Abstract
This paper discusses the history and philosophy of Belgian law, significant features of criminal and procedural law, how judges and attorneys are educated and attain their positions, sentencing philosophy, and levels of jurisdiction in terms of subject matter and territory. The paper concludes with a comparison and contrast of these features with the American legal system.

Tags:belgian, court, system

Abstract
The paper explores how Belgium has different nations that coexist in the same political framework. The paper discusses the background and development of Belgium's regional autonomy. The paper relates that the sub-societies of Belgium recognize and respect each other and they all agree on a principle of self-organization. The paper concludes that the Belgian example shows how it is possible to hold on to a national identity and to find the compromising measures that restrict nations as little as possible.

From the Paper
"The influence of nationalism was great in world history, as the nation-state has become the dominant form of state organization. In fact, the existence of nations is the starting point of nationalism, as nations are entities with a long history and nationalist claims are based particularly on the historical aspect."
"A very important distinction when speaking about nationalism is that between nation and state, as state refers at the institutional framework provided for a nation or for more nations. The term "nation" refers to a specific identity that individuals identify with. Some nations do not identify as much with their state and they identify more with their specific nation than with the state, this being the case of the Flemish in Belgium."

Tags:regional, autonomy, Flemish, French

Abstract
This essay uses Adam Hochschild's book," King Leopold?s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa," in order to explore the role of various people responsible for the mass killings in the Congo in 1979. The author details the conflict, the history of the region, the players, both local and foreign, whose knowledge and decency exposed the massacre and its cover-up by King Leopold.

From the Paper
"Just as Leopold and his aides were involved in the exploitation of the country, there was one man who actively worked towards exposing this tragedy thereby forcing Leopold to give the people of Congo their independence. His name was Edmund D. Morel, a British shipping company clerk who noticed that ships coming from Congo carried valuables like ivory and rubber but those that went back contained nothing but soldiers and arsenal. This made him suspicious and so he resigned from his job to form the Congo Reform Association (CRA), an organization that made the horrors of the Congo region public. Morel used information smuggled out by missionaries such as William Sheppard and George W. Williams, the former being later involved in a libel suited filed against him by Leopold."

Tags:congo, africa, west, portuguese, french, republic, marxist, exploitation, british, clerk, shipping, regions, explore, armies, elephants, killing, ivory, hostage, civilize, knowledge, public, propaganda

Abstract
This paper relates that Switzerland is a country with a robust economy, good prospects and no impediments to imports. The author points out that, although geographically Switzerland is land-locked and despite the presence of the Alps, excellent transit routes connect it to the Belgian Stella Artois plant. The paper relates that, politically, the country is a stable democracy with a somewhat right-wing government that actively promote business and investment by minimizing bureaucratic hindrances to foreign investors. The author concludes that this report did not identify any facts that would seem to contraindicate expansion into the Swiss market except for the fact that domestic consumption of beer has dropped. The paper includes charts.

Table of Contents:
Executive Summary
Introduction
Overview of Switzerland and its Business Climate
Geographical Setting
The Role of Education in Swiss Society with reference to Industry and Business
Primary Education
Secondary Education
Higher Education
Economic Analysis
Population
GDP/ GNP - Total, growth, per capita
Trade Data and Analysis
Exports and Imports
Trade Predictions

From the Paper
"Stella Artois is one of the brands of beer manufactured by InBev, a Belgian brewery company, and the world's largest beer producer. Stella Artois is a 5.2% beer brewed in Belgium, the United Kingdom, Australia and some other countries. Stella Artois is a strong seller in international markets - for example, it is the top selling premium beer in the UK market, while in Belgium, it is marketed as a regular beer. However, in general it is associated with the high-end beer market, which is a lucrative one."

Tags:high-end, transit, labor, tourists, import

Abstract
This paper explains that Adam Hochschild's "King Leopold's Ghost" is a brilliant historical account of how Leopold II, King of the Belgian, carved a personal empire and fortune from the Congo and how Edmund Morel, a clerk for the Elder Dempster shipping company, led an international campaign to expose the monarch's criminal enterprise. The author points out that Leopold's single-minded ambition, adroit diplomacy, skillful corruption and ruthless brutality brought him, already one of Europe's wealthiest men, untold riches, while for the Congolese people it brought only unbelievable suffering. The paper states that the "ghost" in the book's title relates to (1) after Leopold's death, rumors abounded that he had not really died but instead had gone to live in the Congo or (2) a more plausible claim emerged that Leopold's ghost would return to haunt the Congo for more than three decades after independence in the form of Mobutu Sese Seku, also a master criminal driven by vampire avarice.

From the Paper
"From the start, Leopold's Congo administration required Congolese labor, at first as portage to carry ivory, then to construct the railway. With the commercial emphasis switching to rubber, the Congo Free State was faced with a problem. Obviously, the state could purchase ivory, or seize it at the point of a gun, but it was impossible to oversee the harvesting of rubber latex, Its collection required going deep into the rain forests to find the rubber vines. So the Congo Free State's militias, the Force Publique, developed a brutal system which involved raiding villages and seizing women and children as hostages, only releasing them when the men brought in quotas of rubber."

Tags:concession-companies, investigate, slave-labor, expedition, rubber

Abstract
This paper examines the similarities between Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" and Achebe's "Things Fall Apart". It shows how both novellas show the early stages of the colonization of Africa and how the white Europeans came and destroyed the culture and villages. It also discusses how imperialism in the Congo by the Belgians and Europeans was displayed through brutality and complete disregard for the Africans and their culture and how imperialism and racism were rife.

From the Paper
"In Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart colonialism begins later in the novella. While Okonokwo is in exile a village named Abame was destroyed. A white man arrived in Abame on an "iron horse" (a bicycle) during the planting season. The village elders consulted the village oracle he told them that others would follow the white man; they will bring destruction to the village. The villagers killed the white man and tied his bicycle to their sacred tree to prevent it from getting away and telling the white man's friends."

Tags:okonokwo, europeans, africa, brown, kurtz, umofia

From the Paper
"acques Brel was a Belgium-born composer, lyricist, and singer who by the mid-1960s was the leading chansonnier, or "troubadour pop artist," in France. Marlene Dietrich called him "the greatest singer in the world," and others used epithets such as "lyric genius" to refer to his dark ballads. By the early 1970s Brel had quit the concert stage and to concentrate on the writing of his soul-searching songs, by then numbering in the hundreds. Musically, his compositions are rooted in old Flemish and French forms, but with a contemporary sound. Brel would become famous to American audiences largely through the revue Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris, which contained 25 of his songs translated from the French by Eric Blau and Mort Shuman.

Brel would be part of a tradition of cabaret singing that ... "

From the Paper
" Body Gestures in the Paintings of Rogier Van Der Weyden
The end of the Middle Ages saw an increase in the numbers of painters, illuminators, tapestry makers and other artists of the Burgundian States. Notable among these was Rogier Van Der Weyden, the official painter of Brussels, who achieved great heights in his ability to portray emotion from a personal point of view. The art of Van Der Weyden was striking to his contemporaries in his methods of using gesture, particularly hand gesture, to convey symbolic meaning..
It is important to note that in medieval iconography, position, grouping, and symmetry were of extraordinary importance. Attributes to the saints, the usual subjects of religious art, were commonly understood. In some artistic works.."

From the Paper
"This paper is a study of the development of the theories of philosopher Chaim Perelman as he has instigated a modern application for the classical concept called rhetoric. This discussion covers Perelman's writings spanning more than three decades, starting with some of his early considerations of rhetoric as a means to influence, argue, and persuade. His thinking on a subject that had fallen so out of favor with the mainstream as to be no longer mentioned except in the pejorative fashion in traditional discussions has single-handedly returned rhetoric to a topic of serious consideration in the realm of speech communication and modern philosophy.

The Belgian philosopher and law professor has spent his professional career specializing in an unexpected area. Carlin Romano observes"

From the Paper
"The purpose of this research is to examine Joseph Conrad's novel Heart of Darkness in relation to Belgian colonialism in Africa. The plan of the research will be to set forth the historical and literary context in which Heart of Darkness was published, and then to discuss ways in which Conrad made use of the historical given of Belgian colonialism in the Congo to articulate narrative meanings.

Two features of Conrad's work dominate an appreciation of the literary and historical context in which it emerged. First is the issue of language; although Conrad wrote mainly in England and always in English, in fact he was Polish and remained aware of and concerned with issues of Polish nationalism. The second feature of note about Conrad's work is that it is almost always set in or near a major waterway. In their respective critical ..."