Free Republic

Germany’s investigative police agency reported that the number of dangerous Islamists in Germany has sharply risen over the past year. In a report published in the Sunday edition of the German daily newspaper “Die Welt”, the German Criminal Police Office (BKA) said it had tracked 497 instances of “threats” or individuals with extremist views who could be suspected of carrying out terrorist attacks. The agency added that an additional 339 Islamists were also being tracked as “relevant persons,“ or individuals who may assist and sympathize with terrorist causes. […] Austria’s domestic intelligence agency also reported several days earlier that the...

David Cameron has made Britain a “semi-pacifist” nation more interested in protecting “welfare and benefits” than adequate defenses, one of the country’s most senior retired generals has warned. General Sir Richard Shirreff, former Deputy Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, said the UK had “shrunk in to itself” and carries an “increasingly impotent stick”. He said the country now risked losing its post-Falklands global reputation for military might. …

The EU would have “the second most powerful military” in the world if its members pooled its resources, insisted the co-director of the Institute of Studies on Conflict and Humanitarian Action in an interview with EurActiv Spain. “If we added the capabilities we have in the EU together, we would automatically become the second most powerful military force on Earth and the reason we aren’t is because there is no political will. This is because each national government would rather be the head of a mouse rather than the tail of a lion,” said Jesús Núñez, a conflict analyst. …

The last known survivor of the team that carried out last November’s Paris attacks, Salah Abdeslam, refused to talk during questioning Friday by anti-terror judges amid frustration at 24-hour video surveillance of his cell, his lawyer said. The much-awaited questioning session ended abruptly, dashing French authorities’ hopes that Abdeslam would provide clues about the Islamic State group’s strategies and what exactly happened Nov. 13.Abdeslam’s lawyer, Frank Berton, said his client invoked his right to silence. […] Abdeslam, 26, had said last month he wanted to explain his path to radicalization and his role in the Nov. 13 attacks. Berton expressed...

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cabinet agreed Wednesday to set aside some €600 million ($675 million) of taxpayers’ money to encourage people to buy electric cars — via an “environmental bonus.” The costs of the scheme will be shared with the auto industry, which is also putting up €600 million. New car-buyers stand to get a €4,000 ($4,500) subsidy if they buy a purely electric car, and €3,000 if they opt for a hybrid car, which combines a battery and a small combustion engine. Not only that, electric cars will be exempt from motor vehicle taxes for 10 years. Economy Minister Sigmar...

Recep Tayyip Erdogan has a great passion for mosques. Since he took power in Turkey, Mr. Erdogan has built 17,000 Islamic prayer sites. The largest in the world stands on the Camlica Hill, dominating the Asian side of Istanbul, where the East, in the words of Cocteau, extends to Europe “its old bejeweled hand”. The Turkish president is committed to the construction of mosques in European capitals as well. Erdogan seeks to create the image of an Islamic civilization on the rise once again with the Turks acting as the vanguard of this revival. Ten mosques have been financed by...

Ex-London Mayor Boris Johnson has compared the European Union’s aims to those of Adolf Hitler, arguing that the 28-nation bloc is creating a superstate that mirrors the attempt of the Nazi leader to dominate the European continent. Johnson, the most prominent political figure arguing that Britain should leave the EU, says the past 2,000 years of European history have been dominated by doomed attempts to unify the continent and recreate the Romans’ golden age. “Napoleon, Hitler, various people tried this out, and it ends tragically. The EU is an attempt to do this by different methods,” he was quoted by...

In recent months I’ve had cause to interview several Holocaust survivors. And though each story — can we call them stories, it sounds so banal? — is different, the themes remain unilaterally unsettling: fear, heart-breaking, wrenching separation from a loving mother or desperate father, arbitrary brutality, unimaginable savagery. But the harrowing testimony of these now elderly men and women also offers an enduring postscript, as each survivor exhorts those who listen to never forget man’s inhumanity to man. For Jews like me, well, how can we forget? […] To remain in Europe is to transfer sovereignty from Westminster for Brussels....

Hundreds of thousands of people whose personal fates could hinge on whether Britain leaves the European Union won't even have a vote in next month's referendum: Polish migrants. Among other EU citizens, up to a million Poles live and work in Britain. They're allowed to do so, because of free movement of workers in the EU. At a typical construction site in a leafy suburb of London, a brick row house is under renovation. There's a radio on for the builders, and it's all in Polish — Polish Radio London, a digital radio station that launched in 2006, two years...

Germany’s domestic intelligence agency has accused Russia of engaging in ongoing cyber warfare. The aim, he said, is both to steal information and carry out sabotage against its enemies — both real and imagined. On Friday Hans-Georg Maassen, the head of Germany’s domestic intelligence agency (BfV) said that in the past year or so Russia had launched attacks against the German parliament, NATO members and French TV. […] Germany’s lower house of parliament was attacked last year by a phishing tool named Sofacy, which is used by a Russian-based group called Pawn Storm. The hackers apparently wanted to steal personal...

A vote by Britain to quit the European Union might reignite conflict in Northern Ireland because it would re-erect a border through the country, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said on Thursday. […] The minister said that an Irish representative had once told him that the conflict in Northern Ireland was currently quiet “because there are no borders in Ireland.” But if the United Kingdom were to quit the EU, “there will be a border again between Ireland and Northern Ireland. And that could at least have the potential of rekindling a conflict that has seemingly calmed down,” he said....

Nissan Chief Executive Carlos Ghosn is confident a 237 billion yen ($2.2 billion) investment in a controlling stake in scandal-embroiled Mitsubishi Motors will prove a bargain when sheer size is critical in the auto industry. Japanese transport ministry officials raided Mitsubishi Motors Corp.’s Tokyo headquarters Friday, as part of an investigation into inflated fuel-economy data for several models. […] Mitsubishi’s shares fell 43 percent between April 19 — the day before it announced the fuel economy scandal — and May 11. The stock cost 565 yen ($5.20) Friday, down 1.7 percent following a surge on the deal's news. Gaining Mitsubishi...

… Obama welcomed the leaders of Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland and Denmark to the White House on Friday morning. At a simple indoor ceremony, Obama says the countries are a “model of cooperation” and “punch above their weight” particularly on humanitarian and environmental efforts. …

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble said Thursday that Britain will not get an improved membership deal with the European Union if the country votes to leave the bloc. Schäuble said in a speech he wanted to end any speculation that a “leave” vote in the June 23 referendum could be used to improve on a deal won by Prime Minister David Cameron to change Britain’s membership terms. Schäuble said that “this is the only deal on the table. An ‘out’ vote cannot be used to get a better deal. ‘In’ means ‘in’ and ‘out’ means ‘out.’” …

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry tried Thursday to reassure European banks they won’t be penalized for conducting or facilitating business with Iran, as he worked to address Tehran’s grievance that businesses are still staying away despite the nascent nuclear deal. At an unusual meeting in London, the top U.S. diplomat joined Britain’s top commerce official to challenge what Kerry called “misinterpretations or mere rumors” about U.S. sanctions on Iran, the most sweeping of which were lifted in exchange for Iran rolling back its nuclear program. The list of banks whose leaders attended was a Who’s Who of powerful financial...

It isn’t just tropical nations like Panama that act as safe havens for tax avoiders; the US stands accused of the same thing according to a new study by the European Parliament’s Green faction. EurActiv Germany reports.The release of the Panama Papers has been like opening Pandora’s Box: more and more countries around the world are seemingly ready to follow global rules on data exchange in order to curb tax fraud. But it’s not just the well-known tax havens like the Seychelles, the Virgin Islands, Panama and Liechtenstein that are being asked to up their efforts against tax loopholes, according...

A new report shows how Germany continues to fall behind its counterparts on gay rights, which may be due to its “lack of strong leadership”. Germany was ranked below 15 other countries in Europe for LGBTI rights, placing it on par with countries like Greece and Hungary in a new Rainbow Europe report. Advocacy group ILGA-Europe ranked 49 countries in the annual report, based on their laws pertaining to same-sex marriage, adoption, rights for transgender people, protections against discrimination and more. Germany, for example, allows same-sex partnerships but does not recognize same-sex marriage and gay couples have limited rights when...

A poll published on Tuesday shows that just under two-thirds of Germans do not want Chancellor Angela Merkel to run for office again in elections next year. The poll conducted by INSA for Cicero magazine asked people if they thought Merkel should run for a fourth term and 64 percent responded that she should not. Other polling figures show that if an election were held now, Germany’s two main political parties would barely scrape together 50 percent of the vote between them. …

Following the swearing in of London’s first Muslim mayor, many of the city’s buses will sport advertisements that read “Subhan Allah,” which translates to “Glory be to God.” The paid advertisements are part of a push by England’s largest Islamic charity group, “Islamic Relief,” to help victims of the Syrian war. The ads will run throughout the Muslim holy week of Ramadan. …

The middle classes in Germany and the USA are both in sharp decline, while top earners on both sides of the pond reap the rewards, a study by the German Institute for Economic Research shows. The number of Germans counted as belonging to the middle classes sank by six percent between 1991 and 2013, the study released on Friday found. The trend in the Federal Republic closely matches a similar drop seen in the USA over the same period. While in Germany people from all migrant backgrounds were most likely to have fallen out of this income group, in the...