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Israeli diplomatic officials are breathing a sigh of relief that Germany, considered one of Israel's strongest supporters in Europe, will be taking over the rotating presidency of the European Union on Monday for the next six months. The president of the EU, according to officials in Jerusalem, has a great deal of influence over the agenda and the tone of the statements that come out of the EU. The German presidency, according to sources in Jerusalem, is especially welcome since it follows the Finnish tenure, a tenure marked by concern that the EU would be open to watering down the...

MOSCOW, Dec. 25 — Just before Christmas, in a fancy Azeri restaurant in Moscow, the German Embassy arranged a meeting between journalists and representatives of two leading independent human rights groups. ... Germany, which has the strongest ties to Russia of any country in Europe, will be grappling with these issues and the overall European-Russian relationship when it takes over the European Union presidency and leadership of the Group of 8 on Jan. 1. ... Nothing is certain in Mr. Putin’s Russia, ... ... “Here is a chance for Germany and Europe to speak out.” ... Mrs. Merkel, ..., has...

Ok, it´s a national newspaper in Germany, with a hundred of thousand viewers daily - we don´t want them to see that Hillary is the woman of the year, do we? So, I suggest to take either Condi or Angela Merkel. Brits may also choose their queen. ;-)

BERLIN, Dec 10 (Reuters) - Germany may offer to train Iraqi soldiers at bases outside Iraq, Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Sunday, following calls on European governments to do more to help stabilise the country. "I do not rule out that Germany could also take part in training Iraqi soldiers outside Iraq," Merkel told a news conference after a meeting with Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak. Merkel said while there were no concrete plans for such training activities as yet, officials from Germany's defence ministry were in contact with their Iraqi counterparts. Earlier, Germany's Social Democrat (SPD) Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier...

BERLIN, Dec 10 (Reuters) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Sunday positive signals coming from Israel should be used to make progress towards securing peace in the Middle East. Speaking after a meeting with Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak and two days before a visit from Israel's Premier Ehud Olmert, Merkel reiterated she would use Germany's six-month presidency of the EU next year to renew peace efforts. "We want to use these hopeful signals which are being sent by the Israeli government to make progress," Merkel told a joint news conference with Mubarak. "We need results in order to halt...

Germany's unemployment rate dropped to 9.6 percent in November as the number of people out of work fell below 4 million for the first time in more than four years -- the latest evidence of a gathering recovery in Europe's biggest economy. The unadjusted jobless rate declined from 9.8 percent in September, while the number of Germans registered as unemployed sank by 89,000 to 3.995 million, the government's Federal Labor Agency said Thursday. The figure was last below the politically sensitive 4 million mark in October 2002, when it stood at nearly 3.93 million. The labor agency credited the improvement...

BERLIN, NOV 22: Chancellor Angela Merkel is considering pushing for a transatlantic free trade zone when Germany takes on the European Union presidency next year. The idea could gain momentum when Merkel’s conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) votes on it next week. Despite scepticism in some European capitals, the vote at a CDU party congress in Dresden may trigger a new drive by Berlin for a notion long cherished by some conservatives keen to improve relations with Washington. “We want to start considering a common market between Europe and America,” Merkel told Bild newspaper on Wednesday. “A crucial point would be...

KARLSRUHE, Germany (Reuters) - Germany's highest court of appeals on Thursday ordered that a Moroccan friend of the September 11 hijackers must face a third trial on charges of aiding the deadly 2001 attacks on the United States. Judge Klaus Tolksdorf, who has said that Mounir El Motassadeq clearly knew his acquaintances from Hamburg were planning plane attacks, ordered the retrial. Motassadeq was convicted last year of belonging to a terrorist organisation and sentenced to 7 years in prison, but cleared of the more serious charge of abetting mass murder. He was unexpectedly freed from a Hamburg prison in February...

BERLIN, Nov 10 (Reuters) - German President Horst Koehler took European countries to task on Friday for not doing more to help stabilise Iraq, saying it was foolish of them to leave the United States only to secure the country. "The war has led to a disaster, but we can't sit back and say it's a problem for the Americans. That would be dumb, short-sighted and arrogant," Koehler told the Saturday edition of the Frankfurter Rundschau newspaper. "We cannot allow the region to slide into chaos. We have a direct, existential interest in preventing this." A copy of the interview...

A U.S.-based advocacy group says it plans to seek criminal charges in a German court against outgoing U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, for his alleged role in sanctioning torture of prisoners in U.S. custody. In a statement Saturday, the Center for Constitutional Rights says it will file its criminal complaint against Rumsfeld in a German court Tuesday. Attorneys for the group say the case will ultimately look at the responsibility of high-ranking U.S. officials authorizing war crimes in the war on terror. They say the complaint is related to a 2004 case that was dismissed. The lawyers say the new...

This is a video showing, that Mike McIntee has lied about the White House. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED TO WATCH!

Ok, folks, now that I got your attention, I may say a few words on the election outcome from abroad. As a foreigner I don´t allow myself here to comment on the sovereign decision of the American voters. But on a personal level I may express sorry for you, who have worked hard to get Senators and Representatives re-/elected. I know what losing is like, I had that in 2 1/2 out of 3 federal elections in my country. There´s a lot of frustration, especially the first weeks up to the moment when the winners take over the power they...

The eurozone’s economic prospects have brightened significantly, with manufacturers increasing employment for the first time in more than four years and Germany seeing a sharp drop in its jobless total. Germany’s labour office reported that the country’s seasonally adjusted unemployment total fell last month by 110,000 to 4.64m, or 11.2 per cent of the workforce. The eighth decline in nine months came as a fillip for Angela Merkel, Germany’s new chancellor, who has made tackling unemployment her top priority. ADVERTISEMENT The decline was due to milder weather causing fewer winter lay-offs in such sectors as construction, although job creation measures...

Germany's coalition government has reached agreement on slashing business taxes from 2008, in a bid to improve the country's competitiveness. In future, the standard rate for firms will be cut from nearly 39% to just under 30%. Changes to the business tax regime are being seen as a test of Chancellor Angela Merkel's ability to push through her reform agenda. Some of the lost revenue will be made by taxing firms' interest payments. The government has pledged the measure will not cost the country more than five billion euros. The measure was agreed by a German government working group of...

A majority of Germans have for the first time ever lost trust in the nations's political and social system, according to a survey commissioned by the ARD public television network on Friday. While 49 percent of Germans are happy with the democratic developments inside the country, some 51 percent have stated they are either very little or not at all satisfied with the political system. Germans voiced also concerned over the widening social gap in the country as some 66 percent of those questioned pointed to social injustice and inequality in the political system, indicating a rise from 57 percent...

BERLIN -- Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Sunday apologized for "misunderstandings" involving German forces and Israeli jets off the Lebanese coast and pledged that they would not be repeated. The German government said Chancellor Angela Merkel had "expressed her concern over the incidents" of the past week in a telephone conversation with Olmert, who earlier Sunday met with a delegation from her party in Israel. In mid-October, Germany took charge of the multinational naval force patrolling Lebanon's coastline to prevent arms shipments from reaching Hezbollah guerrillas following the recent conflict with Israel. Last week, German officials have said, Israeli...

ROSTOCK, Germany - The huge headline in Wednesday's edition of the German national newspaper Bild blared the question that inquiring minds in Germany wanted to know: "What Does Bush Find So Fascinating About His Girlfriend Angela?" President Bush, who arrived Wednesday evening in this Baltic Sea coastal region of what once was communist East Germany, has formed a fast friendship with German Chancellor Angela Merkel that has made them the new odd couple of international politics. He's the architect of the pre-emptive-strike war on Iraq and defender of the U.S.-operated prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. She leads West Europe's biggest...

BERLIN, July 11 (UPI) -- German Chancellor Angela Merkel has praised U.S-German relations and emphasized her readiness to critique President Bush if necessary as his arrival nears. She said she had spoken about her concerns over the U.S.-run military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, "at every meeting we had." Bush had recently said he was willing to close down Guantanamo. "Its end may of course not lead to renewed terror threats," Merkel said in a lengthy interview with German TV station RTL. Merkel, who invited Bush and his wife Laura to visit the eastern German state of Mecklenburg Western-Pomerania, in...

Hamburg, July 9 (DPA) Motivated by the attractive football of Juergen Klinsmann’s team, Germans turned their World Cup into ‘a Woodstock of sport’ with a new and refreshing display of patriotism. Germans had been hesitant to show any kind of national pride since the end of the Nazi regime, but the 30 days of football helped the younger generation in particular discover the nation’s black, red and gold flag. Initial fears of neo-Nazi activity evaporated along with fears of hooliganism as millions of Germans celebrated the biggest sports party in history with their foreign visitors in almost Mediterranean-like weather conditions....

A group of 50 pro-Israel Christian tourists came under attack Wednesday from some 100 residents of the ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of Mea She'arim in Jerusalem. Three of the tourists and a police officer were wounded in the attack. They received treatment at the scene. The tourists arrived at Mea She'arim wearing orange T-shirts with the words "Love your neighbor as yourself" printed across them. As they neared one of the squares, the local residents apparently identified them as Christians and began to hit them. Police forces in the area stepped in to stop the violence, but did not make any arrests....