Are the Cologne too lazy to choose?

Cologne - If the national forecasts are plummeting participation in the local elections on a negative record
"Maybe less than 45 percent in Cologne, the city fears director Guido Kahlen.
This would have consequences: How could a mayor be elected by the votes of just one quarter of the voting-Cologne. And the Council would sit representatives of the people that were not even legitimized by the half of the people.
For 30 years, turnout has declined steadily from a high of 80 percent. And wahlfaule Cologne traditionally always been a few percentage points below NRW average.
"This is a long-term threat to democracy," said Returning Officer Kahlen, the city could not be indifferent. Sun launches a campaign to select Cologne: Go! With leaflets, posters and the request that pull in schools, especially the 39 720 first-time voters will be addressed.
The election on 30 August offers other records: 766 361 electors are called - as much as before. 1600 candidates apply, 7,200 poll workers are to be used. Still missing 1155 volunteers. Information at (0221) 221 - 21950

Sick juror - now bursting scary process

Cologne -
It was the scariest process of 2009. are now for the trial of ex-soldier Hartwig S. (45 set) again.
Because a juror is ill!
The lay judge had to undergo an urgent operation between the days, runs longer. "Therefore, the process starts all over again after the holidays," says Dr. Reinhard defender Birkenstock (65) yesterday, the Express by telephone. Birkenstock It had hoped that the killer Hartwig S. again soon freed.
Birkenstock: "We believe in a case of minor." Reason: The longtime employee in the Army Office in Cologne had killed in an "amnesia" could not remember the deadly bites.
S. was an ordinary soldier, until he in 2005, Frank L. (24) from Cologne, met and acknowledged the service of love. "I hated him, but also infinitely loved," he says.
On 5 March 2009 Hartwig freaked out, "I've choked him with both hands. Suddenly his face was dark blue. "What happened after that, Hartwig will have forgotten: with seven stab wounds to the heart Hartwig killed his partner, his face sticky with packing tape.
Hartwig laid the dead only to the bathroom, covered him up. To police he did not go. But cried, wrote letters. Eventually he put Frank in a plastic bag. "I did not want more bloodshed. It was hard, and I have drawn him into the lumber-room. "First Easter he took on the police.

Mobile video keeps dismissed for vortex - Google Chefs

Milan -
An amateur film of the abuse of a disabled person in the video portal from Google Italy and the consequences: now convicted three officers of the Internet company to suspended sentences.
A Milan court said on Wednesday from a sentence of six months in prison, on probation, because the Google employee in 2006 had not prevented the publication of the video.
The cell phone video shows how a fellow student with Down syndrome, abuse and brutal beating. The film was released by the perpetrators in September 2006 on Google Video under the heading "The funniest films" and only after protests two months later removed from Google been.
It is "the world's first time" that the heads a search engine company for content on their portal to account have been drawn, Italian media commented the verdict. So the verdict could have serious consequences as a precedent.
"I'm beside myself. This decision creates a dangerous precedent, "protested the former chairman of Google Italy, David Drummond, one of the condemned. There is "clear statutory provisions in Italy and in the EU", which set clear that Internet companies would not control the content in advance. Once they had learned of the video, it was immediately deleted.
Marco Pancini, a spokesman for Google Italy, spoke of "an attack on the fundamental freedom principles on which the Internet was founded.
The Milan public prosecutor declared himself satisfied with the outcome of the process. It was "for the first time in Italy, a major problem with regard to the protection of human dignity in modern times has been raised." The judge had based her decision that Google had failed to give consent for publication on the part of all parties to obtain the video. Google has announced that it will go to appeal.