Free Republic

Berlin (AFP) - German police said Saturday they found a pig's head bearing an "insulting inscription" outside Chancellor Angela Merkel's constituency office in the country's northeast. A police patrol discovered the animal's head outside the office in the Baltic sea town of Stralsund in the early hours of Saturday. A spokesman for regional police refused to be drawn on the nature of the insults, saying only that they were directed at Merkel, who was first elected to parliament in Stralsund 26 years ago.

In April, the Islamic Republic of Iran conducted another rocket launch, ostensibly to put an Iranian satellite into orbit, which fell far short of its mark. Many analysts speculated that its purpose had nothing to do with satellites. Those paying attention to Iran’s recent activities & skeptical of the Islamic Republic suggested that this latest launch was yet another example of Tehran’s ongoing effort to test its long-range ballistic missile program. About two weeks later, these suspicions were confirmed when the deputy commander of the Iranian armed forces, Brigadier General Ali Abdollahi, boasted that the launch had been a successful...

Islamic State fighters have recently arrived in the Gaza Strip to train with their Hamas counterparts, a senior IDF official said in an Arabic interview published Friday.

While dramatic talk of an end to Gazprom’s ‘monopoly’ in Europe steals headlines in the wake of the first LNG shipments to the continent, Germany reveals that it’s increased its gas imports from the Russian giant by 19 percent in the first four months of this year. "It was noted the last year broke the record of supplies from Russia, which grew by 6.6 bln cubic meters (+17.1 percent). The upward trend continues to become stronger this year - 2 bln more cubic meters as compared to the last year (+19 percent) were already exported in the first four months...

The German government has proposed reducing support for onshore wind energy by 7.5 percent for two years from January 2017, according to a draft proposal for a meeting on renewable energy between the federal government and Germany's 16 states. That would slow down the rapid construction of onshore wind turbines and would apply to new wind turbines approved in 2017 and 2018, the draft seen by Reuters said. It also said that support for solar plants producing less than 1 megawatt, of which few are currently being built, should be adjusted more quickly. That would mean that the subsidy rates...

Lord Palmerston to Lord Clarendon. 1859 The refrain of the Austrian song to us is — If you love us and have any regard for us or for making us happy, do for Heaven's sake help us to continue to tyrannise over the Italians and to make them as unhappy for the future as we have made them in the past. The truth is, there is a passion in the human heart stronger than the desire to be free from injustice and wrong, and that is the desire to inflict injustice and wrong upon others, and men resent more keenly...

Maj. Gen. Yoav Mordechai tells Saudi website that ISIS members entered Gaza from Egypt to undergo military training. Members of the Islamic State (ISIS) jihadist group have recently entered Gaza through tunnels from Egypt to undergo military training in the Hamas-ruled enclave, the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, Maj. Gen. Yoav Mordechai, said Friday. Speaking to the Saudi news site Elaph and quoted by Haaretz, Mordechai said the ISIS members entered Gaza a few days ago with the support of a well-connected Hamas affiliate in the city of Rafah, adding that Hamas is helping the ISIS fighters receive...

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....

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...

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.’” …

A Muslim woman will sit in the speaker’s chair at sessions of the Baden-Württemberg state parliament from now on — a first for any German state. “We wrote history today,” Green Party politician Muhterem Aras said after being elected with a large majority as president (speaker) of the state legislature. The southwestern state had sent “a message of openness, tolerance, and successful integration,” by electing her, she went on, promising to ensure a lively but fair debating culture in the chamber. …

The number of Germans who say that Islam is not a part of Germany has risen sharply over the previous two years, a new poll shows. For 60 percent of Germans, Islam does not belong in their culture, with only 34 percent of respondents saying that yes, Islam does have a place in Germany, a poll published by Infratest dimap on Thursday shows. […] The Infratest dimap poll showed that 72 percent of Germans worry that there will be a terror attack in their country, while a quarter of respondents said they don’t believe that will happen. …

All people who arrive safely on the beaches of eastern Greece via smugglers' boats from Turkey have the right to seek asylum in the country and are entitled, under European Union law, to a fair adjudication of their claims. But at least 300 non-Syrian asylum-seekers have been deported in the past several weeks without any examination of their claims, members of European Parliament told the Guardian Tuesday after interviewing dozens of people in Greece. “All refugees interviewed told us they were not given the opportunity to ask for asylum, neither in Greece nor in Turkey,” members of European Parliament Cornelia...

It was a hedge fund portfolio pitched by Hillary Clinton’s son-in-law, Marc Mezvinsky, as an opportunity to bet on a Greek economic revival. Now, two years later, the Greece-focused fund is shutting down, after losing nearly 90 percent of its value, according to two investors with direct knowledge of the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Investors were told last month that the fund would close. The fund, Eaglevale Hellenic Opportunity, had raised $25 million from investors to buy Greek bank stocks and government debt. Eaglevale Partners, a Manhattan hedge fund firm founded by Mr. Mezvinsky and two...

The wife of arch-terrorist Marwan Barghouti has revealed that European MPs and political parties support her husband's candidacy for the Nobel Peace Prize, and will soon come out and publicly express their position of support for him. Fadwa Barghouti, the wife of the senior terrorist from Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah party who is serving five life sentences in Israel, welcomed her husband's Nobel Prize candidacy in an interview with the Turkish Anadolu news agency. She praised the Arab League support for his candidacy, which was submitted in early March by Adolfo Perez Esquivel of Argentina, who won...

Hamza Bin Laden, the son of former al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, is calling for the targeting of Jewish and Western interests and the building of an army to “liberate Jerusalem.” US Jewish institutions on alert following calls for attacks from bin Laden’s son.

Christian asylum-seekers in Germany are regularly bullied, beaten and forced to participate in Muslim prayer services, according to a report released this week. There are currently more than one million migrants and refugees living in Germany, the vast majority of whom are Muslims. The new report, titled “Religiously motivated attacks on Christian refugees in Germany” was prepared by the humanitarian relief organization Open Doors, and documents a sharp increase in aggression and violence towards Christians in the refugee centers.

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...

Truncated title. Full title: Munich knife attack: One dead as man shouting 'Allahu Akbar' attacks four at train station in Grafing, Germany One killed, three wounded in attack near Munich, Germany Attack took place at 5am local time at train station in Grafing Attacker reportedly shouted "Allahu akbar" and "you infidels!" Suspect arrested, identified as German citizen, 27 Attacker "suffered from psychiatric issues A German man has been arrested after several people were stabbed at a train station near Munich early Tuesday. One victim died in a hospital and three other people were wounded. The German authorities say they do...