Saturday, July 22, 2017

German News, Saturday

Air Berlin woes: Focus article.  Focus put up a business article and talked with an expert on the sour business with Air Berlin.  Their suggestion was that they'd advise people not to buy tickets with the airline more than six months out.  As they say....you just don't know if it'll still be around.  If I were using their logic....maybe I wouldn't even buy a ticket more than two weeks out.  They need to be bought by someone who has some cash flow and willing to wait out till BER (the new Berlin Airport) opens.  Since BER's status is still not that great, there just isn't any interest in buying Air Berlin.

Frankfurt crane in jeopardy of tipping over:  HR article.  If you travel through Frankfurt, one of the things you will notice will be the quantity of tall cranes around the city.....as massive construction is going on.  Well....issues developed yesterday and one of the cranes is almost ready to fall over.  Cops evacuated the area, and construction folks have stabilized the crane to some degree.  They are hoping to take apart the crane today (Saturday).

No-handshake episode: SWR article.  A male Islamic policeman was in the process of a promotion, and like most German cop organizations....there's a ceremony with other cops there.  And a female cop came to offer her handshake (a tradition)....which he refused (religious grounds).  You can guess the sequence after that.  There's been a complaint lodged and the leadership will have to evaluate the guy and his no-handshake-with-women future.  You have to wonder....there is a recruitment process, evaluations, tests, and then more than a year in a German police academy....how did this guy get so far and this no-handshake thing didn't come up or get noticed?  Added to this whole story....the guy in question is a minister on the side as well....although his group isn't noted for any radical tendency.  There is a 'wavier' written up into the Koran for events like this....when you live in the 'west' (non-believers)....you need to act within their customs and traditions.  If he doesn't shift on this, I think he's probably finished within the cop profession.

Travel agencies warn:  SWR article.  With all the words this week by the German leadership on Turkey and advising people that it's getting to a point of questioning your safety if you did go on a trip there.....a travel expert was consulted by SWR.  He says that you don't have many options if you already booked a trip to Turkey.  It would be different if Germany made Turkey a no-go area....but they haven't done that....they merely suggest that your safety isn't absolutely assured.  Generally, if you go and just stay in your resort, it's 100-percent safe.  If you went on the optional day-tours and ended up at some rally or cops came to question your status....then your safety rate drops.  No one has said that German tourists are being rounded up or detained, and other than long-term German-Turks living around Turkey....I can't think of anyone of a German citizenship being hauled off to jail.

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