Free Republic

A peace march organized by German Muslim groups to condemn terrorism and violence in the name of Islam has been held in Cologne. Organizers had registered 10,000 participants, but actual turnout was much lower. Under gray skies, demonstrators waved banners proclaiming “together against terror” and “terrorism has no religion” on Saturday in the western German city of Cologne. Estimates of the number of people who took part varied from several hundred to about 3,500. The march, organized by Islamic scholar Lamya Kaddor and peace activist Tarek Mohamad to condemn violence in the name of Islam across the world, was preceded...

French President Emmanuel Macron's party has won a clear parliamentary majority, results show, weeks after his own presidential victory. With nearly all votes counted, his La Republique en Marche, alongside its MoDem allies, won more than 300 seats in the 577-seat National Assembly. The winning margin is lower than some expected.... .....National Front won eight seats, but it had set its sights on 15. FN leader Marine Le Pen, 48 has won a seat in parliament for the first time, representing Henin-Beaumont, a depressed former mining town in the north.....

The head of the European Commission says he wants an official commemoration of former Chancellor Helmut Kohl, who led Germany to reunification and was a strong backer of the continent’s unity. Jean-Claude Juncker told Sunday’s Bild am Sonntag newspaper that he will personally push for a “European act of state” for Kohl, who was chancellor from 1982 to 1998, but didn’t give details. […] Juncker said that “without Helmut Kohl, the euro would not exist.” …

Former German chancellor Helmut Kohl died Friday at age 87. His legacy includes reuniting Germany after the Cold War and helping to create the continent's common currency, the euro. US President Donald Trump says Kohl was a "friend and ally" to the United States as he led Germany through 16 pivotal years.....

For his part, Ghazia claims he would “like to work” but his familial burdens make it impossible.

A 'liberal mosque' where all Muslims can pray together regardless of their gender, sexuality or branch of Islam has opened in Germany. The Ibn Rushd-Goethe mosque, which is housed inside a Protestant church in Berlin, is the first of its kind in the country. Sunni and Shiite believers are encouraged to preach alongside one another and women will not be allowed to wear veils.

Germany threatened on Friday to retaliate against the United States if new sanctions on Russia being proposed by the U.S. Senate end up penalizing German firms. The Senate bill, approved on Thursday by a margin of 98-2, includes new sanctions against Russia and Iran. Crucially, it foresees punitive measures against entities that provide material support to Russia in building energy export pipelines. Berlin fears that could pave the way for fines against German and European firms involved in Nord Stream 2, a project to build a pipeline carrying Russian gas across the Baltic. Among the European companies involved in the...

Former German chancellor Helmut Kohl has died

Germany on Friday lashed out at Washington over new sanctions against Russia that target the planned Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline to Europe. The new penalties, approved by the US Senate on Thursday, include a paragraph that threatens to penalize European companies that push ahead with energy export programs with Russia. Those include the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which would pump Russian gas under the Baltic Sea directly to Germany. “It is strange that in the sanctioning of Russia’s behavior, with regards to the US elections for instance, that the European economy should become a target of American sanctions. That...

A large majority of Europeans have a positive view of Germany, while seeing Berlin as still having too much power in EU affairs, a new survey shows. The Pew Research Center study released on Thursday showed that 71 percent of respondents outside of Germany had a favourable view of Germany, compared to 21 percent who had an unfavorable opinion of the Bundesrepublik. The survey polled almost 10,000 people from France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Greece was the one outlier to the Germany love-in. Seventy-six percent of respondents in the birthplace of...

The German government has criticized the country’s biggest Islamic association for refusing to take part in a Muslim “peace march” against terrorism Saturday. The Turkish-Islamic Union said Wednesday that the demonstration in Cologne would send a wrong signal by suggesting international terrorism is mainly a Muslim problem. The union, known by its acronym DITIB, also said Muslims observing the Ramadan-month fast couldn’t be expected to march for hours in the summer sun. …

Authorities will in the future be allowed to take the fingerprints of refugee children as a young as six when they first enter Germany, interior ministers agreed on Wednesday. State and federal interior ministers, who met in Dresden on Wednesday, said that the current minimum age for taking the fingerprints of a child would be lowered from 14 to six. The move was justified as a means of preventing asylum seekers from applying twice for protection. But the change was harshly criticized by legal experts. “We don’t have a security problem among children,” said Sven Rebehn, chairman of the German...

The European Union’s door remains open if Britain changes its decision to leave the 28-member bloc, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble said Tuesday, while acknowledging such a move is unlikely. “If they wanted to change their decision, of course they would find open doors, but I think it’s not very likely,” Schäuble told Bloomberg Television in his first public comments on last week’s election in Britain which saw Prime Minister Theresa May lose her parliamentary majority. He noted a pro-European surge in France for President Emmanuel Macron and a youth vote in Britain that swung sharply to the left-wing Labour...

A young police officer was “seriously injured” at a Munich subway station Tuesday morning after an individual was able to steal a police officer’s pistol and go on a shooting rampage, according to reports. Officers were called to Munich Unterföhring S-Bahn station this morning to intervene in a fight on the station platform, in which at least one party was wielding a knife, reports Welt. Officers got involved in the scuffle and an attacker attempted to push one member of the police from the platform onto the railway tracks. While wrestling on the ground, a 37-year-old male — reported to...

The German chancellor had been hoping to isolate Donald Trump on climate issues at the upcoming G-20 summit in Hamburg. But Merkel’s hoped-for alliance is crumbling, underscoring Germany’s relative political weakness globally. Many countries are wary of angering the United States. German Chancellor Angela Merkel had actually thought that Canada’s young, charismatic prime minister, Justin Trudeau, could be counted among her reliable partners. Particularly when it came to climate policy. Just two weeks ago, at the G-7 summit in Sicily, he had thrown his support behind Germany. When Merkel took a confrontational approach to U.S. President Donald Trump, Trudeau was...

What Trump repeatedly promised to do during the election campaign has been done, and America is no longer part of the Paris Agreement. Predictably, the mainstream media here and across the Atlantic have again gone totally unhinged with prophesies of doom for America, the imminent demise of the Trump administration, and the inevitable rise of Germany and Chancellor Merkel as the new leader of the free world. This may indeed be a watershed event, but not at all as the left here and there imagines it. Contrary to the fervent desires of the leftist elites, it will result not in...

The German government will set up a new state-owned company which will provide startups with the money they need to transform a great idea into a successful business, Spiegel reports. As of 2018, startups will be able to apply to a new state-owned fund for the venture capital needed to accelerate the growth of their businesses, according to a government report seen by Spiegel. The company will be a subsidiary of the Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW), the state-owned development bank, and is set to fill part of an estimated annual hole of €500 million to €600 million in venture capital...

President Enrique Peña Nieto told German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Friday he wants a significant increase in trade with the European Union, vowing to complete a new trade deal by year’s end. Peña Nieto’s Mexican government has been actively seeking new trade opportunities since US President Donald Trump came to office with a threat to curb Mexico’s privileged access to American markets. Mexico is currently in negotiations with the European Union to modernize a free trade agreement they signed 20 years ago. Both Merkel and Peña Nieto vowed on Friday to conclude the expanded deal by the end of the...

German Commanders Order Troops to Imagine “Bang” Noise from Gunfire By Katrina on June 10, 2017 at 11:37am The lack of spending on military defense across Europe is taking its toll as troops in Germany have been told to imagine the sound of gunfire during training when munitions are scarce to nonexistent. According to a Wall Street Journal report in early June (subscription required), members of Germany’s Light Infantry Battalion 413 near the Baltic Sea coast reported last year that they didn’t have enough equipment — anti-tank weapons, sniper rifles or vehicles — to simulate battle. When it became clear...

Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel on Friday backed Mexico to press for a successful renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement with Donald Trump, thanking its government for keeping German interests in mind during the talks. Germany and Mexico have pursued policies tailored toward exporting manufactured goods, and both ran trade surpluses of more than $60 billion with the United States last year.