Kaleidoscope of Germany
Blogs, social media and digital society: thousands of bloggers and Internet users are gathering at the “re:publica” conference in Berlin from May 2 to 4, 2012. The event, which is seen by Web 2.0 fans and experts in Germany as the most important forum, is offering a programme of around 200 hours with talks, workshops and panel discussions.
Berlin 2.0
People today are living longer than ever before, and they are remaining fit into very old age far more often. By 2050 the number of people over 65 years of age will have tripled. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), today’s life expectancy for women in Europe is now already over 80 years, and for men it is over 75.
World Health Day 2012
Hiking is in. Around 34 million Germans go hiking in their free time. And that is no coincidence, because Germany has an excellent infrastructure for hiking with just less than 200,000 km of fully-developed paths leading through many kinds of landscapes, some of them quite spectacular.
Hiking in Germany
Germany is strongly involved in the preservation of cultural monuments around the world. Now Germany has again been elected as a new member of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee until 2015.
Fascinating World Heritage
The “Münchner Oktoberfest”, or as the local Bavarians refer to it, “Die Wiesn” is the single biggest and most prestigious fair in the world. However, it is also one the most traditional fairs in the world and gives the visitor a good insight on the mixture between 21st century modern Germany and ancient Bavarian culture and customs.
Oktoberfest
The shining city: from October 12 to 23, 2011 the German capital will once again be bathed in a sea of light. Numerous events will be accompanying Berlin’s 7th Festival of Lights when more than 70 famous landmarks, buildings, squares and streets sparkle with stunning illuminations.
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Water, food and health are the central topics at the 8th Asia-Pacific Weeks (APW) in Berlin. From 6 to 17 September 2011 more than 140 events with 100 experts from 14 countries will be examining the main theme of the APW and its various aspects in the worlds of business, science and culture. At the beginning of the APW, which are being held under the motto “Asia-Pacific: Partner for a Common Future”, Federal Development Minister Dirk Niebel and high-ranking representatives of German and Asian companies are discussing industry as a partner for development in the region.
Asia-Pacific Weeks
A 21-gun salute was fired to welcome a special guest: Pope Benedict XVI has arrived in Germany for his first official state visit. On his arrival at Berlin’s Tegel Airport on Thursday (22 September) the head of the Roman Catholic Church was welcomed by Federal President Christian Wulff, Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel and government and church representatives.
Pope Benedict XVI Visits Germany
Enormous colourful mythical creatures will hover over Berlin’s famous avenue: Germany’s capital city will experience a magical open-air festival along the Kurfürstendamm on 4 September 2011. A group of French artists called Plasticiens Volants are planning to use metres-high mythical animals to transform the boulevard into a fantasy world for Berliners and their guests from all over the globe.
Berlin’s Kurfürstendamm celebrates its birthday
It is one of the summer’s most popular maritime cultural festivals: the annual Hanse Sail event in Rostock. This year, the 21st international tall ships gathering is taking place from 11 - 14 August.
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Berlin boasts some thousands of imbissbuden (snack shops) selling quick food fixes from all corners of the globe. The döner kebab is by far the most popular, but the currywurst is a cult classic.
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Friedrich Ludwig Jahn held his first public gymnastics instruction at the Hasenheide park in Berlin in June 1811. This marked the birth of the German gymnastics movement, whose mission involved sport as well as politics. His followers introduced gymnastics in the US.
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The German section of Amnesty International (AI) is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the organization with a “Festival for Human Rights” on May 27 at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt (House of World Cultures) in Berlin.
Amnesty International
The beer garden (in German: Biergarten), a special type of garden restaurant, was originally
invented in Bavaria in the 19th century. The first beer gardens were merely a side effect of the brewing facilities.
Beer Garden
A beer? We can offer you 5000!
This is also true of drinking habits in the various parts of Germany: in general, but especially in north Germany, the light Pilsener with little hops is favoured. Even in Dortmund it has displaced the classic export beer. An amber coloured Alt (a top-fermented dark beer) is popular in Düsseldorf and in the Lower Rhine valleys.
German Beer
This exhibition almost makes visitors feel like astronauts in space. It enables them to see the world through the “eyes” of a satellite, giving them an impressive and unexpected perspective on the volcanoes of the Hawaiian islands, the Nile Delta or cyclones in the Pacific. The German Aerospace Centre (DLR) calls its exhibition “Auge des Himmels” (Eye in the Sky). It is made up of 30 large-format satellite images and can currently be seen in Rio de Janeiro as part of an international tour.
The world from above
Major arrival in London: the first German high-speed ICE train travelled through the Eurotunnel under the English Channel and arrived in the British capital on Tuesday (19.10). At St. Pancras’ station in London, the latest ICE train from production series 3 was formally presented by Federal Minister of Transport Peter Ramsauer, and Rüdiger Grube, chairman of the German state railway company Deutsche Bahn.
Getting to London by ICE
Berlin’s synagogues, the Jewish Museum and the Centrum Judaicum are forming the stages for the 24th Jewish Culture Days in Berlin. From classical music to klezmer, from literature to satire, the 16 events from august 26 to September 5, 2010 illustrate the wealth of facets in Jewish culture. Young cantors open up new dimensions in music that is thousands of years old. In her performances a young jazz singer breathes new life into Jewish folk songs. A photograph exhibition portrays survivors of the Holocaust and their descendants. These are just a few of the events in the festival that reaches its climax with a premiere: the “Long Night of the Synagogues” on August 28.
Jewish Life in Berlin
She’s regarded as the great hope of Bayreuth and marks the beginning of a new era in the history of the famous Wagner Festival: Katharina Wagner. At just 32 she jointly heads the world-renowned Richard Wagner Festival in Bayreuth together with Eva Wagner-Pasquier. The festival, which opened on Sunday (25.7.) for the 99th time, rolled out the red carpet in customary fashion for its many prominent guests.
The Pop Diva from the “Green Hill”
For Max Liebermann, his lakeside villa on the Wannsee was both a refuge and an inspiration: he completed more than 200 paintings there, portraying and immortalizing the house and its luxuriant garden in ever new variations. It is exactly a hundred years ago that the Jewish painter, who achieved great fame during his lifetime, moved into the house he affectionately called his “lakeside castle”.
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Is the language of SMS messages ruining they way in which we express ourselves? According to a recent poll, most Germans think it is perfectly all right to congratulate someone on their birthday in an SMS message. And then they write “Happy B-Day 2U” instead of “Happy birthday”. Is the language of SMS messages ruining they way in which we express ourselves?
Language of SMS messages
In the year it was founded, Berlin’s Humboldt University had 256 students and 52 lecturers. It has since produced 29 Nobel Prize winners and is regarded as the “mother” of all modern universities. In 2010, the university is celebrating its 200th anniversary.
Humboldt University
Queen Louise of Prussia influenced her contemporaries and modern Germany probably more than any other woman. She was often called the “Queen of Hearts” because she impressed those around her with her charm, charisma and cheerful, friendly nature. The royal couple’s comparatively simple, down-to-earth way of life and their caring relationships as spouses and parents were the reason for the Queen’s popularity, particularly among the middle class. This popularity and Louise’s premature death in 1810 at the age of 34 soon led to cult-like adulation of the Queen that continues to the present day.
Queen Louise of Prussia
The Internet has long become an integral part of the daily lives of most children and young people in Germany. Researching online for homework, looking up unfamiliar concepts on Wikipedia, and chatting with friends are the norm.
Young people in Germany also use social networks extensively.
Social Networks
On 23 January 1710, the Elector of Saxony, August the Strong, founded the first European porcelain manufactory in Meissen under the name “Royal Polish and Electoral Saxon Porcelain Manufactory”. A couple of years before, the alchemist Friedrich Böttger had been the first person in Europe to create a fine, hard-paste porcelain that closely resembled the then highly regarded porcelain imported from China.
Meissen Porcelain
Germany is one of the countries with the highest media density and the greatest press diversity in the world. Hundreds of daily newspapers, thousands of magazines and millions of active Internet users guarantee an exceptional diversity of opinion. The relationships between the individual “voices” of the different media are changing in the age of Web 2.0: whether print, television, radio, Internet, social media, books or film, the media future will be played in an orchestra.
The World of Media
Smoking chimneys and mines, coal and steel: for many decades these were the symbols of the Ruhr, Germany’s largest industrial belt. With 53 cities and around 5.3 million inhabitants, the third largest conurbation in Europe will be showing its new face as European Capital of Culture in 2010.
RUHR.2010. European Capital of Culture
That is the motto of the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) in Nuremberg. The BAMF has now presented a study on Muslim life in Germany, demonstrating once again its considerable competence in the area of migration and integration research. The survey was conducted among 6,004 persons over the age of 16 (counting other members of the households interviewed, the survey actually covers some 17,000 people). The BAMF study, commissioned by the German Islam Conference (DIK), is the first nationally representative collection of data on the subject. It confirms that Muslims form an integral part of German society.
“Concentrating on People”
Gentle Technology
Heating with the sun, energy from wind: what recently seemed utopian is now commonplace. Efficient, modern environmental technology from Germany is very much in demand. Meantime, every third solar panel and almost every second wind turbine comes from Germany.
www.dena.de
Diverse Art Market
Culture and commerce: internationally, the modern and contemporary art fair Art Cologne has the longest tradition and the greatest weight. Germany’s capital city also plays in the premier league of the European art business – with 380 galleries and the art fair Art Forum Berlin.
Top Precision
Elegant appearance, refined technology, beautiful and useful: precision products like watches, pens or spectacle frames by large German brand-name companies. Distinctive everyday accessories with characteristic top functionality.
www.designlinks.de
Ingenious Moves
Even football has a creative department: players like Michael Ballack shape the game, steering and guiding their teams from the mid-field. Striker Birgit Prinz continually finds ways to get the ball into the net, while defender Philipp Lahm invests all his energies into preventing just that.
www.bundesliga.de
Fast Links
At home on the World Wide Web: the most popular Top Level Domain on the internet after .com is .de. More than half of Germany’s net surfers have a fast, broadband connection.
www.deutschland.de
Island of Art
A unique museum landscape: five museums in the middle of Berlin, in the middle of a river – the Museum Island on the Spree is part of the world’s cultural heritage and a magnet for culture vultures. In future it will be even more attractive. The restructuring of this landscape should be complete by 2015.
www.museumsinsel-berlin.de
Maritime transport and rail transport each accounted for 6% of the transport modes.
There were about 678.000 births in Germany in 2010.
The ongoing rapid retreat of Arctic sea ice is often interpreted as the canary in the mine for anthropogenic climate change. In a new study, scientists have now systematically examined the validity of this claim. They find that neither natural fluctuations nor self-acceleration can explain the observed Arctic sea-ice retreat. Instead, the recent evolution of Arctic sea ice shows a strong, physically plausible correlation with the increasing greenhouse gas concentration. For Antarctic sea ice, no such link is found - for a good reason.
