German leaders observe a minute of silence during a ceremony at the Bernauer Strasse memorial GALLO/GETTY
Germany is commemorating the 50th anniversary of the construction of the Berlin Wall with solemn ceremonies across the city and the opening of an expanded memorial for those who died trying to cross it. The events began overnight on Saturday at a chapel, with a seven-hour-long reading about the lives of those killed while seeking freedom as they fled East Germany for West Germany. At a sombre ceremony in Berlin, Mayor Klaus Wowereit, Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Christian Wulff paid tribute to the 136 people killed trying to get over the Wall. Wowereit said the Wall, toppled in 1989, should serve as a reminder of freedom and democracy around the world. Church bells peeled while trains and traffic came to a standstill at noon across Berlin for a moment of silence for the victims. "We don't have any tolerance for those who nostalgically distort the history of the Berlin Wall and Germany's division," Wowereit said at the ceremony in front of a small section of the Wall recently rebuilt for posterity....
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....
This year's Eurosvision Song Contest will be hosted by Germany, because our Lena has won last year's contest in Oslo with her song "Satellite". In a bout of either idiocy or ingenuity she has decided to defend her title this year by participating again with the song "Taken by a stranger" wich was chosen via televoting by the German audience.
I've decided to do some live tweeting during the Final, so if you wanna know what I think about the different performances, follow @adiek84 on Twitter or add Adie Klarpol to your Facebook friends, because my Tweets will be posted to my FB wall, too.
Who should win the Eurovision Song Contest 2011? How do you like this year's Song Contest in germany? Share your opinion by commenting here!
EDIT: You can vote for your favourite participant here: http://poll.fm/303uj
Pretty Portal Brunnenstr. 12 40223 Düsseldorf Phone: 0211-4161831-0 mail: hallo@prettyportal.de At the first exhibition this year, Pretty Portal shows Morten Andersen and Base23, two artists who both tend to Urban Art. Morten Andersen attracted the public attention by using rhythmic forms and expressive, whirling colours. Base 23 hypnotized people creating characters, that remind of indian totems of the 23rd century. The vigorous and graphical pieces of Base 23 build a strong contrast to abstract works by Morten Andersen. As a result the visitors/viewers will experiece great tension caused by the confrontation of the both artists. ...