This month’s European crisis has without a doubt been the waves of refugees trekking their way from Turkey, through Greece and then northwesterly up the Balkans, whose eventual desired destination has generally been Germany. Germany itself has changed before our very eyes: first taken aback by developments, then taking a welcoming attitude, but now dialing that greeting back somewhat, with border controls and other restrictions, as the full reality hits of what that welcoming attitude has wrought.

Here are a couple of “under-the-radar” articles from the German press on how that country has been trying to deal with circumstances. First: gut gedacht, schlecht gemacht (“good intentions, terrible execution”).

The goal was a noble one, if perhaps also serving as good PR for reBuy.de, a German site that functions as an on-line marketplace for used goods of all types. But what better company to launch an effort to solicit and coordinate used clothing donations for the refugees, right? So it made an arrangement with the German Red Cross; donors could send in their used clothing for free, using labels provided by reBuy.de, via the Hermes package-deliver service.

There was a major misunderstanding, however. For the German Red Cross, this was supposed to be a local action confined to its Berlin Wedding/Prenzlauer Berg affiliate. But reBuy.de understood it to be nationwide – and improperly used the nationwide German Red Cross logo on its website announcing the action. The result was the rest of the German Red Cross’ branches throughout the length and breadth of Germany being inundated with clothes they never expected, before the whole national organization abruptly withdrew from the effort. reBuy.de employees all over Germany gamely tried to push on anyway, accepting, sorting and distributing the clothing themselves, but things soon broke down entirely, with many recriminations.

Then there is this other interesting development in Berlin.

Even beyond clothing, a major concern for the German authorities in dealing with all the refugees has been finding them sufficient acceptable shelter, particularly in view of the oncoming colder weather. Already Berlin officials have taken some decisive measures to achieve this. Last month they pressed into action an old town hall, that of the city quarter Wilmersdorf (capacity: 500), for housing refugees, and the Berliner Morgenpost piece also reports they recently confiscated a former bank in the same area for the same use.

But now those authorities are ready to take things up another notch. Specifically, another Berlin quarter, Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg (known for decades for its many immigrants and left-wing politics) now wants to make use of the many apartments standing empty within its boundaries. These are generally higher-quality residences, and the reason they are not being actively used is either because they are being withheld by their owners for speculation or because they function as second homes for well-off people who usually live elsewhere. They are estimated to number up to 5,000.

It does look like those apartments are going to be pressed into service. Will it be confiscation, or some sort of money paid to the owners as compensation? Likely the former. Here we encounter the age-old conflict between private property on the one hand and taking care of people’s urgent needs, in an emergency situation, on the other hand. Those owning those apartments really should not be surprised; the squatting movement has been particularly active in Berlin and Hamburg for decades, way before any refugee crisis.

Bitkom is a German IT trade association for small- and medium-sized businesses with an associated website, and that site is reporting something interesting, picked up by the national newsmagazine Stern:

Cloud-Dienste: cloud services, with examples listed such as Google Drive, Apple’s iCloud and Dropbox. Turns out they’re not so popular there. A recent Eurostat study put Germany squarely in the middle of the pack of European countries when it comes to their use. While you would expect Germany to be somewhat ahead of the IT-laggards that study identified, such as Poland and Rumania (8 percent of population uses cloud services), it’s strange that country is not nearer the head of the class along with Denmark (44 percent) or Norway (43 percent).

Instead, 21% of German respondents to the Eurostat study reported that some of their data was in the Cloud. And the reason is very clear: “from concern of not being able to make use of regular data-security and data-protection provisions.”

It’s always handy to remember that a healthy chunk of the current German population, somewhere around under a quarter of it, had some experience of living in the old DDR or East Germany, with its intrusive Stasi secret police. Germany is also constantly at the forefront of efforts within the EU to shore up individual privacy protections.

It also has been leading in its agitation resulting from the Snowden revelations of the wide reach into Europe of the American NSA and British GCHQ, especially after reports emerged that Chancellor Merkel’s own mobile telephone had long been tapped. And what do we also find in common concerning those named cloud-data services that Germans are so loathe to take up? That’s right, they are American, run from America and therefore as we know subject to secret demands from the American authorities to give up their secrets, violate their customers’ confidentiality, whenever those US authorities deem that they need to do so.

The Stern article is too polite to mention the US, as is the lengthier Bitkom piece (where you can see the full table of country results). But it is clear the fears on the part of US high-tech concerns that their overseas market-share will suffer because of a loss of confidence brought about by the ruthless worldwide surveillance from the Anglo-Saxon authorities are by no means unfounded.

Hooray! The London 2012 Olympic Games formally open today! Although of course some athletes have already been in action even from Wednesday, mainly the football players.

Let me repeat, though, that this blog is generally not interested, certainly not in the athletics. Attention is more likely to be attracted here by catchy and notable Olympic-related headlines – All of London sells itself to sponsors, is a good example.

That’s the title of the kick-off report for a series that the German journalist Imke Henkel (a female, FYI; her winsome smile you can inspect at the article’s very top if you click through) is undertaking for the German newsmagazine Focus, by heading to London to write an “Olympic Diary.” This first installment is all about the sponsorship madness that seems to have descended upon the city.

Or perhaps even – although naturally the term is grossly over-used – the sponsorship fascism. You might have already heard about that Cafe Olympic – located within sight of the new Olympic Stadium, actually – that has been forced to rename itself “Cafe Lympic” for the duration of the Games. That ain’t the half of it, though; Henkel actually provides a list of words that businesses are henceforth (through 12 August) not allowed to display, which go beyond any variation of the word “Olympic” to include “Summer,” “2012,” and of course “Gold,” “Silver” and “Bronze.” Lilagekleidete Aufpasser – translates as “Purple-clad monitors” – are even now roaming the streets, in London but also all over the UK, ensuring that any violations are reported for prompt sanction by LOCOG, the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games. (more…)

In case you didn’t notice, Germany lost its President a month ago. Don’t worry, it was no great tragedy. After initial resistance – including trying to intimidate the editor-in-chief of Germany’s most-sold newspaper into withholding a particularly damning news-article – Christian Wulff finally decided he needed to resign after embarrassing revelations finally emerged concerning a loan for a house he had received in the past, and denied receiving, from a prominent businessman. So not tragic – just sleazy, certainly in light of the standards the Germans usually like to uphold post-1945, and thus also rather embarrassing. It’s little wonder your local German ambassador/Goethe Institute/German expat down the street was less than keen to draw this news to your attention.

Naturally, now they need to pick another one, and in Germany that is done indirectly, by a one-time body (the Bundesversammlung) composed of all the members of the lower house of parliament (the Bundestag) plus an equal number of state delegates, totalling 1,244 people in all. But Chancellor Angela Merkel moved fast to gain approval from almost all the main parties for Wulff’s main opponent the last time, Joachim Gauck, to become the new president. So he’s a shoo-in for that, although the German Left Party (Die Linke) has obstinately put forward its own candidate anyway, Beate Klarsfeld.

And with all that, Germany finds itself thrust backward into the 20th century, in the opinion of Stern writer Lutz Kinkel:

Gauck und Klarsfeld: Willkommen im 20. Jahrhundert!: Die Wahl des Bundespräsidenten setzt uns in eine… http://t.co/330BzfeP

March 17, 2012 8:35 am via stern.deReplyRetweetFavorite

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Look at the candidates, Kinkel says. Joachim Gauck, a Lutheran pastor, gained fame as a dissident in the former Communist East Germany. When the Wall fell, he was appointed as the first Federal Commissioner for the Stasi archives, or at least what was left after the Stasi had done their best to destroy them as the DDR fell. In Germany his last name has even been elevated to the status of “KIeenex” or “Hoover”: to “Gauck” someone is to go see whether he/she might have a file kept on them by the Stasi, and if so, what it says.

Then there is Beate Klarsfeld. A journalist, she has spent most of her adult life (along with her husband) hunting down ex-Nazis, such as Klaus Barbie, Maurice Papon, and others. At times her anti-Nazis efforts have perhaps gone too far – if you define “too far” as being sent to jail – including her most (in)famous incident in 1969 when she slapped the current West German Chancellor, Kurt Georg Kiesinger, because of his history of working for/in the Nazi Party during the Second World War (and, again, that was not the only time she has been jailed).

Look at them! Both are admirable, driven people – but what “made” them was fighting the old wars of the 20th century, the struggle against the Nazis, the struggle against Communist dictatorship! Haven’t we finally moved on from that, Kinkel asks? On the other hand, did not Christian Wulff seem just perfect for this new era? Big business; bribery; bling-bling; Bundespräsident – surely that’s what we’re all about following the financial crash/scandals of the last few years. After all, a President must reflect his people – just take a look across the Rhine to France!

Even if Kinkel’s analysis is borne out, at least Germany is not being propelled too far back into the twentieth century. A little of that may do no harm; a lot, not so much, historically speaking.

For all who care to take the time to think on the matter, the recent attack on two Americans in Yemen – alleged Al-Qaeda operatives killed by an unmanned “drone” aircraft, with no trial or other sort of due process – is a rather disturbing new precedent. Among other issues (like the sheer principle of the act, or rather the sheer civil liberty principles it violated), there’s the question of what happens when other nations have a similar military capability and want to use it in the same way, i.e. to kill on foreign soil persons they perceive as dangerous. That is even the subject of an article in today’s (Sunday) New York Times: Coming Soon: The Drone Arms Race. (Killer quote therein: “Is this the world we want to live in? Because we’re creating it.”)

And then there is this tweet from the German newsmagazine Stern:

Tötungsmaschinen außer Kontrolle?: Computervirus soll US-Drohnen befallen haben: Ein hartnäckiger Virus soll… http://t.co/lYEUIOfJ

October 8, 2011 2:40 pm via stern.deReplyRetweetFavorite

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Seemingly little relief there: that first sentence after all translates as “Out-of-control death machines?” But the larger point is that US drone aircraft have now fallen prey to the same modern vexation that afflicts so many of us: computer viruses. (more…)

Der Druck der Musikindustrie: Durchgekaut und ausgespuckt?: Wer ist schuldig am tragischen Tod von Amy Winehouse?… http://bit.ly/nJiEQE

July 26, 2011 9:15 pm via stern.deReplyRetweetFavorite

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Amy Winehouse is gone; she was put in the earth yesterday. Who is to blame?

Sophie Albers of Germany’s #2 newsmagazine Stern puts the music industry itself on trial. Her treatment is brief, necessarily, and therefore hardly dispositive, and it’s also rather quirky. Standing for the prosecution: Siouxsie Sioux, of Banshees fame, who is quoted right at the beginning saying “I love music, but I hate the business.” Albers also reports her prophetically remarking a full four years ago about Winehouse that “[t]here are many talented people for whom you know that they will be sucked in and then after one or two albums spit out again.”

In the other corner, appearing for the defense, Albers brings forward a pair of music industry insiders, who mostly try to deflect any blame. Says one: “Amy Winehouse hasn’t made a record in five years. So pressure from the industry cannot have been so insanely high.” Rather, he maintains the pressure goes the other way: rock stars expect to play to packed houses, to have their tours, press appearances, and the rest all arranged and that is all the job of the record company.

Still, these industry executives do concede that the grind of going on tour, making all these appearances, and of simply being continually creative enough to come up with new material to keep the entire parade going is hard on the stars, and is hardly as glamorous a life as it may seem from the outside. But if they want help for the alcohol and drug problems that often result, they first have to realize that they are in trouble and start accepting it, something that Winehouse never did.

This all strikes me as very inconclusive – and likely out-of-date as well, since new recording and distribution technologies are starting to take record companies out of the equation in any event. But there’s been a celebrity death – so there has to be an inquest, the fans demand it.

Now that the warm weather is upon us (at least in much of the Northern Hemisphere; actually, consistent with the name of this blog, I’m mostly talking about Europe), are you on the lookout for the latest “in” beach partying-spot? Stern, the German newsmagazine which has always chosen a rather more risqué tack than its more establishment competitor Der Spiegel, has your answer.

It’s about Bulgaria, specifically a seven-kilometer stretch of coastline on the Black Sea, south of the coastal city Burgas, that’s apparently quite the rage. At least until you look at the name of the article’s author, Milena Mileva*, and realize that the piece – entitled Heading home on all fours – was likely written in Bulgaria and pressed onto the popular magazine’s pages through some sort of non-disclosed commercial arrangement.

That sort of thing wouldn’t raise an eyebrow in Bulgaria – though you’d think it would in Germany – but beyond the endemic corruption the place clearly has much else to offer the vacationer: beaches of pure white sand and clear water, sunny days, picturesque mountains in the background, and cheap, cheap prices (e.g. €1.20 for a large beer). This has been true for decades, nay centuries, and in Communist times many East Bloc comrades, especially from the DDR, would regularly troop down in their Trabants to this bit of coast for much the same reason. (more…)

Those Germans, they do love their meat! Especially their pork – oh, they’ve adored their Schweinefleisch ever since wandering Gothic tribes from the North/East that make up the current majority ethnic composition first arrived about 1,500 years ago.

But now in the 21st century, there’s a problem: Food is now getting more expensive, and that’s even just your basic vegetable foodstuffs, not to speak of meats whose production must necessarily involve a diversion of such foodstuffs from the mouths of humans to those of your domestic animal of taste. Here again, technology might offer the only hope for a solution, so it’s amusing to read coverage by the slightly low-brow German newsmagazine Stern (Researchers work up an artificial schnitzel) on the latest science of producing artificial meat from a laboratory rather than an animal.

The research described here is certainly not going on in Germany – which raises the question of whether such investigations are to be found there at all, since if they were, you’d assume Stern would have preferred to cover those. No, this article is specifically about the “test-tube meat” project going on at the Medical University of South Carolina, located in Charleston. Indeed, what took Stern’s writers (unnamed here) so long to pick up the scent? The project has namely been ongoing for more than 10 years now, spurred by initial research monies contributed by the National Aeronautic & Space Administration (i.e. NASA – logical, since they’re interested in how meat can be produced for astronauts’ diets on super-long space-flights, like to Mars) as well as PETA – People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (also logical, no?).

Whenever you’re on this subject, however, there’s always an elephant in the room: Can anyone actually be convinced to actually eat such “test-tube meat” on any regular basis (besides, I suppose, astronauts)? The article does not duck the issue – which it terms early-on the Ekel-Faktor or “disgust-factor” – but neither does it do much to ease worries on that score. It quotes the opinion of a certain “gourmet,” also from South Carolina, to the effect that full acceptance of such artificial meat will probably have to await the generation that has been raised on it exclusively; it reports the inconvenient fact that it is actually liver cells (yes, liver!) that are best at growing in a laboratory test-tube. And the two scientists in charge of the project whom it introduces to us are one Vladimir Mironov – yes, resident in South Carolina: obviously a “Doctor Strangelove”-type mad scientist who defected from Siberia! – and one Nicholas Genovese. (Great! So now the Mafia is involved as well!)

Bottom-line is that this Ekel-Faktor still looms forbiddingly as a roadblock to any sort of wider acceptance of such artificially-grown meats. But surely even more serious will be the general (some say “irrational”) Europe-wide resistance to artificial, genetically-manipulated foodstuffs of any kind, which has already long manifested itself in citizen protest campaigns, EU policy, and the resulting trade-disputes with the American authorities. This is a consideration not addressed at all in this piece, and that is disappointing because you would really think a leading German magazine would not just punt on it.

But I don’t know – maybe you, dear reader, are one of those contrary (or “early-adopter”) types who by now are just dying to have a taste of this “test-tube” food. Turns out you’re in luck: our odd couple of Mironov and Genovese will be in Göteborg, Sweden, in August for a conference of the European Science Foundation, and will of course bring along some of their famous Frankenhor-d’oeuvres. Now it’s simply your task to figure out how to get there and either score tickets or simply crash the occasion.