Salafist Surge: Germany faces extremist Islamic threat

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Topless protesters give Russia’s Putin an eyeful in Germany

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David Hasselhoff sings I've Been Looking for Freedom at the Berlin Wall... again

itnnews

David Hasselhoff sang to save a part of the Berlin Wall from developers who want to tear it down, 24 years after he helped to topple it.

Kerry In Germany: 'We Somehow Make It Through' With All The 'Stupid' Americans

breitbart

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in Germany: "In America, you have a right to be stupid, if you want to be, and you have a right to be disconnected to somebody else if you want to be. And we tolerate that – we somehow make it through that."

Iranian Official Busted With $70 Million Venezuelan Check

capitolhillcubans

From AP:

The German newspaper Bild am Sonntag reports that a man caught last month trying to enter Germany with a check worth about $70 million was Iran's former central bank chief.

The weekly reports that customs officials at Duesseldorf airport found the check in Tahmasb Mazaheri's luggage Jan. 21 upon his arrival from Turkey.

German customs had issued a statement Friday saying a check for 300 million Venezuelan Bolivars issued by the Bank of Venezuela was found on an unnamed 59-year-old man.

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www.zerohedge.com

A week ago we described the sad tale of one Mahmoud Bahmani [photo], who until recently supervised the unilateral destruction of the Iranian Rial, which on Friday just hit an all time low against the dollar down 21% in two weeks, as head of the Iranian central bank. While his currency-crushing performance would have been enough to get Mahmoud the "congressional medal of inflating away the debt" (not to mention a lifetime corner office at a TBTF bank of his choosing) at any self-respecting "developed world" banana republic, all of which have just one goal - to crush their currencies as Iran just did, in Iran it had precisely the opposite effect and let to his prompt termination. Yet this story is merely a trifle compared to the recent developments surrounding his predecessor, Tahmasb Mazaheri's, who led the Iranian central bank for just one year until September 2008, at which point Ahmadinejad fired him to make way for the recently laid off Bahmani. It is this same Mazaheri, who had been off the world's radar for over 4 years, until he trimumphantly resurfaced yesterday, when German Bild reported that he was caught last month trying to enter Germany with a check for 300 million Venezuelan Bolivars (some $70 million USD) issued by the Venezuelan Central Bank.

Russia remembers Stalingrad

Euronews

Fleeing Repression: Refugee camp for East Berliners in West Berlin [23 July 1961]

ciagov

Angela Merkel no saluda a Raul Castro [Video]

todavia quedan personalidades con la decencia suficiente para ser considerados dignatarios mas alla del tratamiento protocolar. la merkel que proviene de la antigua republica "democratica" alemana, conoce como pocos a los dictadores proto-comunistas y lo desconocio. un embarazado subcastro vuelve a recibir el publico desprecio del que es merecedor. 

Montserrat Boix

Las tetas de los soldados alemanes

La última preocupación del Estado Mayor alemán no tiene que ver con conflictos bélicos, amenazas o misiones sino con algo mucho más prosaico: a los soldados de uno de sus batallones de élite les están saliendo tetas (concretamente una, la izquierda).

Según un estudio que acaba de publicarse con gran impacto –no es para menos– en Alemania, el 74% de los componentes de la unidad de élite Wachbataillon sufren lo que en medicina se conoce como ginecomastia, que no es otra cosa que el engrandecimiento patológico de una o ambas glándulas mamarias en el hombre.

Al parecer no se trata de ningún tipo de arma bacteriológica u hormonal inoculada por el enemigo con fines desmoralizantes, sino que el problema radica en el seno del propio batallón: el alarmante –y vergonzante si tenemos en cuenta que se trata de fieros soldados entrenados para matar– crecimiento de los pechos de los soldados tiene su origen en las rutinas que realizan durante los desfiles.

Los expertos aseguran que la culpa la tiene el golpeo repetido de los pesados rifles sobre el mismo punto de la zona izquierda del pecho de los soldados, quienes realizan estas maniobras con inusitada frecuencia. Los impactos estimulan que las glándulas produzcan hormonas y el resultado termina siendo una teta. Y si un hombre con tetas es grotesco, con una teta lo es aún más.

El director de Cirugía Plástica del Hospital Militar de Berlín, el profesor Bjorn Krapohl, ha confirmado el fenómeno: “Hay una conexión importante entre la actividad el batallón y el desarrollo de mamas en el lado izquierdo. Tienen que cambiar la forma de desfilar, el impacto de los rifles en esa zona es un factor significativo”

Ejemplo de ginecomastia asimétrica

La cúpula militar ha prometido investigar la “epidemia” y adaptar las rutinas del batallón si fuera necesario. Un portavoz del ejército ha declarado: “Los soldados afectados están siendo supervisados médicamente y tratados de forma individual”.

Aunque quizá Alemania esté dejando escapar la oportunidad de pasar a los anales de la Historia Militar creando un batallón de características singulares, como lo fueron “El Invencible Batallón Sagrado de Tebas”, compuesto por parejas homosexuales, o el “Batallón de Mujeres de la Muerte” rusas que combatió en la Primera Guerra Mundial. “El Batallón de los Nibelungos de la Teta Izquierda”, bien pudiera llamarse. Ahí lo dejamos.

El estudio en cuestión: Gynecomastia in German soldiers: etiology and pathology
Vía: Stuff Nueva Zelanda. 

Russian couple accused of spying in Germany

nbcnews

saudigazette.com.sa

By Gareth Jones, Reuters

BERLIN -- A married couple went on trial in Germany on Tuesday accused of handing hundreds of sensitive NATO and European Union documents to Russia during a two-decade spying career that continued well beyond the end of the Cold War. 

Federal prosecutors accuse Andreas Anschlag and his wife Heidrun -- suspected Russian citizens whose names are aliases -- of entering West Germany in 1988 with forged Austrian passports and fabricating a suburban middle-class existence to cover their espionage. 

So perfect was the subterfuge that even their own daughter did not know of their spying, German media reported. 

Russian President Vladimir Putin worked for the Soviet intelligence agency the KGB in East Germany in the 1980s when the couple are accused of having started their career. 

"This is a case of treason that has been going on for more than 20 years, involving the entire range of intelligence activity, from trying to recruit new sources to instructing others, all the way to writing their own reports on political and military matters," federal prosecutor Rolf Hannich said. 

"These are documents and evaluations on NATO's policies which are of course of high interest to the other side because they can then adapt their own behavior." 

The couple said nothing at Tuesday's court hearing. In Germany, the accused are not required to submit a plea. 

The indictment said one of the sources for the secret documents procured by the Anschlags was a person working for the Dutch foreign ministry. 

German special forces arrested them in separate raids on their family home in Marburg, central Germany, and on an apartment near the southwestern city of Stuttgart in the early hours of October 18, 2011. 

According to reports, Heidrun Anschlag was at home in the process of receiving radio messages from Moscow when the Marburg raid took place at what they described as a typical, middle-class suburban family house. 

Hannich said the prosecution's task had been rendered more difficult because the couple had already been preparing their return to Russia and had destroyed many documents from before 2008. 

Documents obtained by the couple related to such matters as NATO's political and military affairs, the EU's military, police and civil missions, political negotiations on EU bodies and the situation in eastern European and Central Asian countries. 

Economic ties between Russia and Germany are booming but Chancellor Angela Merkel, who grew up in former communist East Germany, has also criticized Moscow's human rights record and clampdown on political dissent. 

In Germany, spying can be punished by up to 10 years in jail.

Similarities? Beck Compares America With The Weimar Republic

The Blaze/ Tiffany Gabbay

For roughly half of the country, or at least those who strongly following both politics and history, the 2012 election serves as a harbinger of the fundamental transformation expedited by Barack Obama that will, ultimately, cause the sun to set on America and its exceptionalism. Those who recall the not-so-distant past recognize a number of similarities in present-day America and European countries that ultimately succumbed to the devices of Socialism or Fascism. During his Wednesday evening broadcast, Glenn Beck examined these similarities, particularly as it relates to the Weimar Republic.

For those unfamiliar, the term “Weimar Republic” refers to Germany between the years 1919 and 1933 when the country was a parliamentary democracy, governed by a true constitution which had been drafted in the city of Weimar. While the Weimar Constitution technically survived until 1945, its last vestiges were truly snuffed out with the installation of Adolf Hitler and his Third Reich.

Under the Weimar Republic, German citizens enjoyed rights not so dissimilar to those found in modern-day America, including the freedom to vote. Thus, Weimar was Germany’s first foray into the concept of democracy. Before World War I, Germany was relatively prosperous, with a gold-backed currency and a burgeoning manufacturing industry.

Even from the start, however, the Weimar’s days were likely numbered, as by 1923 the country was in the throes of severe hyperinflation. While difficult to imagine, by this time, the currency exchange rate between the dollar and the German Mark was one trillion to one.

TheBlaze’s Becket Adams authored an informative primer Wednesday discussing hyperinflation — what it is, how it is triggered and what its long-term effects are. The article can be read in its entirety here. 

Of course with such mind-boggling numbers, needless to say, the Republic embarked on a rapid downward trajectory.

During his program, Beck examined some of the crucial elements that led to the collapse of the Weimar and solidified the Third Reich’s place in history. Among them were the country’s abandonment of a gold standard, tremendous debt and entitlements coupled with inadequate revenue streams that ultimately led to printing money and devaluing the nation’s currency. Soon, riots and overall societal decay. Given the meme that had been perpetuated in Nazi propaganda painting the Jews only as money-hoarding bankers who were robbing Germany of all its wealthy, of course the most notable form of this societal decay was manifest through anti-Semitism.

The rest, as they say, is history.

Watch below as Beck relives this dark chapter in history and draws some sobering comparisons to present-day U.S.:

Robot gets from A to B by asking the way

ReutersVideo

Nov. 12 - German scientists have taught a humanoid robot to find its way by asking for directions from people in the street. Fitted with Fitted with an array of cameras and sensors, the automaton represents a significant step in the development of robots that can intergrate with society. Jim Drury has the story.

Eva Braun's Trip to Italy [1941]

UnknownWW2InColor

Germany's PYMES success

By EconomistMagazine

Germany's Role in Europe and the European Debt Crisis

Stratfor/  By George Friedman

The German government proposed last week that a European commissioner be appointed to supplant the Greek government. While phrasing the German proposal this way might seem extreme, it is not unreasonable. Under the German proposal, this commissioner would hold power over the Greek national budget and taxation. Since the European Central Bank already controls the Greek currency, the euro, this would effectively transfer control of the Greek government to the European Union, since whoever controls a country's government expenditures, tax rates and monetary policy effectively controls that country. The German proposal therefore would suspend Greek sovereignty and the democratic process as the price of financial aid to Greece.

Though the European Commission rejected the proposal, the concept is far from dead, as it flows directly from the logic of the situation. The Greeks are in the midst of a financial crisis that has made Greece unable to repay money Athens borrowed. Their options are to default on the debt or to negotiate a settlement with their creditors. The International Monetary Fund and European Union are managing these negotiations. Read More »

De donde vienen los niños?: Los alemanes no se andan con rodeo...

¿Sabes de donde vienen los niños? ¿De París? ¿De una semillita? Los alemanes lo saben...

No hay nada mejor que un libro infantil alemán para explicarle lo "inexplicable" a los niños...




















La cigüeña se suicidó tras la publicación del libro.

Germany - Trains operators get hacking warning

Germany faces more pressure to back eurobonds

Second weekend of 'Occupy' protests in Germany

Miniatur Wunderland: largest model railway / railroad in the world

Este es el más grande del mundo. Cubre 1.150 metros cuadrados / 12.380 pies cuadrados,  y  casi seis millas de la pista y aún no se completa.

Los hermanos gemelos Federico y Gerrit Braun, de 41 años, comenzarón a trabajar en el "Wunderland en miniatura" en el año 2000.
El conjunto abarca seis regiones, incluyendo Estados Unidos, Suiza, Escandinavia, Alemania y los Alpes austríacos

La sección estadounidense cuenta con maquetas gigantes de las Montañas Rocosas, Everglades, Grand-Canyon, etc

.... y el Monte Rushmore.

La sección suiza cuenta con un mini-Matterhorn.

La parte escandinava tiene una nave de pasajeros de largo 4 pies flotando en un "fiordo".

Se espera que esté terminada en 2014, cuando el conjunto de trenes que cubren más de 1.800 metros cuadrados / (19.376 pies cuadrados) y cuentan con casi 13 kilómetros de vía, momento en el cual los modelos detallados de las partes de Francia, Italia y el Reino Unido se hayan añadido

Se compone de 700 trenes con más de 10.000 coches y vagones.

El tren más largo es 46 pies de largo.

El paisaje incluye 900 señales, edificios de 2.800, 4.000 coches - muchos de ellos con los faros iluminados.

y 160.000 figuras diseñadas de forma individual.

Miles de kilogramos de acero y madera se utilizarón para construir el escenario

Los 250.000 luces están manipuladas a un sistema que imita la noche y el día de forma automática a encender y apagar

Todo el sistema se controla desde un centro neurálgico masiva de alta tecnología

Mas de 500.000 horas de trabajo y  8 millones de dólares han invertido los hermanos en el proyecto.

"Gerrit dijo: "Nuestra idea era construir un mundo de hombres, mujeres y niños que pueden quedar igualmente asombrados y sorprendidos"

Frederik agregó: "Si los juegos de azar en Las Vegas, senderismo en los Alpes o remar en los fiordos noruegos - en todo Wunderland es posible." Este vídeo de 4 minutos vale la pena ver estas cosas asombrosas.