Last September, Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel courageously broke ranks with her predecessors and met with the Dalai Lama. China predictably objected – soon joined by Merkel’s own vice chancellor and foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who accused her of trying to “showcase” human rights.
Now Steinmeier has one-upped himself, refusing to meet with the Dalai Lama while the Tibetan spiritual leader was on a five-day visit to Germany …
Germany’s centre-left parliamentary opposition leader Frank-Walter Steinmeier denied allegations Sunday that he plagiarised parts of his PhD thesis after similar charges have claimed several political scalps in recent years. … [E]conomics professor Uwe Kamenz of Muenster in North Rhine-Westphalia had said he found “extensive” evidence of plagiarism in Steinmeier’s 1991 law thesis.
September 29th, 2013 at 12:46PM
With regard to one of the previous “political scalps,” it was not surprising to learn that former German defense minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, after being exposed as a plagiarist, is now “Distinguished Statesman” at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, in Washington. Americans regularly honor alleged academic plagiarists with prestigious department chairmanships or administrative positions and carefully suppress the allegations. For one example, see the documentation of a trial in New York
http://raphaelgolbtrial.wordpress.com/
where it emerges that several academics colluded in criminalizing the anonymous emails of a whistle-blower (some of which were apparently “crossed the line” into criminal, i.e., deadpan, satire) intent on exposing allegations that the chairman of the Jewish Studies department at NYU had plagiarized his father. The chairman then actually left NYU in the middle of the academic year and was honored with an even higher position, as vice provost of undergraduate education at Yeshivia University. The allegations themselves were never investigated, because the chairman, as two NYU deans testified at trial, has a “reputation for honesty.” The criminal trial verdict is currently being appealed. Academics are careful to avoid any discussion of the affair.
September 29th, 2013 at 12:48PM
P.s. sorry about my ungrammatical garble in my message above: delete the word “were” one the second line of the second paragraph.