Police in Flemish Brabant have caught a man that was so drunk that he fell asleep on the left-hand lane of the E40 motorway at Bertem (Flemish Brabant) the man was found to be three times over the limit On Sunday night the Highways Police receive a report that a car was stationary on the left-hand lane of the E40 at Bertem The driver of the car had fallen asleep behind the wheel After several attempts police officers succeeded in awakening the man Lien Klewais of the Federal Highways Police told VRT News that “When he was breathalysed he was found to be three times over the legal limit for alcohol” "His driving licence was revoked for 15 days with immediate effect and his vehicle was towed away The motorists will have to answer for his actions before the Police Court” "This incident once again shows how dangerous driving under the influence is Motorists that do so not only risk their own lives Martin Westlake has followed parallel careers as a civil servant and as an academic and has lived Since taking early retirement as a civil servant he has been pursuing a new parallel career as an author of creative fiction He is currently seeking an agent for his first full-length creative history novel which starts in the Belgian Ardennes in August 1914 and ends in the Alberta Plains (Canada) in November 1918 The rolling land around Leuven is peppered with Second World War bunkers these are small and tucked into folds in the landscape looking for a sheltered spot out of the wind but in the sun so the trees and vegetation remained largely leafless I saw that the bunker marked the end of a long I traced the wall – clearly manmade – to its end and realised that the bunker and the earthworks had once formed a cunningly-disguised trap The hidden bunker’s guns would have had a direct line of fire on any tank that had been halted by the obstacle it was clear to Belgium that the Germans would be coming again The first line of defence was the steep-sided Albert Canal and the natural barrier of the Meuse with the sturdy Fort Eben Mael at the apex of the various canals and rivers a new defensive fall back line was planned and erected at great speed Using various contracting companies and over a thousand workers more than 400 concrete bunkers and many kilometres of anti-tank obstacles were built The backbone of this ‘KW line’ consisted of rows of strategically placed combat bunkers. Where possible railway embankments and floodplains – all difficult obstacles for tanks – were integrated into the positions. Hundreds of acres of land were flooded. Where no existing or natural obstacles existed Numerous obstacles were erected in front of the bunkers from north to south; kilometres of barbed wire fences anti-tank obstacles (no less than 73,600 Cointet elements laced together with steel cables fields of rails and tetrahedra) and trenches.  following a daring paratrooper raid on Eben Mael the Germans rapidly broke through the Albert Canal/Meuse line forcing the Belgians to fall back to their positions on the KW line between Lier and Leuven. British soldiers manned the section from Leuven to Wavre and the French held the line between Namur and the French border with the Belgian and British giving fierce resistance the Allied High Command unexpectedly gave the order to withdraw The German army had broken through in the south the Netherlands had surrendered. In order not to be surrounded the allies were forced to abandon the KW line withdrawing to weaker positions along the Ghent-Terneuzen and Boven-Schelde canals. Belgium would surrender just fourteen days later the Germans later recycled a lot of the defensive material (especially those Cointet elements) when building the Atlantic Wall And the KW line gradually disappeared back into nature and a three kilometre-long concrete anti-tank ditch at Haacht the KW line was never really put to the test If you are going to build a defensive wall it has to go all the way – even along the borders with your friends Essential cookies enable basic functions and are necessary for the proper function of the website Statistics cookies collect information anonymously This information helps us to understand how our visitors use our website Faharas News is an AI-driven news aggregator that provides real-time updates from a variety of sources We do not take responsibility for the content or the external links provided We use cookies to personalize content and ads , to provide social media features and to analyze our traffic...Learn More