Deborah Cole
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Articles by Deborah Cole
Bring a bottle: Viennese dog owners told to dilute their pets’ urine to protect trees
Trees planted in Vienna to mitigate the effects of the climate crisis are at risk from the ammonia in dog urine. Photograph: Michael Brooks/Alamy A neighbourhood in Vienna has introduced guidelines for dog walking, including the use of bottled tap water to rinse away urine and protect vulnerable trees. Neubau, an up-and-coming, densely populated district dotted with cafes and galleries, rolled out the Schönes Gassi (nice dog walk) campaign this week.
German minister quits after death of stepdaughter and political attacks
Deborah Cole in Berlin Germany's labour minister and co-leader of the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD), Bärbel Bas, has quit both posts, citing the death of her stepdaughter and subsequent political attacks against her, in a stinging blow to the fragile coalition government. “After my stepdaughter's death, I realised that I need time to come to terms with my grief,” Bas said in a statement posted on Facebook, without giving further details.
‘Stab to the heart’: arrest of German ex-spymaster sparks calls for reform
The ex-spymaster August Hanning once criticised Germany’s own intelligence services as “vegetarians” among prowling carnivores, demanding broader powers to keep the country safe in a treacherous world. Often described as a “godfather” of Germany’s 21st-century security architecture, Hanning is now charged with treasonous espionage and handing state secrets to a foreign power in one of the most spectacular alleged intelligence breaches of the postwar period.
‘Stab to the heart’: arrest of German ex-spymaster sparks calls for reform
August Hanning photographed in 2015, five years after he left the federal foreign intelligence service. Photograph: Michael Kappeler/DPA/AP The ex-spymaster August Hanning once criticised Germany’s own intelligence services as “vegetarians” among prowling carnivores, demanding broader powers to keep the country safe in a treacherous world.
Green party of England and Wales facing ostracism over ‘Zionism is racism’ vote
The English and Welsh Greens are facing international ostracism after adopting a policy declaring Zionism as a form of racism, which has drawn dismay from the group representing European Greens. The co-leader of the German Greens separately said the policy was "intolerable and unacceptable", running contrary to its belief in the right of Israel to exist. The binding policy motion passed in a vote at the Greens' conference in Brighton on Sunday. Four of the party's five MPs opposed it.
The German town where the right has banned new ‘stumbling stones’ for Nazi victims
The town hall of Heidenau, Germany has a freshly restored cream-coloured facade, tidy flower boxes on the windowsills and a charming shingled clocktower. At the entrance, closer inspection reveals a single brass plaque embedded in the pavement honouring the former mayor Paul Gröger, whom the Nazis hounded into killing himself. The plaque is one of 128,000 Stolpersteine (stumbling stones) across Europe, a donor-funded project keeping alive the memory of individual victims of the Nazi era.
‘A joyful place’: a new museum coaxes Austrians to embrace The Sound of Music
‘A few of my favourite things’: The Sound of Music was not a big hit in Salzburg, where the film is set. Photograph: GRANGER/Historical Picture Archive/Alamy Let’s start at the very beginning – famously, a very good place to start. Just two decades after the second world war, a Hollywood crew descended on Salzburg with stars, show tunes and a compelling, essentially true story of love and opposition to Adolf Hitler: The Sound of Music.
Friedrich Merz vows to stay in office after CDU ‘disaster’ in German state elections
Germany’s embattled chancellor, Friedrich Merz, has vowed to stay in office and fight for future-proofing economic reforms despite heavy losses for his conservatives in two state elections, one to the far right and the other to a leftwing party. Preliminary results indicated Merz’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) tallied just over the 5% threshold to enter the state parliament in the coastal region of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, its worst-ever state score, which he called a “disaster”.
Future of German chancellor hangs in the balance as two states go to polls
Deborah Cole in Berlin Voters in two German states are going to the polls with the political future of the embattled chancellor, Friedrich Merz, hanging in the balance and an emboldened far right targeting further gains.
European education powerhouses rocked by falling scores in global study
France's were its worst ever. Germany's, too. In the Netherlands, results also tumbled to all-time lows. Even in Finland, Europe's much-vaunted schools champion and a global leader for decades, scores plummeted. The 2025 Pisa scores, which assess how effectively 15-year-olds apply school-learned knowledge and skills in reading, mathematics and science to real-life situations, have rocked some of western Europe's education powerhouses.
Firewall compromised: has Friedrich Merz blown ‘democracy’s last shot’?
A cataclysm. A 9.0 earthquake. A five-alarm fire. A bitter rejection of Germany's joyous reunification three decades ago, and a threat to the democratic postwar order. Sizing up the repercussions of last weekend's win for the far-right Alternative für Deutschland party in the former communist state of Saxony-Anhalt, German commentators expressed a sense of doom, panic and helplessness in the political establishment. With nearly 44% of the vote, the AfD fell three seats short of an absolute majority.
German chancellor accuses far-right AfD party of seeking ‘ethnic cleansing’
Germany's chancellor, Friedrich Merz, has accused the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) of seeking "ethnic cleansing" with its "remigration" drive, after the nativist party's seismic weekend victory in a state election. In his first public confrontation with the AfD since Sunday's shock outcome in Saxony-Anhalt, Merz said at a raucous parliamentary debate that the far-right party would take an axe to one of the pillars of the German economy with a racist campaign of mass deportations.
Anti-AfD protests sweep Germany as far right closes in on two more states
Thousands of Germans have staged protests against the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) after the party's watershed victory in a state election, warning it posed a danger in two more polls this month. Demonstrators at Berlin's Brandenburg Gate held a peaceful pro-democracy rally denouncing the anti-immigrant, pro-Russian AfD, which has called for mass deportations of asylum seekers and a rollback of state support for renewable energy and public broadcasting.
German chancellor vows to stay in office despite AfD triumph in state election
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German chancellor vows to stay in office despite AfD triumph in state election
A “shocked” and chastened Friedrich Merz has vowed to stay in office despite the far right’s triumph in a state election that has brought anti-immigrant, pro-Kremlin politicians within striking distance of power. The German chancellor, appearing ashen-faced in front of reporters in Berlin, said on Monday that the landslide victory by the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) in Saxony-Anhalt had shaken his conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) “to its very foundations”.
‘My work has always been serious’: Maurizio Cattelan on his $6m banana, his gold toilet – and bringing Hitler and a pope to Berlin
Maurizio Cattelan, the art world’s merriest prankster, pauses when asked which object in his sprawling new Berlin show is most likely to be defaced, stolen or eaten, then emits a foghorn of a laugh. “There is no need to vandalise anything,” says the trim, soulful Italian, explaining that he has already taken care of all that, given how the work cuts villains, imposters and straw men down to size.
Goodbye to Babylon Berlin, the 1920s TV drama that has eerily foreshadowed real-life politics
It's the global hit TV series that pulled audiences straight into the chaotic hedonism of 1920s Germany, dramatising the brilliance and brittleness of a newly built democratic system with unprecedented ambition. But in the 13 years that the German makers of Babylon Berlin have worked on the show, modern democracies from the US to Hungary to South Korea have come under pressure in ways the creators say they could never have imagined when they started.
Egyptian queen’s 673-diamond necklace stolen in Vienna smash-and-grab raid
Austrian police are hunting two men alleged to have stolen a 200-carat platinum necklace encrusted with 673 diamonds that was on loan to a museum in Vienna and once belonged to Egyptian royalty. Authorities in the capital released pictures of the suspects captured by security cameras during the heist at the Museum of Applied Arts (MAK), amid a rash of spectacular smash-and-grab thefts from European cultural institutions.
The Nazis drove Bauhaus out of town. Now the far right is waging another war against the movement
The city of Dessau, where the Bauhaus design school flourished a century ago, catapulted Germany into the modern era and revolutionised global design. It is also where the Nazis drove the avant garde movement out of town and attempted to crush its utopian principles. A hundred years later, another high-stakes culture war over its legacy is looming.
‘Fix that little spot’: Danish PM receives beauty tips even when in a war zone
Sick of getting unsolicited beauty tips on social media, even while she’s in a war zone, Danish prime minister Mette Frederiksen rebuffed a male cosmetic surgeon’s offer to “fix” her and advised women in similar situations to embrace self-acceptance.
Gun stash in German forest believed to be linked to Russia, say reports
Deborah Cole in Berlin Germany is seeking to extradite a suspect from Romania over the discovery of an underground stash of weapons in a forest near Berlin that German media reports have linked to Russian intelligence.
Germany approves lifting curbs on spy agencies in security ‘revolution’
The German government has approved a draft law aimed at lifting many of the restraints on its spy agencies imposed during the postwar period as the country reels from two attacks in a month that have exposed serious security gaps. The controversial changes, which must still pass parliament, largely comply with a wishlist pulled together by the foreign and domestic intelligence services, which have long complained Germany lags behind its allies and enemies.
US intelligence ‘believes Russia was behind Leipzig airport drone bomb’
American intelligence experts believe Russia was behind an attack on a German airport last week with a drone laden with explosives, US media have reported, as Berlin remained silent on the likely culprit. Last week’s security emergency prompted the interior minister, Alexander Dobrindt, to break off his summer holiday in Italy and rush to the scene in the eastern city of Leipzig, as he spoke of a “new level of danger” for Germany.
Leipzig drone bomb was found near Ukrainian plane carrying ammunition, say police
A catastrophe with multiple casualties was possibly narrowly averted by the discovery of a drone carrying explosives at Leipzig airport, German officials said, as they examined whether a foreign state could be behind the plot. One of the Ukrainian aircraft next to where the bomb drone was found was loaded with military ammunition, according to a classified police report quoted by the public broadcasters WDR and NDR and the Süddeutsche newspaper.
Drone found at German airport after cargo plane collides with object mid-air
A DHL cargo plane was forced to make an emergency landing after colliding with an unknown object as it was climbing away from Germany's Leipzig airport, where police later found a drone on the ground. The German government on Wednesday confirmed the incident, which led to serious disruption of air traffic. The Federal Bureau of Aircraft Accident Investigation said the DHL aircraft hit something above Leipzig airport before safely landing in Hanover.
Drone found at German airport after cargo plane collides with object mid-air
A video grab taken from a footage by the channel News5 on 5 August shows a bomb disposal robot deployed by police at Leipzig-Halle airport in Germany after a drone was found near a Ukrainian-flagged cargo plane overnight. Photograph: News5/AFP/Getty Images A DHL cargo plane was forced to make an emergency landing after colliding with an unknown object as it was climbing away from Germany’s Leipzig airport, where police later found a drone on the ground.
Drone found at German airport after cargo plane collides with object mid-air
A DHL cargo plane was forced to make an emergency landing after colliding with an unknown object as it was climbing away from Germany’s Leipzig airport, where police later found a drone on the ground. The German government on Wednesday confirmed the incident, which led to serious disruption of air traffic. The Federal Bureau of Aircraft Accident Investigation said the DHL aircraft hit something above Leipzig airport before safely landing in Hanover.
Cancer survivors need protection from future discrimination, say German politicians
German politicians who have survived cancer have spearheaded proposals to protect people long in remission from what they call rampant discrimination in areas including bank loans, adoption of children and insurance. The policy known as “the right to be forgotten” (RTBF) is a central demand of a community estimated to number 5.5 million people in Germany: former cancer patients who have been given a clean bill of health by their doctors.
Lost income, energy fears and a woolly mammoth: what Europe’s dried-up rivers have yielded
Sat, 1 August 2026 at 11:00 am UTC The dried-up Danube in Budapest, Hungary.Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images Baking temperatures and drought across large swathes of central and eastern Europe have driven water levels on the Danube and Rhine rivers to record lows in some areas, hitting shipping, energy production and tourism hard. Extreme conditions aggravated by the climate emergency left Europe’s waterways from the Netherlands to the Black Sea parched, triggering compounding crises.
‘A symbol of resistance’: the fight to save treehouse built on no man’s land next to Berlin Wall
Sometimes the currents of history converge in a single spot. In Berlin, one of the most intriguing of those places is a small traffic island with a lovingly tended garden and a ramshackle two-storey structure called the Treehouse at the Wall. In 1983, Osman Kalin, a Turkish “guest worker”, was looking in his corner of the city cleaved by the Berlin Wall for a patch of earth in which to plant his onions, garlic and cucumbers.
Embattled German chancellor chooses papal pageturner for his beach read
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Embattled German chancellor chooses papal pageturner for his beach read
Updated Thu, 30 July 2026 at 12:07 pm UTC Friedrich Merz has faced a string of setbacks since becoming Germany’s chancellor 14 months ago.Photograph: Ebrahim Noroozi/AP Summer is normally thought of as the time for pacy potboilers and brain-soothing pageturners – airport reads that wind up sandy and sunscreen-stained. Not so for Friedrich Merz’s holiday reading list.
German officials call for tighter extremism laws after Berlin Pride attack
German officials have called for a tightening of laws for known extremists after a deadly attack in Berlin on one of Europe’s biggest Pride parades, as the far right seeks to mobilise outraged voters before three key state elections.
Police shoot dead Berlin Pride van and knife rampage suspect, officials say
A man suspected of driving a van into a crowd near Berlin's Pride festival then going on a knife rampage in an Islamist terror attack has been shot dead by police, German officials have said. Police confirmed on Sunday evening that the chief suspect had been shot dead, reportedly during an operation at an allotment garden complex in the capital's Spandau district.
One killed and 16 injured after van crashes into crowd at Berlin Pride
The German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, vowed to punish those responsible after a car struck people on the outskirts of Berlin's Gay Pride celebrations, killing at least one person and wounding 16 others. A suspected perpetrator of the apparent attack on Saturday night has been identified as a member of the city's “Islamist scene” but he has not yet been arrested, a Berlin police spokesperson said.
One killed and 16 injured after van mows into crowd at Berlin Pride
Original Article Posted By: Dreadnought, 7/25/2026 8:20:14 PM The German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, vowed to punish those responsible after a car struck people on the outskirts of Berlin's Gay Pride celebrations, killing at least one person and wounding 16 others. The attack on Saturday night forced organisers to cut short one of Europe's largest Pride events and comes as Germany remains on edge after a series of deadly vehicle and knife attacks in recent years.
Police hunt for suspect after one killed and 16 injured in attack at Berlin Pride
German authorities have issued a wanted notice for a suspect in a deadly van ramming near Berlin’s Pride festival that has been described as an Islamist attack. The interior minister, Alexander Dobrindt, named the chief suspect as 21-year-old Abdul Ballout. German media reported he was a supporter of Islamic State with a criminal conviction in May. Dobrindt said all the evidence surrounding Saturday night’s attack, which left one person dead and at least 16 wounded, pointed to Islamist terrorism.
Austria opens police station at Hitler birthplace to deter neo-Nazi tourists
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Austria opens police station at Hitler birthplace to deter neo-Nazi tourists
Austria has opened a police station in the birthplace of Adolf Hitler in an attempt to “neutralise” its toxic legacy, after years of debate over how to stop neo-Nazis visiting it as a pilgrimage site. Hitler was born on 20 April 1889 in a rented flat of the building in the town centre of Braunau am Inn and spent the first weeks of his life there.
Berlin man charged with 22 counts of raping unconscious women and filming the assaults
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Berlin man charged with 22 counts of raping unconscious women and filming the assaults
A Berlin man has been charged with nearly two dozen counts of raping unconscious women and filming the acts, while investigators believe based on video evidence that the suspect may have attacked up to 60 victims. In the latest of a series of high-profile cases involving the serial rape of unwitting targets on camera, Berlin prosecutors said they have indicted the 68-year-old German national on 22 counts of sexual assault of 14 women.
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