The divide n Europe is not etween nations ut between rich and poor

By Peter H. Koepf

April 12, 2013

Not everything that is legal is legitimate. “We’re not doing anything that’s against the law,” argue people who transfer money abroad. To which others, who are not the proud owners of letterbox companies or foreign accounts, might reply: “If it’s legal, why all the secrecy?”

Right now, international media organizations evaluating the offshore leaks data are shining a daily light on the world of shady methods, naming its inhabitants along the way. The public sees people who put their money into tax havens via roundabout routes as having something to hide. They draw the conclusion that it is legal for politicians to make laws that oppress ordinary people but open up opportunities for politicians and their friends in banks, business, high society and the nobility to increase their wealth – thanks to loopholes built in for that very purpose.

How Angela Merkel views the world

By Stefan Kornelius

April 12, 2013

Angela Merkel loves opera, in particular the works of Richard Wagner in all their tragedy and fatefulness. Her favorite opera is “Tristan and Isolde,” specifically the Heiner Müller production. Perhaps she likes Tristan because the king’s son never really had any hope of salvation. Only death could bring redemption for his all-consuming love.

Also revealing is Merkel’s brief and succinct interpretation of “The Ring of the Nibelung.” “If you get things wrong at the start, they’ll never come right, no matter what happens in the interim.” Merkel is not fatalistic, but she does find impassioned words for Wagner: “It pains me that it’s inevitable from the start. To get it right, you have to do it right from the very beginning.”

A Roma woman begging in Berlin.

Roma from eastern EU states begging in western cities are trying to escape the poverty of their home countries

By Rüdiger Rossig

April 12, 2013

Begging, criminality, prostitution – these are the terms the mainstream German media most commonly apply to the subject of poverty-driven migration from eastern and southeastern Europe to the rich western EU. Usually the immigrants are members of Europe’s biggest minority, the Roma.

From the tabloid daily Bild to the conservative FAZ and the alternative Tageszeitung, reports have made reference to dark-haired women in headscarves with a sleeping child on their laps. They entreat strangers with pleading eyes, begging for money in city centers. The papers talk of “trafficking networks” that bring entire “Roma gangs” into the country to beg, steal or prostitute themselves on the orders of Roma bosses, the “Gypsy kings,” who meanwhile stay back home in Romania or Bulgaria, accumulating huge piles of wealth.

In memoriam Ewald-Heinrich von Kleist, founder of the Munich Security Conference

April 12, 2013

He was prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice. Ewald-Henrich von Kleist was willing to give his own life to assassinate Hitler.

Kleist was one of the co-conspirators gathered around Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg, then chief of staff of the General Army Office. Stauffenberg asked the 22-year-old Kleist if he was ready to serve his country by killing the dictator during a presentation of new uniforms. Kleist asked for a day to think it over. He asked his father, who replied without hesitation: “Yes, of course you have to do it. A man who fails to act in such a moment, will never be happy again in his life.” The young von Kleist agreed.

But the presentation of the new uniform was called off a number of times. Stauffenberg’s own assassination attempt carried out in the Wolf’s Lair, Hitler’s Eastern front headquarters, on July 20, 1944 also failed.

North Korean leader Kim-Jong Un visits the Wolnae-do Defense Detachment on the border with South Korea.

While Europe is at peace, Asia is full of geopolitical faultlines and conflicting claims

By Theo Sommer

April 12, 2013

Is Europe’s past – centuries of contention, rivalry and internecine warfare – going to become the template for Asia’s future?

The bellicose stance of the young North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un has alarmed the world. First of all, his regime proclaimed that North Korea had reverted to a “state of war” with South Korea – a curious statement, because technically the two countries never concluded a peace treaty after the Korean War in the early 1950s (South Korea did not even sign the armistice agreement).

A barrage of provocations followed: pictures showed a podgy Kim conferring with his generals in front of a wall map entitled “On Plans to Attack the Mainland US;” the military were authorized to attack the United States with nuclear missiles; the hotline between North and South was cut and the nonaggression pact concluded in the “sunshine” days of 1991 cancelled; the Yongbyon nuclear reactor, shut down in 2007, was restarted; the industrial park in the Special Economic Zone of Kaesong was closed down; medium range missiles were moved to the east coast; the embassies of several countries including Germany and China were advised to evacuate their staff.

“Hungary performs better:” Prime Minister Viktor Orbán delivers his annual

In Viktor Orbán’s Hungary, the transformation from communism to democracy has failed

By Keno Verseck

April 12, 2013

When it came to reform, Hungary used to be known as the poster child of eastern Europe. It was praised for the seamless transition from a dictatorship to democracy, and was the most popular target of foreign investors in the region for many years. Today, two decades after the end of communism, the country’s reputation is very different.

Now, Hungary is plainly the European Union’s political problem child: the country has abandoned the democratic and constitutional values Europe is based on. Even allies of right-wing conservative-nationalist Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán from the European People’s Party (EPP) are expressing concern.

An amendment to the constitution has sparked the latest criticism. It includes yet another provision curtailing the authority of the constitutional court. Former president László Sólyom called it “the end of the separation of powers.”

German ISAF soldier: soon a thing of the past?

The Bundeswehr is preparing to return its equipment from Afghanistan. But some German troops will remain even after the ISAF mission ends in 2014

By Eric Chauvistré

April 12, 2013

Three square kilometers of Germany in Afghanistan: Near Mazar-i-Sharif, bounded to the south by the Marmal mountains and to the north by a three kilometer long runway, is the largest Bundeswehr base outside of Germany

It was only about 70 kilometers north of here that the last Soviet soldier crossed the “Friendship Bridge” in February 1989 – Afghanistan’s border to what was then the Soviet Union, now Uzbekistan. Twenty-four years later, this is where the Germans are now preparing their withdrawal.