Well, following up the last post on Belarus, it seems that German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier has mirrored what went on in that Patterson School command post exercise to an eerie degree. In the simulation, apparently, Gerhard Schröder made a fool of himself by lining up with the Russians…and, strange to tell, Steinmeier has done [...]

The Berlin Institute for Population and Development published a study this week detailing falling population in certain parts of Germany, particularly economically depressed parts of eastern Germany, the Ruhr valle and the Saarland. In eastern Germany one of the developments that has been discussed on afoe it becoming clear: Deferred or deterred childbirth in the [...]

From the BBC News site comes this disconcerting news:
Europe is falling behind Asia in terms of education and skills, according to a report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
It blames France and Germany which are criticised for mediocre education systems and their inherent class bias.
And further on:
“Europeans from difficult socio-economic backgrounds don’t [...]

David Irving, as no doubt we all know, is beginning his new career as a jailbird, in the great grey walls of the Josefstadt prison next to the even greater and greyer Landesgericht between Vienna’s city hall and its university. Now, there are plenty of facile things to say about this: freedom of expression is [...]

The German newspaper whose web site is now marginally better organized has two reporters based in the United States for its main news section. One, Matthias Rueb, is said to be one of the paper’s heavy hitters. They post him where they want to have an impact, certainly within German debate, and if possible at [...]

a reference I read a while ago and found very interesting with respect to Islamic reform movements.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17054
Also, just two weeks ago, there was a highly praised symposium in Bonn with, among other speakers, Tariq Ramadan, about this very topic (some add. info, for those who read German) –
http://www.qantara.de/uploads/463/Schimmel_Symp.pdf
http://islam.de/4661.php
http://www.faz.net/s/Rub5C2BFD49230B472BA96E0B2CF9FAB88C/Doc~E51FA69281734495BB6E9C87271C8049C~ATpl~Ecommon~Scontent.html
Interestingly I just found out that, Christoph Luxenberg [...]

Of course, I could be accused of only latching-on to the data that suits me, and it is true that there has been some reasonably optimistic reporting about the German economy of late: we had the German IFO index, and there was the apparently world cup driven consumer confidence index rise. So todays news that [...]

You will all recall, I’m sure, that Germany had a problem with nazis sixty or so years ago. After this problem had been cleared up (primarily by non-Germans), the Germans resolved that they didn’t want that sort of thing to happen again. And towards that end they enacted some laws.
One of those laws is § [...]

Fresh from asking G. W. Bush to put an end to Guantanamo, Anglea Merkel is now in Moscow. High on the list will be both Iran, and democracy in Russia. Quite timely really that someone who grew up in East Germany and can read the riot act to him in her most charming Russian should [...]

Der Standard is reporting that German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said that “an institution like Guantanamo cannot, and cannot be allowed to, exist for any length of time” and promised to take the matter up with George W. Bush. Those people who expected less criticism from Germany of the War On Terror are clearly about [...]