Tag Archive: Berlin


  • Merkel and Tusk held a brief debate on Europe after her biography was launched (Photo: Polish Prime Minister’s office/Maciej Śmiarowski)

No German ‘hegemony’ in Europe, Merkel says

22.04.13 @ 17:34

  1. By Valentina Pop

Berlin – Chancellor Angela Merkel has said there is no German hegemony in Europe, but insisted that euro countries cede more sovereignty to overcome the crisis.

“To me this hegemonial [concept] is completely foreign,” she said on Monday (22 April) during a debate with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk hosted by the Deutsche Bank in Berlin.

Merkel admitted that Germany has “sometimes a complicated role” in the EU and said that as a large, “but not the richest country,” it seeks to involve other states – like Poland – in the decision making process.

Having witnessed the collapse of East Germany under the Soviet Union, which ran the country’s economy into the ground, Merkel said she did not want the EU to fall apart too.

But the she rejected criticism voiced particularly in southern countries which suffer most from what is perceived to be a German-led austerity drive.

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Earth Watch Report  – Snow Storm

Ducks fly over the frozen Titisee Lake in Titisee-Neustadt, Germany, on February 27. Ducks fly over the frozen Titisee Lake in Titisee-Neustadt, Germany, on February 27.

12.03.2013 Snow Storm Germany Multiple Areas, [Southern regions] Damage level
Details

Snow Storm in Germany on Tuesday, 12 March, 2013 at 12:48 (12:48 PM) UTC.

Description
Heavy snow in several parts of Germany caused travel disruption, with 161 flights cancelled at Frankfurt airport, Europe’s third busiest. Public transport in Berlin was affected with several regional trains cancelled or severely delayed. There were also a spate of crashes on icy German roads with several people seriously hurt and one death, according to police.

12.03.2013 Snow Storm France Multiple Areas, [Northern regions] Damage level
Details

Snow Storm in France on Tuesday, 12 March, 2013 at 12:50 (12:50 PM) UTC.

Description
Nearly a third of France’s regions were on alert and the government activated a ministerial crisis group to deal with mounting disruptions. Weather service Meteo France described the snowfall — coming only eight days before the official start of spring — as “remarkable for the season” and warned that alerts would probably remain in place until at least Wednesday. More than 2,000 people were stranded in their cars overnight as heavy snow paralysed roads in Normandy and Brittany, with many spending the night in emergency shelters. “There are cars in front, there are cars behind. We’re in a film, it’s like the end of the world,” trapped driver Michel told France Bleu radio from the Manche region. At least 66,000 homes in Normandy and Brittany were without power, following snowfalls of 20 to 60 centimetres (eight to 24 inches). The snow caused major transport disruptions as it moved into Paris, with authorities urging the seven million commuters who use public transport every day to stay home. The city’s two main airports, Charles de Gaulle and Orly, said they had cancelled up to a quarter of flights. A traffic accident near Lille injured 14 people and a 58-year-old homeless man was found dead, presumably from the cold, outside a building in the Breton town of Saint-Brieuc. Hundreds were also stuck in their cars overnight in Britain and Eurostar train services to the continent were disrupted.

12.03.2013 Snow Storm United Kingdom Multiple Areas, [South-eastern regions] Damage level
Details

Snow Storm in United Kingdom on Tuesday, 12 March, 2013 at 12:59 (12:59 PM) UTC.

Description
In Britain, drivers including former Eurovision song contest winner Cheryl Baker were trapped for more than 10 hours as ice, snow and freezing winds descended on southeastern England on Monday and Tuesday. Police, rescue services, snow ploughs and gritting lorries battled to help the stricken motorists in temperatures as low as -3C. The counties of Sussex and Kent bordering London were worst affected with roads including stretches of the M23 motorway near Gatwick Airport under 10 centimetres of snow. Singer Cheryl Baker, formerly of the band Bucks Fizz, was among those caught up in the chaos as she tried to reach Brighton to pick up her children. “We took 10 hours to do a one-hour journey,” she told ITV. Eurostar said services of the train that runs under the English channel were suspended “due to extreme weather conditions”.

12.03.2013 Snow Storm Belgium [Statewide] Damage level
Details

Snow Storm in Belgium on Tuesday, 12 March, 2013 at 12:49 (12:49 PM) UTC.

Description
In Belgium, the snowstorms caused massive traffic disruptions, with vehicles backed up on 1,600 kilometres (1,000 miles) of freeways due to snowdrifts and ice. Buses and trains were cancelled or delayed in Brussels and other towns and the high-speed Thalys service linking Paris and Brussels was suspended. Long traffic jams because of snow and ice also snaked along motorways in the southern Netherlands, hampering travel to and from Belgium after an unseasonal fall of more than 10 centimetres (four inches) of snow overnight. Forecasters predicted that cold weather records were set to be broken again after Monday, the coldest March 11 in the southern Netherlands since 1928, Dutch media reported.

Snow Storm in Belgium on Tuesday, 12 March, 2013 at 12:49 (12:49 PM) UTC.

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Updated: Tuesday, 12 March, 2013 at 13:00 UTC
Description
An overnight snowstorm in northwestern Europe caused record traffic jams in Belgium, stalled high-speed international trains and left British and French drivers sleeping in their cars. The Belgian breakdown assistance association Touring said the total length of jams on highways and major roads at their rush-hour peak hit 1,670 km (1,038 miles), beating by far the previous record of 1,285 km set on February 3 last year. “There was too much snow at the wrong moment. If it snows a lot at night, the salt doesn’t work as there aren’t enough cars to spread it around,” said Touring spokesman Danny Smagghe. On a normal Tuesday, total morning rush-hour traffic jams average 250-270 km. Brussels’ two main railway stations were closed. The high-speed Eurostar service connecting London with the French and Belgian capitals and the Thalys line linking Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam in the Netherlands and Cologne in Germany were both suspended.

Heavy snow snarls travel in northern Europe

By Laura Smith-Spark, Stephanie Halasz and Alexander Felton, CNN
updated 5:02 PM EDT, Tue March 12, 2013
A couple walk on a snowy sidewalk on Place de la Concorde in Paris, on March 12, during a heavy snow storm. Twenty-six regions in northwest and northern France were put on orange alert because of heavy snowfall.
A couple walk on a snowy sidewalk on Place de la Concorde in Paris, on March 12, during a heavy snow storm. Twenty-six regions in northwest and northern France were put on orange alert because of heavy snowfall.

A cyclist makes his way along a snowy track near Ladmanlow, United Kingdom, on March 10 as a return of freezing temperatures and snow delay springtime weather for Great Britain. A cyclist makes his way along a snowy track near Ladmanlow, United Kingdom, on March 10 as a return of freezing temperatures and snow delay springtime weather for Great Britain.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
  • NEW: Germany’s Frankfurt airport, a major European hub, cancels 700 flights
  • Eurostar suspends its high-speed train services Tuesday because of bad weather
  • Bus and train services to airports in Paris start to recover after snow disruption
  • Motorists are stranded in southeast England as snow and ice paralyze roads

London (CNN) — Swaths of northern Europe were in the grip of snow, ice and high winds Tuesday, causing serious disruption to road, rail and air travelers.

High-speed train operator Eurostar, which runs services linking Paris, Brussels and London, among other destinations, has canceled the rest of its services Tuesday and told passengers to stay at home.

“Severe weather conditions overnight in Northern France and Belgium have led to the closure of the high speed line,” a notice on the company’s website said.

“Passengers will not be able to travel on Eurostar services today and should not come to our stations.

About 10,000 passengers are likely to be affected as a result of the cancellation of around 24 out of 27 scheduled trains Tuesday, Eurostar spokeswoman Lucy Drake said.

The bad weather may also affect services Wednesday, she said, with further cancellations or extended journey times possible

Passengers affected by the disruption will be offered exchanges or refunds, Drake said, and are urged to consider traveling next week if possible.

 

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By | Financially Fit – Thu, Feb 21, 2013 2:04 PM EST

Fellmer with Alma Lucia, left, and Nieves Palmer. Photo courtesy of Raphael Fellmer.A Berlin family of three has been living on practically nothing but love and the goodwill of others for more than two years and counting—not as a victims of the rough economy, but as activists who are on a money strike to protest what they call our “excess-consumption society.”

More on Shine: German Grandmother Lives Money-Free and Has Never Been Happier

“As consumers, we support the system, and we are all responsible for making a wasteful society,” Raphael Fellmer, 29, told Yahoo! Shine. “This strike is to inspire other people to reflect about our other possibilities.”

Fellmer, who said he’d held jobs since he was 12 years old, began his protest after years of working in hotels, bars, restaurants and various offices. In 2010, after graduating from college in the Hague as a European Studies major, he and two friends embarked upon a 15-month “journey of humanity” to raise awareness of environmental destruction and of society’s many wastes, including estimates that about one-third of all food produced worldwide (valued at about $1 trillion a year) gets wasted.

More on Yahoo!: German Bin Divers Get Connected to Wage War on Food Waste

That trip involved hitchhiking from Europe to Mexico without cash, simply depending on the goodwill and excess resources of others. It carried them over more than 19,000 miles on more than 500 vehicles—including a sailboat that took the trio from the Canary Islands to Brazil in exchange for crew duties—and soon led Fellmer to meet his wife, Nieves Palmer, who became pregnant along the way.

Now the couple, along with their 18-month-old daughter Alma Lucia, are continuing to live nearly money-free in Berlin, where they do odd jobs and organizing work in exchange for living space, with roommates, in the Peace House Martin Niemöller, which contains various non-profits. (Though Fellmer uses no money, he said Palmer does use a little, mainly in the form of child support she receives from the government, which is granted to all children.)

 

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By Konstantin von Hammerstein, Horand Knaup, Gordon Repinski, Michael Sauga and Merlind Theile

Photo Gallery: SPD Candidate Gets a Muzzle in Campaign

Photos
DPA

Peer Steinbrück, the SPD candidate running against Chancellor Angela Merkel in a September general election, is still seen as a risk to the party’s prospects despite a recent boost from Lower Saxony. Damaged by a string of gaffes, he will be kept on a tighter rein and only have a limited say in campaign strategy.

The highlight of the tour is a 1.5-ton bull called Hoeness. Peer Steinbrück, doing the rounds at the International Green Week farming trade fair in Berlin last Friday, stood at the gate and admired the Bavarian beast, renowned for his prodigious breeding capabilities.

 

ANZEIGE

Hoeness’ most remarkable feature is his lack of horns, said a farm worker, adding that his offspring even inherited that. “Ah, I’ve only just noticed that,” said Steinbrück. Then he quipped, “you couldn’t do that with me!”

Steinbrück, picked by the opposition center-left Social Democrats to challenge Chancela Angela Merkel in the general election in September, strolled from stand to stand and constantly had to sample foods such as venison salami, marinated herring, strawberry ice cream and meat in aspic, in between shaking hands and posing for photos with prospective voters.

This was an exercise in getting close to the public — something Steinbrück doesn’t always get right. After an hour, his entourage passed a group of schoolchildren, who laughed and waved. It would have been a nice picture, the candidate and the children, but instead of walking over to the group of youngsters, he hesitated.

“You don’t even know who we are,” the candidate growled. He gave a thin smile, passed up the photo op and walked on. Later, when Steinbrück went on stage to make a statement in the exhibition hall of the northern state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, the crowd booed.

It was his first public appearance since the state election in Lower Saxony on Feb. 20.

The election went well for the SPD — together with the Greens, it won enough votes to oust Merkel’s conservatives from the state government, giving the center-left a much-needed boost ahead of the general election. But Steinbrück, supposedly the face of the party in this election year, was kept in the background all last week while the party’s other leaders took center stage to wax lyrical about the outcome.

A series of verbal gaffes in recent months — saying German chancellors were underpaid, for example — has undermined his position. Usually, the candidate for chancellor is a party’s most important figure in an election year, embodying the hopes and expectations of its members. Ideally this individual should stand for what distinguishes the party from its rivals.

No other representative in the political system is so closely scrutinized by the electorate. Do voters really want to entrust this man or woman with their country’s future — and their children’s future?

Steinbrück would like to assume this role — but he can’t, at least not now. In this important week for the SPD, he got to inspect Hoeness the bull and grin at the cameras. That’s not much for a chancellor candidate and it shows how precarious his political position remains. Indeed, the SPD’s narrow state election victory has only brought one certainty: Speculation that Steinbrück might throw in the towel has been disproved.

No one feared such a scenario more than SPD Chairman Sigmar Gabriel. Until recently, he was unsure whether Steinbrück would keep his nerve in the face of fierce criticism over his botched start as candidate. Aides say that Gabriel was bordering on panic in the days running up to the election in Lower Saxony.

Steinbrück Seen as Risk Factor

Now, he has one less thing to worry about, but there still remain a host of other concerns surrounding this candidate. On election night, Steinbrück apologized for the lack of “tailwind” from Berlin during the election, and said that he was also aware that he was “partly responsible for that.” It was the euphemism of the month.

The sad reality, though, is that it wasn’t thanks to, but rather despite Steinbrück that the SPD won in Lower Saxony. This man is currently not an asset to his party. That, at least, is the message that leading members of the SPD are conveying. “He hasn’t caused as much damage as we feared,” says an influential party functionary.

 

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By Agence France-Presse
Wednesday, January 23, 2013 2:45 EST

The Raw Story

Eighty years after Adolf Hitler’s rise to power, a novel that imagines his return to modern-day Berlin has become a bestseller in Germany, though a comedy about the Fuehrer is not to everyone’s taste.

Instead of committing suicide in his bunker on April 30, 1945, in “He’s Back” (Er Ist Wieder Da), Hitler wakes up in 2011 without the slightest idea what has happened in the intervening 66 years.

He stumbles through Berlin, dazed by the fact that Germany is now ruled by a woman and is home to millions of Turks.

In one scene, the Nazi leader asks a group of boys for directions, addressing them as “Ronaldo Hitler youth”. He has mistaken their football shirts bearing the name of the soccer star as some kind of military uniform.

“Who’s the old guy?” the boys ask each other.

Such is the tone in the nearly 400-page novel by Timur Vermes, a 45-year-old journalist.

In a celebrity obsessed society where success is often gauged by follower numbers on social networks or YouTube views, Hitler soon becomes the star of an entertainment show with a Turkish host.

The FDP is on life support.Zoom

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The FDP is on life support.

The conservatives may be out of power in Lower Saxony, but the result was not a total debacle for Chancellor Angela Merkel. After 100,000 conservative voters opted to prop up the floundering Free Democrats, she now has control over two center-right parties, say commentators.

It was but a hint. On Jan. 3, Lower Saxony Governor David McAllister noted that he would understand if conservative voters were to forego choosing his party, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), in a crucial state vote and instead opted to vote for the business-friendly Free Democrats (FDP).

 

ANZEIGE

The calculation was clear. Support for the FDP, McAllister’s junior coalition partner, was well below the 5 percent minimum necessary for parliamentary representation. Should they fail the make it into parliament, McAllister would be out of a job.

McAllister later backtracked, saying he was confident the FDP would make it into parliament without help from CDU voters. But as it turns out, conservative voters weren’t so sure. According to initial analysis of the state elections in Lower Saxony on Sunday, over 100,000 CDU voters opted to choose the FDP to ensure that the sclerotic party limped over the 5 percent hurdle.

 

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SPIEGEL ONLINE

The result was a stunning reversal of FDP fortunes, as surprising as it is misleading. After months of polling below 5 percent in both Lower Saxony and nationwide, the FDP on Sunday achieved its best ever result in the state, gathering in 9.9 percent of the vote.

Alas, for McAllister’s center-right government, it wasn’t enough. Most of the extra votes received by the FDP came at the expense of his own party’s total, leading to a disappointing 36 percent result for the CDU, 6.5 percentage points below the party’s vote total in the last Lower Saxony election in 2008. The center-left pairing of the Social Democrats and Greens managed to eke out the slimmest of victories over the McAllister camp, securing just one seat in parliament more than its political rivals.

 

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Earth Watch Report  -  Avalanche

File:Tuckerman Headwall.JPG

Jscottcc (talk)        CC some rights reserved.svgCc-by new white.svgCc-sa white.svg

18.01.2013 Avalanche USA State of New Hampshire, [Tuckerman Ravine, Coos County] Damage level
Details

Avalanche in USA on Friday, 18 January, 2013 at 05:27 (05:27 AM) UTC.

Description
An avalanche was reported late Thursday evening at Tuckerman Ravine in North Conway, NH. Between six and nine people were said to be on the mountain at the time of the incident, several of whom were injured transported to Androscoggin Valley Hospital, according to a spokesman from Berlin Fire Department. “It seems like they are all off the mountain,” said firefighter Jonathan Larin. “I noticed that about three or four ambulances from both Gorham and Jackson were utilized.” The condition of those injured was not immediately available. The Mount Washington Avalanche Center had issued an avalanche advisory for Tuckerman Ravine on Thursday.

 

French Mission in Mali ’Is Not Without Risk’

Photo Gallery: The French Move into Mali

Photos
AP/Laure-Anne Maucorps, ECPAD

The German government on Monday unexpectedly offered Paris concrete support as French troops battle Islamist extremists in Mali. Though ruling out a combat role, Germany’s military will provide transport and medical assistance.

French President François Hollande’s rapid decision last week to take an active role in preventing Islamist fighters from pushing into southern Mali caught the international community off guard. Now, however, more and more countries are lining up to support the Paris offensive, which entered its fourth day on Monday.

ANZEIGE

And Germany, on Monday, unexpectedly became one of them. The government in Berlin has announced that it is prepared to provide cargo planes as well as medical personnel. Andreas Peschke, spokesman for the Foreign Ministry in Berlin, said that Germany did not want to “leave France alone in this difficult hour.”On Sunday, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said that several other allies, including the United States, Britain, Denmark and other countries in Europe, had offered assistance, though none have indicated a willingness to send troops and warplanes. The US has offered communications, transportation and intelligence support. Sources in Copenhagen on Monday told the German news agency DPA that Denmark was considering the provision of active support. Several African countries have pledged to send troops as well.

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle on Sunday once again ruled out the deployment of German troops. “The involvement of a German fighting force is not up for debate,” he said. Still, Berlin has voiced support for the French offensive. “France has acted and that was decisive, correct and deserves our support,” German Defense Minster Thomas de Maizière said on German radio on Monday.

Germany also remains involved in a European Union effort to develop plans for a military training mission to Mali. On Sunday, Westerwelle said: “The development of plans for an EU training mission for the Malian military will continue. Whether and how Germany will participate will be decided when the plans are complete.”

 

 

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Politics, Legislation and Economy News

 

 

  • Benjamin Netanyahu and Angela Merkel visiting the Holocaust museum in Berlin in 2010 (Photo: Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs/ Moshe Milner)

Israeli PM ‘disappointed’ with Angela Merkel

  1. By Valentina Pop

BERLIN – A joint German-Israeli government meeting in Berlin on Thursday (6 December) is likely to be the scene of more disagreements between Chancellor Angela Merkel and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as the two traditional allies are having increased difficulty finding common ground.

The scene was set already on the eve of the meeting. Netanyahu told Die Welt about his “disappointment” at Germany’s decision last week to abstain instead of saying “No” to Palestine’s status upgrade within the United Nations.

“I think Chancellor Merkel thought this vote would somehow promote peace. But the opposite has happened: Ever since the UN vote, the Palestinian Authority has made moves towards uniting with Hamas terrorists,” Netanyahu said.

Merkel, for her part, said on the margins of her party congress in Hannover that talks with the Israeli ally would be “frank” and not shy away from criticism about Israel’s ever-expanding settlements in the West Bank.

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  • Tens of thousands tested with experimental drugs not approved in the West
  • One study of a drug for heart conditions saw six out of 17 patients die
  • Sinister practice exposed in disturbing new Germany documentary

By Allan Hall In Berlin

Mail Online

Former Communist East Germany secretly sold its citizens to western pharmaceutical companies to use as human guinea pigs in drug trials.

Tens of thousands of sick people in the former German Democratic Republic were treated with medicines not approved in the West to see how effective they were.

Details of the top secret project have been unearthed in the files of the Stasi secret police in Berlin. The communist regime profited with millions in hard currency.

The bridge between East Germany and West Berlin pictured in the early 1960s. Recently opened files show how Stasi officials secretly sold citizens to western pharmaceutical companies to use as human guinea pigs The bridge between East Germany and West Berlin pictured in the early 1960s. Recently opened files show how Stasi officials secretly sold citizens to western pharmaceutical companies to use as human guinea pigs

But the human cost was high with dozens killed through side effects of drugs which had bypassed the normally stringent testing procedures demanded by western democracies.

Even worse, some patients received placebos – pills that did nothing at all – to gauge how they responded in comparison to others who were given proper medication.

The practice was exposed by journalists Stefan Hoge and Carsten Opitz and screened this week in Germany in a disturbing documentary entitled ‘Test and Dead’.

The Stasi files – miles and miles of yellowing paperwork which the hated secret police of East Germany failed to destroy when the country imploded in 1989 – revealed details of how it became one of the most important testing arenas for western drug companies.

The conspiracy involved the state, doctors and western big pharma firms.

 

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