Thursday, October 31, 2024

Trash tourism: A popular new activity for Berlin visitors: picking up garbage with friends

Trash tourism: A popular new activity for Berlin visitors: picking up garbage with friends
By Peter Zehner

Germans used to be undisputed leaders in the global export of goods, and they’ve been world champions several times in soccer. In each case, whenever they noticed that their own skills weren’t going to be enough, they simply procured foreign …

Arab clans control many Berlin streets where the police dare to patrol only in squads of multiple officers.

By Andreas Kopietz

An August evening on Sonnenallee, Berlin-Neukölln: Tires screech as police vans come to a sudden stop. Officers enter hookah bars and cafes. Men sitting at tables look surprised. The officers are accompanied by tax investigators and employees of the public …

Before passing away, Ferdinand Piëch exhorted his heirs to keep the Porsche-Volkswagen Group intact

By Ulrich Viehöver

Many in the business feared him. Some even hated him. Managers tended to avoid him. Thousands of car aficionados revered him. And almost all his competitors copied him. Germany’s highest-profile car designer and business leader Ferdinand K. Piech is dead. …

Bill Gates is wrong. Nuclear power will not save the climate. Beyond Chernobyl and Fukushima, there’s too much speaking against it

Bill Gates is wrong. Nuclear power will not save the climate. Beyond Chernobyl and Fukushima, there’s too much speaking against it
By Christoph von Eichhorn

Nuclear power? No, thank you! “That chapter is over,” a spokesperson recently proclaimed. Nuclear power isn’t even a topic anymore, she argued. And this spokesperson wasn’t from some environmental organization or the like; she was representing RWE, one of three …

Front runner: Biking the Iron Curtain from the Arctic to the Black Sea

By Tim Moore

For an Englishman the wrong side of 50, it was an adventure that seemed to tick a lot of boxes. The European Cycling Federation had just declared its latest long-distance Euro Velo route open: EV13, tracing the 9,000-km path of …

BACK ON CENTER STAGE

By Michael Müller

Berlin was an eminent spot in the world of academia in the Roaring Twenties and is again becoming the place to be for young talent and top-notch scientists. One in three newly enrolled students at our universities and colleges comes …

The Solidarity Pact that provided cash and financial stability to the eastern German states following reunification is about to expire

The Solidarity Pact that provided cash and financial stability to the eastern German states following reunification is about to expire
By Stefan Locke

It was mid-August, just before regional elections in Brandenburg and Saxony, when German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier called for a “new solidarity pact.” What the president was demanding was not more money, but a “solidarity pact of appreciation,” especially for achievements …

If the US withdraws from Afghanistan, it will jeopardize the progress made in recent years

By Lorenz Hemicker

The future of Afghanistan is obscure. Nobody can say what it is going to bring for the people of the Hindu Kush, but all signs point to the beginning of a new chapter in the country’s long and bloody history …

Spree in New York: Singer Katharine Mehrling returns to Manhattan in style

By Claudia von Duehren

I love New York,” gushes Katharine Mehrling. The top star of Berlin’s musical stage is coming to Manhattan on Oct. 5, hoping to conquer the Big Apple with her enchanting sound. The award-winning singer and actor will perform her “Streets …

What awaits incoming European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen

By Eric Bonse

When Jean-Claude Juncker assumed leadership of the European Commission in Brussels in autumn 2014, the world was more or less united; Washington and London issued good tidings, not stink bombs. And Juncker could rely on German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who …

After five years as director of the Jewish Museum Berlin, Peter Schäfer is throwing in the towel

By Agnes Monka

People will judge you by your actions, not your intentions.” So goes the adage that even well-meant behavior may result in unforeseen condemnation. Or, in other words: It’s not enough just to want to do the right thing. In this …

To talk or not to talk: Iran after the G7

To talk or not to talk: Iran after the G7
By Cornelius Adebahr

Recent meetings of the Group of Seven (G7) have been rather ominous affairs. One never knows what US President Donald Trump will make of these summits, which he regularly and openly disparages. To agree on an initiative for talks between …

A black box on an aquarium

By Jan Kepp

The small Saxony-Anhalt city of Dessau hasn’t always had it easy. During World War II, an aircraft and vehicle factory located here drew 20 devastating Allied air raids on this city, after which barely one stone was left untouched. Builders …

The specter of a new Cold War between the US and China is lurking

By Theo Sommer

Trade wars are good and easy to win, US President Donald Trump boasted in one of his toxic tweets. He confirmed his message last month: “We will soon be winning big on Trade and everyone knows that, including China!”

Yet …

The Boston Symphony Orchestra and Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra are celebrating a successful collaboration

By Klaus Grimberg

Boston can look forward to some major concerts. In late October, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra will round off Germany Year 2018/19 in the US with three joint performances with the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) at Boston Symphony Hall.

The close …