Belgium And The Netherlands Swap Land, And Remain Friends

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

From Cyprus to Ukraine, Israel to the Balkans, conflicts over land have long turned bloody. But on Monday, the Netherlands and Belgium managed to settle a festering territorial problem, without firing a single bullet and with an unlikely spur: a headless corpse.

In a signing ceremony attended by their respective royals, Belgium agreed to cede about 35 acres of scenic land by the Meuse River in exchange for about seven acres of land from the Netherlands. The two countries had formalized their border in the Treaty of Maastricht in 1843.

In a region that has long known geopolitical and linguistic squabbles, and where Belgium has lived in the shadow of its neighbor, the land swap was anything but inevitable. That apparently is where the headless body comes in.

Read more of this story at SoylentNews.