Namibian liberation fighters set for Berlin honour

Berlin is set to rename streets linked to atrocities Germany committed during its 1884-1919 occupation of Namibia. BBC News reports that local councillors last week agreed on new street names for the so-called African Quarter in the north-west of the German capital. After more than a decade of debate, a final vote which is viewed as a formality will be held soon. It will see names associated with Germany's imperial past replaced with ones dedicated to liberation fighters. ‘The African Quarter still glorifies colonialism and its crimes,’ council members from the Greens, Social Democrats and Left parties said in their joint motion. Germany has acknowledged its brutal imperial past, including what historians call the first genocide of the 20th Century. Between 1904 and 1908, about 100 000 indigenous Herero and Nama people were killed.