The German utility RWE announced that it had reached preliminary agreement to sell its oil and natural gas subsidiary, RWE Dea, to two Russian billionaires, Mikhail Fridman and German Khan, for 5.1 billion euros, or about $7 billion.
After the deal is finalized later this year it will be one of the priciest for Russian business.
After having placed charges against four alleged Islamist militants for plotting a failed bomb attack at the Bonn railway station in 2012, German authorities have now contacted the McDonald’s Corporation to try to find out how it could be so easy for them to deliver the incriminating video while the German security cameras aimed at the platform where the explosive device was found didn’t even, well, you know, like exist.
“Our main interest is in establishing how the hell they got permission to install those things here in Germany, and from whom,” one authority said. “It would be really cool if we could do the same thing here too, you know?”
“Of course we also want to make sure that McDonald’s understands the complex implications involved when it comes to questions of video surveillance and matters of privacy in our country,” he continued. “They can’t just go around spying on people in their restaurants like that, you know.”
Die Ungläubigen sollen Blut weinen.
Now that they can’t worry about Germans spending too little for once, I mean.
Everything is geared for disaster here and every German knows it: Exports, imports, consumption, employment. You name it, it’s all working way too splendidly. Das kann nicht gut gehen (that’s never going to work out). Like oh my God we are all going to die.
Ausfuhren, Importe und Konsum laufen prächtig.
PS: But a little more on the serious side, what the hell else are you going to do with your money these days except spend it?
Or at least that’s what one New York Times journalist had to report – after clearly having run into way too many Americans here. And how could that not spell trouble?
The Berlin backlash had to happen sooner or later. No city could be so consistently lauded to the skies for its creative edge, elegant shabbiness, and 24-hour nightlife without eventually coming down with a hard bump. And the bump does seem to have arrived.
…On the international front, the city’s social scene is also getting increasingly Anglophone.
Erschwerend kam hinzu, dass der offenbar aus New York stammende New-York-Times-Autor im Berghain wie auch überall sonst in Berlin ausschließlich auf andere aus New York stammende Menschen gestoßen ist, was die Bedeutung der einstigen Hipsterhochburg für ihn abschließend ruiniert hat; getreu der von dem ebenfalls aus New York stammenden Gegenwartsanalytiker Groucho Marx aufgestellten Maxime, dass er kein Mitglied in einem Club sein möchte, der ihn aufnehmen würde.
Probably taking tea at the “dyed-in-the-wool democrat’s” dacha.
When it comes to Russia’s unsolicited visit to Ukraine, German officials go out of their way to say that gas, money or jobs play absolutely no role in Berlin’s predictably soft-spoken, low-keyed, muffled, namby-pamby, wussy, pantywaisted and yellow bellied response to said unfortunate visit.
So now we all know of course that gas, money and jobs are probably playing the biggest role in Berlin’s said sad response to said event.
“Imposing sanctions on Russia because of Ukraine would put German jobs in danger.”
Or by the ghost of Fukushima, I should say.
Danger! Danger! More “experts” issuing expert warnings here again: Nearly three years have passed since the Fukushima disaster in Japan and Germany is still not adequately prepared for a nuclear incident, the Süddeutsche Zeitung reports.
I can only assume that they mean being not adequately prepared for a nuclear incident caused by a magnitude 9.0 undersea megathrust earthquake hitting somewhere off the coast of Bremerhaven in a region of the world that doesn’t “do” earthquakes and causing a massive tsunami that could wipe out one of Germany’s coastal power plants, or maybe even one in Bavaria, provided, of course, that said tsunami could still find a German nuclear power plant that was still in operation, which is very doubtful indeed, but still.
Nope. You can never be prepared enough when it comes to preparing for one of those worst conceivable and most completely unpredictable natural disasters like-in-recorded-history-type-disasters that has already happened somewhere else, I guess.
Deutschland ist nicht ausreichend auf einen nuklearen Störfall vorbereitet.
But it does kind of rock. I guess.
The dude you can find anywhere. But the women that work in my supermarket just don’t look like that. Well that one does…
Judging from this commercial, German supermakets are much more fun—or at least more bizarre—than their American counterparts.
Ex-chancellor “Gazprom-Gerd” Schröder just can’t seem to sit still these days and has fired yet another salvo in his one-man undeclared unsolicited advice offensive.
He has now advised current chancellor Angela Merkel to leave office in a timely manner. For her own good, of course. And I, for one, certainly hope that she takes this advice to heart. If anybody out there knows about not having left office in a timely manner it’s this guy. In fact I think he should have left office a few days after having been elected. The first time, I mean. It would have only been for his own good, of course.
Gerhard Schröder—the former German chancellor, a man who said the Soviet Union of Leonid Brezhnev appeared more intent on peace than the Americans, and who since 2006 has been a Gazprom executive and Vladimir Putin’s chief shill among the countries of the European Union—has come up with a prescription for masking Moscow’s refusal to let Ukraine (or anyone else) leave Russia’s control and form an organic relationship with the West.
But German politicians do.
That’s why they just gave themselves a big raise. They’ll now be receiving 830 euros a month more and take in over 9000 (not counting all the other benefits, of course). And this particular Bundestag vote was 464 yes, 115 no and 10 abstentions.
Firemen, paramedics and nurses are held in high regard in Germany and 22 other countries, a current study says. People trust them the most. Only 15 percent of Germans trust politicians, however.
Feuerwehrleute, Sanitäter und Krankenpfleger sind in Deutschland und weiteren 22 Ländern hoch angesehen. Ihnen vertrauen die Menschen einer aktuellen Studie zufolge am meisten. Nur 15 Prozent der Deutschen vertrauen den Politikern.
And they are doing this by not wearing any pants themselves.
Germany has now clearly taken the lead in the Winter Olympics by once again coming out victorious in the naked sledging competition.
Huh? What do you mean this isn’t an Olympic event?
Not to be put off by the mild temperatures, an artificial ski slope was created.
Observing Hermann 