary of the events in the novel, in 1954, John Ryan (artist, critic, publican and founder of "Envoy" magazine) and the novelist Brian O'Nolan organised what was to be a daylong pilgrimage along the "Ulysses" route. They were joined by Patrick Kavanagh, Anthony Cronin, Tom Joyce (a dentist who, as Joyce's cousin, represented the family interest) and AJ Leventhal (a lecturer in French at Trinity College Dublin). Ryan had engaged two horse-drawn cabs, of the old-fashioned kind, in which in "Ulysses" Mr. Bloom and his friends drive to Paddy Dignam's funeral. The party were assigned roles from the novel. Cronin stood in for Stephen Dedalus, O’Nolan for his father Simon Dedalus, John Ryan for the journalist Martin Cunningham, and A.J. Leventhal, being Jewish, was recruited to fill (unknownst to him, according to John Ryan) the role of Leopold Bloom. They planned to travel round the city through the day, starting at the Martello tower at Sandycove (where the novel begins), visiting in turn the scenes of the novel, ending at night in what had once been the brothel quarter of the city, the area which Joyce had called Nighttown. The pilgrimage was abandoned halfway through, when the weary pilgrims succumbed to inebriation and rancour at the Bailey pub in the city centre, which Ryan then owned, and at which in 1967 he installed the door to No. 7 Eccles Street (Leopold Bloom's front door), having rescued it from demolition. A Bloomsday record of 1954, informally filmed by John Ryan, follows this pilgrimage.


title: Bloomsday

text: The day involves a range of cultural activities, including "Ulysses" readings and dramatisations, pub crawls and other events, some of it hosted by the James Joyce Centre in North Great George's Street. Enthusiasts often dress in Edwardian costume to celebrate Bloomsday, and retrace Bloom's route around Dublin via landmarks such as Davy Byrne's pub. Hard-core devotees have even been known to hold marathon readings of the entire novel, some lasting up to 36 hours.


title: Bloomsday

text: The James Joyce Tower and Museum at Sandycove, site of the opening chapter of "Ulysses", hosts many free activities around Bloomsday including theatrical performances, musical events, tours of the iconic tower and readings from Joyce's masterpiece.


title: Bloomsday

text: "Every year hundreds of Dubliners dress as characters from the book ... as if to assert their willingness to become one with the text. It is quite impossible to imagine any other masterpiece of modernism having quite such an effect on the life of a city."


title: Bloomsday

text: On Bloomsday 1982, the centenary year of Joyce's birth, Irish state broadcaster RTÉ transmitted a continuous 30-hour dramatic performance of the entire text of "Ulysses" on radio.


title: Bloomsday

text: A five-month-long festival, ReJoyce Dublin 2004, took place in Dublin between 1 April and 31 August 2004. On the Sunday before the 100th "anniversary" of the fictional events described in the book, 10,000 people in Dublin were treated to a free, open-air, full Irish breakfast on O'Connell Street consisting of sausages, rashers, toast, beans, and black and white puddings.


title: Bloomsday

text: The 2006 Bloomsday festivities were cancelled, the day coinciding with the funeral of Charles Haughey.


title: Bloomsday

text: BBC Radio Four devoted most of its broadcasting on 16 June 2012, to a dramatisation of "Ulysses", with additional comments from critic Mark Lawson talking to Joyce scholars. In the dramatisation, Molly Bloom was played by Niamh Cusack, Leopold Bloom by Henry Goodman, Stephen Daedalus by Andrew Scott, and the Narrator was Stephen Rea.


title: Bloomsday

text: Washington, D.C. – The Georgetown Neighborhood Library, located at 3260 R Street, NW, in Washington, D.C. held a marathon dramatic reading of "Ulysses" beginning 9 June and concluding on 16 June 2014 (Bloomsday). Twenty-five writers, actors, and scholars read "Ulysses" aloud in its entirety, a project which took more than 33 hours. The reading concluded with opera singer Laura Baxter performing Molly Bloom's soliloquy in its entirety, a feat taking hours by itself.


title: Bloomsday

text: Philadelphia – The Rosenbach Museum & Library is home to Joyce's handwritten manuscript of "Ulysses". The museum first celebrated Bloomsday in 1992, with readings by actors and scholars at the Borders Books in Center City Philadelphia. The following June 16th, it began the tradition of closing the 2000-block of Delancey Street for a Bloomsday street festival. In addition to dozens of readers, often including Philadelphia's mayor, singers from the Academy of Vocal Arts perform songs that are integral to the novel's plot. Traditional Irish cuisine is provided by local Irish-themed pubs. In 2014, the Rosenbach's Bloomsday festival went on the road, with two hours of readings at the main branch of the Free Library of Philadelphia, an hour of readings at Rittenhouse Square, and concluded with five hours of readings on the steps of the museum, at 2008–10 Delancey Street.


title: Bloomsday

text: New York City has several events on Bloomsday including formal readings at Symphony Space and informal readings and music at the downtown Ulysses' Folk House pub. The Irish American Bar Association of New York celebrates Joyce's contribution to the First Amendment, with an annual keynote speech named after John Quinn, the Irish-American lawyer who defended Joyce's New York publishers in their obscenity trial in 1922. In 2014, New York celebrated Bloomsday with "Bloomsday on Broadway," which includes famous actors reading excerpts of the books, and commentators explaining the work between segments. The 2016 celebration includes a juried competition for the Best Dressed Molly and Leopold Bloom, selected from among attendees by a blue-ribbon panel including image strategist Margaret Molloy several design figures.


title: Bloomsday

text: Los Angeles, California – Each year Bloomsday is celebrated at the Hammer Museum with readings, music and libations.


title: Bloomsday

text: Kansas City, Missouri – The Kansas City Irish Center currently hosts the Bloomsday celebration, started at the now closed Bloomsday Books in 1995. Usually a day long event, the center hosts readings, a documentary, a play, Irish dancers and a performance by Dublin balladeer Eddie Delahunt. This has been an annual event since its inception.


title: Bloomsday

text: Syracuse, New York – The Syracuse James Joyce Club holds an annual Bloomsday celebration at Johnston's BallyBay Pub, at which large portions of the book are either read aloud, or presented as dramatisations by costumed performers.


title: Bloomsday

text: Cleveland, Ohio – The Nighttown Restaurant/Jazz Club holds an annual reading of the novel on Bloomsday.


title: Bloomsday

text: Wichita, Kansas – Bloomsday is honoured by a presentation on James Joyce (often by Dr. Marguerite Regan) as well as readings from "Ulysses" and Irish folk music, sponsored by the Wichita Irish Cultural Association.


title: Bloomsday

text: Norfolk, Virginia – The Irish American Society of Tidewater, Virginia, held a Bloomsday Happy Hour at Smartmouth Brewery, on Saturday, 14 June 2014. Live Irish music was provided by the band Glasgow Kiss, and IAS members attended dressed in Joycean accessories (fedoras, round glasses, eye patches, etc.).


title: Bloomsday

text: Portland, Maine – Readings from "Ulysses" at the Maine Irish Heritage Center, corner of Gray and State Streets.


title: Bloomsday

text: Portland, Oregon – Powell's Books hosts a reading of the novel in its entirety for the duration of the day by authors, volunteers, and other Joyce lovers.


title: Bloomsday

text: Worcester, Massachusetts – long running annual celebration with readings from Ulysses at 7 sites around the city. Organized annually by the Worcester County Poetry Association.


title: Bloomsday

text: Tulsa, Oklahoma – The Oklahoma Center for the Humanities, Booksmart Tulsa, and the Guthrie Green began an annual Bloomsday Pub Crawl in the Brady Arts District of downtown Tulsa in 2014.


title: Bloomsday

text: Phoenix, Arizona – the Irish Cultural Center and McClelland Library sponsor a weekend Annual Bloomin' Beerfest with live Irish music, a costume contest, and live readings.


title: Bloomsday

text: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania - Sam Masotto (uncostumed) of Bonn Place Brewery celebrates Bloomsday by reciting sections from “Ulysses” behind the bar while onlookers look and drink and wonder ‘why’ - June 16, 2022.


title: Bloomsday

text: In Sydney, Bloomsday is hosted by the John Hume Institute for Global Irish Studies UNSW in association with the National Irish Association Sydney and the Consulate General of Ireland, Sydney.


title: Bloomsday

text: Bloomsday in Melbourne has a proud history of engagement with the work of James Joyce. Since 1994, a committee of Joyceansnow known as 'Bloomsday in Melbourne'has read and re-read Joyce and mounted theatrical events designed to communicate the joy of Joyce to its loyal patrons. In 2019 Bloomsday in Melbourne mounted a production of Tom Stoppard's "Travesties" at fortyfivedownstairs in Melbourne. In 2020, Bloomsday in Melbourne created an online series of eighteen short films, corresponding to each of the episodes of "Ulysses." The films featured well-known Australian actor Max Gillies. In 2021, Bloomsday in Melbourne announced that it was to present "Love's Bitter Mystery: the year that made James Joyce," as an 'intense immersive theatrical experience' at Melbourne's Villa Alba in Kew, Victoria. The play, written by Bloomsday in Melbourne's Steve Carey, focuses on a key period in the young James Joyce's life, between his first failed exile in Paris in 1902 and his departure for Europe in September 1904.


title: Bloomsday

text: Bloomsday commenced in Auckland in the year 2000 with a radio transmission of "Ulysses" on Access Radio from midnight to 6am, 16 Junethe first Bloomsday celebration of the new millennium anywhere in the world. A cabaret show with Linn Lorkin and the Jews Brothers Band followed next year, 2001, and there has been a Jews Brothers Bloomsday ever since on 16 June, with Brooklyn musician Hershal Herscher as a Woody Allen Bloom and Dublin actor Brian Keagan reading from "Ulysses". Currently this three-hour show is hosted by the Thirsty Dog, on Karangahape Road. Guest Molly Blooms have included New Zealanders Robyn Malcolm, Noelle McCarthy, Carmel McGlone, Lucy Lawless, Geraldine Brophy and Jennifer Ward-Lealand.


title: Bloomsday

text: A five-day Bloomsday festival has been celebrated in Montreal since 2012 with readings, academic workshops, films, concerts and musical galas, cabarets, walking tours of Irish Montreal, Irish pub events, and guest lectures by internationally known Ulysses experts. Major partners include the Concordia School for Canadian Irish Studies, McGill University Continuing Education, The Jewish Public Library, Westmount and Atwater Libraries.


title: Bloomsday

text: There have been many Bloomsday events in Trieste, where the first part of "Ulysses" was written. The Joyce Museum Trieste, opened on 16 June 2004, collects works by and about James Joyce, including secondary sources, with a special emphasis on his period in Trieste.


title: Bloomsday

text: Since 2005 Bloomsday has been celebrated every year in Genoa, with a reading of "Ulysses" in Italian by volunteers (students, actors, teachers, scholars), starting at 0900 and finishing in the early hours of 17 June; the readings take place in 18 different places in the old town centre, one for each chapter of the novel, and these places are selected for their resemblance to the original settings. Thus for example chapter 1 is read in a medieval tower, chapter 2 in a classroom of the Faculty of Languages, chapter 3 in a bookshop on the waterfront, chapter 9 in the University Library, and chapter 12 ("Cyclops") in an old pub. The Genoa Bloomsday is organised by the Faculty of Languages and the International Genoa Poetry Festival.


title: Bloomsday

text: The Paris Bloomsday Group (of Paris-based Irish Joyceans) performs texts and songs from the work of James Joyce in such Parisian venues as the Irish Embassy, the Centre Culturel Irlandais or the American Library in Paris. Performances are in English with brief forays into French, Italian, Latin and Greek.


title: Bloomsday

text: Bloomsday has been celebrated annually since 1993 in Prague. Fans of Ulysses meet just below the Strahov Monastery near a large grove containing what is now a frequently dried pond. A large historical protected oak tree (pamatný strom) is at one end of the grove and an unrelated cement monolith on the opposite. People meet every year at 11:50AM. A volunteer reads a section of Aeolus at the noon hour to the pealing of the Strahov monastery's bells.


title: Bloomsday

text: Bloomsday has also been celebrated since 1994 in the Hungarian town of Szombathely, the fictional birthplace of Leopold Bloom's father, Virág Rudolf, an emigrant Hungarian Jew. The event is usually centred on the Iseum – the remnants of an Isis temple there from Roman times – and the Blum-mansion, commemorated to Joyce since 1997, at 40–41 Fő square, which used to be the property of an actual Jewish family called Blum. Hungarian author László Najmányi in his 2007 novel, "The Mystery of the Blum-mansion" (A Blum-ház rejtélye) describes the results of his research on the connection between Joyce and the Blum family.


title: Bloomsday

text: In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic obstacles, "Bloomsday Latvia" initiative group organized a limited conference dedicated to the question whether should “Ulysses” be translated once again into Latvian (the first translation and publication of the book was in 1960). This was followed by a promenade through Riga Old Town where passages from "Ulysses" were read along the way which ended at the local Irish pub with further talks and Irish dances.


title: Bloomsday

text: On Bloomsday 2011, "@Ulysses" was the stage for an experimental day-long tweeting of "Ulysses". Starting at 0800 (Dublin time) on Thursday 16 June 2011, the aim was to explore what would happen if "Ulysses" was recast 140 characters at a time. It was hoped that the event would become the first of a series.