News Bytes

Campaigning for foreign students
Over the past two years, the number of foreign students in the US has decreased for the first time in 50 years. At present, 565,000 foreign students are studying in the US. Now the US tries to attract more students with the help of improvements and advertising campaigns. The enhanced security measures after 9/11 had led to administrative barriers and insecurities for foreign applicants. American universities are worried about their prestige in the world. The Rice-Chertoff initiative is aimed at improving conditions for students and scientists from abroad and improve their image as a hospitable country. More than 500 additional visa officials have been hired.
Please note, however, that each F-1 student visa application still has to be very carefully prepared.

International match Germany - USA
The countdown for the Soccer World Cup in Germany is on. For all those who can't wait anymore, the international match between Germany and the US is on March 22, in Dortmund. Approximately 12,000 tickets are still available for this game (as of March 16, 2006). Only 52,000 of the 64,000 tickets have been sold so far.
Order your tickets here: www.fussball24.de

Patriotism scale
Sociologists of the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago have conducted study on patriotism worldwide. The used data of up to 33 states from the 90s and from the years of 2003 and 2004. On a scale from 1 to 25, the citizens of Venezuela came ion first with 18.4 points, the Americans followed with 17.7.
Not a lot of patriotism was to be found among the Germans, the French, the Swiss and the Swedes. The strong US patriotism - which does have a certain tradition - can be explained with recent political events. In Europe, people identified more with the continent.

It has finally been raining
It hadn't been raining in Phoenix, the capital of Arizona, since the middle of October 2005 (143 days). Now 5 cm (1.9 inches) of rain had been recorded within just a few hours.
The drought period record is 160 days and has been recorded 34 years ago.

Rare films for free
It is possible for the time to watch historical tapes from the US National Archives on Google Video - free of charge. The oldest film, for example is "Carmencita - Spanish dance" of 1894. Among the more than 100 videos are reports about Apollo 11's moon landing and news reels from the time of World War II. The US National Archives were established in 1934 and describe themselves as "chronicler of the nation."
Further details on video.google.com

US increases oil reserves
According to the US Department of Energy last week, the US could increase its crude oil reserves. It had been increased by 1.6 million barrels (1 barrel = 159 liters) to 328.3 million barrels. This caused some small fluctuations in the oil price which is now holding steady at $62.20. Gas reserves increased by 0.3 million barrels to 225.9 million barrels.