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He stared at the deliberate German script in the tattered notebook -- the ravings of one of the most evil minds in history, and the killer of 100 of his family members. "I don't want to touch it," he said. The Orthodox Jewish New Yorker first laid eyes on the diary of Dr. Josef Mengele on Thursday at a Connecticut auction house. He bought the 86-page journal last week from the auctioneer after the document failed to attract a bidder at the $60,000 reserve price. The buyer has requested anonymity but agreed to speak to The Post about his reasons...

Ivan Vranetic, a Yugoslav partisan who saved Jews during the Holocaust and went on to head the organization that honors non-Jews who saved Jews from the Nazis, has died in Israel. He was 84. Israel's Holocaust memorial Yad Vashem recognized Vranetic in 1970 as a "Righteous Among the Nations" for helping Jews find hiding places in Croatia during World War II. Vranetic, who was nicknamed Ivica, later moved to Israel and married one of the women he saved. He was granted honorary Israeli citizenship and in 1986 was elected chairman of "Righteous Among the Nations." More than 22,700 non-Jews have...

Germany supports the creation of a European army in the long term so that the EU can be a "global player," Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle told the Munich Security Conference on Saturday. "The long-term goal is the establishment of a European army under full parliamentary control. The European Union must live up to its political role as a global player. It must be able to manage crises independently. It must be able to respond quickly, flexibly and to take a united stand," he said. "We want strong European crisis management.

Via - Twitter - A U.S. military helicopter has crashed in western Germany, police say - AP. This has been a breaking news alert.

How German Homeschoolers Won Asylum in the U.S. But here's the problem: in Germany it's compulsory for children to attend school, and the Romeikes soon found themselves on the wrong side of the law. Local authorities slapped the couple with a $10,000 fine, and police even took their children to school when the Romeikes refused to send them. Fearing that they could lose custody of their kids or even be put in jail, the Romeikes fled to the U.S. in 2008, looking for a community where they could educate their kids as they saw fit.

Germany’s leading Jesuit official has apologised for a growing number of sexual abuse cases at Jesuit high schools that have come to light recently. School officials there had failed to respond properly when they first heard of the allegations years ago, Father Stefan Dartmann, the head of Germany’s Jesuit order, said. Dartmann said he knew of 25 former pupils who said they had been abused at presitgious Jesuit schools between 1975 and 1984 — 20 at the Canisius Kolleg in Berlin, 3 at the Hamburger St. Ansgar Schule in Hamburg and 2 at the Kolleg St. Blasien in St. Blasien...

OKLAHOMA CITY – A German national is currently in the Oklahoma County Jail held on two state felony counts after allegedly fooling an Oklahoma City Police Department captain into believing he was a member of the German federal police. According to Oklahoma City P.D. Capt. Patrick Stewart, Maziar Golchehr, 27, of Cologne, Germany was arrested on Jan. 27 on felony charges, including possession of a sawed-off rifle and a charge of wearing body armor in the commission of a felony. The impersonator, according to Stewart, came to Oklahoma City in March 2009 and befriended a captain on the Oklahoma City...

An increasing number of German smokers are turning to contraband cigarettes in response to higher tobacco taxes, according to research published on Monday. Between 2005 and 2008 the number of untaxed cigarettes smoked in Germany grew from 16 to 20 percent, according to Hamburg Institute of International Economics (HWWI) Director Thomas Straubhaar at a conference in Berlin. Instead of reducing the number of cigarettes smoked, the tax has only increased the number of illegal cigarettes consumed – some 23 billion, according to Straubhaar. The tax increase has also created an overall reduction in tax revenue earned on tobacco, HWWI expert...

In a case with international ramifications, Immigration Judge Lawrence O. Burman granted the political asylum application of a German homeschooling family. The Romeikes are Christians from Bissinggen, Germany, who fled persecution in August 2008 to seek political asylum in the United States. The request was granted January 26 after a hearing was held in Memphis, Tennessee, on January 21. “We can’t expect every country to follow our constitution,” said Judge Burman. “The world might be a better place if it did. However, the rights being violated here are basic human rights that no country has a right to violate.” Burman...

TOKYO, Jan 25 (Reuters) - Central Japan Railway Co (JR Tokai) will join rivals in competing to develop a high-speed railway line in the U.S. state of Florida, as the former state-owned firm looks to sell its super-fast train systems overseas. A consulting firm hired by the company said a railway line connecting Tampa, Orlando and Miami in Florida was one of the most promising targets for its Shinkansen bullet trains as the route would be exclusively used by high-speed trains. "I expect competition for the contract to be fierce in Florida. We will be the last to join the...

Activists from political organization Stop the Bomb distributed fliers to the 3,500 stockholders of the German engineering and steel giant ThyssenKrupp here in this industrial city on Thursday, charging that 4.5 percent of the company's stocks are in the hands of the Iranian government. Alexander Wilke, a spokesman for ThyssenKrupp, told The Jerusalem Post that the engineering conglomerate conducted roughly €200 million in trade last year with Iran. The protest in front of the RuhrCongress center at the annual stockholder meeting took place in the wake of a joint Monday appearance of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and German Chancellor Angela...

SNIPPET: "A Sun Express Boeing 737-800, registration TC-SUO performing flight XQ-973 from Stuttgart (Germany) to Izmir (Turkey) with 62 passengers and 6 crew, was enroute overhead Skopje (Macedonia), when a crew member found a note in one of the lavatories saying "Today we will die, boom"." SNIPPET: "Greek police detained a man carrying a marker pen of the same color as the note written on the lavatory's mirror, but later permitted him to continue the journey. After the airplane arrived in Izmir, Turkish police detained the man again and interviewed him. The man was released without charges after the interview."

“Birth rates at an all-time low!” “The Germans are dying out!” “Catastrophic birth rates!” The headlines couldn’t be more alarming, but the statistics behind them lead to more complex conclusions. Jacinta Nandi and Ben Knight pick apart Germany’s demographic anxieties for Exberliner Magazine. If you’ve followed the German media in the last 10 years, or just strolled through a German park during the school holidays, you will have gathered that Germans aren’t making enough babies. The headlines are melodramatic and sensational, and the statistics are scary, pessimistic - and surprisingly convincing. German women, who for the past 30 years have...

Germany continues to shrink Published: 21 Jan 10 17:17 CETUpdated: 21 Jan 10 18:49 CETOnline: http://www.thelocal.de/society/20100121-24735.html Official figures on Thursday showed Germany's population shrank for the seventh year in a row in 2009, defying Chancellor Angela Merkel's bid to boost the country's birth rateThe population was "81.8 to 81.7 million at the end of 2009," the Federal Statistics Office said, compared to 82.0 million in 2008. The number of births also dropped. Germany has one of the lowest birth rates in Europe - 1.4 children per woman - and data released in November suggested that at current rates, the country's...

US President Barack Obama suffered a painful defeat in Massachusetts on Tuesday. With mid-term elections looming, it means that Obama will have to fundamentally re-think his political course. German commentators say it is the end of hope.

SNIPPET: "MUNICH, Germany (Reuters) - Munich international airport was re-opened on Wednesday after a three-hour shut down caused when a passenger left the security check even though his laptop computer set off an explosives detector, police said. About 1,200 police did not find the man in their search of the terminal, which was shut down and completely evacuated. "

Excerpt cannot be posted due to copyright complaints, follow the link: http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=4458174

Iran has signed a one-billion-euro (1.44-billion-dollar) deal with a German firm to build 100 gas turbo-compressors, an industry official said in newspapers on Wednesday. The contract provides for the unnamed German firm to transfer the know-how to build, install and run the equipment needed to exploit and transport gas, said Iran's Gas Engineering and Development Company head, Ali Reza Gharibi. The German company has already delivered 45 such turbo-compressors to Iran, Gharibi said, according to Iran Daily. Industry experts said he was apparently referring to Siemens.

A musical version of Barack Obama's rise to the White House has opened in Frankfurt, with the 'president' thrilling audiences with a rousing chorus of "Yes We Can" in a country still charmed by his message of hope. "I'm fascinated by Obama," spectator Cornelia Hirschfeld, 55, told AFP half-way through "Hope - The Obama Musical Story." Obama underscored his trademark theme with a chorus of "Yes We Can" and sang a lover's duet with his wife Michelle in a show producers hope to take one day to the United States.

The Female Factor In Germany, a Tradition Falls, and Women Rise Gordon Welters for the International Herald Tribune January 17, 2010 NEUÖTTING, GERMANY — Manuela Maier was branded a bad mother. A Rabenmutter, or raven mother, after the black bird that pushes chicks out of the nest. She was ostracized by other mothers, berated by neighbors and family, and screamed at in a local store. JUDGED AND BERATED Manuela Maier in front of a painting of her Bavarian town. She felt ostracized after signing up her 9-year-old for lunch and afternoon classess — and then returning to work. “I was...

Obama musical thrills ardent German fans Published: 18 Jan 10 13:21 CETOnline: http://www.thelocal.de/society/20100118-24647.html US President Barack Obama – or at least his stage version – thrilled a Frankfurt audience Sunday with songs in a musical that opened far from the trenches of Washington politics in a land still charmed by his message of hope and change. “I’m fascinated by Obama,” 55-year-old spectator Cornelia Hirschfeld told AFP halfway through “Hope - The Obama Musical Story.” Obama underscored his trademark theme with a chorus of “Yes We Can” and sang a lover’s duet with his wife Michelle in a show producers...

France has echoed calls by the German government for web users to find an alternative to Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) to protect security. Certa, a government agency that oversees cyber threats, warned against using all versions of the web browser. Germany warned users on Friday after malicious code - implicated in attacks on Google - was published online. But Microsoft told BBC News that IE8 was the "most secure browser on the market" and people should upgrade. Cliff Evans, head of security and privacy, said that so far the firm had only seen malicious code that targeted the older version...

Israel's government convened for the first time in Berlin, the former heart of the Nazi regime, for a special joint session with the German government highlighting the nations' bond six decades after the Holocaust. High on the agenda Monday will be Germany's push to win the release of a captive Israeli soldier held by Hamas militants and its efforts to curb Iran's nuclear ambitions. Environmental issues, economic cooperation and efforts to restart the Middle East peace process are also to be discussed. "We assign great importance to this good relationship with Germany," Netanyahu told his cabinet on Sunday. "It has...

Israel in talks to buy 6th submarine from Germany Thu, Jan 14 2010 By Dan Williams and Brian Rohan JERUSALEM/BERLIN (Reuters) - Israel has broached the idea of buying a sixth discounted submarine from Germany as part of a military buildup designed to signal strength in the face of Iranian nuclear ambitions, officials said on Thursday. Israel has three of the Dolphin-class diesel submarines, with two more on order from Kiel shipyard Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft (HDW) and due by 2012. The vessels are widely believed to have been deployed with nuclear cruise missiles. Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who visits Berlin...

KAISERSLAUTERN, Germany — Spangdahlem Air Base in Germany stands to lose 450 personnel and one of its two F-16 fighter jet squadrons if Congress approves an Air Force plan to retire early about 250 fighter jets. But that approval, if it comes at all, has been delayed, as Congress wants more details from the Air Force before deciding whether to authorize the moves. In a routine visit to Spangdahlem last week, Gen. Roger Brady, U.S. Air Forces in Europe commander, laid out what the reductions could look like if the so-called Combat Air Forces restructuring is approved. "What it amounts...

BERLIN – A musical about Barack Obama's "Yes we can" election campaign premieres in Germany this weekend, including love songs by the president to his wife Michelle and duets with Hillary Clinton.

BERLIN (AP) - Germany's economy contracted 5 percent in 2009 amid the global economic downturn, by far its worst performance since World War II, official data showed Wednesday. The figure published by the German Federal Statistical Office was in line with government predictions but slightly worse than the 4.8 percent contraction widely predicted by analysts. "What was striking in 2009 is that both exports and capital formation in machinery and equipment slumped heavily," the office said in a statement. "Foreign trade, which in previous years had been a major driving force for growth in the German economy, slowed down economic...

(CNN) -- Miep Gies, who ensured the diary of Anne Frank did not fall into the hands of Nazis after the teen's arrest, has died. She was 100. Gies was among a team of Dutch citizens who hid the Frank family of four and four others in a secret annex in Amsterdam, Netherlands, during World War II, according to her official Web site, which announced her death Monday. She worked as a secretary for Anne Frank's father, Otto, in the front side of the same Prinsengracht building. The family stayed in the secret room from July 1942 until August 4,...

First of all, I want to sincerely thanks all of our Freeper friends who responded back in mid December for ideas of what to see on our Germany-Austria vacation. Our plans evolved a bit, but we were able to take in some sights, many of which were recommended by you folks here.

German companies have won contracts worth more than €100 billion to build Britain’s planned network of offshore wind farms in the North Sea. The farms, which are expected to produce a quarter of the UK’s electricity needs by 2020, will be built by E.ON, RWE and Siemens, the British government announced on Friday, as it issued details of its biggest ever public contract.

Europeans in the grip of one of the toughest cold snaps in decades are worried about freezing to death in their unequipped homes, as much of the continent continues to experience a Canadian-style deep freeze. Polar wind is sweeping across Europe, from Spain to Sweden, but people in the U.K. are in panic mode as temperatures plummet to -22 degrees Celsius. It's just five degrees shy of a record set in northern Scotland in 1982. The government has ordered manufacturers and other corporations to stop using natural gas so that there will be enough to heat homes. British Prime Minister...

The European Union has diverted from the Christian foundations on which it was being built and it has got secularised, by which it has opened space to Islamisation, Czech Cardinal Miloslav Vlk says in an interview released on his web page yesterday. In the interview Vlk, 77, overviews the almost 19 years he has been Prague Archbishop. Pope Benedict XVI is expected to announce his successor on the days ahead. Vlk says Islam creates pressure on Christians to live their faith to the full. "yesterday our continent does not have firm spiritual and moral foundations," Vlk writes. He says this...

BRUSSELS -- China took over the mantle of the world's top merchandise exporter from Germany in 2009, according to the latest figures, aided by a global economic crisis that has taken a greater toll on other trading powers. China exported $957 billion of goods in the first 10 months of 2009, compared with $917 billion for Germany, according to customs data compiled by Global Trade Information Services, a Geneva-based firm. China in 2007 overtook Germany as the world's third-largest national economy, and is on track to soon surpass Japan to become the second-largest economy after the U.S. "China has been...

Dozens of people have died across Europe as days of snow storms and sub-zero temperatures swept the continent, causing traffic chaos for millions. At least 29 people froze to death in Poland as temperatures fell far below freezing, while in southern Germany a figure of -33C (-27F) was recorded. Moscow said it was deploying 9,000 snow ploughs to clear the city's streets. Air, rail and road transport links were disrupted across northern Europe where more snow was expected in coming days. Eurostar services between the UK and the continent were suspended on Monday for a third day, as the company...

12/18/2009 - RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany (AFNS) -- Imagine driving home from the base exchange with your spouse and child. It's Christmastime -- the first away from the rest of your family -- and the thought pops into your mind, "What can I do for others who are away from their families as well?" It was at this moment that Project Rudolph was born, as founder Tawny Archibald Campbell, her husband and their daughter decided to give a "piece" of the holidays to deployed troops in the form of goodie bags. The bags are filled with American and German candy;...

BERLIN -- The Germans are so strong on their family values they want the state to enforce them. They're debating now whether shops should be shuttered on Sunday by law. It's a burning issue in coffee shops, on the street and in the newspapers, hotter than whether Angela Merkel should send more troops to Afghanistan. Germany's highest court has ruled that keeping Sunday a day of rest benefits everyone, like it or not. So buying a head of lettuce, repairing a bike or purchasing a pair of shoes is not for Sunday. The ruling is especially disappointing to Berlin shopkeepers...

According to an unnamed senior company source quoted in Autocar, Mercedes-Benz is currently deciding if it will launch a new range of three-cylinder engines. According to the source, if the German automaker chooses to go the three-cylinder route, the engine may be one cylinder bank of the company's well-regarded V6 line. If MB does go with an inline three, it will join fellow German automaker BMW in lowering its cylinder count. Apparently, though, taking this route is thought to be an expensive proposition that would require extra engineering in the form of a strengthened bodyshell, additional sound deadening and redesigned...

Eurofighter will last 30 to 40 years: German envoy K.V. Prasad NEW DELHI: Eurofighter, one of the six contenders for the multibillion-dollar tender for 126 medium multirole combat aircraft (MMRCA), offers a cutting-edge technology without the End User Monitoring clause, German ambassador Thomas Matussek has said. “It is really a next generation plane and it will be in service for the next 30 to 40 years,” he told The Hindu. “It also comes without any End User Verification, complete transfer of technology and production.” End User Monitoring, which created a political controversy earlier this year, is a requirement the United...

Der Spiegel: Siemens supports Iran’s nuke efforts German magazine reports customs officials seize goods meant for Iran’s nuclear program Sarah Stricker Published: 12.12.09, 22:37 / Israel News Is Siemens helping Iran? German customs officials intercepted a Siemens shipment of compressors on its way to Iran, Der Spiegel reported Saturday. According to the German magazine, the compressors sent by Siemens are worth an estimated 16 million Euros and were apparently meant to be used as part of Iran's nuclear program. The German government is now weighing its next moves vis-à-vis Siemens, which has apparently violated international commerce regulations. However, a Treasury...

BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany spent more than 30 times as much collecting taxes on coffee beans ordered online from abroad than it received in the tax revenues, the accounting office said on Tuesday...

"...It is not he himself who has changed, but rather the benchmark used to evaluate him. For a president, the unit of measurement is real life. A leader is seen by citizens through the prism of their lives -- their job, their household budget, where they live and suffer. And, in the case of the war on terror, where they sometimes die. Political dreams and yearnings for the future belong elsewhere. That was where the political charmer Obama was able to successfully capture the imaginations of millions of voters. It is a place where campaigners -- particularly those with a...

WESTPHALIA, Germany, December 11, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - At least eight Russo-German families in Salzkotten, Germany, have suffered heavy fines and now their fathers have been sentenced to prison, because they have refused to send their elementary school-age children to mandatory sexual education classes. The International Human Rights Group, a Christian legal defense organization that defends religious liberty and the right to homeschool in Europe, reports that in addition to refusing to allow their children to attend sex-ed classes, the families also resisted having their children enlisted in a theatre production of "Mein Körper gehört mir" or "My Body Belongs to...

Nearly three quarters of Germans fear the spread of Islam, according to a survey released on Friday. A poll by Infratest dimap for public broadcaster ARD showed a third of those asked expressed great concern that Islam was growing too quickly in Germany. Thirty-nine percent were still worried about Islam’s impact on society, but to a lesser degree. Only 22 percent said they had no problem with the religion. Snip... Both surveys polled 1,000 people each.

Moscow, Russia (CNN) -- The remains of Adolf Hitler were burned in 1970 by Soviet KGB agents and thrown into a river in Germany on direct orders from the spy agency's chief, a top Russian security official said this week.

Canada’s Macleans news site recently published an article titled “Darwin movie too evolved for U.S. audiences”. The article refers to the decision of US film distributors to “pass” on the film “Creation”—the dramatized story of Charles Darwin’s struggle while writing the Origin of Species. The refusal to distribute a film premiered and acclaimed at the Toronto Film Festival seems to have again roused the Canadian media’s scorn of the “backward Americans” of which—according to Gallup—only 39% believe Darwin and his evolutionary theory. It is interesting how very differently the Canadian and world media treated America during WW II when far...

The current treatment of young-age creationists in the scientific community and society at large is unfair and unwise. Scientists and philosophers of science, including old-age creationists and naturalists, should respect youngage creationists as legitimate contributors to science. Young-age creationists offer to the current origins science establishment a competing rational viewpoint that will augment fruitful scientific investigation through increased accountability for scientists, introduction of original hypotheses and general epistemic improvement...

Volkswagen staged the world premiere of the Up! Lite concept at the LA Auto Show. The new concept, based on Volkswagen’s New Small Family (the Up! models), incorporates a variation on the two-cylinder TDI hybrid powertrain from the L1 concept unveiled earlier this year at the Frankfurt Motor Show. (Earlier post.) The door, five-seat concept offers combined EPA cycle fuel consumption of 2.44 L/100km (96 mpg US), with 70 mpg highway. The poewrtrain comprises an 800cc, 2-cylinder TDI (turbo-diesel), electric motor and 7-speed Direct Shift Gearbox (DSG). Combined with aerodynamics of Cd 0.237, the concept has reduced CO2 emissions to...

Germany's environment minister said the Copenhagen climate summit would fail if nations did not agree to a maximum two-degree rise in Earth's temperature, in an interview published on Sunday. "An agreement that global warming must not surpass 2.0 degrees (Celsius, 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit average over pre-industrial times) must be the goal for Copenhagen," Norbert Röttgen told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper ahead of the conference's start on Monday. "If in the end the two-degree limit is not part of the accords, Copenhagen will not be a success," he told the paper, warning that the stakes could not be higher. "If...

Bill reported earlier about a Global Warming/Hitler video which was released (10/3/2009) before the climategate scandal broke out: More Global Warming Fraud HumorA new improved video has been released to incorporate the climategate scandal. Version 2, is much better, imho.Hitler was behind global warming-climategateAlso, FoxNews reports:Comedy Central Scoops Network News on Climate-Gate Scandal Comedy Central Scoops Network News on Climate-Gate ScandalABC didn’t cover it. CBS didn’t either. And NBC apparently wouldn’t go near it.The network news broadcasts have ignored a growing scandal over evidence of a potential climate cover-up — and now they’ve even been scooped by the fake news...

Dec 3, 2009 — In the previous entry, Darwin inspired some geologists, even though he was wrong. Here are some news stories showing nature inspiring engineers with wonders right under their noses...