Support for Nazi ideas in Germany is making people fear for their lives, a government minister said on Tuesday. Wolfgang Tiefensee, the minister responsible for east Germany, was speaking after a mob of about 50 Germans attacked and chased eight Indians through the streets of a small eastern town at the weekend.
Six Italian men were found shot dead in an execution-style killing near a train station in the western German city of Duisburg, police said on Wednesday. ”The six men found with bullet wounds to the head were Italians aged from 16 to 39,” Duisburg police spokesperson Heinrich Rotering said.
One of Germany’s most prominent Holocaust survivors, Anja Lundholm, whose books recounted the horrors she experienced in a Nazi camp after she was allegedly denounced by her own father, has died aged 89, her publisher said on August 6. Munich-based publishing house LangenMueller said Lundholm died on August 4 in Frankfurt.
German workaholics may be suffering from a lack of sex, according to a university study published on Friday. A survey of 32 000 men and women by researchers at the University of Goettingen found over 35% of those reporting unsatisfying sex lives tended to use hard work as a diversion.
World number two Rafael Nadal said he was pleased to win his sixth title of the year on Sunday when he beat unseeded Swiss Stanislas Wawrinka in 6-4, 7-5 in the Stuttgart final. Despite taking the first set with relative ease, Nadal had to dig deep against the plucky Wawrinka who led 4-1 early in the second set and broke his opponent twice.
Fisherman Peter Schneider knows the floods come each year and says they are good for business — but few other people see any benefit as experts warn of more high water to come. ”We fishermen have always lived with that. We’re happy when the floods come, because it can only be good for the fish,” he said in his village close to the Oder River, which forms the border between Germany and Poland.
McLaren’s Fernando Alonso won a wet and wild European Grand Prix on Sunday to cut championship-leading teammate Lewis Hamilton’s lead to just two points. While Spain’s double world champion celebrated his third victory of the season, after a wheel-banging thrust past Ferrari’s Felipe Massa just four laps from the finish, Hamilton’s run of nine podiums in a row came to an end.
German rider Patrick Sinkewitz, who was forced to retire from the Tour de France on Monday, has tested positive for testosterone, the German cycling federation BDR announced on Wednesday. The BDR said that T-Mobile rider Sinkewitz was caught with an elevated testosterone level at an out-of-competition test on June 8.
McLaren-Mercedes have three very good reasons to seek victory at the European Formula One Grand Prix on Sunday. The Anglo-German team needs to rebound from losing the last two races to Kimi Raikkonen of rival Ferrari, it is the home race for Mercedes and they want to prove that an ongoing sabotage saga has not done them harm.
Most Germans don’t believe money can buy happiness, according to a survey released on Monday, which found that only 13% of German men care deeply about becoming rich. The figure for women is even lower, with only 6% saying they regard wealth as an important goal, according to the poll.
On a stretch of white sand beach on an island off Germany, a massive complex intended as a Nazi holiday camp that has been steadily falling into disrepair is set for a new lease of life. More than 70 years since construction began on the vast Prora complex on the picturesque island of Ruegen, plans are being drawn up to turn one of the imposing dormitory blocks into a 500-bed youth hostel, with every room to have a view of the Baltic Sea.
Wladimir Klitschko beat Lamon Brewster with a technical knockout after six rounds to successfully defend his IBF and IBO heavyweight titles on Saturday. The Ukrainian clearly dominated the first five rounds, making repeated contact with his strong left jab that largely went unanswered.
A German man making a routine trip to the police station to reclaim his stolen car ended up being busted for drunken driving twice in the same day, police said on Wednesday. In order to claim the recovered car, the 45-year-old had driven to the station in another vehicle, police in the western city of Marburg said.
Trade talks among the World Trade Organisation’s four most powerful members have failed because of their inability to agree on farm subsidy cuts, Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim said on Thursday. ”It was useless to continue the discussions based on the numbers that were on the table,” Amorim said at a news conference.
This might well be the beginning of the end for the hard drive: in mid-May, Dell became the first manufacturer to market a laptop using flash memory instead of a hard drive. Other manufacturers will be joining the company before year’s end with solid-state disk (SSD) technology of their own. For users, this is all good news.
It was billed as the day they would bring the eight most powerful nations to their knees by sitting in the road, but by 9am the idealists, anticapitalists and anarchists had already been forced to take a hike. James Foley (22), a student from Glasgow, Scotland, had risen at 7.15am at the tent city in Rostock to join thousands of anti-G8 demonstrators marching on the luxurious Baltic spa resort of Heiligendamm, where world leaders were gathering.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Friday accused the regime of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe of ”unspeakable acts” but said December’s European Union-African Union summit would go ahead even if he attended. ”It cannot be the case that we do not work with a continent just because one country commits unspeakable acts. So everybody will be invited,” said Merkel.
The Group of Eight (G8) club of industrialised nations said on Friday it would back ”further measures” against Iran and Sudan if they continued to reject United Nations Security Council demands on both countries. As expected, the members said they regretted the fact that Tehran had ignored three UN Security Council resolutions.
World leaders agreed on Friday a -billion pledge to fight HIV/Aids and other killer diseases ravaging Africa. ”The issue is now fixed. The text is agreed,” a diplomat from a Group of Eight (G8) member country told Reuters on the final day of a summit of the club of industrialised nations.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s idea of using a radar station in Azerbaijan to develop a missile shield would remove the need for a United States radar in central Europe, a Kremlin spokesperson said on Thursday. At a meeting with US President George Bush during a Group of Eight summit, Putin suggested the US and Russia jointly use a radar in Azerbaijan.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Thursday hailed a pledge to tackle climate change by leaders of the Group of Eight (G8), describing it as a ”major, major step forward”. ”The possibility is here, for the first time, of getting a global deal on climate change with substantial cuts on emissions, with everyone in the deal,” he said.
Protesters led a two-pronged assault on the Group of Eight (G8) summit on Thursday as boats from Greenpeace intruded into a maritime exclusion zone and protesters tried to block roads on land. As leaders of the world’s wealthiest nations began talks on limiting climate change, two Greenpeace boats raced across the Baltic Sea pursued by police vessels.
Tony Blair on Wednesday arrived for his last Group of Eight (G8) summit as British prime minister, hoping to secure movement on climate change and greater commitments to help Africa. Blair, who last week completed a three-country tour of Africa, wants more to be done to boost aid to the world’s poorest continent and progress on a new deal to tackle climate change.
Anti-capitalist protesters clashed with police on Wednesday, injuring eight, as they tried to blockade routes to a summit of major powers in northern Germany. Police used water cannons to push back demonstrators. Delegates from several Group of Eight (G8) countries said the protests were limiting their ability to move around at the summit venue.
Six years after they first met and United States President George Bush reported gazing into Russian President Vladimir Putin’s soul, the two leaders face some tense talks at the Group of Eight (G8) on Thursday. Bush’s strong personal ties with Putin have been at the heart of US-Russian relations since a summit in Slovenia in June 2001.
Protesters threw stones and bottles and attacked police officers with sticks in the German port of Rostock on Saturday after a largely peaceful demonstration against next week’s Group of Eight (G8) summit. A group of around 500 demonstrators set upon police near the harbour after a series of marches through the city in which police said 25 000 people took part.
Members of the Group of Eight (G8) leading industrial nations will announce plans to increase the money they spend combating HIV/Aids at an upcoming summit, the German government said on Wednesday. Germany, which currently chairs the G8, hosts a summit of G8 leaders in the Baltic resort of Heiligendamm on June 6 to 8.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused the United States on Wednesday of restarting the arms race with its plans to build a missile defence shield in Eastern Europe. ”I think that those who are professionally aware of this problem understand that there is nothing ludicrous about this issue because the arms race is starting again,” Lavrov said at a press conference.
A naked American tourist raised eyebrows when he went for a walk through a German city and told police he thought this was acceptable behavior in Germany. ”We have been having unusually hot weather here lately but, all the same, we can’t have this,” said a spokesperson for police.
A wheelchair-bound German stunned police when they pulled him over for using the road and found he was 10 times over the legal alcohol limit for drivers. ”He was right in the middle of the road,” said a spokesperson for police in the north-eastern city of Schwerin on Tuesday.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel appealed on Monday to the heads of major corporations to invest more in Africa. Africa had an amazing development potential, the chancellor told a meeting of German business leaders in Berlin. Firms that invest in Africa today, ”can reap the benefits tomorrow”, she said.
The World Bank’s executive director Eckhard Deutscher said on Monday that the organisation needed a new strategy after president Paul Wolfowitz was forced out of his position over a pay scandal involving his girlfriend. Deutscher said that the bank must work to improve communication and motivate its workers.