Incomprehensible “Rudd Speak” leaves German translators flummoxed in Berlin!

October 10th, 2009 MELBOURNE - American rapper will.i.am of the band Black-Eyed Peas has nothing but praise for Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, saying that he is a source of inspiration. Will.i.am, 34, said at the Melbourne opening of reconciliation-inspired art project Nomad Two Worlds, that Rudd's apology to the stolen generations inspired people around the world, "I salute your prime minister, Prime Minister Rudd, if it wasn't for that I believe there would not have been that wave of conscious shifting happening and I don't think there would be an Obama," the Daily Telegraph quoted him as saying.

October 8th, 2009 German winners of the Nobel literature prizeHerta Mueller is the 10th German to win the Nobel Prize in literature. Here is a list of German writers who have received the award.

October 8th, 2009 Nobel winner wrote about repression in RomaniaBERLIN — Herta Mueller never intended to become a writer, it was simply a means of coping with the oppression of everyday life under Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. "I didn't choose what to write," she told the Romanian newspaper Cotidianul earlier this year.

October 8th, 2009 Excerpts from the Nobel literature prize citationExcerpts from the Swedish Academy's citation awarding the 2009 Nobel Prize in literature to Herta Mueller of Germany. Herta Mueller was born on August 17, 1953 in the German-speaking town Nitzkydorf in Banat, Romania.

September 25th, 2009 NEW YORK - During the venomous 95-minute speech of Libyan dictator Muammar al-Gaddafi at the United Nations, his personal interpreter struggled to live up to the expectations and simply gave up after he got lost in translation. Gaddafi's interpreter was so frustrated after 75 minutes of translation that he shouted " just can't take it any more," into the live microphone in Arabic, following which the UN's Arabic section chief Rasha Ajalyaqeen had to take over the proceedings and translate the final 20 minutes of the dictator's speech.

September 10th, 2009 Akin brings comedy to Venice with 'Soul Kitchen'VENICE, Italy — Prize-winning German-Turkish director Fatih Akin is turning to comedy in his latest film "Soul Kitchen," which showed at the Venice Film Festival on Thursday. The film, which is in competition for the top Golden Lion prize, represents a departure from the more serious tones set in Akin's 2004 Berlin Golden Bear winner "Head On" and 2007's "The Edge of Heaven," which won the screenplay award at the Cannes film festival.

August 25th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Brad Pitt's manager has said that actor never tagged Tom Cruise's 'Valkyrie' a "ridiculous movie". German magazine Stern recently reported that Pitt had slammed the historical thriller set in Nazi Germany during World War II.

August 6th, 2009 Germany's Stasi fooled in 1988 by Jacko doubleBERLIN — It appears that even the dreaded East German Stasi got caught up in Michael Jackson mania in the late 1980s. According to a document obtained by the AP last week from the archives of the former secret police, the Stasi reported on June 18, 1988 that it monitored Jackson as he visited the Allied Checkpoint Charlie in the center of divided Berlin.

July 30th, 2009 East German police feared 1988 Jackson concertBERLIN — A 1988 Michael Jackson concert in West Berlin prompted security concerns for East Germany's Stasi secret police, according to historical files published Thursday. According to one document — an internal Stasi communique from May 4, 1988 — the secret police believed that East German youth were "calculating on a confrontation with the police" in conjunction with the Jackson concert.

July 14th, 2009 MELBOURNE - With life-sized naked plastic mannequins in various positions, the recently opened Amora sex academy in Berlin is a hit with visitors looking for some titillation. More than 50 interactive displays at the academy guide visitors through the intimate areas of the male and female bodies, offering helpful tips on just about everything.

June 29th, 2009 Baron Cohen's Bruno falls for Australian PMSYDNEY — British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen's new character has a thing for Australia's wonkish prime minister. Baron Cohen, once better known as the clueless Kazakh journalist Borat, has a new guise as a gay Austrian fashionista, Bruno.

June 29th, 2009 MELBOURNE - Australia's Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is 'uber-cute' - and even hotter than US President Barack Obama, according to gay fashionista Bruno. Bruno, the alter ego of British satirist Sacha Baron Cohen, declared his admiration for the Australian leader while on a visit to promote his self-titled film.

June 24th, 2009 German actress Hanne Hiob dies at 86BERLIN — German actress Hanne Hiob, a daughter of playwright Bertolt Brecht, has died, officials said Wednesday. She was 86. Hiob — the daughter of Brecht and his first wife, opera singer Marianne Zoff — died on Tuesday in Munich, the Berlin office that represents Brecht's descendants said.

June 18th, 2009 Italian author to receive German literary prizeBERLIN — Italian author Claudio Magris will receive the top award of the Frankfurt Book Fair this fall, the jury announced Thursday. The jury that selects the winner of the annual Frankfurt Booksellers Peace Prize praised Magris' unique engagement with "the cohabitation and cooperation between different cultures." Magris, 70, often considered a contender for the Nobel prize in literature, is best known for his works "Danube" and "Microcosms." Born in the Italian port town of Trieste, he has written extensively about Germany, central Europe and his native Italy.

May 27th, 2009 LONDON - A rare stamp portraying film star Audrey Hepburn smoking fetched close to 47,000 pounds at an auction in Germany, it has emerged. Eight years ago, the German government had ordered the stamp to be destroyed after Hepburn's son, Sean Ferrer, objected to the cigarette holder dangling from her mouth and refused to grant copyright.