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DER BLOGGER
Are the Boomers Are Heading for the Barn?
When the April figures on unemployment were released May 4, they were more than disappointing. They were deeply disturbing. While the unemployment rate had fallen from 8.2 percent to 8.1 percent, 342,000 workers had stopped looking for work. They had just dropped out of the labor market. Only 63.6 percent of the U.S. working age population is now in thelabor force, the lowest level since December 1981.
WANDERLUST
Eurostar Eyes Frankfurt Link
Eurostar is to extend its high speed rail service to link Frankfurt and Cologne via the Channel Tunnel to London within the next five years, according to a British newspaper report on Monday.
GERMERICANA
Digging into German Culture in Pennsylvania
By Chris Sholley
During the past year, a group of Lebanon Valley College students poured over German documents at the Lebanon County Historical Society of Pennsylvania as part of an advanced course in the language. They made interesting discoveries about the lives of German immigrants.
AKADEMIA
Learning and Teaching German
With the free German courses from Deutsche Welle, you can choose the learning style that suits you best: e-learning at the computer, with short videos, audio courses or podcasts, or with texts and worksheets you can print out. For DW's website, please click HERE
GERMERICA LINKS
RSS FEED
Berlin Building Imposes Islamic Law
Sun, 10/10/2010 - 20:31 —
A Berlin commercial building says more about integration in Germany than all political discussion together. As the tabloid BILD reports, the leases contain Islamic riders that prohibit certain types of businesses.
The luxury office building in Ernst-Reuter-Platz in the heart of the capital is believed to be the first building in the Western World that imposes Islamic law, or Sharia, on its renters, Bild said on Sunday.
Built in 1962 by IBM, prospective renters must agree in writing that they conduct their businesses in the spirit of Islam. That means renters must not comsume pork or alcohol, conduct insurance and interest rate-related businesses.
Bild said it received a copy of the lease from a broker who represents an Arab investor. I spells out in detail what kinds of businesses may and may not be conducted on the premises.
Also included in the prohibited activities are prostitution, the sale, production and distribution of alcohol or pork, interest-rate based banking activities, financial deals and financial services as well as insurance businesses.
Bild said the building's owner, a practicing Muslim, refuses to support businesses that violate the spirit of Islam. Therefore, prospective renters must sign the Islam rider, the tabloid said.
Violation of German law?
According to Ulrich Ropertz, and attorney at the German Tenant Association, owners of commercial buildings are free to impose restrictions that would be illegal in rental buildings. The Islamic clause probaly doesn't violate the law, he told Bild.
WAS IST LOS?
KULTUR
Celebrating Gustav Klimt
Vienna's art trade will be marking the 150th anniversary of Gustav Klimt’s birth in style. A series of special events in 2012 will pay tribute to the artist, who was a leading light in the Vienna Secession movement and a pioneer of modernism.
DAS KINO
Portrait of Wally - The Movie
A documentary about Austrian painter Egon Schiele's famous portrait of his mistress "Wally" opens Friday, in New York's Quad Cinema III. It traces the legal and emotional drama surrounding the oil painting. The following review is by Chuck Bowen of Slant.
DER STAMMTISCH
Gertrude Stein's Strange Views
By Mark Weber
Scholars of the life of Gertrude Stein were recently startled to learn that in 1938 the prominent American writer Gertrude Stein had spearheaded a campaign urging the Nobel committee to award its Peace Prize to Adolf Hitler.
FUSSBALL
