This article is about the German government deciding if they want to keep nuclear power plants open. Several of the plants were supposed to be shut down by the end of 2010. These plants have been in service since the early 1970's. It was decided at a high end meeting between German government officals, and members of the energy utilities board to keep all 17 power plants online (according to Spiegel).

The atomic power plants seem to be have been given an extension until an alternate source of power can be created. All of the power plants were given a certain number of "energy production credits" in order to determine how long the plant was to operate. According to Spiegel, the newer power plants would be able to share thier credits with the older atomic plants. The details of these shares would have to be worked out between the energy companies. There are some in the government who feel that this is a "dirty deal" made by government officals in order to make a profit from power plant lobbyists.

I chose this atricle because the enviornment is indeed a global issue. I know that in the United States there has been a huge movement over the past several decades to clean up the earth. I never followed another countries outlook on the issue and it appears that the US and Germany are on the same page, in theory. Many of the German people seem to be upset about the announcement of the power plants remaining open as opposed to cleaner sources of energy. However, the government has a completely different plan than the people of the country. In this way Germany is much like the United States. Although we have both have a system of government that allows the people to voice thier opinions, it often falls on deaf ears.

I found this article at http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,673875,00.html

Google and Full body scanners

I did my article on an interview between Spiegel and the German Justice Minister, Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger. They began to talk about how the Justice Minister believes that Google is slowly becoming a Monopoly much like Microsoft was seen as one. She feels that Google is also on the boarder of invading peoples privacy by using the Google earth technology.

I feel that she has some legitimate concerns with the way Google operates this program. You can find just about any place on the planet with this technology and get a birds eye view at any time. She also brings up a good point about how difficult it would be to place laws on something as widespread as the internet, because the jurisdiction is international.

The second half of the interview is the Justice Minister talking about the use of full body scanners in airports. It is hard to tell if she is opposed to the idea or not. It sounds like she wants to make the airports safer but is trying to keep peace with people that feel that these devices are an invasion of privacy. Personally I would not mind them at all. I would much rather know that I was that much safer on an airplane than feel embarrassed that someone might be looking under my shirt. She also talks about trying to improve security measures so that these scanners are not necessary to begin with. This is also a good idea.

I found this article at http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,671426,00.html

German Events

I am going to try to find articles that compare German culture and American culture.