BERLIN — Germany formally discontinued the draft at midnight on Thursday to make way for a smaller, tighter army that will draw people like Johannes Beckert and Steven Stadler, both volunteers signing up for duty at a sprawling, suburban recruitment center that once housed the East German military’s overseas espionage agency.
The two men are part of a military evolution spanning more than half a century, from rearmament in the divided Germany of the 1950s through the cold war, which placed hundreds of thousands of young German soldiers on either side of the Iron Curtain, and on to a reunification that was not just geographic and political but also created a single army bonded by conscription.
They are part, too, of a long-running German quest for antidotes to its Nazi past, ensuring that its military is subservient to the will of a democratic Parliament....
Linkin Park in Moscow Fan Review by Kinomonstr
Having woken up one beautiful morning in June, I didn't know yet what I was going to do the whole day long: listening to a radio station I've never listened to before and never will again. All for the sake of winning the contest that was giving the chance to see the group to which I was headbanging at school, the group whose new album I've waited for, entering the institute. I've listened to infinite hours of not-so-good (shitty) music for the sake of one and a half hours of their musical creations. I wanted to go to the Linkin Park concert SO badly. From a friend's message I have learned that morning, that there was the last of a series of competitions on the aforementioned radio station, which made it possible to receive an invitation to the free concert that was going to be not just somewhere, but at freaking Vasilevsky Spusk!...
After reports of dissatisfaction, panic and other pre-release drama, executives at Columbia Records are feeling vindicated by the positive early returns for Beyonce's new album, "4."
"All the speculation that gets around is frustrating when it's just not true," Columbia/Epic Label Group Chairman Rob Stringer tells Billboard.biz. "The story about us being unhappy with the record and stuff is just not true. There's never been any doubt or conversations about moving the record or changing it... Those conversations never existed. We're really, really happy with it."
The label is particularly pleased with sales reports from "4's" initial days of official availability. Stringer says early indications are that the album will debut at No. 1 in as many as 14 countries, including the U.S., and in the Top 3 worldwide. It went triple-platinum in Brazil on its first day of sale, while U.K. projections have it selling "well over" 90,000 copies in its first week -- which more than doubles "I Am...Sasha Fierce's" roll-out in 2008 -- and 1.6 million over its lifespan. The album's second single, "Best Thing I Never Had," is No. 1 on the U.K. iTunes charts and currently sits at No. 58 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 29 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs charts....