Category Archives: Germany

‘Anti-corona’ extremists try to storm German parliament

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Police prevent hundreds from entering Reichstag and disband march protesting against Covid protection measures

Far-right extremists tried to storm the German parliament building on Saturday following a protest against the country’s pandemic restrictions, but were intercepted by police and forcibly removed.

The incident occurred after a daylong demonstration by tens of thousands of people opposed to the wearing of masks and other government measures intended to stop the spread of the new coronavirus. Police ordered the protesters to disband halfway through their march around Berlin after participants refused to observe physical distancing rules, but a rally near the capital’s iconic Brandenburg Gate took place as planned.

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Reopening schools: how different countries are tackling Covid dilemma

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As schools in England prepare to reopen, we examine the situation around the world

As schools in England and Wales get set to reopen amid continued controversy over safe conditions, attention has focused on potential evidence of coronavirus transmission in the classroom and on the experiences of other countries.

Research on the ability of children of different ages to catch and transmit the virus is contradictory, and differences in education systems and social conventions make comparisons difficult.

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Tests indicate Alexei Navalny was poisoned, says German clinic

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Kremlin critic being treated with same antidote used after 2018 nerve agent attack in Salisbury

Tests indicate that Alexei Navalny was the victim of a poisoning and he is being treated with atropine, the same antidote used after the 2018 nerve agent attack in Salisbury, the German clinic where the Kremlin critic is a patient said on Monday.

While Berlin’s Charité hospital did not identify the specific poison responsible for Navalny’s sudden illness on an internal Russian flight last Thursday, the substance was part of a group that affects the central nervous system, and includes nerve agents and pesticides, as well as some drugs.

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Berlin reports rise in fatalities as new bike lanes fail to keep cyclists safe

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Campaigners demand more rules for lorries after initial hope pandemic would mean less traffic

A coronavirus-related drop in traffic and new protected bike lanes have failed to make Berlin’s roads safer for cyclists, as the German capital reports a four-year record in fatalities.

A woman run over by a right-turning articulated lorry in the district of Reinickendorf on Friday became Berlin’s 14th official cycling fatality of 2020 – more than twice as many as the six recorded in 2019.

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Holocaust denial graffitied at site of Nazi massacre in France

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Justice minister vows to ‘find and judge’ vandals who defaced Oradour-sur-Glane

Vandals have scrawled graffiti denying the Holocaust on a wall in the village that was the site of the Nazis’ biggest massacre of civilians in France during the second world war.

The justice minister vowed on Saturday to bring those responsible to justice.

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Global report: WHO says world could rein in pandemic in less than two years

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South Korea records most cases since early March; South Africa infections pass 600,000; Brazil on ‘downward trend’

The world should be able to rein in the coronavirus pandemic in less than two years, the World Health Organization has said, as South Korea reported the most daily infections since early March and expanded social distancing measures across the country.

The WHO’s chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, struck a partly optimistic note when he drew comparisons between the Covid-19 pandemic and the with the 1918 flu pandemic, saying technology could help end the spread.

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Alexei Navalny arrives in Germany for treatment for suspected poisoning

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Russian opposition leader flown to Berlin after doctors allow discharge from Siberian hospital

Russian opposition activist Alexei Navalny has been evacuated to a hospital in Berlin to be treated for suspected poisoning, after his wife and supporters begged Vladimir Putin to let him leave a Siberian hospital.

Doctors in the city of Omsk had initially refused to allow him to leave their care, but he was finally allowed to fly out on an air ambulance sent by a German charity in the early hours of Saturday morning.

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Coronavirus in Europe: dozens of schools report infections in Berlin

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Cases on rise across Europe with Spain alone registering nearly 70,000 in past fortnight

Coronavirus cases have been reported by at least 41 schools in Berlin, barely two weeks after the German capital’s 825 schools reopened.

Cases are rising across Europe, including in Spain, which registered 66,905 in the past two weeks, resulting in the continent’s highest 14-day infection rate and warnings over the risk of a new wave of deaths.

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West holding back on criticism of Russia over Navalny ‘poisoning’

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While activist remains in the country, response is unlikely to go overboard

Western leaders have raised “concerns” about the suspected poisoning of leading Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, and offered medical help, but mostly avoided direct attacks on Russia as the activist fought for his life in a Siberian hospital.

The most muted response came from the US president, Donald Trump, who barely acknowledged the sudden collapse of Russia’s most prominent opposition figure, confirming only that his administration was looking into the events.

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Alexei Navalny’s wife asks Putin to let him be treated in Germany

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Letter appeals to Russian leader after doctors refuse to allow Kremlin critic to leave country

The wife of the Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny has appealed directly to Vladimir Putin to allow her husband to be evacuated to a clinic in Germany to receive treatment for a suspected poisoning.

Doctors treating Navalny in the Siberian city of Omsk have refused to release him for evacuation to a clinic abroad, sparking a standoff with his family and aides who say his life is in danger in Russia.

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Money for nothing: German university offers ‘idleness grants’

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Indolence project is serious look at societal values of success versus sustainability, says Hamburg arts college

A German university is offering “idleness grants” to applicants who are seriously committed to doing sweet nothing.

The University of Fine Arts in Hamburg advertised three €1,600 scholarship places on Wednesday to applicants from across Germany. The applicants can submit their anonymous pitches until 15 September and will have to convince a jury that their chosen area of “active inactivity” is particularly impressive or relevant.

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Hunt is on for rightful owner of Nazi-looted French painting

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Sign hangs next to Nicolas Rousseau artwork in Verdun asking public for information

A 19th-century oil painting stolen from Nazi-occupied France during the second world war has gone on display in an attempt to trace its rightful owners, after being returned by the son of the German soldier who was ordered to take it.

After 76 years in Germany, the small untitled artwork by the French painter Nicolas Rousseau is back in France and being exhibited at the World Centre for Peace, Liberty and Human Rights in the north-eastern town of Verdun.

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Germany to extend coronavirus furlough to 24 months

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Angela Merkel backs proposal to continue Kurzarbeit part-time working scheme

Germany is expected to extend its pandemic furlough scheme to 24 months after Angela Merkel indicated that she welcomed the proposal to let the Kurzarbeit programme run on.

The chancellor’s spokesperson said on Monday she was “positively” inclined towards the suggestion to extend the scheme, which allows firms to put their staff on part-time work to reduce their cost. Britain’s furlough scheme initially only allowed staff to be sent home and not work, but staff have been allowed to work part-time since July.

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Threat to kill wild boar that stole nude bather’s laptop prompts outcry

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Berlin officials say Elsa and her piglets pose a danger and may have to be ‘withdrawn’

A wild boar that has become a frequent visitor at a lakeside bathing resort in Berlin is attracting a growing band of supporters following authorities’ suggestion that it could have to be killed.

The animal, nicknamed Elsa, has earned something akin to celebrity status after a series of photos of it and its piglets stealing a nude bather’s laptop at Teufelssee lake in west Berlin went viral this month.

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Why Germany would be especially happy to see the back of Trump | John Kampfner

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The competence embodied in Merkel provokes loathing from the US president

Donald Trump has declared war on Germany. In a manner of speaking. Europe’s most important country, potentially America’s most valuable partner, has in the mind of the president become an adversary. Of all Trump’s many foreign policy disasters, this is perhaps his most significant.

In late July, it was announced that retired army colonel Douglas Macgregor, a decorated combat veteran, would become the next ambassador to Berlin. Macgregor is a regular contributor to Trump’s favourite channel of information, Fox News. He has variously suggested that the US border guard should shoot people if they tried to enter illegally from Mexico; described eastern Ukrainians as “Russians”; defended Serbia’s actions against a “Muslim drug mafia” in Kosovo; and criticised Germany for giving “millions of unwanted Muslim invaders” welfare benefits rather than providing more funding for its armed services.

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Berlin nightclub Berghain opens to all for lockdown art exhibition

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Visitors can view work by likes of Olafur Eliasson and Tacita Dean and take guided tours of venue

Berlin’s legendary Berghain nightclub will relax its notoriously strict door policy for art lovers from next month as the venue turns into a gallery while the German capital’s nightlife remains on hold because of the pandemic.

Berghain, housed in an old power plant on the border between the Friedrichshain and Kreuzberg districts, will from 9 September show works produced during the Covid-19 lockdown by 85 Berlin-based artists, including established figures such as Olafur Eliasson, Tacita Dean and Wolfgang Tillmans and younger names such as Shirin Sabahi, Christine Sun Kim and Sandra Mujinga.

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Plagues of field mice decimating crops, say German farmers

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Estimated 120,000 hectares stripped bare by rodents and now browning in heatwave

Large swathes of Germany’s farmland are being decimated by plagues of field mice leading to significant crop loss, according to the country’s national farming association.

In some parts of the country, a quarter of the arable land is affected, leading to calls for compensation as well as a relaxation on rules governing the use of pesticides.

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Stock markets boom as hopes rise for US economic stimulus and Covid-19 vaccine

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S&P edges towards all-time record with oil prices and hospitality stocks rising as investor optimism rebounds

US stock markets moved closer to record highs on Tuesday after investors bet on a fresh round of government spending to lift the economy and counter the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The S&P 500, seen as the broadest measure of US investor sentiment, raced to a 10-point gain by mid afternoon to leave it just 16 points short of the all-time high reached in February.

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Coronavirus in Europe: France extends mask use as Greece says it is in second wave

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WHO says virus has shown no seasonal pattern and tells western Europe to react fast

Face masks have become compulsory in more than 100 Paris streets and tourist areas, Greece is “formally” in a second wave and new outbreaks are causing alarm in Italy and Spain as coronavirus infections continue to pick up again across Europe.

The Stockholm-based European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control called on member states that are seeing an increase in cases to reinstate control measures, warning of a “true resurgence” in several countries and a “risk of further escalation” across the continent.

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Germany’s SPD picks Merkel-like figure to run for top job in 2021

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Social Democrats name pragmatic ex-mayor Olaf Scholz as candidate for chancellor

Germany’s Social Democrats have fired the starting gun in the race to replace Angela Merkel as chancellor by announcing the pragmatist finance minister, Olaf Scholz, as their candidate for the job.

One of the two pillars of 20th-century democracy in Germany, the Social Democratic party (SPD) has seen its support wither away since joining Merkel’s government as a junior coalition partner in 2013. It lies third in the polls behind the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Greens, on about 14% of the vote.

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