Landscapes, ideas blossom on Berlin Wall death strip

HOHEN NEUENDORF: The mines and dogs and barbed wire are gone, as are the border guards with orders to shoot to kill, the so-called death strip and, of course, the Berlin Wall itself.

What remains are bitter memories, a handful of watchtowers, a vast green oasis rimming the capital, and dreams of using it in a creative way that still preserves its tragic history.

Dutch landscape architect Joyce van den Berg has set herself such a task, saying secret gardens, art installations and recreational spaces could flourish in what she calls a "trauma landscape".

The death strip or No Man's Land straddled the 155-kilometre-long (96-mile-long) border drawn around the free island of West Berlin by communist East Germany to keep its citizens prisoners of their own country.

Anyone caught in the buffer zone on either side of the Berlin Wall, or the inner-German border running between East and West Germany, risked being shot.

At least 136 would-be escapees were killed and after the Berlin Wall fell 20 years ago this November, Germans were keen to erase all traces of the despised barrier.

Nature has run wild in reclaiming the "Sperrgebiet" (Prohibited Area), which is up to 2.5 kilometres wide in some sections.

The result is a rich habitat that has nearly swallowed an extraordinary landscape, with unique plants and countless rabbits, foxes and deer reclaiming what was once theirs.

"In 20 years there will be nothing left of the bizarre landscape created by the Wall," Van den Berg said on a recent cycle tour of the strip, most of which still belongs to the German state.

"Twenty years on, the landscape is blooming and the butterflies are back."

Van den Berg began the project by documenting the entire Sperrgebiet on long bike rides with the help of maps collected by a former Stasi officer and archived aerial photographs.

She sees her work as a race against time, and her ideas range from the fanciful to the highly promising.

The route where soldiers patrolled is now a smooth bike path beloved by cyclists and history buffs. The group enters a clearing and comes upon natural dunes that have begun to develop again from the region's famously sandy soil.

The border patrols smoothed the sand with machines each day so they could observe any suspicious footprints of anyone trying to escape, and soaked the ground with pesticides so no undergrowth would block their view.

Van den Berg says a little tilling could allow "mega-dunes" to develop and attract volleyball and sand surfing enthusiasts, and bring badly needed tourism income to an economically depressed region.

"Oranienburg in particular could benefit if this area became a recreation centre," she said, referring to a city just north of Berlin best known as the home of the Nazi concentration camp Sachsenhausen, now a memorial.

Van den Berg says she would like to keep alive the memory of escape tunnels dug to help spirit people from east to west, tracing their course with spotlights.

Checkpoints such as Dreilinden on Berlin's southern flank could also be revived as makeshifts hotel steeped in history, she says.

During the Cold War, West German trucks often spent hours parked until they were inspected and granted permission for transit into West Berlin.

Van den Berg suggests furnishing East German trucks for lodging, for example, after a bike tour of the Sperrgebiet. Others could serve as restaurants serving East German delicacies.

The tour continues past one of five of the original 302 watchtowers still remaining. Van den Berg would like to see old foundations used as wind-protected gardening plots.

One such watchtower is now used by the German Youth Forestry club, which has taken it over to teach about conservation and the region's painful history.

The group has erected a memorial to four teenagers shot dead in the 1960s and 1970s in foiled attempts to dash over the Wall to freedom.

Marian Przybilla, who volunteers with the club, said it took over the tower in May 1990, just two months after East German soldiers abandoned the site and five months before the two Germanys united.

"At that time, the joy over the fall of the Wall and the desire for free movement here meant that everyone wanted to remove the traces as soon as possible," he said. "Now we are trying to win back important parts of our history that were lost."

Although many of her ideas will never see the light of day, Van den Berg has a few powerful supporters.

Outgoing Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel has called for the entire former death strip between the former two Germanys to become a nature preserve.

But some tour participants from the east said the ride roused bitter memories.

"I have no regrets that they tore down almost all of the Wall, the barbed wire and the watchtowers," said Hannah Rohst, a 33-year-old architecture student from Niederschoenhausen in east Berlin.

"There was plenty I had no desire ever to see again, and so much we wanted to forget."

White House: 650,000 jobs in new stimulus report

WASHINGTON : More than 650,000 jobs have been saved or created under President Barack Obama's economic stimulus plan, the White House said Friday, saying it is on track to reach the president's goal of 3.5 million jobs by the end of next year.

New job numbers from businesses, contractors, state and local governments, nonprofit groups and universities were not scheduled to be released publicly until Friday afternoon. But White House economic adviser Jared Bernstein says officials have been told the figures. When adding in jobs linked to $288 billion in tax cuts, Bernstein says the stimulus plan has created or saved more than 1 million jobs.

The data will be posted on recovery.gov the web site of the independent panel overseeing stimulus spending.

"It's a great example of the unprecedented transparency, where the American taxpayer can point and click and see their taxes creating jobs," Bernstein said.

Government recovery plans — everything from the $787 billion stimulus to tax credits for buying new homes to government deals on new cars — are credited with helping the economy grow again after a record four straight losing quarters.

But the job market has yet to show signs of recovery, putting pressure on the White House to show that the stimulus was worth its hefty price tag.

When it is released Friday, the new data will be the largest and most complete look at how the stimulus has been spent so far. The White House promised the data would be far more reliable than the first batch of numbers on federal contracts, which the administration initially embraced, then branded a "test run" after thousands of errors were discovered.

Iran hands over response on nuclear fuel deal: TV

VIENNA/ WASHINGTON: Iran has presented its response on a U.N.-drafted nuclear fuel deal to the head of the International Atomic Energy Organization (IAEA), Mohamed ElBaradei, Iran's state al Alam television reported on Thursday.

Iran's Arabic-language satellite station quoted Tehran's ambassador to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, as saying it was necessary to take into consideration Iran's technical and economic observations in the course of the discussions.

It did not give further details.

Iran was widely expected to deliver Thursday its response to a U.N.-brokered proposal regarding the supply of much-needed fuel for a nuclear research reactor in Tehran.

With a deal seen as crucial to resolving the long-running stand-off over the Islamic Republic's atomic program, Tehran's response was due on the same day that U.N. experts were scheduled to return from inspecting a hitherto undeclared nuclear site in Iran.

According to a report by the Mehr news agency, Iran will accept the overall framework of a proposal drawn up by the International Atomic Energy Agency last week under which it will hand over much of its stockpile of low-enriched uranium (LEU) to Russia for further processing.

Such a move is aimed at appeasing western fears the material could be used to make a bomb.

But Tehran will nevertheless propose some "modifications" to the arrangement, Mehr reported.

US sanctions

Meanwhile, Iran's main gasoline suppliers, including British, French, Swiss and Indian firms, may face tough U.S. sanctions under a bill that sailed through a key House of Representatives panel late on Wednesday.

The bill seeks to cut Iran's gasoline supplies if negotiations fail to resolve the standoff over Tehran's nuclear program, which Washington fears is aimed at making a bomb.

The goal is to put pressure Iran by raising pump prices and possibly cripple its economy. Critics say such a step could backfire by trampling on diplomatic efforts and angering U.S. trading partners and allies.

The bill, sponsored by Representative Howard Berman and passed by the House Foreign Affairs Committee, has 330 co-sponsors. But three other panels must approve it or waive their right to do so before the full House votes on it.

A similar measure is expected to be voted on in the Senate Banking Committee on Thursday. Both chambers must agree on the same legislation before it becomes law.

Even if does, it is not clear it would be enforced. The Obama administration says it is committed to working with global partners to put pressure on Iran, so it could be reluctant to take unilateral steps.

Iran has some of the world's biggest oil reserves but it imports 40 percent of its gasoline because of a lack of refining capacity. Government subsidies help keep gasoline in Iran much cheaper than in other countries.

Berman's bill would expand a 1996 Iran sanctions law to effectively bar companies that sell refined petroleum products, including gasoline, to Iran from doing business in the United States.

Malaysia's Islamic party tells men to wed mums

KUALA LUMPUR:  Malaysia's conservative Islamic party has urged Muslim men to marry single mothers as additional wives instead of "young virgin girls", a state official said.

Wan Ubaidah Omar, a cabinet minister from northern Kelantan, which the party controls, said the proposal aired in state parliament this week was needed to help single mothers and widows in the underdeveloped region.

"Muslim men usually like young girls or virgins as their additional wives, so I suggest instead of taking these young virgin girls, why don't they marry the single mothers as their second or third wife?" she told AFP.

"This will ease the burden of the single mothers as the men can help them to take care of their children. The single ladies have no burden," said Wan Ubaidah, who is in charge of women, family and health affairs in the state.

Muslim men in Malaysia are allowed to marry up to four women but Islamic courts must approve multiple marriages before they take place. About 60 percent of the country's 27 million population are Muslims.

Women's groups here have campaigned against polygamy, saying it is cruel and has deviated from its original purpose in Islam, which was to protect widows and orphans.

Wan Ubaidah said her call was not meant to encourage polygamous marriage, but as a way to help at least 16,500 single mothers aged under 60 in Kelantan, a state that has one of the highest divorce rates in the country.

"Even if I don't make the suggestion, these men are going to marry the second, third wife anyway but I have to emphasize that under Islam, only those who have the social and economic capacity can have additional wives," she said.

The minister also called for husbands who leave their wives without good reason to be whipped under religious laws.

"Some of these husbands just go missing in action suddenly, and leave the wives without any food or money. These kind of men should be whipped, they deserve it," Wan Ubaidah said.

"This punishment is not in the state sharia law at the moment, but we can make it a law to make men more responsible; there is a lot of room for improvement in the legal system to protect the welfare of women," she added.

Algeria to build world's third largest mosque

Grand Mosque of Algiers could cost several billion dollars

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ALGIERS:  Algeria on Tuesday called for offers to build a Grand Mosque of Algiers, which would be the third largest mosque in the world after those of Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia.

Candidate companies should have an annual turnover of at least one billion euros ($1.48 billion) and have a permanent staff of more than 2,000 engineers, technicians and office staff, the national agency for the building of the Djamaa El Dzajair (Algiers mosque) specified in a communique.

The Grand Mosque of Algiers, which could cost several billion dollars, will stand on a terrain of about 20 hectares (49 acres) at Mohammadia opposite the bay of Algiers to the east of the capital, where its minaret will be 270 meters (885 feet) high.

The main prayer hall will be large enough for 36,000 people, and the complex will also include an inner court, an esplanade, a large auditorium, a library for 2,000 people, a school for Quranic studies and an underground car park with space for 6,000 vehicles.

Algiers currently has three historic mosques: Djamaa el-Djedid, on which the building work began in 1660, Djamaa el-Kebir, built in the 11th century, and the Ketchaoua below the Casbah (the old town), which was constructed under the Turks from 1794. The Ketchaoua was converted into a cathedral under French colonial rule (1830-1962), and restored to Islam after independence.