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German president quits in scandal

German President Christian Wulff announces his resignation, after prosecutors called for his immunity to be lifted amid a home loan scandal. Angela Merkel says she received news of President Wulff's resignation "with regret".

(BBC NEWS) Berlin - An ally of Chancellor Angela Merkel, Mr Wulff is embroiled in a scandal over a home loan that he accepted when he was premier of Lower Saxony.

Mrs Merkel cancelled a visit to Italy on Friday to deal with the crisis, and said she regretted that he had quit.

German media say the crisis is unprecedented in post-war Germany.

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Ideas

In A World Of Hunger And Greed, Knowledge For Its Own Sake Is More Vital Than Ever

Students are now paying customers and the world revolves around capital and commerce. But reading and education are our best forms of both pleasure and resistance. Reminders from assassinated Spanish poet Federico García Lorca.

In A World Of Hunger And Greed, Knowledge For Its Own Sake Is More Vital Than Ever

"The classics are not read to get a degree, but to learn to live."

Reinaldo Spitaletta

-Essay-

BOGOTÁ — In 1931, when inaugurating the public library of his hometown of Fuente Vaqueros in southern Spain, the poet Federico García Lorca gave a speech about hunger. He spoke of a hunger for learning and its baser variety, inside the belly, denouncing those who speak of economic demands without ever mentioning the cultural needs "for which peoples have cried out."

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