Worldcrunch
MUNICH — From a digital point of view, the Norwegian Erik Nissen Johansen is at the forefront: Even his cat has Instagram. No wonder then that the hotel designer also pays attention to Instagram on the professional front. Johansen is the founder and creative director of the design agency Stylt Trampoli, based in the Swedish […]
The U.S. president wants to impose his will and whims on all partners. The EU, for the sake of its own security, needs to resist.
There’s a potentially sinister side to the crush of data we unwittingly feed into systems like Google, which can use the information not only to make money, but ultimately control us.
He was born three years before Russia’s October Revolution, and served in the Red Army during World War II. But in 1945, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was arrested for criticizing Stalin, and spent eight years in a labor camp. The experience reshaped his political opinions and inspired his most famous works, including The Gulag Archipelago (1973). He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1970, but was hounded by the KGB, stripped of his citizenship, and expelled from the Soviet Union in 1974. He remained in exile for 20 years, before being allowed back in Russia in 1994 — after the fall […]
DaWanda will soon disappear, clearing the way for its top competitor — the U.S. firm Etsy — to dominate the e-commerce market for homemade goods.
-OpEd- In Germany, there are many people who criticize the policies of Recep Tayyip Erdogan — rightly so. Many of his toughest critics here are Germans with Turkish roots, who also denounce the German government’s political deals with Ankara. And many of them are now expressing their solidarity with Mesut Özil, the German-Turkish player who […]
-Analysis- MUNICH — As far as industrial strategies and international competition are concerned, there’s no greater contrast than that between Europe’s resignation and China’s iron determination. It’s not surprising that it was China — and not Europe — that proposed to form an alliance against Trump’s raving protectionist madness. With little success: Even Washington’s harassment […]
AUGSBURG — One moment you’re the globetrotting head of a corporation with an army of subordinates to execute your every order, the next you’re behind bars and required to file requests for items as banal as toilet paper. While jailing executives, particularly those of global companies, is an almost unheard of occurrence in Germany, that’s just what happened to Audi Chief Executive Officer Rupert Stadler last month. One of the few other corporate leaders to suffer a similar fate was Thomas Middelhoff, and he has some words of advice to adapt to the circumstances. “You need humility, otherwise you’ll crack,” […]
BERLIN — Angela Merkel has yielded. It was just this past Saturday that the chancellor’s sticking to her guns had brought her Interior Minister Horst Seehofer to the threat of resignation over the government’s migration policy, the issue that has created a deep wedge between the pair. For her relentlessly tough stance on the matter, […]
BERLIN — They lined up in motorcades, honking horns, waving flags. It was as if Turkey had just won the World Cup, except that Turkey isn’t even in the tournament this year. Instead, these enthusiastically noisy German-Turks were fans of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the just re-elected Turkish president who earned a particularly clear victory in […]
Computers that can perfectly mimic the human voice? Hyper sensitive surveillance cameras? Advances like these are already a reality, and need to be regulated now.
The German pharma giant wants to do a bit of ‘rebranding,’ after the mega merger with the U.S.-based agro-giant. But anti-Monsanto sentiment is bound to remain no matter what it’s called.
Built on a soggy bed of sand, the German capital isn’t an ideal place for underground infrastructure. And yet, there’s a relatively unknown maze of tunnels, bunkers and other surprising spaces down there.
-Essay- MUNICH — Artists are now using anti-Semitism and Islamism to shock, and that’s not surprising. But if both listeners and rappers started to finally take music seriously, this could change. Since Germany’s top music prize, the Echo awards, honored the rappers Kollegah and Farid Bang, there has been a misunderstanding that both sides of […]
BERLIN — This past week marked the beginning of a period of peace and quiet for Muslims around the world. It is Ramadan, a month dedicated to reflection, prayers, and fasting, where disputes are meant to be avoided wherever possible. But instead of harmony, conflicts around Ramadan itself have increasingly been coming to the fore […]
Companies like Munich’s EOS are breaking new ground in the manufacturing world. And rather than kill industry jobs, their technology-driven approach may actually be saving them.
-OpEd- MUNICH — Donald Trump may have extended the grace period by one month, but make no mistake about it, he’s still holding a gun to Europe’s head in the tariffs dispute. The EU shouldn’t have any illusions: To get what he wants, Trump will continue his attempted extortion. And why not? It’s worked elsewhere, […]
Artificial intelligence is too useful and advanced and to ignore. But it also comes with huge risks, and should be limited accordingly.
The German chancellor’s upcoming visit to Washington will be a sober affair, particularly in contrast to the glitzy, red-carpet welcome the White House gave her French counterpart.
BERLIN — Donald Trump’s protectionist push is prompting a trade war with the entire world — Germany included, as his announcement last month about steel and aluminum tariffs made abundantly clear. But that, it turned out, may have just the tip of the iceberg. He’s now threatening Germany’s most important industry: auto manufacturing. On Friday […]
-Analysis- The Western world isn’t short of public enemies right now. There are, of course, the usual suspects: Putin, Assad, even Mark Zuckerberg seems to have joined the club. But there’s another, more discreet nemesis that may loom closer than the rest: acrylamide, a natural chemical that’s produced as part of the cooking process for […]
-OpEd- MUNICH — In the aftermath of the Facebook data scandal, some users have been deleting their accounts. It’s an understandable gut reaction, but it’s also a declaration of surrender because it’s not up to the individual to oppose the superiority of Internet companies. That’s the job of the politicians. Digital abstinence cannot be the […]
The targeted murder by a Muslim of an elderly Parisian Jewish woman connects hatred of Jews today to that of Europe’s past. And it’s not just in France.
Owners of diesel cars are trying to unload them in wake of a landmark ruling that could lead to urban bans on the vehicles.
‘Other bombmakers who bought products like these…’
In a time of Trump, Putin, and Xi Jinping, Europe represents a democratic ideal alone—respectful of both humanity and the planet. And Europe needs a revival of the Berlin-Paris alliance to make it possible.
-OpEd- BERLIN — It’s a strange state of affairs. Two madmen are leading two of the three greatest world powers: Donald Trump, who has turned his former TV show The Apprentice into a governing method in the White House, and Vladimir Putin, who lets himself be photographed hunting bare-chested, showing off his muscles, who eliminates […]
PARIS — Its destruction, nearly three decades ago, sent waves of joy across the globe. And yet, tourists of all nationalities still come to photograph its remains. The object of this paradox is none other than the Berlin Wall, the historic Cold War symbol that became an artistic symbol, even after its fall on Nov. […]
Just because trade balances tend to work in Germany’s favor doesn’t mean partner countries aren’t benefiting too.
The Russian president was a KGB agent in the city in the former East Germany when the Iron Curtain started to give way. The ghosts of the past are everywhere.
With over 20 years of history, SK Gaming is one of the oldest and most successful e-sport teams known for their achievements in the shooter gamer Counter-Strike. Formerly based in Cologne, SK’s gamers now live in a luxurious house in the U.S.
German-Turkish relations are a high-stakes affair. Not only does Germany count some three million residents with roots in Turkey, the two countries are strategic to both the global economy and international diplomacy. In recent years, however, the relationship has been fraught with tension, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel recently declared her desire to “reinforce” bilateral […]
Imagine if machines could do the job of strippers — or prostitutes. Where would it lead us?
For the entire time that I was in the Caribbean on vacation, I was convinced I had lymphoma.
-Essay- “Germans are coconuts, Americans peaches…” In the German Studies department at the University of Michigan, this saying bounced around as a shorthand way for us to describe the supposed social differences between the two nationalities: Germans come with tough shells, but inside lies the sweetness of coconut milk. Americans, instead, are soft on the […]
Salary caps, financial compensation, and transfer preferential rights for weak teams level the playing field in the NFL and MLB. While Europe’s top soccer salaries spiral out of control, and the same teams always win.
Islamists are known to target apostates. For the growing number of Muslim arrivals in Germany, a minority of those who have converted to Christianity say they are subject to attack.
These days a certain four-letter expletive — arguably English’s naughtiest word — is bouncing around the European Court of Justice. But it’s not coming from potty-mouthed prosecutors: The obscenity lies at the heart of an unprecedented case over patenting vulgarity, Berlin-based daily Die Welt reports. It’s a case several years in the making. In 2015, […]
-Analysis- Are we witnessing “the twilight of Angela Merkel”? The question, asked Tuesday in Le Figaro“s lead editorial, is on everybody’s mind, both inside and outside Germany. To be sure, in her 12 years as German Chancellor, Merkel has never been as vulnerable as she now appears to be. The collapse of post-election talks to […]
-Analysis- Lord Acton’s famous phrase about the corrupting effect of power (and absolute power) should have come with a footnote about the “clinging” factor. On any given day, it isn’t hard to find someone in charge, somewhere in the world, using all their wits and energy to hold onto power beyond any reasonable claim to […]