Germany

Keepers of Knut, the baby polar bear whose antics warmed the hearts of millions at the Berlin Zoo, admit he has become a publicity-addled psychopath.

One of J. M. Coetzee's characters says the history of zoos is an extension of the history of warfare. The first zoos erected fences less to protect man from beast than to protect beast from man. Zoo-goers viewed the animals as POWs in a long inter-species war, on display to be jeered and attacked as representatives of the enemy. This hostility survives today in the sick exhibition of Knut, the cute bear-orphan who has been the object of exploitation for the first fifteen months of what one hopes will be a short life. MORE

Amateur video captured a Lufthansa Airbus 320's near-crash in Hamburg, Germany.

These 66 seconds of YouTube footage are as close as we'll come to seeing an airplane crash without having to feel bad or ghoulish for the victims. It is as close as those hundred-plus people aboard will come to dying before they actually do. MORE

European governments have begun a search for tax-evaders sheltering funds in Liechtenstein.

Since Germany revealed that it had bought, for $5 million, the names of 1400 tax evaders sheltering income in Liechtenstein, the hunt has been on for tax evaders on both sides of the Atlantic.  The thing has all the ingredients of a reasonably entertaining caper film.  A disgruntled ex-employee seeking to use confidential banking records as a bargaining chip against the government of Liechtenstein.  Secret databases passed from government to government.  Wealthy scofflaws scrambling for cover.
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