Compiled by Ana Ferreira
NEWS FROM BERLIN
Large majority of Berliners in favour of taking in Afghan local workers
According to the Senate, 192 local Afghan forces and their families had arrived in Berlin by Tuesday. The Senate is preparing for more to come, affirmed Michael Müller (SPD). Berlin is prepared both for the reception and further distribution of people arriving in the capital and for the fact that some of them will remain here at least in the medium term. According to the Senate Administration, Berlin is a distribution centre. In Brandenburg, the first local Afghans already arrived on Friday and were brought to the initial reception centre in Doberlug-Kirchhain (Elbe-Elster). Source: rbb
Admission only for vaccinated and recovered people: will 2G come to Berlin, too?
Hamburg is the first German state to introduce the so-called 2G (“genesen, geimpft”) option model from Saturday on. In Berlin, the 3G (“genesen, getestet, geimpft”) regulation has been in force since last Friday. According to the mayor Michael Müller (SPD), the 2G model for public spaces cannot be implemented once this would represent an exclusion of, among others, families with small children, who cannot yet be vaccinated against the coronavirus. Other politicians such as Ramona Pop, Regine Günther and Dirk Behrendt (Greens) are very sympathetic to the 2G regulation. Source: Berliner Zeitung
Student council seeks non-white applicants for position
A job advertisement by the student representation (RefRat) of Berlin’s Humboldt University (HU) caused a stir on Thursday. The job is about a counselling centre on racist discrimination. “We ask (…) white people to refrain from applying for this counselling centre,” the advertisement reads. The management of the HU is calling on the constituted student body to review the job advertisement. Later, the advertisement could no longer be found in the RefRat section on tenders. “We are in the process of revising the advertisement. We regret the ambiguous wording,” the RefRat stated. Source: rbb
NEWS FROM GERMANY
A moral dilemma
Who to get out of Afghanistan first? Those at risk who are hiding or those who make it to the airport? There is no easy answer to this moral dilemma. It cannot be right that half-empty planes take off just because there are not enough people in the chaos who have a legitimate claim to leave. But it would also be wrong to take in those waiting at the airport, while for those waiting in hiding to be rescued, the time for help is running out. Anyway, the action of taking 823 people in an aircraft showed something else: it showed humanity. Source: taz
Last German soldiers have left Afghanistan
Two weeks after the start of the rescue mission, the Bundeswehr has completed its evacuation flights from Afghanistan. Parallel to the latest exodus of Germans, a suicide attack occurred outside the gates of Kabul airport this Thursday. Due to the attack outside the airport, a German plane intended for emergencies landed in Kabul a little later. The aircraft, which was kept on standby for possible emergencies in the airspace over Kabul, made an unscheduled landing. It also picked up two German soldiers who had remained on the ground during the chaos following the explosion outside the airport. Source: spiegel
Germany “needs 400.000 immigrants a year”
To compensate for its growing worker shortage, Germany will need to attract hundreds of thousands of immigrants in the next years. The idea of inviting skilled migration to Germany is certainly not a new one. To fill more jobs, the Skilled Workers Immigration Act was introduced in March 2020. However, it was just when the first wave of coronavirus hit Germany, with its first national lockdown. The accompanying restrictions on travel only exacerbated the problem. And the number of applications for recognition of foreign professional qualifications – fell by 3 percent in 2020. Source: iamexpat
