Posts filed in ‘News’
The Ruhr and me have been in the New York Times
Quoting about the New York Times I remembered that recently – while campaigning – a Berlin based journalist form the New York Times came over from the capital. He wanted to watch campaigning here in the region. We don’t seems to be completely unknown in the USA, at least to Mr. Nicolas Kulish.
Here’s what he wrote (just where he writes about me:-) ):
As an unseasonably frigid rain fell Thursday in Bochum, Dirk Schmidt, 35, a local party leader for Mrs. Merkel’s conservative coalition, campaigned for a seat in the state Legislature at the Hannibal shopping center. He was greeted with support from party members, but also some derision.
“The party disappointed me once with the east,” an old man pushing a shopping cart shouted as one of Mr. Schmidt’s campaign workers offered him a flier. “I won’t pay a cent for the Greeks.”
Bochum’s Nokia cellphone factory picked up stakes two years ago and moved to Romania, with more than 2,000 jobs melting away in its wake. The carmaker Opel, which once employed 25,000 people in the city, today provides work for around 5,000 people, jobs that are also in jeopardy as Opel’s corporate parent, General Motors, restructures its subsidiary.
Kasper reloaded – Punch and Judy in Afghanistan
FIDENA – “Puppet Theatre of Nations” ist the title of an institute and a festival for international puppeteering in Bochum (Ruhr). This years festival takes place from August 29th to September 4th. There will be four different plays, some premieres and a play in English Llnguage. Anyway, you can visit nearly any of the plays because most of them don’t need any language. As an exception to the rule, one play affords knowledge of English language. It’s »Punch and Judy in Afghanistan – When East meets West, who will be laughing in the End?«
“Punch and Judy” are brother and sister to the German “Kasper und Grete” (Kasperletheater). This is connected to the headline of FIDENA in 2009: “Kasper reloaded” meaning “‘Punch and Judy’ reloaded”. This “Punch and Judy” will be performed by the Australian actor and puppeteer Neville Tranter who runs The Stuffed Puppet Theatre in the Netherlands. Well, I don’t want to summarize other pages, even if there seems to be only a German article on Wikipedia. On youTube, there are two videos from two different shows. One was part of the Ruhr Trienale. Here is the other video. It helps to understand what you will expect when you are thinking about visiting the shows on September 1st to 3rd. We already ordered tickets.
Neville Tranter and The Stuffed Puppet produce this Punch and Judy for the European Capital of Culture Linz’09. There will be a festival in November. The German premiere (not language but state of first show) will be in September in Bochum (European Capital of Culture 2010). We are going to spend a few days in Linz to learn about the Cultural Capital Project.
Toastmasters Club Bochum
I’m still on holiday in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, but I found an interesting note in today’s edition of WAZ Bochum – the local paper of the regional newspaper: Someone called Eva Masuch is going to found a Toastmaster Club in Bochum. The first meeting shall take place in the “Haus der Freunde” (house of the friends… of the Ruhr-University Bochum) next Monday, April 20th at (the articel doesn’t say).
A toastmaster is the person (man or woman) offering toast at the a dinner or some other formal meals, e.g. a wedding. There is an international organization that tries to teach people how to give public speeches. I think, it’s mainly an anglo-saxon thing. Nevertheless, the German toastmaster movement – with clubs in Berlin, Munich – focusses on giving speaches not in German but in plain English. The groups seems to aim at teaching people to speek freely – in English, with not more than school English. That sound interesting to me. I will try to have a look at the group and the way they work. Due to the newspaper article, everybody gets a manual.
The weekly appointment is the same time/day of the week the English natives speaker meetings take place in Game and Grunewald in Bochum. Well, “native speaker” are a minority there but working language is English.
According to the WAZ you shall contact the organizer:
“Infos gibt’s per Email (toastmasters-bochum@email.de) oder unter Tel. 0234/32-29368 (tagsüber).” (WaZ, 16.04.2009)
GM: Plan for Opel ’til March 31st
Finally, General Motors published some media information and its plan for restructuring, named Plan for a Viable, Sustainable Company. The main quote for Bochum and Ruhr is in the press release. It’s a quote form the plan (see link below). There doesn’t seem to be more details in the plan.
Europe – Europe is a highly competitive environment that is unprofitable for many vehicle manufacturers, and has a relatively costly restructuring environment. GM has engaged its European labor partners to achieve $1.2 billion in cost reductions, which include several possible closures or spinoffs of manufacturing facilities in high cost locations. In addition, GM is restructuring its sales organization to become more brand focused and better optimize its advertising. GM is also in discussions with the German government for operating and balance sheet support. A sustainable strategy for GM’s European operations may include support from partnerships with the German government and/or other European governments. The company expects to resolve solvency issues for its European operations prior to Mar. 31, 2009.
We know the deadline and we know the state’s first minister is in the USA. The topic General Motors and Opel will be in the media for the rest of the week. Tomorrow European and German officals will talk, we will get reactions from the USA and so on.
During 2009-2014, GM also is requesting funding support from the governments of Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom, Sweden, and Thailand, and has included an estimate of $6 billion in funding support by 2010 to provide liquidity specifically for GM’s operations in these countries.
Here’s the press release from General Motors which contains the link to the following PDF document.
General Motors Restructuring Plan: Opel, Bochum
Looking at the regional newspapers, listening to local radio stations, reading blogs and watching news, there is an important topic today: “General Motors” is finanlizing its restructuring program wich has to be delivered to the US Treasury by the end of Tuesday. At first look, this sound like a pure US topic. It isn’t because General Motors needs to save money and to show how it will use the money it receives from the US government to keep jobs – jobs in the USA, not in Europe. Therefore, experts and due to media reports insiders expect that General Motos will close or sell some factories in Europe. Publicly discussed, German states are thinking about bailing out Opel. After 80 years it would become a German company again.
After the restructuring program will be public, I want to watch the reactions of the US and the European public, reactions in regard on the program and the reaction of the US government. The first minister of North Rhine-Westfalia is already in the USA.
The restructuring programm is expected to be presented to the public at 6 p.m. EST. This would around midnight.
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