I already really enjoyed pre-election advertisements in Germany (like Merkelwitze) and was almost a bit sad not to be in the country over the last weeks, but after Germany’s federal election yesterday, reading the newspapers is almost even more hilarious.
Both major parties, the Christian Democrats (CDU) and Social Democrats (SPD) reached about the same percentage of votes, with the leading opposition party lead by Angela Merkel just about 1% or 3 parliament seats ahead of Schroeder’s SPD. This deadlock of votes means that a big discussion about coalition building has started in Germany (for a good overview of possible coalitions have a look at the Guardian’s Jostling at the traffic lights). One possibility is a “Jamaica coalition” made up of the Christian Democrats (black), the Greens and the Free Democrats (Yellow) – which of course has already inspired a lot of people to come up with funny advertisements and jokes.
One of them is an advertisement of a phone company called 11880.com which I found on the website of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. The ad shows Angela Merkel waving a little Jamaican flag and asks visitors to click on the ad to find cheap flights for Angie to Jamaica.
In another article of the German newspaper Der Spiegel a bout the outcome of the election a picture of palm trees is shown, subtitled: “Simply beautiful: Beaches, lots of sun-shine and a new romance. Is it possible for three as well?”
The webforum of the Green party has more serious discussions to offer about Jamaica. One entry warns that the party should have a closer look at the flag, which has two black and two green triangles while the rest of the flag is being dominated by a big yellow cross. Therefore, if such a coalition becomes reality, so the author of the forum entry, he would leave the party. For all of you who speak German, I really recommend having a look at the webforum of the Green party or any other webforums of German’s main political parties – if it wouldn’t be such a serious topic, it would make for a good evening entertainment!
Lastly, I found it very amusing that Marcia Y. Gilbert-Roberts, Ambassador of Jamaica to Germany, told the Financial Times Deutschland today that, in case CDU, FDP and the Greens decide upon a Jamaica-Coalition, they would all be warmly welcome to her country!
I really can’t wait to find more stuff like that popping up on the Internet and in the news over the next days! And to all of you I can only say: don’t wonder if you get a lot of links to German websites when googling for Jamaica over the next days – we Germans are just a little crazy, especially during times like these ;-)

It’s really interesting to follow the news these days about whether the US should ask foreign countries to send aid for the Katrina hurricane victims.

The latest article that I found about the discussion is this one in the USA Today.

There are a few statements in the article, which really made me laugh. First of all consider this: “Venezuela, a target of frequent criticism by the Bush administration, offered humanitarian aid and fuel.” Can you imagine? One of America’s greatest enemies is offering the country aid and fuel – and apparently, the US is accepting it.

But at the same time, Russian aid seems to be unwelcome: “However, in Moscow, a Russian official said the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency had rejected a Russian offer to dispatch rescue teams and other aid.” – Back to the Cold War?

And then there is the general question of whether the US should accept foreign aid at all – after reading through the latest amendments made by US ambassador Bolton to the draft outcome document of the Millennium Summit, which is going to take place in 10 days in New York, one must be convinced that the US doesn’t believe in aid, so it actually makes sense that Bush is playing all cool, saying that they never asked for aid (but of course wouldn’t reject it, if countries really want to offer some cash…):

“Still, Bush told ABC-TV: ‘I'm not expecting much from foreign nations because we hadn't asked for it. I do expect a lot of sympathy and perhaps some will send cash dollars. But this country's going to rise up and take care of it.’

‘You know,’ he said, ‘we would love help, but we're going to take care of our own business as well, and there's no doubt in my mind we'll succeed. And there's no doubt in my mind, as I sit here talking to you, that New Orleans is going to rise up again as a great city.’"

It seems like Bush is almost to proud to accept anything from foreign countries… Or maybe he is just afraid of those countries asking for a favor in return later on?

I received the folllowing news bit this morning with the Berlin briefing of the Economist:

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No-fly zone

Germany's government has banned private pilots from flying over central Berlin after a first-world-war replica plane crashed near government buildings on July 22nd, sparking fears of a terrorist attack. Police identified the dead pilot as Volker Klawitter, a man who had been under investigation over the disappearance of his wife (her body was later found at Mr Klawitter's home in East Berlin). Mr Klawitter is reported to have told a neighbour he was going to do something big that day.

Opposition politicians were quick to criticise security around the Reichstag and Federal Chancellery. From now onwards, unarmed police helicopters will be stationed outside the city to deal with potential suicide attacks. The hot-air balloon in Potsdamer Platz, which offers tourists views of Berlin, was also grounded—but rose again on August 5th after the city decided to treat it as an exceptional case.
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Why do poeple still think that doing something stupid like crashing an airplane near a government building (not to mention, killing your own wife...) is "something big"????? I wish people who are trying to catch some attention would rather direct their energies to being real martyrs by changing the world to the positive... Oh well...