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It’s almost a year since President Obama was elected in the U.S. Enough time, to evaluate his Presidency. Did Obama deliver the change he promised? How has the new administration realigned U.S. policy on a domestic and an international level? How is the transatlantic partnership affected by the change in the White House?

These and other questions will be adressed in a series of panel discussions organized by the Amerika Haus Berlin during the coming months. “America Reloaded” will take place at Berlin’s Hebbel Am Ufer Theater.

The first installment on September 21st tackles the changes already in place. Invited are sociologist Jean Ziegler, UN official Beate Wagner, Press Secretary of the UN World Food Program Ralf Südhoff and Ugandan globalization activist Yash Tandon. The group will debate signs for a new role of the U.S. in foreign aid, and whether there are new opportunities Barack Obama can seize.

All the panels seem to be held in German. Here is the full schedule:

• 21/ 09/ 2009 – Auf Augenhöhe? US-Entwicklungspolitik unter Barack Obama
• 11/ 10/ 2009 – Politik im Web 2.0: Die Methode Obama
• 16/ 11/ 2009 – Walls between People – Mauern zwischen Menschen
• 01/ 2010 – Zum ersten Mal ein Afro-Amerikaner als US-Präsident
• 02/ 2010 – A Green New Deal? Vision für eine Neuausrichtung der Wirtschaft
• 03/ 2010 – Kampf dem Klimawandel! Die USA zurück im Konzert der Verantwortlichen?

Welcome to the penultimate edition of the Obama Check! It’s only one more installment until the grand finale. Today we’ll be testing Vice-Chancellor and Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the Chancellor candidate of the SPD. Steinmeier has a clear advantage over our previous checkees – he has actually met and touched his Obamaness, and there are pictures to prove it. So did Steinmeier catch some of that Obama glamour? Let’s find out.

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Today, at close to 1:30 A.M. GMT+1, Michael Jackson officially passed away.

We mourn this tragedy. We will celebrate his legacy till our hearts stop beating.

Let his words and deeds be a lesson to us all: Start with the man in the mirror.

Michael, you’re royalty, always. The King is dead! Long live the King!

This isn’t a new episode of The Hills or Gute Zeiten, Schlechte Zeiten, but these days it seems professional journalists have all caught some of that exasperated, gawking and driveling tone usually confined to fashion (or rather, pre-teen) magazines. The object of this circus: Michelle Obama.

The First Ladies of Fashion - Screenshot from vanityfair.com

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November 4th, 2008. What better place to be on Election Day, than the place they promise to change: Washington, D.C.?

At U Street Corridor, Reps Won't Find Rest

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Princeton professor, New York Times columnist and prime economic liberal voice Paul Krugman has won the Nobel Prize for economics. Due vindication for this fervent Bush critic, although he has won it for his remarks on trade theory and not his opposition to the Bush administration. Congratulations! Read more about his assessment of US politics in this liveblog from his speech at the Freie Universität Berlin, which he held just this May.

The US Presidential elections 2008 are historic in many ways – A black man had to beat a woman to claim the nomination of his party, the campaigns already spent more than a billion dollar to persuade voters, the final month of the election coincides with the collapse of the credit markets and the global economic system is threatened in its entirety.

Also, this election is increasingly fought out not on the TV screen or in newspaper editorials and op-eds, but on the Internet – which adds another historic element. German journalist Tobias Moorstedt has travelled the US to find out more about this development and the changes, challenges and criticisms digital campaigns evoke. He touches on all of these questions in his new book and in the following interview with tapmag (you can also read the interview in German on my private blog).

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Today, July 5, is the Day of the Kiss. It’s like Christmas time, only without the mistletoe! Kiss your love, your crush, and whoever you feel the need to- when better to do that than today?

And when you’re done (and in Berlin), head to Brandenburg Gate to celebrate the opening of the U.S. Embassy. The tapmag team will be there!

In the late Palezoic and Mesozoic times, a supercontinent is said to have existed, which was comprised of all the continental crust of the earth. It’s name is a composition of the Greek words for all and earth – Pangea.

Pangea Day – tomorrow – is a joined effort to turn this supercontinent into reality again. It will bring together an audience of 500 million or more people in a worldwide filmfest, which you can follow in thousands of venues around the globe, or simply on your PC screen. The festival features two dozen outstanding short films, the crème de la crème of more than 2,500 entries worldwide.

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