Free Republic

Germany’s Angela Merkel has said Ukraine is free to “go to” Russia’s “Eurasian Union”, amid signs of a new willingness to make peace with Russian leader Vladimir Putin. Speaking to German public broadcaster ARD on Sunday (24 August), the German chancellor said her visit to Kiev on Saturday was designed to prepare for peace talks between Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko and Putin in Minsk on Tuesday, but warned the public not to expect a “breakthrough”. She mentioned Ukrainian “decentralization”, a deal on gas prices, and Ukraine’s “trade relations” with Russia as elements that could bring about an accord. “And if...

Germans could foot the bill for unemployment benefits in other European countries under an EU plan to tax the union’s richest states.László Andor, EU Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, set out his proposal in June in Berlin to share the burden of unemployment benefits among EU countries. The plan is now “not far from the table”, CDU politician and MEP Herbert Reul told Welt newspaper on Monday. Andor claims that in a time of economic downturn, this concept could stabilize and revive struggling economies. He told the Welt on Monday that his plan would not replace countries’ unemployment...

NATO officials are considering deploying a long-planned missile defense system—aimed at protecting Europe from attacks from the Middle East—against Russia as well, Spiegel has learned. Calls for such an expansion to the system’s remit, which is backed by the United States, are growing in Poland as well as in NATO member states Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia. […] But the majority of NATO members, especially Germany, are opposed to the proposal, warning that it could result in an unnecessary provocation of Moscow. …

As the crisis in Ukraine continues with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s contempt of the west growing, it’s becoming clear that German Chancellor Angela Merkel will be a key player if the crisis is to be resolved without a wider conflict. Since the crisis began, Merkel has played the stern headmaster to the United States and Russia, which appear more as squabbling students than world powers. Amid heated rhetoric coming from both Washington and Moscow, Merkel has been measured, chastising Russia when necessary, but calling for restraint from countries eager to punish Russia. Related: Putin Wants Eastern Ukraine. Let Him Have...

Western intelligence agencies have been assisting the Syrian government of Bashar al Assad fight militants of Isis (now called the 'Islamic State'), by providing details on the location of militant leaders for targeted air strikes. The information was passed to Assad's government by German intelligence service Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), which acted as an intermediary, a source told the Independent... In recent weeks, Syrian forces have launched a series of airstrikes against Islamic State commanders and headquarters, as they battle to halt the advance of jihadist forces from their stronghold in the east of the country. The Assad regime has been accused...

WASHINGTON - There can be only one response to the barbaric beheading of American journalist James Foley by Islamic State terrorists. We must hunt them down and kill them. President Obama said as much in his brief remarks in the wake of the terrorists' grisly video that showed Foley's execution by a masked jihadist who spoke with a British accent and is believed to be a British citizen. The United States will "do what we must to protect our people," Obama said Wednesday. "We will be vigilant and we will be relentless" in bringing them to justice. No sooner had...

Iraqi Kurds have welcomed the German government’s expressed willingness to supply weapons in the fight against violent Islamists. Speaking on Deutschlandfunk radio on Thursday (21 August), Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq Rodsch Schawais said arms assistance should come as quickly as possible. The Kurdish leader addressed fears that German weapons could end up in the wrong hands or later be used in a possible conflict for an independent Kurdistan. This question is not relevant right now, he said. At the moment it is important to stop the advance of the extremist Islamic State (IS), Schawais explained. […] But the government’s...

BERLIN/KIEV (Reuters) - After months of ratcheting up pressure on Vladimir Putin, concern is mounting in Berlin and other European capitals that an emboldened Ukraine's military successes in the east are reducing the chances of a face-saving way out of the crisis for the Russian leader. As a result, the focus of German-led diplomatic efforts has shifted, according to senior officials, towards urging restraint from Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and averting a humiliating defeat for pro-Russian rebels, a development that Berlin fears could elicit a strong response from Putin. Chancellor Angela Merkel's planned visit to Kiev on Saturday, her first...

The world's biggest defence deal is in danger of becom-ing one of the slowest in his-tory. More than two years after India zeroed in on the French Rafale fighter jet-after a tor-tured 11-year selection process-to replace its ageing MiG-21s, the Ger-man-led European consortium which was the runner-up in the race has sought to restart the dogfight by offer-ing a new, cheaper proposal for its Eurofighter Typhoon. The Narendra Modi Government, INDIA TODAY has learnt, is studying the German proposal even as Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) has been nego-tiating with France's Dassault, the maker of the Rafale, to finalise agree-ments to...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: You know what I thought we would do, and it would be instructive. Do you remember Obama's speech in Berlin in July 2008? Given that one of the things we're talking about today is people's frustration, people on the left -- they'd vote for him again, make no mistake. But the Drive-Bys and a lot of people, they're really wringing their hands over the fact that Obama gave a lukewarm, passionless, didn't look like he really cared set of remarks about the beheading of James Foley, and then, 10 minutes later, is on the golf course. You...

BERLIN—German voters are swinging behind their government's tougher line against Moscow after long being willing to give Russia the benefit of the doubt in its dispute with Ukraine. An opinion poll published Friday shows Germans widely support the European Union's latest sanctions against Russia and an overwhelming majority view the Kremlin's actions in eastern Ukraine with an increasingly critical eye, with 82% of Germans surveyed saying Russia can't be trusted.

Police and security services in Germany’s eastern state of Thuringia bungled the hunt for three neo-Nazis, who years later turned out to be the main suspects in a far-right murder spree, according to an official report published Thursday. A panel of lawmakers in the state assembly examined thousands of case files and interviewed dozens of former investigators, concluding that efforts to find the fugitive trio between 1998 and 2003 were a “complete disaster.” “In the best case, the comprehensive failure of many of those involved resulted from simple lack of interest,” the panel said in its 1,895-page report. But so...

The Ukrainian government needs "Russian influence" to deal with the problems within its borders, one of its most senior members said ahead of a key summit between the two sparring countries. "(It is) only with Russian influence we can sort the problem out," Pavlo Klimkin, foreign minister of Ukraine, told CNBC ahead of the talks in Minsk on Tuesday, which will see Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Petro Poroshenko meet at a summit of leaders in the region. The conflict in Ukraine shows little signs of abating. On Thursday, dozens of people died as fighting in Donetsk,...

German chancellor Angela Merkel has said NATO will defend Baltic states if need be, but will not build permanent military bases in the region. She spoke on Monday (18 August) on a visit to Riga in which she also laid a wreath at the Freedom Monument, a memorial to the Latvian War of Independence against Russia in 1918. “I want to stress that … Article V of the NATO contract—the duty to provide mutual support—is not something which just exists on paper, but is also something which must be filled with life”, she told press after meeting Latvian prime minister...

Home to two thirds of Germany’s population, many of its small cities and towns are struggling to revive their declining centers. […] Big box stores on their outskirts, online shops and the proximity of larger, better serviced cities have all eaten away at the share of the retail market available to businesses that once thrived in smaller towns, says the expert in trade and retail at Niederrhein University. In Delmenhorst, it’s a perfect storm. The retiree Bieler has watched big retail chains like Kik and Kaufland set up and thrive on the outskirts. And he’s seen how people gravitated more...

(Reuters) - German Development Minister Gerd Mueller accused Qatar on Wednesday of financing Islamic State militants who have seized wide areas of northern Iraq and have posted a video of a captive American journalist being beheaded. "This kind of conflict, this kind of a crisis always has a history ... The ISIS troops, the weapons - these are lost sons, with some of them from Iraq," Mueller told German public broadcaster ZDF. "You have to ask who is arming, who is financing ISIS troops. The keyword there is Qatar - and how do we deal with these people and states...

Ansgar Graw and Frank Hermann were cuffed and jailed for three hours the day after arriving in the beleaguered suburb of St. Louis. […] The journalists had wanted to take pictures of a burned out gas station on Florissant Avenue, the street at the center of the week-long protest. […] “We felt there were no threats, everything is completely peaceful, and we said that we would stay on and take the photos we wanted,” Graw wrote. Then a young police officer says: “Okay, but only if you keep moving. The moment you stay standing, you’ll be arrested. That’s the last...

A woman was rushed to hospital and hundreds of people were quarantined today after she showed symptoms of Ebola virus infection in a jobcentre in Germany. As many as 600 visitors and staff at the employment office building in Berlin were also stopped from leaving for several hours as emergency services sealed off part of the street. The mass-circulation daily Bild said the woman had fainted, that she hailed from Nigeria and that she said later that she had recently been in contact with people infected with Ebola.

ANOTHER weekend, another two thousand-odd immigrants rescued by Italian sailors and coastguards in the Mediterranean. On August 11th the San Giusto, an amphibious transport vessel, landed 1,698 people in Reggio Calabria, a city in southern Italy. The day before, a naval patrol vessel and a frigate disembarked 364 people at ports in eastern Sicily. The number of people arriving in Italy by sea this year may already exceed 100,000. By the end of July approximately 93,000 migrants had been rescued. The previous record for an entire year was set in 2011 when around 60,000 people reached Italian shores at the...

The Berlin Wall is something I grew up talking about. It's a little bit different for my sons. In fact, our 3rd son, now serving in the US Army, was born the year after the Wall came down in the fall of 1989. The Berlin Wall was built in 1961 and the first casualty came 52 years ago today: