…stop paying a special church tax All Germans who are officially registered as Catholics, Protestants or Jews pay a religious tax of 8-9% on their annual income tax bill. The levy was introduced in the 19th Century in compensation for the nationalization of religious property. “If your tax bill is for 10,000 euros, then 800 euros will go on top of that and your total tax combined will be 10,8…
Jewish and Muslim groups living in Europe have joined forces to defend circumcision for young boys on religious grounds after a German regional court ruled it amounted to bodily harm. A joint statement says the practice is fundamental to their faiths and calls for it to be awarded legal protection. The ruling by the Cologne court – also criticized by the Israeli parliament – does not…
Germany’s army will in future be able to use its weapons on the country’ streets in an extreme situation, the Federal Constitutional Court says. The ruling says the armed forces can be deployed only if Germany faces an assault of “catastrophic proportions”, but not to control demonstrations. The decision to deploy forces must be approved by the federal government. Germany’s army will…
A young man who turned up in Berlin last year saying he had been staying in woods for years is a Dutch 20-year-old who was living in the Netherlands until last September, German police say. According to German police, his Dutch stepmother identified him from police photos. His real name is said to be Robin. The boy called himself “Ray” and was dubbed the “forest boy” by Ge…
…nd [had] numerous sexual affairs”. Vladimir Putin, 59, a former Russian President who is expected to return to power next year, headed Soviet intelligence operations in the East German city from 1985 to 1990. The files were discovered by BND expert Erich Schmidt-Eenboom, author of several books and papers on the spy agency. Lyudmila Putin once damned her husband with faint praise by confidin…
by 0.8% in the first quarter, slightly worse than analysts had expected. The economy shrank by 0.7% in the previous quarter. Compared with the same a quarter a year earlier, the German economy grew by 1.7%. The German economy returns to growth in the first quarter of 2012 with a better-than-expected 0.5 percent rise in GDP The German statistics agency Destatis said growth was due to a rise in exp…
Germany’s top court in Karlsruhe is about to deliver its verdict on whether the ongoing attempts to contain the eurozone crisis breach the country’s constitution. The Constitutional Court will decide whether the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) bailout fund and the European fiscal treaty are legal. It is feared a negative decision could spark fresh turmoil in the markets. Analysts e…
Last night it emerged that three German football players were using drugs in the 1966 World Cup final. A newly-unearthed letter obtained from historians at Berlin’s Humboldt University revealed that three unnamed German football players had been tested positive for a banned stimulant at World Cup 1966 final. The letter is dated November 29, 1966 and was written by the Yugoslav chairman of F…
German Development Minister Dirk Niebel who sent home a big Afghan carpet free of charge aboard an intelligence service plane has drawn criticism from opposition politicians. A spokesman for Minister Dirk Niebel says the customs duty required for the carpet will be paid. Dirk Niebel bought the 30 kg (66-pound) carpet for himself in the Afghan capital Kabul, the Spiegel news website reports. It co…
German economy grew by 0.3% in the second quarter of 2012, helped by exports and domestic consumption. Earlier, France announced its economy had recorded zero growth in the period, which was better than had been expected. The French economy had also posted zero growth in the previous two quarters. Official gross domestic product (GDP) figures from the whole of the eurozone are due out from the st…
…combating the euro debt crisis”. Greece is under pressure to speed up far-reaching reforms, including privatization and civil service job cuts, in order to continue receiving installments of its 130 billion-euro ($163 billion) international bailout. It is the second massive bailout agreed for Greece since the 2008 debt crisis shook the global economy and German politicians have made it clear…
…of her generation, according to The Hollywood Reporter. At the German Film Awards, the country’s equivalent of the Oscars, Susanne Lothar received four best actress nominations, and won once, in 1983, for her debut performance in Tankred Dorst’s film Eisenhans. The White Ribbon (2009) garnered the Palme d’Or and Stephen Daldry’s The Reader (2008) won an Oscar. On stage, Sus…
…s Dresen won the top prize – the Golden Lola – as well as prizes for best director, best actor and best supporting actor. The annual awards are voted for by the German Film Academy’s 1,300 members. They are among the most lucrative film awards in the world, with a total of €3 million ($4 million) given as cash prizes. Director Andreas Dresen and producer Peter Rommel collected th…
The 2012 International German Beard and Moustache Championships have been held in Bad Schussenried. Beards from around the world have travelled to Bad Schussenried and took part in 18 categories, including Imperial Moustaches, Dali Moustaches and Chin Beard Freestyle. A total of 163 of the world’s most interestingly decorated faces paraded through the town before the competition got under w…
…process” in any volcano. There was no need for local residents around the mountain to evacuate, he said. Mt Mayon has erupted at least 48 times since records began. The most violent eruption, in 1814, killed more than 1,200 people and devastated several towns. The most recent eruption was in late 2009, when tens of thousands of local residents were forced to evacuate as the volcano rumbled b…
A German girl has been enslaved by a Bosnian couple for eight years, by starving and beating her, local media have reported. The girl, now aged 19, was forbidden from meeting people and was not allowed to attend school, prosecutors say. She was rescued from the couple and taken to a safe house, but officials said she was in a bad physical and psychological state. Police arrested the couple in Bos…
Christian Wulff, Germany’s president, has announced his resignation, after prosecutors called for his immunity to be lifted. Christian Wulff, an ally of Chancellor Angela Merkel is embroiled in a scandal over a home loan that he accepted when he was premier of Lower Saxony. Chancellor Angela Merkel cancelled a visit to Italy on Friday to deal with the crisis, and she will give a statement shortly…
German health experts have been left baffled by a small village in their country where cancer has hit almost every household. Wewelsfleth, the German village which has a population of 1,500, has been labeled the “village of the damned” as new cancer cases are 50% above average. Researchers from the University of Lubeck who investigated the phenomenon, which includes breast, lung, oesophageal, wom…
…the last surviving tribes to eat humans as a cultural practice. The tribe is numbering about 3,000, who live in an area so remote they were unaware of the existence of anyone besides themselves until 1970. It was reported that the Korowai eat the brain immediately, while it is still warm, but the claims have not been verified….
…on the story from Goethe’s poem Der Zauberlehrling (1797), which is translated The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. Mickey Mouse plays the apprentice. The movie was so popular that Fantasia 2000, a 1999 sequel, followed. Goethe and Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller were leading personalities of Weimar Classicism. …
…hweig that he had first abused the 9-year-old son of a widowed woman parishioner. After being banned by his diocese from making further contact with the boy, the priest abused two brothers, aged 9 and 13. Thousands of Germans have left the Church over revelations of abuse. About 180,000 renounced their Catholicism in 2010, up 40% from the previous year, the German broadcaster Deutsche Welle report…
…st Germans remain wary of eurozone bailouts but generally approve of Angela Merkel’s handling of the crisis. In October, the German government slashed its forecast for economic output in 2013 to 1.0%, compared to 1.6% previously anticipated. The country’s central bank has said Germany may even come close to recession early in the new year. Nevertheless, Angela Merkel underlined that Ge…
The German economy slowed to “near stagnation” in March 2013, while France’s recorded its biggest contraction for four years, according to a Markit survey. The Markit composite purchasing managers’ index (PMI), which measures both the manufacturing and services sectors, declined to 50.6 in Germany last month, from 53.3 in February. Any figure above 50 indicates growth. Fra…
…r month without paying tax or contributing to any pension system. They are also excluded from the employer’s social security contributions. In Belgium, however, low-paid workers get a minimum of 12-13 euros per hour and all have to make social security contributions, a Belgian government spokeswoman has said. “Belgium wants the Commission to stop this disloyal competition between count…
…trol of Spain, France and Austria. The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg is an independent country tinier than Rhode Island, the smallest U.S. state, and it would fit inside Germany, its neighbor to the east, 138 times with room to spare. It won no medals at the 2012 London Olympics – in fact it hasn’t won a medal at the summer Games since 1952. In 1839, it gained its independence from the Net…
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