Angela Merkel visits Obama today

USA Today's 

5 things about German leader's visit to Washington

German Chancellor Angela Merkel gestures during her speech at the Munich Security Conference on Feb. 7.

 (Photo: Matthias Schrader, AP)

German Chancellor Angela Merkel arrived in Washington late Sunday, February 8, for meetings with President Obama that start Monday. Here's what they will talk about:

UKRAINE
"One of the most pressing issues is the crisis in Ukraine," said Peter Wittig, Germany's ambassador to Washington. "All of us are concerned this is a spiraling military conflict. We want to explore the diplomatic options."

Merkel's visit comes as Obama considers providing modern weapons to Ukraine, which has been losing territory in the country's eastern regions to pro-Russian separatists armed with tanks and personnel carriers sporting Russia's most advanced armor.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on Saturday asked Western leaders at the Munich Security Conference to push for a quick cease-fire and defensive weapons capable of countering the separatists' armored assaults.

Merkel, French President Francois Hollande and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed Friday during a meeting in Moscow to draft a peace plan for Ukraine based on ideas proposed by Putin and Poroshenko, but previous agreements have fallen apart even as the conflict has resulted in more than 5,300 dead in Ukraine.

 Merkel has opposed sending weapons to Ukraine. On Saturday, she said she "cannot imagine any situation in which improved equipment for the Ukrainian army leads to President Putin being so impressed that he believes he will lose militarily," according to the Associated Press.
Wittig, who briefed reporters in Washington in advance of Merkel's visit, said that if the West delivered weapons to Ukraine, "Moscow would probably reciprocate" by providing separatists with more weapons.

"How far are we willing to escalate that military spiral? I'm not sure that we are," Wittig said.

IRAN
Merkel will also discuss Iranian nuclear negotiations with Obama. The talks face a March 24 deadline imposed by U.S. Senator Bob Menendez, D-N.J., who sent Obama a letter saying he is among at least 10 Democrats who will agree with their Republican colleagues to impose new economic sanctions on Iran if there is no framework agreement over the country's disputed nuclear program by that date. Obama has threatened to veto such a bill.

The deadline has created a new sense of urgency, but, "We feel we should use the window of opportunity we have to come to an agreement," Wittig said.

Germany, the USA, Britain, France, Russia and China have been negotiating with Iran on limits to its nuclear program in return for the lifting of economic sanctions that have crippled the oil-rich nation's economy. U.S. officials have said they seek to extend the time frame in which Iran could quickly produce enough fissile material for a nuclear weapon from two months to at least a year. Iran denies it seeks nuclear weapons capabilities.

Wittig said any measures Iran may take to satisfy the West would also require an agreement to allow strong monitoring to assure Iran sticks to the deal. And any deal would expire after a time period on which the two sides have yet to agree.

"We're talking about double-digit years until there's complete sanctions relief," Wittig said. "If that's not viable it's not going to work."

ISLAMIC STATE
Obama and Merkel will also discuss a training center Germany is setting up in Erbil, in Kurdish-controlled Iraq, to train and provide arms to Kurdish Peshmerga forces fighting against the Islamic State, which has seized territory in Iraq and Syria.

Merkel will also discuss German interest in pursuing other tracks of destabilizing the militant group, including counter-financing and supporting messages that de-legitimize the group's claims that its actions, including the murder by fire last month of a captured Jordanian pilot, are backed by Muslim religious ideals.

AFGHANISTAN
Merkel will talk to Obama about Afghanistan and Obama's pledge to pull out U.S. troops by 2016, Wittig said.

Obama has declared the U.S. combat role in Afghanistan to be over, but many observers of the conflict there doubt the Afghan military's ability to stand on its own against a Taliban insurgency that has raged since the USA ousted the group from power following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

"We think it's wise to have a pullout accord tied to achievements and bench marks," Wittig said.

TRADE
Finally, the two leaders will discuss a thorny trade pact, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, which would unite the economies of the USA and the 28 nations of the European Union. The deal would eliminate most trade barriers for many products and financial services.

Backers say it could produce free-market prosperity, but the negotiations have also been controversial because the pact would increase competition. Greece's new leftist ruling party, Syriza, has said it opposes the plan.

Georgios Katrougkalos, a Syriza party member and Greece's deputy minister for administrative reform, said Monday that his party is against a proposed dispute settlement provision that would allow companies to sue governments for lost profits.

German troops to tip new Nato 'spearhead'

Danke, Jaeger.

Ich moechte auch heraufladen wo du diesen Artikel fandest. -- rsb

Soldiers of the German/Netherlands Corps will form much of the new Nato force. Photo: DPA

Published: 02 Dec 2014 16:30 GMT+01:00

Amid rising tensions with Russia over Ukraine, Nato foreign ministers met in Brussels on Tuesday to accelerate the formation of a rapid response force due to include 4,000 German troops.

"Ukraine has conducted itself honorably in holding up the [Minsk] Protocol, Russia and the separatists haven't done so", Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said.

"We call on Russia to fulfill its obligations."

The Minsk agreement, signed in early September, called for a ceasefire and the establishment of a buffer zone between Ukrainian government forces and pro-Russian separatists.

But fighting has continued in the conflict zone, with evidence pointing to Russia delivering tanks and heavy weapons to separatist fighters and breaking international law.

Nato has also criticized Russia's plans for increasing its military presence in the Black Sea, saying that it could further destabilize the region.

"We strongly condemn Russia's continuing and wilful destabilization of eastern Ukraine", the Nato foreign ministers said in a joint statement with the Ukrainian government.

'Spearhead' to deploy to crisis zones

Responding to Russian actions in Ukraine this year, the 28-member Nato alliance agreed at a September summit in Wales to create a 'spearhead' to the existing Nato Reponse Force (NRF).

Capable of deploying in 2-5 days to crisis zones, especially at Nato's periphery, the 'Very High Readiness Joint Task Force' (VJTF) may now take shape next year rather than in 2016.

The exact size and composition of the force - and who will pay for it - are still under discussion and are expected to be announced at a meeting of Nato defense ministers in Munich in February.

Poland and the three Nato members of the former Soviet Baltic republics are especially fearful of Russian military incursions as the conflict deepens in Ukraine.

The decision to form the VJTF was a "clear sign to our allies in the East and a clear sign to Russia," a Nato official told Die Welt newspaper earlier.

Ukraine to join Nato?

Meanwhile, Stoltenberg said on Monday that the alliance would increase its support for Ukraine and that the former Soviet republic's long-sought membership of Nato was not ruled out.

Russia responded to the statement by announcing new naval exercises.  

Defense officials in Berlin have said Germany will provide around 4,000 troops for the new force, drawn mainly from the Münster-based German/Netherlands Corps.  

The alliance currently maintains an immediate response force of 13,000 high-readiness troops. As scheduled, Germany will in 2015 assume the rotating command of this force. It will also take a lead role in the formation of the VJTF.

Nato has indicated that the spearhead will be a multi-service as well as multi-national formation. It will comprise a land component with air, maritime and Special Operations Forces available.

As for the geographical extent of its potential deployment, this will depend on specific threats towards Nato members and how the alliance as a whole responds to them.

Asked whether Nato would take part in a land operation in Syria, for example, Stoltenberg said in Warsaw last month that Nato remained fully committed to defending the territorial integrity of all allies, including Turkey, which directly borders on the Syrian conflict region.

“There will be possibilities to deploy land forces if we see any actions or developments that put security at risk,” Stoltenberg said.

25 Years Since the Fall of the Berlin Wall

Border patrol guards had lost permission to shoot at will at border crossings in the spring of 1989.  This inspired East-Germans to abandon their apartments and risk everything to live elsewhere.  For better or worse, these people felt a need to leave the guided life available to them under Russian influence, and instead, wanted to be in charge of their own futures. 

25 years later, there are plenty of people who miss the security they had under communism.  The term for this is "Nostalgie,"  or nostalgia for the East (Ost).

Differences between the two styles of government are becoming even more clear now, with

• the border disputes between Russia and the Ukraine;
• attacks by radical islamic organizations against capitalist democracies;
• Edward Snowden finding shelter in Russia after his revelations;

25 years ago the threat of losing everything were clear.

Here is a 2 minute news clip, which follows the emotions on both sides of this historical event from the perspective of the Soebel family.  They were on a camping trip in Hungary 25 years ago, read about the offer to pass through a gap in the wall that afternoon on a flier posted to a tree in their campground, and took up the offer!  Guards did not fire upon the picnickers in Hungary, who on the afternoon of August 19, 1989, slipped through a momentarily-opened border with Austria.  Rather than just freeing a handful of citizens, hundreds slipped through that brief gap, setting the tone for what was soon to follow.

http://www.zdf.de/ZDFmediathek/beitrag/video/2220970/25-Jahre-Paneuropaeisc
hes-Picknick#/beitrag/video/2220970/25-Jahre-Paneuropaeisches-Picknick

BERLIN IN PHOTOS TODAY 

20 second video:  Berlin today:


Pilpop filmt Berlin (in Miniatur?)  "Little Big Berlin"


"I dedicate this film to Berlin where I have been living for 19 years now. While the architecture of Berlin is stunningly beautiful, only its inhabitants make Berlin the unique city that it is. In every corner there is something new to discover. And the best thing to do is to film it.
Filmed with my beloved Sony HC9. Edited with Sony Vegas Pro 9.The miniature effect is called tilt-shift, which originates from a particular lens that was used to photograph architecture. The miniature effect is a by-product of that. It can also be achieved by digital postprocessing.
Music: "Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2" by Franz Lisz "
-- Does life in Berlin seem that much different than our own?  Different in which ways?


All sorts of press infos regarding the Fall of the Berlin Wall can be found here: 
HIER GIBT ES ALLERLEI PRESSEMATERIAL ZUM MAUERFALL

Eurovision Song Contest is Political?

The hidden threats in Russia’s Eurovision song

May 9, 2014 2:26 pmby Barney Thompson

The Tolmachevy Sisters (AP Photo/Frank Augstein)

The politics of the Eurovision Song Contest are, as a rule, reassuringly simple: countries with shared cultures, languages or borders, or a combination thereof, can generally be relied on to support each other. So the Greeks vote for Cyprus and the Cypriots vote for Greece; all the Scandinavians vote for each other, as do the Balts, as do Austria and Germany… and Russia and Ukraine.

It is a pattern that seems to transcend historical differences including war, genocide and economic catastrophe. For instance, Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina have been reliable co-supporters for years; in 2009 Greece came a creditable seventh despite being widely blamed across the continent as the feckless idlers responsible for the eurozone’s woes; and in 2011, just as the Germans were being vilified for their insistence on hairshirt austerity – with frequent references to the Nazis – they managed a reasonable tenth. At Eurovision, it appears, ancient grudges that have started fights in bierkellers and tavernas from Hamburg to Trieste are generally submerged in a welter of kitsch and predictably awful key changes. When in 2009 Georgia, still smarting from its defeat at Russian hands in South Ossetia, tried to enter a song entitled “We’re Not Gonna Put In” (geddit?), the Eurovision organisers rejected it as too political.

On Saturday, however, Russia and Ukraine will face off in the Eurovision final and the whiff of politics will be hard to avoid. For one thing, Russia’s progress from this week’s semi-final was greeted with loud boos from the audience, which was remarkable given how relentlessly upbeat the Eurovision crowd usually is. For another, the Russian song is laced with sinister undertones. “Shine”, performed by the Tolmachevy sisters, is an apparently innocent piece of europop; in fact, it contains numerous coded threats of drastic action.

First, the singers themselves. The Tolmachevy twins – Anastasia and Maria – are already Eurovision winners, triumphing in the junior competition (yes, there is a junior Eurovision contest) in 2006 at the tender age of nine. With “Shine”, they present themselves as a wholesome duo belting out a message of love (in English, mind you, the language of the decadent west).

Yet spool back to May 9 2007 – exactly seven years ago today – and one finds them in very different circumstances. Still only 10 but with the panache of seasoned pros, the Tolmachevy girls – in Soviet Army uniforms, complete with caps and boots – performed a famous wartime song called “Katyusha” in the middle of Red Square as part of the country’s Victory Day celebrations.

The symbolism of “Katyusha” – a song so patriotic, it even gave its name to amultiple rocket launcher – is hard to overstate. One of the biggest hits of the Great Patriotic War, it tells the tale of a young girl singing a song as she goes out for a walk along the river bank, dreaming of her sweetheart at the front:

Let him remember an ordinary girl,

And hear how she sings

Let him preserve the Motherland

As Katyusha preserves their love

The interim government in Kiev, being well versed in this sort of semiology, will have seen beyond the Tolmachevy twins’ outer innocence and identified the military message immediately. (The girls are even from Kursk, location of the most famous tank battle in history.) And in case it needed hammering home, the lyrics of “Shine” contain these chilling sentiments:

Living on the edge, closer to the crime

Cross the line a step at a time

Maybe there’s a place, maybe there’s a time

Maybe there’s a day you’ll be mine

I know who’ll they will be voting for in Slavyansk.

Tags: eurovision 

Schueler aus Burgau reisen nach Kiew in der Ukraine!



Koennten wir auch solch einen Film von unserer Reise machen???