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Don’t imagine this is just an unprovoked, brutal attack by a bunch of terrorists from Gaza. It is much more than that. The hands that pushed these killers forward are in Moscow. US President Joe Biden and European leaders have long feared an escalation of the Ukraine war and that is what they’ve now got. Unwilling to take the fight directly to NATO, instead, Putin has been fomenting conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia, Serbia and Kosovo, in West Africa and now in Israel. The instability created in these places is intended to pull US attention, as well as resources, away...

During the final months of World War II, from February 13 to 15, 1945, Allied forces bombed the ancient, cathedral city of Dresden, in eastern Germany. The bombing was controversial because Dresden's contribution to the war effort was minimal compared with other German cities — though it was a key transport junction and used by German forces to defend the country against Soviet forces approaching from the east. Before the huge air raid, it had not suffered a major Allied attack. By February 15, however, it was a smouldering ruin — 2,400 tons of high explosives and 1,500 tons of...

olice are searching for the bold thieves who made off with priceless diamonds and other historic treasures from the Grünes Gewölbe, or "Green Vault," state museum in Dresden, Germany, early Monday. The museum has a large collection of jewels, Baroque artifacts and intricately crafted golden tableaux amassed between 1723 and 1730 by August the Strong, the Saxon elector and arts patron who later became king of Poland. Early reports of the heist sparked incredulity and worries about how much was taken, since the historic Green Vault collection includes thousands of rare and irreplaceable items. The loot's material value seems to...

The eastern German city of Dresden has passed a resolution declaring a “Nazi emergency.” In a policy statement, passed by the city council on Wednesday night, councillors noted that “anti-democratic, anti-pluralist, misanthropic and right-wing extremist attitudes and actions, including violence in Dresden, are occurring with increasing frequency.” “We have a Nazi problem in Dresden and have to do something about it,” said Max Aschenbach, a councillor for Die Partei, a satirical political party, who initiated the measure. […] The anti-Islam and xenophobic PEGIDA movement began in the city in 2014. PEGIDA, which stands in German for Patriotic Europeans against the...

FULL TITLE: Abortion Doctor Who Hoarded Fetuses Faulted WWII Bombings For His ‘Perception’ Of Humanity, Filmmaker Says An abortion doctor who hoarded fetal remains in his home once blamed World War II bombings in Dresden for his perception of “human beings” and “what they do to each other,” a filmmaker said. Family members discovered a collection of 2,246 medically preserved fetal remains in the Illinois home of 79-year-old Dr. Ulrich George Klopfer after the abortion doctor died on September 3. Klopfer ran three different Indiana abortion clinics during his lifetime and performed over 30,000 abortions since he began operating in...

A German man who used a homemade bomb to attack a mosque in the eastern city of Dresden was Friday sentenced to nearly 10 years in jail for what prosecutors called a xenophobic crime. The accused, Nino Köhler, had apologized during his trial to the imam and his family. No one was hurt in the attack. The bomb damaged the door of the Fatih mosque while the family were inside on September 26th, 2016. That same evening, the accused planted another homemade pipe bomb that slightly damaged a convention center in the city, which was days away from hosting festivities...

Saxony court officials have decided this week that a Niedersdorf man can now legally sell his miniature gallow souvenirs, despite the fact they have reservations for Angela Merkel and her colleague Sigmar Gabriel on them. In a surprising decision by the Chemnitz judiciary, a citizen has been allowed to sell his miniature versions of the gallows used at the Dresden PEGIDA demonstration on October 12th 2015, reported the Süddeutsche Zeitung on Wednesday. The miniatures are based on the life-sized gallows carried in the protest in 2015, which had signs hanging from the hangman’s nooses with the words, “Reserved for Angela...

Angela Merkel was jeered and whistled as she arrived at German Reunification Day celebrations in Dresden on Monday. Shouts of “get out” were heard as the German chancellor arrived in Dresden — birthplace of xenophobic movement PEGIDA — for celebrations. The angry crowd in the east German city also waved signs saying “Merkel must go”. The German leader has been under pressure at home over her liberal refugee policy that saw an influx of nearly one million migrants last year. …

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!)...

When John Kerry toured the Hiroshima Peace Memorial and Museum this week before meeting foreign ministers at the G-7 Summit, Reuters reports that he had witnessed “haunting displays [of] photographs of badly burned victims, the tattered and stained clothes they wore and statues depicting them with flesh melting from their limbs.” “It is a stunning display. It is a gut-wrenching display,” explained Kerry. “It is a reminder of the depth of the obligation every one of us in public life carries … to create and pursue a world free from nuclear weapons.” Iran exempted, of course. But, really, is this...

On Sunday eastern Germany's first Buddhist graveyard opened in Dresden, marking a turning point for the region's Vietnamese community. But a missing symbol makes the burial ground a peculiarly German affair. The burial ground is long overdue, Ding Linger, a spokesperson for the Vietnamese Buddhist Centre in Dresden told The Local. "It's been needed for 40 years since Vietnamese people first came to East Germany," he said. Vietnamese are the largest immigrant population in east Germany, making up 100,000 of the population. Of those, 7,000 live in Dresden, reports the Hamburger Morgenpost. With around 85 percent of the Vietnamese population...

Anyone who wants to understand Vladimir Putin today needs to know the story of what happened to him on a dramatic night in East Germany a quarter of a century ago. [....] "We cannot do anything without orders from Moscow," the voice at the other end replied. "And Moscow is silent." That phrase, "Moscow is silent" has haunted this man ever since. Defiant yet helpless as the 1989 revolution swept over him, he has now himself become "Moscow" - the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin.

An estimated 25,000 people died in the British and American attack, which created a firestorm that left 33 sq km (12 sq miles) of the city in ruins. Speaking at the city's Church of Our Lady, German President Joachim Gauck said the attack had "burned itself into the memory" of survivors. The city was believed by Allied forces to be a vital Nazi command centre. It was used by German forces to defend the country against Soviet forces approaching from the east.

The BBC’s coverage of the bombing of Dresden in which Britain was described as ‘worse than the Nazis’ was condemned as disgraceful by RAF veterans and MPs last night. Despite dedicating more than 32 minutes of airtime to the 70th anniversary of the fire-bombing that killed tens of thousands at the end of the Second World War, there was barely a mention of British airmen who lost their lives. The BBC’s four major news shows and Radio 4 interviewed multiple German survivors of the bombings. They also showed a British prisoner of war who berated those who ordered the raids,...

There had been calls for would-be "assassins to mingle among the protesters ... and to murder an individual member of the organising team of the Pegida demonstrations", police said in a notice on the 24-hour ban. This was consistent with "an Arabic-language Tweet that called the Pegida demonstrations an enemy of Islam", it said. Top-circulation daily Bild said online that the threat targeted Pegida's most prominent leader Lutz Bachmann. The Pegida marches – which have voiced anger against Islam and "criminal asylum seekers" and vented a host of other grievances – began in Dresden in October with several hundred supporters...

MOSCOW, January 18 (Sputnik) – The Patriotic Europeans against the Islamification of the West (PEGIDA) cancelled its anti-Islam and anti-immigration rally in the German city of Dresden scheduled for Monday after one of its leaders allegedly received a death threat from the Islamic State. "Please, don’t come tomorrow to Dresden, friends," the group said in a post on its official Facebook page. "Unfortunately we must cancel our 13th meeting due to security concerns. According to the police, there is a specific threat against a member of the organizing team," the group explained. PEGIDA claimed that the threat was issued by...

Anyone close up regarding the PEGIDA movement in Germany? German citizens taking a stand against the insane immigration policies/ Islamization of their country sounds right to me. From here, it sounds like the powers-that-be are demonizing it - reminds me of what they said about the Tea Party. Curious to have some feedback from those closer in. Thanks.

A march against "Islamisation of the West" is due to take place in Dresden, with turnout expected to reach about 10,000 in the eastern German city. A big counter-demonstration is also being organised, similar in size. Dresden is the birthplace of a movement called "Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West" (Pegida), which staged a big rally a week ago. Justice Minister Heiko Maas called Pegida's protests "a disgrace". But the Eurosceptic party AfD is sympathetic. "Most of their demands are legitimate," said Bernd Lucke, leader of the conservative Alternativ fuer Deutschland (AfD), which has campaigned for a tougher...

EXACTLY what drove two men to pretend to be archaeologists and hack off pieces of the Great Pyramid? Atlantis. It's a tale of cranks, conspiracies and an ancient cartouche. The Great Pyramid of Khufu (also known as Cheops) on the Giza Plateau is the largest pyramid in Egypt and the only surviving example of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. The cartouche? It's an ancient red-pigment scribble deep inside the Great Pyramid said to be the linchpin in identifying who it was actually built for. Is it an authentic ancient Egyptian depiction of his name, or a 19th century...

A treasure trove of artworks worth almost £1billion seized by the Nazis and reportedly destroyed in RAF bombing raids during WW2 has been found behind rotting food in shabby apartment in Munich. Experts have hailed the discovery of the 1,500 pictures, thought to have been lost or bombed, as a sensational find. The story of the lost masterpieces of such painters as Pablo Picasso, Renoir, Henri Matisse and Marc Chagall is revealed in this week's edition of Germany's Focus magazine which broke the story of the incredible find by customs officials. Art historians examining the collection claim up to 300...