分类： society

Nestled deep in the wooded landscapes of Germany’s Harz Mountains near the quiet town of Hasselfelde, a millennia-old craft is being kept alive by one family, who tend to smoldering earthen mounds to produce traditional charcoal the same way their ancestors did centuries ago.

Immo Feldmer, one of the stewards of this historic trade, recently walked AP through the time-honored process as he initiated a new batch by carefully tipping smoldering charcoal into a carefully constructed mound of earth. Inside this mound, tightly stacked high-density beech wood will slowly smolder for weeks, slowly transforming into high-quality charcoal through a method that has remained largely unchanged for more than 1,000 years in this region.

Feldmer and his brother Sascha inherited the family business, Harzköhlerei Stemberghaus, from their father, and they employ a small team of workers to maintain constant watch over the smoldering mounds around the clock. This 24/7 vigil is critical: too much oxygen can spark an open flame that reduces the entire load of wood to useless ash, ruining weeks of patient work. Once the mound is sealed with earth, controlled airflow through intentional vents lets the beech burn slowly from top to bottom. When the carbonization process is complete, workers clear any soil from the finished charcoal, let it cool fully, then package it into 22-pound bags for commercial sale.

Historically, charcoal production was the backbone of the Harz region’s dominant mining industry. For centuries, local miners relied on charcoal to generate the extreme, consistent heat required to smelt silver, lead, copper, and zinc extracted from the region’s hard rock deposits. At the peak of the trade, hundreds of local families made their entire living as charcoal burners, the craft woven into the cultural and economic fabric of the mountain region.

Today, commercial ore mining has ended in the Harz Mountains, and the ancient craft has all but disappeared across Germany, with only a handful of practicing charcoal burners remaining. Unlike their ancestors, the Feldmers now sell nearly all of their product to domestic consumers for backyard barbecuing. The brothers distinguish their product from mass-market alternatives: Feldmer notes that most charcoal sold in German hardware stores is imported, produced from cheap blends of mixed wood, scrap lumber, and industrial waste wood to cut production costs. Their charcoal, by contrast, is made entirely from local, pure beech wood, which delivers higher heat output ideal for grilling.

Even with this niche market, annual production of roughly 40 tons of charcoal is not enough to support the brothers on its own. To supplement their income and share the history of their craft with visitors, they have expanded their business to include a charcoal-burning history museum, a small retail shop, and a casual restaurant. The eatery serves local regional specialties, including steaks grilled over the family’s own handmade beech charcoal, drawing tourists interested in traditional culture and culinary experiences.

Despite the challenges facing the ancient trade, Feldmer remains optimistic that the tradition will outlive his generation. He says the family’s core hope is that their children will carry on the business, keeping the craft alive for future generations and preserving this piece of Harz Mountain cultural heritage.

A suspicious death investigation is now underway in the Republic of Ireland after the body of a 35-year-old homeless man was recovered at a Clondalkin recycling facility in west Dublin late last week.

Local law enforcement with An Garda Síochána confirmed that Andrew Haire’s remains were located at the site at approximately 9:00 PM local time on Friday, July 25, two days before the official announcement of the investigation. In the week leading up to his death, Haire had traveled repeatedly between three Irish counties, moving between settlements in Cork, Kilkenny, and Dublin, according to reporting from Ireland’s national public service broadcaster RTÉ.

Initial forensic testing has not yielded a clear cause of death, with RTÉ citing official sources that note post-mortem examination results remain inconclusive. Investigators have outlined a working theory that Haire may have climbed inside a waste bin for shelter before the container was emptied and transported to the Clondalkin recycling center, though this line of inquiry remains unconfirmed.

Law enforcement officials confirmed that Haire had recently accessed government welfare support and emergency housing services for unhoused people in both Dublin and Cork city centers, indicating he was engaged with existing support systems in the weeks before his death. A dedicated family liaison officer has already been assigned to support Haire’s next of kin as the investigation progresses.

To coordinate the probe, investigators have set up a dedicated incident room at Lucan Garda Station, and senior officers have issued a public appeal for any information connected to Haire’s movements or activities in the week before his body was discovered. Members of the public with any details that could assist the investigation are urged to contact the incident room directly.

BERLIN — On a warm July Saturday night, what was supposed to be a joyous celebration of love, equality, and queer identity at Berlin’s annual Pride parade turned into a scene of terror. A vehicle ramming and stabbing attack near the festival’s route left one person dead and multiple others injured, in what German authorities have confirmed is an Islamic extremist-motivated act of violence. As of Sunday, the prime suspect remains at large, prompting a widespread manhunt and public safety warning across the capital.

Law enforcement has issued an urgent wanted notice for 21-year-old Abdul Ballout, a German citizen of Lebanese descent. Officials have warned the public not to approach the suspect, noting he is considered armed and extremely dangerous.

For 34-year-old Ali Darwich, a Berlin-born police officer of Lebanese and Palestinian heritage who identifies as both gay and Muslim, the attack is not just an act of violence against a community — it is a direct assault on every part of who he is, and on everything the city of Berlin claims to represent.

Choking back tears during an interview at the attack site in Tiergarten Park on Sunday, Darwich reflected: “Born a Muslim, living as a gay man, working as a police officer — this terror attack touches so many aspects of who I am. This was an attack on Berlin itself, on the diversity, tolerance, and commitment to freedom this city has always stood for.”

Just hours before the attack, Darwich had marched alongside thousands of other Pride attendees, calling for equal rights and raising the alarm about a documented surge in hate crimes targeting LGBTQ+ people across Germany. “I was wearing my rainbow shirt, carried a banner that asked ‘why are some people afraid of love but not of hate,’ and was heading to an afterparty when friends started flooding my phone to check if I was safe,” he recalled. He immediately canceled his plans and returned home, overwhelmed by grief, but said the full weight of the attack did not hit him until he woke the next morning.

At the cordoned-off crime scene on Sunday, hundreds of community members gathered for an impromptu vigil, laying flowers, embracing one another, and staring in quiet disbelief at the wrecked van still held by police forensics teams. Darwich, who also builds a following as a positive-focused gay Muslim influencer on social media, left him grappling with layered questions and deep anxiety.

“I asked myself, why as a police officer did I not run to the scene to help my colleagues? I asked myself as a gay man if we will now have to live with even more fear, on top of the bullying and hatred we already face every day. And I asked myself as a Muslim if our entire community will now be targeted with even more racism,” he explained.

Darwich’s greatest fear is that the attack will deepen existing polarization across German society, at a time when far-right extremism and anti-minority sentiment are already on the rise. “I’ll be honest, this morning I felt desperate. We cannot seem to root out the hatred some people carry, and it just keeps getting worse and worse,” he said. Yet even amid his grief, he refused to cede ground to extremism, emphasizing that he would not let hate win. “Deep down, I still hope the people of Berlin will come together, that we will support one another, and that out of this horror we can build an even stronger, more inclusive Berlin,” he added.

Darwich is far from alone in balancing grief with unyielding resolve. Andre Lehmann, a senior leader of LSVD+, Germany’s largest national LGBTQ+ advocacy organization, joined the Sunday vigil and spoke to the impact of the attack on the entire queer community.

“We are simply stunned by what happened yesterday. This suspected attack hits the heart of the queer community,” Lehmann said. “This attack targeted people who took to the streets this weekend to fight for their rights and celebrate diversity. This is a deliberate political act, not just an attack on people celebrating a parade.”

Lehmann also drew attention to a growing crisis that he says has long been ignored by mainstream German society: “We have seen a tenfold increase in anti-queer hate crime in Germany over just a few years. For years, honestly, nothing was done to address this, and there has been no widespread public outcry to demand change.”

Ashley Jump, a 26-year-old visitor from the United Kingdom who had traveled to Berlin specifically for the Pride parade, left the event shortly before the attack and returned to the site on Sunday to lay flowers in memory of the victim. Still shaking with emotion, Jump reaffirmed the community’s refusal to be intimidated.

“They’ll never erase us, we’ll never be gone,” they said. “As long as humanity has existed, we’ve existed. And as long as humanity exists, we will exist. We will not be removed.”

Across Berlin, the attack has sparked shock and solidarity, with crowds gathering outside the iconic Brandenburg Gate on Sunday to demonstrate support for the LGBTQ+ community and condemn the act of terror, as law enforcement continues its urgent search for the suspect.

On a Sunday travel day, a sudden power failure at a regional water treatment facility in southeast England triggered cascading disruptions that spilled over into one of the United Kingdom’s busiest international airports, Gatwick, leaving essential facilities nonfunctional and forcing food and beverage outlets to shut their doors.

The power outage hit SES Water’s Bough Beech Water Treatment Works, which serves communities across Kent and East Sussex. The incident caused a widespread drop in water system pressure, leading to temporary service interruptions for hundreds of domestic customers in the two counties, as well as critical infrastructure connected to the regional network, including Gatwick Airport, located just south of central London.

Within hours of the outage being reported, Gatwick Airport issued a public apology via the social media platform X to passengers traveling through both of its main terminals, acknowledging the significant inconvenience caused by the loss of water service. Airport officials noted that the facility had arranged to distribute bottled water to mitigate the impact of the outage, but that claim was immediately challenged by passengers on the ground.

Paul Lee, one of the thousands of passengers passing through Gatwick that day, told reporters that he had received no official announcements about the water shutdown and had not witnessed any bottled water being distributed to travelers. “For people who need to access restrooms, this situation is absolutely unacceptable,” Lee said in an interview with the BBC. “I’m fortunate that my flight is departing soon, so this won’t affect me for long, but for passengers with connections or departures still hours away, this is going to create major problems.”

Michael Dugher, a former British Member of Parliament, also documented the chaos on social media, noting that with all airport bars and restaurants closed due to the water outage, there was a severe shortage of available seating for waiting passengers. Many travelers were forced to sit directly on the terminal floor to wait out the disruption. Dugher called on Gatwick management to quickly reopen the closed dining and lounge spaces to ease the seating crunch and improve passenger comfort.

As of Sunday afternoon, SES Water confirmed that crews were working around the clock to restore full power and water pressure to all affected areas, but did not issue an immediate timeline for when service would return to normal.

BERLIN — One of Europe’s largest annual LGBTQ+ pride celebrations was abruptly cut short in the German capital Saturday, when law enforcement authorities called off the event midway through its start after a car drove into a crowd near the march route, leaving multiple people injured. The incident unfolded in Tiergarten, a central public park adjacent to the established parade path, where the vehicle struck multiple attendees before the situation was contained.

In an official public statement posted to the social platform X, Berlin Police urged all participants and bystanders at the event to evacuate the area immediately. While authorities confirmed that several people sustained injuries, they have not yet released a specific number of those affected. Law enforcement also noted that a large contingent of officers has been deployed to the scene to respond to the incident, though they could not immediately specify the exact number of personnel on site.

The Berlin pride parade, locally called Christopher Street Day, draws hundreds of thousands of attendees from across Germany and the broader European region each year, making it one of the continent’s most high-profile and well-attended LGBTQ+ community gatherings. Saturday’s shutdown marks an unexpected and violent interruption to what organizers had planned as a day of celebration and advocacy for queer rights.