Der Spiegel: Bundestag postpones Armenian Genocide resolution debates

October 16, 2015 By administrator

The final discussion of the Armenian Genocide resolution at Bundestag has been postponed for an indefinite period of timе, Der Spiegel reported quoting its sources.

According to the daily, Christian Democratic Union and German Social Democratic Union have agreed to postpone final discussion of the resolution for an indefinite period of time.

Speaking in Yerevan on Thursday, Germany’s Ambassador to Armenia Matthias Kiesler said Bundestag is busy with the problem of refugees, and it is difficult to say when new discussion on Armenian Genocide resolution can take place.

German historian: Germany bears special responsibility for Armenian Genocide recognition

October 15, 2015 By administrator

scholar michael, German Historian

Germany, as Turkey’s ally in the First World War, bears a special responsibility for the recognition of the Armenian Genocide.

German historian and scholar Michael Hesemann, who has authored the book titled Genocide against the Armenians, told the above-said to Armenian News-NEWS.am.

In his words, Germany likewise has darkened the chapters of its history by committing the Holocaust. Nonetheless, as per Hesemann, it found the strength to accept and acknowledge what it had done, and pay compensation to the Jews. According to the German historian, this example should demonstrate to Turkey how the Armenian Genocide issue can be resolved.

“We need to urge Turkey to acknowledge what happened and accept its consequences by apologizing to all Christians; if someone asks for forgiveness, he can be forgiven,” noted the scholar. “On the other hand, today’s Germany does not do what it should have really done. The politicians in [German Chancellor] Angela Merkel’s camp are not in a hurry to recognize the Armenian Genocide, in fear of losing the support of the Turks in Germany. But instead, many [German] officials openly call the genocide a genocide.”

Meet John German: the man who helped expose Volkswagen’s emissions scandal Report The Guardian

September 26, 2015 By administrator

Automative engineer’s research connected the dots to how the automaker manipulated diesel emissions tests – but that was never the intention

John German has barely had time to catch his breath all week between appearances on TV news channel and radio phone-in shows. He’s an unlikely media star, not a pop singer or reality TV contestant, but a grey-haired automotive engineer thrust into the global spotlight after he and his colleagues were credited with helping uncover one of the biggest ever corporate scandals.

“We really didn’t expect to find anything,” German said of his research that found Volkswagen had installed sophisticated software designed to cheat strict emission tests across the world. His simple test – checking the car’s emissions on real roads rather than in lab test conditions – led to the resignation of VW’s chief executive after the German company was forced to admit it installed “defeat devices” in 11m cars. The scandal has wiped more than €24bn ($26.8bn) off VW’s market value.

Many questions remain but one thing is clear to German: “It was not an accident,” he said. “A lot of work has gone into this.”

When German finally found a moment of peace this week he called his wife in Ann Arbor, Michigan. “She said: ‘You know you’ve made it now, you can retire and be very happy’,” German told the Guardian as he prepared to board a plane back to Michigan after a week in the spotlight in Washington DC. “No, no, no, I can’t afford to yet,” German told his disappointed wife.

He may have helped uncover one of the world’s biggest corporate scandals, but German earns a modest salary as US co-lead of the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) a small nonprofit organisation dedicated to helping to reduce vehicle emissions and has an annual budget of just $12m.

“It has been totally overwhelming,” German said of the global interest in his research this week. “I’ve been doing nothing else [but responding to the media and politicians] for 12 hours a day since Friday,” when US regulators announced their findings against VW based on German’s research] “We’re a small organisation that primarily deals with information on diesel filters, so this is unprecedented and overwhelming.

“As an organisation that is trying to reduce emissions and improve efficiency it is always gratifying to see results from our work, but we never dreamed we would have this kind of impact.”

German explained that the idea to carry out the test, which he described as “very ordinary”, came from Peter Mock, a colleague in Europe, who noticed discrepancies in the emissions of the diesel VW Passat and VW Jetta. He said they decided to carry out on-the-road tests in the US as the emissions regulations are much stricter than in the EU. They expected the cars to pass and they could use this as proof to show Europeans that it was possible to run diesels with cleaner emissions.

German, who has a degree in physics from the University of Michigan and said he “got over halfway through an MBA before he came to his senses”, sought out the assistance of the West Virginia University’s Center for Alternative Fuels, Engines and Emissions. The WVU provided a portable emission measurement system that could be put in the car’s boot (trunk) with an attached probe placed in the exhaust pipe.

Then German sourced a Passat, Jetta and a BMW X5 (which also showed emissions discrepancies in Europe) and “had a drive around”. “The VWs were massively exceeding their official emissions readings in normal driving conditions, which was completely inexplicable and totally surprised us,” German said.

Thinking it must be a technical error, the tests were expanded and the cars were driven more than 1,200 miles from San Diego to Seattle – almost the entire length of the west coast of the US.

The VWs nitrogen oxide emissions – which creates smog and has been linked to increased asthma attacks and other respiratory illnesses – still exceeded the US standards by up to 35 times. The BMW X5 was within the regulated range.

Arvind Thiruvengadam, a research assistant professor at WVU, who conducted the tests said: “We were doubting ourselves and our procedures and making sure to double check that we were not doing anything wrong. We did so much testing we couldn’t possibly doing the same mistake again and again.

“We were like ‘OK, we’re going to write a lot of journal papers, and we’ll be happy if three people read these journal papers,’” he told National Public Radio last week. “That’s our happiness at that point.”

German published the research in May 2014 and handed it over to the Environment Protection Agency (EPA). “There was an expectation that they would find out what was causing the higher-than-expected emissions,” he said. “We did send a courtesy copy to VW to say ‘vehicles B and C are your vehicles and you might like to know’, we had no response.”

There was no response from the EPA either, but keen-eyed German noticed an EPA press release in which VW agreed to recall almost 500,000 vehicles in December 2014 to reinstall software, which it said would solve the higher-than-expected emissions.

However, a couple of months later the California Air Resources Board (Carb) carried out spot checks and discovered that the “defeat device” software – used to dramatically reduces nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions only when the cars are undergoing strict emission tests – was still present.

“That is actually the single most inexplicable thing about this whole business,” German said. “VW had a chance to fix the problem, and they continued to try and cheat and do what they had done. That’s just amazing.”

“Only then did VW admit it had designed and installed a defeat device in these vehicles in the form of a sophisticated software algorithm that detected when a vehicle was undergoing emissions testing,” the EPA said in a statement last week.

German said it was unclear how the defeat device software worked, but the software could work by detecting periods when the steering column wasn’t turning but the wheels were which would indicate the car was on dynamo-meters for testing, or could also test for the precise uniform temperature that the tests are carried out at.

“The kind of software it takes to first detect when you’re driving on the official test would be very hard to develop. And then you would need duplicate software to tell the car to have two different emission controls.”

He said it was impossible to know how far up the food chain at VW the fraudulent activity went, but said: “It would have had to be quite a few people involved. It certainly won’t have just been one individual.”

German said VW could have continued in the deceit for the foreseeable future if no one had thought to test the cars emissions on real roads. He said there is no way to know if other car companies may also have been using similar methods to trick official emission tests, but welcomed UK, German and US regulators moves to retest cars emissions on real roads.

German, who drives a 1997 Honda Accord station wagon that he says has pretty good emissions for a manual transmission, said he hopes his work will act as a wake-up call and scare the whole industry into making certain that their vehicles comply with all emissions regulations. “Companies should realise they might get away with stuff for a little while, but it will catch up with them.”

He refused to enter into discussion about what sort of action should be taken against VW, which is facing a fine of up to $16bn in the US alone and a possible criminal investigation. “That’s really up to others, I’m just an engineer from Michigan it’s really beyond my field of reach.”

Source: the Guardian

German nurse shocked after being forced out of flat to make way for refugees

September 26, 2015 By administrator

Having lived in the same flat for 16 years, a German woman is being forced to move out to make way for refugees, because building a new shelter is too expensive. The 51 year-old nurse, who has helped asylum seekers in the past, was shocked by the news.

Bettina Halbey, who lives alone in the small town of Nieheim, received a letter from her landlord and the local municipality at the start of September, Die Welt newspaper reported on Thursday.

“I was completely shocked and I can’t even begin to find the words to describe how the city has treated me,” Halbey told the German publication. “I have had to go through a lot of difficulties recently, and then I get this notice. It was like a kick in the teeth.”

Halbey will have until May 2016 to find a new place to live, along with her dog and her cat. The three-story building, where she rented a 90 sq/m flat will now be turned into accommodation for refugees, who are seeking to make Germany their new home.

The mayor of Nieheim, Rainer Vidal, which has a population of just over 6,000, defended the decision to send the nurse packing, saying converting the building would be “the cheapest option.”

“A new residential unit for 30 refugees in Nieheim would cost €30,000 ($33,600). This solution will cost me nothing,” he told Die Welt.

Over half the population of Germany lives in rented accommodation and the country has laws to defend the rights of tenants.

“Normally, only a private individual can terminate the terms of a contract for personal use. A municipality cannot move into a flat as a legal entity, so the process is legally highly questionable,” Ulrich Ropertz, spokesman of the German Tenants’ Federation, told the Telegraph.

Ambassador: Bundestag to adopt resolution on #ArmenianGenocide this fall

September 22, 2015 By administrator

YEREVAN. – Bundestag will adopt resolution on the Armenian Genocide this fall, German Ambassador to Armenia Matthias Kiesler said.

“There are some processes in the parliament, but I cannot name a precise date,” Ambassador said during a media conference dedicated to the first stage of program of Armenia-Turkey reconciliation.

Ambassador recalled the speeches made by President of Germany Joachim Gauck and chairman of Bundestag Norbert Lammert.

The Armenian Genocide was a subject of heated discussions in Germany, Mr. Kiesler said.

He informed about the visit to the Armenian Genocide Museum and Armenian Genocide Memorial complex together with Saxony Culture Minister who is in Yerevan.

New textbooks are made in Saxony and one of the chapters will be dedicated to the genocides of the past century, including the Armenian Genocide.

At the same time diplomat added that reconciliation between Armenia and Turkey should not depend on recognition by the parliaments of other countries only.

Espionage trial involving Turks in Germany reveals alleged money transfers

September 18, 2015 By administrator

Muhammed Taha Gergerlioğlu sits in front of the regional appeal court in Koblenz, Germany on Sept. 9. (Photo: Reuters)

Three suspects of Turkish origin have been charged with espionage in an indictment prepared by the German attorney-general that includes wiretapped phone conversations revealing transfers of huge sums of money and claims of Germany being the true enemy of Turkey.

In the third hearing of the suspects’ trial, provincial Police Chief Steffan Blasius testified that a suspect and former aide of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Muhammed Taha Gergerlioğlu, 59, frequently communicated with German national Göksel Güler, also a suspect in the case, and many others, some of whom remain unidentified.

Blasius said the police prepared 3,300 pages of transcripts from more than 20,000 wiretapped phone and Internet communications. Police only mentioned the headings of the transcripts in court, without going into detail. Blasius read headings such as “Ismail al-Buti, 500 million USD,” “Swiss Bank, power of attorney, 500 million USD” and “To be given to RTE [Erdoğan]” in the Koblenz High Court.

Last year, the leader of the Turkish main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, claimed Erdoğan has eight Swiss bank accounts. He called on the president to prove otherwise, but Erdoğan has never responded.

During the trial of the suspects, the third of whom is Turkish national Ahmet Duran Y. and all of whom were arrested in Germany in December on suspicion of espionage, the court rejected the defense’s attempt to have the indictment thrown out because of ongoing cooperation over terrorism between the two countries.

In May, the attorney-general filed charges against the trio, accusing them of spying on behalf of Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization (MİT).

Blasius stated that Güler had acted as a sort of personal secretary for Gergerlioğlu, organizing his itinerary and picking him up from the airport when he came to Germany. He said the two originally spoke over the phone, but later switched to written communication, often using messaging software, including Skype, Viber, Tango and WhatsApp.

Among the headings of transcribed messages were “Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will reach [out to] 7 billion people and bring justice to the world” and “Arab media launched a campaign against TR [Turkey], all except Al Jazeera.”

‘Germany real enemy of Turkey’

A message Gergerlioğlu sent to an unidentified person on Aug. 18, 2014, stated, “Germans are our real enemies,” “These [Germans] are true enemies of Islam” and “Germans did not take it well that THY [Turkish Airlines] outperformed Lufthansa.”

Blasius said many messages included comments about Fethullah Gülen, who lives in self-imposed exile in the US and who has inspired a civil society movement in his name. One message even noted that the Israeli ambassador had attended an event organized by the Gülen movement.

Gülen, who is internationally acclaimed for his promotion of interfaith dialogue, tolerance and education, served as a spiritual leader and imam before moving to the US in 1999. He became a target of Erdoğan and the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government following the eruption of a graft scandal that implicated Erdoğan’s inner circle in late 2013.

Erdoğan has accused the Gülen movement of operating a “parallel structure” of supporters in the judiciary and the police force who initiated the graft probes, while the movement denies the charge.

Turkish spies are said to have been ordered to spy on Erdoğan’s opponents in Germany, including members of the Kurdish minority, the faith-based Gülen movement and other Turkish nationals critical of the Turkish leadership.

According to court documents, the three were charged with tracking and spying on Turkish and Kurdish dissidents who would be detained upon returning to Turkey. Blasius said police had recovered many photographs from the communications, including some of demonstrations by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in Bielefeld and Mannheim.

The suspects allegedly profiled Alevi groups in particular. One message was titled “Regarding a PKK and Alevi rally in Koln: German intelligence is supporting atheist Alevis and secular Kurds against Turkey with lots of money. They are swimming in a pool of money. German anarchists are supporting this rally as well.”

Gergerlioğlu also organized a social group, called the “New İstanbul Civilization (YİM),” on WhatsApp, with more than 50 participants, who exchanged information and photos. In his messages, Gergerlioğlu talked about setting up a wide intelligence network, stressing that all information exchanged within the group would be assessed by MİT. He said: “MİT infiltrated the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant [ISIL]. Foreign intelligence exposed that. The PKK is arming. Don’t worry; they will use it against ISIL.”

Gergerlioğlu was reportedly sent by MİT head Hakan Fidan with a fund of 25,000 euros to launch a consulting firm for German-Turkish companies in the city of Bad Dürkheim with Güler in 2011.

The indictment states that the suspects were engaged in acts of espionage for MİT. Ahmet Duran Y. and Güler were charged with collecting information about dissidents opposing Erdoğan in Germany under the leadership of Gergerlioğlu. They face a prison sentence of up to five years, according to German law.

The second witness to testify on Thursday was Police Chief Martin Müller of the Mainz Criminal Bureau. He said he examined the iPhone seized from Gergerlioğlu and found more than 300 documents in the phone’s memory. Among them were passport photographs belonging to British, Syrian, Iranian and Kazakhstani citizens, a list of names from various groups, including al-Qaeda, documents of arms trades between Israel and İstanbul, as well as various official letters and notifications addressed to and from Turkish prosecutors’ offices, governors, and members of the police force and gendarmerie.

Source: ZAMAN

WATCH: Migrant Turks AND Kurds Battle on Frankfort Streets, German army called in

September 11, 2015 By administrator

At least five arrests were made in Frankfurt on Thursday night after a march by supporters of Turkish nationalism descended into bloody violence when they clashed with rival Kurd separatists.

Video of the riot has emerged on the same day Germany announced it will place 4,000 soldiers on standby over the weekend to help with a new wave of up to 40,000 refugees arriving in the country.

Police said The Thursday event was billed as a “solidarity march commemorating fallen Turkish soldiers”. According to FR Online to it was organised by the “Federation of Turkish young people” which campaigns on behalf of Turkey. The fracas involved a group of around 380 participant and started at the city’s main railway station at 18.30.

Soon after the Turkish supporters set off there were attacks by immigrant Kurd counter-demonstrators who used sticks, bottles and stones to attack marchers. One taxi driver reportedly had his car damaged in the brawl.

Police confirmed the counter-demonstrators were of Kurdish origin and quickly withdrew.

More than 40,000 people have died since the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) launched its armed campaign in 1984 calling for an independent Kurdish state within Turkey.
Now immigrants from both sides of that battle are carrying their fight onto the streets of Frankfurt.

Meanwhile, Germany will mobilise 4,000 soldiers in the next 48-hours to help with the entry of up to 40,000 refugees in the country, Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen said on Friday.

She told Der Spiegel that she was placing the troops on alert with the expectation they could be asked to do more than just welcome the immigrant arrivals.

“The country can be sure that the Bundeswehr [German army] will be supporting” efforts to care for refugees, Von der Leyen said, adding that the army could do yet more if called upon.

“We are spreading these 4,000 soldiers across the country and they will intervene if the federal states [which are responsible for the initial uptake of refugees] request it,” a Defence Ministry spokesman told The Local.

“They will provide a helping hand, for example to set up a refugee camp, to help with organization, provide buses and drivers, other types of transport, medical services and equipment, anything of that kind.”

Record numbers of people from the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa continue to pour into Europe, with around 7,600 entering Macedonia in the last 12 hours.

Source: breitbart.com

Germany says it could take 500,000 refugees a year

September 8, 2015 By administrator

Refugees from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Iran wait to be registered at Moria Camp in Lesbos. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Reporting Helena Smith in Athens, Mark Tran in London

Refugees from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Iran wait to be registered at Moria Camp in Lesbos. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Helena Smith in Athens, Mark Tran in London and agencies

German vice-chancellor repeats call for EU countries to take their fair share of refugees, as violence flares on Greek island of Lesbos

Germany could take 500,000 refugees each year for “several years”, the country’s vice-chancellor, Sigmar Gabriel, has said, as fresh clashes broke out overnight between police and refugees on the Greek island of Lesbos and thousands of people gathered amid chaotic scenes on the Greek border with Macedonia.

“I believe we could surely deal with something in the order of half a million for several years,” he told ZDF public television. “I have no doubt about that, maybe more.” Germany expects to receive 800,000 asylum seekers this year, four times the total for 2014.

Gabriel also stressed that other European countries must also accept their fair share as refugees flee war and poverty in the Middle East and Africa and head for the EU.

As Greece struggled to cope with an influx of refugees – many from war-ravaged Syria – Donald Tusk, the EU president, warned that the refugee “exodus” could last for years. “The wave of migration is not a one-time incident but the beginning of a real exodus, which only means that we will have to deal with this problem for many years to come,” he said.

In Lesbos, where tens of thousands of refugees are stranded, about a dozen coastguards and riot police armed with batons struggled overnight to control about 2,500 migrants in the island’s main port as crowds surged towards a government-chartered ferry bound for Athens.

The UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR, said Europe must offer guaranteed relocation for Syrian refugees. About 30,000 refugees are on Greek islands, with 20,000 on Lesbos alone, it said. The island has a population of about 85,000.

Melissa Fleming, a UNHCR spokeswoman, told a news briefing in Geneva: “Discussions in Europe this week are taking on even greater urgency because it obviously cannot be a German solution to a European problem.”

She welcomed announcements by Britain and France that they would take in Syrian refugees, but said reception centres must be set up in countries including Hungary and Greece.

“Those can only work if there is a guaranteed relocation system whereby European countries saying yes will take X number. We believe it should be 200,000 – that’s the number we believe need relocating in Europe countries,” Fleming said.

German chancellor Angela Merkel reiterated her support for quotas for distributing refugees, telling a news conference in Berlin: “This joint European asylum system cannot just exist on paper but must also exist in practice – I say that because it lays out minimum standards for accommodating refugees and the task of registering refugees.”

On Monday more than 3,000 newcomers, most brought in on cruise ships from Lesbos, arrived in the port of Piraeus in Athens. The Red Cross has set up medical facilities in a central square in the capital where it handed out food and water to the arrivals.

Angeliki Fanaki, who is coordinating the relief programme, said every effort was being made to ensure refugees were received with a level of dignity they may not have experienced so far.

The vast majority of refugees and migrants in Lesbos have been forced to live out in the open, or at best in tents, with almost no access to running water or public toilets, and conditions have become increasingly squalid.

The migration minister, Yiannis Mouzalas, a physician with Doctors of the World, described conditions as miserable after visiting the island on Sunday. Thousands of Syrians, Afghans, Iraqis, Iranians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis have converged on the island’s capital, Mytilini, home to 27,000 locals.

“It is an intolerable situation,” said the island’s mayor, Spyros Galanos, who has appealed to residents to boycott the country’s upcoming general election and threatened to close schools later this week if relief measures and emergency action are not taken quickly. On Tuesday morning locals told Greek TV that after several days of street clashes between refugees and riot police they had reached a point where they were afraid to leave their homes.

The government has responded by opening a second reception centre to speed up processing of the newcomers, and laying on more ships to transit them to the mainland. But with more new arrivals coming from Turkey, no amount of emergency action appears to be adequate.

The Greek government has appealed to the EU commission for €2.5bn in emergency funding – usually reserved for natural disasters – to deal with the crisis, which has also affected Greece’s northern border.

Tensions are high on the border with Macedonia, where at least 8,000 people were waiting to enter the former Yugoslav republic after 2,000 made the crossing on Monday. With the first light of day, police continued a search and rescue operation in the hope of finding a 23-year-old Syrian father last seen struggling in the fast-moving waters of the Axios river that separates the two states.

In Hungary, scores of migrants broke through a police line near a refugee centre and marched towards Budapest on Monday before agreeing to turn back. In Denmark, police closed a motorway in the south of the country as crowds headed towards the Swedish border.

Germany would keep accepting “a greatly disproportionate share” among EU members “because we are an economically strong country, without doubt”, vice-chancellor Gabriel said.

Britain, France and even Latin American countries have pledged to accept tens of thousands of refugees between them. Venezuela said it would accept 20,000, the same number that Britain has promised to take over five years. Dilma Rousseff, the Brazilian president, declared migrants would be welcomed with “open arms”, and Chile’s leader, Michelle Bachelet, said it was “working to take a large number”. Canada’s Quebec province said it would take 3,650 this year.

Source: TheGuardian

Swedish newspaper: Germany doesn’t want to remember about its role in Armenian Genocide

September 6, 2015 By administrator

Germany doesn’t want to acknowledge its own role in the Armenian Genocide, the Swedish newspaper Politiken writes.

For a long time, Germany didn’t want to acknowledge the Armenian Genocide, since it didn’t want to spoil its relations with Turkey. And perhaps it also didn’t want to remember about its own role and liabilities, the article reads.

“Germany was Turkey’s ally in the World War I. The German officers served in the Ottoman military police; [German] diplomats and political functionaries travelled throughout the country. Some of them observed the deportations, while others took part in them. Still others wrote home, urging Germany to interfere.

Reich Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg said: “Our only aim is to keep Turkey on our side until the end of the war, no matter whether as a result Armenians do perish or not.”

Debates rise about the fact why Germany hasn’t so far acknowledged the happening as a Genocide, like France, for instance. For fear of spoiling relations or because of reluctance to remember about its own role? Discussions have revived more then ever,” the article reads.

Source NEWS.am

GERMANY Turkish fascists attack Kurdish youth in Germany

September 5, 2015 By administrator

A group of Turkish fascists attacked Kurdish youth who organized a long march in Germany between Wuppertal and Düsseldorf to condemn the permanent isolation of the Kurdish people’s leader Abdullah Öcalan and the massacre of civilians in northern Kurdistan.

Arrived on the scene with 10 cars, the racist group, followed da walkers Remscheid and attacked the young during their lunch break.

The youth responded to the attack and shouted the slogan “Long life to the leader Apo”, while the police arrested 10 of the attackers and a walker.

In the meantime, the German police collected the identities of Kurdish demonstrators. The organizing committee called on all young people to join the march.