LIVING IN GERMANY

Germany is facing a shortage of medical care personnel for its aging population. One vocational school hopes to equip refugees with the skills to tackle the problem, reports Wesley Dockery. Eight refugee students are gathered around a dummy that looks like an elderly woman. An instructor tells the group that the dummy is named Frau Müller and suffered a stroke. …

Odijie Irabor has achieved his life-long dream by qualifying as a technician in Automotive Mechatronics (Kraftfahrzeugmeachtronik). Odijie was presented his certificate on Wednesday (12 July) in the western German city of Marl after successfully completing a 3-year training course at the SBH Bildungsgesellschaft mbH Gelsenkirchen, during which he acquired skills across automotive-specific mechanics, electronics, communication and advanced control.   Automotive Mechatronics, …

The footage shocked Germany and went viral. CCTV cameras caught a man kicking a woman down some stairs at the Berlin metro station – Hermannstrasse – in an unprovoked attack. The incident took place in October 2016 but the video only emerged in December. Police had released the video in a bid to get public help to track down the …

Amidst African community outrage, police in Munich have launched investigations into an incident in which two security guards were filmed forcefully removing a man from a metro train. The man, said to be a 48-year-old Nigerian, was reportedly removed from the train at Leuchtenbergring station. He appeared to have no valid ticket as the inspectors came up to him during …

Germany’s federal parliament has voted by a wide margin to legalise same-sex marriage.  The Bundestag voted by 393 to 226 on Friday (30 June) to give full marital rights to homosexual couples and allow them to adopt children. The vote came after Chancellor Angela Merkel changed her mind and said members of her ruling conservative CDU/CSU bloc should follow their …

The German Bundestag, the lower house of parliament, has voted to fine social media networks up to €50 million if they fail to remove hateful content or fake news. The networks will be given 24 hours to block or delete any inappropriate content. “Freedom of speech ends where criminal law begins,” Justice Minister Heiko Maas said, adding that the measure …

An increasing number of old people in Germany face the risk of being stuck in poverty in the coming years, says a new study. Single women, low-skill workers and long-term unemployed are among those starkly affected. The changes taking place in the German labour market in favour of temporary jobs, contract workers and precarious working conditions in the low-wage sector, …

There is a lot of false information circulating on the internet about life in Germany, giving a wrong impression to refugees and potential migrants. In the DW series “Fact check: rumours about Germany”, the German international broadcaster responds to these rumours and provides you with verified facts and figures! Manasi Gopalakrishnan / © DW

A District Court (Landgericht) in the western city of Aachen has ordered the operator of a fitness studio chain to pay a compensation of 2,500 euros to an African as damages for discriminating against him. The man had been repeatedly refused membership in a fitness studio in Aachen owned by EasyFit in a way the court found to have contravened …

The struggle of the Black community in Berlin to have streets named after controversial figures of German colonialism in Africa changed seems to have finally started yielding fruits. For the first time an extensive renaming of streets connected with German colonialism in the federal capital will be carried out. Sabine Weissler (Greens), councillor for culture, said on Wednesday that new …

 The Embassy of Kenya in Berlin is inviting all Kenyans living in Germany to its annual general meeting with citizens – Kenyan Diaspora Day – on Saturday, 3 June 2017 in Frankfurt am Main. The event, which will be hosted by Ambassador Joseph Magutt, will also be attended by senior officials from the Kenya Private Sector Alliance, Nairobi Securities Exchange, …

The western German town of Altena has been honoured for its contribution towards the integration of immigrants into German society. The prize includes a cash award of 10,000 euros. Speaking to the town’s representatives while awarding the National Prize for Integration in Berlin on Wednesday, Chancellor Angela Merkel said that integration was the most successful where people are able to …

Germany’s Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (Bundesamt für Migration und Flüchtlinge or BAMF) has issued a warning to asylum-seekers in the country to beware of dupers who may call them to demand money for a favourable result on their asylum request or to prevent their deportation. “The Federal Office has been informed that persons are being threatened again by …

The German parliament has passed legislation to tighten the country’s asylum laws, making it easier to deport failed asylum-seekers and monitor those deemed dangerous to public security in a move that has been slammed by opposition parties and rights groups as an assault on the rights of refugees. These are the new regulations in the legislation passed by the federal …

Eastern Germany is a hotspot for far-right attitudes and racist hate crimes in part because it was long a closed-off communist society with few immigrants, a new study said Thursday (18 May). The government commissioned the paper on why the region, formerly part of the Soviet bloc, has seen a disproportionate number of attacks against foreigners amid Germany’s large migrant …

A Libyan asylum-seeker has been sentenced to a prison term for grabbing the buttocks of a German woman against her will. According to the report of the German press agency, DPA, the man was the first to be convicted for such a crime since the tightening of the sexual harassment law in Germany. The 27-year-old Libyan was sentenced to a …

A German court has sided with state authorities who cut benefits to a Cameroon national after the man refused to help clear bureaucratic hurdles for his deportation. The man’s asylum request was rejected 13 years ago. The migrant should only be provided with “bare necessities” to ensure his survival, the Federal Social Welfare Court (Bundessozialgericht) in Kassel said on Friday …

A newspaper report citing federal police statistics has indicated the number of potential terrorists in Germany is increasing. More than 600 people are considered capable of carrying out an attack.  According to a report in the “Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung” newspaper published on Thursday (11 May), the number of people in Germany considered by authorities to be at risk of becoming …

In a bid to increase the number of asylum-seekers choosing to leave Germany voluntarily, the country’s Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) and the International Organisation for Migration on Thursday (11 May) launched www.returningfromgermany.de, a new online portal providing information for those interested in voluntarily returning to their home country. ReturningFromGermany.de expands on a similar scheme that started in …

A new study has revealed that a majority of Germans do not approve of their country taking in more asylum seekers. The country took in around 890,000 refugees in 2015. According to a representative survey conducted by the Bertelsmann foundation, 54 per cent of the respondents said Germany had reached the limit as far as accepting asylum seekers was concerned. …