Category Archives: Hard Facts
Do They Strike This Much In Greece?
European travelers have contended for weeks with the possibility that Greece’s dwindling finances might lead to empty ATMs. They should have concerned themselves instead with Germany.
While cash machines in Athens are still operating without any trouble, striking couriers in Berlin this week stopped filling ATMs, leading to a crunch for those trying to make withdrawals. And the open-ended labor dispute with a local security company means there’s no end in sight.
Berlin’s strike is the latest in a series of walkouts that have riled a nation more accustomed to mocking the labor strife which has so often beset neighboring France. A strike by train drivers that began Tuesday is paralyzing travel and clogging highways throughout Germany. That action follows a March walkout by pilots at Deutsche Lufthansa AG that led to flight cancellations for 220,000 people.
Our Espionage Doesn’t Stink
On the one hand, we as German spies only do nice spying and would never spy on friends much less on other other nice Germans like ourselves.
“But on the other hand, intelligence agencies are working to ensure the public’s safety and the German government will do everything it can to ensure that it can carry out its job.
“And this ability to carry out its duties in the face of international terrorism threats is done in cooperation with other intelligence agencies, and that includes first and foremost the NSA.”
Deutschland regt sich über eine Spionageaffäre auf. Dabei wäscht seit Jahrzehnten unter den westlichen Diensten eine Hand die andere. Wir sollten endlich realistisch mit dem Thema Sicherheit umgehen.
Germans To Be Replaced By Robots
Maybe this continued drop in Germany’s population isn’t such a bad thing after all. It will open up more employment opportunities for R2D2 & Co.
A study by ING-Diba Bank indicates that in the medium to long-term, 59 percent of German jobs are directly threatened by robotics and other technologies.
“We have taken the robot out of the cage.”
Germans Can’t Figure Out Why Germans Keep Disappearing
Suffering from one of the lowest birth rates in the EU and xenophobic to the core (although officially in denial about this), Germans everywhere (or at least where you can still find them) are puzzled by the continued drop in Germany’s population.
Federal statistics office Destatis said Germany was expected to have between 68 and 73 million inhabitants by 2060, compared to its current 81 million.
I think it’s time for even more concentrated government intervention, don’t you? More sex education efforts, for instance.
“It won’t fall below the 2013 level until at least 2023.”
Dial M For Merkel
And something tells me there was a lot of heavy breathing during this telephone conversation, too.
Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras made an uncexpected telephone call to German Chancellor Angela Merkel that nobody wants to comment about officially.
Bild newspaper reported on Monday that Tsipras had called Merkel as well as Euro group head Jeroen Dijsselbloem to try to convince them of the need for more help for Greece and for the need for an emergency meeting of EU leaders this week.
Bild said the reason for the call is that the Greek government has run out of money
“It’s on fire and there’s no water there to put out the fire. The situation is more than dramatic.”
Plan B For Bankrupt
Tick tock tick tock…
German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble hinted on Saturday that Berlin was preparing for a possible Greek default, drawing a parallel with the secrecy of German reunification plans in 1989.
“You shouldn’t ask responsible politicians about alternatives,” Schaeuble answered, adding one only need to use one’s imagination to envisage what could happen.
He indicated that if he were to answer in the affirmative that ministers were working on a Plan B — what to do when Greece runs out of money and cannot pay back its debt — he could trigger panic.
“Da ist überhaupt nichts dran. Der Plan B wurde nicht diskutiert.”
German Intelligence Insults German Intelligence
When the NSA asks for INFO from the BND they get it ASAP. Or at least they used to.
Germany’s intelligence service, the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), has been helping the NSA spy on European politicians and companies for years, according to the German news magazine Der Spiegel. The NSA has been sending lists of “selectors”—identifying telephone numbers, e-mail and IP addresses—to the BND, which then provides related information that it holds in its surveillance databases…
Investigators found that the BND had provided information on around 2,000 selectors that were clearly against European and German interests. Not only were European businesses such as the giant aerospace and defense company EADS, best-known as the manufacturer of the Airbus planes, targeted, so were European politicians—including German ones.
I still can’t figure out where the intelligence part comes in here.
Barbarian Hordes From The Steppes Threatening Berlin Again
Only this time they’re coming on motorcycles. And they don’t even belong to the Hells Angels. Like, how indecorous is that?
Politicians and activists in the European Union’s ex-communist east are outraged over a plan by the Night Wolves to commemorate the Soviet victory in World War II by tracing the Red Army’s path to Berlin.
At least 20 riders will cruise from Moscow through Belarus, according to the Night Wolves’ website. From Poland, they’ll pass through the capitals of Slovakia to Austria before continuing to Prague and ending in Berlin on May 9, the 70th anniversary of Nazi Germany’s capitulation to the Soviet Union.
Hey Johnny, what are you rebelling against?
What Would Gazprom Gerd Do?
Or what will he do, I should ask. Duh. Talk about your no-brainer. You can say what you want about Gerd, but at least he’s consistent.
The European Union has accused Russian energy giant OAO Gazprom of hindering competition and charging unfair prices in the natural-gas markets of Central and Eastern Europe, in a move that risks deepening a rift with Moscow.
“Gazprom has been able to charge higher prices in some countries without fearing gas would flow in from resellers or where the prices were lower.”
Wer ein Staatsunternehmen straft, meint auch den Staat. Moskau versteht die Botschaft des Kartellverfahrens gegen den russischen Gas-Giganten sehr wohl – und wird antworten.
Observing Hermann 