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Healthy Living - Getting to Serenity: 10 Daily Habits for Inner Peace



We all want serenity, that elusive state of calm that seems to belong solely to Tibetan monks and yoga instructors. People with serenity are better equipped to enjoy life. Their small problems remain small and don't become magnified into huge catastrophes. And when real crises arise, they react with steady, clear thinking.

However, serenity isn't achieved without effort. Just as we need proper exercise habits to have healthy bodies, we need good mental habits to have peaceful minds. To that end, here are some daily habits to get you on your own path to serenity.

1. Give Thanks Continually. When your alarm goes off, before you even get out of bed, close your eyes and think about the ways in which you've been blessed. Consider the most basic gifts that you have: a job, good relationships, your home, your clothing, your health. Then continue to give thanks throughout the day. If someone lets you in their lane when you are driving, give thanks. When your paycheck is deposited into your account, give thanks. When your child comes home from school safely, give thanks. Make a point of acknowledging every good thing that happens to you.

2. As Soon As Your Mind Wanders Off in The Wrong Direction, Get It Back on Course. We know when we are getting mentally off course. We get irritated over minor things. We decide it's our job to correct other people's bad behavior. We obsess over past slights. These are all symptoms of the mind going down a path toward wrong thinking. Like a car that has shifted into a lane with on-coming traffic, our minds also can shift into the wrong lane. As soon as that happens, stop what you are doing. Walk away from the person who isn't acting properly. Then do whatever it is that helps you get your mind back on track. For me, it's reading something spiritual. For others, it may be listening to inspiring music or talking to a good friend. By re-directing your mind, you can more easily return to clear thinking.

3. Practice Acceptance. Practicing acceptance doesn't mean that you allow yourself to be treated poorly by others. It means that you accept others for who they are. If someone is a jerk or manipulative, that is who they are. It's your choice whether or not to spend time with them, but accept that you can't change them. Likewise, practicing acceptance doesn't mean that you don't try to improve your life. For instance, you may not like your current job or home. Accept your situation for what it is today. Do your best at your job, and make your home as beautiful as possible. Appreciate that you have work and a place to live. Then do what you can each day to get your dream job or home in the future. Acceptance isn't stagnation. Acceptance is understanding what you can and cannot change.

4. Be Kind To Others. There is no scenario in which being unkind to others will benefit you. So be careful how you operate. The ugly things that you say and do to other people may affect them, but those actions will poison you. If you are unhappy, take a long, hard look at your behavior. If you spew mean comments or take advantage of people, you will be miserable. I can't sugarcoat that. Instead, be consistently kind. Build others up. Be helpful. You will find that by doing those three things, you'll be at peace with yourself because you will actually like yourself.

5. Be Careful What You Drink. Some things we drink can affect our minds. Coffee, tea and some soft drinks have caffeine. Caffeine affects each person differently. Evaluate how it affects you. If it makes you jumpy or irritable, then either reduce your consumption or eliminate it altogether. Alcohol affects people differently as well. If drinking wine, beer or hard liquor makes you anxious or depressed, again, limit your drinking or cut alcohol out of your life altogether. Being happy is more important than your Starbucks or your nightly glass of wine.

6. Get Enough Sleep. Our minds cannot think clearly if they aren't rested. Small children need copious amounts of sleep in order to be happy. Adults are no different. While we may not throw ourselves on the floor and scream if we haven't had a nap, we function only slightly better without sleep. Develop good sleep habits. Go to bed early. There is nothing wrong with going to bed at 9 p.m. The television shows you are missing aren't nearly as important as your serenity.

7. Watch and Read the Right Kind of Books, Movies and Television. What we watch and read affects how we think. Choose your entertainment carefully. There is a lot of violent, pointless junk out there which is deemed to be "avant-garde" or "creative." If you want to have a relaxed mind, spend your time watching and reading things that have a positive message or that educate. Don't spend your valuable free time filling your mind with garbage just because it's popular.

8. Keep a Clean, Uncluttered Home. There is a reason why spas don't have dirty towels on the floors and shelves covered with knickknacks. You can't relax in a place that is messy. A cluttered home or room is a sign of a cluttered or unstable mind. Make your home a place that is tidy and beautiful. You should breathe a sigh of relief when you enter your home. It should be a refuge for both your mind and your senses.

9. Spend Some Parts of the Day without Noise. There is nothing wrong with television per se, but there is something wrong with the television being on all the time. People tend to turn on the television to avoid being uncomfortable. We are either uncomfortable with our families, or we are uncomfortable with ourselves. So we distract ourselves from that discomfort with a lot of racket. The problem is that noise impedes you from truly relaxing. Make the choice to give your ears and mind a break, and enjoy the silence.

10. Spend Time with the Right Kind of People. There are people who can't help but be a problem. Everywhere they go, they create drama. Someone has always done them wrong, or they are continually upset about something. Or they just can't say anything nice. Give those people wide berth. You can't necessarily eliminate those people from your life, but you can limit your contact with them. It is a matter of self-preservation. When you allow people into your life who bring chaos, it is very hard to maintain your serenity. It isn't your job to make their lives better. It is their job to not spread their brand of drama.

Healthy Living - Being a 'Morning Person' Can Help Keep You Healthy



Early to bed, early to rise...

Back in grade school, Benjamin Franklin's old saying seemed like a sly attempt to get us to stop complaining about bedtime.

But it turns out Ben was right -- at least about it making us healthy.

If you're a "night person," this is going to be hard to hear.

But a new study has found that night people are at higher risk for several unhealthy conditions. And this is true regardless of the number of hours they sleep.

The study, conducted in Korea, looked at 1,620 participants between the ages of 47 and 59. They were identified as "morning chronotypes" (go to bed and get up early), "evening chronotypes" (go to bed later and get up later), or neither (people who fall somewhere in the middle and don't identify with either extreme).

Then researchers compared the health of the morning and evening groups. They found that:

• Female evening chronotypes tended to have more abdominal fat and an increased risk of metabolic syndrome (a condition associated with the development of cardiovascular disease and diabetes).

• Male evening chronotypes overall had higher rates of diabetes and sarcopenia (a condition in which the body's muscle mass slowly declines).

• Evening chronotypes, though typically younger than morning chronotypes, generally had a higher percentage of body fat and higher blood triglyceride levels.

Even adjusting for age and lifestyle differences such as exercise, drug and alcohol consumption, and so on, the late risers were less healthy overall.

So what's the takeaway?

If you're a morning person, give yourself a pat on the back.

If you aren't, try becoming one. Here are some strategies:

• Decide a standard time you want to get up every day and start making yourself get up then. Set your alarm for that time, and don't hit the snooze button. Even on weekends don't sleep in too much.

• Have a target bedtime as well. After a few days of getting up early, going to bed earlier will begin to feel more natural because your body will be tired. Tune into your body. (Incidentally, research suggests that going to bed by 10 p.m. is optimal because some of the best sleep happens between 10 and midnight.)

• Turn off all electronic screens at least an hour before bedtime

• Design a relaxing evening routine that gets you in the sleep mode. This might include dimming the lights and reading a print book in bed for half an hour. You might also drink a calming tea or take a warm bath.

• Make your bedroom a tranquil place. Keep it clutter free, and get shades or curtains that effectively block the light at night.

• Get out of bed quickly in the morning and start moving. A workout such as stretching, walking, or yoga will help wake and energize you.

• Create a morning routine you enjoy and that sets you up for a good day. This could be a few minutes of meditation, keeping a gratitude journal, or even just drinking a cup of coffee while staring at a pleasant view.

In general, all the things that support you to feel better during the day -- exercise, a healthy diet, a positive attitude -- help you to sleep better as well.

If you're a night person, don't spend one minute feeling bad about it. Instead, just start playing with this pattern. At first, it might take discipline. But before long, having time to unwind in the evening and to get centered and energized in the morning might feel like a real treat.

Alibaba Apologizes For Want Ad Seeking Candidates Who Resemble Porn Star



Today, in questionable HR decisions:

Alibaba has apologized and pulled a job ad seeking a "programmer encouragement specialist." Requirements for the since-deleted position, as translated by Quartz, include an "adequately stunning" appearance and someone who might be an "open-minded lolita" like adult film star Sora Aoi or the South Korean actress Song Hye-kyo.

The person in the position would be responsible for encouraging and inspiring programmers and engineers to do their best work, including waking them up for early morning meetings, the posting read.

While the company promptly removed the ad, eagle-eyed readers grabbed a screenshot, which has reverberated around Twitter and the Chinese social media site Sina Weibo:

Screenshot for prosperity. This is inappropriate on so many levels. http://t.co/QruODf48rr pic.twitter.com/BtJf9eaAlj
— Chiu-Ki Chan (@chiuki) April 30, 2015



The e-commerce giant told Bloomberg the description intended to be humorous. It has since reposted an amended listing that removes references to Sora Aoi and encourages both male and female candidates to apply.

"We apologize to anyone offended by this ad," a company representative told Bloomberg. "Alibaba is committed to providing equal opportunity and fair treatment to all employees on the basis of merit, without discrimination."

Nepal Earthquake Death Toll Passes 7,000



PAUWATHOK, Nepal (AP) — At the entrance of this destroyed mountain village, a wooden sign stands, cobbled together from debris of homes flattened by Nepal's devastating earthquake. Its message: "WE NEED HELP. PLEASE HELP."

A steep winding road leads up to the ruins of the small village of Pauwathok, perched on a ridge about 3,600 feet (1,100 meters) above sea level. It's just 30 miles (50 kilometers) east of Kathmandu, Nepal's capital. But villagers say not one government official, not one soldier has visited since the massive quake struck a week ago, underscoring just how unprepared and overwhelmed Nepal's government has been.

Early Saturday, a convoy of covered trucks approached Pauwathok. The trucks were apparently transporting aid and escorted by Nepalese police carrying automatic weapons. Hungry residents ran toward the road.

The trucks were not stopping.

"Are we invisible to you?!" a voice among the crowd screamed as the trucks rode slowly up a hill and out of sight.

One week after the strongest tremor to hit impoverished Nepal in eight decades, aid has been slow in reaching those who need it most. In many places it has not come at all.

U.N. humanitarian officials said Saturday they are increasingly worried about the spread of disease. They said more helicopters are needed to reach isolated mountain villages like Pauwathok, which were hard to access even before the quake.

The true extent of the damage from the magnitude-7.8 earthquake is still unknown as reports keep filtering in from remote areas, some of which remain entirely cut off. The U.N. has estimated the quake affected 8.1 million people — more than a quarter of Nepal's 28 million people.

The government's latest number, reported Sunday, is 7,040 dead, with little hope of finding survivors.

Nepal has been shaken by more than 70 aftershocks, and its people remain on edge. One brief aftershock Sunday afternoon shook this village's only paved road, triggering screams from residents who began to run, then stopped when the tremor eased.

Pauwathok is located in the district of Sindupalchok, where more deaths have been recorded than anywhere else in Nepal — 2,560, compared to 1,622 in Kathmandu. The U.N. says up to 90 percent of the houses in Sindupalchok have been destroyed.

Rajaram Giri said he was sitting under a large tree when the big quake hit April 25. Pauwakthok was immediately engulfed in clouds of red dust. When it cleared, Giri saw only ruins.

Only a handful of the village's roughly 80 homes remain habitable. Mostly made of brick and mud and sticks, they were either completely leveled or damaged beyond repair. Some families now sleep under makeshift shelters of debris that they constructed from their own ruined homes — torn roofs and boards, whatever was left.

Others sleep under tarpaulins — obtained only after residents sat in the middle of the road Friday and blocked an aid convoy that eventually relinquished 30 of them, said Giri, who took one for his family.

"We only have the clothes on our backs," he said. "The rest has been buried under the rubble."

Volunteers have begun stepping into the void. Late Saturday, Pauwathok's appeal for help was finally answered.

A truck full of rice, noodles and medical supplies pulled up. Everyone crowded round.

The truck had been organized by a teacher who went for help to Kathmandu, where he collected donations from charities and friends. They brought the aid themselves.

"The government has not been able to cater to the needs of everyone, so it's better if everybody can pitch in," said Supral Raj Joshi, who helped bring the aid. "It's not that the government isn't trying, it's that they've not been able to reach everywhere."

Six other civilians, several of whom worked with street kids in Kathmandu, also came to deliver medical aid Saturday.

They dressed the wound of an elderly lady, Tilamaya Bharti, who had lost part of a finger when a stone crushed it during the tremor. They also gave Bharti painkillers — the first she'd had since doctors in a nearby town conducted a hasty amputation last week and sent her away with nothing to ease the pain.

While the situation in Pauwathok is grave, some remote parts of Nepal appear to have suffered even more.

David O'Neill of U.K. International Search and Rescue said a team from his group had driven as far as it could, then walked for hours into six remote villages to assess them. The team reported that the villages had been so badly hit, 80 percent of their inhabitants had died.

"Everything has been flattened," O'Neill said. The people there apparently died not in the original quake, but in a major aftershock the next day, he said.

O'Neill spoke in Chautara, a destroyed town in Sindhupalchok. His team had hoped to reach the remote areas by helicopter, but none were available, so they were returning to Kathmandu.

"We definitely need more helicopters," Ertharin Cousin, executive director of the U.N.'s World Food Program, told The Associated Press in the village of Majuwa, west of the capital. Aid agencies have been using Majuwa as a staging ground to get supplies deeper into mountainous areas.

"This is one of the poorest places on Earth," Cousin said. "If the global community walks away, the people of this country will not receive the assistance that is required for them to rebuild their lives."

That need remains great. Nepal Information Minister Minendra Rijal said the government has supplied only 29,000 tents to 400,000 displaced people.

"The earthquake has caused unimaginable destruction," said Rownak Khan, a U.N. Children's Fund senior official in Nepal. "Hospitals are overflowing, water is scarce, bodies are still buried under the rubble and people are still sleeping in the open. This is a perfect breeding ground for disease."

Medicine, medical equipment, tents and water supplies are needed now, he said.

"We have a small window of time to put in place measures that will keep earthquake-affected children safe from infectious disease outbreaks - a danger that would be exacerbated by the wet and muddy conditions brought on with the rains," Khan said.

Laxi Dhakal, a Nepal Home Ministry official, said hopes of finding survivors had faded. "Unless they were caught in an air pocket, there is not much possibility," he said.

In Jalkeni, a village not far from Pauwathok, the road is lined with mounds of broken wood and stone, the remains of destroyed homes.

On top of one mound sat a woman cradling a young girl. The mound — surrounded by a pile of dusty rocks, a broken TV and shredded clothes — used to be Sunita Shrestha's two-story home.

"No one has come to help us yet," said Shrestha, as the sun beat down. "I don't know if they ever will."

___

Associated Press writers Binaj Gurubacharya in Kathmandu and Katy Daigle in Majuwa, Nepal, contributed to this report.

Teacher Testifies So Dzhokhar Tsarnaev 'Knows That Someone Cares About Him'



BOSTON -- One of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's former middle school teachers wrote on Facebook this week that "I still love him" even though the convicted Boston Marathon bomber "did the unforgivable."

It was the second time that Becki Norris spoke up for Tsarnaev, 21, on Wednesday. Earlier that day, the current Community Charter School of Cambridge principal testified in Tsarnaev's trial that when he was her seventh- and eighth-grade student, he was "a really hard-working, smart kid" with a seemingly bright future in front of him.

Tsarnaev's life, of course, went in a vastly different direction than what Norris had forecast. He and his older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, detonated two bombs that killed three and wounded 264 others at the Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013, and days later killed a police officer across the Charles River in Cambridge.

"Over the past two years, I've discovered the painful truth that when you care deeply for someone, that doesn't stop even if they do unfathomably horrible things," Norris wrote on Facebook. "Yes, he did the unforgivable. And yes, I still love him. And -- this one is hard to fathom, I know -- he still needs love."

Her words qualified as a rare public display of support for Tsarnaev, one of the country's most vilified criminals. She sensed that many people might be puzzled by her position.

"Ask yourself what you would think or do if someone you loved and cared about walked far, far down a deadly path," she said.

Norris' entire message appears below beneath a photo of her notorious former pupil as a baby-faced youngster holding her newborn daughter.

In at least one other example, a witness described on Facebook her intense feelings toward Tsarnaev -- though they were less complimentary.

Bombing victim Rebekah Gregory shared a widely circulated letter denouncing Tsarnaev as "a coward" who wouldn't make eye contact with her while she testified in March about losing her leg from the attack.

"[N]ow to me you're a nobody," Gregory wrote, "and it is official that you have lost."

The defense team is trying to save Tsarnaev from the death penalty. After a jury convicted him on 30 charges on April 8, the trial entered the penalty phase in which the same jurors will either sentence him to be executed or imprisoned without the possibility of parole. The prosecution has already made its case for the death penalty.

The defense has tried to convince jurors not to execute Tsarnaev, saying Tamerlan -- who died in a shootout with Watertown, Massachusetts, police -- was the mastermind of the bombing and coerced his younger brother into taking part.

Lawyers for Tsarnaev put several of his other teachers in the witness box, as well as two friends from University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, where he'd faltered academically but maintained a reputation as kind and generous friend. Relatives flown in from Russia are expected to testify on Monday.

Tsarnaev was one of the best students and athletes in the Cambridge charter school until his mother removed him because of a dispute about the school uniform, Norris testified. From the stand, Norris made eye contact with Tsarnaev and they even smiled at each other

"He was already rightly found guilty. I testified to help the jury see why he might be spared the death penalty. I also hoped to show him, in spite of what he's done, that someone cares about him as a person," Norris wrote. "I don't expect to ever see him again. I will hold onto those moments, and I hope he does too."


This is Dzhokhar, holding my daughter at 10 days old. He's known to many as the younger (and surviving) Boston Bomber....
Posted by Becki Norris on Wednesday, April 29, 2015




South Korea Confirms NYU Student Is Detained In North Korea



SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea confirmed on Sunday that North Korea detained a South Korean student of New York University, but said it was still unclear whether the 21-year-old New Jersey resident attempted to enter the North illegally.

An official from South Korea's Unification Ministry, which handles affairs with North Korea, said his department was still trying to gather information on Won Moon Joo's travels and the circumstances of his arrest. "Our judgment is that Joo is being held in North Korea, but we are still trying to confirm the details of how he got arrested," he said on condition of anonymity, citing office rules.

North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency said Saturday that Joo was arrested on April 22 after trying to illegally enter North Korea by crossing the Amnok River from the Chinese border town of Dandong.

A spokesman for New York University, John Beckman, confirmed that Joo was a junior at NYU's Stern School of Business, but that he was not taking classes this semester and the university was unaware of his travels. He said the university was in touch with the U.S. State Department and the South Korean Embassy.

North Korea has occasionally detained South Koreans, Americans and other foreigners, often on accusations of spying, in what analysts say are attempts to wrest outside concessions.

In March, North Korea announced that it had detained two South Korean citizens over alleged espionage. It has been holding another South Korean man since late 2013 on suspicion of spying and allegedly trying to set up underground churches in the North. He was sentenced last year to life in prison with hard labor.

Also last year, the North released three Americans — two of whom entered the country on tourist visas — and Kenneth Bae, a Korean-American missionary who was convicted of "anti-state" crimes.

The Quest for Asia's Next Manufacturing Miracle




As thousands of government, business and civil society leaders from across Asia descend on Baku, Azerbaijan for the annual Asian Development Bank meetings this weekend, countries in the region are consumed with how to sustain growth as some of the region's biggest economies -- China, Japan and Indonesia -- slow down.

Many Asian nations are turning to manufacturing as a way to fuel growth and create more, and potentially better quality, jobs -- especially for their bulging youth populations. Their resolve is strengthened by prospects of closer regional integration and trade agreements, such as the Trans Pacific Partnership.

But newly emerging economies cannot use the 20th century success of Asian Tigers as a model. A 21st century manufacturing miracle calls for a different strategy.

Today, global competition is fiercer than ever. More countries are playing the manufacturing game, and Asia's more developed economies, such as China, are already formidable players, having claimed their stake in elaborate supply chains. Developing and emerging economies accounted for 32 percent of global manufacturing value-added in 2010. Of this, Asia-Pacific countries accounted for 21.7 percent, with China's share at 15.3 percent in 2010.

Countries like China and South Korea rode the wave of economic liberalization and the revolution in information and communication technologies to transform their manufacturing sectors. For emerging economies now embarking on the same path, there is no watershed economic reform or revolutionary technology that they can leverage to enter an already competitive landscape. What's more, weak aggregate demand in developed economies throws up another barrier to export-led growth.

So, what will it take for a country like India -- which launched its "Make in India" campaign last autumn -- or Myanmar -- the world's newest frontier market -- to become an industrial powerhouse in the 21st century?

Asian leaders in newly emerging markets must continue to prioritize the fundamentals -- attract capital and technological investment and improve infrastructure -- while also diversifying their manufacturing sectors, skilling their workforces, and enabling a healthy industrial relations system.

Massive deployment of labor in one low-skilled sector like garments may have kick-started industrial revolutions in 20th century Asia, but such a strategy is now outdated. For one, diverse economies are more resilient in the face of economic shocks.

Moreover, lack of diversity produces an oversupply of labor in one sector, depressing working conditions and wages. It is unsurprising then that in Bangladesh, where 80 percent of exports come from a single industry (garments), wages and working conditions are among the worst in the world. Countries with a diversified manufacturing sector tend to offer higher wages and clearer pathways of upward mobility for workers. Better-paid, economically mobile workers promote domestic consumption, further expanding opportunity for businesses and reducing dependence on exports.

But diversification can only happen if countries make significant investments in upgrading the skills of their workforces. In some of Asia's most ambitious emerging economies, the percentage of the labor force that is formally trained remains extremely low: only 2.2 percent of Cambodian and 6.4 percent of Vietnamese students in secondary schools are receiving vocational education.

Policymakers in Asia must also focus on building a well functioning industrial relations system. In many newly emerging economies, the proliferation of thousands of unions has muddled workers' voices. Countries should encourage the development of large, legitimate trade unions that truly represent workers' interests and engage productively with employers, rather than stamping out strikes in the fear that they will drive away business.

Governments, business and civil society must work together to create an Asian model of German codetermination -- where employers and employees negotiate fairly and unions hold seats on corporate boards.

In their quest for the next manufacturing miracle, leaders of newly emerging Asian economies have an opportunity to fashion a new, 21st century economic model for the continent -- one based on a diverse manufacturing sector, a skilled workforce, and a new deal between business and labor.

--

The JustJobs Network is a global think tank focused on finding evidence-based solutions to global employment challenges. It hosted a seminar at this year's ADB meetings entitled, "From Factory Floor to the Middle Class: Does Labor-Intensive Manufacturing Promote Economic Mobility?"

Sabina Dewan is Executive Director of the JustJobs Network and Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress. @sabinadewan


Gregory Randolph is Deputy Director of the JustJobs Network.
@justjobsproject

Merkel Says Germans Can Never Forget Horrors Inflicted At Nazi Death Camps



DACHAU, Germany, May 3 (Reuters) - Germans will never forget the "unfathomable horrors" that the Nazis inflicted at the death camps, Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Sunday at a ceremony marking the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Dachau concentration camp near Munich.
In a moving speech to 120 elderly survivors from 20 nations and six U.S. soldiers who helped liberate the camp, Merkel said Dachau and other death camps freed near the end of World War Two stand as eternal reminders of the Nazi regime's brutality.
"These former concentration camps have come into public focus in recent weeks with the passing of the 70th anniversaries of the liberation of one camp after another," Merkel said in a somber ceremony at Dachau, now a memorial with 800,000 annual visitors.
"There were unfathomable horrors everywhere," said Merkel, who in 2013 became the first German leader to visit Dachau. "They all admonish us to never forget. No, we will never forget. We'll not forget for the sake of the victims, for our own sake, and for the sake of future generations."
The Nazis set up Dachau in March 1933, weeks after Adolf Hitler took power, to detain political rivals. It became the prototype for a network of camps where 6 million Jews were murdered, as well as Roma, Russians, Poles and homosexuals.
More than 200,000 people were being held in the camp when U.S. troops liberated it on April 29, 1945. Television footage from Dachau, showing starved inmates and piles of bodies, was among the first images the world saw of the Holocaust.
"It was a terrible shock, but we will never forget your excitement as you hugged us and brought out a hand-sewn American flag you hid for the occasion," said a former U.S. soldier, Alan Lukens. "The Nazis could not crush your spirit."
Jean Samuel, a French resistance fighter, said he felt like a human again on the day the Americans arrived. "It was the best day of my life," he said. "The nightmare was finally over."
The main gate with its cynical slogan "Arbeit macht frei" (Work sets you free) was rebuilt by a local blacksmith after the original was stolen last year. Merkel said it was alarming that the gate was never found. She also lamented that Jewish institutions need round-the clock police protection in Germany.
"These camps keep our memories alive, despite all the adversity out there," Merkel said. "There are unfortunately incidents again and again such as the theft of the Dachau gate last year that are disturbing."
In a recent opinion poll, some 42 percent of Germans said they want to draw a line under an intense focus on the Nazi past in German media. (Writing by Erik Kirschbaum in Berlin; editing by Jane Baird)