Author Archives: Hermann Observer

German arms exporters suddenly worried about “humanitarian law”

September 19, 2024 By in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Silly me. I thought that was the only kind of law there was.

Germany has stopped approving war weapons exports to Israel, source says – Germany has put a hold on new exports of weapons of war to Israel while it deals with legal challenges, according to a Reuters analysis of data and a source close to the Economy Ministry.

A source close to the ministry cited a senior government official as saying it had stopped work on approving export licences for arms to Israel due to legal and political pressure from legal cases arguing that such exports from Germany breached humanitarian law.

German of the day: Stichproben

September 18, 2024 By in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

That means spot checks or spot controls.

German police reintroduce spot controls at all borders – Germany is reintroducing border checks at all its borders for at least six months. The aim is to help restrict migration.

Checks are being temporarily reintroduced at Germany’s borders with France, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Denmark. They are due to run until March 15, 2025. Such controls have already become part of daily life at the borders with Poland, the Czech Republic, Austria and Switzerland.

Temporarily? We’ll see about that.

German of the day: Auf Eis legen

September 17, 2024 By in Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

That means to put on ice. As in put on hold.

Intel postpones construction of chip factory in Magdeburg – Haseloff against abandonment of the project.

The chip company Intel has put its plans to build a factory in Magdeburg on hold. According to company boss Gelsinger, construction will probably be delayed by two years due to cost-cutting measures. A total of 3,000 direct jobs were to be created on Magdeburg’s Eulenberg. Saxony-Anhalt’s state government assures that the semiconductor plant will nevertheless go ahead.

Or not.

German of the day: Abfallwirtschaft

September 14, 2024 By in Helplessness, High Art, Hard Facts, Hurt Feelings Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

That means waste management.

And some waste managers really mean business over here.

A work of art by the “Sprayer of Zurich” at the Museum Church of St. Cecilia in Cologne has already been restored once. Now the spray-painted skeleton by Harald Naegeli has to be renewed once again – because workers overdid it with the cleaning.

German of the day: Sprengung

September 13, 2024 By in Hard Facts, Home Cooking Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment

That means blasting, the blasting or demolition of.

Another section of the Carola Bridge in Dresden collapsed during demolition work on Friday night.

It is the section of the bridge near the riverbank that had already collapsed into the Elbe on Wednesday night, according to a police spokesperson in the morning. Streetcar tracks and a cycle and footpath run over the so-called bridge span. It had collapsed over a length of around 100 meters. Two other bridge sections (A and B), including lanes for cars, are still standing.

German of the day: LAF

September 11, 2024 By in Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

That stands for Landesamt für Flüchtlingsangelegenheiten Berlin. And that stands for Berlin’s State Office for Refugee Affairs.

And it’s a been a LAF a minute over at the LAF these days, having now run out of room to house the growing number of refugees.

Berlin plans new mass accommodation for refugees – Immigration has become a hot-button issue in Germany. Refugee accommodation centers in Berlin are full to overflowing, but there’s a desperate lack of housing. Now, authorities are coming up with bright ideas…

Over 30,000 refugees in Berlin are living in accommodation facilities run by the LAF. Many have already had their asylum claims approved but are stuck in state-run facilities because they can’t find affordable accommodation on the capital’s fiercely competitive real estate market.

Irregularity

September 10, 2024 By in Hard Facts, Helections, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

And it shows.

Germany steps up controls at borders in response to ‘irregular migration’ – New regulations come into force next week following spate of suspected Islamist attacks.

Germany’s interior minister has announced that controls at all of the country’s land borders are to be stepped up in an attempt to confront what it called “irregular migration” after a recent spate of suspected Islamist attacks.

The new regulations are due to start next Monday and to be in place for an initial six months, before being reviewed, Nancy Faeser (SPD) said in a statement.

The move comes after Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), campaigning heavily against migration, this month became the first far-right political party since the Nazi era to win a state election in Germany. It comes ahead of a second round of emergency talks on migration policy due to be held on Tuesday in Berlin between the coalition government, opposition parties and federal states.

The Stasi wasn’t all bad

September 9, 2024 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

They were good at secret house searches, for instance.

Will German police get to do secret house searches?

Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office wants to secretly break into homes as part of anti-terrorism measures. That is currently prohibited, but the interior minister has far-reaching plans.

At first glance, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser’s (SPD) proposal is reminiscent of a method practiced by the “the Stasi,” the Ministry for State Security of the former communist East Germany, whose secret police infiltrated the homes of suspected regime opponents in order to tap their phones.

At second glance too.

Let’s not jump to conclusions

September 6, 2024 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Hurt Feelings Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

He’s just a suspect for now.

Just because he was already known to Austrian authorities as an Islamist and purchased his weapon illegally the day before in Salzburg and his shooting rampage in Munich occurred on the anniversary of the Palestinian terror attack at the 1972 Munich Olympics in which 11 Israeli athletes were murdered and in the immediate vicinity of the Israeli consulate doesn’t really mean that he was a real Islamist terrorist or anything. Let’s wait until all the facts are in.

German police kill suspected Islamist gunman in shootout near Israeli consulate – German police shot dead an Austrian suspected Islamist gunman in Munich on Thursday in an exchange of fire close to the Israeli consulate, prompting politicians to stress the importance of protecting Israeli sites in the country.