Archive for August, 2008

Marc Young talks about Obama in Berlin

Miscellaneous: August 5th, 2008 by JS

Barack Obama’s recent visit to Berlin had the phones at Local HQ ringing hot, such was the huge international interest in the speech by the Democratic candidate for the US presidency. Follow this link to hear our editor Marc Young tell Wisconsin Public Radio how the Obama message went down among Germans – and why Germans remain opposed to sending more troops to Afghanistan:

Listen to the full interview here.

Autobahn aids eastern economic turnaround

Miscellaneous: August 1st, 2008 by JS

Raising living standards in the former East Germany has been a long and painful process, still incomplete nearly two decades after the country was reunited. One factor that has slowed economic development has been poor transport links in the former communist east. The Wall Street Journal has an
interesting reporton how one city has seen business boom since the arrival of the Autobahn:

Wismar was one of the earliest German cities to benefit from the A20, and it probably won’t be the last, if recent economic data are any guide. Its home state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany’s poorest, may be entering an economic turnaround because of the highway that traverses it, Germany’s first new autobahn since World War II.