THW wishes all the best – above all, health - for the new year 2012.

Today’s “International Volunteer Day” underlines the importance of voluntary commitment across Europe. This commemoration day is particularly important for civil protection in Germany, as compulsory military service has been suspended since summer 2011

By order of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), THW-expert advisors tested its office buildings in Tadzhikistan for earthquake resistance. The reason for the activities is the fact that the Central Asian Republic has consistently been devastated by earthquakes.

In Tunis, on 13 December 2011, the Director General of the Tunisian civil protection authority (ONPC), General Fradj Louati, and the President of THW, Mr Albrecht Broemme, signed at the Ministry of the Interior of the Tunisian Republic a cooperation agreement concerning the cooperation of ONPC and THW. The Tunisian Minister of the Interior, Mr Habbib Essib, and the ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany, Dr Horst-Wolfram Kerll, were present at the ceremony. The agreement is the result and, at the same time, the peak of an intensive cooperation between Tunisian civil protection and THW, which started in 1988 with THW-operations after a flood disaster in Tunisia.