Germa novelist wins Nobel literature prize.

Herta Müller, the Romanian-born German novelist and essayist who has written widely about the oppression of dictatorship in her native country and the unmoored life of the political exile, on Thursday won the 2009 Nobel Prize for Literature.

Ms. Müller, 56, emigrated to Germany in 1987 after years of persecution and censorship in Romania. She is the first German writer to win the Nobel award since Günter Grass in 1999. Just four of her works have been translated into English, including the novels “The Land of Green Plums” and “The Appointment.”

Ms. Müller was born and raised in the German-speaking town of Nitzkydorf in Romania. Her father served in the SS during World War II and her mother was deported to the Soviet Union in 1945 and sent to a work camp in what is now Ukraine. As a university student studying German and Russian literature, Ms. Müller opposed the regime of Nicolae Ceausescu and joined Aktionsgruppe Banat, a group of dissident writers who sought freedom of speech.

She wrote her first work, a collection of short stories, in 1982 while working as a translator for a factory. The stories were censored by the Romanian authorities and Ms. Müller was fired from the factory after refusing to work with the Securitate secret police. While working as a kindergarten teacher, the uncensored manuscript of “Niederungen,” — or “Lowlands” — was smuggled to Germany and published there to instant critical acclaim.

“Niederungen” and other early works depicted life in a small village and the repression faced by its denizens. Her later novels, including “The Land of Green Plums” and “The Appointment,” approach allegory as they graphically portray the brutality suffered by modest people leaving under totalitarianism.

Ms. Müller has continued to speak out against oppression and collaboration. In Germany, she has criticized those East German writers who worked with the secret police and recently withdrew from PEN, the human rights organization, to protest its decision to merge with an East German branch.

The awards ceremony is planned for Dec. 10 in Stockholm. As the winner, Ms. Muller will receive 10 million Swedish kronor, or about $1.4 million.

Germany to push development of clean energy

Germany's cabinet has approved plans to dedicate special zones off its northern coast to house up to 40 offshore windparks that could provide electricity to over eight million households.

The plan involves setting aside zones between 12 and 200 kilometers (seven and 124 miles) off its northern shores. Of the 40 wind farms, 30 would be in the North Sea and 10 in the Baltic Sea. Of these, 25 have already received approval—22 in the North Sea and three in the Baltic Sea.

In total, the plan envisions German offshore wind parks holding up to 2,500 wind turbines. German Federal Transport Minister Wolfgang Tiefensee also said that the plan could create about 30,000 jobs.

The plan is meant to double the current amount of energy supplied by wind in Germany to 12 percent by 2020. The country's national climate protection targets envision it satisfying 30 percent of its energy needs using renewable resources by 2030.

While many in Germany are happy about the decision, others think that the government has been too slow to act on this issue. Critics point out that plans to boost Germany's offshore power production have actually been in the works since the beginning of the decade. In 2002, the coalition led by then-Chancellor Gerhard Schröder—made up of the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the Green Party—passed the German government's strategy on offshore wind energy development.

New German Language College Opens in Azerbaijan

The newGerman language Center began to operate in February, 2009, and thus far it has over 100 students.

"The Center for the German language differs from other institutions for the foreign languages. Most teachers of the center passed qualification trainings in Germany. The center not only teaches the German language, but also informs students about the culture and life in Germany," Director of the Center Zahra Aliyeva said.

Aliyeva said the Center is a partner of the Goethe Institute. The Institute provides financial support and gives recommendations to the center's management. The students, who will complete the courses, will be granted certificates of the Goethe Institute," Aliyeva added.

German Ambassador to Azerbaijan, Per Stankina, said the activities of the center will influence qualitatively process of learning the German language in Azerbaijan.

"The center's teachers should teach students that with knowledge of the German language, they can find a job, not only in Germany, but also in Azerbaijan. The importance of Azerbaijan for Germany has increased. Many German's companies intend to operate in Azerbaijan and these companies will be happy to provide jobs for Azerbaijanis with a good German language," the ambassador said.

Head of the Goethe Institute, Werner Vella, said she hopes several more similar centers for the German language will be opened in Azerbaijan in future.

German law clears all Nazi "traitors"

The German parliament passed a law Tuesday clearing the names of those branded traitors by the Nazis in World War Two -- ending a long, tortured debate.

Nazi military courts condemned about 30,000 people to death for desertion and treason and about two-thirds of those condemned were executed, Social Democrat (SPD) deputy Carl-Christian Dressel said in the debate in parliament.

Historians say the Nazis used the treason charge to condemn soldiers and civilians to death for political resistance and for helping Jews. More than six decades after the end of the war, the law granting blanket rehabilitation passed unanimously. German State prosecutors reviewed traitor cases individually until now.

Backed by the ruling parties as well as the opposition, it was the final piece of legislation passed by parliament before the September 27 federal election. Justice Minister Brigitte Zypries said the rehabilitation that her SDP party had long championed restores the honor of a long-forgotten group of Nazi victims, most of whom are dead.

"Even if not all those condemned to death as war traitors were resistance fighters, they were nevertheless all victims of a criminal judicial system which murdered to preserve the Nazi regime," said Zypries, who had previously faced opposition to the measure from the conservative Christian Democrats.

The conservatives had opposed the measure because they wanted to keep existing rules requiring individual evaluations in place. The conservatives were also concerned that the actions of some deserters might have harmed other soldiers.

SPD deputy Christina Lamprecht told parliament the rehabilitation sent an important signal to survivors and their families who were now no longer stigmatized as traitors.

Baron Rock gees up Germany

German politicians have never been known for their sex appeal. Then along came Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, the aristocratic finance minister, who is inspiring a level of public excitement normally reserved for rock stars and Hollywood actors.

The extraordinary rise of Guttenberg, a Bavarian baron, since his appointment only a few months ago has bewildered experts who thought that the 37-year-old lawyer and rock enthusiast was unqualified to lead Europe’s largest economy through a recession.

Not only has the “rocking baron”, as they call him, become as popular as German Chancellor Angela Merkel, his mentor, he has emerged as one of her best electoral assets as she campaigns to win another four-year term in office.

Guttenberg, a member of the German Christian Social Union, the Bavarian partner of Merkel’s Christian Democrats, benefits from being a relative newcomer – he was elected an MP only in 2002 – and likes to present himself as an “unpolitician”, comparing politics to a “circus” and often referring, disparagingly, to “the business of politics”.

His hobbies, too, help to set him apart: his holiday reading this year was Plato in the original Greek; and the passion for rock included an appearance earlier this year at a concert by the Australian hard rock band AC/DC. Next to him, with red devil’s horns on her head, was Stephanie, his glamorous wife, a great-granddaughter of Otto von Bismarck, founder and so-called “Iron Chancellor” of the 19th-century German empire.

The hip image helps Guttenberg, the most eloquent defender of free markets in Merkel’s conservative block, reach out to the young who often sit around drinking beer at his rallies. His campaign has been labelled “Woodstock for conservatives”.

Bosom pals pep up German politics

A German politician has unleashed a new weapon to soften up voters in Berlin: Chancellor Angela Merkel's bust displayed on a poster, alongside her own.

Vera Lengsfeld, 57, has ruffled feathers in Mrs Merkel's conservative Christian Democrat (CDU) party with the unauthorised CDU election poster.

"We have more to offer" is the slogan on the poster, 750 copies of which were hung in Kreuzberg district of Berlin. Mrs Lengsfeld faces an uphill struggle against a popular Green politician.

"I needed to come up with something to even be noticed," Mrs Lengsfeld said, adding that the posters had massively boosted traffic to her website.

She is hoping to win a parliamentary seat in Germany's 27 September general elections. But the incumbent Green politician Hans-Christian Stroebele has won twice previously in the Kreuzberg district. The shot of Mrs Merkel sporting an evening gown with plunging neckline was taken at the 2008 opening of Oslo's opera house.

Some of the posters have been stolen as souvenirs since they went up on Sunday. A CDU spokesman said Mrs Lengsfeld's poster campaign had not been agreed with the party. And the CDU women's arm chided Mrs Lengsfeld, saying, "We don't need to do things like this any more."

German bride spends first night with crate of vodka

A bride in Germany spent her wedding night passed out next to a crate of vodka in the back seat of a car and had to be rescued by police when the BMW began to overheat in the sun.

Police in the western city of Cologne said on Monday the inebriated 30-year-old remained unconscious even after they smashed the car window to get her out.

"Only after being shaken several times did she eventually regain consciousness," police said in a statement.

Still clad in her wedding dress, the dazed woman had to scramble through the broken window because she had no idea where the car keys or her husband were, police said.

German star Michael Schumacher slimming down for comeback

Seven-time world champion Michael Schumacher says he is slimming down for his Formula One comeback and that the only problem is a little pain in his neck.

Schumacher, 40, retired at the end of the 2006 season but has agreed to return to his old team Ferrari temporarily while Felipe Massa recovers from injuries he suffered in a life-threatening crash during qualifying at the Hungarian Grand Prix ten days ago.

Schumacher's first race is expected to be the European Grand Prix in Valencia on Aug. 23. He has made his comeback contingent on passing a medical checkup.

Schumacher had a motorcycle crash in February in which he suffered a neck injury.

Neck injuries are particularly problematic for F1 drivers because of the enormous strain on their necks because of the high G-forces they must endure during high speed cornering. But despite his neck problem, Schumacher declared he was keen to get back on the track.

"It's on! I accepted the challenge. And as you all know, I really love challenges. It seems as if my fans would love them, too," the German driver said.

Germany accuses China of industrial espionage

Germany is under attack from an increasing number of state-backed Chinese spying operations that are costing the German economy tens of billions of euros a year, a leading intelligence agent said.

Walter Opfermann, an espionage protection expert in the office for counter-intelligence for the state of Baden-Württemberg, said that China was using an array of “polished methods” from old-fashioned spies to phone-tapping, and increasingly the internet, to steal industrial secrets.

He said methods had become “extremely sophisticated” to the extent that China, which employs a million intelligence agents, was now capable of “sabotaging whole chunks of infrastructure” such as Germany’s power grid. “This poses a danger not just for Germany but for critical infrastructure worldwide,” he said.

Russia, he said, was also “top of the list” of states using internet spying techniques to garner vital German know-how which “helps save billions on their own economic research and development”. He said while Russia only had “hundreds of thousands of agents”, compared to China’s million, it had “years more experience”.

Opfermann estimated that German companies were losing around €50bn (£43bn) and 30,000 jobs to industrial espionage every year.

The areas most under attack include car manufacturing, renewable energies, chemistry, communication, optics, x-ray technology, machinery, materials research and armaments. Information being gathered was not just related to research and development but also management techniques and marketing strategies.

Opfermann said internet espionage was the biggest growth field, citing the “thick fog of Trojan email attacks” taking place against thousands of firms on a regular basis and the methods employed to cover up where the emails had come from.

But he said “old-fashioned” methods were also rife, such as phone-tapping, stealing laptops during business trips or Chinese companies who regularly sent spies to infiltrate companies.

In one case, the police raided the house of a Chinese woman suspected of stealing company secrets from a German business where she was working, and discovered 170 CDs containing highly sensitive product details.

In a separate case a highly qualified Chinese mechanical engineer employed by a company in the Lake Constance region was discovered to have passed on information for a machine it was developing to the company’s Chinese competitor, who constructed an exact copy.

In Britain last month the GCHQ, the government’s electronic spy centre, which estimates that the UK loses GBP 1bn a year to e-fraud, set up operations to deal with the growing threats. The Pentagon also announced it is to create a new “cyber command” and in May President Obama said he would establish a White House role to oversee cyber defence, saying the nation’s digital networks had to be recognised as a “strategic national asset”.

Belgium’s German speakers want to keep the nation together

Belgium is known for the linguistic and cultural tensions between the Flemish-speaking north and the French-speaking south. But the country’s thriving German community along the eastern border is keen on Belgian unity.

Tucked inside a pocket of countryside, among rolling hills and pastures, lies the town of Eupen. Some 73,000 German-speakers live around here, people who are known as the “Last Belgians.”

German is Belgium’s third official language – about 56 percent of the population speaks Flemish, 32 percent French, and just one percent German. Still, the people in the Eupen region are more committed to the Belgian state than their bickering Flemish and French compatriots.

Local public radio station BRF broadcasts popular German music and the community has its own newspaper and its own schools. It boasts 25 of its own members of parliament, as well as a guaranteed seat in the European Parliament.

But the community was not always as secure in its status as it is today.

Before the 19th century, the area served as a battleground for the French, British, Prussians and Austrians. When Europe’s maps were redrawn after Napoleon’s defeat, the region was carved up in the grab for land. The three separate German-speaking communities – around Eupen, Eifel and Kelmis – were divided between Prussia and the Netherlands, and later Belgium.

Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: Belgium’s German-speakers have stickers identifying them as such, just so they’re not overlooked. The history of the region has been turbulent, especially during the period after World War One.

The end of the First World War was the beginning of a very difficult episode. The population of the territory was forced – and no one asked them – to change nationality and homeland three times within 25 years.

The first time was under the Treaty of Versailles, when the community was forced to become Belgian. The second was during the Hitler era, when the region was annexed to Nazi Germany. The third came after the Second World War, when the region was taken back by Belgium.

That means: three times a change of language, three times assimilation attempts, and the resistance against it, the so-called revisionism between the two world wars.

Background to Germany's Oktoberfest

Me and some friends who hadn’t met up for a long time were recently discussing over the Internet setting up a trip to visit the Oktoberfest in Munich Germany where we would all meet up. First thing that came as a surprise to all of us was that Oktoberfest actually starts in September.

The Oktoberfest is one of the biggest festivals in Europe and attracts people from all over the world – perhaps principally to enjoy the beer which is drunk in vast quantities in marquees erected by the breweries. But why does it start in September?

For the answer to this we need to delve into a bit of history…

The first Oktoberfest was held in the year 1810 in honor of the Bavarian Crown Prince Ludwig’s marriage to Princess Therese von Sachsen-Hildburghausen. The festivities began on October 12, 1810 and ended on October 17th with a horse race. In the following years, the celebrations were repeated.

The whole festival started to grow and as a consequence started to take longer which meant the end of the festival was getting further and further into October. Not really a problem in itself but the weather was also getting colder and colder.

The decision was therefore taken to nudge the whole thing earlier in the calendar and take advantage of the better weather offered in September.

Because the September nights were warmer, the visitors were able to enjoy the gardens outside the tents and the stroll over “die Wiesen” or the fields much longer without feeling chilly. Historically, the last Oktoberfest weekend was in October and this tradition continues into present times.

The festival starts with a huge procession through the town and the ceremonial opening of the first barrel of beer and finishes 16 days later on the first Sunday of October.

Discovering Germany

Germany is a wealthy country, whose people are gererally regarded as hard working, determined and efficient. This view stems in no small part from the country’s industrial might and the relatively smooth functioning of it’s economy.

This impression however overlooks substantial aspects of Germany and German culture such as it’s contribution to art, music, it’s amazing scenery an regional contrasts.

Contemporary Germany has over the last 50 years developed into a truly multicultural society and melting pot of religions and ethnic groups from around the world. Over 7 million of Germany’s inhabitants are in fact immigrants. Almost every town has a selection of Italian, Chinese, Greek and Turkish restaurants and cafes, testifying to the multi-ethnicity of it’s population.