Erstellt am: 19. 6. 2013 - 14:25 Uhr

Back in Berlin

Reality Check: Obama in the German capital; military commissions in Guantanamo; Brazil protests; record refugee figures; US-EU free trade concerns.

Obama in Berlin

President Obama’s speech today comes 50 years after President John F. Kennedy's 1963 historic denunciation of the Soviet bloc, and five years after Obama’s own speech as a presidential candidate, when he was cheered by a crowd of some 200,000.

EPA/Gero Breloer

Barack Obama standing in front of the Victory Column in Berlin as a Democratic presidential contender in July 2008.

But how have perceptions of Obama changed after five years of his presidency and policies? Johannes Thimm from the German Institute for International and Security Affairs in Berlin gives us his thoughts:

Guantanamo Military Trials

The administration of US President George W. Bush wanted to try “alien enemy combatants” quickly and away from the “due process” of the usual justice system, but the plan didn’t quite work out like that. Professor Lawrence Douglas from Amherst College in Massachusetts has been looking at the legitimacy of such courts for dealing with terror suspects:

Brazil

Tens of thousands of protesters have again been out on the streets venting their anger and the government says it is sending troops to five major cities. Our Latin American correspondent Esther-Marie Merz has an update on the latest developments.

Refugees

The UNHCR says in its annual Global Trends report that more people are refugees or internally displaced than at any time since 1994, when people fled genocide in Rwanda and bloodshed in former Yugoslavia. developing countries now host 81% of the world's refugees, 11% more than a decade ago, and developing countries now hosted 81% of the world's refugees, 11% more than a decade ago, and the crisis in Syria is now a major new factor in global displacement. UNHCR spokesman Adrian Edwards tells us more:

Free Trade

The European Union and the United States are celebrating the announcement that talks on a free trade zone are to start next month. The network Attac has raised concerns that the deal will be detrimental to social and environmental standards, spokesman David Walch explains why: