December 2021

South African Archbishop Emeritus of the Anglican Church of Cape Town and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Desmond Mpilo Tutu has died at the age of 90, South Africa's acting President Cyril Ramaphosa announced in Cape Town this morning.

Tutu was one of the icons of the anti-apartheid movement in the 1980s, which worked to desegregate South Africa. Many South Africans of all skin colours owe their lives to him, who had an incomparable sense of humour. Together with Mandela, he achieved this goal, the abolition of apartheid.

Tutu was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 for his fight for human rights.

Born in 1931 in Klerksdorp, in what was then the Transvaal, Tutu initially studied to be a teacher, but turned to theology after the Bantu Education Act (Wet op Bantoe-onderwys), 1953.

In later years, at Mandela's request, he chaired the Truth and Reconciliation Commission from 1996, which dealt with the crimes of apartheid.

 South Africa, 1984, kasaan media, 2021

This is what we wish our readers.

In difficult times, in the times of the pandemic that is now already determining the second Christmas, with all the accompanying symptoms that are taking place together with the social upheavals, a few days of reflection are important.

Stay healthy!

Celebrate as far as the regulations allow.

We are on Christmas holiday until Monday, December 27 and will report again in the usual way from Monday.

Merry Christmas!

Now it's Omicron: anyone who denies the pandemic now is an ignoramus and living dangerously. Very dangerous.

First appearing in South Africa, the highly contagious variant spread rapidly around the globe.

Panic is not a good advisor in this case. Neither are conspiracy theories, as bandied about by numerous concerned citizens. It is obvious to everyone that the extreme right-wing pack smells morning air to introduce their own crude theories via Covid-19.

Every child knows that vaccination protects. But what happens with the possible "Epsilon" variant?

However, after countless failures in the pandemic that has been going on for two years, politicians have to ask themselves where they are actually heading. The situation is no longer transparent for anyone.

More and more people are rebelling against the state's measures. The demanded contact restrictions are then reduced to absurdity in authorized demonstrations. Why are then demonstrations allowed at all?

Either the virus is so brutally dangerous that there can be no discussion about a lockdown, or it is not. If the virus is so dangerous that it produced significant excess mortality, then it is not a question of a lockdown, but of explaining it. Why is the population in Germany left in the threat that there will be another lockdown over Christmas?

Why doesn't the Council of Experts explains?

Or it is the lack of planning in absolute carelessness that it will go on like this. Now the dead vaccine is to come, what is actually meant by this? mRNA seemed to have come onto the market at "monkey speed" without having tested it on numerous special cases.

Too much is discussed, but not clarified or explained.

Novavax is the dead vaccine. It is about to be approved.

What about the citizens who simply did not tolerate the vaccination? Should they get boosted with the dead vaccine? What about the patients who, in addition to constant inflammation throughout their bodies, also have to bear the consequences that render them almost incapable of acting? What about the consequential damages?

An application for recognition of the vaccination damage is hardly sufficient. There is still a telephone that is manned from time to time between 2 and 3 p.m. It is administered by the Robert Koch Institute. It is administered by the Robert Koch Institute, and no explanatory bear can help. Unfortunately, no one answers the line. Unfortunately, the package inserts with the vaccination side effects are kept very simple.

In other EU countries this chain is better regulated, e.g. in Spain you can contact the health centres of the respective junta.

Questions upon questions that no one seems to be able to answer. Or wants to.

These are images of unique beauty from a faded land. India-1964-

It had been 16 years since the colonial masters - the British - had left. India was still a young state in itself, searching for its own identity after centuries of foreign rule. The photographs are from Bombay, today's Mumbai, Calcutta and Delhi.

They show the everyday life of the generation of that time. The pictures come from the private collection of the then British Consul General at the High Commission in Bombay. The Copyright of the pictures is ours. Copying and reprinting are expressly prohibited.

Refreshment in the evening light

It was the murder of Horst Strohe, at night around 1 a.m. on 13 September 1992, that terrified an entire city then as it does now.

The brutality of the crime against the victim, who openly lived with his homosexuality, is unmatched.

Numerous witnesses saw the then 54-year-old man being literally executed with kicks to the chest and against the head in a square not far from white benches below the OVB office on the street "Am Malzbüchel", in the connection next to Heumarkt.

The investigators at the time did not rule out that possible witnesses in 1992 wanted to remain unidentified - out of concern that details of their sexual inclination might become known. Today's investigators forget that the victims were treated as badly by the police as they were by sections of society.

The brutality of the crime was unprecedented and showed how homosexuals were systematically made fair game by sections of society as late as the 1990s.

What had happened?

That was also the question asked by the investigators in Aktenzeichen( German police file XY on  October,13 2021 when they presented the case of Horst Strohe, who had been kicked to death on Heumarkt, on the programme.

Until now, it is still not clear whether Strohe was the victim of a random act of violence or knew the perpetrator beforehand.

At that time, it was known in the circles around the Heumarkt and Alter Markt in Cologne that homosexuals openly moved around in pubs there. In addition, it was known, since 1991, as contemporary witnesses reported, that foreign youths gathered in the area up to the office of the OVB and the then fast food restaurant Mc Iwan at the KVB tram stop Heumarkt in the direction of Deutz to go "homosexual gossiping" in front of the said pubs. According to contemporary witnesses, this also applied to the transvestite theatre Timp, where the later victim had to walk past.

There were also the places where the homosexuals looked for their partners, met for one-night stands. The area extended towards Severinsbrücke on the Rhine. It was known that Strohe frequented homosexual circles between Heumarkt and Severinsbrücke, which was called the "leather scene" during the years.

It was already common for several youths to pounce on the victims and demand some kind of protection money or simply strike. People were cautious at that time when they came out of one of the bars at night. This is what witnesses from the time report. In 1993, for example, there was allegedly an incident in front of a former fish shop/snack bar on the previously declared Heumarkt.

Strohe went to the bus stop in the direction of Heumarkt and was attacked on the way by his later murderer and killed with numerous kicks to the head. This happened in the immediate vicinity of the brightly lit Hotel Maritim at the head of Heumarkt facing the Rhine.

The tram line also ran close to where Strohe, who worked as a computer technician and programmer for an insurance company and was known and respected by many in the "black leather scene", was murdered.

Especially in Hühnergasse, adjacent to Heumarkt, where the bar "Caroussel" was, one could hear how homosexuals were often harassed and threatened. Sometimes they were even hit. Or "Pustis" (Greek for faggot) was shouted, spat at etc..

The perpetrator is described by the Cold Case Unit under Commissioner Weber as follows: about 20 years old at the time, about 1.80 metres tall, slim and athletic. He is said to have been wearing a white shirt with a snake pattern. He might have been trained in East Asian fighting techniques. He may have been travelling with other men who are being sought as witnesses.

Police File : Crime Scene 1992, Police Cologne

Investigators are also looking for two witnesses from the deceased's personal circle who were at Heumarkt shortly after the crime, according to the police in Cologne.

First Chief Detective Markus Weber will present the case in the programme. Witnesses can be contacted by the Cologne police on 0221 229-0 or by e-mail to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..