Belgium playmaker Eden Hazard has retired from international football at the age of 31. Hazard made his Belgium debut in 2008 at the age of 17, and went on to win 126 caps, scoring 33 goals. Credit: @ujuochulo for The Guardian

More than six years after the attacks, hearings will begin to determine whether 10 men played a role in the 2016 Islamist suicide bombings in Brussels.

Thursday saw the giants of football fall at the World Cup in Qatar. First, Belgium were eliminated after a goalless draw with Croatia. Morocco's 2-1 victory over Canada saw them top Group F in stunning fashion. The Atlas Lions will face Spain in the next round after another shock result saw La Roja lose to Japan 1-2, meaning that the Samurais top the group.

As the last four games of the opening round of matches of the Qatar 2022 World Cup take place today, African representatives Cameroon and Ghana will come up against Switzerland and Portugal, respectively. Are the Indomitable Lions capable of ripping the efficient Swiss apart, and can the Black Stars dim the glow of Cristiano Ronaldo’s Portugal?

Belgium will once again be the dark horse in Qatar and their golden generation will hope to finally end the jinx and bring home the World Cup. They begin their campaign in the Middle East against Canada, a country making a return to the Mundial after a 36-year absence. Will this finally be Belgium’s year?

To mark World Refugee Day, we head to Belgium, where several hundred unaccompanied minors are still waiting for a legal guardian. Under Belgian law, all foreign minors arriving into the country unaccompanied by an adult must be assigned a legal guardian in order to register with the authorities. But the country faces a shortage of these profiles and is trying to recruit more to address the shortfall. Our correspondents report.

The monarch's visit to the DRC comes two years after he apologized for atrocities committed during Belgium's brutal colonial era. The six-day trip has been billed as a chance for reconciliation between the two countries.

A patient in the German state of Bavaria has been infected with monkeypox, according to the Bundeswehr Institute of Microbiology in Munich. First cases were also detected in France and Belgium.

Oil facilities at Belgian ports have been hit with a cyberattack. The news comes a day after Germany launched an investigation into a similar incident.

A Belgium court has ruled that Spanish rapper Valtonyc will not be extradited, arguing that his offenses — allegedly glorifying terror — were not a crime under Belgian law.

The Belgian government has said all of the country's existing nuclear energy plants will close by 2025. However, Belgium will invest in future nuclear technology.

The Omicron variant was first reported to the WHO from South Africa on 24 November. The WHO has listed it as a ‘variant of concern’ and said it could take several weeks to know if there are significant changes in transmissibility, severity, or implications for Covid vaccines, tests, and treatments. Australia, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, Britain, Israel, Hong Kong, Belgium, Switzerland, and Canada are countries where the new COVID-19 variant has also been detected.