country:germany

The Angry Arab News Service/وكالة أنباء العربي الغاضب: To my readers in Germany: a reader there got this message when he logged in to my blog from a cafe
▻http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2018/03/to-my-readers-in-germany-reader-there.html

https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-GkBQxQ0e3bU/WrBV6itQzQI/AAAAAAAAKpg/SvgRvnzb2k4cvVQkH_mpyS0f5c8S0nHygCLcBGAs/w1200-h630-p-k-no-nu/image.png

Before the CIA, There Was the Pond | Newsmax.com
▻https://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/US-Spy-Agency-The-Pond/2010/07/29/id/366034

The head of the Pond was Col. John V. Grombach, a radio producer, businessman and ex-Olympic boxer who kept a small black poodle under his desk. He attended West Point, but didn’t graduate with his class because he had too many demerits, according to a U.S. Army document. His nickname was “Frenchy,” because his father was a Frenchman, who worked in the French Consulate in New Orleans.

The War Department had tapped Grombach to create the secret intelligence branch in 1942 as a foundation for a permanent spy service. Grombach said the main objectives were security and secrecy, unlike the OSS, which he said had been infiltrated by allies and subversives and whose personnel had a “penchant for personal publicity.” It was first known as the Special Service Branch, then as the Special Service Section and finally as the Coverage and Indoctrination Branch.

To the few even aware of its existence, the intelligence network was known by its arcane name, the Pond. Its leaders referred to the G-2 military intelligence agency as the “Lake,” the CIA, which was formed later, was the “Bay,” and the State Department was the “Zoo.” Grombach’s organization engaged in cryptography, political espionage and covert operations. It had clandestine officers in Budapest, London, Lisbon, Madrid, Stockholm, Bombay, Istanbul and elsewhere.

Grombach directed his far-flung operations from an office at the Steinway Hall building in New York, where he worked under the cover of a public relations consultant for Philips. His combative character had earned him a reputation as an opportunist who would “cut the throat of anyone standing in his way,” according to a document in his Army intelligence dossier.

In defining the Pond’s role, Grombach maintained that the covert network sought indirect intelligence from people holding regular jobs in both hostile countries and allied nations — not unlike the Russian spies uncovered in June in the U.S. while living in suburbia and working at newspapers or universities.

The Pond, he wrote in a declassified document put in the National Archives, had a mission “to collect important secret intelligence via many international companies, societies, religious organizations and business and professional men who were willing to cooperate with the U.S. but who would not work with the OSS because it was necessarily integrated with British and French Intelligence and infiltrated by Communists and Russians.”

On April 15, 1953, Grombach wrote that the idea behind his network was to use “observers” who would build long-term relationships and produce far more valuable information than spies who bought secrets. “Information was to be rarely, if ever, bought, and there were to be no paid professional operators; as it later turned out some of the personnel not only paid their own expenses but actually advanced money for the organization’s purposes.”

The CIA, for its part, didn’t think much of the Pond. It concluded that the organization was uncooperative, especially since the outfit refused to divulge its sources, complicating efforts to evaluate their reports. In an August 1952 letter giving notice that the CIA intended to terminate the contract, agency chief Gen. Walter Bedell Smith wrote that “our analysis of the reports provided by this organization has convinced us that its unevaluated product is not worth the cost.” It took until 1955 to completely unwind the relationship.

Mark Stout, a former intelligence officer and historian for the International Spy Museum in Washington, analyzed the newly released papers and said it isn’t clear how important the Pond was to U.S. intelligence-gathering as a whole. “But they were making some real contributions,” he said.

Matthew Aid, an intelligence historian and author of “The Secret Sentry: The Untold History of the National Security Agency” who has reviewed some of the collection, said there was no evidence the Pond’s reports made their way to decision-makers. “I’m still not convinced that Grombach’s organization was a worthwhile endeavor in World War II and even less so when it went off the books,” he said.

What it may have lacked in quality and influence, however, the Pond certainly made up with chutzpah.

One of the outfit’s most unusual informers was a French serial killer named Marcel Petiot, Grombach wrote in a 1980 book.

The Secret Intelligence Branch, as he referred to the Pond, began receiving reports from Petiot during the war. He was a physician in Paris who regularly treated refugees, businessmen and Gestapo agents, but he also had a predilection for killing mostly wealthy Jews and burning their bodies in a basement furnace in his soundproofed house. He was convicted of 26 murders and guillotined in 1946.

Nevertheless, Grombach considered him a valuable informer because of his contacts.

One cable discovered among the newly released papers appears to confirm the Pond was tracking Petiot’s whereabouts. In the undated memo, the writer says Petiot was drawn by a Gestapo agent “into a trap to be arrested by the Germans.” Petiot was briefly arrested in 1943 by the Gestapo.

Such sources were often feeding their reports to top operatives — often businessmen or members of opposition groups. But there were also journalists in the spy ring.

Ruth Fischer, code-named “Alice Miller,” was considered a key Pond agent for eight years, working under her cover as a correspondent, including for the North American Newspaper Alliance. She had been a leader of Germany’s prewar Communist Party and was valuable to the Pond in the early years of the Cold War, pooling intelligence from Stalinists, Marxists and socialists in Europe, Africa and China, according to the newly released documents.

But it was the help from businesses in wartime that was essential to penetrating Axis territories.

The Philips companies, including their U.S. division, gave the Pond money, contacts, radio technology and supported Grombach’s business cover in New York. Philips spokesman Arent Jan Hesselink said the company had business contacts with Grombach between 1937 and 1970. He added that they could not “rule out that there was contact between Philips and Grombach with the intention of furthering central U.S. intelligence during the war.”

The Pond laid the groundwork and devised a detailed postwar plan to integrate its activities into the U.S. Rubber Co.’s business operations in 93 countries. It is unknown if the plan was ever carried out. The Pond also worked with the American Express Co., Remington Rand, Inc. and Chase National Bank, according to documents at the National Archives.

American Express spokeswoman Caitlin Lowie said a search of company archives revealed no evidence of a relationship with Grombach’s organization. Representatives of the other companies or their successors did not respond to requests for comment.

The Pond directed its resources for domestic political ends, as well.

In the 1950s, Grombach began furnishing names to McCarthy on supposed security risks in the U.S. intelligence community. By then, the Pond was a CIA contractor, existing as a quasi-private company, and the agency’s leadership was enraged by Grombach’s actions. It wasn’t long before the Pond’s contract was terminated and the organization largely ceased to exist.

#histoire #USA #espionnage #CIA

Who’s hiding Israeli air force participation in major exercise with UAE and U.S.?

It’s unclear why Israel is not mentioned on the promotional website of the annual Iniohos exercise with the U.S., UAE, Greece, Britain, Cyprus and Italy

Yaniv Kubovich Mar 20, 2018

▻https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/who-s-hiding-iaf-participation-in-major-exercise-with-uae-1.5919421

The Israel Air Force began a joint exercise in Greece with the air forces of the United Arab Emirates and the United States. Italy, the United Kingdom and Cyprus also participated in the exercise.
A number of IAF F-16 jet fighters, along with dozens of planes from the other air forces, are participating in the annual Iniohos exercise.
This is not the first time that the IAF has taken part in the exercise in Greece and the UAE’s participation was publicized, even though Israel does not have diplomatic relations with the UAE.

Fighters and pilots participating in the multi-national Iniochos 2018 exercise in Greece Hellenic Air Force
skip - IAF
IAF - דלג

IAFΠολεική Αεροπορία / YouTube
This year, however, Israel does not appear on the Hellenic Air Force website that gives details about the exercise. It does not appear on the list of participants, nor does Israel’s flag appear in the group photo and Youtube video clip in which the flags of all the participating countries are shown next to an array of the countries’ planes.
It isn’t clear why Israel’s participation is being hidden; in past years its participation was widely publicized. There is a hint of Israel’s involvement, however, in the patch worn by the pilots on their flight suits, where Israel’s flag can be seen along with the flags of the other countries.
Keep updated: Sign up to our newsletter
Email* Sign up

Last November the air forces of eight countries took part in the international Blue Flag exercise at Uvda Air Base in southern Israel. In addition to the IAF, the air forces of the United States, Germany, France, Italy, Poland, Greece and India participated. It was the first time the air forces of Germany and France had taken part in air exercises in Israel.
>> Blue Flag 2017: Israel’s Fighter-jet Diplomacy | Analysis >>
At the time, the IAF said that despite the operational importance of the exercise, the real achievement was a diplomatic one. As for the exercise in Greece, the same is probably true, but the IAF plans continue the tradition of participating in this exercise.

emBO++ 2018 Trip Report—Simon Brand
▻http://isocpp.org/feeder/?FeederAction=clicked&feed=All+Posts&seed=http%3A%2F%2Fisocpp.org%2Fblog%2F2

Were you there?

emBO++ 2018 Trip Report by Simon Brand

From the article:

emBO++ is a conference focused on C++ on embedded systems in Bochum, Germany. This was it’s second year of operation, but the first that I’ve been along to. It was a great conference, so I’m writing a short report to hopefully convince more of you to attend next year!

#News,_Events,

Why does Putin treat Britain with disdain? He thinks he’s bought it.
▻https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/why-does-putin-treat-britain-with-disdain-he-thinks-hes-bought-it/2018/03/16/9f66a720-2951-11e8-874b-d517e912f125_story.html

In her parliamentary statement, the prime minister did leave open the possibility of harsher financial sanctions. But the real question, for Britain — as well as France, Germany and the United States — is whether we are willing to end the financial relationship altogether. We could outlaw tax havens, in the Virgin Islands as well as in Delaware and Nevada; we could make it impossible to buy property anonymously; we could ban Russian companies with dubious origins from our stock exchanges. But that would cost our own financiers and real estate agents, disrupt the discreet flow of cash into the coffers of political parties, deprive the art market of its biggest investors. Does May have the nerve to do that? Do any of us?

“#élites” #hypocrisie #finances #système #argent #capitalisme

Cerrado: can the empire of soy coexist with savannah conservation?
▻https://news.mongabay.com/2018/03/cerrado-can-the-empire-of-soy-coexist-with-savannah-conservation

https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2018/03/15111610/FEATURED-soy.jpg

Matopiba is an acronym for Maranhão, Tocantins, Piauí and Bahia states. It isn’t a familiar place name to most Brazilians, but is well known to large-scale farmers, as it refers succinctly to the nation’s latest agricultural frontier.

In #Matopiba, the soybean – due to its inexhaustible global market demand – stands head-and-shoulders above every other crop in importance. Soy experienced an astounding increase of 15 percent in occupied farmland in Matopiba between 2016/2017, with soy acreage likely to top 8.4 million hectares (32,432 square miles) by 2026/2027, says the ministry report.

Crop #monoculture, hampered by environmental laws in the Amazon, has been expanding rapidly into the #Cerrado, the biodiversity-rich Brazilian tropical savannah which once covered two million square kilometres (772,204 square miles), an area bigger than Great Britain, France and Germany combined.

More than half of the Cerrado’s native vegetation has been lost already to soy, corn, cotton and cattle, and the pace of deforestation here is far faster than in the Amazon today.

#Brésil #soja #élevage #déforestation

J’essaie de réunir ici quelques liens déjà sur seenthis sur la #persécution de citoyens de #Turquie à l’#étranger, suite à la #purge après le #coup :
▻http://seen.li/d36u
#Allemagne

▻http://seen.li/e8dx
#Belgique #Suisse

Turquie : Erdoğan traque les collaborateurs de Gülen dans tous les Balkans
▻https://www.courrierdesbalkans.fr/Turquie-Erdogan-traque-les-collaborateurs-de-Gulen-dans-tous-les-
#Balkans #Albanie #Bosnie-Herzégovine #purge

cc @isskein

Welcome to Little Berlin : German town STILL split between East and West decades after Cold War - Mirror Online
▻https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/welcome-little-berlin-german-town-12198974

https://i2-prod.mirror.co.uk/incoming/article12199123.ece/ALTERNATES/s615b/PAY-PNLITTLEBERLIN12.jpg https://i2-prod.mirror.co.uk/incoming/article12199124.ece/ALTERNATES/s1200/PAY-PNLITTLEBERLIN13.jpg https://i2-prod.mirror.co.uk/incoming/article12199120.ece/ALTERNATES/s615b/PAY-PNLITTLEBERLIN11.jpg

early 30 years after the Berlin Wall fell, one town in Germany is still split along its Cold War frontier.

Mödlareuth comprises just 15 households, but its two halves have different mayors, different dialing codes and even different ways of speaking.

The village has straddled the frontier between the German states of Bavaria and Thuringia since 1810, but the border barely mattered until the end of the Second World War.

It was then that Germany was carved in two, with the Thuringian half of Mödlareuth occupied by the Soviets and the Bavarian half by the US.

#ddr #anecdote mais les images sont vraiment émouvantes #mur

Department Store “Horten” (1958-61) in Heidelberg,... - German Post-War Modern

▻https://germanpostwarmodern.tumblr.com/post/171442097345/department-store-horten-1958-61-in-heidelberg

https://78.media.tumblr.com/dd0bb9cacb84a9365cf8634f888e2492/tumblr_p4lljptRkb1tw598eo1_1280.jpg

Department Store “Horten” (1958-61) in Heidelberg, Germany, by Egon Eiermann

#architecture #allemagne #shopping-mall

Tiangong-1 reentry updates | Rocket Science
▻http://blogs.esa.int/rocketscience/2018/01/12/tiangong-1-reentry-updates

Latest reentry forecast provided by ESA’s Space Debris Office, ESOC, Darmstadt, Germany.

Update 6 March 2018

The current estimated window is ~29 March to ~9 April; this is highly variable.

Reentry will take place anywhere between 43ºN and 43ºS (e.g. Spain, France, Portugal, Greece, etc.). Areas outside of these latitudes can be excluded. At no time will a precise time/location prediction from ESA be possible. This forecast will be updated approximately every week in January and February.

http://blogs.esa.int/rocketscience/files/2018/03/esa_esoc_tiangong1_update_win_06032018.png

Tiangong-1 reentry window forecast as of 6 March Credit: ESA

http://blogs.esa.int/rocketscience/files/2018/03/esa_esoc_tiangong1_update_alt_06032018.png

Tiangong-1 altitude decay forecast as of 6 March Credit: ESA

Why Germany dominates the global trade-show business

▻https://global.handelsblatt.com/companies/germany-dominates-global-trade-show-business-894495

https://global.handelsblatt.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/0201271854-Teaser.jpg

Come April, some 200,000 visitors will descend on the Hanover Trade Fair again to take part in the world’s largest industrial trade fair, held on the world’s largest trade-fair grounds. The event is a so-called “Fachmesse,” geared at professionals who want to invest millions in industrial machines, from the latest and smartest robots to 3D printers that make bionic structures almost as Mother Nature would.

#salons #marketing #allemagne

Iran’s Zarif forced to ask German military for help to refuel his official jet - The National
▻https://www.thenational.ae/world/iran-s-zarif-forced-to-ask-german-military-for-help-to-refuel-his-offici
▻https://www.thenational.ae/image/policy:1.708882:1519826493/image.jpg?a=191%3A100&q=0.6&w=1200&$p$a$q$w=e3c1d56

Munich airport authorities told Mr Zarif’s department he could either fly in with a sufficient reserve of fuel for his trip to Munich, in the southern state of Bavaria, or fly to the nearby Austrian capital of Vienna, where the suppliers did not take the same precautionary view.

Suddeutsche Zeitung said Mr Zarif had planned to travel to Moscow after leaving the security conference

Iranian officials rejected the choices and instead requested the conference organiser, Wolfgang Ischinger, who was previously Germany’s ambassador to the US, lobby the German government to assist their plans. Germany’s defence ministry agreed to take over the refuelling a day before Mr Zarif’s arrival.

In a robust address to the conference, Mr McMaster decried the European rush to invest in Iran following the 2015 accord that eased sanctions over its nuclear programme.

“Now is also the time to address serious flaws in the Iran deal and counter Iran’s destabilising activities, including its development and proliferation of missiles—and its support for terrorist proxies and militias that fuel destructive conflicts across the greater Middle East,” the US national security adviser said. “The Iranian regime foments this violence with support from commercial entities affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps or IRGC—including Mahan Air, which lands right here in Munich Airport.”

In addition to citing Mahan Air, a subsidiary of the state airline, Mr McMaster went on to say that corporations dealing with Iran “might as well cut the IRGC a cheque” to fund its killing activities in the Middle East.

#Europe #comparses #Etats-Unis

Germany increasingly welcoming toward Turkish refugees: report

Significantly more Turks have had their asylum applications accepted by the German authorities, according to a recent report by Die Welt.

The newspaper said March 3 that the German Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) accepted 38.2 percent of asylum applications by Turkish nationals as of January 2018. The corresponding figure was 6.4 percent in January 2017 and June 2017.

A total of 410 Turkish citizens were granted protection in January this year, according to the newspaper.

The high acceptance rate shows that Turkey is not a democratic country, Sevim Dagdelen, the vice-president of Germany’s Left Party told media.

▻https://turkeypurge.com/germany-increasingly-welcoming-toward-turkish-refugees-report
#Allemagne #Turquie #réfugiés_turcs #asile #migrations #réfugiés

The UK lecturer’s dispute and the marketisation of higher education - World Socialist Web Site
▻https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/03/01/lect-m01.html

The UK lecturer’s dispute and the marketisation of higher education
By Thomas Scripps
1 March 2018

University and College Union (UCU) lecturers remain engaged in a major strike against planned cuts to their pensions. The significance of this struggle must not be underestimated.

Contrary to what the union says, this is not simply an avoidable dispute over the single issue of pensions. The attack on university lecturers is one element in a far advanced programme aimed at the destruction of higher education as it has been known for decades.

#royaume-uni #éducation #université

Afro.Germany: Being Black and German (2017)
▻https://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/afrogermany-being-black-and-german-dw-documentary

Black and German: news anchor Jana Pareigis has spent her entire life being asked about her skin color. What is it like to be black in Germany? What needs to change? “Where are you...

Vive discussion avec @odilon sur le travail du photographe #Hans_Silvester et que je reproduis en partie ici car notamment utile pour mes cours de #géographie_culturelle (et #géographie_politique aussi) :

Biographie de Hans Silvester

Hans Silvester’s lifelong dedication to investigating our world, capturing and promoting the most intimate, and perhaps enigmatic, of organic phenomena, has led the German-born artist down a number of career paths, including forays into journalism, philanthropy and environmental activism. Born in Lorrach, Germany in 1938, Silvester graduated from the School of Fribourg in 1955 before beginning his life as a traveler and photographer. His wide-ranging oeuvre includes studies of various regions around the world, including chronicles of France, Central America, Japan, Portugal, Egypt, Tunisia, Hungary, Peru, Italy and Spain throughout the 1960’s and 1970’s. In the next decade, Silvester turned his photographic eye toward Europe’s nature preserves, the expansive Calavon river valley, and the ravages of deforestation in the Amazon. Silvester then moved on to the Great Indian Desert, documenting the lives of women in Rajasthan, before publishing a number of book series devoted to locations such as the colorful landscapes of Provence and the Greek Isles.

Silvester’s recent work features the Surma and Mursi people of the Omo Valley in southern Ethiopia, presenting the beauty of the tribes’ ancient tradition of temporary body decoration. His photographs reveal the use of bright mineral paints to embellish the skin and the use of flora and fauna to fashion spectacular headpieces and body accessories. His commitment to the documentation and preservation of relatively unfamiliar earthly marvels is visible in these photographs. The artist describes his immersion into the lives and tradition of these Ethiopian tribes as an effort to “save...as much as possible of this truly living art, which is mobile, changing, subject to infinite variation, and whose constituent elements...form a link between man and nature.” Through the memorialization of the vivid, yet intricate designs that adorn the faces and bodies of his subjects, Silvester strives to underscore the “the beauty and purity of nature...taken out of context, [so] you’re reminded again how beautiful a seed pod, a mushroom or a flower is.” It is this appreciation of beauty and penchant for cultural expression that is both exceptional in regard to the magnificent forms produced by these tribal cultures, but also exceptionally familiar, reminding the viewer of the fundamental yearning for the beautiful that unites us all.

▻http://www.marlboroughgallery.com/galleries/graphics/artists/hans-silvester/graphics

Voici quelques images de lui des peules #Surma et #Mursi (#peuples_autochtones) qui habitent la vallée de #Omo dans le sud de l’#Ethiopie :

http://www.marlboroughgallery.com/image_assets/artworks/1512/gallery/Silvester_Hans_Natural-Fashion_022_600.jpg http://www.marlboroughgallery.com/image_assets/artworks/2072/gallery/Silvester_-Natural-Fashion-No.-77_-600.jpg http://www.marlboroughgallery.com/image_assets/artworks/1518/gallery/Silvester_Hans_Natural-Fashion_115_600.jpg

#exotisme #esthétisation

Or, comme l’a souligné @odilon :

c’est un peuple qui subit des #discriminations mais le photographe n’en parlait pas

Du coup, j’ai fait une recherche rapide de ce peuple, et voici ce que dit wikipedia sur les Surma :

According to ’tribal peoples advocacy groups’ (Survival International and Native Solutions to Conservation Refugees), local peoples, particularly the Suri, Nyangatom, Anywa and Mursi, are in danger of displacement and denial of access to their traditional grazing and agricultural lands. More than a decade ago the main problem for Suri and Mursi was posed by the government binging in the African Parks Foundation, also known as African Parks Conservation, of the Netherlands.[10][11] These advocacy groups reported that the Surma/Suri, Me’en and Mursi people were more or less coerced by government park officials into thumbprinting documents they could not read. The documents reportedly said the locals had agreed to give up their land without compensation, and were being used to legalise the boundaries of the #Omo_National_Park, which African Parks then took over. This process, when finished, would have make the Surma, Mursi, etc. ’illegal squatters’ on their own land. A similar fate was almost befalling the other groups who also lived within or near the park, e.g. the Dizi and the Nyangatom.[12] The current threats to Suri and neighbouring groups’ livelihoods are massive state-led ventures like construction of the Gibe-3 (Omo) dam (completed in 2016) that eliminated river-bank cultivation and led to water scarcity, as well as the ongoing construction of huge mono-crop (sugar-cane) plantations in pasture and cultivation areas. These seriously affect biodiversity, take away resources, and do not lead to development of the local peoples.

▻https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surma_people

Intéressant notamment cette référence au #parcage de ces peuples dans le #Parc_national_de_l'Omo.

#photographie #post-colonialisme #post-modernisme #géographie_post-moderne

cc @albertocampiphoto @philippe_de_jonckheere @reka

As court case looms, Germany’s likely leaders pledge to protect diesel
▻https://www.clientearth.org/court-case-looms-germanys-likely-leaders-pledge-protect-diesel

https://www.clientearth.org/wp-content/uploads/autobahn-germany-dusk-headlights.jpg

As court case looms, Germany’s likely leaders pledge to protect diesel

News / 6 February 2018

Germany’s incoming government has vowed to do everything in its power to stop diesel restrictions coming into force. Environmental lawyers have denounced the move, criticising protection for industry at the expense of public health.

Germany’s air quality is so poor that it is in the midst of legal proceedings by the European Commission, as well as a spate of regional court cases taken by ClientEarth and Deutsche Umwelthilfe (DUH). Triggered by this wave of court actions, three separate German cities (Münich, Stuttgart and Düsseldorf) have been asked to introduce “Dieselfahrverbote” – areas where diesel vehicles older than a certain age will not be allowed to drive. According to German courts, restricting diesel vehicles is by far the fastest way to bring down illegal levels of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) pollution.

–------

Juin 2017
Pollution : Munich tire le coup de grâce contre le #diesel
▻https://www.tdg.ch/economie/entreprises/Munich-tire-le-coup-de-grce-contre-le-diesel/story/31014351

Après Hambourg et Stuttgart, Munich veut chasser le diesel de son centre. La ville du siège de BMW prévoit d’interdire de circulation tout véhicule ne répondant pas aux normes Euro 6, environ 300 000 voitures. « Je ne vois pas d’autre alternative pour réduire la #pollution, les niveaux sont devenus effrayants », a déclaré mardi le maire social-démocrate Dieter Reiter (SPD). Quand on sait qu’en Allemagne deux BMW sur trois roulent au diesel, une telle mesure est loin d’être populaire.

A l’automne, le Tribunal administratif fédéral de Leipzig doit donner son avis sur le droit des communes à restreindre la circulation. Si les juges donnaient leur feu vert, le maire de Munich légiférerait dans la foulée, du moins l’a-t-il promis.

Le lobby #automobile riposte

BMW et le lobby de l’automobile ne se laisseront pas faire. Une interdiction généralisée exclurait en Allemagne près de 13 millions de véhicules des centres, a calculé la puissante association ADAC. « C’est ni plus ni moins une dépossession de bien », peste son vice-président, Ulrich Klaus Becker.

La résistance s’organise également à Stuttgart, ville de l’automobile par excellence avec Porsche, Daimler (Mercedes) mais aussi le sous-traitant Bosch. Lovée dans une cuvette, la capitale du Bade-Wurtemberg accuse les plus hauts pics de pollution du pays. Le maire écologiste, Fritz Kuhn, a décidé au début du mois de mai de procéder à des interdictions dès 2018.

#écologie

AIDA 2017 Update: Challenging access and strict Dublin procedures in France and Switzerland*

The updated AIDA reports on Switzerland and France document the latest developments on access to the territory for those in need of protection, the asylum procedure, the Dublin system, reception conditions, detention and content of protection.

France registered 100,412 asylum seekers with the Office for Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons (OFPRA) in 2017, in addition to 41,500 asylum seekers placed under Dublin procedure. The situation of registration of asylum applications at the “single desks” of French Prefectures remains dire. In most areas, the Prefectures have been unable to register claims within the 3 working day deadline set by the law. To restore the 3-day time limit, the Minister of Interior published a Circular on 12 January 2018 which plans to increase the staff in Prefectures and OFII and to reorganise services.

Switzerland, where the number of asylum seekers dropped to 18,088 last year, is proceeding with a restructuring of its asylum procedure which will enter into force in 2019. Ahead of this reform, State Secretariat for Migration (SEM) has confirmed the implementation of another pilot phase of the accelerated procedure in the federal centres of Boudry and Chevrilles.

The two countries are among the main operators of the Dublin Regulation in Europe. France initiated 41,500 Dublin procedures to transfer people to other European countries, in addition to over 100,000 asylum seekers received throughout 2017. Switzerland issued 8,370 outgoing Dublin requests – “take charge” requests almost exclusively based on the documentation and entry criteria and “take back” requests – and implemented 2,297 transfers. The majority of procedures and transfers concerned Italy, followed by Germany and France.

While authorities have taken strict measures to implement more transfers, courts have intervened to uphold legal safeguards in the operation of the Dublin system, particularly in relation to detention of asylum seekers awaiting a transfer. Following the Al Chodor ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union, the French Court of Cassation ruled that the detention of asylum seekers under the Dublin procedure is illegal due to the absence of legally defined criteria for a “significant risk of absconding”. In practice, however, even before the adoption of a new law defining those criteria, some Prefectures continued to order detention of asylum seekers under a Dublin procedure. For its part, the Swiss Federal Court ruled that the order of administrative detention pronounced by the canton of Zoug against an Afghan family whose three young children were simultaneously subject to a placement in a foster care, constituted a violation of the right to family life. In its judgment of 28 April 2017, the Federal Court recalled that such a measure is only admissible as an ultima ratio and after a thorough examination of other less coercive measures.

▻https://www.ecre.org/aida-2017-update-challenging-access-and-strict-dublin-procedures-in-france-and
#asile #migrations #réfugiés #Dublin #règlement_dublin #France #Suisse #comparaison
Le #modèle_suisse se diffuse en France... sic
ping @isskein

Je signale la parution d’un numéro de revue sur la #solidarité envers les migrants... mais je n’ai pas accès, ni version pdf ni version papier :

“Civil society on the edge : actions in support and against refugees in Italy and Germany”

E’ uscito il nuovo fascicolo di Mondi Migranti: “Civil society on the edge: actions in support and against refugees in Italy and Germany” a cura di Giulia Borri e Elena Fontanari

http://www.csmedi.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/MM-3-2017-1.jpg

France: more bucks for your bang
▻https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/france-more-bucks-your-bang

https://www.lowyinstitute.org/sites/default/files/DVh7Vp_XUAAXZVG.jpg-large.jpeg

When presenting the budget plan, Parly noted that “the world is more uncertain and the threats are more and diffuse”, and added that France needs to maintain its global influence, intervening where its interests are threatened and where it’s needed for global stability.

The Macron government’s announcement will mean a serious boost to France’s defence capacity. But it is much more than that.

For a start, the Trump administration will welcome the announcement very warmly; it positions France more directly as a reliable and relevant partner for the US in Europe and globally. The increased spending sends a strong signal about the seriousness of France’s commitment and leadership.

As it happens, US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis was in Brussels on 14–15 February for a meeting of NATO Defence Ministers. One item on their agenda was to review progress towards NATO’s 2% of GDP target. Mattis continued to argue that other NATO members should shoulder more of the defence burden, something that US President Donald Trump has been pushing aggressively since taking office.

Mattis reportedly told NATO members (behind closed doors) that they needed to show the same commitment to spending more on defence that the US had shown through its own very significant defence budget lift. NATO members, he apparently reiterated, needed to do more, or risk a reduction of US military support.

In fact, the US point is well made. Very few NATO members have reached, or are anywhere near reaching, the 2% of GDP target. On 13 February NATO’s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said only eight NATO members are expected to reach the target this year, and very few (15, leaving aside the US, of NATO’s 28 members) are likely to reach it by 2024. France is now on track to join that club.

Stoltenberg put a brave face on these statistics, noting that NATO members as a whole had increased defence spending. But it doesn’t alter the fact that several members are unlikely to meet the target.

One of the worst offenders is Germany, Europe’s largest economy and the fourth-largest economy globally. Although Germany has indicated it will lift the defence budget by around €250 million a year, the fact is German defence expenditure is only around 1.24% of GDP, and considerably more funding will be required to achieve NATO’s target. Even that modest ambition is up for discussion.

Hatay Province
▻https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatay_Province

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5f/Hatay_in_Turkey.svg/1579px-Hatay_in_Turkey.svg.png

Erdogan semble préparer une deuxième édition du coup de 1938 mais cette fois la Turquie agit loin de la mer méditerranée.

Sovereignty over the province remains disputed with neighbouring Syria, which claims that the province was separated from itself against the stipulations of the French Mandate of Syria in the years following Syria’s independence from the Ottoman Empire after World War I. Although the two countries have remained generally peaceful in their dispute over the territory, Syria has never formally renounced its claims to it.

▻http://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/223122

The War Nerd : Cleanse Thy Neighbor
▻https://www.nsfwcorp.com/dispatch/cleanse-thy-neighbor

It’s hard for us now to remember how big, how scary the Germans were in those days, but remember, they took all of Western and Central Europe in 1940 and only lost 30,000 men doing it. That’s somebody worth being scared of.

And the French had had enough. Nobody in the Anglo world gives them much credit, but they’re the ones who held off the WW I era Germans and suffered 1.5 million dead in the process, out of a population of 40 million. They didn’t want to do it again and were desperate to make a deal.

And that’s where the Sanjak of Alexandretta, now known as Hatay Province, comes in. The French needed friends, and Turkey had proved itself a serious military power when it crushed the Greeks, who had the advantage in weapons and international support. Turks can fight; nobody ever argued about that.

And in WW I, they’d fought on the German side, wiping out a Commonwealth force at Gallipoli, where Ataturk made his bones with a motivational speech that went—seriously—like this: “Soldiers, I do not tell you to go out and fight; I tell you to go out and die.” And they did, along with a whole bunch of poor Kiwis and Aussies who believed that Kitchener poster.

The French wanted the Turks to stay out of whatever next big war with Germany was brewing on the horizon. They had to offer something, and that something was Alexandretta/Hatay. Turkey was still hungry for territory, still pissed off over losing the Ottoman lands, and here was this dangling bit of coastline in northern Syria, with a mixed population: mostly Alawite Arabs and Armenian Christians, but about one-third or one-quarter Turks.

Well, if you’re a French administrator sweating over Hitler, that’s an easy one: throw the Turks a bone, keep ’em happy. Nobody ever cared about the Armenians; nobody does even now, except the Israeli lobby that doesn’t want them talking about their genocide and ruining the total uniqueness of the Holocaust. And the Alawites, after all, had their little piece of land a little way down the coast; they could just move.

So the French and the Turks made a deal in 1937: there’d be an official plebiscite (those were big years for phony plebiscites; the word just reeks of the 30s) but the Turks were old hands at creating ethnic unity even where there wasn’t any.

And they did, using their usual methods: they marched into the Sanjak, expelled all the Alawites and all the Armenians and imported loyal Turks. When the Alawites and Armenians objected, the Turks pulled a classic move and blamed the rioting for the crackdown, a nice reversal-on-reality that still works.

By 1939—just two years after taking over—the official language of Hatay Province was Turkish. French, not Arabic, was the official second language. The Turks wanted to de-Arabize their new Hatay province at all costs, and kept shunting Turkish-speaking loyalists to Hatay to make sure they swamped the native Arab population. The city that used to be Alexandretta, a Franco-Latin name, was renamed “Iskander,” the Turkish version of “Alexander” (and the name of a damn good type of kebab, too).

Every single village, well, palm tree and stray dog in the province went through the same process, which is why there is now not one single Arabic name in the whole province, though it used to be Arab land.

Der türkische Nationalismus in neuer Blüte | Telepolis
▻https://www.heise.de/tp/features/Der-tuerkische-Nationalismus-in-neuer-Bluete-3972587.html?seite=all

19. Februar 2018 Elke Dangeleit
Politik hat nichts mit Moral zu tun, das ist eine bittere Wahrheit. Und so können wir nur staunend zuschauen, wie sich der amtierende Außenminister Gabriel mit der Freilassung von Deniz Yücel brüstet. Yücel hatte deutlich gemacht, dass er für Deals zu seiner Freilassung nicht zur Verfügung stände. Das ist politische Größe und zeigt Rückgrat. Aber er hat die Rechnung ohne die Bundesregierung gemacht.

Nicht nur die Türkei hat ihn als Geisel benutzt. Auch die Bundesregierung hat auf seine Kosten agiert. Was mussten sich Journalisten alles anhören? Nicht zu viel Protest, wir können es uns nicht verscherzen wegen der Verhandlungen zu Deniz Yücel etc.

In den letzten Wochen seit dem Angriff auf Afrin kommt zu Tage, was ein Preis für Yücels Freilassung war: Eine weitere Verschärfung der Kriminalisierung der kurdischen Bevölkerung in Deutschland, die mittlerweile nicht mehr nur die Fahnen von der YPG/YPJ auf Demonstrationen zeigen dürfen.

Dem kurdischen Dachverband Nav-Dem wurde im Zuge des Demonstrationsverbotes in Köln mitgeteilt, sie bräuchten überhaupt keine Demos mehr anmelden, denn diese würden sowieso verboten werden.

Auch die türkischen Militärangehörigen, die in Deutschland um Asyl gebeten hatten und anerkannt wurden, haben sich offensichtlich aus Angst, dass die deutsche Politik sie ausliefert, in ein europäisches Land außerhalb des Schengenraums aus dem Staub gemacht.

Zur Situation der kurdischen Bevölkerung in Afrin und in der Türkei schweigt die Bundesregierung bzw. gibt sich höchstens besorgt - und schaut dem herannahenden Genozid zu. Wie gesagt, Politik hat nichts mit Moral zu tun.

#Turquie #Syrie #France #Allemagne #histoire #guerre

“Hate Speech” Does Not Incite Hatred - Quillette
▻http://quillette.com/2018/01/18/hate-speech-not-induce-hatred

The United States Supreme Court has recently reaffirmed that “[s]peech that demeans on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, religion, age, disability, or any other similar ground” is protected under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. However, the protections of the First Amendment extend only to government efforts to punish or censor speech. Private entities remain free to take action against people who engage in speech which ostensibly demeans others, and private actors from Harvard University to Facebook and Twitter have punished or censored individuals whose speech they have found to be “hateful.”

Those who advocate the censorship of so-called “hate speech” claim that it causes various ills, but perhaps the most common claim is that “hate speech” engenders hatred towards particular groups, and thereby causes violence against members of those groups. Such claims have been particularly common in recent years, and have included allegations that “anti-police hate speech” on the part of Black Lives Matters supporters has led to violence against police officers; that Donald Trump’s campaign rhetoric has led to an increase in hate crimes; and that anti-Muslim hate speech on the Internet can motivate some people to commit acts of violence against Muslims.

The claim that “hate speech” causes hatred, and thereby causes violence, is superficially appealing, but the more one thinks about it, the less sense it makes. Is it really likely that otherwise reasonable people will be driven to hate others, and to violently attack those others, simply because they were exposed to hate speech? The proponents of that view rarely, if ever, offer direct evidence for that claim. There is a simple explanation for that failure: such evidence does not exist.

At first blush, that would seem to be an outlandish claim. What about the infamous “hate radio” in Rwanda? Doesn’t everyone know that those broadcasts caused people who had peacefully coexisted with their neighbors to engage in genocide? Well, in fact, there is no evidence that that is true. This common understanding of the role of “hate radio” overlooks basic facts of Rwandan history, including the fact that the genocide took place in the midst of a Tutsi-dominated insurgency that had begun in 1990, and which had resulted in hundreds of thousands of internally displaced Rwandans as insurgent forces approached the capital in 1993, just a year before the beginning of the genocide. Thus, the myth that Rwanda was an Arcadia of ethnic harmony before the “hate radio” broadcasts began is just that: a myth.

A father in Rwanda searches for his lost child. ©ICRC/Benno Neeleman

Perhaps more importantly, the popular narrative regarding the role of “hate radio” ignores twenty years of scholarship which finds little evidence that the radio broadcasts caused people to engage in genocide. For example, a 2017 study published in Criminology found no statistically significant relationship between radio exposure and killing.1 Moreover, the anthropologist Charles Mironko interviewed one hundred convicted perpetrators and found that many either did not hear the “hate radio” broadcasts or misinterpreted them, and University of Wisconsin political scientist Scott Straus found that peer pressure and personal appeals, not hate radio, is what motivated most perpetrators.2 Similarly, political scientist Lee Ann Fujii’s book-length study of the Rwandan genocide found that those who participated in the genocide did not show unusual levels of fear or hatred of Tutsis. Instead, they participated through personal relationships with local elites, often because they feared repercussions if they did not participate. Hate had nothing to do with it.

Professor Fujii’s findings are consistent with a recent study that was published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, which found that villages with better radio reception had higher levels of participation in the genocide, but which credited that effect not to the creation of hatred, but rather to the fact that the broadcasts told those who were already willing to participate how to coordinate with others, and assured them that the government supported the killing and hence that they would not be punished.

At this point, an alert reader might object that several “hate radio” executives were convicted of genocide-related offenses, and might also point to the well-known claim that some of the killers “had a radio in one hand and a machete in the other[.]” That is true, but it is also true that immediately after the assassination of the Rwandan president, the “hate radio” broadcasts shifted from general propaganda to broadcasting specific advice and instructions to those already participating in the genocide regarding who to kill and where to find them.3 It was for only those post-assassination broadcasts that radio executives were convicted, rather than for the pre-genocide, more generalized “hate speech.”

Finally, these findings regarding the role of “hate radio” in the Rwandan genocide is consistent with what we know about the effects of propaganda in general. Contrary to popular belief, there is little evidence that propaganda is able to change minds; rather, it is generally effective only among those who already agree with it, and counter-productive among those who disagree.4 That was true even of Nazi anti-Jewish propaganda, which decreased denunciations of Jews by ordinary people in areas which had not historically been anti-Semitic.5

Therefore, the scholarly consensus is clear: “Hate speech” does not engender hatred. Rather, to the extent that is has any effect on violence at all, it makes it somewhat easier for those already inclined towards violence to act, largely by placing an imprimatur of official approval on acts of violence, and thereby making people who are already hateful and prone to violence believe that they can get away with acting violently.

This implies that censoring “hate speech” by ordinary persons is pointless – it is only “hate speech” by elites that can be dangerous (and even then not by creating hatred). There is no evidence that “hate speech” by ordinary persons has any effect on violence whatsoever. Thus, the efforts of such private actors as Facebook and Twitter to scrub the internet of what they deem to be “hate speech” by ordinary persons are, at best, misguided. But such efforts can also be dangerous because they help create excuses for governments to use allegations of “hate speech” to silence ideas that they dislike. Indeed, Freedom House has noted that that has already occurred in Russia, French courts have upheld “hate speech” convictions of advocates of the BDS movement to boycott of Israel, and in Spain, Catalan separatists who burned photographs of the Spanish monarch were fined on the grounds that they had incited violence and promoted hate speech.

Finally, efforts to censor extremists can backfire by causing them to see themselves as a persecuted minority who are justified in using violent means to be heard. Therefore, as painful as American law’s protection of “hate speech” can be, the alternative is almost certainly worse. In addition, given that even the Supreme Court recognizes that, in the contemporary world, “the most important places … for the exchange of views … is cyberspace …, and social media in particular[,]” Twitter, Facebook, and other private actors should resist calls to censor hateful speech; they might believe that doing so serves the public interest, but in fact it does quite the opposite.

Gordon Danning is History Research Fellow at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE). He has published a law review article on the free speech rights of high school students and conducted research on political violence.

References:

1 Hollie Nyseh Brehm. 2017. Subnational Determinants of Killing in Rwanda. Criminology, 55(1): 5-31. ▻http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1745-9125.12126/full
2 Scott Straus, 2007. What is the relationship between hate radio and violence? Rethinking Rwanda’s “Radio Machete”. Politics & Society, 35(4): 609-637. ▻http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0032329207308181
3 Richard Carver. 2000. Broadcasting and Political Transition: Rwanda and Beyond. African Broadcast Cultures: Radio in Transition, edited by Richard Farndon and Graham Furniss, 188-197. Oxford: James Currey 190.
4 Hugo Mercier. 2017. How Gullible Are We? A Review of the Evidence from Psychology and Social Science. Review of General Psychology, 21(2): 103-122. ▻http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/gpr/21/2/103
5 Maja Adena, Ruben Enikolopov, Maria Petrova, Veronica Santarosa, Ekaterina Zhuravskaya. 2015. Radio and the Rise of The Nazis in Prewar Germany. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 130(4): 1885–1939. ▻https://academic.oup.com/qje/article-abstract/130/4/1885/1916582?redirectedFrom=PDF

Daedalic Entertainment opens new Munich office
▻https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2018-02-14-daedalic-entertainment-opens-new-munich-office

Bavarian branch is publisher’s third in Germany, former Klonk Games team hired to work on new title from Deponia creator

#Publishing #Development

Workers of Germany, Unite: The New Siren Call of the Far Right - The New York Times
▻https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/05/world/europe/afd-unions-social-democrats.html?mabReward=ART_TS7&recid=10QNLdudNovobmvNWE

BOTTROP, Germany — Guido Reil is a coal miner, like his father and grandfather before him. He joined a trade union at 18 and the center-left Social Democratic Party at 20. Fast-talking and loud, he has been an elected union representative for over a decade.

But two years ago, after the arrival of hundreds of thousands of refugees in Germany, Mr. Reil switched to the far-right Alternative for Germany party, or AfD. Competing in state legislative elections last May, the party won 20 percent of the vote in his home district with his name on its list — and the Social Democrats slipped 16 percentage points from a previous election.

“Those are my former comrades,” Mr. Reil said, chuckling. “They came with me.”

How is a far-right party drawing voters from labor, a traditional bastion of the left? The question is not academic, but goes directly to the heart of the emerging threat the AfD presents to Germany’s political establishment, including Chancellor Angela Merkel.

The AfD shocked Germany in the fall when it became the first far-right party to enter Parliament since World War II. But that breakthrough not only shattered a significant postwar taboo. It has also enormously complicated the task of forming a new governing coalition, leaving Germany and all of Europe in months of limbo.

Ms. Merkel and her conservative alliance are negotiating a coalition deal with their former governing partners, the left-leaning Social Democrats. If they do, the AfD will be Germany’s primary opposition party, leaving a wide opening for it to pick up even more traditionally left-leaning voters who fear the Social Democrats have been co-opted.
Continue reading the main story

Many fear that the AfD, as the leading voice of the opposition, would have a perfect perch to turn the protest vote it received in national elections in September — it finished third with 13 percent of the vote — into a loyal and sustained following.

“If we go back into government, the AfD will overtake us,” predicted Hilde Mattheis, a Social Democratic lawmaker from Baden-Wurttemberg, where that has already happened.
Continue reading the main story
Photo
Mr. Reil driving by the Prosper-Haniel mine in Bottrop. He has worked in six mines, five of which have closed. Credit Gordon Welters for The New York Times

The 92 AfD lawmakers, who have been busy moving into their new parliamentary offices in central Berlin, have not been shy about using the spotlight.

One, Jürgen Pohl, recently addressed Parliament and criticized the labor market changes that former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder of the Social Democratic Party passed from 2003 to 2005, saying they created a host of poorly regulated, precarious jobs.

The AfD, Mr. Pohl said, “is a new people’s party that cares about the little people.”

When some center-left lawmakers guffawed, Mr. Pohl pointed at the television cameras. “Go ahead and laugh,” he said, “your voters are watching.”

Indeed, they are. The AfD has already overtaken the Social Democrats as the second-biggest party in state elections across much of what was formerly East Germany. In Bavaria, it is not far behind.

But Mr. Reil believes his party has the greatest potential in places like Bottrop, in the Ruhr area, once the industrial heartland of West Germany and long a bastion of Social Democratic and union power.

The Ruhr has produced coal since the 16th century, and it shaped modern Germany in the process. It powered the Industrial Revolution, two world wars, the postwar economic miracle and even European integration: The coal and steel community was the seedling of the European Union.

But today, Bottrop and surrounding cities are in decline.

Mr. Reil has worked in six mines, five of which have closed. Along with some 2,500 others, he will take early retirement, at 48, after the last mine ceases production in December.

With the mines, most bars have closed, too, as has a whole social and cultural scene that once kept the area alive.
Continue reading the main story
Photo
Mr. Reil won 20 percent of votes in a district where the AfD had never fielded a candidate before. Credit Gordon Welters for The New York Times

The AfD’s “pro-worker” platform (“pro-coal, pro-diesel and anti-immigration,” as Mr. Reil puts it) resonates in Bottrop as well as on the factory floors of Germany’s iconic carmakers in the former east and the wealthy south of the country.

As elections loom nationwide for worker representatives who bargain with management on behalf of their fellow employees, lists of candidates close to the AfD are circulating at several flagship companies, including Daimler and BMW. There are plans to create a new national workers’ movement, Mr. Reil said. The working name is the Alternative Union of Germany.

“The revolution,” he predicted, “will be in the car industry.”

Trade union leaders, currently on strike for higher pay and a 28-hour workweek for those wanting to care for children or elderly relatives, publicly dismiss such talk as “marginal.” But privately, some worry.

One of Mr. Reil’s allies, Oliver Hilburger, a mechanic at a Daimler plant near Stuttgart, founded an alternative union called Zentrum Automobil in 2009, four years before the AfD even existed.

Mr. Hilburger, who has been at the company for 28 years, is not a member of the AfD but he votes for it. He thinks the party and his union are a natural fit.
The Interpreter Newsletter

Understand the world with sharp insight and commentary on the major news stories of the week.

See Sample Privacy Policy Opt out or contact us anytime

When it emerged that he had once played for a band associated with neo-Nazis, the news media reported the fact widely. But that did not stop his colleagues from giving his union 10 percent of their votes and electing him as one of their representatives.

This spring, Mr. Hilburger, who calls his musical past “a sin of youth,” is fielding more than 250 candidates in at least four factories. Several of them, he said, are immigrants who have lived in Germany for years and support the AfD.

“There is a feeling among workers that the old unions collude with the bosses and the government,” Mr. Hilburger said.
Continue reading the main story
Photo
Mr. Reil with AfD supporters during an informal meeting at a bar in Essen. Credit Gordon Welters for The New York Times

“The bosses and the media talk about skills shortages and how we need even more immigration,” he said. “We want to talk about a shortage of decent jobs for those who are already in the country. The AfD has understood that.”

The AfD is ideologically divided, with many senior members staunchly capitalist and suspicious of labor unions.

The strategic focus on the working class speaks to the challenge of turning protest voters into a loyal base, said Oskar Niedermayer, a professor of political science at the Free University in Berlin.

“Breaking into the union milieu is key to that strategy,” Mr. Niedermayer said.

He warned that the reflex to ostracize the AfD could backfire. Some unions are advising members to shun anyone in the AfD. Some soccer clubs are planning to outright bar them. And as Mr. Niedermayer pointed out, lawmakers from other parties have systematically blocked every AfD candidate for senior parliamentary posts.

“It confirms them in their role as victims of the elites,” he said. “Workers who see themselves as victims of the elites will only identify with them more.”

As the AfD appeals to Germany’s left-behinds, it is also trying to tie them to other parts of the party’s agenda, like its hard line on immigration.

For instance, the battle cry of Frank-Christian Hansel, an AfD member of Berlin’s state Parliament, is to save the German welfare state — but for Germans.

“If you want social justice, you need to manage who is coming into your country,” Mr. Hansel said. “Open borders and welfare state don’t go together.”
Continue reading the main story
Photo
An advertising board near the Prosper-Haniel mine. Mr. Reil said the AfD was “pro-coal, pro-diesel and anti-immigration.” Credit Gordon Welters for The New York Times

It is the kind of rhetoric that sets the AfD apart from the traditional left, even as it goes fishing for voters in Social Democratic waters.

For the AfD, it is not just those at the bottom against those at the top, Mr. Niedermayer said. It is insiders against outsiders. Social justice, yes, but only for Germans.

In Bottrop, this message plays well.

Residents complain about some refugees being prescribed “therapeutic horseback-riding” and courses in flirtation, courtesy of taxpayers, while public schools are in decline.

“They get the renovated social housing, while Germans wait for years,” said Linda Emde, the manager of one of the few remaining bars. “But when you speak up against migration, they call you a racist.”

Ms. Emde had voted for the Social Democrats all her life. But in September, she and her husband switched to the AfD.

Mr. Reil, who never managed to rise through the Social Democrats’ local party hierarchy, is now a member of the AfD’s national leadership team. At the monthly meetings, he sits at the same table as the aristocrat Beatrix von Storch and Alice Weidel, a professor.

The two female lawmakers are perhaps best known for a recent social media rant about “barbaric, Muslim, rapist hordes of men.” But for Mr. Reil, the point of his comment was that he had risen socially.

“What do a miner, a princess and a professor have in common?” he jokes. “They are all in the AfD.”

Follow Katrin Bennhold on Twitter: @kbennhold.

Christopher Schuetze contributed reporting from Berlin.

#Allemagne #extrême_droite #syndicalisme

East Germany’s population is shrinking - Fading echoes
▻https://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21720578-rest-country-and-large-swathes-europe-will-face-similar-problems

Avril 2017

Despite an influx of 1.2m refugees over the past two years, Germany’s population faces near-irreversible decline. According to predictions from the UN in 2015, two in five Germans will be over 60 by 2050 and Europe’s oldest country will have shrunk to 75m from 82m. Since the 1970s, more Germans have been dying than are born. Fewer births and longer lives are a problem for most rich countries. But the consequences are more acute for Germany, where birth rates are lower than in Britain and France.

If Germany is a warning for others, its eastern part is a warning for its west. If it were still a country, East Germany would be the oldest in the world. Nearly 30 years after unification the region still suffers the aftershock from the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, when millions—mostly young, mostly women—fled for the west. Those who remained had record-low birth rates. “Kids not born in the ’90s, also didn’t have kids in the 2010s. It’s the echo of the echo,” says Frank Swiaczny from the Federal Institute for Population Research, a think-tank in Wiesbaden. The east’s population will shrink from 12.5m in 2016 to 8.7m by 2060, according to government statistics. Saxony-Anhalt, the state to which Bitterfeld-Wolfen belongs, is ahead of the curve.

https://www.economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/1280-width/images/2017/04/articles/body/20170415_fnc953.png

#Allemagne #Europe #démographie #population #vieillissement