Legal problems of Ph.D's in Germany

As some of you may know already, my husband is German, so what I read last night in C&EN (don't you think it is ridiculous that I often don't get C&EN until Friday?) really shocked me. Apparently some internationally-trained (non-EU) scientists in Germany are facing charges for using the title "Dr." on their websites and business cards. Before I started reading, I was sure that it must be something to do with the fact that the "Dr." title might be confused with a medical doctor in a foreign country. But as I read further, I realized this wasn't the case. According to Spiegel, this law stems from 1939--and in simplified terms states that foreign degrees are suspicious, and need to be verified. In those times, such a law might have made sense, but now it just seems outdated. Luckily, the German government has already started to fix things up; at a conference in Berlin last week (see point 5) it was decided that an American Ph.D's can use the "Dr." prefix in Germany as long as their degree was granted from an institution recognized by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.