Free Republic

Looking for any confirmation. Rumor is tanks and sharpshooters, news embargo, web cams shut down. Found one Dutch blog, would like more info, especially if it's false (or true!)...

Previous reports had suggested that around 1.1 million people entered Germany to seek asylum last year. But now the German government has confirmed the number was actually lower. On Friday Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière confirmed in a press conference that around 890,000 asylum seekers came to Germany last year. […] De Maizière had previously explained that the first number reported was probably too high due to multiple registrations and the inclusion of people who did not stay in Germany, such as people who went back to their homelands or left for other EU states. “The number 890,000 is still...

U.S. Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has named German Chancellor Angela Merkel as her favourite world leader, choosing specifically to praise her record on the migrant crisis — despite her policies on opening Europe’s borders now providing a source of immense regret for her party and Germany. The comments were made during a question and answer session on board Mrs. Clinton’s campaign aeroplane in Chicago yesterday, when a member of the press asked what the presidential candidate’s favourite world leader is. Initially leaving her answer quite open, remarking: “Look, I like a lot of the world leaders”, Mrs. Clinton then settled...

Commerzbank aims to cut around 9,000 jobs in the next few years and will scrap its 2016 dividend as part of efforts to reduce costs in the face of negative interest rates. This is according to a source close to the bank's supervisory board. The job cuts will be spread over the next few years up to 2020, but the size of the cull, representing nearly a fifth of the workforce at Germany's second biggest bank, implies that compulsory layoffs cannot be ruled out, the person said. "This is much more radical than previous measures," the person said. The revamp...

European Union nations pressed ahead Tuesday with plans to boost military cooperation as Britain vowed to oppose the creation of an EU army or headquarters. With Britain leaving the EU, France and Germany have been spearheading moves to boost Europe’s capacity to run its own security operations. […] “We are in a very strong Franco-German relationship and we think we will be able to make significant progress before the end of the year,” he said, standing alongside German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen. Von der Leyen insisted that “it’s not about a European army.” …

Optimism in Germany's boardrooms about the nation's economic outlook has surged, the Munich-based Ifo think tank has reported. Its closely watched business confidence index reached a new high despite Brexit worries. Business confidence among German executives surged to a more-than-two-year high in September, with optimism in boardrooms across the country rising faster than forecast by analysts. ..."German industry is expecting a golden autumn," Ifo President Clemens Fuest said in a statement.

Parenting magazine Baby & Family has told readers to beware of families who are “inconspicuous” and “cheerful”, as these warning signs indicate they are right wing and thus “dangerous”. Depicted with illustrations featuring solely blonde women and children, the report says ordinary parents must take action against right-wing families and make clear that their ideology has no place in the world. Asserting that the term “right wing” “stirs up anxiety” and brings to mind “burning refugee homes”, skinheads, and the National Socialist Underground (NSU) group who carried out a string of violent attacks on foreign people, Baby & Family notes...

STAGE 1: INFILTRATIONMuslims begin moving to non-Muslim countries in increasing numbers and the beginning of cultural conflicts are visible, though often subtle. - First migration wave to non-Muslim “host” country. - Appeal for humanitarian tolerance from the host society. - Attempts to portray Islam as a peaceful & Muslims as victims of misunderstanding and racism (even though Islam is not a ‘race’). - High Muslim birth rate in host country increase Muslim population. - Mosques used to spread Islam and dislike of host country & culture. - Calls to criminalize “Islamophobia” as a hate crime. - Threatened legal action for...

The right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) has garnered some of its best numbers yet in a nationwide poll. Meanwhile, the CDU and SPD have lost support. The AfD is pulling ahead of the Greens, the Left party and the Free Democratic Party (FDP), putting it on track to become the third-largest party in the country, according to a new poll released by German public broadcaster ARD. The poll shows the AfD’s support at 16 percent, its best showing yet. Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) came in at 32 percent and the Social Democratic Party (SPD) at 22 percent. …

US film director Oliver Stone on Thursday accused President Barack Obama's administration of implementing a surveillance system worse than that of the feared Stasi secret police in East Germany. Speaking at the San Sebastian film festival in northern Spain, where he presented his film "Snowden," Stone said many in the US had grown disillusioned with a president they once saw as "a man of great integrity." "On the contrary, Obama has doubled down on the (George W.) Bush administration policies," said Stone, whose latest movie is a biographical political thriller about Edward Snowden, the former intelligence contractor who revealed a...

New figures show just how many more people died in fatal police shooting in the US than Germany last year. According to the Washington Post’s database of fatal police shootings, 990 people were killed in 2015. In Germany, ten people were killed by police last year, according to a report on Thursday by publishing group Funke Mediengruppe, citing figures from the German Police University. That means that while the population of the US is roughly four times that of Germany, the number of fatal police shootings there is about 100 times greater. …

Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel admitted that she has not adequately dealt with the topic of refugees into Germany. Speaking in Berlin, Merkel said that she had lost control over the situation and that she would have set back the clock...

Angela Merkel's shock admission that she wishes she could turn back the clock on her migrant policy is a clear attempt to mend fences with her allies in Bavaria and a strong hint she will seek to run for a fourth term as German chancellor.

A German expert who evaluated six Minnesota men who pleaded guilty to trying to join the Islamic State group has developed counseling plans for each of them aimed at keeping them off the path of violence. He has also trained 20 to 25 local probation officers in his techniques. Daniel Koehler, who directs the German Institute on Radicalization and De-radicalization Studies in Stuttgart, sat down with a small group of reporters Wednesday to discuss his work. He was joined by the chief U.S. probation officer for Minnesota, Kevin Lowry. […] Minnesota is the first place in the U.S. to try...

Berliners have reacted with disbelief after the mayor’s head spokeswoman was placed on a temporary retirement plan of €6,385 per month — and at the ripe old age of 37. […] City officials said on Tuesday that Berlin mayor Michael Müller’s former head spokeswoman Daniela Augenstein had been placed on temporary retirement, just two days after the Berlin election. Because she held a position as state secretary, Augenstein is entitled to be paid her full salary for the next three months, which the Berlin interior department told Spiegel Online would be “around €8,906” per month. …

After conceding a goal nearly every two minutes, goalkeeper Marco Kwiotek may have wanted to completely forget about the performance. However, five days later at a training session, two police cars arrived at Vonderort’s training ground in Bottrop (around 30 miles west of Dortmund). The 25-year-old keeper was escorted from the training field by armed officers and brought to the local police station for questioning.

US President Barack Obama has told a United Nations summit that the global intake of refugees is set to double in 2016. Seven EU states are set to admit at least 10 times more migrants than last year. Confirming that dozens of countries had pledged to double the number of refugees resettled to 360,000 in 2016, Obama urged countries to “welcome the stranger in our midst.” “I called this summit because this crisis is one of the most urgent tasks for our time, our capacity for collective action,” the US leader said in his final address to the UN General...

A new microcensus shows that more than one-fifth of all Germans have some sort of “immigrant background” — a record high for the Bundesrepublik. The Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) reported on Friday that 17.1 million people out of a population of 81.4 million last year had some kind of immigration background. This included people who had immigrated to Germany themselves, people with at least one parent who wasn’t a German national, and ethnic Germans or their children who had re-settled in Germany. Destatis said that this was a record level for Germany with an increase of 4.4 percent over 2014....

A German immigration official has been arrested and charged with espionage for an Indian secret service for allegedly spying on members of the Sikh religion, prosecutors said Tuesday. The 58-year-old German national, identified only by the initials T.S.P., was accused of “espionage activity and violation of professional secrecy rules in 45 cases,” they said in a statement. Working at an immigration office in the western town of Ostwestfalen, he accessed databases to pass on information on suspected extremist and opposition members of the religious group, said federal prosecutors. …

Angela Merkel's party has made historic losses in elections for the Berlin state parliament after a mayor warned of a resurgence of Nazis in Germany. Many voters turned to the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which with 13 per cent of the vote will enter the German capital's assembly for the first time, according to initial projections. Before the election, mayor Michael Müller had warned that a double-digit total for the AfD would' be seen around the world as a sign of the return of the rightwing and the Nazis in Germany'.