by Wolfgang Sannwald The author is an employee of the District Office Tübingen. He personally participated in the meetings of the administrative staff for the management of the Corona pandemic in the district of Tübingen from March 23rd to May 5th. It was Shrove Tuesday, February 25th, 2020, when the Corona epidemic reached the district of Tübingen. Martina Guizetti, the press spokeswoman of the district administration office, remembers a call from the Landrat (chief of district administration) that evening. Joachim Walter was reacting from a carnival procession to the first detected infection in the administrative district. This was the… Read More
Category: News In English
Syrian intelligence officials charged in Germany
by Wolfgang Sannwald In 2016, an expert in the “arrest barrack” at the Natzweiler-Struthof memorial in Alsace said that 19 people were temporarily locked in a shockingly narrow cell with six square meters during the German tyranny before 1945. She then told a group from Tübingen about other ill-treatment and torture. Ibrahim (name changed by the editors), who had fled from Syria to Germany a year before and has lived in Tübingen ever since, turned pale: he had just fled from such a prison. At that time, political reasons for fleeing Syria were hardly known in detail. Now German courts… Read More
UN Secretary General calls for global ceasefire
Due to the crisis surrounding COVID-19, the Secretary General of the United Nations António Guterres called for an “immediate worldwide ceasefire.” Civilians in conflict areas need to be protected from the devastating effects of the pandemic, Guterres said during a speech at the UN headquarters in New York. “Let the weapons remain silent, stop the artillery, end the air strikes,” said the UN Secretary General. This is central to creating humanitarian corridors for civilians. Many countries fear the collapse of their health systems as a result of the Corona virus. In conflict areas such as Syria or Yemen, basic medical… Read More
On the right track-Year after year, the number of refugees who receive financial
Success Story On the right track By Sameer Ibrahim Year after year, the number of refugees who receive financial help from German authorities, for example job centers or employment agencies, decreases. In this article we present an example. “Nothing is given to you in this life, but there is nothing too difficult if you have a strong will”. This is what Mohammed Khalaf says, a 40-year-old Syrian who found a job as a bus driver in Tübingen. Before the war, Mohammed also worked as a bus driver in Syria. He came to Germany in 2015, attended an integration course… Read More
A piece of Iran and Afghanistan in Tübingen
Plants A piece of Iran and Afghanistan in Tübingen By Mohammad Nazir Momand An editorial team from tünews INTERNATIONAL visited the botanical garden of the University of Tübingen last summer and conducted an interview with Michael Mauser, the gardener responsible for mountain plants from all over the world. The team was especially interested in wild plants that brought to Germany from countries such as Syria, Iran, Turkey or Afghanistan and then cultivated in the garden. “We bring plants like these from other countries to Germany to research them and to show them to students to help with their learning.… Read More
“I could understand their fear well” I hope you have never experienced anything like this
Survival “I could understand their fear well” By Ute Kaiser “I hope you have never experienced anything like this,” said Ali*. 16 fourth graders of the Pfrondorf Primary School looked on, concerned. Ali, Oula and their daughters Roula and Sara from the tünews team told the children about their home in Syria and the story of their escape for almost two hours in December. 4a had chosen this topic for a newspaper project (see info). Pictures from the Internet and private photos showed the children how beautiful the Syrian cities looked before the war. “Why did you flee?”, moderator Natalie… Read More
Always something new
Biography Always something new By Ute Kaiser Hajera Sheikh lives by the motto: “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.” Her life required a strong will and the ability to adapt to new situations again and again. Her family moved often, with a father in the Pakistani Air Force who later started a law firm with his father in Pakistan and a mother as a biochemist, between Pakistan and Dubai. Hajera speaks Urdu, Punjabi, English, Hindi and German. Her friends and family in Pakistan usually visit her once a year. In 2008, Hajera came to Tübingen with… Read More
45 degrees and twelve hours of work daily
Archaeology 45 degrees and twelve hours of work daily By Michael Seifert “Tübingen archaeologists discover a 3500-year-old palace in northern Iraq” – a recent headline. Sameer Ibrahim, Mostafa Elyasian and Michael Seifert from the TüNews International editorial team visited the excavation’s leader, Ivana Puljiz, in her office in the attic of Schloss Hohentübingen. She reports: “In September of last year we spontaneously started a rescue excavation in Dohuk province in Kurdish northern Iraq. The palace hill was discovered as early as 2010, through on-site searches of Dohuk’s antique district. Remains of murals were also found. It became clear that this… Read More
As if you were made of glass
Bullying As if you were made of glass By Roula Al Sagheer Roula Al Sagheer, a student, is seventeen years old and volunteers as an editor for TüNews. In her everyday life at school, she often observes cases of bullying, and decided to write about the problem: “It may seem strange to you, but imagine that you are made of glass, transparent. Completely invisible. No one sees you and no one hears you, regardless of how loud you scream. But, as soon as someone sees you, they try to break you, by any means possible. Sounds uncomfortable, right?… Read More
The Unknown
Personal The Unknown By Oula Mahfuz Have you experienced what it is like, to leave you country because of war? To live in a new country, where everything is foreign: customs and traditions, order and language. Sometimes, I wonder what’s worse: dying from rocket fire or living in a country where you face discrimination every day. On the other hand, there are always people who support you, who give you new hope. Here is some of what we encountered in Germany. The good and the bad experiences I can never forget. When we entered Germany, the first people I… Read More