Germany Faces Challenge of Reintegrating Returning Islamists - SPIEGEL ONLINE
▻http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/germany-faces-challenge-of-reintegrating-returning-islamists-a-1032208.html
German Islamists are returning from war abroad, some reformed but others more dangerous than ever. Social workers, imams and extremists are fighting for their souls — and for Germany’s safety. Government officials have few answers to the problem.
Varoufakis : « la #peur emplit l’âme » du président de la #BCE, Mario Draghi.
Mr. Varoufakis did not backpedal from separate comments he made to the Greek Parliament on Thursday, saying that the “soul” of the central bank’s president, Mario Draghi, was “filled with fear” at the thought of giving Greece a break on its debts, because of the potential reaction among hard-liners in Germany.
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/15/business/international/varoufakis-lashes-out-at-draghi.html
Putin’s Russian image change: Action man to Mr Ordinary - BBC News
▻http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-32741458
As viewers watched Russian state TV coverage of Victory Day on 9 May, their eyes will have been drawn to one face in particular among the crowds carrying photographs of family members who took part in the struggle against Nazi Germany between 1941 and 1945.
Among the massed ranks, a portrait of his late father held out in front of him, was President Vladimir Putin.
This surprise appearance amid crowds in Moscow honouring ordinary people who served in World War Two seems to be part of a change of image for the Russian president - portraying him more as a down-to-Earth man of the people, rather than the all-action hero TV viewers have become used to seeing.
Longs développements de #kremlinologie appliquée…
Our Neanderthal Complex - Issue 24: Error
▻http://nautil.us/issue/24/error/our-neanderthal-complex-rp
In August 1856, limestone quarry workers blasting out the entrance to the Feldhofer grotto in the Neander Valley of west-central Germany found a set of skeletal remains. Assuming the skull scraps, arm bones, ribs, and pelvis were from an ancient cave bear, the workers turned them all over to Johann Carl Fuhlrott, an amateur naturalist and local schoolteacher. Fuhlrott quickly recognized that the bones were in fact human-like, but in an unusual way: The skull was extremely thick, elongated, and had almost ridiculously pronounced brow ridges. In June 1857, together with the famed professor of anatomy Hermann Schaaffhausen, Fuhlrott publicly announced that the bones represented an ancient race of humans. “The human bones from the Neanderthal exceed all the rest of those peculiarities of (...)
German Politicians: Why Don’t They Tell it Like it is? | ZEIT ONLINE
▻http://www.zeit.de/politik/deutschland/2015-04/german-politicians-truth-crisis/komplettansicht
Never before have German politicians so studiously avoided telling their countrymen the truth. That might be understandable given the troubled state of the world, but it’s still dangerous.
...
However, unlike Japan’s nuclear disaster in Fukushima, which spurred German Chancellor Angela Merkel to phase out atomic energy in Europe’s largest economy, this flip-flop wasn’t caused by an unforeseeable natural disaster. Instead, it was a completely predictable state of affairs: When a growing number of people attempt to flee those destabilized regions adjoining Europe and ever fewer ships are made available to save them from the sea, more refugees will die. E.U. politicians knew this was the case, they even made it happen – they just didn’t care to admit it publicly.
This episode feeds a suspicion that many have long assumed: Do politicians in Berlin and Brussels avoid saying everything they think, hiding their core concerns, when it comes to some very fundamental questions? The answer is a clear yes.
...
Sometimes all the fears gripping leading German politicians simply bubble forth from them, as they stand on the brink of overwhelming political depression. If the war in Ukraine continues to escalate, Greece ends up going bankrupt, and the horrid far-right populist Marine Le Pen becomes French president, isolating her country, and then the British leave the European Union, then, yes, then, but please don’t write that down. These are occasionally creative, almost lively discussions, where the new reality is breathlessly painted in broad, tentative brushes. But regardless if wise from age or bordering on burnout, curious or just confused, the gist is generally speaking that the presiding order is breaking down, at least partially.
...
This world, that the West just barely seemed to have under control, has now been almost completely submerged. It was almost a miracle that more international catastrophes didn’t happen at the same time. The world apparently knew we couldn’t handle it. The rest was easy to ignore. But that’s all changed now. Greece, Russia, Islamist terrorism – the crises have all come at once. They’ve become too strong for us to ignore and wish away.
Something else has also changed and it’s hard to say when it exactly happened, after the Russians invaded Crimea, Lehman Brothers went bankrupt, the third outbreak of the Greek crisis, or when the Middle East descended into chaos: Nobody believes anymore that we’re living through some exceptional phase; nobody dares hope that the Arabs will soon forge peace or that Vladimir Putin will focus on modernizing Russia and stop provoking his neighbors.
Crisis has become the new normal. The years between 1990 and now were the exception.
...
People aren’t just being shielded from the insecurity of their politicians; they are also being cheated of many potential solutions to overcome it. Because, behind the scenes, away from the public limelight, Frank-Walter Steinmeier is trying to redefine in a “review process” the foundations of German foreign policy as a leading nation in wild international times. German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen is discussing the still-unclear future of the Bundeswehr with a commission working to develop a white paper. Chancellor Angela Merkel is, step by step, becoming clearer, be it on epochal topics like Islam, or her approach towards dealing with Mr. Putin’s Russia – even the European Union has become a fundamental issue for her. But she’s still barely connecting the dots.
Germany presses for quota system for EU migrant distribution
Germany fielded about a third of the EU’s 626,000 asylum claims last year – far more than any other European country by some distance
▻http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/29/germany-quota-system-eu-migrant-distribution?CMP=share_btn_tw
#Allemagne #politique_migratoire #Europe #asile #migration #réfugiés #quota
Russia says Western leaders note progress in ceasefire in Ukraine - Yahoo News
▻http://news.yahoo.com/russia-says-western-leaders-note-progress-ceasefire-ukraine-173011324.ht
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Francois Hollande and Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko noted “certain progress” in a ceasefire in eastern Ukraine during a telephone conversation, the Kremlin said.
The leaders of four countries also noted progress in the withdrawal of heavy weapons from the region, the Kremlin said in a statement on Thursday.
Pendant ce temps, Breedlove,…
Russia may be readying for new Ukraine offensive : NATO commander | Reuters
▻http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/04/30/us-usa-defense-europe-idUSKBN0NL2ED20150430
Russia’s military may be taking advantage of a recent lull in fighting in eastern Ukraine to lay the groundwork for a new military offensive, NATO’s top commander told the U.S. Congress on Thursday.
U.S. Air Force General Philip Breedlove, the NATO supreme allied commander, said Russian forces had been seeking to “reset and reposition” while protecting battlefield gains, despite a fragile ceasefire agreed in February.
“Many of their actions are consistent with preparations for another offensive,” Breedlove said.
Pressed during the hearing, Breedlove acknowledged he could not predict Moscow’s next move but characterized its ongoing actions as “preparing, training and equipping to have the capacity to again take an offensive.”
Preparing, training and equipping, tiens, c’est aussi ce que font les forces ukrainiennes. J’imagine qu’elles, elles se préparent pour la défensive.
Less pay, more work, no pension: the 21st-century woman’s lot laid bare | Global development | The Guardian
▻http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2015/apr/27/un-women-report-less-pay-more-work-no-pension-the-21st-century-
Women earn on average 24% less than men, work more hours and have less chance of receiving a pension in later life, according to UN Women’s flagship report, which calls for an overhaul of global economic policies to improve women’s lives.
The 2015 progress report, Transforming economies, realising rights, published on Monday, said current economic policies and discriminatory laws and attitudes are failing women in rich and poor countries.
Despite significant progress in overcoming the barriers to equal opportunities, which includes new legislation to support women’s right to work, change has not penetrated deep enough in some countries.
At least 80 countries, including France, Germany, Switzerland, Mexico and South Africa, do not have legislation requiring equal pay for equal work. Over their lifetimes, women in France and Sweden can expect to earn 31% less than men, in Germany 49% less and in Turkey 75% less.
Could German court halt White House’s ‘illegal’ drone war? An exclusive extract from Chris Woods’ new book Sudden Justice | The Bureau of Investigative Journalism
▻http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2015/04/27/could-german-court-halt-white-house-drone-war-chris-woods-boo
The debate over America’s use of drones to kill its own citizens has never been as intense. Last week in an unprecedented announcement, President Barack Obama admitted that CIA drones had killed three Americans in Pakistan in January, including al Qaeda hostage and aid worker Warren Weinstein.
It is not just Americans who have been killed. As new research by the Bureau shows, Weinstein is one of at least 38 Westerners to have been killed in the US’s covert drone war on terror. Citizens of some of some of America’s closest allies – the UK, Germany, Australia and Canada among them – are among the dead.
The deaths of these Westerners represent a mere fraction of the total death toll for drones. Yet their killing pose troubling questions for the White House over the legality of the programme. There is also growing concern within allied countries.
On May 27 a Cologne court will begin hearing complaints from three Yemeni survivors of a US drone strike, in a case brought by Reprieve and the European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights.
Complaints centre on the use of Ramstein airbase by the US. The Intercept recently published leaked top secret documents showing that all drone satellite data from Yemen, Pakistan and Somalia transits through the German military base.
That means Ramstein will inevitably have helped facilitate the drone killing of seven or more German citizens by America, actions which may give further traction to the impending lawsuit. Kat Craig, from Reprieve, told the Bureau: “The time has come for Germany and the US’s other Western allies to face the facts: they are complicit in an illegal and immoral war – one which violates their own legal framework and should see them prosecuted.”
Could the case succeed? The track record of Europe’s courts on earlier CIA progammes, including torture and rendition, is not encouraging.
In this exclusive extract from Chris Woods’ new book Sudden Justice: America’s Secret Drone Wars, the former Bureau reporter shows how Germany’s role in the CIA’s covert drone wars has been highly controversial for years.
►https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/04/17/ramstein
#drones #USA #Allemagne #Justice
Germany urges Ukraine to fulfil Minsk ceasefire agreement - FT.com
▻http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/51a3148a-ec12-11e4-b428-00144feab7de.html
EU diplomats readily admit the separatists violate the Minsk ceasefire far more often than Kiev. But they urge president Petro Poroshenko to stick to the accord and implement its political clauses.
The word among German diplomats is that Kiev needs to be “more co-operative”. Stefan Meister, of Berlin’s DGAP foreign policy think-tank, said: “German officials are talking to both sides, but especially to the Ukrainians because if they don’t do what’s necessary, the Russians will always have the possibility of renewing the conflict.”
In France, President François Hollande said during a visit by Mr Poroshenko last week: “The only line of conduct is the full implementation of the Minsk accord.”
In the UK, which has followed the US in taking a tougher line against Moscow, an official said Ukraine should fulfil its side of the Minsk deal and “not give Russia the space to criticise them”.
(…)
But Berlin is worried that Kiev is dragging its feet over other parts of the fragile deal, notably in trying to postpone political decentralisation until after local elections are staged in separatist-held territory.
For Ukraine this is critical because it does not want to hand over power to separatist leaders in the Donbas region, who are not recognised by the international community. EU diplomats say, however, that while local elections are indeed envisaged under Minsk, the accord does not insist that they take place before decentralisation.
Media : Berlin did not warn of Ukraine flight dangers before #MH17 crash | News | DW.DE | 27.04.2015
▻http://www.dw.de/media-berlin-did-not-warn-of-ukraine-flight-dangers-before-mh17-crash/a-18410055
The German government knew of the danger for airliners flying over Ukraine two days before MH17 was shot down, German media reported Monday, citing secret diplomatic cables from the country’s foreign office.
A team of journalists from regional public broadcasters WDR, NDR and daily newspaper “Süddeutsche Zeitung” (SZ) has been investigating the case of MH17, which went down over separatist-held eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014. All 298 people on board were killed.
Two days before the catastrophe, Germany’s Foreign Office wrote that the situation in that area was “very worrying” because the previous day, July 14, a Ukrainian Antonov military cargo plane had been shot down from a height of more than 6,000 meters (19,600 feet). This lent the security situation in Ukraine’s airspace “a new quality,” the report said. The shooting down of a plane at this height was a clear signal to military experts that an aircraft flying at a much higher altitude could also be reached, meaning there was a danger to passenger planes.
According to WDR, NDR and SZ, this information was passed on several times by Germany’s intelligence services to the government - labeled with the government code “VS,” a lower-level secrecy classification only allowing access to verified individuals with a reason to know the information. It was not shared with the country’s airlines before the disaster.
Germany is the Tell-Tale Heart of America’s Drone War
►https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/04/17/ramstein
This is a joint investigation with the German news magazine Der Spiegel.
A TOP-SECRET U.S. intelligence document obtained by The Intercept confirms that the sprawling U.S. military base in Ramstein, Germany serves as the high-tech heart of America’s drone program. Ramstein is the site of a satellite relay station that enables drone operators in the American Southwest to communicate with their remote aircraft in Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan and other targeted countries. The top-secret slide deck, dated July 2012, provides the most detailed blueprint seen to date of the technical architecture used to conduct strikes with Predator and Reaper drones.
Amid fierce European criticism of America’s targeted killing program, U.S. and German government officials have long downplayed Ramstein’s role in lethal U.S. drone operations and have issued carefully phrased evasions when confronted with direct questions about the base. But the slides show that the facilities at Ramstein perform an essential function in lethal drone strikes conducted by the CIA and the U.S. military in the Middle East, Afghanistan and Africa.
The slides were provided by a source with knowledge of the U.S. government’s drone program who declined to be identified because of fears of retribution. According to the source, Ramstein’s importance to the U.S. drone war is difficult to overstate. “Ramstein carries the signal to tell the drone what to do and it returns the display of what the drone sees. Without Ramstein, drones could not function, at least not as they do now,” the source said.
The new evidence places German Chancellor Angela Merkel in an awkward position given Germany’s close diplomatic alliance with the United States. The German government has granted the U.S. the right to use the property, but only under the condition that the Americans do nothing there that violates German law.
Secret Details of Drone Strike Revealed As Unprecedented Case Goes to German Court
▻https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/04/17/victim-u-s-drone-strike-gets-day-german-court
Alfred Mahlau | Cooper Union Typography
▻https://coopertypography.wordpress.com/2009/03/17/alfred-mahlau
When I was a freshman in the 2DD class at Cooper, Margaret Morton took our class to visit an Advanced Design class, which was taught that semester by Paul Rand. That day he was showing slides of a designer he had recently “discovered” an interesting German designer: Alfred Mahlau. Rand had traveled to Germany to visit the widow of Mahlau, and to find as much work by Mahlau as possible. Rand loved the simplicity and elegance of Mahlau’s work. Something about that work stayed with me for a long time. Recently I remembered Mahlau and tried to see what I could dig up online. I was surprised to find a lot of images, but also surprised by the lack of discussion or mention of him in the design sphere of the web. So I dug up all the images I could possibly find online and to put them all together here. Notice the consistent style of his lettering in most of the examples below; including a clever way of dealing with umlauts. The typeface Mahlau, designed by Peter von Zezschwitz, was inspired by his lettering.
Germany is the Tell-Tale Heart of America’s Drone War
A TOP-SECRET U.S. intelligence document obtained by The Intercept confirms that the sprawling U.S. military base in Ramstein, Germany serves as the high-tech heart of America’s drone program. Ramstein is the site of a satellite relay station that enables drone operators in the American Southwest to communicate with their remote aircraft in Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan and other targeted countries. The top-secret slide deck, dated July 2012, provides the most detailed blueprint seen to date of the technical architecture used to conduct strikes with Predator and Reaper drones.
Afro-Iran
▻http://www.mahdi-ehsaei.com/afro-iran
The photographic series of German-born Iranian Mahdi Ehsaei shows a side of Iran, which is unknown by even Iranians. A trip to a place which is inhabited and dominated by the descendants of enslaved people and traders from Africa.
Can You Die From a Broken Heart? - Issue 23: Dominoes
▻http://nautil.us/issue/23/dominoes/can-you-die-from-a-broken-heart-rp
Ruth and Harold “Doc” Knapke met in elementary school. They exchanged letters during the war, when Doc was stationed in Germany. After he returned their romance began in earnest. They married, raised six children and celebrated 65 anniversaries together. And then on a single day in August 2013, in the room they shared in an Ohio nursing home, they died. “No relationship was ever perfect, but theirs was one of the better relationships I ever observed,” says their daughter Margaret Knapke, 61, a somatic therapist. “They were always like Velcro. They couldn’t stand to be separated.” For years, Knapke says, she and her siblings watched their father’s health crumble. He suffered from longstanding heart problems and had begun showing signs of dementia. He lost interest in things he once enjoyed, (...)
Là, c’est fort... #réfugié_illégal!!!
:-(
Germany grapples with record number of illegal refugees
Crises and conflicts all over the world have led to a rapid rise in the number of refugees to Europe in general - and Germany in particular. But many of these people enter the country illegally.
▻http://www.dw.de/germany-grapples-with-record-number-of-illegal-refugees/a-18367682
#terminologie #vocabulaire #réfugiés #migration #illégal #illégalité
cc @reka: peux-tu mettre dans notre fichier, car là c’est le top de chez top “réfugié illégal”!!!
German Asylum: Attacks on Refugee Hostels a Growing Problem
The recent arson attack against a refugee hostel in #Tröglitz has made headlines around the world. But it is far from the exception in Germany. Even as most asylum-seekers in the country are left in peace, there has been a disturbing rise in anti-refugee violence. By SPIEGEL Staff
Allemagne : le bâtiment qui devait accueillir des demandeurs d’asile incendié à Tröglitz
Le futur centre d’accueil de demandeurs d’asile de Tröglitz, en Allemagne de l’Est, a été incendié, probablement de manière intentionnelle, dans la nuit de vendredi à samedi. Des néonazis s’étaient mobilisés contre ce foyer.
▻http://www.lenouvelliste.ch/fr/monde/allemagne-le-batiment-qui-devait-accueillir-des-demandeurs-d-asile-inc
#incendie #extrême-droite #néonazis #NPD #menace
German government blames #Pegida for rise in crimes against refugees
Germany’s Ministry of Internal Affairs is blaming right-wing extremist demonstrations, aimed especially at asylum seekers, for the growing number of attacks on refugee shelters. EurActiv Germany reports.
▻http://www.euractiv.com/sections/justice-home-affairs/german-government-blames-pegida-rise-crimes-against-refugees-313634
#racisme #xénophobie #Allemagne
Soviet-era statues smashed as Ukraine likens Russia to Nazis - Yahoo News
▻http://news.yahoo.com/soviet-era-statues-smashed-ukraine-likens-russia-nazis-144142951.html
Kharkiv (Ukraine) (AFP) - Masked men smashed communist-era monuments in Ukraine’s second city overnight Friday after the country’s pro-Western parliament voted to purge the nation of Soviet symbols and its head of state compared today’s Russia to Nazi Germany.
(…)
Soviet WWII veterans will be entitled to continue to wear their medals, however, and graves will be left in peace, even if inscribed with the hammer-and-sickle or other Soviet insignia.
Subsidies to industries that cause deforestation worth 100 times more than aid to prevent it | Environment | The Guardian
▻http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/mar/31/subsidies-to-industries-that-cause-deforestation-worth-100-times-more-t
Brazil and Indonesia spent over 100 times more in subsidies to industries that cause deforestation than they received in international conservation aid to prevent it, according to a report by the Overseas Development Institute (ODI).
The two countries handed out over $40bn (£27bn) in subsidies to the palm oil, timber, soy, beef and biofuels sectors between 2009 and 2012 – 126 times more than the $346m they received to preserve their rainforests from the United Nations’ (UN) #REDD+ scheme, mostly from Norway and Germany.
#déforestation #forêt #subvention #aides #agroforesterie #écologie #redd+
Interactive map of Germany: Places where refugees have been attacked in 2014
Hetze und Gewalt gegen Flüchtlinge
▻https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=zJAUlv_Gacsg.kntx_jWE2tGs
#Allemagne #cartographie #violence #réfugiés #xénophobie #asile #attaques #carte_interactive
GeoDNS - tile.openstreetmap.org
▻http://dns.openstreetmap.org/tile.openstreetmap.org.html
Tabaluga primarily served traffic to visitors from Germany. Approximately 56 million map tiles per day. (avg 652/sec, peaking at 1245/sec). Serving close to 1TB of data per day. It was the highest traffic #osm tile cache #server.
▻https://blog.openstreetmap.org/2015/03/24/openstreetmap-tile-cdn-continues-to-grow
▻http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/russia-australia-netherlands-to-join-aiib/article7046453.ece
The ‘One Belt One Road’ initiative, backed by a solid financial institutional network is expected to accelerate the shift of power away from the U.S. towards Eurasia.
A late surge among top European countries, including Germany, France, Britain, and now Russia along with Australia to join the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), has imparted a new sense of realism to Beijing’s Silk Road plans.