Category: Germany

Decimated’: Germany’s birds disappear as insect abundance plummets 76% by Morgan Erickson-Davis

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27 October 2017 — Mongabay

  •  A new study in PLOS ONE reveals a 76 percent reduction in Germany’s flying insect biomass over the past 27 years while another reports the country’s bird abundance has declined 15 percent in just over a decade.
  • While the causes behind the insect decline haven’t yet been conclusively studied, the PLOS ONE study suggests agricultural intensification like increased pesticide use may be contributing to the decline.
  • Neonicotinoid pesticides have been blamed for bee declines, and studies also link them to declines in aquatic insect communities. Many flying insects have aquatic life stages.
  • More research is underway to better understand the causes and ramifications of such a big decline in flying insect biomass.

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Terror from the far right in the Weimar Republic By Barbara Manthe

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21 November 2018 — Open Democracy

The approval and performance of politically-motivated violence has been a core element of fascist or antisemitic activism for a century.

German Democratic Republic stamp commemorating the murders of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxembourg, 1949. Wikicommons. Some rights reserved.

This month, the German public not only commemorated the centenary of World War One’s conclusion on 11/11, but also the foundation of the first democratic system on German territory – the Weimar Republic – which was proclaimed two days earlier, on 9 November, 1918. This republic only existed for a bit more than fourteen years and was threatened by radical right violence and terror from the very beginning, to which it ultimately succumbed.

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Decoding the Hypersonic Putin on a Day of Remembrance By Pepe Escobar

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13 November 2018 — Asia Times

Sitting alongside French President Macron during the 100th anniversary to commemorate the end of World War I, Putin and Trump stole the show in Paris

The Elysee Palace protocol was implacable. Nobody in Paris would be allowed to steal the spotlight away from the host, President Emmanuel Macron, during the 100th anniversary of Armistice Day marking the end of World War I.

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What is not being said about the quadrilateral summit on Syria By Thierry Meyssan

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30 October 2018 — VoltaireNet

The quadrilateral summit in Istanbul on Syria has endorsed the political advances of Russia, but has decided nothing. Moscow gave its Turkish, French and German partners a lesson on the situation. The allies of Washington are having a hard time digesting their defeat and drawing its conclusions.

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Operation Hades – A Model For The ‘Novichok’ Case?

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4 April 2018 — Moon of Alabama

(This is a ‘working thread’ to collect various items related to the alleged ‘Novichok’ incident in Salisbury and the fate of the British spy Sergej Skripal and his daughter Yulia. For a wider overview of the case please check our longer write-ups linked at the end of this post.)

The Russian government sent fourteen specific questions to the British government and thirteen questions to the OPCW. There seems to be some French involvement in the investigation of the alleged nerve agent and Russia ask why that is the case.

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Operation Hades – A Model For The 'Novichok' Case?

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4 April 2018 — Moon of Alabama

(This is a ‘working thread’ to collect various items related to the alleged ‘Novichok’ incident in Salisbury and the fate of the British spy Sergej Skripal and his daughter Yulia. For a wider overview of the case please check our longer write-ups linked at the end of this post.)

The Russian government sent fourteen specific questions to the British government and thirteen questions to the OPCW. There seems to be some French involvement in the investigation of the alleged nerve agent and Russia ask why that is the case.

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Between Berlin and a Hard Place: Greece and the German Strategy to Dominate Europe By Andrew Gavin Marshall

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7 July 2015 — Andrew Gavin Marshall

Between Berlin and a Hard Place: Greece and the German Strategy to Dominate Europe By: Andrew Gavin Marshall

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Germany and the Troika: (left to right) German Chancellor Angela Merkel, IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, European Central Bank President Mario Draghi

“They just wanted to take a bat to them,” said former U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, referring to the attitude of European leaders towards debt-laden Greece in February of 2010, three months before the country’s first bailout. Mr. Geithner, Treasury Secretary from 2009 until 2013, was attending a meeting of the finance ministers and central bankers of the Group of Seven (G7) nations: the United States, Japan, Germany, France, Britain, Italy and Canada.

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The Rise of German Imperialism and the Phony “Russian Threat” By Prof. James Petras

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7 December 2014 — James Petras

The principle Nazi ideological prop that secured massive financial and political support from Germany’s leading industrialists was the Communist and Soviet threat. The main Nazi military drive, absorbing two-thirds of its best troops, was directed eastward at conquering and destroying Russia. The ‘Russian Threat’ justified Nazi Germany’s conquest and occupation of the Ukraine, the Balkans, Eastern Europe and the Baltic states, with the aid of a substantial proportion of local Nazi collaborators.

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Treasure Map: The NSA and GCHQ Campaign Against German Satellite Companies

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14 September 2014 — The Intercept

“Fuck!” That is the word that comes to the mind of Christian Steffen, the CEO of German satellite communications company Stellar PCS. He is looking at classified documents laying out the scope of something called Treasure Map, a top secret NSA program. Steffen’s firm provides internet access to remote portions of the globe via satellite, and what he is looking at tells him that the company, and some of its customers, have been penetrated by the U.S. National Security Agency and British spy agency GCHQ.

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German politicians, media seek to criminalize opponents of war By Christoph Dreier

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30 June 2014 — WSWS

In recent months, President Joachim Gauck has been calling quite openly for a more robust German military presence in the world. This attempted revival of German militarism has been decisively rejected by a majority of the population. Politicians, the media and the public prosecution department are now organizing a campaign against opponents of war and preparing to launch criminal proceedings against them.

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Fascist propaganda on the front page of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung By Peter Schwarz

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4 June 2014 — WSWS

“If one tells a big lie, and repeats it often enough, then people will believe it in the end.” This principle of Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda minister, today serves many in the German media as a guideline for writing columns opposing the widespread resistance to a revival of German militarism.

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