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THE YEAR IN REVIEW

FRANKFURT

The Local’s top ten features of 2012

The Local's features in 2012 have been as varied and colourful as the year itself. Whether stepping into an age suit or diving into a dumpster, or following the plight of asylum seekers arriving in Germany, there has been something for everyone.

The Local's top ten features of 2012
Photo: Jessica Ware

Pink stinks, says toy marketing campaigner

A campaigner from the Pinkstinks pressure group told us how advertisers are forcing gender stereotypes onto Germany’s children, after Kinder Surprise released a new “just for girls” egg this year, wrapped in pink foil and advertised by fairies in push-up bras.

‘German hooligans look up to the English’

The Bundesliga may be booming, but violence at matches is growing. In an interview with the editor of No Dice football magazine, we explored the rising tide of hooliganism among the country’s fans.

How Germans are turning to dumpsters for dinner

After reporting that each Germans throw out, on average, 82 kilos of food each year, we literally dived into Berlin’s bins in the middle of the night to see what we could find.

Pixelhead – the ultimate in anonymous?

A Berlin-based artist caused a stir with a pixellated balaclava aimed at disguising a person’s identity in a society increasingly rife with CCTV. We tried it on, and had a think about the role of social media in Germany.

Boozy dieters shed kilos the ‘Schrothkur’ way

Heavy drinking might not be the first thing that comes to mind when trying to lose weight. But as we discovered, dieters deep in Bavaria are rushing to enrol in the “Schrothkur” weight-loss programme – perhaps because it involves lots, and lots of schnapps.

I’ve been to the future and it really aches

Germany’s population is ageing and in order to get a taste of things to come, The Local slipped into a special suit at the Berlin Charite hospital which makes the wearer feel very, very old.

Scientist seeks deposits for elephant sperm bank

We spoke to a scientist so dedicated to making sure that bull elephants in captivity didn’t become too inbred, that he was tracking down wild ones and using an electrifying method to gather their genetic material.

Police take refugees’ blankets despite cold

In September a group of refugees walked from Bavaria to Berlin, protesting against their living conditions. We tracked their progress and went down to their camp at the Brandenburg Gate shortly after the police confiscated their blankets.

‘The euro is still a brilliant notion’

In the first instalment of a new series, we sat down with the US ambassador to Germany Philip Murphy, and chatted about all things politics and business.

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MUNICH

Four injured as WWII bomb explodes near Munich train station

Four people were injured, one of them seriously, when a World War II bomb exploded at a building site near Munich's main train station on Wednesday, emergency services said.

Smoke rises after the WWII bomb exploded on a building site in Munich.
Smoke rises after the WWII bomb exploded on a building site in Munich. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Privat

Construction workers had been drilling into the ground when the bomb exploded, a spokesman for the fire department said in a statement.

The blast was heard several kilometres away and scattered debris hundreds of metres, according to local media reports.

Images showed a plume of smoke rising directly next to the train tracks.

Bavaria interior minister Joachim Herrmann told Bild that the whole area was being searched.

Deutsche Bahn suspended its services on the affected lines in the afternoon.

Although trains started up again from 3pm, the rail operator said there would still be delays and cancellations to long-distance and local travel in the Munich area until evening. 

According to the fire service, the explosion happened near a bridge that must be passed by all trains travelling to or from the station.

The exact cause of the explosion is unclear, police said. So far, there are no indications of a criminal act.

WWII bombs are common in Germany

Some 75 years after the war, Germany remains littered with unexploded ordnance, often uncovered during construction work.

READ ALSO: What you need to know about WWII bomb disposals in Germany

However, most bombs are defused by experts before they explode.

Last year, seven World War II bombs were found on the future location of Tesla’s first European factory, just outside Berlin.

Sizeable bombs were also defused in Cologne and Dortmund last year.

In 2017, the discovery of a 1.4-tonne bomb in Frankfurt prompted the evacuation of 65,000 people — the largest such operation since the end of the war in Europe in 1945.

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