Hoyerswerda was once a boom-town - a model vision of GDR socialism, built around a large coal and gas plant. Between 1955 and 1981, the industrialisation of this medium-sized East German town took the population up to 71,000. A New Town had to be built ...
Manchester as the birthplace of the industrial revolution has always been a symbol for radical change. After decades of heavy decline and neglect, Manchester has of late been widely hailed as a model for urban regeneration. With gleaming architectural...
In its short history, Eritrea - the Land of the Red Sea - has seen its fair share of upheaval and violence. The country was born out of a protracted War of Independence from Ethiopia that rumbled on for three decades, variously involving the Soviet ...
A fitting monument to Germany's ill-fated colonial ambitions at the beginning of the 20th century, the former mining town of Kolmanskop, a few kilometres inland from the colonial-era trading post of Lüderitz, is being swallowed by the ...
Amongst Berliners, the burning issue at the moment is the creeping, and seemingly unstoppable, gentrification of their city. Rising rents, now incomparable to unusually cheap rates in the early 1990s, and a huge tourist boom in Berlin are driving up ...
On 22 September 2013, Germans cast their votes to determine their next government. The outcome of this election, however, has consequences for people far beyond the borders of Germany. Early polls suggest that the leading Christian Democratic Union ...
In the months before EU enlargement in 2004, right wing British newspapers were hysterically predicting that the country would be overrun with migrants from Eastern Europe - especially from Poland - willing to work for next to nothing. The UK, Sweden and...
China took a bow on the world stage in the summer of 2008, as the Olympic Games were held in Beijing. The country's performance was reliant on an army of stagehands who had toiled to prepare the scenery, lighting and props. Around 30,000 labourers are ...
Prince William County in Virginia is one of the highest-income counties in the United States, but it has seen thousands of home foreclosures since the credit crunch started to bite in 2007. In June 2008, Piotr Malecki and writer Tomasz Zalewski went in ...
On December 30th, 2008, a group of young men took an oath and became fully-fledged soldiers in the Polish army. Like generations before them, they would have felt a mix of pride and nervousness as they prepared to serve their country. But as they ...
The City boomed and now the City is bust. Until the final quarter of 2008, the British economy had seen over ten years of continuous expansion led by an unfettered financial services sector. Deregulation encouraged 479 foreign banks to set up offices in ...
I remember from my childhood the glory days of the Peace Race, a popular cycling event in which socialist Poland competed against our neighbouring friendly states. Each year the towns would empty as everybody found a television to watch our brave ...
Jacek Serkiew has been a postman for 40 years. As he makes his daily journey around the Polish town of Piaseczno, he is among friends. Meeting people is the best part of the job, he says. Every morning he carefully sorts through the letters in his ...
Ziemowit Howadek - Ziemek to his friends - lives a pretty ordinary life. He works as an IT specialist for a bank in Poznan, attends church and drives a Lada. But each year, in the week before Easter, Ziemek is nailed to a cross and crucified in front ...
Public House An establishment providing alcoholic beverages to be consumed on the premises. The traditional pub is an establishment found primarily in Britain and regions of British influence. English common law early imposed social responsibilities ...
Ireland is famous for its love of horses and the thoroughbreds raised on its verdant hills. During the boom years, when high-tech companies flocked to the "Celtic Tiger" and the construction industry overdosed on cheap loans, pet horses became a ...