“Same procedure as last year?“
Olaf will be dinning alone this year, methinks. It’s not like anybody who doesn’t have to will be celebrating New Years with this guy. Much less listening to anything he has to say.
In his New Year‘s address, Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Germany would have to change in the face of a “more unsettled and harsher,” world but was certain the country would “get through it.”
Have a Happy New Year anyway!
Or maybe they should call it ring of fire in the New Year.
Are we having cultural enrichment yet?
German and Dutch authorities fear repeat of NYE firework violence – Fireworks are traditionally used to ring in the new year in Germany and the Netherlands, with New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day the only times they can be set off without permission.
But in recent years, celebrations have come under increased scrutiny.
Last year, dozens of police and firefighters were injured during riots in Berlin. Authorities said some were deliberately targeted with fireworks.
Other cities including Hamburg, Bonn, Dortmund and Essen, also saw violence.
That means conscription.
Germany mulls reintroduction of compulsory military service – The Bundeswehr is facing a dramatic shortage in personnel. Now Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has rekindled the debate over reintroducing conscription.
At the end of October, the Bundeswehr said it counted 181,383 soldiers in its ranks — that’s still some distance from the target of 203,000 that the German military hopes to reach by 2025. This has given rise to concern in times of Russia’s war against Ukraine, which has once again reminded Germans how quickly conflicts can erupt in Europe.
Since taking office at the beginning of 2023, Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has been thinking about ways to make the Bundeswehr more attractive as a career. He said he has received 65 concrete proposals from his ministry on recruitment and reforming training methods.
Even conscription, something Germany ended in 2011, is also up for debate. “There were reasons at the time to suspend compulsory military service. In retrospect, however, it was a mistake,” Pistorius told newspaper Die Welt earlier in December.
I know! We’ll increase the sales tax so nobody comes to your restaurant at all anymore.
No need to thank us. We’re from the government and we’re here to help.
German budget woes trigger disaster warnings for restaurants – Owners who oppose return to higher pre-pandemic VAT rate are dismissed as scaremongers by economists.
Kemal Üres, owner of a tapas bar in Hamburg, has spent the past year telling his social media followers that thousands of businesses like his will be destroyed by a planned tax increase.
The man who calls himself the “Gastroflüsterer”, or restaurant whisperer, is campaigning to make the pandemic-era cut in value added tax on restaurant meals permanent. Otherwise, the German government’s decision to raise VAT from the 7 per cent rate in place since 2020 back up to 19 per cent in January would lead to higher prices, job cuts and as many as 30,000 bankruptcies, he said.
A Germ-man? A French-man?
Nope. A Tajik-man from Tajikistan near Afghanistan.
German police holding man in connection with a threat to Cologne Cathedral – German authorities say they have detained a man in connection with a reported threat to Cologne Cathedral over the holiday weekend.
Tajikistan is 98% Muslim, by the way, so this couldn’t have been religiously motivated.
German of the day: Anschlag. That means attack.
It’s the Islamist way to say Merry Christmas!
Security hiked at Cologne Cathedral for Christmas amid attack threat – German police said on Saturday they were heightening security at Cologne Cathedral following indications of an attack planned for New Year’s Eve and in the wake of government warnings in recent weeks about the rising threat of Islamist violence.
The police said in a statement they would use tracker dogs to check the cathedral after evening mass and then close it off. On Sunday, Christmas Eve, they would carry out a security check on all visitors, and recommended they get to services early.
That means those who refuse to listen shall feel the consequences.
The established, traditional political parties in Germany are still refusing to listen to the electorate. Their voters have had it. With the migrant madness, for one thing. And with crazy Green utopia (highest energy prices in Europe and climbing), for another. And if these parties won’t listen, then voters have no other choice but to vote for a party that will.
Alice Weidel’s hard-right politics is winning over Germans.
Our Berlin bureau chief sits down with the increasingly popular co-leader of the Alternative for Germany, the furthest-right of the country’s seven main political parties.
In Germany? At the highest levels of government?
Yawn. Been there, done that. On a near daily basis even. Just look at the Banana Republic of Amerika if you need a role model.
German banker’s diaries add to Olaf Scholz’s political woes – Chancellor is facing questions over his term as Hamburg mayor, when city wrote off bank’s tax bill.
“It is pretty clear that a wealthy banker successfully influenced public decision making in his favour,” said Gerhard Schick, a former Green MP and head of Finanzwende, a financial reform lobby group, adding that policymakers later also tried to derail inquiries into the matter.
“What is at stake here is a very fundamental principle: the rule of law in a democratic society.” Scholz’s vast memory gaps were “implausible”, he added.
Only this time the planes would be leaving Berlin. And headed toward Rwanda.
Or was it Wakanda? Anyway, good luck with that. You’re going to need it.
CDU seeks to win back German voters with its own Rwanda asylum plan – Official says party favours sending refugees to third countries such as Rwanda for application processing.
“If we did this and kept it up consequently for four, six, eight weeks, we would see the numbers [claiming asylum] reduce dramatically.”
Do you mean the politicians like you who smuggled this migrant madness into Europe in the first place?
Germany extends checks at Polish, Czech, Swiss borders until mid-March – Measures seek to combat smuggling and limit irregular migration.
“Our fight against the unscrupulous business of smugglers, who brutally put people’s lives at risk, is successful,” Faeser said. Since mid-October, the Federal Police have arrested around 340 smugglers as part of internal border controls, she added. According to her, the number of unauthorized entries nationwide has fallen by more than 60 percent since the temporary border controls were introduced in October, from over 20,000 in October to about 7,300 in November.
