As a reporter, Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff hitchhiked overnight to Berlin to cover the story. He is now the senior director at the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

Many residents relive their glee over the end of the hated division between East and West Germany. But there is also a growing contingent who remember the positive aspects of the socialist society in the east, including state-sponsored health care, education, and housing.  They speak with nostalgia and admiration about the lost collectivist values of East Germany.

Mike Kraus, a freelance video journalist, reports from Berlin.

So, Berlin has also played host to some of America’s greatest presidential speeches. In June 1963, President John F. Kennedy delivered his famous “Ich bin ein Berliner” address:

In 1987, President Ronald Reagan delivered his “Tear Down This Wall” speech at Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate, imploring the Soviet leader to end the Cold War:

And most recently, in July 2008, Barack Obama spoke to 200,000 Europeans about re-establishing transatlantic bonds in one of his most memorable campaign addresses:

In light of the highly-publicized murder of a pregnant Egyptian woman in Germany, Gustin discusses Muslim immigration in France, Germany and the United Kingdom with Daljit Dhaliwal.

This week, the Anne Frank Museum officially launched its own channel on You Tube. The channel has begun showing the only known film footage of Anne Frank. It was taken during a neighbor’s wedding in 1941 and shows Anne Frank leaning outside a window to get a good look at the bride and groom — a happy day, four years before Anne Frank’s death.

Guido Westerwelle

Following Sunday’s election in Germany, there is a new coalition that will govern the country for the next four years. Not only will the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel shift a bit to the right with the Free Democrats Party as its main partner, but the head of that party and the man who will become the vice chancellor — Guido Westerwelle — will become the first openly gay person to hold that position.

Is the United States ready to elect an openly gay man or woman as vice president, or even president?

Tell us what you think in the comments section below. Please remember to be respectful and on-point in your comments. Malicious or offensive comments will be deleted and repeat offenders will be banned.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user michaelthurm under a Creative Commons license.

Sunday’s vote for members of the lower house of parliament gave Merkel a comfortable center-right majority, thanks to a strong performance by the pro-business Free Democrats, who will become the key partner in Merkel’s alliance. As she prepares for a second four-year term, she made it clear that she will continue to seek consensus as Germany weathers the economic crisis.

Nikolaus Piper, a senior correspondent in New York for the German daily Suddeutsche Zeitung, joins Martin Savidge to discuss the major issues of the German election and Merkel’s victory.

The event featured a panel discussion moderated by Garrick Utley, Chairman of the American Council on Germany, and featured panelists Klaus Peter Siegloch, bureau chief of ZDF German Television, Nikolaus Piper, Senior Correspondent for the Sueddeutsche Zeitung, and Cathleen Fisher, PhD, of George Washington University.

Though the election results were expected, observers said the record low turnout suggests dissatisfaction with the current options in German politics.

The country votes for members of its lower house of parliament, who in turn choose the head of the government.

Barnaby Phillips of Worldfocus partner Al Jazeera English reports from Hamburg, a port city hit hard by the global recession.

If you’ve ever tried to zoom in from a very high to a very low altitude on Google Earth,  you will have noticed that it takes a while to process the zoom and adjust the resolution.  In addition, on the broadcast we use color overlays on our wide views of countries, which we don’t need when we zoom in close on a city.

You can see the problem in this zoom of the island of Capri, off the coast of Naples, Italy:

A nice way we found to work around this was to create two maps: one of the wider view, and one of the close-up.

Once I export these two map moves, I bring them both into Final Cut Pro and dissolve them together. Take a look at this zoom into the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin:

- Channtal Fleischfresser

Marvin Weinbaum, a scholar at the Middle East Institute and former U.S. State Department analyst on Afghanistan, discusses the potential exit strategy of U.S. allies and waning support for the fight in Afghanistan among Americans.

But despite a turnaround for those countries, much of Europe is still mired in recession.

Roben Farzad, a senior writer for BusinessWeek, joins Martin Savidge to discuss how fast the world economy is rebounding and to analyze what it will mean for the United States.

From the $787 billion stimulus package in the U.S. to China’s $586 billion, world governments are hoping that they can lay the groundwork for economic recovery. Some analysts say the worst is over.

In Japan, the downward spiral is getting steeper, with exports falling and companies slashing production. In the first quarter of the year, Japan’s economy shrank more quickly than at any time in the past 50 years. The country has pumped $154 billion in stimulus into the economy. 

With unemployment now at 4.8 percent, Brazilians of Japanese descent who were welcomed just 10 years ago as guest workers are now being offered money to take a one way ticket and go home.

Blogger “Peter” in Japan visits a town populated mostly by Brazilians and describes the hardships there: 

My daughter recently asked me if I could drive her to the nearby town of Oizumi so she could visit a friend who lived there, and I was happy to do it. In my 18 years here I’d never been to the “Brazil in Japan,” famous for having the highest percentage of nikkei Brazilians and Peruvians in the country. […]

It was certainly interesting to drive down the street and see all the businesses sporting Brazilian flags, and walking into the all-Brazilian convenience store was a good excuse to buy some interesting chocolates and something called Inca Kola. The people of the town are largely dependent on factory jobs at companies like Sanyo, and times are very hard for them right now, prompting the Japanese government to take the unprecedented step of offering financial assistance to any guest worker who wants to go home but who is unable to for economic reasons.

From Germany, where there are signs that the worst may be over, an anonymous comment on a forum reflects the continued suffering of the country’s worst recession since World War II:

I was made redundant, I have several friends in Munich that have been made redundant, no point going home cause the situation is just as bad there. The industry that I worked in is in freefall with more job loses to come. It is absolutely unbelieveable and very scary. After a masters degree and several years of experience at very good companies, I have very little chance of finding a job. It’s like someone pressed the reset button on the economy. 

In Spain, where new statistics say the country’s economy actually contracted by nearly 2 percent in the first quarter of 2009, unemployment has reached 17 percent. Blogger Alex in Spain describes his experience:

Here in Spain, unemployment has reached an all-time high. Back in March my part-time job had to cut out my English as a Second Language class because the government severely cut back on funding to adult education. Then yesterday was my partner’s last day at his job and he is now on the unemployment line.

In Africa, economies have been growing at a rate of six percent a year since 2000. But the head of the International Monetary Fund warned on Wednesday that growth on that continent will be only 1.5 percent this year.  He called Africa “an innocent victim” of the recession and asked international donors to keep their aid commitments to Africa in the coming year.

Blogger “MrK” of “Zambian Economist” argues that aid is less important than economic reform: 

What is needed is fargoing nationalisation of industries. Reinvest profits from raw materials in other economic sectors, and the economies will grow. There really is a need for economic diversification, and using the mines is the way to do it. 

Economic reform, government reform, land reform, not more ‘aid’.

From Bahrain, blogger “Mahmood” describes how consumers have reacted to high vehicle prices:

There is an active campaign in Bahrain at the moment by consumers to force greedy car dealerships to reduce their prices. It’s apparently fashioned after a Saudi campaign which some say already bore fruit.

The essence of this campaign is to not buy cars, let the stock rust if need be, until dealers take active steps to make car prices in Bahrain comparable to world markets. 

Barbados is suffering from decreased tourism and mounting government debt. A blogger at the “Living in Barbados” blog reacts to the new budget announced by Prime Minister David Thompson:

I remember when I first got here most of the criticism I heard from Mr. Thompson, when in opposition, was that the economic ills, especially rising prices, could be put at the door of the government of Mr. Owen Arthur. Now that the hat has a new wearer he is quick to point out he was having to deal with ‘circumstances not of our making’, and much blame is laid on the world recession. I don’t have a problem with that observation, but I wonder what changed in the shifting of positions.

Much of the success in economic policy is about confidence and credibility. Barbados needs foreigners’ money and it comes in three main forms–from tourists, from those setting up and operating international businesses here, and from investors in real estate on the island. My own view is that the government did not see that nothing should be done to jeopardise any of those pillars especially in the current fragile economic conditions. People are fickle when it comes to putting their money to work abroad. Tough economic conditions in the UK, Canada and the US will crimp tourists arrivals and spending. Plans by the world’s economic ‘big boys’ to rein in what they call ‘tax havens’ have had Barbados and other countries with relatively low taxes scrambling to paint themselves as less harmful. But, I think the ball was missed in making foreign property investors less welcome, and I fear that once they turn their backs it will be hard to get them to change their minds.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user glennharper under a Creative Commons license.

Michael Novacek, the provost of science at the American Museum of Natural History, joins Martin Savidge to discuss the significance of the fossil in understanding evolution.

Marcus Mabry, the international business editor of The New York Times, joins Martin Savidge to analyze the deepening economic downturn and provide a look at what comes next in the European recession.

In Germany, a poll of business executives also indicated growing confidence about economic recovery.

Roben Farzad, a senior writer and columnist for BusinessWeek magazine, joins Martin Savidge to dicuss the optimism about the global economy in Europe.

One of Germany’s biggest energy companies, RWE, is about to invest $650 million to build wind farms in Poland. Poland now relies overwhelmingly on coal to produce its electricity, but has launched a major new initiative to power itself using so-called lean energy sources.

Olav Kjorven, director for the United Nations Development Program’s Bureau for Development Policy, joins Martin Savidge to discuss how sustainable development can be encouraged in very poor countries and how, given the current global economic crisis, to counter those who say these it’s simply too costly to “go green.”

One of the big problems faced by the United States and other countries is just how to get rid of their so-called toxic assets. Germany faces a similar problem, and has considering an idea that would put all the troubled loans into a “bad bank.”

Peter Coy, the economics editor for BusinessWeek magazine, joins Martin Savidge to discuss plans in Britain and the U.S. to help troubled homeowners reduce their monthly payments, Germany’s approach to getting rid of toxic assets and China’s relative optimism about the future.

Reginald Dale, a senior fellow in the Europe program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, joins Martin Savidge to discuss this divide, the popularity of President Obama verus Candidate Obama in Western Europe and whether Russia will respond to President Obama’s pledge to ”reset” its relationship with  Russia.