Flash mob industrial protest challenged in court

Nearly two years ago I wrote about an incident of flash mobbing that related to a strike in Germany - see here.

According to Union Renewal blog the same incident has led to the employer organisation accusing the activists of "systematically vandalizing shops" and is now attempting to sue the trade union that played a part in the organisation of the flash mob.

For more details see here.

You heard it first on...Twitter!

Just heard a story about Twitter via The Financial Times.

The story centres on an incident in Germany that has been dubbed "Twittergate" - no originality there!

What it concerns is a Twittering German MP who broke the news of the new German Prime Minister via, you guessed it - by "Tweeting".

Here's an extract from the article:

The news that Hörst Köhler had been elected again on Saturday was published on Twitter's micro-blogging service almost 15 minutes before the result was officially announced.

Julia Klöckner, of chancellor Angela Merkel's CDU, told her Twitter "followers" that afternoon: "People, you can watch the football in peace. The vote was a success."

Kelber, of the SPD party, was even more specific, prematurely uploading the result of the vote-count to his micro-blog: "The count is confirmed: 613 votes. Köhler is elected."

Klöckner has since resigned.

See Twitter furore in Berlin as MPs leak poll result (by Chris Bryant, Bertrand Benoit and Tim Bradshaw) for more details

Marx is back?

Well, as you will see from the embedded video, his ideas have aroused more interest of late in German universities.

His worked is being re-visited mainly as a critique of contemporary capitalism rather than as an ideology in itself.