Category: News

Social class is increasingly becoming a literary theme – associated with this is a renaissance of the male joke.

Home of men’s jokes: the corner pub Photo: dpa

Men’s jokes are manual labor jokes. Sure, there are civil servant jokes, janitor jokes, boss jokes, doctor jokes, etc., but these are, if not headworker jokes, then professional jokes. "Male humor, with its jokes about beer and naked women, seems on the one hand to have fallen completely out of time, but on the other hand it persists," writes Die Welt. They belong to a certain form of existence that was widespread in West Germany until recent times: the man works hard, earns the dough, and the woman takes care of the household and the children. To gain distance from both, he goes to "his" pub. "Landlady," he calls out as he enters, "did I really drink away 20 marks last night?" When the landlady confirms this to him, he says, "Thank God, I already thought I’d squandered the dough."

Intelligence agencies are bothered by encrypted communications. But surveillance is far more than just an anti-terrorism measure.

Police agencies, after all, always find ways when they want to get somewhere. Picture: dpa

So now it’s Germany, too. The terrorist attacks in Paris have generated a new security discourse across Europe and put highly questionable legislative proposals on the agenda. Following in the footsteps of German Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière, head of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution Hans-Georg Maaben is now urging the taz to attack the encryption of Internet communications. It’s about the last secret, the last possibility to communicate unsupervisably – cryptography.

The climate summit in Paris will be about a soft treaty based on voluntary action. Only a small core is to become legally binding.

A reservoir in Alcora, Spain. Picture: ap

The crucial paper has eleven pages and a modest title: "US proposals for elements of the 2015 agreement." The letter is the blueprint for a global climate agreement in 2015, and it signifies a change of course in climate policy: away from an agreement that commits all states to climate protection, and toward a treaty that brings together the voluntary offers of the 195 states of the UN Climate Convention. The U.S. plan, which has been followed by about two dozen similar variants from many countries and groups, is therefore what one European negotiator calls "the mother of all proposals."

Three quarters of Germans are in favor of entering into negotiations on a ban on nuclear weapons. The German government has boycotted these so far.

Almost 140 states are negotiating a ban on nuclear weapons, Germany is not taking part Photo: dpa

Three quarters of all Germans eligible to vote want the German government to participate in the UN negotiations on a worldwide and complete ban on nuclear weapons, which it has boycotted so far. Twelve percent each are against or have no opinion on the issue. This is the result of a representative survey, the results of which are available to the taz.

Because of the German government’s climate plans, the energy company is questioning the planned expansion of lignite mining in Lusatia.

Dredged: the opencast lignite mine in Nochten, Saxony. Photo: dpa

There are signs of a turnaround in the dispute over lignite mining in Lusatia. After the energy company Vattenfall wanted to expand open pit mining in the two areas there, the company is now backpedaling.