Worldcrunch
ISTANBUL – Mornings around nine, when shop owners on Galip Dede Street open their doors, dozens of cats appear out of nowhere. They know it’s breakfast time. Not right away: the men first have to unpack new merchandise, stock the shelves, and check the till. But then they put out bowls of water for the […]
DIE WELT, DER SPIEGEL (Germany) Worldcrunch A 28-year-old woman has been charged with killing five of her own newborn babies over a period of several years, police said Thursday. Die Welt reports that the woman, whose name cannot be disclosed due to German privacy laws, has confessed to killing two of the babies, five years […]
MUNICH – The shelving is pink. The armchairs are pink. The bath salts are of course pink too. The air is heavy with a strawberry scent, and in front of the mirror sits Luisa, 11, having her long blonde hair combed. It must look a little like this at Barbie’s house. Kerstin Kobus, decked out […]
DIE WELT, DER SPIEGEL (Germany) Worldcrunch BERLIN – German politician Julia Schramm, 26, is a member of the national executive committee of the Pirate Party, which has built a strong following for its crusade for Internet freedom and an end to copyright law. But soon after the publication last week of Schramm’s new book called […]
DIE WELT (Germany) Worldcrunch MUNICH – Some seven million people are expected to turn up for Oktoberfest in the southern German city of Munich. What has been the world’s biggest popular fete since 1810 kicked off Saturday in the Schottenhamel beer tent, the oldest party tent on the Theresienwiese fairgrounds. Die Welt asked Christian Schottenhamel, […]
BERLIN – In grandpa’s time, somebody would call out “End of the work day!” – as a signal in many companies for workers to pack it up and go home. It’s not so easy today, says Wolfgang Panter, the president of the Association of German Business and Company Doctors (VDBW): “Boundaries between work and free […]
DIE WELT (Germany) Worldcrunch BERLIN – The elite of the German Federal Armed Forces are sometimes suspected of being a breeding ground for right-wing radicals. So beginning in 2007, the Defense Ministry decided to take a closer look at the political orientation of future officers. With the results now in of a study of 2,300 […]
BERLIN – Till Roenneberg, a professor at the Institute for Medical Psychology at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) in Munich, is a chronobiologist – which means that he specializes in the study of how biological rhythms affect our physiology and behavior. Over the course of his career, he has gathered statistics on people from 166 countries. The human […]
-Essay- When I receive an invitation to brunch or afternoon tea, before committing myself I always ask the hosts if any parents are going to be there with their children. If the answer is yes, I thank them for inviting me, say I’m otherwise engaged – and stay home. I know how things are going […]
BERLIN – She was an icon of glamour and beauty. But Marilyn Monroe also knew how to appreciate the timeless value of compressed carbon. When she sang “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend,” she was offering a not-so-subtle investor tip to bank on the precious stones. These days, with the euro crisis, investors are increasingly […]
DIE WELT (Germany) Worldcrunch More and more Germans have taken to grading doctors online on everything from quality and effectiveness of treatment received to friendliness, writes Die Welt. Medical evaluation sites have been proliferating in Germany over the last five years, and there are now more than 20. All of them contain evaluations by — […]
– Analysis – BERLIN – The invitation came from the top ranks — Council Chairman Nikolaus Schneider and Synod President Katrin Göring-Eckardt — of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD), which is comprised of 22 Lutheran, Reformed and United regional churches. Most of the regional bishops, former Council chairs Margot Käßmann and Wolfgang Huber, along […]
AL JAZEERA (Qatar), REUTERS, BBC (UK), SANA (Syria) Worldcrunch Anger against the West is spreading throughout the Muslim world as further reports of attacks on the UK, German and US embassies develop Friday afternoon. Following Pope Benedict XVI’s arrival Friday for a three-day trip to Lebanon, anti-Western protests amassed in the country’s second-largest city Tripoli. […]
FLUTER, DIE WELT, DEUTSCHE WELLE (Germany), ESPN (USA) Worldcrunch No name, no club – nothing that would point to his identity – that was what Fluter journalist Adrian Bechtold had to promise a professional Bundesliga soccer player in return for talking about something that is still absolutely taboo in the top soccer league of Germany […]
RAVENSBURG – Otto Oberländer calls out a friendly “Hello!” as he enters the production hall where a dozen men work at a long table putting garden sprinklers together. The men, who all wear blue boiler suits, give a friendly acknowledgement of the boss’s greeting and then get back to work. The fact that the door […]
DER SPIEGEL (Germany), LE FIGARO (France), THE GUARDIAN (UK), POLITICO (US) Worldcrunch According to new international polling data, the majority of Europeans would like to see Barack Obama voted in for a second term. Meanwhile, his Republican opponent Mitt Romney is still a virtual unknown across the pond. Der Spiegel reported Wednesday that according to […]
BERLIN – Even the ever competent European Central Bank (ECB) President Mario Draghi stumbled when he was asked how he was dealing with the fact that the Germans had reservations about his latest moves. That’s because the journalist at last week’s press conference didn’t address him as “President Draghi,” but as “Herr Weidmann.” Of course, […]
In the face of the European debt and financial crisis, Hamburg-based economist Dirk Meyer has a “third way”: a system of parallel currencies. A professor at the Helmut Schmidt University of the armed forces, Meyer is convinced that in its present form the euro zone is simply not sustainable in the long term. He used […]
-Analysis- FRANKFURT – Are Hamas and Hezbollah part of “the global left?” A few years ago, during the discussion following a lecture at the University of California, Berkeley, American philosopher Judith Butler claimed they were. And now the remark is coming back to haunt her. The Central Council of Jews in Germany has strongly criticized […]
BERLIN – Six years ago, shortly after Daniel Alter became one of the first Jews to be made a rabbi in Germany after the Holocaust, he said that he thought for a long time about how to explain to his daughter why there were relatively few Jews in Germany. He told Die Welt: “To tell […]
HAMBURG – Jan Heusinger’s day was always the same: wake up, shower, have breakfast – and then spend the rest of his hours playing computer games. Four years ago, when he was 14, he’d bought World of Warcraft, an online role-playing game. By 2011, he’d stopped attending school to spend his days as an Orc […]
TIMES OF INDIA (India), DIE WELT (Germany), NY TIMES (US), REUTERS (UK), POLSKIE RADIO (Poland) Worldcrunch From using Norwegian mass murderers to sell clothes to an unnerving number of examples of Nazi references at Indian stores, shock tactics in marketing seem to be reaching a new low. Here are the worst five recent examples: 1. […]
The news out of Afghanistan is that the Taliban beheaded 17 men and women who had gathered for a mixed-gender social event with music and dancing. This, of course, is not the first time the excesses of Muslim jihadists have included beheadings. Dozens of headless bodies were found in the Tigris River years ago in […]
DER SPIEGEL, DIE WELT (Germany), LE MONDE (France) Worldcrunch BERLIN – German Chancellor Angela Merkel is a cold, power-hungry would-be dictator overseeing the insidious collapse of democracy, according to a new book causing a political stir in Germany. Gertrud Höhler’s book, Die Patin (which means “the Godmother” in English and retains all of its mafia […]
-Essay- BERLIN – Some people live with the past. Others prefer to throw the past away like it’s smelly trash. In present-day Germany, where the goody-two-shoes live, the second has been the preferred option for a long time now. Take for instance street names: Germany’s streets and squares are routinely re-baptized. When the Nazis came […]
-Essay- BERLIN – On Wednesday morning, at Berlin Zoo, Bao Bao the giant panda died in his sleep at the age of 34 — which for a panda is a ripe old age. Berlin mourns him, the zoo mourns him … but all the attention will quickly fade away. The truth is that Bao Bao’s […]
BERLIN – In the debate in Germany over circumcision, you often hear people say jokingly that if cutting the foreskin off a baby boy’s penis for religious reasons is outlawed then piercing little girls’ earlobes shouldn’t be allowed either. But that’s just the scenario that may be shaping up. After a Cologne court ruled in […]
BERLIN – After the initial euphoria, it’s back to earth for Germans. The decision to exit nuclear power was initially quite popular, but today many are having second thoughts. Their main issue with the decision is its resulting cost, which is paid for by households and small businesses but has spared big industrial consumers. When […]
Deutsche Bank may have done business to the tune of billions with Iran and other countries, violating U.S. sanctions. Sanctions were imposed on Iran by the international community because of its nuclear weapons program. British bank Standard Chartered, which is said to have violated Iran sanctions, now faces payment of a $340 million settlement after […]
BERLIN – In the posh, lush Pankow neighborhood of East Berlin, nothing indicates that people are squatting the Kunterbunt house. Everything is orderly in the small brownish building, a legacy of the former German Democratic Republic (GDR). There are flower bouquets on the tables and water paintings of landscapes hanging on the walls. Yet Doris, […]
OP-ED – A German newspaper recently published a list of the “ten most dangerous politicians in Europe.” When something bad happens we immediately start looking for someone or something to pin the blame on. It makes no difference if the “bad” thing was the capsizing of a cruise liner, a war that ended in a […]
In just three weeks, the final stage of the EU phase-out of incandescent light bulbs will start. The EU campaign began in December 2008 with the EU Commission’s Ecodesign Directive stating that the manufacturing and sale of “light bulbs with low energy efficiency” would be forbidden in member states after a gradual phase-out. The directive […]
BERLIN – Normally in Germany, there’s a waiting list procedure for organ transplants. The Deutsche Stiftung Organtransplantation (German Foundation for Organ Transplantation) coordinates the information about available organs from donors, and these organs are then allocated by the Netherlands-based Eurotransplant to seven central European member countries. In Germany, transplants take place at 50 transplant centers […]
LE MONDE, FRANCE TV (France) Cuba’s dreams of winning Olympic gold in the pole vault today were left in shatters – after Lázaro Borges’ pole snapped into pieces. The 26-year-old slammed the pole into the ground when attempting to clear a height of 5.35 meters but ended up awkwardly crashing into the mat when the […]
A new demography study shows that the much ballyhooed rise in the retirement age to 67 simply delays the hard questions about how to finance pensions as Germany’s population ages.
BLOOMBERG, BUSINESS INSIDER (USA), LA TRIBUNE (France), BBC NEWS (UK) Worldcrunch FRANKFURT – The European Central Bank (ECB) is holding a meeting today in Frankfurt (Germany) to make a crucial decision on the euro’s future reports French financial newspaper La Tribune. Investors are looking for the European Central Bank President to make good on his […]
BERLIN – Last week it became clear that, as regards the euro, political Europe has overstepped the limits of its power. The joint statement by France’s President François Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel saying that “Germany and France are deeply committed to the integrity of the Eurozone and are determined to do everything to […]
DIE WELT (Germany) Worldcrunch HAMBURG – Penguins may look as if they’re wearing tuxedos, but they feel more comfortable in a sweater – when, that is, the sweater can protect them from the disastrous effects of oil slicks. Since February, German woman Angelika Regenstein has been knitting wooly jumpers for penguins and has developed a […]
Satnav, infotainment systems equipped with internet access, web browsing, voice-controlled emailing and tweeting: car manufacturers are continuously finding new ways to divert drivers from the task at hand – driving.
Noisy tourists who come by the bus-full, drunk Brits: many people living in European cities are fed up with the hordes of tourists that are threatening their quality of life.