It will be 50 years this coming September that Martin Luther King, Jr. visited West Berlin at the invitation of Mayor Willy Brandt. AVA’s own contribution to the Martin Luther King anniversary celebrations will take place at its regular first-Thursday-of-the-month Stammtisch on September 4 at 8:00 p.m. On that evening we will host the Rev. Ralf Zorn, an American Pastor in West Berlin and Dr. King’s interpreter and driver on that weekend 50 years ago. SO MARK YOUR CALENDARS NOW! September 4th , 8:00 p.m., Café X-Zeit, Welserstr. 10-12,

Our own Rich Rosen will give a talk with discussion on “The Science of Climate Change, and its Implications for Prevention” on June 5th at our monthly Stammtisch. Our monthly Stammtisch will, again temporarily, meet at Café X-Zeit at Welserstr. 10-12 just a few steps from Viktoria Luise Platz.

Rich, himself a scientist, has long traveled between Berlin and Boston working with the Tellus Institute – for a Great Transition – research and action for a global civilization of sustainability, equity, and well-being. The institute was established in 1976 as an interdisciplinary not-for-profit research and policy organization. The institute has launched a website called The Great Transition Initiative.

AVA-Berlin chair Ann Wertheimer gave one of the opening speeches at the 29th Black International Cinema (BIC) festival. Here is the full text of her moving speech referring to her own experiences in the 60s during the civil rights movement. More photos here.

The plaintiffs in this complicated case have been telling a simplified version of our story for the last 40 years. Now, as issues of surveillance are becoming more and more relevant, there’s all the more reason for us to get it exactly right. This report explains what happened.

This case study was written by Ann Wertheimer, a member of Americans in Berlin for Mc-Govern (later Concerned Americans in Berlin [CAIB] and then the Berlin Democratic Club), with many thanks to everyone who sent me their notes and told me their recollections, with special thanks to Douglas Hillmer, whose contemporaneous notes from 1973 provided the framework for this report. And once again, a big thank-you to our lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) – Mark Lynch, John Shattuck, William Schaap and David Addlestone. We hope that our continuing donations to the ACLU reflect our gratitude.  Here is the Case Study.

Jon Oberg, who joined us at the July 4th Stammtisch, blogged about Celebrating our Freedoms on the Fourth of July.

Click on vimeo to watch in HD fullscreen.

David MacBryde — a Berlin-based correspondent for The Rag Blog – offered a progressive perspective on developments in Germany and the Eurozone to the Rag Radio audience on Friday, November 9 in Austin, Texas.   Listen to the interview here.Photo by Charlie Martin / KOOP.

Alan Benson who has worked tirelessly to register Americans to vote was quoted in a Reuter’s article which was also carried by the New York Times.