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BERLIN (AP) -- Berlin authorities say they shot and killed a 120 kilogram (265-pound) wild boar after it attacked and injured four people including a police officer in a residential neighborhood. ... Wild boars are relatively common in green Berlin, though rarely cause problems beyond digging up gardens.

Jewish institution hosts Judith Butler, who renews support of BDS movement; 700-strong audience cheers boycott call. BERLIN - The internationally renowned Jewish Museum in Berlin hosted a podium discussion on Saturday with US academic Judith Butler, who renewed her calls to boycott Israel. It appears to be the first anti-Israel event held in the Jewish museum since its opening in 2001 with the aim of exhibiting the 2,000- year history of Germany’s Jews. At least 700 people attended the event. The German taxpayer-funded museum’s decision to showcase a speaker in the capital city, which during the Nazi period served as...

One of Germany’s 16 states has declared circumcision legal, but only if performed by doctors — not, as required by Jewish law, by mohels. Berlin, Germany’s capital and itself a state, is the first to declare the practice legal following a Cologne court ruling in June that non-medical circumcisions on children amounted to a criminal offense, according to DPA, a German news wire. National legislation is pending to legalize circumcision. State Justice Minister Thomas Heilmann made the announcement Wednesday, saying he felt it necessary to allay fears in this “difficult transitional period,” the Associated Press reported.

"British suspected Islamic terrorist arrested in Germany A major German security operation targeted "dangerous" Islamist extremists in dawn raids by 850 police officers on 70 mosques, schools and homes across Germany." SNIPPET: "Hans-Peter Friedrich, Germany's interior minister, banned one Salafist network, Millatu Ibrahim, for "working against our constitutional order and against understanding between peoples". He also announced an investigation into two other networks, Dawa FFM and "The True Religion", with a view to a seeking additional bans."" SNIPPET: "Secret intelligence gathered by police and anti-terrorism officers across Europe gave "cause for concern" in Germany, Britain, France, the Netherlands and Austria,...

We welcome change and openness; for we believe that freedom and security go together, that the advance of human liberty can only strengthen the cause of world peace. There is one sign the Soviets can make that would be unmistakable, that would advance dramatically the cause of freedom and peace. General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization, come here to this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!

Canadian Luka Rocco Magnotta, who allegedly videotaped the murder of his lover and mailed his body parts, has been captured in a Berlin Internet cafe, according to the Berlin Police Department. A man in an Internet cafe spotted Magnotta about 2 p.m. in Germany and recognized him as the Canadian fugitive, Berlin Police spokesman Thomas Neuendors told ABCNews.com.

The 23-year-old photograph is a stunning record of Chinese courage past and an insight into China's present political turmoil. Unless China's government chooses liberty and just law over tyranny and crony corruption, the picture prefigures a bloody future history. I am referring to one of 1989's most famous photos: the lone Chinese protestor in Beijing's Tiananmen Square who stands in front of a People's Liberation Army (PLA) main battle tank. The dramatic confrontation occurred June 5, 1989, the day after PLA gunfire, at the order of Communist leader Deng Xiaoping, killed some 2,000 demonstrators in the square. Everyone in China...

Photographer Stefan Koppelkamm first photographed East Germany in 1990 after the fall of the Berlin Wall but before the reunification. He revisited the same locations a decade later, and rephotographed them from exactly the same viewpoints to document the drastic social and economic transformations that came about during the time between the photos.

A far-right group in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia is running a 'Muslim cartoon contest' and plans to display the works outside mosques. The move has alarmed authorities which fear it could incite violence and hurt German interests abroad, similar to the backlash that followed the 2005 publication of cartoons in Danish newspapers. The German government has voiced concern that far-right activists in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia may incite violence with plans to hold a so-called "Muhammad cartoon contest" and to stage demonstrations outside mosques in the run-up to a regional election there on May 13.

"Senate Hs Committee Report Finds Online Jihadist 'Activity' Leads To Violent Islamist Extremism" by Anthony Kimery 02/28/2012 ( 9:12am) SNIPPET: "Violent Islamist extremists use the Internet to recruit, radicalize and mobilize individuals -- including Americans -- and “the threat of violent Islamist extremism has become increasingly decentralized and its messaging has followed that same trajectory,” according to a report issued Monday by both the majority and minority staff of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs." SNIPPET: "The report concluded that “the United States currently has a haphazard approach to dealing with global Internet radicalization and propaganda,” and...

"A Lebanese suspect from the Hezbollah group has been taken into custody by Thai officials and police are investigating further," Chalerm Yoobamrung told Reuters. "Following concern raised by the Israeli embassy about a possible attack by a group of Lebanese terrorists in Bangkok, Thai police officials had been coordinating with Israeli officials since before the New Year."

A friend alerts us to a woman clearly ahead of her time. According to the Telegraph, a Mrs. Berliner-Mauer, of Sweden, recently revealed that she "tied the knot" with the famous wall while visiting Berlin in 1979. The blissful creature-to-creature ceremony was conducted "before a handful of guests." Clearly biased in its reporting, however, the Telegraph castigates the woman as having a "bizarre fetish for inanimate objects." Objectum-Sexuality, to be regressively clinical. But please: Bizarre? What's truly bizarre is the newspaper's own embrace of Objectosexophobia. Shame! Shame on all objectosexophobists! No doubt "wall friendly" New York and California stand ready...

(...) The delegates, many of them former East German Communists but also younger people, will debate an extraordinary motion put forward by some members: They want their party to declare that the building of the wall was an inescapable necessity. If that leaves any doubts about the Left party’s nostalgia for a wall that imprisoned 17 million people for nearly 30 years, a newspaper survey published this month by The Berliner Zeitung showed that 75 percent of that party’s supporters in Berlin thought the wall was justified or partly justified. (...) Respondents said the wall was necessary to stop the...

Addressing the ceremony on Bernauer Street, famously divided by the Wall and now site of a memorial, Mayor Wowereit said the capital was remembering the "saddest day in its recent history". "It is our common responsibility to keep alive the memories and pass them on to the next generation, to maintain freedom and democracy and to do everything so that such injustices may never happen again," he said. At a ceremony at a former crossing-point, President Wulff said the wall had been "an expression of fear" of those who created it.

Like Daniel in the lion’s den, Berlin’s new Catholic archbishop met the media on Tuesday to face accusations he was homophobic and far too conservative for such a prominent post in the free-wheeling German capital. Rainer Maria Woelki, a surprise choice for the high-profile post, professed respect for gays, denied membership in the staunchly conservative Opus Dei group and said he did not come to Berlin to point a censuring finger at non-Catholics.Berlin’s gay community and liberal media reacted with dismay to his appointment last week, saying the Cologne-based prelate was “backwards-minded” and the wrong man for the job. But...

"Refugees ought not to come to Germany," announces Die Welt. The position that Berlin is expected to adopt when European interior ministers meet to discuss immigration on 11 April is unlikely to be welcomed by Italy which has called for solidarity in the drive to cope with thousands of immigrants who have recently arrived from North Africa. “Italy’s dirty tricks amount to unacceptable blackmail," remarks the conservative daily, which nonetheless acknowledges that "it is inadmissible that Italy and Malta pay the price for changes that are in all of Europe’s interest." For Die Welt, Europe should come together to invest...

President Reagan Centennial: Mr. Gorbachev Tear Down This Wall! In honor of the 100th Birthday of President Ronald Reagan below is one of the great hallmarks of his political legacy and Presidency.

Doctors at a Berlin hospital have made a medical breakthrough after capturing live MRI images of the miracle of birth. The pictures, taken after a German mother agreed to give birth inside a magnetic-resonance imaging machine, could provide valuable new insights into the birthing process and allow future lives to be saved. Gynaecologist Ernst Beinder at Berlin's Charité Hospital said the birth proceeded normally and the machine filmed all the movements and processes that went on inside the womb.

Unemployment in Germany fell below 3m in October for the first time in 18 years, according to unadjusted figures released by the federal labour office. The government in Berlin greeted the news with delight and saw it as confirmation that its measures to revive the economy from last year’s recession had been timely and effective. Seasonally adjusted jobless figures showed rather less improvement, with a decline of just 3,000 in registered unemployed for a total figure of 3.153m, or 7.5 per cent of the labour force. The figures were leaked on Wednesday, a day early, by Ursula von der Leyen,...

German flags have sprouted like red, black and gold wildflowers across Berlin this summer. They're appearing on balconies, cars, bicycles, storefront windows, even painted on children's cheeks. Few can match Youssef Bassal's. Eager to show his enthusiasm for Germany's soccer team during the World Cup, Mr. Bassal, a 38-year old Lebanese immigrant, unfurled a 60-by-15-foot German flag a few weeks ago, on the facade of the building that houses his cell-phone store. Mr. Bassal knew his Fahne, as the Germans call it, would draw onlookers. What he didn't anticipate was the reaction—outrage. During the flag's first night on exhibit, Mr....