The Quiet German: The astonishing rise of Angela Merkel

[Malicious Intent]

It's a retarded proposal.

That's the CSU for you, they always like to fish for votes on the right fringe of the political spectrum.

And considering the rather unintelligible Bavarian dialect....well, you can guess that the nationwide public ridicule was rather devastating. 

[Syt]

Construction for the new airport Berlin-Brandenburg, which is planned to become the main airport for Berlin, started in 2006. Scheduled opening date: 2010.

It got delayed until June 2012. Then they realized that a whole slew of fire protection regulations weren't met, and in a lot of ways they had to go back to the drawing board.

The thing still isn't finished. The tentative opening date is given for end of 2017, maybe 2018. The budgeted construction costs of €2.86 billion have more than doubled with no end in sight.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Brandenburg_Airport

[garbon]

ThAt overrun seems pretty cheap when you consider what happened with something like the Big Dig.

[Syt]

ThAt overrun seems pretty cheap

German efficiency.

[Zanza]

ThAt overrun seems pretty cheap when you consider what happened with something like the Big Dig.

The new concert hall in Hamburg was planned to cost 77 million Euro and the latest estimate now is 789 million Euro. 

[The Larch]

Wasn't there also a massive boondongle with a train station in one of the bigger cities of Germany as well? Something to do with wanting to make the tracks go underground because they were dividing the city in two.

[Zanza]

That's the project Stuttgart 21. The train station will be rotated by 90 degrees and all tracks will be underground for kilometers. They have to build like 60km of tunnels for that. The cost estimates vary  between about 5 and 7 billion Euro...

[Duque de Bragança]

Stuttgart XXI is also linked to high-speed train line building in Southern Germany within the framework of EU transportation schemes (Paris-Budapest Magistrale), turning Stuttgart into a major rail hub, not just an end of line. The local Greens are against it since they would like the local station to keep its architecture. Yes, Greens against trains.
Thing is, for the next 5-10 years, there is going to be a lot of works in downtown Stuttgart, so it will affect people commuting.
Well, Swabians like to build and work stuff cf. schaffe, schaffe, Häusle baue so it's all part of a well-established tradition:D

[Zanza]

Thing is, for the next 5-10 years, there is going to be a lot of works in downtown Stuttgart, so it will affect people commuting.

While the area around the train station currently looks like a mining area and there will be disruptions to the subway system in the next years, it's not terrible. They mainly drill the tunnels from the outer end into the city center. They also have special roads established around the train station so that the trucks from the building site don't interfere with normal traffic.

[DGuller]

Construction for the new airport Berlin-Brandenburg, which is planned to become the main airport for Berlin, started in 2006. Scheduled opening date: 2010.

It got delayed until June 2012. Then they realized that a whole slew of fire protection regulations weren't met, and in a lot of ways they had to go back to the drawing board.

The thing still isn't finished. The tentative opening date is given for end of 2017, maybe 2018. The budgeted construction costs of €2.86 billion have more than doubled with no end in sight.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Brandenburg_Airport

The original budget for the whole fucking airport in Berlin is the same as the original budget for replacing one bridge in New York.

[Ed Anger]

They can get really cheap labor.

[Zanza]

I guess most other countries would just have opened the airport in its current state and then continued to fix it during operations. It's mostly finished, but they can't open it due to some badly designed security features.

[Syt]

After the fire at the Düsseldorf Airport in '96 I doubt they'd dare opening it without all fire regulations being fulfilled.

[Zanza]

This is currently the hottest topic in German politics: Anti-islamist, anti-asylum, anti-Europe right wing movements are on an upswing. First the political party AfD, now demonstrations by "Pegida". Let's hope this is just a flash in the pan...   

Anti-Islam 'Pegida' march in German city of Dresden

About 15,000 people have taken part in a march against "Islamisation of the West" in the east German city of Dresden.

A large counter-demonstration of more than 5,000 people was also held. No major incidents were reported.

Dresden is the birthplace of a movement called "Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West" (Pegida), which staged a big rally a week ago.

[...]

In Monday's march, protesters chanted Wir sind das Volk (we are the people) - a rallying cry used in the city in the weeks before the fall of the Berlin Wall 25 years ago.

One elderly man shouted: "I'm a pensioner. I only get a small pension but I have to pay for all these people (asylum seekers). No-one asked me!"

A woman who travelled 80km (50 miles) for the demonstration told the BBC: "I am not right wing, I'm not a Nazi. I am just worried for my country, for my granddaughter."

Earlier, Justice Minister Heiko Maas called Pegida's protests "a disgrace". But the Eurosceptic party Alternativ fuer Deutschland (AfD) is sympathetic.

"Most of their demands are legitimate," said Bernd Lucke, leader of AfD, which has campaigned for a tougher policy on immigration, as well as rejection of the euro.

In the western city of Cologne, about 15,000 people attended a demonstration on Sunday to promote tolerance and open-mindedness, under the motto: "You are Cologne - no Nazis here."

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-30478321

Supporters can be found all over the country, but protests in western Germany have so far failed to attract large numbers of supporters. In eastern Germany, however, the rallies against immigrants have quickly gained steam – despite the fact that only few foreigners currently live there.

In the center of the protests – a region called Saxony – only 2.5 percent of all inhabitants do not have German citizenship. Many western German regions, however, have a much higher foreigner ratio of about 10 percent.

"Many eastern Germans know only few or no foreigners; they are scared because they have no idea what to expect from the influx of refugees," political scientist Werner Patzelt told The Washington Post.



German authorities estimate that there are about 10,000 right-wingers all over the country who are prone to use violence, and officials have observed a recent rise in politically motivated attacks against foreigners and other minorities.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/12/16/whats-behind-the-astonishing-rise-of-an-anti-islam-movement-in-germany/

[Razgovory]

Construction for the new airport Berlin-Brandenburg, which is planned to become the main airport for Berlin, started in 2006. Scheduled opening date: 2010.

It got delayed until June 2012. Then they realized that a whole slew of fire protection regulations weren't met, and in a lot of ways they had to go back to the drawing board.

The thing still isn't finished. The tentative opening date is given for end of 2017, maybe 2018. The budgeted construction costs of €2.86 billion have more than doubled with no end in sight.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Brandenburg_Airport

The original budget for the whole fucking airport in Berlin is the same as the original budget for replacing one bridge in New York.

A bridge in New York sees more traffic.