During the historic times, it was truly a stroke of luck when the iron curtain slowly lifted that we Germans were able to rely on you, George Bush, who was president of the United States. When the opportunity for reunification became clearer and drew closer, and when others were still skeptical and hesitant, it was you and your government who encouraged and supported us and helped us on the road toward unification. Mr. President, you will always have a special place in the book of German history.

As this audience knows, both Margaret and Francois had reservations about a unified Germany. In fact, at one point Mitterrand jokingly told me, "I like Germany so much, I think there should be two of them!"

We will never forget the essential role you played, as we won't forget the Marshall Plan, we won't forget the Berlin Airlift, or John F. Kennedy's 'Ich bin ein Berliner' or Ronald Reagan's 'Mister Gorbachev, tear down this wall, open up this gate.' Mr. President, thank you for what you and the American people have done for us and for being our guests of honor tonight.

America will commemorate its 400th anniversary in 2007, when the first settlement was established along the banks of the James River. The first Germans who arrived in Jamestown in 1608 were among the earliest settlers. During the year, we will also look back on 400 years of transatlantic relations, mutual enrichment, and shared experiences across the Atlantic. Truly a time to celebrate! I would like to take this opportunity to thank all those German-Americans who work so hard to preserve our German heritage, culture, and language in the United States.

Ronald Neumann, who has survived two attempts on his life this year, said European nations must not turn "coward" and "run away" from fighting terrorism in Afghanistan. In an interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel, Mr Neumann said some Europeans "obviously resist the idea that you have an army in order to fight. And I have very little patience for that". (...)
In Germany the lower house of parliament voted by a large margin to extend the peacekeeping mandate of the 2,750 German troops serving with Nato for a further year. The German foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, told the Bundestag that Nato had no choice but to stay. "Afghanistan is only lost if we give it up," he said. (...)
Spanish officials briefed the Madrid press that their government -- in conjunction with France, Germany and Belgium -- had seen off a request from the military commander of Nato, Gen James Jones, to mobilise ground forces from the "Eurocorps" -- a rapid reaction force made up of troops from several European nations. Spanish sources told El Pais newspaper that the four European nations had told Gen Jones the rapid reaction force was for unforeseen emergencies, and not for propping up an existing mission.

Five years after the world stood "shoulder to shoulder" with America in the aftermath of 9/11, The Times has learnt that many of the countries that pledged support then have now ignored an urgent request for more help in fighting a resurgent Taleban and its al-Qaeda allies. Turkey, Germany, Spain and Italy have all effectively ruled out sending more troops.

"Germany, with about 2,800 troops in Afghanistan, was already involved in "sharp-end" operations in the north and had quietly contributed special forces to counter-insurgency missions further south, said Constanze Stelzenmüller, a security specialist at the German Marshall Fund in Berlin. "There is already a very robust engagement. And although there is public criticism, there is an understanding that we have to get the job done. What we are seeing is very usual. Nato can't quite bring itself to commit sufficient forces. But everyone knew that once Nato took over from the US, things would get a lot tougher. One reason is the drug trade. It is not a counter-insurgency on the scale of Iraq. It's more about money and local warlord power than ideology." Stabilising Afghanistan was "do-able", she said. And she predicted Germany would do more if necessary.

President Bush and Ambassador Timken have officially thanked the German government for this timely and effective assistance. But has any trace of these official communications made it into print, or into our wall-to-wall television coverage? (...) The only significant mention of the German effort that I found anywhere in the US media was an eight-paragraph press release from US Northern Command. As far as I can tell, no actual news stories were written based on that press release.

Remember those estimates that it would take three to six months to pump the water out of New Orleans? Just ten days after those estimates were made, the city is more or less dry. There is a story behind this news. It has to do with a large contingent of German volunteers who came to play a major role in the rescue of New Orleans.

In the face of Iran's race to obtain nuclear power, Israel signed a contract with Germany last month to buy two Dolphin-class submarines that will, according to foreign reports, provide superior second-strike nuclear capabilities, The Jerusalem Post has learned. (...) The contract signing was said to have come after a long dispute over the price and financing of the submarines. According to the details obtained by the Post, Israel will purchase the two Dolphins, manufactured by Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft AG, for $1.27 billion, a third of which will be financed by the German government.

Israelis will be able to sleep better once these impressive machines are slicing silently through the dangerous waters far from our shores. Added to the three other [German] submarines of their class already in service with the navy, the newcomers will greatly enhance the long-range capabilities of our increasingly formidable sea defenses. The first three vessels - the INS Dolphin, INS Leviatan and INS Tekuma, ushered into Haifa Bay in 1999 and 2000 - are significantly larger than Israel's 30-year-old Gal-class submarines, significantly more advanced and significantly better armed. These new additions, scheduled to arrive within two years, are even more so. (...)
That Germany is steadfastly opposing an Iranian nuclear weapons program, while at the same time building advanced submarines for Israel, is profoundly important - for the future, and because of the past. (…)
The stance of the German government underlines a radical transformation for that country's people. While their grandparents' generation perpetrated the Holocaust, and the previous generation paid for the Holocaust with reparations to its victims, the current generation is helping prevent a second Holocaust by providing the IDF with some of the most important defensive weapons systems in its arsenal. As far as corrective steps go, that's a huge one.

A delegation of 30 young soccer players participating in the World Cup Sports Initiative organized by the U.S. State Department will travel to Germany June 21-23 to attend the FIFA World Cup match between Ghana and the United States and engage in program activities in Nuremberg and Frankfurt (Main). The boys and girls, ages 13-18, represent the following 13 countries: Afghanistan, Bahrain, Bolivia, China, Indonesia, Lebanon, Malaysia, Morocco, Nigeria, Pakistan, South Africa, Uganda, and Uzbekistan. U.S. Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Karen Hughes will join the young soccer players in Nuremberg to attend the Ghana-USA game on June 22.

Eddie Johnson says he sees similarities between his team and the soldiers he will be surrounded by when the United States stays in the Ramstein Air Base for Saturday's match against Italy in Kaiserslautern. "It's like us in the World Cup," the 22-year-old Johnson told reporters in Hamburg. "We're here for war. We came here to battle. We came here to represent our country. Whenever you put your jersey on and you look at your crest and the national anthem's going on, and you're playing against a different country, it's like you do or die, it's survival of the [fittest] over 90 minutes-plus."

generate one million postcards for delivery to President Bush, who recently pledged to push for additional UN and NATO help to protect the people of Darfur. We applaud the President's leadership, but the work is far from done. We are urging President Bush to take steps necessary to end the genocide and build a lasting peace.

Currently, Hollywood celebrities, college students, religious leaders and experts champion the plight of the Darfur victims. But despite the attention, the United Nations has been unable to raise enough money to support its operations in Sudan. On Friday, the U.N. World Food Program announced that it had received only 32 percent of its appeal for $746 million for its operations in Sudan, and that food rations to the camps would be cut in half.

They wore skullcaps, turbans, headscarves, yarmulkes, baseball hats and bandanas. There were pastors, rabbis, imams, youths from churches and youths from synagogues. They cried out phrases in Arabic and held signs in Hebrew. But on this day, they said, they didn't come out as Jews or Muslims, Christians or Sikhs, Republicans or Democrats. They came out as one, they said, to demand that the Bush administration place additional sanctions on Sudan and push harder for a multinational peacekeeping force to be sent to Darfur.
By Washington standards, where protests often draw more than 100,000 people, yesterday's rally -- estimated by organizers at between 10,000 and 15,000 -- was not huge. Yet the Rally to Stop Genocide appeared to be distinctive for being one of the more diverse rallies the capital has seen in years.

The rally comes as the humanitarian situation is worsening, the United Nations and human rights groups say. At least 200,000 have died and 2.5 million, most of them non-Arabs, have fled to refugee camps inside Darfur or to neighboring Chad, including 60,000 in the last month, according to the United Nations. U.S. and international diplomatic and political efforts have so far failed to stop the violence.
President Bush, who met with Darfur advocates at the White House on Friday, praised the protesters and said the United States is serious about solving the problem. But protesters said he needs to do more. The urgency, as well as a sense of the past, was not lost on many of the speakers yesterday. The speakers' podium was thick with the sweep of history, as survivors of the Holocaust, the Rwandan genocide and the ethnic conflict in Bosnia drew parallels to Darfur. As the rally's first speaker, Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel drew a direct comparison to his own suffering in Nazi concentration camps.