2nd day in berlin

   Today we got our pictures taken in front of Berlin Wall remnants, (see me in photo) which are scattered all around the city.  Last night some of us RIAS girls joined the locals at a pub to watch the soccer match.  (2nd photo Frances Kuo, Charlotte, me and Veronica Villafance, Glendale, CA. last photo Rachel Grygiel,Hoboken and Hena Cueves, LA, watchting match). Germany won, and the natives went wild.  Tonight we go again to watch soccer.

   This morning the Minister of the Interior Peter Altmaier (top photo) talked about Germany's plan to fight terrorism.  He's also in charge of what is considered one of the country's biggest problems -- the failed integration of Turkish immigrants into society.  They are Germany's largest minority and immigrant population, but a third of them don't speak German, don't finish school and end up on welfare for life.  Germany's solution is to now provide intensive language study for all immigrants, host "Integration Summits" and a German/Islam Conference to try to get official dialogue going with the Turkish community on these issues.  

   In the afternoon we went to Germany's version of the National Association of Broadcasters, called the VPRT.   It is apparently very hard to get through all the laws and regulations Germany imposes on companies that wants to start tv channels.  The private operators resent that billions of Euros collected from German citizens go directly to support the two public tv stations, which only makes it harder for privately-owned media to compete.  Still, it's nice that public tv is thriving somewhere in the world.  

   Soccer matches air on public tv...only PBS can afford to pay for the rights to broadcast!