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Fears of a potential terror attack are overshadowing festivities to mark the anniversary of German reunification. Security around the Brandenburg Gate is tight with increased police presence. The capital's interior minister, meanwhile, urged Berliners to be "increasingly vigilant." Berlin's police force is on high alert. Following a series of al-Qaida propaganda videos directly threatening Germany, officials have beefed up security around the festivities to mark German reunification. "Due to the altered security situation there will be significantly more security forces on site on October 3," Berlin's Interior Minister Ehrhart Körting told SPIEGEL ONLINE. "Additionally the police will be warned to...

BERLIN, Germany (CNN) -- Investigators in Germany have arrested a 24-year-old man on terror-related charges. Authorities arrested the man "on suspicion of spreading al Qaeda propaganda online and for procuring materials which could be used to make a bomb," prosecutors said Friday in a written statement. Searches of a flat in Offenbach, Germany, and a business in Frankfurt, Germany, turned up a small amount of an "explosive substance" and a home-made electronic device. An initial assessment suggests that the items "could be used to ignite explosives," prosecutors said. The man holds dual German-Turkish citizenship, they said. The statement from prosecutors...

Namouh was arrested in September 2007 for engaging in more than 1,000 online conversations and producing videos praising violent attacks on US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as helping distribute ransom demands for kidnappers of a British journalist in Gaza. In online postings, he also touted his explosives expertise and threatened future attacks in Germany and Austria because of their military roles in Afghanistan. According to prosecutors, Namouh was a member of the Global Islamic Media Front, which is said to be involved in propaganda and jihad recruitment for Al-Qaeda. He faces possible life in prison.

MUNICH, Germany (AFP) – "Maybe the terrorists should come down and have a drink with us," suggested Bob Kalman, as he enjoyed a beer in one of the huge tents at Germany's world-famous Oktoberfest in Munich this week. "It might solve a few of the world's problems if people got talking," the 30-year-old marketing manager originally from the Scottish city of Glasgow, now looking very German in his lederhosen, told AFP. A string of threats against Germany by Islamic militants in the run-up to last Sunday's general election has prompted security to be stepped up around the country, including at...

TEL AVIV, Israel, Sept. 30 (UPI) -- Israel has taken delivery of two German-made submarines capable of launching missiles with nuclear warheads. "We have received two Dolphin-class submarines built from Germany," Israel and Arab media reported quoting an anonymous Israeli military spokesman. Called U212s, the submarines were upgraded in Germany by Israeli technicians and engineers in order to enable them to carry nuclear warheads. Initially in 2006, when the sale was confirmed, the German government said the two vessels were not equipped to carry nuclear weapons. The submarines were ordered in 2005, and delivery was originally scheduled for 2010. With...

German unemployment fell again in September, helped by the usual seasonal decline that accompanies the end of the summer holiday period, the Federal Labor Office reported Wednesday. Even after seasonal adjustments, the number of jobless fell by 12,000, resulting in an unemployment rate of 8.2%. Economists polled earlier by Dow Jones Newswires had predicted a rise of 25,000 in seasonally adjusted unemployed and a jobless rate of 8.3%. The Federal Labor Office also revised down the drop in seasonally adjusted unemployed in August to 6,000 from an initial estimate of only 1,000. In unadjusted terms, the number of jobless fell...

While the horrors of Germany’s Nazi past are well known, it is a well-kept secret that similar programs were also prevalent in some Allied countries. The award-winning investigative journalist Edwin Black has documented America’s huge selective breeding and forced sterilization program in his book War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America’s Campaign to Create a Master Race...

Aboard the 'INS Dolphin' Sep. 24, 2009 yaakov katz, reporting from the mediterranean sea , THE JERUSALEM POST 'Dive, dive, dive," yells Cmdr. M. into a loudspeaker that rattles throughout the navy's Dolphin submarine. A second later, the helmsman pushes hard on the vessel's steering system as the submarine dips into a 45-degree angle and descends to almost 300 meters below the choppy Mediterranean. The submarine is on a routine training exercise a few dozen kilometers off Haifa and the 40-man crew is extinguishing fake fires that erupt in the engine room while searching for leaks among the thousands of...

Israel gets two more German submarines (AFP) – 14 hours ago JERUSALEM — Israel has taken delivery of two German submarines ordered four years ago, a military spokesman said on Tuesday. "We have received two Dolphin-class submarines built in Germany," he said, on condition of anonymity. The submarines, called U212s, can launch cruise missiles carrying nuclear warheads, although when it confirmed the sale in 2006 the German government said the two vessels were not equipped to carry nuclear weapons. The subs were ordered in 2005 and delivery was initially expected in 2010. Including the two new ones, Israel has five...

Turkish hopes of joining the EU appeared to be all but over after Germany gave warning it was ready to join France and Italy in outright opposition to the country's membership. Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) and the Free Democrats (FDP) are both hostile to the accession of the overwhelmingly Muslim country of 71 million. The CDU is against the Turks joining for cultural reasons while the FDP leader, and probable new foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle has said the country's economy is too far below European standards to integrate comfortably with other members. With almost three million ethnic Turks living...

The results are in on Sunday’s elections in Germany, and the big news is that it is a big win for the center-right. In the vote for proportional representation (Zweitstimme), Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats (the Christian Democratic Union and the Bavarian Christian Social Union, CDU/CSU) got 33.8% of the vote and the free-market Free Democrats (FDP), Merkel’s preferred coalition partner, got 14.6%, for a total of 48.4%. The Social Democrrats (SDP) got only 23.0%, their lowest share in history, while the Greens (Grüne) got 10.7% and the Left (Linke, more or less the former Communists) got 11.9%. The SDP...

On Sunday, German voters elected their most business-friendly, pro-American government in decades. Angela Merkel -- the leading grown-up on the world stage -- returns as chancellor. Merkel's Christian Democrats and Christian Social Union (her party's Bavarian branch) actually lost a few seats, but the pro-business, Washington-friendly Free Democrats roared back to life and more than made up the difference. On the other hand, the Social Democrats -- Germany's establishment lefties -- took their worst beating in post-war history. The hard-left Greens fell, too. Only the nut-case Left Party gained a bit of ground, thanks to protest votes.

A skull long believed to be that of Adolf Hitler actually belonged to a woman, according to an American scientist who has taken DNA samples from it. The skull was taken by Soviet forces in 1945 when they found charred remains outside the Nazi dictator's bunker in Berlin. The Russians said at the time that the findings backed claims that Hitler had shot himself on April 30, 1945, and then been cremated along with his wife, Eva Braun. Now, however, archaeologist and bone specialist Nick Bellantoni says the skull really belonged to a woman aged under 40 and not Hitler...

He was a soldier in one of the most fanatical divisions in Hitler's war machine. As a member of the SS, Heinrich Steinmeyer expected little mercy as he surrendered to British troops towards the end of the Second World War. But instead, he says he was treated with humanity by both the troops who captured him and the guards at the Scottish prison camp where he was kept until the end of the war. Sixty-five years later, Mr Steinmeyer has pledged to leave his home and life savings of £430,000 to elderly residents in the village of Comrie, Perthshire, as...

BERLIN – German Chancellor Angela Merkel won a second term on Sunday, along with the center-right majority that eluded her four years ago — nudging Europe's biggest economic power to the right as it claws its way out of a deep recession. Voters sent the nation's main left-wing party, the Social Democrats of Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, into opposition after 11 years in government. It was the party's worst parliamentary election result since World War II. The conservative Merkel ended her four-year "grand coalition" with Steinmeier's party thanks to a record showing by her new coalition partner, the pro-business Free...

German voters re-elected Chancellor Angela Merkel on Sunday and allowed her to ditch the center-left Social Democrats from her government and form a coalition with her preferred partner, the pro-business Free Democratic Party, instead, according to reliable projections. German Chancellor Angela Merkel won a second term in Sunday's federal election and will be able to form a government with the pro-business Free Democratic Party (FDP), dumping the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) with which she ruled since 2005 in an uneasy coalition, projections showed. She will have a comfortable center-right majority in the Bundestag lower house of parliament with an...

BERLIN -- Chancellor Angela Merkel claimed victory in national elections Sunday, with projections by public television stations putting her conservative party on a path to form a new center-right government and achieve Mrs. Merkel’s goal of ending the country’s “grand coalition” with Social Democrats. If the slim lead for her conservative Christian Democrats and the pro-business Free Democrats holds after all the ballots are tallied, Mrs. Merkel will finally have the chance to enact the kind of liberalizing economic reforms she proposed when she first ran for chancellor four years ago. The celebration will be muted by the knowledge that...

Merkel 'Heads For' New Coalition Angela Merkel said she wanted to be a chancellor "for all Germans" Chancellor Angela Merkel has been returned to power in Germany, exit polls suggest, after her conservative bloc won more than 33% of the vote. Mrs Merkel told supporters they had achieved "something magnificent", but said she wanted to be a chancellor of all Germans at a moment of crisis. Mrs Merkel's bloc now looks set to form a centre-right alliance with her preferred partner, the pro-reform FDP. She says the alliance will get Germany out of its worst crisis in 60 years. Her...

BERLIN (Reuters) - Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives appear to have won enough votes in a German election to form a center-right government with their preferred partners, the Free Democrats (FDP), exit polls showed on Sunday. An exit poll from ZDF television put support for Merkel's conservative bloc -- her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU) -- at 33.5 percent and showed the FDP on 14.5 percent. A poll for ARD television gave the center-right an even clearer win.

A Leipzig man was forced to traipse through the Munich Airport naked after an enraged taxi driver took all of his possessions when he couldn’t pay his entire fare, daily Bild reported on Friday.

FRANKFURT — In a new audio recording, the leader of Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, urged European nations on Friday to withdraw their troops from Afghanistan, with a veiled threat of reprisals and an allusion to past bombings in Madrid and London. The message came as European nations, and particularly Germany, have come under increasing public and political pressures to reconsider their part in the Afghan war. Germany has 4,200 troops in Afghanistan, and domestic pressure to rethink its mission has mounted since German forces called in a NATO airstrike this month that left scores of Afghans dead. For Germany,...

Germany is traditionally tolerant of nudity, but a plan to give naked ramblers their own wilderness path is still some way from the sunny uplands. ... A sign has been put up warning those averse to naturism that they might prefer to go elsewhere. "If you don't want to see people with nothing on then you should refrain from moving on," it reads.

Germany will walk out of the U.N. General Assembly if Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad denies the Holocaust in a speech he will give Wednesday, and it wants other European Union countries to do the same, the foreign ministry said. "We will leave the hall if President Ahmadinejad denies the Holocaust or makes anti-Semitic statements ... we are making efforts toward a unified European position," a spokesman said Tuesday. Ahmadinejad has, as recently as last week, called the Holocaust a lie, repeating his position just as world powers try to decide how to deal with Iran's nuclear ambitions. Denying the Holocaust,...

Al-Qaeda warned Germans on Friday to change their government in the September 27 election, saying they will face a "bad awakening" if they do not, according to two intelligence monitoring services. Germany was also told to withdraw its 4,200 troops from Afghanistan or face being attacked at home, the US-based groups said.

PARIS (AFP) – The leaders of France and Germany called Friday for the United Nations to support a carbon tax on imports from countries who fail to back international efforts to fight global warming. French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel wrote to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon arguing that states that fail to back a deal at a climate summit in Copenhagen in December should be held accountable. "It would be unacceptable for the efforts of the most ambitious countries to be undermined by the carbon emissions released by lack of or insufficient action by other countries,"...

NICOSIA - Al Qaeda warned Germans on Friday to change their government in the September 27 election, saying they will face a ‘bad awakening’ if they do not, according to two intelligence monitoring services. Germany was also told to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan or face attacks at home, the US-based monitoring groups said. In video footage a man identified as Abu Talha the German, and speaking in German, asks his Muslim ‘brethren’ to ‘stay away from anything not vital for two weeks after the election,’ according to IntelCenter. Abu Talha, whose real name is said to be Bekkay Harrach,...

BERLIN (Reuters) - One in seven Germans want the Berlin Wall back because they were better off when the country was divided, according to an opinion poll published on Wednesday ahead of the 20th anniversary of its collapse on November 9, 1989. The survey of 1,002 Germans by the Forsa institute published in Stern magazine said 15 percent of the country's 82 million long for the days when there were two Germanys. Some 16 percent pining for the Wall were westerners and 10 percent easterners. The survey found that many westerners are bitter about higher taxes to pay for rebuilding...

BERLIN - An ambitious project was unveiled in Germany on Wednesday to install mini gas-fired power plants in people’s basements and produce as much electricity as two nuclear reactors within a year. The Hamburg-based renewable energy group Lichtblick and its automaker partner Volkswagen say the plants would produce not only heating and hot water but also electricity, with any excess power fed into the local grid. The two firms said the concept of “SchwarmStrom” (literally, “swarm power”) would allow Germany to abandon nuclear and coal power stations sooner and help compensate for the volatility of renewables like wind and solar...

Two youths beat a businessman to death at a Munich train station on Saturday as he tried to defend a group of children. The crime has shocked Germans, and politicians are calling for tighter youth laws and increased video surveillance. Some are threatening to prosecute passersby who do not act to stop such crimes.

September 14, 2009, 4:00 a.m. Beyond EconomicsOur massive national debt is more than a financial threat. By Kevin Williamson One hopes Ben Bernanke and the Fed gang are reading the Drudge Report, where the top news items one day last week were: Enlarged U.S. deficits allow Switzerland to displace the United States as the world’s most competitive economy; Obama asks the Senate to raise the debt ceiling beyond its current $12.1 trillion level; the United Nations continues its push for a “global currency� to displace the U.S. dollar as the world’s go-to reserve; and — this will be no...

LONDON — Britain's late queen Elizabeth the queen mother revealed in a letter published on Sunday how she and her husband king George VI came close to being killed during World War II in a German bombing raid. Written only hours after the incident, the letter tells how the royal couple leapt when they heard the "unmistakable whirr-whirr of a German plane" and then the "scream of a bomb" 69 years ago. The bomb exploded in the grounds of Buckingham Palace and three servants were injured in the attack, the queen wrote to her mother-in-law. "My darling Mama. I hardly...

The British tend to forget about the importance of Germany, our most significant European partner. There are, of course, memories of the world wars of the 20th Century. Relatively few British people speak German; we like to enjoy Mediterranean holidays, so we have come to know the French, Italians and Spanish. Yet Germany is a stable Northern democracy and a major trading partner. The sale of Opel and Vauxhall, which make up the the European branch of General Motors, this week demonstrated the significance of German bargaining power Historically, Britain and Germany have had a more significant relationship than many...

Documents published last week highlight the former prime minister's concern that the fall of the Berlin Wall could be a risk to Britain's national security. "We do not want a united Germany," Margaret Thatcher told President Gorbachev at a lunch meeting in the Kremlin in September 1989, two months before the fall of the Berlin Wall. "This would lead to a change to postwar borders, and we cannot allow that because such a development would undermine the whole international situation and could endanger our security." Among the 1,000 transcripts of Politburo and other high-level papers smuggled out of Russia by...

America doesn't lose wars on battlefields.  In fact, the only war the nation has lost -- Vietnam -- was lost in the political arena.  That's precisely where Barack Obama will lose Afghanistan.  The loss, principally, will be thanks to the left in his party and his own limits as a commander in chief. For a liberal like Mr. Obama to make the claim that Afghanistan is a "war of necessity" means that the United States has a critical national security stake there.  Yes, during the Bush presidency liberals scored rhetorical points by maintaining that the "real" war was in Afghanistan,...

Two months before the fall of the Berlin Wall, Margaret Thatcher told President Gorbachev that neither Britain nor Western Europe wanted the reunification of Germany and made clear that she wanted the Soviet leader to do what he could to stop it. In an extraordinary frank meeting with Mr Gorbachev in Moscow in 1989 — never before fully reported — Mrs Thatcher said the destabilisation of Eastern Europe and the breakdown of the Warsaw Pact were also not in the West’s interests. She noted the huge changes happening across Eastern Europe, but she insisted that the West would not push...

Energy Savings: Europe's ban on the incandescent light bulb began phasing in this month, and the U.S. will soon follow. Is Thomas Edison to blame for global warming? And why are we exporting green jobs?When the warm-mongers assemble in Copenhagen this December to hammer out a successor to the failed Kyoto Protocol, no doubt their work to save the earth from the carbon dioxide that gives it life will take place under the eerie light thrown off by compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) mandated by the European Union to fight climate change. The bulbs are more expensive, costing up to...

US automaker General Motors has called a press conference on Thursday in Berlin to unveil its plans for the German unit Opel, the head of Opel's works committee told German television. The GM briefing would take place at 1230 GMT, Klaus Franz told the public station ZDF, following a GM board meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday in the United States. GM negotiator John Smith was to inform the German government of the US group's decision before the news conference. Berlin still officially supports a bid for Opel by the Canadian auto parts maker Magna, backed by the Russian bank Sberbank,...

(IsraelNN.com) Jihadists close to al-Qaeda explicitly warned in new communications that Germany will be the target of the next 9/11-scale terrorist attack. The timing of the strike, they say, will be within the next few weeks. According to analysts with the Institute of Terrorism Research and Response (ITRR), a recently intercepted jihadist communication declares that "everyone knows" that the "next strike is very near, a strike that will surprise everyone in its effect, which will be much more shocking than that of 9/11/2001." The writer of the chilling message notes that this is the Muslim month of Ramadan and that...

SNIPPET: "According to ITRR, the latest jihadist communication was unusual in that it was very explicit and open in targeting the Germans, in discussing a coming attack, and in specifying its timing. Aside from Ramadan, which ends 19 September 2009, the upcoming German national election on September 27 has been marked as a "red flag date" by ITRR." SNIPPET: "German security services have also been cited in local media discussing stepped up jihadist chatter, threats and intelligence warnings aimed at the German state in recent months. Earlier this year, video messages delivered in German by an al-Qaeda fighter going by...

An Aids-awareness advert depicting Adolf Hitler having unprotected sex has been condemned by mainstream health charities for stigmatising people infected with the virus. The provocative commercial, which ends with the tag-line "AIDS is a mass murder", aims to scare young people into using condoms by associating the deadly disease with the German dictator. But what appears to be a typical, if steamy, advert for perfume or underwear takes a macabre twist when the camera pans to man's face at the moment of climax - revealing him to be Adolf Hitler. "Of course there are many HIV organisations that run their...

On the 70th anniversary of the outbreak of World War II, the granddaughter of former Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain has defended his response to the threat posed by Hitler. Chamberlain became prime minister in 1937 when Stanley Baldwin retired following the abdication of Edward VIII. He had been a Conservative MP for 19 years, some of which were served in senior ministerial positions, including chancellor. However, many historians believe Chamberlain's legacy as prime minister was tainted by his government's policy of appeasement towards Hitler. But Mary de Vere Taylor, who lives in Ashburton, Devon, has defended her grandfather, describing him...

Berlin, Germany (AHN) - A German court has ruled that a suspected terrorist can name his son Djehad, the German word for jihad or holy war. The upper regional court in Berlin upheld Tuesday the rulings of two lower courts allowing Egyptian-German Reda Seyam, 49, to name his four-year-old son Djehad on grounds that it is a common Arabic name for males. Germany's birth registration agency, which implements the country's strict naming law, contested the name in court arguing that the father intended it to be interpreted literally and could harmful to the child, who would be associated with terrorism....

In the years leading up to World War II, Britain and France underestimated just how determined Adolf Hitler was in his lust for conquest. The failure of Neville Chamberlain's policy of appeasement meant war was inevitable. A few days after returning from Vienna, Hitler, beaming with joy, told Goebbels "Czechoslovakia is next." Goebbels noted in his diary: "The Führer is wonderful. A true genius." To Goebbels and Hitler, European dominance seemed within their grasp. Eighteen months later, they would take the final step into World War II. Hitler met with Konrad Henlein, leader of the Sudeten German Party. In 1919,...

World War II began 70 years ago when Germany invaded Poland on Sept. 1, 1939. It would last six years and claim millions of lives. But the Allies missed several opportunities to stop Hitler in the run-up to the war. It is Aug. 25, 1939, and Adolf Hitler's official apartment in Berlin's Old Reich Chancellery is decorated with the usual floral arrangements, including magnificent bouquets at the entrance to the garden room. But on this Friday Hitler, normally an admirer of summer blossoms, has no interest in flowers. The dictator, wearing a brown jacket and black trousers, seems worn out....

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is in Poland for events Tuesday marking the 70th anniversary of the start of World War II as Russia fiercely denies blame in causing the war. He plans to hold talks with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk and also meet with the prime ministers of the Netherlands, Finland, Bulgaria, Croatia, and Slovenia. Writing in Poland's Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper, Mr. Putin condemned the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop treaty as immoral. The pact secretly split the Baltics and parts of eastern Europe between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. Historians say it encouraged Germany to invade Poland on September...

A day of commemorations has begun in Poland to mark the 70th anniversary of the outbreak of World War II. The first ceremony took place at dawn on Westerplatte peninsula near Gdansk, where a German battleship fired the first shots on a Polish fort in 1939. Poland's president and prime minister led the ceremony at the fort. Foreign leaders from 20 countries including Germany and Russia are expected in Gdansk later in the day as ceremonies continue. At 0445 (0245 GMT) Polish President Lech Kaczynski and Prime Minister Donald Tusk joined war veterans beside a monument to the heroes of...

In local German elections, the successor to East Germany's Communist Party makes major inroads, a potential challenge for Chancellor Angela Merkel ahead of national elections in September. PARIS – Sunday’s local German elections favoring left parties were variously described as “a wake up call,” a “shock,” and a “setback” for Chancellor Angela Merkel. But while the results may affect her plans for Germany’s next governing coalition, few analysts expect the popular German leader will lose national elections scheduled for Sept. 27. Nevertheless, the former Communist Party of East Germany, now known as the Left Party, made startling gains in the...

The Left Party, the old East German Communist Party — became the second biggest force in Thuringia with 26 per cent of the vote. Germany’s lacklustre national election campaign was thrown open last night when left-wing parties made a surprise surge in two key regional states. Early results from elections in Thuringia and Saarland showed that Chancellor Angela Merkel will face a much stronger opposition than expected in the general election. Political pundits had assumed that Ms Merkel would be a shoo-in on September 27 and that she was poised to rule Germany with a coalition of Christian Democrats and...

English translation in first comment. Aber der Demokrat Barack Obama dürfte Ihren Geschmack treffen. Immerhin wird er als der neue Kennedy gefeiert. Ist er es denn wirklich? Kennedy: Barack Obama ist alles - und er ist auch okay, weil er halt Demokrat ist wie ich. Aber er ist kein Kennedy - für mich jedenfalls nicht. Und wenn Sie das sagen ... Kennedy: ... nun ja, wir sind die Kennedys - er nicht. Obama hat seinen eigenen Stil und Background. Er ist sicher ein beeindruckender Mann, der andere durch seine Persönlichkeit und Reden mitreißen kann, so wie mein Onkel die Menschen...

BAE Systems targets 300 Typhoon exports BAE Systems will go head-to-head with the US in the lucrative fighter plane export market as it attempts to sell up to 300 Eurofighter Typhoons abroad to keep production going when domestic orders dry up. By Amy Wilson The biggest potential export markets for BAE and its consortium partners, EADS and Finmeccanica, are India, Japan and Saudi Arabia, which is already buying 72 Typhoons. An order from Switzerland could come as soon as next year and the consortium is also pursuing sales in Greece and Romania. It also has long-term ambitions in Brazil, Malaysia...