In Focus
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President Obama calls upon North Korea to take “serious steps” on the nuclear issue
 November 19, 2009. On the last stop on his nine-day trip to East Asia President Obama spoke in Seoul about efforts to convince North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons program in exchange for “the reduction of sanctions and its increasing integration into the international community.” For North Korea to enjoy reduced international sanctions and greater integration, it must take “serious steps” on the nuclear issue. “We will not be distracted by a whole host of other side items that end up generating a lot of meetings but not concrete action,” Obama said. During his remarks, Obama also discussed the situation in Iran. Over the “next several weeks,” the United States and its partners who are engaged in the dialogue with Iran over its nuclear activities “will be developing a package of potential steps that we could take that will indicate our seriousness to Iran,” he said. more on america.gov
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News from the Embassy |
Ambassador Murphy Opens Alumni Connect 2.0 Event Series in Berlin- Youth Exchange Experiences about Visits to the U.S.
 November 16, 2009. Ambassador Murphy greeted 50 former participants of U.S. Government-endorsed exchange programs at the Alumni Connect 2.0 event, hosted at the Embassy by the Cultural Affairs section. The event was the first of its kind, bringing together alumni from a variety of exchange programs, such as Windows on America, Fulbright and the Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange. After an enthusiastic welcome from the participants, the Ambassador emphasized the importance of mutual exchanges in a globalized world. The alumni were next treated to an inspiring modern dance performance by a group of Berlin students, who recently participated in the transatlantic project, Dancing to Connect, for which they travelled to New York at the beginning of this month. The event’s main feature was the “World Café”, led by two former Fulbright participants, in which the alumni got together in different working groups for lively discussions, exchanging ideas, stories, and impressions of their visits to the U.S. The evening cheerfully concluded with an informal reception during which the Embassy’s new exchange-related Facebook page was officially launched. Alumni Connect 2.0, with its overwhelming support and success, serves as a good starting point for the series to be continued in other areas throughout Germany.
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Facebook: Exchanges and Study in the U.S.
• Videos: World Cafe format explained | First Dance, performed by Ernst Reuter Oberschule | Second Dance
 November 16, 2009. In an official ceremony, Ambassador Murphy dedicated the Ernst Cramer Conference Center in the U.S. Embassy. The room is named in honor of
Ernst Cramer, a German-American Jewish journalist who was interned in the concentration camp at Buchenwald for six weeks in
1938. In 1939, he received a visa from the original U.S. Embassy on
Pariser Platz and left Germany for the U.S. in August of that year. He
became an American citizen, returned to Europe as a soldier in 1944 and decided to stay in Germany with the American
Military Government to help rebuild German media and cultural
institutions. As Ambassador
Murphy said, “through the stations of his life, Ernst Cramer has always
steadfastly refused to accept anything but the best in people.” His
optimism and respect for the goals of democracy and freedom will live
on in the Ernst Cramer Conference Center. The room was inaugurated almost a year and a half ago, on July 4, 2008, America’s Independence Day, as part of the Grand Opening of the new chancery. On that day, Mr. Cramer and a group of Airlift veterans met with Chancellor Merkel and President George H. W. Bush.
Ambassador’s remarks | Video of dedication ceremony | photo gallery | About the chancery building
Dresden University Students Learn About the Obama Administration’s Energy Policy
 November 11, 2009. Economic Officer Jon P. Dorschner was invited by a Dresden University foreign policy study group to provide an overview of Obama Administration Energy Policy. More than 50 students attended Dorschner’s presentation in which he emphasized that big changes are on the way that portend a new era in German/American cooperation. The students were eager to hear how the American economy will be “greened” over the coming years and about all the measures the Obama Administration has implemented to encourage this process. Afterwards, Dorschner answered a variety of far-reaching questions from the audience.
The University of Dresden, with over 35,000 students, is the largest in Saxony. It has a large Political Science and International Relations Department, including many graduate students.
Ambassador Murphy meets with Future Media Leaders
 November 11, 2009. Ambassador Philip D. Murphy held a town hall meeting with some 300 students and faculty of the renowned Media University Hochschule der Medien, HdM in Stuttgart. Twenty students of the BIL Schule
in Stuttgart, who will be traveling to the U.S. in 2010 under the
Embassy’s Windows on America program, joined the HdM students at the Town Hall. Ambassador Murphy’s lively and engaging speech and subsequent discussion was streamed live over the internet and broadcast by HdM’s own radivo station in real time. The HdM registered a record number of hits on its live stream during this town hall meeting. In his remarks, Ambassador Murphy reminded the audience of the historical importance of the U.S.-German relationship, praised the virtues of tolerance anddiversity, and called on Germans to work together with the U.S. to meet
the global challenges of the 21st century. Speaking in German, the
Ambassador said: “Today on November 11th, Americans observe Veterans
Day and commemorate among others the veterans who helped to free
Germany of Nazi dictatorship. Many GIs are still in Stuttgart. There
is so much that binds Germans and Americans together. I’m here today
to learn what we can do better and how I can help as U.S. Ambassador to
Germany. Let us revive our friendship with energy and magic!” Photo Gallery
Stuttgarter Nachrichten published an extensive article on
the Town Hall and follow-on interview in its November 12 edition. | Stuttgarter Zeitung | Verbunden: Town Hall Meeting | „Politainment mit US-Botschafter“ | „Hoher Besuch aus den USA“
Audrey Niffenegger reads from _Her Fearful Symmetry_
November 11, 2009. As part of its American Embassy Literature Series the U.S. Embassy Berlin, together with the Thalia book stores and S. Fischer Verlag, presented author Audrey Niffenegger reading from her novel Her Fearful Symmetry (2009 Scribner, USA), German translation Die Zwillinge von Highgate (Fischer 2009; translation by Brigitte Jakobeit) at the babylon berlin:mitte theater.
Writer and artist Audrey Niffenegger lives in Chicago. Her first novel The Time Traveler’s Wife has been on the best seller lists since 2004 and was translated into several languages. Audrey Niffenegger loves Alice in Wonderland and Rilke, and collects butterflies, books and comics.
Audrey Niffenegger’s second novel is a ghost story set in and around Highgate Cemetery in London:
The endurance of love animates this gothic story set in and around Highgate Cemetery, in London. When Elspeth Noblin dies of cancer, she leaves her estate, including an apartment overlooking the graveyard, to the twin daughters of her twin sister, from whom she has been estranged for twenty years. When Valentina and Julia show up to claim their inheritance, they soon discover that Elspeth is still in residence, in ghostly form. Niffenegger’s writing can be wearyingly overblown, but she has a knack for taking the romantic into the realm of creepiness, and she constructs a taut mystery around the secrets to be found in Elspeth’s diaries and the lengths to which she will go to reunite with her younger lover. It’s no small achievement that the revelations are both organic and completely unexpected. The New Yorker
Berlin Wall to fall again
Mauerfall 2009
November 9, 2009. On the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Wall, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with 13 of the high school students from the eastern state of Brandenburg, who painted one of a thousand dominos that have been placed along the former border at the Brandenburg Gate and will be made to topple in a symbolic act during the “Festival of Freedom” later in the evening. The U.S. Ambassador to Germany, Philip D. Murphy, also participated in the meeting at the domino. The project was developed in the spring of 2009 when the U.S. Embassy in Berlin invited Ms. Birgit Solik, head of the English Department of the Torhorstschule in Oranienburg and a 2008 participant in the Embassy’s Eastern German Teachers Visitor Program, to paint with her students a domino sponsored by the Embassy. As the objective was to present the students’ ideas and imagination regarding the fall of the Wall in an artistic way, the students’ art teacher, Antje Peukert, also became involved. In July, before designing the domino, the 17-19 year-old students visited an exhibit on the Peaceful Revolution that let to the fall of the Wall. On the basis of what they learned in the exhibit about the causes, goals and success of the Peaceful Revolution, the students developed their design concept. Over the course of a five-day workshop in August/September, they discussed, sketched out and painted their stone. The design symbolizes the students’ idea of the GDR citizens’ yearning for freedom. more on the project | photo gallery
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