'1984 Is Now!': Germans Protest Berlin's Rôle in NSA Spying on Snowden Day

Privacy rights activists have demonstrated across Germany against U.S. worldwide surveilance - and Berlin's role in it. The revelations by Edward Snowden, have ignited public anger among Germans who say that their government let them down - as RT's Peter Oliver reports.

Germany Donates £50m to Auschwitz
THE TELEGRAPH: Germany has donated more than £50 million to a global fund that aims to preserve the site of the Nazi German Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp in Poland.

Auschwitz: Photograph: The Telegraph
The Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum said that the 60 million euros pledged by the German government represented half the total it needs to ensure the future of the Second World War site as a permanent memorial to the Nazis' victims.

"This is a great day! The plan for the long-term preservation of this memorial is becoming a reality," said Piotr Cywinski, director of the state-run museum and head of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation which was launched earlier this year.

An Auschwitz survivor, Wladyslaw Bartoszewski - a former Polish foreign minister who is considered a moral authority in his country and set up the foundation - hailed Germany's sense of "responsibility with regard to history". >>> | Thursday, December 17, 2009

German Government Condemns Islamophobic Confab in Cologne
ISLAMIC REPUBLIC NEWS AGENCY (IRNA): The German government here Friday condemned an international Islamophobic conference due to open later in the day in the western city of Cologne.


Addressing a regular weekly press briefing, a spokeswoman for the German Interior Ministry "condemned all extremist actions" related to the so-called 'Anti-Islamization Congress', hosted by the far-right group 'Pro Koeln'.

Gabriele Hermani stressed the far-right confab would negatively impact on efforts to promote peaceful co-existence between the German state and its Muslims citizens.

Tens of thousands of people were expected to take to the streets of Cologne to protest against the three-day Islamophobic meeting.

A wide spectrum of nationwide civic groups, among them labor, student, church and anti-racism groups, were due to join the protests and mass blockades.

Initial media reports pointed to a tense situation near the conference site, as counter-demonstrators were hoping to disrupt the anti-Islam meeting.

Efforts to ban the event failed because of legal reasons, according to Cologne Police President Klaus Steffenhagen.

Under surveillance by Germany's domestic Verfassungsschutz intelligence agency,`Pro Koeln` has invited around 1,000 right-wing extremists to the disputed meeting in Cologne, among them leading far-right politicians from the US, France, Austria, Belgium, Britain, Spain and Italy.

A major focus of 'Pro Koeln' has been its controversial opposition to the planned construction of a central mosque for Cologne's nearly 150,000-strong Muslim community.

‘Pro Cologne' has five seats in Cologne's 90-member city council.
There are 3.5 million Muslims living in Germany of which 2.5 million are Turks. [Source: IRNA] | September 19, 2008

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