France's decision to invite German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder to attend June commemorations of the D-Day invasions shows that times have changed in Europe, a government spokesman said on Friday.
It was "with great joy" that Schroeder accepted the invitation to attend the 60th anniversary celebrations on the Normandy beaches, government spokesman Thomas Steg said in Berlin.
Steg stressed the "enormous symbolic meaning" of inviting a German head of state to mark D-Day, signaling the resolution of many post World War II questions that have plagued Europe -- particularly the two former enemies.
"It is a sign that times truly have changed," Steg said.
Schroeder is to be the first German leader to mark an anniversary of the Normandy landings on June 6, 1944.
For the 60th anniversary commemoration, France has invited leaders of World War II's Allied nations, including US President George W. Bush.
Ten years ago, Chancellor Helmut Kohl was not invited to the 50th anniversary ceremony -- a decision that caused sore feelings in Germany and soured relations with France.
French-German ties got a boost in January last year, when the neighbors marked 40 years of reconciliation, pledging to work together at the heart of the EU.
D-Day, while largely credited with launching Europe's liberation from the Nazis, is virtually unknown in Germany. The day is not publicly acknowledged in any way and is little taught in German schools. Only two German veterans were invited, by US veterans groups, to attend the 50th anniversary celebrations in 1994.
"Operation Overlord," the code name for the landings, will be marked with a ceremony at Arromanches, a Normandy town between two of the beaches where soldiers came ashore.
About 21,000 Germans are buried at La Camb in Normandy. A few simple wooden crosses -- erected by German veterans and discreetly apart from the cemetery for the 9,386 fallen US soldiers -- mark the spot above Omaha Beach where the last German forces fell.
FORUM: The Solomon Islands’ move to bar Taiwan, the US and others from the Pacific Islands Forum has sparked criticism that Beijing’s influence was behind the decision Tuvaluan Prime Minister Feletei Teo said his country might pull out of the region’s top political meeting next month, after host nation Solomon Islands moved to block all external partners — including China, the US and Taiwan — from attending. The Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) leaders’ meeting is to be held in Honiara in September. On Thursday last week, Solomon Islands Prime Minister Jeremiah Manele told parliament that no dialogue partners would be invited to the annual gathering. Countries outside the Pacific, known as “dialogue partners,” have attended the forum since 1989, to work with Pacific leaders and contribute to discussions around
END OF AN ERA: The vote brings the curtain down on 20 years of socialist rule, which began in 2005 when Evo Morales, an indigenous coca farmer, was elected president A center-right senator and a right-wing former president are to advance to a run-off for Bolivia’s presidency after the first round of elections on Sunday, marking the end of two decades of leftist rule, preliminary official results showed. Bolivian Senator Rodrigo Paz was the surprise front-runner, with 32.15 percent of the vote cast in an election dominated by a deep economic crisis, results published by the electoral commission showed. He was followed by former Bolivian president Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga in second with 26.87 percent, according to results based on 92 percent of votes cast. Millionaire businessman Samuel Doria Medina, who had been tipped
Outside Havana, a combine belonging to a private Vietnamese company is harvesting rice, directly farming Cuban land — in a first — to help address acute food shortages in the country. The Cuban government has granted Agri VAM, a subsidiary of Vietnam’s Fujinuco Group, 1,000 hectares of arable land in Los Palacios, 118km west of the capital. Vietnam has advised Cuba on rice cultivation in the past, but this is the first time a private firm has done the farming itself. The government approved the move after a 52 percent plunge in overall agricultural production between 2018 and 2023, according to data
ELECTION DISTRACTION? When attention shifted away from the fight against the militants to politics, losses and setbacks in the battlefield increased, an analyst said Recent clashes in Somalia’s semi-autonomous Jubaland region are alarming experts, exposing cracks in the country’s federal system and creating an opening for militant group al-Shabaab to gain ground. Following years of conflict, Somalia is a loose federation of five semi-autonomous member states — Puntland, Jubaland, Galmudug, Hirshabelle and South West — that maintain often fractious relations with the central government in the capital, Mogadishu. However, ahead of elections next year, Somalia has sought to assert control over its member states, which security analysts said has created gaps for al-Shabaab infiltration. Last week, two Somalian soldiers were killed in clashes between pro-government forces and
RSS