The newscast showed fuzzy pictures that appeared to be King Albert II and Queen Paola fleeing the country on an air force plane as a clutch of pro-monarchy demonstrators waved Belgian flags outside the royal palace. Then there was live footage of trams blocked at Belgium's new border.
Flanders, the report declared, had proclaimed its independence. Belgium, a fragile federal country of 10 million people, famous for its 300 kinds of beer, its funky designers and its more than a dozen different parliaments and regional governments, was no more.
Huh? 