Thursday, November 30, 2023

Four German News Stories

 1.  Cops this week in Bergen (north of Hannover) ended up arresting two teenagers (appear to be ages 15/16).  Charge?  There was a plan hatched up by one to steal a truck and run through a Christmas market in the area.....to kill people.

Non-German background?  Well....if you dig into this....they are Chechen.

How this was uncovered?  All cops say is that a outside-of-Germany source monitoring some chat-board....noted some comments made by one of the two.  

Terror charges?  Yeah.  But since both are juveniles....the sentence can only go up to age 20, then released.  They'd end up in a youth situation.

2.  Interesting WELT article written by Matthias Kamann today....if you can find it, I'd recommend a read.  

Basically, he lays out that a public negative sentiment is being display against the Green Party of Germany....over urban evolution that they pushing. The center of the discussion?  A lot of the current strategy is to subtract cars from inner-city use,  and give priority to public transportation and bicyclists.  

What the 'brand' of the Green Party is pushing.....isn't selling well to the general public.

3.  The budget hole for the German Finance Ministry?  For the 2024 budget, they need to cut around 17-billion Euro, and it's getting to a point where all three parties will suffer some 'pain'.

4.  Generally, if you ride a train or bus in Germany....without a ticket, the audit guys will issue a summons document, and you end up paying 60 Euro.  If you don't have the 60 Euro....you get a jail-period (usually a week or two).

Well...Wiesbaden officials are discussing continuing the fine business, but ending the jail situation....saying that usually it's poor people traveling without a ticket  and it's not right to send them off to jail.

So they say....a fine would still occur (even if they don't have the money). Not sure how this would work.  

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