(Own report) - Several of the uttermost right-wing parties in Europe are proceeding - with the cooperation of German organizations - to forge international alliances. The Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) has announced its extension of relations to the rapidly developing US-American Tea Party movement. Just a few days ago, FPÖ functionaries visited Israel, together with . . .

(Own report) - Under massive protests, Opel is preparing further steps toward the consolidation of the European auto industry in Germany. According to recent reports, the company's plants and those of its affiliate Vauxhall in Great Britain and Spain will be scaled back by one-third. The Opel plant in Belgium will be completely shut down. . . .

(Own report) - The ongoing current government crisis in Brussels is provoking discussions of secession projects in Belgium's Germanophonic eastern cantons. If the two large regions in Belgium, Flanders and Wallonia, really separate, why should the Eupen and St. Vith region not reorient itself - is a question being raised among the 70.000 Germanophones in . . .

One of the largest semi-official German associations is beginning to extend its organisational structure to the territories of neighbouring states. The ,,Sozialverband VdK"has founded the ,,VdK Local Association of Euregio East Belgium"which is affiliated to the VdK District Association in Aachen (Germany) as its thirteenth local branch. . . .

As long as fifteen years ago, the hidden work of German influence in eastern Belgium gave rise to investigations by the Eupen Regional Assembly. In October 1995 this resulted in the appointment of an investigating committee which followed new lines of enquiry. . . .

A German expert on ,,ethnic groups", who worked in previous years not only for German ,,Expellee"organisations but also for the doubtfully reputable Federal Institute for Eastern Reseach and International Studies, is the permanent representative in Brussels for the eastern Belgian German-speaking community. This was announced on Belgian radio. . . .

The states of Eastern Europe should ,,in part take the outstanding Belgian laws for the protection of minorities"as a model. This was demanded at a conference of the ,,Cultural Foundation of German Expellees"and the ,,Study Group for Policy and International Law (Voelkerrecht)"in Koenigswinter. The German-speaking minority in Belgium uses its constitutionally guaranteed special rights to fight for further far reaching . . .

The ,,German speaking community"in East Belgium is demanding greater autonomy and wants, in the long term, to be recognised as an ,,equal region"in federal Belgium. The Minister President of the Community, Karl-Heinz Lambertz announced in the Belgian capital Brussels that he had opened negotiations with the Belgian Region of Wallonia. The German speaking community, which already has sole responsibility in its . . .