Amsterdam - The governments of Belgium and Luxembourg have transferred their shares in bank and insurance giant Fortis to the Netherlands, including the Dutch ABN Amro banking division.

Dutch newswire ANP reported Friday that Belgian Prime Minister Yves Leterme had made the announcement following the Belgian government's weekly meeting.

The agreement is worth some 16.8 billion euros (23.27 billion dollars), Leterme was quoted as saying.

Brussels - Belgium paid its final respects Wednesday to the last survivor of a resistance team that in 1943 pulled off a daring raid, rescuing over 200 Jews from a train to Auschwitz with no more than a pistol, three pairs of wirecutters, a lantern and a red rag.

Robert Maistriau, who died on Friday aged 87, was 22 years old when he and two friends took the risk of hijacking a train deporting over 1,600 Jews from Belgium to the Nazi death camp of Auschwitz in Poland.

Amsterdam - Dutch Finance Minister Wouter Bos and the president of the Dutch central bank DNB Nout Wellink were in Brussels on Sunday to discuss the future of Belgian-Dutch banking and insurance giant Fortis.

The two were due to give a press conference later Sunday night, Dutch television reported.

On Friday Fortis, which ranks among Europe's top 20 financial institutions, was forced to deny rumours that it was experiencing liquidity problems as its shares took a battering for a fifth day in a row.

Bos and Wellink met with the Belgian government, Fortis management, European Central Bank president Jean Claude Trichet and the European Commissioner for Competition, Neelie Kroes.

Brussels - Belgian-Dutch banking giant Fortis was forced to deny rumours that it was experiencing liquidity problems as its shares took a battering for a fifth day in a row Friday.

"We underline the solid position of the bank," Fortis said in a statement released in Brussels and Utrecht.

"Fortis solvency is solid and well above the regulatory minimum," the bank said, adding that its core capital stood at the end of June at an above-target level of 4 billion euros (5.86 billion dollars).

Brussels - A donors' conference dedicated to rebuilding Georgia's civilian infrastructure after August's war with Russia is set to open in Brussels on October 21 or 22, Belgian officials confirmed Thursday.

The one-day conference, which was proposed by European Union heads of state and government at an emergency summit on September 1, is intended to gather aid pledges from the international community, Belgian Foreign Ministry officials told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

The announcement of the conference comes 10 days after the European Commission, the EU's executive, pledged a package of 500 million euros (733.7 million dollars) in aid for the post-war reconstruction and economic recovery of Georgia.

- A group of three "wise men" tasked with finding a formula for ending Belgium's inter-ethnic tensions completed their task on Friday by proposing that a group of 12 wise men hammer out the details, the Belgian monarchy announced Friday.

Meeting Belgium's King Albert II at his Brussels residence, the trio proposed that "six French-speaking delegates and six Dutch-speaking delegates" launch a dialogue "from scratch and with no taboos or preconditions" on Belgium's future, the palace announced.