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Laws banning incest between brothers and sisters in Germany could be scraped after a government ethics committee said the they were an unacceptable intrusion into the right to sexual self-determination. “Criminal law is not the appropriate means to preserve a social taboo,” the German Ethics Council said in a statement. “The fundamental right of adult siblings to sexual self-determination is to be weighed more heavily than the abstract idea of protection of the family.” Their intervention follows a notorious case in which a brother and sister living as partners in Saxony had four children together. The couple had been raised...

WARSAW (Reuters) - More than 200 Polish miners blocked trains carrying Russian coal at a border passage in northern Poland to protest against the cheaper Russian coal being brought in at a time when local mines are struggling, mining union leaders said on Wednesday. Poland, which uses coal to generate about 90 percent of its electricity, produced 76.5 million tonnes in 2013. It exported 10.6 million tonnes but at the same time imported 10.8 million, mainly from Russia and the Czech Republic. Imported coal proves cheaper than that from Poland's largest miners such as Kompania Weglowa or JSW. Faced with...

The Spanish government has scrapped plans to restrict the availability of abortion because there was no consensus for change, the prime minister said Tuesday, in a move that brought the resignation of the justice minister who was in charge of introducing a new law. Spain now allows abortion without restrictions in the first 14 weeks of pregnancy. The government had promised to restrict abortion to only cases of rape or serious health risks. But the proposal triggered widespread denunciation, with critics saying it would put Spain back 40 years in terms of women’s rights. …

Angela Merkel is the stand-up lady of Europe. The German chancellor is forthright in calling anti-Semites to account. She spoke this week to a rally of 6,000 Germans at the Brandenburg Gate, denouncing the documented increase of anti-Semitism in their country. The evil of the Nazi regime, which killed 6 million Jews in Europe 80 years ago, is marked everywhere, with bronze plaques on sidewalks where Jews were taken from their homes and dispatched to death camps, to the five acres dedicated to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews in the very center of Berlin. And yet, as the chancellor...

NATO’s new rapid-reaction “spearhead” force, meant as a deterrent to Russian aggression, should be up and running with initial capabilities in less than a year, a top alliance official said Thursday. The creation of a 4,000 to 5,000 troop response force, which will be able to respond to a crisis in eastern Europe within two to three days, was a key decision taken by NATO leaders earlier this month in Wales. The force represents a calculation by NATO that Russian President Vladimir Putin won’t risk going head-to-head with the Western alliance. …

Ireland’s economy is growing at a rapid pace last experienced at the tail-end of the Celtic Tiger boom, government statisticians reported Thursday as economists declared an end to the country’s financial doldrums. The report from the Central Statistics Office said gross domestic product grew 7.7 percent from July 2013 to June 2014, the biggest annual rate of growth since early 2007. It said quarterly GDP rose 1.5 percent versus the January-March quarter. Finance Minister Michael Noonan said the figures suggested that Ireland would record around 4.5 percent GDP growth this year, accelerating the country’s escape from debt woes that forced...

Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah faction has exposed that Hamas is running a human trafficking network, smuggling Gaza residents to Europe for $2,000 to $3,500 per person. The charges come following reports that dozens of Palestinian Arabs drowned last week after leaving Gaza for Egypt, where they boarded an ill-fated ship bound for Europe that never reached its goal, reports Kol Yisrael (Israel Radio). Apparently Hamas used its hundreds of smuggling tunnels into the Sinai Peninsula to funnel the would-be immigrants out of Gaza and into Egypt; while an Egyptian siege limited the usage of those smuggling tunnels,...

Investors have bought billions of euros in German treasury notes that pay negative interest—meaning the purchasers agreed to pay a small fee for the privilege of lending the German government their money. […] Germany auctioned €3.34 billion ($4.3 billion) Wednesday in two-year notes at an average yield of minus 0.07 percent. Rates are very low all over, and German debt is considered ultra-safe, so security-minded investors are paying for safety. Expectation the European Central Bank will buy bonds has also driven down yields, which move opposite to prices. And the small negative yield on the notes is still a better...

PARIS - France's government has reacted strongly to a rising tide of anti-Semitic acts this year but French society seems indifferent to the threat they present, the country's newly elected chief rabbi said on Tuesday. Haim Korsia, who was elected in June, recalled the huge crowds that demonstrated in Paris in 1990 after a Jewish cemetery was desecrated in the southeastern town of Carpentras. This summer, he told journalists, there was no similar reaction from civil society following attacks on synagogues and protests against Israel's offensive in Gaza, during which some marchers shouted "death to Jews" and "Jews out". "There...

It was an unexpected question from a woman hoping to sell me her Warsaw apartment: “Are you sure you want to buy now, when war could be coming?” Though she was half joking, her comment revealed an anxiety Poles express frequently these days—that Russian aggression in Ukraine could spread, upending this NATO and European Union member’s most peaceful and prosperous era in centuries. […] Anxieties hang in the air as Poland marks the 75th anniversary Wednesday of the Soviet invasion of Poland at the start of World War II, one of several Russian attacks on its neighbor over the past...

The dark side of the campaign for Scottish independence can be laid bare today. In a string of sinister incidents, separatists have used bullying and intimidation to cow their rivals. Pro-union voters have endured stone-throwing, been called traitors and faced threats that their houses will be torched. Many are now said to be too scared to show their support for fear of reprisals that might follow a defeat for the nationalists in tomorrow’s vote. …

The increasing predilection for fragmentation across the continent will result in Teutonic political hegemony - if we're lucky ___ Europe is disintegrating. Two large and ancient kingdoms are near the point of rupture as Spain follows Britain into constitutional crisis, joined like Siamese twins. The post-Habsburg order further east is suddenly prey to a corrosive notion that settled borders are up for grabs. "Problems frozen for decades are warming up again," said Giles Merritt, from Friends of Europe in Brussels. The best we can hope for - should tribalism prevail - is German political hegemony in Europe. The German people...

Salafists who caused outrage by mounting patrols in western Germany as "Shariah Police" have ditched their vests and changed their name, but pledged to continue to take action. It comes as political leaders were accused of creating a "safe zone" for Islamists. North Rhine-Westphalia has become the national front runner in imports and exports of holy warriors,” Christian Democratic Union (CDU) state parliament member and interior policy spokesman Theo Kruse said on Friday. Kruse argued that the state had become a “national space of peace and recovery for Salafists" and a "safe zone" for Islamists. ... Salafism is the fastest-growing...

Britain should stop complaining about European migrants and build them more housing and infrastructure, a leading Brussels bureaucrat declared last night. European Commissioner László Andor said that the UK is “taking advantage” of EU migrants who provide “economic and financial benefits”. Rather than complaining about the pressure migrants put on housing and public services, he said, ministers should just spend more money to accommodate them. …

Ukraine and the EU are to delay the entry into life of a strategic free trade treaty for more than one year due to Russian concerns. The trade pact was originally to enter into force on 1 November, but following meetings between European Commission trade chief Karel De Gucht, Ukraine’s foreign minister, and Russia’s economy minister in Brussels on Friday (12 September) it will now be implemented on 31 December 2015. Defending the deal, De Gucht told press it means Russia will not impose trade restrictions on Ukraine in the next 15 months. …

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said on Friday that neo-Nazi vandalism and threats against a local newspaper in eastern Germany were “unacceptable and must be stopped”. This week vandals sprayed the words “Jews” and the Nazi slogan “Sieg Heil” on the office windows of the Lausitzer Rundschau, a newspaper known for its coverage of far-right groups. …

The Rev Ian Paisley, Protestant firebrand and former leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, has died at the age of 88. The Rev Paisley served as First Minister of Northern Ireland for a year when power was first devolved in 2007. His deputy, Martin McGuinness of Sinn Féin, expressed sadness at the news of his death. “Over a number of decades we were political opponents and held very different views on many, many issues but the one thing we were absolutely united on was the principle that our people were better able to govern themselves than any British government,” he...

Germany on Friday officially banned Islamic terror group ISIS from any activities in the country, warning that the jihadists, who have captured swathes of Iraq and Syria, also posed a threat to Europe. Defense minister Thomas de Mazière announced the ban on flying ISIS flags, wearing Isis symbols and all ISIS activities at a press conference on Friday morning. “The terror organization Islamic State is a threat to public safety in Germany as well,” de Mazière said. …

The hundreds of Germans who have traveled to Syria to join jihadi groups are largely young, male and failed at school and in their careers, according to a report from the security services. The report from the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, which has been seen by the Berliner Morgenpost, showed that of the 378 German Islamists who have headed to Syria since mid-2012 just one in four finished high school. Six percent finished post-school training and two percent went into further education. Almost 90 percent of those who have traveled to Syria are men. The youngest...

Germany is not ruling out military action against Islamic extremists Isis in Syria, following US President Barack Obama’s announcement that airstrikes against the terror group will be expanded into the Middle Eastern country. “I won't rule out [German participation] in these airstrikes,” Philipp Mißfelder, foreign affairs spokesman in the Bundestag for Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian-Democratic (CDU) party, said on Thursday morning. […] Germany might also send units to take part in aerial surveillance and allow flights over its territory to and from the conflict zone, Mißfelder said, but added that deployment of ground troops “from the West as a whole”...