“The German language hardly knows any words for the devastation that has been caused,” Chancellor Angela Merkel said in a visit to the disaster zone.
Source: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/germany-s-angela-merkel-faces-questions-over-flood-response-she-n1274451
Droolin’ Dog sniffed out this story and shared it with you.
The Article Was Written/Published By: Patrick Smith and Carlo Angerer and Reuters
Dozens of people remain missing as severe floods sweep through western Germany and other parts of Europe.
Source: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/7/16/germany-belgium-floods-over-100-deaths-hundreds-missing-live
Droolin’ Dog sniffed out this story and shared it with you.
The Article Was Written/Published By:
Spread of more infectious virus variants has pushed up cases, raising concerns that hospitals could soon be overstretched.
Source: https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/new-pandemic-germany-caused-virus-variant-prompts-lockdown-through-easter-n1261815
Droolin’ Dog sniffed out this story and shared it with you.
The Article Was Written/Published By: Reuters
Attraction is rumoured to have been an unwanted prank birthday present
Source: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/germany-phallus-sculpture-missing-grunten-mountain-b1764432.html
Droolin’ Dog sniffed out this story and shared it with you.
The Article Was Written/Published By: Jon Sharman
More than 180 police officers in Germany raided homes in three states on Tuesday after the government banned a far-right group.According to the country’s interior minister, Horst Seehofer, author…
Source: https://thehill.com/homenews/news/528107-homes-raided-after-germany-bans-far-right-group
Droolin’ Dog sniffed out this story and shared it with you.
The Article Was Written/Published By: Joseph Choi
The station has been closed since 1970 and behind the ornate facades, Canfranc has a sometimes troubling past, reports Graham Keeley in Spain
Source: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/train-war-nazis-smuggle-jews-b1762953.html
Droolin’ Dog sniffed out this story and shared it with you.
The Article Was Written/Published By: Graham Keeley
‘This is the only way for DB to be climate neutral in 2050,’ says board member
Source: https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/deutsche-bahn-hydrogen-train-2024-b1761627.html
Droolin’ Dog sniffed out this story and shared it with you.
The Article Was Written/Published By: Helen Coffey
Clashes have erupted in Berlin on Germany’s Reunification Day, after Antifa activists tried to block the way of a far-right march. The left-wing protesters attempted to stage sit-ins and pelted police with projectiles.
Germany is celebrating its 30th Unity Day, marking the reunification of the country that was divided for over 40 years. On 3 October 1990, the eastern socialist German Democratic Republic (GDR) was disbanded and absorbed by the western Federal Republic of Germany.
Germany’s far-right “Third-Way” movement, which describes itself as “Nationalist” and “Socialist”, staged a march in Berlin marking the occasion. Originally, it was to be held on May 1, but was postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The event attracted a large group of left-wing counter-protesters, who attempted to block the route of the “Third-Way” marchers. Police deployed a major force into the area, trying to separate the rival groups and clear the route for the march.
Antifa protesters have attempted to stage sit-ins in the middle of a road, prompting police to forcibly remove and detain some of them, footage from the scene shows. That led to scuffles, with authorities saying the activists pelted law enforcement with various projectiles.
Also on rt.com
Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!
Source: https://www.rt.com/news/502457-berlin-antifa-police-clashes/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS
Droolin’ Dog sniffed out this story and shared it with you.
The Article Was Written/Published By: RT
Source: https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/history-screen-east-germany-through-its-filmmakers-eyes-east-germany-berlin-wall-john-f-kennedy-german-history-b753871.html
Droolin’ Dog sniffed out this story and shared it with you.
The Article Was Written/Published By: Via AP news wire
Source: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/germany-launches-new-search-nuclear-waste-storage-site-east-germany-salt-mine-berlin-site-site-b669088.html
Droolin’ Dog sniffed out this story and shared it with you.
The Article Was Written/Published By: Via AP news wire
The pandemic has hobbled the weekly student protests that made Greta Thunberg and other campaigners a global phenomenon — so they’re now hitting up politicians in person.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel got a firsthand taste of that on Thursday, when Thunberg and three other youth activists met with her for 90 minutes to press for more aggressive German leadership on climate change. Campaigners like Thunberg have met top politicians in the past — but now it’s their main venue for staying in the public eye.
“We went to Angela Merkel because we wrote an open letter to all heads of states and world leaders, we had a few demands in there. The thing we mostly ask for is that we want leaders in this crisis, and we don’t have any leaders right now that treat this crisis as a crisis,” Belgium’s Anuna De Wever, 19, told reporters after meeting with Merkel.
According to a German government statement issued after the meeting, the group discussed the climate priorities of the German EU Council presidency, the EU’s objective of becoming climate-neutral by 2050 and efforts to hike the bloc’s 2030 emissions reduction targets.
“Both sides agree that global warming is a global challenge where industrial states have a particular responsibility in its management,” the statement said, adding: “The basis for that is the implementation of the Paris Agreement.”
But that’s pretty much where agreement ended.
The campaigners want politicians — and especially Merkel — to speed up emissions cuts and other climate measures. They say that “Europe has a responsibility to act” thanks to the pollution dating back to the Industrial Revolution that caused the bulk of the emissions problem.
“We want leaders to step up, take responsibility and treat the climate crisis like a crisis,” said Thunberg.
But many politicians argue they can’t simply rush through tougher climate targets without also taking into effect the impact on people and businesses.
The campaigners give short shrift to such political calculations.
“It became very clear that we look at the situation from different perspectives,” Luisa Neubauer, 24, the group’s German member, told reporters. “As a physicist, [Merkel] does understand the science. As a politician, she well understands the political complexity behind that struggle. The question is now how to fill that gap.”
For them, the rapidly warming planet is the world’s overriding risk.
“The interests of future generations have to be somehow balanced with interests of generations today — and that’s a huge challenge and we’re not denying that at all,” said Neubauer, a member of the German Greens party.
While the weekly strikes that launched the youth protest movement are now more difficult, the movement isn’t giving up on direct action.
“We used to strike in masses on the streets which was for many weeks not thinkable during corona and is still a very challenging task,” Neubauer said. “We’re listening to the science and we are adjusting. We’re moving to spaces where we can strike safely — sometimes digitally, sometimes in smaller numbers on the streets.”
The movement is gearing up for a new wave of demonstrations next month.
“We have decided to strike again globally and safely, if possible on the streets … we’re mobilizing right now for September 25,” Neubauer said. “The climate crisis hasn’t slowed, it’s escalating. We need people to demand action and this is obviously what we keep doing.”
Source: https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/20/greta-thunbergs-climate-movement-targets-angela-merkel-399597
Droolin’ Dog sniffed out this story and shared it with you.
The Article Was Written/Published By: Kalina Oroschakoff
Personal Life Coach Adele Landauer was enjoying a relaxing afternoon by a lake near Berlin, when a group of wild boars approached the beach. I’ll let her tell the rest of it, according to her Instagram post:
A female wild boar with two babies came out of the forest in order to search for food.
In Berlin we are free people – we love to bathe in the sun and lake like we are born.
So, there were many people laying on their towels completely naked.
Many of us were scared but the wild boars seemed to be peaceful.
After they ate a pizza from a backpack of a man who was taking a swim in the lake they were looking for a dessert.
They found this yellow bag and decided to take it away.
But the man who owned it realized it was the bag with his laptop.
So, he was very focused and run behind the boars in order to get it back.Everyone of us adored him how focused he stayed and when he came back with his yellow bag in the hand we all clapped and congratulated him for his success.
This happens when you’re focused on your goals.
Image: Adele Landauer / Instagram
Don’t worry; Landauer told The Guardian that the running naked German man gave her permission to post the photos of his butt, and that everyone had a good laugh when the crisis was over.
Still, I can’t help but wonder what the 30-50 feral hogs guy would think about this.
You swine! German nudist chases wild boar that stole laptop [Kate Connolly / The Guardian]
Image: adelelandauer_lifecoach / Instagram
Source: https://boingboing.net/2020/08/11/wild-boar-steals-laptop-gets.html
Droolin’ Dog sniffed out this story and shared it with you.
The Article Was Written/Published By: Thom Dunn
Researchers are still digging into the question and sharing their findings decades after the Nazis sacked the homes of Jews during World War II.
(Image credit: Cornelia Li for NPR)
Source: https://www.npr.org/2020/07/29/812891442/where-are-the-thousands-of-nazi-looted-musical-instruments?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=artslife
Droolin’ Dog sniffed out this story and shared it with you.
The Article Was Written/Published By: Eleanor Beardsley
Move would weaken Nato and work to Vladimir Putin’s benefit, say critics
Source: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-germany-troops-republican-revolt-nato-putin-a9582971.html
Droolin’ Dog sniffed out this story and shared it with you.
The Article Was Written/Published By: James Hohmann
More than 600 employees from the Toennies slaughterhouse in Rheda-Wiedenbrueck tested positive, health officials from the city of Guetersloh said.
Source: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/germany-reports-largest-covid-19-outbreak-early-may-n1231388
Droolin’ Dog sniffed out this story and shared it with you.
The Article Was Written/Published By: Isobel van Hagen and Andy Eckardt and Associated Press
Perhaps only President Donald Trump could turn a withdrawal of troops into an act of aggression.
The president has directed the Pentagon to reduce sharply the number of U.S. military forces stationed in Germany, where a heavy presence of GIs has long served as a symbol of Washington’s commitment to protecting its European allies.
The White House would not confirm the plan, which was first reported Friday by the Wall Street Journal, but current and former officials familiar with it said Trump would cap the U.S. military presence at 25,000 — requiring a reduction of nearly 30 percent, or roughly 9,700 troops.
As of March 31, there were 34,674 U.S. military personnel stationed in Germany, including 20,774 from the Army and 12,980 from the Air Force, according to the most recent publicly-available Pentagon deployment report.
Some 19,000 additional civilian employees support the uniformed military forces, and that number would almost certainly be cut as a result of the planned withdrawals.
The reduction in forces stands to reverse an increase in the U.S. military presence in Europe during Trump’s administration, which NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has trumpeted repeatedly to refute any suggestion that America’s commitment to the alliance might be wavering under the president who once called it “obsolete” and who has repeatedly bashed allies for not spending enough on their own militaries.
Stoltenberg has pointed to the increased U.S. presence as part of NATO’s effort to step up deterrence against an increasingly aggressive and assertive Russia. Moscow undoubtedly will cheer any reduction in the U.S. military footprint in Europe, which the Kremlin has regarded as a menacing presence since the days of the Cold War.
“Sometimes we also hear that the U.S. is leaving Europe — that’s not correct,” Stoltenberg said at a conference in London on the sidelines of a NATO leaders’ summit in December. “The U.S. is actually increasing their presence in Europe … So there’s more U.S. presence in Europe, more U.S. troops in Europe. I can’t think about any stronger way to demonstrate U.S. commitment to Europe than that.”
There were no indications that NATO officials had been briefed on Trump’s plan ahead of time. In response to a request for comment on Saturday, a NATO spokesman referred questions to the U.S.
In recent months, the U.S. president has occasionally caught allies off-guard with unilateral military action, including an abrupt withdrawal from northern Syria that set off turmoil in the region, and the surprise targeted killing of an Iranian general, Qassem Soleimani, that forced NATO to suspend its training mission in Iraq for fear of reprisals on allied forces there.
Trump’s pullout from northern Syria put the U.S. in conflict with Turkey, another NATO ally, and prompted French President Emmanuel Macron to complain that he was witnessing the “brain death” of the alliance.
On Friday, a spokesman for the U.S. National Security Council, John Ullyot, issued a statement that neither confirmed nor denied Trump’s drawdown plan for Germany.
“While we have no announcements at this time, as commander in chief, President Trump continually reassesses the best posture for the United States military forces and our presence overseas,” Ullyot said. “The United States remains committed to working with our strong ally Germany to ensure our mutual defense, as well as on many other important issues.”
News that the White House was pushing forward with the withdrawal comes as transatlantic relations are as badly strained as at any point during Trump’s tumultuous tenure in office, and just days after German Chancellor Angela Merkel rebuffed an invitation from Trump to attend a G7 leaders’ summit in Washington later this month.
Merkel cited the ongoing coronavirus pandemic as a chief reason for begging off from an in-person gathering of the world’s richest, most powerful democracies. But officials familiar with the discussions also said she worried about leaders being used as a photo-op by Trump to show him getting the world back to business following the health lockdowns.
In the meantime, the U.S. has become engulfed in a nationwide crisis over racism and police brutality, with Trump threatening to deploy active-duty military forces on the streets of his own cities.
Trump’s withdrawal plan appeared to be less a form of direct retribution for Merkel’s G7 decision, but rather a follow-through on previous threats to reduce the U.S. military presence in Germany, which were conveyed by the U.S. ambassador, Ric Grenell, as part of the overall White House criticism of Berlin’s military spending as too meager.
Merkel and Trump have never had a good relationship, with the president criticizing her handling of migration and asylum policy, as well as denouncing the NordStream 2 gas pipeline project.
Germany, in turn, has pushed back harder than nearly any other NATO ally against Trump’s criticism over military spending, noting that allies were all working toward previously agreed-upon spending goals and also stressing that contributions to NATO could be counted in other ways, particularly in terms of operational support. And Merkel has made little secret of her disdain for Trump’s disruptive approach to world politics.
Despite previous threats, the news of the drawdown appeared to catch Berlin by surprise. The German defense ministry declined a request for comment. The German news magazine Der Spiegel said Trump’s move was clearly “a provocation.”
Norbert Röttgen, the chairman of the foreign affairs committee in the Bundestag and a contender to succeed Merkel as chancellor, criticized the move Saturday, calling U.S. forces in Germany “crucial” and saying a reduction “would be deplorable.”
“Cannot see any objective reason for this,” Röttgen tweeted.
Retired Lieutenant General Ben Hodges, former commander of U.S. Army Europe, told POLITICO that the withdrawal of troops was not justified by strategic thinking or analysis.
“I believe this is a colossal mistake,” said Hodges, who now holds the Pershing chair in Strategic Studies at the Center for European Policy Analysis, a think tank. “This is purely political.”
Hodges said that the move had caught virtually everyone by surprise, from the Pentagon and Congress to U.S. diplomats and military officials in Europe, NATO leaders and allies, especially Germany. Hodges said that Russia would be a main beneficiary of the withdrawal — and that a softening of U.S. posture was hardly justified.
“The Kremlin has done nothing to deserve a gift like this,” he said. “No change in behavior in Ukraine or Syria or along NATO’s eastern flank or in the Black Sea or Georgia, Yet they get a 28 percent reduction in the size of U.S. military capability that was a core part of NATO’s deterrence.”
With seemingly little preparation for such a big redeployment, it’s far from clear how quickly Trump’s order could be carried out, especially with the continuing pandemic causing added logistical difficulties. “It will be very difficult and disruptive and expensive to move several thousands of soldiers and airmen back to the States,” Hodges said.
Hans von der Burchard contributed reporting.
Source: https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/06/trump-orders-large-withdrawal-of-us-forces-from-germany-304501
Droolin’ Dog sniffed out this story and shared it with you.
The Article Was Written/Published By: David M. Herszenhorn
A cafe in Germany celebrated its reopening by giving customers hats made from pool noodles to ensure that people maintained social distancing guidelines.
Source: https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/germany-cafe-lockdown-social-distancing-pool-noodle-hats-rothe-a9518846.html
Droolin’ Dog sniffed out this story and shared it with you.
The Article Was Written/Published By: Olivia Petter
Offenders face up to a year in jail under new legislation, but opposition MPs says it does not go far enough
Source: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/germany-bans-gay-conversion-therapy-young-people-a9505046.html
Droolin’ Dog sniffed out this story and shared it with you.
The Article Was Written/Published By: Kate Ng
Study published by Federal Reserve Bank of New York examines how ‘Spanish flu’ reshaped German society between 1918 and 1920
Source: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/1918-influenza-flu-pandemic-nazi-party-germany-a9499441.html
Droolin’ Dog sniffed out this story and shared it with you.
The Article Was Written/Published By: Samuel Lovett
