Germans prepare for possibility of Greek aid
BERLIN (Reuters) – A harsh reality seems to be dawning on Germans — that helping debt-ridden Greece, as part of a euro zone effort, may be inevitable.
Ever-cautious Chancellor Angela Merkel has made comments which could be seen as preparing the ground for some sort of aid and in a clear shift, some influential newspapers have started running editorials arguing Germany may have to act.
Germany’s top Protestant bishop quits after drunk driving
Bishop Margot Kässmann at her news conference in Hanover 24 Feb 2010/Stringer
The head of Germany’s 25 million Protestants resigned on Wednesday after police stopped her for driving while under the influence of alcohol just four months after becoming the third woman to head a major Christian church.
Known as the “pop bishop,” 51-year-old Margot Kässmann is a regular on television talk shows and had been a controversial choice as head of Germany’s Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD), the main association of Protestant churches, because she is a divorced mother of four.
Germans say euro zone may have to expel Greece: poll
BERLIN (Reuters) – A majority of Germans want debt-ridden Greece to be thrown out of the euro zone if necessary and more than two-thirds oppose handing Athens billions of euros in credit, a poll published on Sunday showed.
Vocal opposition to aid for Greece from members of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s coalition also grew at the weekend with several senior politicians expressing skepticism, especially as Germany’s own recovery is fragile.
Merkel cool on Greek aid as voters and FDP resist
BERLIN (Reuters) – Chancellor Angela Merkel, under pressure from German voters and her coalition partners to limit support for debt-ridden Greece, is adopting a cautious approach that could put the brakes on any EU plans for financial help.
The timing of frantic talks about helping Greece could hardly be worse for Merkel, who faces her own budget problems. Fresh data on Friday showed that a recovery in Europe’s biggest economy stalled in the fourth quarter.
Sexual abuse charges at Jesuit schools shock Germany
Germany’s leading Jesuit official has apologised for a growing number of sexual abuse cases at Jesuit high schools that have come to light recently. School officials there had failed to respond properly when they first heard of the allegations years ago, Father Stefan Dartmann, the head of Germany’s Jesuit order, said.
Dartmann said he knew of 25 former pupils who said they had been abused at presitgious Jesuit schools between 1975 and 1984 — 20 at the Canisius Kolleg in Berlin, 3 at the Hamburger St. Ansgar Schule in Hamburg and 2 at the Kolleg St. Blasien in St. Blasien in the Black Forest.
Swiss lawmaker accuses Berlin of “bank robbery”
BERLIN/ZURICH (Reuters) – A Swiss lawmaker likened German attempts to buy data on cross-border tax evaders to bank robbery on Tuesday and the Swiss banking lobby said Berlin was acting as a receiver of stolen goods.
Switzerland’s interior minister clearly sought a diplomatic solution with Berlin in a sharply escalating row with the Alpine country’s most important trading partner.
Swiss accuse Germans of bank robbery in data row
BERLIN, Feb 2 (Reuters) – A Swiss lawmaker likened Germany’s
attempts to get hold of data on cross-border tax evaders to bank
robbery on Tuesday, turning up the volume in a growing row
between the two nations over Swiss bank secrecy.
Germany said on Monday it was prepared to pay for data on
clients of a Swiss bank offered to authorities by a
whistleblower, even if the information had been obtained
illegally. [ID:nLDE6101VZ]
“Here we have a new form of bank robbery,” Swiss lawmaker
Pirmin Bischof told Germany’s Deutschlandfunk radio. “Before,
you had to go to the bank and get hold of the money with a
weapon. Today you can do it electronically by stealing data.
Merkel says wrong to set date to quit Afghanistan
BERLIN (Reuters) – Chancellor Angela Merkel refused on Wednesday to set a date for the withdrawal of German troops from Afghanistan, saying that would only encourage the Taliban.
She also tried to justify to a highly skeptical public a new strategy to boost troop levels in Afghanistan and nearly double civilian aid to help create the conditions to start a withdrawal from next year.
World must step up efforts on saving species: Merkel
BERLIN (Reuters) – German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged industrialized and emerging countries to invest more in protecting wildlife and said the U.N. should create a body to refine scientific arguments for saving animal and plant species.
Researchers say preserving nature is crucial to the fight against climate change and warn that human activity is speeding up extinctions. They also argue that peoples’ livelihoods depend on natural assets worth trillions of dollars.
Germans agonise over Kunduz air strike
German soul searching about the September air strike in Afghanistan that killed civilians contrasts starkly with the greater acceptance of what is sometimes called “collateral damage” in other countries, such as the United States.
Politicians here in Berlin have been backing away from their original robust defence of the strike in the last few weeks as more information has come to light about the circumstances of the German order to call in a U.S. F-15 fighter jet to hit two hijacked fuel trucks near Kunduz on Sept. 4.
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