Doesn’t mean she still isn’t retired.
She just, well, as Norman Bates once said: “She isn’t quite herself today.”
German Woman Hid Mother’s Dead Body For Years To Claim Pension: Cops – Police suspected the daughter of hiding the body for years so she could continue collecting the woman’s pension, worth around 1,500 euros ($1,780) per month.
Fake.
Fake Berlin Wall fragments on sale as souvenirs?
It’s been nearly 40 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall but you can still buy pieces of it in the German capital as souvenirs. Are they the real deal?
When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, it sealed the fate of East Germany. People wasted no time and started hacking away at the monstrosity with hammers and chisels. Those people chipping away at the former border barricade were known as “Mauerspechte,” or wall woodpeckers. By June 1990, most of the Berlin Wall had been taken care of by bulldozers. Only a few sections of it have survived to this day; at the official Berlin Wall Memorial or the East Side Gallery, for example.
Still, fragments of the Wall keep turning up in large amounts all over the city. The Checkpoint Charlie Museum, souvenir stores and even hotels have thousands of pieces for sale. Almost 40 years since the fall of the wall, supply of the concrete chunks — brightly painted, made into fridge magnets or stuck onto postcards — shows no signs of slowing down. But, how can that be? Could these pieces of rubble perhaps come from much less significant and historical origins?
Not even Germany. Ouch.
Gimme a C! Gimme an L! Gimme an I…
Germany seeks to avoid becoming next UN climate host by accident – Australia and Turkey both want to host the COP31, and if neither back down the talks will be held in Germany.
“We would have to, but we do not want to.”
That means fraud.
Not just any fraud in this case. German fraud.
5 Southern California suspects arrested for German fraud scheme that stole over €300 million from victims – Five Southern California residents were arrested for their alleged roles in a fraud scheme that stole over €300 million from victims in Germany.
The suspects are accused of creating a scheme that targeted their victims with millions of recurring debit and credit card charges that hit below €50 (around $57 USD) to avoid any detection or suspicion.
The charges were linked to fake or non-existent companies and used fictitious websites that were only accessible via direct links or URLs, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
It’s purely financial.
Daughter suspected of burying Holocaust survivor mother in yard to collect German reparations – Israel Police uncovered the body of 93-year-old Holocaust survivor Maina Tolstikov, allegedly buried by her daughter and the daughter’s partner in their Carmiel yard to keep receiving state and German compensation funds.
The motive, investigators believe, was purely financial. Tolstikov, as a Holocaust survivor, received tens of thousands of shekels each month from the Israeli government and Germany. “They simply never reported her death and kept withdrawing the funds for over a year and a half,” Reuveni said.
It’s a Volkssport (popular national pastime) here. It’s just what Germans do.
People resent living in a political system that takes at least half of what you earn and they “pay it back” every opportunity they get. And twenty sick days a year is nothing. Berlin cops and firemen, for instance, are “sick” more than twice that amount every year.
German bosses are blaming the country’s economic woes on ‘work-shy’ Gen Z calling in sick nearly 20 times a year – Germany is in a structural crisis—with falling exports, soaring energy prices, and weakening competitiveness in its most important sectors. But according to the bosses of Germany’s biggest businesses, the real problem is its workers taking too much sick leave.
Several German employers have lamented a record-breaking year for absences linked to illness.
No way. Emission certificate fraud? For fraudulent emissions?
The Chinese would never do that.
German authority probes alleged Chinese emission certificate fraud – Listed project coordinates show only desert on Google Maps.
The German Emissions Trading Authority is looking into allegations of irregularities in an undisclosed upstream emission reduction project in China, the body told Nikkei Asia.
The move comes after allegations by German biofuel producers that upstream emission reduction (UER) certificates issued by the authority, known as DEHSt, to some international fossil fuel companies for their emission curtailment projects in China were based on fraudulent information.
The Germans have their problems too, the German capital in particular. But in contrast to us Americans, Berliners actually have the courage to them in.
Berlin is peanuts compared to The Banana Republic itself, I know, but its sure got pluck.
‘Dysfunctional’ Berlin holds rerun after election chaos – German capital has been governed by centre-left coalitions for more than two decades.
It’s not every day that foreign observers are needed to monitor an election in Germany, one of the west’s richest and most stable democracies. But then again, Berlin is no ordinary city.
Fourteen officials from the Council of Europe, the continent’s top human rights body, will arrive in the capital this week to observe Sunday’s rerun of its 2021 election, an event so chaotic its results were nullified: Berliners had to queue for hours at polling stations, which ran out of voting papers and ballot boxes. Some stayed open late to cope with the crowds, when broadcasters were already calling the result.
Everybody’s doing it!
Highly inaacurate for those being tested and highly expensive for the taxpayers (and the taxpayers’ children, and their children, etc.) who are financing it, these tests are at least “free,” if you get my drift.
A number of high-profile cases of fraud, and enduring questions over the accuracy of antigen (also known as lateral-flow) tests, have prompted criticism of health minister Jens Spahn’s scheme for triggering a free-market free-for-all, something Die Welt newspaper called a “testing gold-rush”.
“It’s an absurd system, and very atypical for Germany”, said Matthias Orth, of the Institute of Laboratory Medicine at Stuttgart’s Marienhospital. Earlier this year, Germany’s disease control agency reported that one commonly used antigen test – which only detects Covid-19 cases on days the viral load is highest – had missed 61% of asymptomatic infections at the emergency ward of a Stuttgart’s Katharinenhospital clinic.
That means fraud.
This is what happens when the government gives something “for free” to the citizens of a country who pride themselves on not being corrupt.
Germany will introduce stricter controls on the administering of coronavirus tests, Health Minister Jens Spahn said on Saturday, after local media reports accused some centres of accounting fraud.
“There will be more random checks,” Spahn said on Twitter. “Pragmatism is necessary these days. Those who exploit that must not be allowed to get away with it.”
Germany offers its citizens at least one free coronavirus test per week, with several federal states providing one free test a day. The state pays 18 euros ($21.94) per test. Many private test centres have been set up in recent weeks.
“Mit etwas krimineller Energie ist gerade sehr viel möglich.” Die Corona-Testzentren sind ein Paradies für Betrüger, sagt der Experte Gunter Lescher. Eine effektive Kontrolle sei derzeit kaum machbar.
Observing Hermann 