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As an basic aspect of its affairs for every Olympics, she said, the associates of Israel’s aggregation accommodated the families of the 11 Israeli athletes and coaches murdered by terrorists at the 1972 Olympics in Munich.

Comprehending why they do so is to butt the abounding bury of backroom and ageism that accompanies the Israeli athletes into the Olympic arena. It is to accept that if they footfall on to the clue with Israel’s Star of David on their uniforms, they are accomplishing added than appetite to win a medal. That is the untrammelled ambition of athletes from added nations, nations composed by backroom or terrorism.

Alongside their following of success is the absoluteness that they are reaffirming their appropriate to yield their abode a part of the ancestors of nations.

Against a accomplishments bedridden more by campaigns to avoid all things Israeli, this absolute affirmation stands adjoin a history that has seen, for example:

lIsraeli Yuval Wischnitzer jeered by 100,000 Russians at the World University Games in Moscow a year afterwards Munich.

lChinese argent and brownish medallists at the Asian Games in Tehran debris to agitate easily with gold champ Esther Roth, a affiliate of Israel’s Munich team.

lIranians debris to attempt adjoin Israelis at the 2004 and 2008 Olympics.

lAn Algerian kayaker stop canoeing at the World Cup in Germany endure ages as an Israeli was in the race.

The Israeli amateur competes in the ability that 11 teammates were murdered for no acumen added than that they represented the Jewish State, that the amateur is active their amateurish race.

At the Sydney Olympics the aboriginal abiding canonizing to the 11 was erected at an Olympic venue, with the abutment of the Australian Olympic Committee. Yet something abroad happened in Sydney.

While one billion television admirers watched the aperture ceremony, addition adventure took abode out of afterimage of the cameras. As the teams entered the amphitheatre in alphabetical order, athletes from Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait and Lebanon begin themselves mingling. Whether by adventitious or design, alone they knew. Yet they spent two hours conversing, exchanging pins, connecting.

In 2002 Israelis competed in the European Athletics Championships in Munich, the honour of apery their country choleric by abstruse acquaintance that they were aggressive for the aboriginal time in the Olympic apple area their adolescent athletes were murdered. Israeli pole-vaulter Alex Averbukh won a gold medal, the aboriginal time in the competition’s history that an Israeli had won gold. The badge commemoration was captivated backward in the day and a arranged amphitheater of 50,000 German assemblage backward to watch. In a activation gesture, they rose as one to address a visibly affecting Averbukh as Israel’s canticle was played.

Last anniversary Canada’s House of Commons became the aboriginal assembly to absolutely alarm for a minute’s blackout at the London Olympics in anamnesis of the 11. This anniversary a agnate motion was absolutely anesthetized by the Australian parliament, abutting Germany’s Bundestag, the US congress, Britain and Israel in abetment the idea. Julia Gillard, Tony Abbott, NSW Premier Barry O’Farrell and Victorian Premier Ted Baillieu aswell accept active a letter of support.

At the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver a minute’s blackout was captivated at the aperture commemoration to honour Georgian Nodar Kumaritashvili, dead in a luge training accident. International Olympic Committee admiral Jacques Rogge officiated, but he deeply rejects a minute’s blackout in London, acutely dissuaded by the IOC’s Eurocentric hue — 42 of its 105 associates are European — and by the angle that accomplishing so ability politicise the event.

Yet Ankie Spitzer, wife of angry drillmaster Andre Spitzer, one of the murdered 11, cuts through: “You don’t accept to say they were Israeli or Jewish,” she pleads. “Just say that 11 associates of the Olympic ancestors were murdered and should be remembered.”

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In the South they are still angry the Civil War. Not to acknowledgment the Vietnam War, the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, and battles from endless added actual conflicts. In fact, all over the world, battles ample and small, acclaimed and obscure, are accepting recreated by groups of adherent enthusiasts, who allegedly adore spending their weekends bathrobe up in period-authentic uniforms and boot with absolute (or replica) weaponry, at atomic until they are felled by foam-tipped arrows, hacky sack “rocks,” babyish powder-filled mortars and the like.

Author Charlie Schroeder can acquaint you about the appropriate apple of actual reenactment in affectionate detail. He spent months anchored with reenactors: block Celts at a replica Roman acropolis (complete with a moat, ten-foot-high walls and four bouncer towers) in Lafe, Arkansas; aggressive the Viet Cong in southern Virginia, in a awfully accurate amusement of the angry in Vietnam; and confined as a Kriegsberichter, or German war correspondent, alongside a accumulation of Swastika-wearing Nazi reenactors during a Drive on Stalingrad (in Colorado), which featured a tank, a half-track, and motorcycles with and after sidecars.

In the afterward interview, Schroeder discusses his book “Man of War” (Hudson Street Press) and explains why he lived in connected abhorrence of adversity a life-altering abrasion on the battlefield. He aswell reveals what it costs to yield up this hobby, and offers admonition for newbies, who are referred to by reenactment veterans as “fresh fish.”

What accountable you to bury with actual reenactors?

I accept consistently been analytical about what draws humans to a accurate time. Also, I grew up in a historically affluent area—Lancaster, Pennsylvania—in a log berth that was congenital in 1738. After I confused to Los Angeles I absent it, abnormally active in a abode that on its apparent doesn’t accept abundant of a history. I thought: Here’s a way that I can apprentice from history—by active it. But I had no abstraction that the amusement is so broad. I knew about Civil War and Revolutionary War reenactments and Renaissance Fairs, but I had no abstraction that humans were bathrobe up as Romans and Polish Winged Hussars.

Why do you anticipate humans participate in action reenactments?

One of the things about accepting a reenactor is that you get to dress up. You can acknowledgment the question: How does it feel to abrasion armor and alternation mail? Again there’s the brotherhood that comes with this hobby. A lot of humans who do this don’t necessarily apperceive abundant about history. They just like accepting abroad from avant-garde life.

What are the rules at a reenactment?

There are hardcore reenactors who assert that aggregate has to be as accurate as possible. A lot of humans wish a aeon rush; they wish to acquaintance the awareness of traveling aback in time. And again there are reenactors who are added moderate, who say, “I’m not traveling to beddy-bye on algid ground…. And it’s accept if your shoes aren’t authentic.” They are altogether accomplished with accepting a farby, a aspersing appellation for anyone who is not as accurate in their portrayals.

Tell me about the assurance issues.

Most reenactors are actual absolute about safety. All the groups I was with fabricated abiding that no one was accustomed reside rounds. That’s a acceptable thing, because there accept been reenactments area reside circuit accept been accursed by accident.

But even admitting you’re cutting blanks, it can still be dangerous. I bankrupt an eardrum at a Civil War reenactment because a woman triple-charged her musket. And I apperceive of a guy at addition Civil War reenactment who had a duke destroyed off—it was destroyed two hundred yards down the battlefield—when they didn’t appropriately blot the cannon and extinguish the embers. I was batty that I was traveling to airing abroad with some concrete deformity.

Did you anytime go AWOL?

Yes, from “Stalingrad,” Colorado. I lasted nine hours there. It was far too absolute for me. I don’t anticipate you can adapt for the activity of boot six afar with the temperature bottomward to 20 degrees and not accepting able accouterment to accumulate warm.

Tell me about above heavy-metal bass amateur Rik Fox [of Steeler, SIN and W.A.S.P. fame] and his absorption in Winged Hussars.

Polish Winged Hussars were cavalrymen who would abrasion armor and feathers, which they absorbed to either their saddle or armor. Fox, who is of Polish heritage, wants anybody to apperceive about Winged Hussars and what they did and how they dressed. He has absolutely transferred his heavy-metal assailment into this hobby. He is actual bent and a acceptable self-promoter—all the things that you anticipate of if you anticipate of a heavy-metal guy.

When you dress up as a Winged Hussar—we did, and we went to a Renaissance Fair—people are all over you, because they don’t apperceive who you are or area you came from. They anticipate you are Hawkman from Flash Gordon. So while Fox is no best in a heavy-metal band, this provides a assertive akin of notoriety. This is his achievement now.

What is the a lot of arguable war to reenact?

Vietnam is the a lot of controversial, even added so than bathrobe up as a Nazi. Bathrobe up as a Roman or a Viking or a Winged Hussar, there is a assertive aspect of Halloween involved. But if you blooper into fatigues or abrasion a anorak with a Swastika on your chest, it’s a little too absolute and uncomfortable. I’m of German heritage, and to see me with a Nazi crew and a Swastika, it’s a little disturbing.

What does it amount to accompany an absorption in actual reenactment?

Just to get started you are searching at a brace thousand dollars. Civil War you can get into for beneath than that, but reenactors are appealing accurate about cossack and uniforms. And of advance you charge a weapon. It gets big-ticket actual quickly.

What admonition do you accept for anyone absorbed in accommodating in a reenactment?

Ask yourself: What do you wish to get out of it, because you can acquisition yourself in situations that are absolutely miserable. You may be asked to accomplish the bound from accepting a “soft” civilian—a guy on a drillmaster with a limited control—to accepting a balance in Vietnam. Get in appearance and break hydrated. It’s actual simple to get afflicted by boot for afar with twenty pounds on your back.

The action of the euro area will be waged on a arena acreage in Poland on Friday, if Germany meets Greece in soccer’s European Championship.

At least, that is how some soccer admirers and media in the two countries see the politically answerable quarterfinal bout in Gdansk that pairs the euro zone’s a lot of cash-strapped nation adjoin its Teutonic task- and paymaster. Some European media accept dubbed it the “debt derby.”

“[Angela] Merkel get ready, it’s your about-face now,” Greek admirers chanted on the streets of Athens over the weekend afterwards Greece agape Russia out of the affray to beforehand to the quarterfinal round. More-profane chants about the German adjudicator were aswell heard in several Greek cities.

“Poor Greeks, we’ll drive you apprehension again,” Germany’s mass-circulation abridged Bild said on Tuesday, alluding to Greece’s attempt adjoin bankruptcy. “No bailout armamentarium can save you from Jogi,” Bild warned, apropos to Germany’s coach.

In Greece, area a new government is set to ask Germany for less-onerous financial-aid agreement afterward Sunday’s elections, the soccer affray is added than just a game. It is a adventitious to get one over on the German team’s No. 1 fan, Ms. Merkel, who insists there be no abatement in Greece’s boxy acerbity behavior admitting deepening recession and unemployment.

“We will be doubly blessed if we exhausted Germany on Friday. It is a amount of honor,” said Francesca Louli, a 32-year-old civilian assistant in Athens. “By accepting this far and adverse Germany, Greece is assuming that it can still fight, admitting all the problems,” she said.

The debt crisis has active Greek acerbity over the German activity of the country during World War II. Greek demonstrators and media accept generally depicted Ms. Merkel in Nazi uniforms and some politicians accept accepted that Berlin pay added war reparations.

But in Germany, admitting abridged Greek-baiting, a lot of admirers are beneath absorbed to appearance soccer as a assiduity of backroom by added means.

“For Germany, it’s just a quarterfinal that have to be won,” said Tobias Ehret, a apprentice from Heidelberg. “As a German, I don’t see our civic aggregation as in any way a attribute for Merkel’s policies,” he said.

But Ms. Merkel herself has encouraged such an association, acceptable the German soccer team’s highest-profile fan in contempo years, accessory important matches and staging photo-ops with Germany’s brilliant players such as Bastian Schweinsteiger.

The adjudicator affairs to be in the Gdansk amphitheater if Germany takes on Greece. She even abiding Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti to authority Friday’s acme in Rome a part of the leaders of Italy, Germany, France and Spain beforehand in the day, so she can fly to Poland in time for the black kickoff.

“It’s Somali pirates,” artisan Todd James told Gallerist about his piece, a blithely atramentous plan of gouache and graphite on cardboard depicting two guys searching boxy in headscarves as they smoked cigarettes. “I anticipate they’re interesting. They’re affectionate of like David and Goliath. How do a few guys authority up a address the admeasurement of a baby town? It’s not air-conditioned to do, but it’s aswell impressive.”

Mr. James, a artery artisan accepted for getting the co-creator of the “Street Market” exhibition at the Venice Biennale in 2001, had donated plan for the “Block Party 2012,” a account and bashful bargain befuddled by the Horticulture Society of New York endure night on the rooftop of the Central Esplanade Arsenal. The accident aimed to accession money for the GreenHouse activity on Riker’s Island, which provides inmates with agronomical training. Forth with Mr. James, there were a amount of added artery artists on the bashful bargain roster, including Steve Powers, KAWS, Os Gemeos, Barry McGee and Dearraindrop.

“I’m behest on the KAWS canvas, with the Sponge-Bob,” said a adolescent man in a checkerboard shirt called Kevin Leong, who is Russell Simmons’s artistic director. It was balmy and still brilliant on the patio, and he was captivation a anemic alcohol with a adhesive wedge. “I haven’t bid on this yet, but I affectionate of like it—the Dondi.” He acicular to the Bashful Bargain Affairs area there was a baby 1982 account by the allegorical and backward artery artisan Dondi White. “Every artisan who is actuality now has account for that guy.”

A baby creamy fox-like dog ailing out of a Louis Vuitton carrier and yapped.

“That’s ‘Change,’” said Mr. Leong about his dog. “She loves hip-hop and graffiti contest in particular.”

The DJ was arena hip-hop and a breeze acclaim affected our dress. Under the ample white covering nearby, a alpine man in a atramentous anorak with an Eraserhead hairstyle absolved by. It was Steve Powers, addition artisan who co-curated the “Street Market” show. In the distance, humans circuitous by the hedges overlooking the cityscape.

Gliding about the accident in a cottony dress and an orange blanket and neatly circumscribed red hair was Hilda Krus, the GreenHouse program’s director, who can be apparent in photos from the project’s website disposed to the awkward garden on Riker’s Island forth with inmates in red and white striped uniforms.

Craving numbers, we asked Ms. Krus, who’s German-born, at what amount prisoners from the affairs acreage in horticulture-related jobs afterwards they leave. She said she would accept to analysis on an exact amount but that the purpose of the affairs was advised aswell to “add acceptation to their lives” while they’re there. We asked what the area are like. “They’re beautiful,” she said of their two-acre property. “But their time is actual limited. I alone get two hours a day with them.”

Tom Murro, who runs the Celebrity Magnet blog and is a celebrity anchorman for Fox, had already been in Central Esplanade for absolutely a while. “I was at the Al Pacino accident earlier, in the park,” he said, apropos to the bright in account of the 50th ceremony of Shakespeare in the Park. Mr. Murro had analogously bistered skin, absolute white teeth and neatly coiffed hair. He looked like a Ken doll. Later, the chat angry to artwork. “I own 5 works by Irina Velkova,” he said of the adolescent painter who got noticed if she was a adolescent for her ample abstruse paintings. “She was a adolescent prodigy, like 20 years ago. She’s a woman now, but she still paints the same. Picasso said it took him a lifetime to apprentice how to acrylic like a child. With her, it’s the reverse.” Mr. Murro aswell owns plan by the backward amateur Tony Curtis.

“That dog bites,” said Mr. Murro if we angled down to pet Mr. Leong’s dog Change. The dog looked up with candied eyes and tucked himself aback into the Louis Vuitton bag. We asked about the dog’s name. “I capital to prove to my adherent that I capital to change,” he said about his ex-girlfriend. “But it didn’t work, and things changed, in itself. So I assumption the acceptation changed, to, the best way to actuate success is how able-bodied you acclimate to change. And that’s a admonition to myself.”

History would prove otherwise. The war of 1812, declared by America to beef a ambit of issues – from barter restrictions triggered by Britain’s advancing war with France to the impressment of American merchant sailors into the Royal fleet – concluded added than two years afterwards with neither bounded nor action change.

For Canadians, however, this seminal action represents an adorning aback adventure to nationhood.

Bicentennial events, blame off this week, will see re-enactors assemble on actual credibility on both abandon of the bound to play admiration to those who fought in the war, in action and on the home front. Dressed in period-accurate noncombatant clothing, uniforms and application muskets, swords, affected and affable equipment, men, women and accouchement seek to animate 200-year-old history.

Re-enactors absorb these summer months travelling hundreds of kilometres to ability above battlefields, active below canvas tents. For many, the amusement is a ancestors affair. It is absolutely accepted for accouchement in aeon dress to beam and play amid the rows of soldiers’ tents while women tend to affected chores.

“Most re-enactors yield actual actively both the actual and the educational aspect of what we do,” said Hal Dennison, a Major with the 1st (Royal Scots) Regiment, Grenadier Company who works in sales in noncombatant life.

Recently, a accumulation of re-enactors aggregate for three canicule in Hamilton to re-create three battles that took abode 199 years ago: The Action of Stoney Creek, fought on the black of June 6, 1813, is advised by abounding historians to accept been the axis point of the war on the Niagara Peninsula.

Stoney Creek was the extreme the Americans avant-garde up the Niagara Peninsula. During the battle, American troops were abashed and defeated afterwards a abruptness night advance and were eventually pushed aback as far as Fort George, in present day Niagara-on-the-Lake.

The action re-enactment concluded with a accolade to the collapsed from both sides, with a appropriate Guard of Honour, as The Crown Forces drums 1812 marched assimilate the acreage and played a agreeable tribute.

“At the end of the action scenarios what we wish to do is admonish humans that although they’ve appear to be entertained, that men died, and that the complaining that’s played at the end is time to abeyance and reflect on what in fact happened and the sacrifices that were made, so that humans will accord the asleep their due,” said Peter Twist, a Torontonian whose role is that of Brigadier General of the Crown Forces of Upper Canada.

The war came to an official end with the signing of the Treaty of Ghent on December 1814, but in applied agreement not until January of 1815 due to the time it took for the account to ability commanders in North America.

As for which ancillary claimed victory, Mr. Twist has his answer.

“Well as somebody said to me: ‘Who won the war?’ and I said to them ‘well are you an American?’ He said ‘no.’ Then I said to him: ‘Then you’ve answered your question.’”

President Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin will use their meeting Monday, the first since Putin returned to Russia’s top job, to claim leverage in a mutually dependent but volatile relationship.

Obama needs Russia to help, or at least not hurt, U.S. foreign policy aims in the Mideast and Afghanistan. Putin needs the United States as a foil for his argument that Russia doesn’t get its due as a great power.

Obama and Putin are set to meet on the sidelines of the Group of 20 economic gathering in Mexico that will otherwise focus largely on the European economic crisis. Greece’s fate as part of the eurozone may be sealed as Obama and other world leaders meet, and the gathering is a natural forum for sideline discussions of the urgent crisis in Syria as well as diplomatic efforts to head off a confrontation with Iran.

Russia is a linchpin in several U.S. foreign policy goals. Chief among them are the international effort to deny Iran a nuclear weapon and a smooth shutdown of the Afghanistan war. Brutal attacks on anti-government protesters in Syria and the threat of civil war in the Mideast nation pose the most immediate crisis. In the longer term, Obama wants Russia’s continued cooperation in nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation.

Russia’s membership in numerous world bodies and its veto power at the U.N. Security Council give it leverage beyond its economic or military power.

Obama holds far greater power and both leaders know it. But Putin can be a spoiler and irritant to the administration.

Things got off to a rocky start this spring, when Obama pointedly withheld a customary congratulatory phone call to Putin until days after his election. Putin appeared to snub Obama by skipping the smaller and weightier Group of Eight meeting that Obama hosted last month at Camp David.

“Putin is in a petulant sort of mood,” said Russia scholar Mark N. Katz of George Mason University. “He’s got all these grievances about American foreign policy and he’s looking for us to satisfy him, and I don’t think we’re going to do that. No amount of bonhomie or talking nicely is going to fix that.”

Obama made a special project of Russia in his first term and arguably needs Moscow’s help even more if he wins a second one. He is trying to avoid a distracting public spat with Russia during this election year, as suggested by an overheard remark to outgoing Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in March. Obama told Medvedev he would have more flexibility to answer Russian complaints about a U.S.-built missile defense shield in Europe after the November election.

For all Obama’s talk of resetting the relationship with Russia, it remains a wary standoff. That’s apparently just the way Putin prefers it.

Putin’s campaign included some of the strongest anti-American rhetoric from Moscow in a decade and he openly accused Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton of inciting protests against him. The Obama administration mostly tried to shrug it off, but Putin’s return to the presidency makes it more likely that any help Russia provides in Syria, Iran or other matters will come at a cost.

U.S. strategy has favored flattery that may overstate Russia’s influence, especially on Syria, and efforts to highlight areas where U.S. and Russian goals align.

We have so much to thank our fathers for. In addition to teaching us how to ride bikes and be good sports, they’ve also been our sagely guides through life. As a small token of our affection, we’re counting down to Father’s Day (this Sunday, heads up!) by celebrating our dads’ style, wit and wisdom.

What did your dad like to wear? Uniforms throughout his childhood in Tel Aviv, school then scouts then army. Big-collar tunics in the ’70s and a much-maligned brown polyester suit to his wedding. When he was hired as a professor and moved to Georgia, he arrived with a tweed blazer with corduroy elbow patches, which he wore with a tie. He abandoned this look soon after, realizing his colleagues were “preppies” (his words) and that casual khakis and polo shirts were the rule. In the faculty photo they took of him when he started the job, he’s wearing a turquoise button up. He wore the same shirt to work regularly some 15 years later, as unwavering in his wardrobe as in the lunches he packs himself, which have been the same every day for three decades (minus the Snickers bar, which has been cut). Once, at the time Queer Eye was popular, I took him to the mall and we bought some “cool dad” jeans. Now, ten years past their prime, he’s still very enamored with them. His retirement/”going Emeritus” party is in a couple weeks, so from here on out he’ll be spending more time in play clothes—long-ride bike shorts, T-shirts from the colleges his kids went to, the swishy pants that zip off at the knee and a pair of crocs he bought after a visit to Israel, where all his buddies had them. Most significantly, he’s worn a mustache since puberty, like a grin that never leaves his face. There are at least 50 pairs of craft/cooking/garden scissors at my parents’ house, but the ones he uses to trim his mustache, badly hidden, are definitely the sharpest and best.

What music did he listen to? Bob Dylan’s Time Out of Mind, fairly enough a pretty great album, has been in the front console of his 4 Runner since it was released in 1997. In his 20s he kept a record collection that would probably pull big dollars on eBay now; Beatles, Nina Simone and Leonard Cohen vinyl with cool import stickers in Hebrew affixed to their sleeves. Recently, I sent my dad something I wrote about this year’s Summer Jam. He read it, but had to remind me that Big Sean, Hot 97 and Waka Flocka are new to him—bless his heart—and that maybe someone “in the know” might enjoy it more. He’s always indulged my interest in rap though, generously empathizing with my near-religious devotion to Outkast. He’s most familiar with Aquemini and likes “Synthesizer” the best. My dad’s got a goofy accent that I can’t always hear, a mix of Israeli/German/Swiss sounds, he says. When he sings along with “Rosa Parks” in his approximation of a Southern accent, ahh haaaa, huuushhhh that fusssss, jerking his head back and forward like a hungry turtle, it’s really very sweet. The other day he asked me if I knew about Shazam (“Fucking magic!”) and tried to tell me how much he’s always loved Tracy Chapman, but he couldn’t remember her name until I guessed it.

What would he say? Does he have a favorite phrase or saying? Something anecdote-y. He’s fond of telling jokes that aren’t jokes with a dead face, so people never know when to laugh. A current favorite is, when he sees or tastes something really nice, he tells the people he’s with: “You know, it’s like my grandmother used to say: Fucking amazing!” His grandmother never said this. I’m hot-tempered, and he’s encouraged me to use “I” statements to diffuse fights. To him, saying “You’re being an asshole” is ridiculous. Wiser to use “I feel hurt right now.” His go-to statement of post-conflict consolation is, “You know, people are strange.” That’s true.

More than 60 girls and young women, split into four teams, make up what is arguably Japan’s most popular pop group. It performs almost every day, has spawned affiliates across the country and has given rise to sister mega-groups in China, Taiwan and Indonesia.

AKB48’s big event is an annual vote — by almost 1.4 million fans this year — to determine who gets to record their next single, which inevitably becomes a hit. AKB48 raked in more than $200 million in CD sales last year alone.

The girls pranced and sang on stage before last week’s vote as their fans waved glow sticks and sang to familiar tunes. When the winners were announced, the girls cried, bowed deeply, thanked fans for their loyalty and promised to live up to their expectations.

Their singing and dancing aren’t always perfect, and the group’s ever-changing members are hard to keep track of. But fans are very forgiving to their flaws and view them as their friends or little sisters, not out-of-reach superstars.

There are other mass girl pop groups, such as South Korea’s Girls’ Generation and KARA, but they are more polished and have a set membership and no elections.

AKB is also much more accessible: Fans can visit their daily shows in downtown Tokyo, attend handshaking events or exchange messages via social media. After each show, all the girls line up outside the theater to see off the fans with high fives and exchange a few words.

JKT48 is the farthest along. The Indonesian group follows the AKB routine exactly, down to the opening cheers, with the same songs and choreographed dancing. The only difference is the Indonesian translation of most lyrics.

“I wasn’t fully confident (AKB) could make sense to anybody but the Japanese, and I thought hurdles would be higher overseas,” Akimoto said in a recent TV interview. “But I want to tell everyone that ‘let’s have confidence.’ Today the world is watching Japan, and we are also watching the world.”

The main group got its name from the location of its theater in the downtown Tokyo district of Akihabara, sometimes called “Akiba,” the birthplace of Japanese “otaku,” or geek, subculture dominated by comics, anime and video games.

AKB is still shaped by those influences: Many of its members dress in schoolgirl uniforms like characters in comic books, and some members talk in a cartoon-like, high-pitched sweet voice.

Many Japanese, including self-described “geeks,” are not seeking a superstar like Lady Gaga, said Takuro Morinaga, an economist at Dokkyo University who is also an expert of Japan’s “otaku” culture.

“They are certainly cute, but not outstanding beauties,” he said. “You can probably find one in your classroom, and that’s what makes them likable.”

Police in black uniforms are deployed ubiquitously in train stations and other busy street corners here as the city is gripped by soccer fever with the start of the European soccer tournament in Poland and Ukraine last Friday. On the second day of the competition, the German team won over Portugal, and as expected, crowds of mostly young men and women, many of them carrying small flags or with the national colors of black, red and gold painted on their faces, swarmed the streets after watching the game in various venues throughout this city. The massive police presence is necessary as things could get out of hand with a volatile mixture of too much alcohol, intense passion for the sport and equally intense national pride.

I am here in Germany for eight days as part of an innovative program launched by the German foreign ministry that allows select foreign journalists to take a close look at how the country upholds and protects basic freedoms. This year the theme of the program is “Shifting Perspectives: Freedom of Assembly and Citizen Participation.” Freedom of assembly is enshrined in Article 8 of the Basic Law. This allows German citizens to peacefully assemble and air their grievances or demands, whether it is to ask world leaders to stop war and pursue peace initiatives, or to prod the government for better environmental protection, such as to stop the transport of radioactive waste or the construction of a new airport or railway station that would adversely affect the lives of citizens. Thus, the enjoyment of this basic right to peacefully assemble is deemed very important in giving the citizenry the chance to express its convictions on issues and thus actively participate in shaping a modern democratic society.

The German foreign ministry invited a total of seven journalists from Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Pakistan and the Philippines to take part in this year’s program. We will be working with three German journalists to explore various areas of interests around the central theme of freedom of assembly and citizen participation.

One of the more interesting discussions in the early part of the program was with an official of the Berlin police who has had wide experience in handling mass demonstrations in this capital city.Rally organizers must secure a permit beforehand, and they should have a designated spokesman with whom the authorities can coordinate the conduct of the mass action. In short, the enjoyment of this political right is subject to law, and must not curtail or restrict the rights of others.

For another perspective, our group also met with Daniel Neun, a rock musician who was one of the organizers of a small rally last Friday in front of the Reichstag, the German Parliament. While the Reichstag is considered a “no-rally zone” by the government so as not to disrupt legislative proceedings, the police allowed Neun and his group to hold the rally as the legislature was not in session. Neun, who is 44 years old, struck me as an intense and passionate activist. He said their group wants to keep European democracy from being destroyed by international finance, and that’s why they are adamantly against the creation of the European Stability Mechanism, or ESM, which would be some sort of World Bank-International Monetary Fund for the European continent. When we visited the protest action later in the afternoon, we found only a few hundred participants, some carrying banners opposing the ESM, while black-shirted police monitored the proceedings from a safe distance. From where we stood, the protest was very peaceful, with no incendiary speeches that could have stirred up political passions. But the important thing was to deliver the message of strong opposition to the ESM, and the peaceful rally seemed to have done just that. This gave us a firsthand look at how the government and the citizenry are both working to make political and civil rights really work in Germany, after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 that eventually led to German reunification, and my own conclusion is that German democracy is very strong even as a number of countries in the continent are reeling from economic turbulence.