Word: berliner
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...heist in Germany seems to have flouted that rule along with its moral subtext that crime doesn't pay. In January, $6.8 million worth of jewelry was snatched from the cases of Kaufhaus des Westens, a luxurious seven-story department store universally known as KaDeWe and as much a Berlin landmark as the Victory Column and the Brandenburg Gate. Three masked, gloved thieves were caught on surveillance cameras sliding down ropes from the store's skylights, outsmarting its sophisticated security system...
...North Atlantic Treaty Organization, formed in 1949 to counter Soviet expansion into the heart of Europe, started winning 20 years ago, when the Berlin Wall fell, and with it all those Soviet-installed regimes between Berlin and Sofia. So the old lady, now celebrating her 60th birthday in fine health, should have died a long time ago. When exactly? A fitting year could have been 1991, when the Soviet Union committed suicide. Or three years later, when the last Russian troops pulled out of Central Europe. No more threat, no more alliance...
Keeping the Americans in is still the most potent glue. Old NATO hands (like this author) can no longer count all those Euro-American crises and collisions that threatened to demolish the coalition about twice a year. The almost-breaking point came in 2002-03, when Paris, Berlin and Moscow joined hands against President George W. Bush and his war in Iraq. And yet the Alliance held...
...some tough questions. Germany's new Economy Minister is due to meet U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and bosses at embattled American carmaker General Motors. Opel, a Germany-based division of GM, is fast running out of cash and GM and Opel bosses recently went cap in hand to Berlin to ask for $4.25 billion in state aid. In return, GM say they will restructure Opel by cutting costs and loosening the company's ties with the parent company in Detroit. Opel would become an autonomous legal entity, half of which could end up in the hands of private investors...
...Germany has been especially reluctant to countenance any Europe-wide stimulus plan - let alone global action - despite unveiling two domestic spending packages totaling $97 billion. Berlin insists that every country's case is unique; its own preference is for guarantees and investments rather than outright bailouts, while being careful to dampen price surges (the country is still haunted by memories of hyperinflation in the 1920s). (See pictures of the dangers of printing money in Germany...