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Al-Qaeda linked Islamist militants in the Philippines said on Thursday they will kill one of two German captives on Oct. 17 unless their demands are met.

BERLIN, Germany — When Chancellor Angela Merkel took office after her re-election last fall, she promised to expand her country’s role in world affairs by unshackling its military. That would reflect the political and economic leadership position Germany has taken in Europe over the last two decades. But as the fight against the Islamic State, or IS, in Iraq and Syria is showing, that’s easier said than done in a society that’s been a perennial conscientious objector since World War II. Germany’s commitment to send $90 million worth of arms and equipment to Kurdish rebels fighting IS ended a longstanding...

"In the Quran it is not allowed for you to feel sorry for non-Muslims. I don't feel sorry for him." — Anjem Choudary. "Eventually the whole world will be governed by Shari'ah & Muslims will have authority over China Russia USA etc This is the promise of Allah." — Anjem Choudary. "Under the Koran the sale of alcohol is prohibited and if one were to also drink alcohol, that would be 40 lashes." — Anjem Choudary. "We [Muslims] take the Jizya, which is ours anyway. The normal situation is to take money from the kuffar [non-Muslim]. They give us the...

Our fuel-based economy must be radically overhauled if Europe is to achieve its ambitious emission reduction targets. ... In practice, this means that the car is intelligent, and provides the driver with braking tips based on traffic flows and advice on the best route to limit energy use. Up to 30 % of energy can be saved this way, without losing much time along the way. ...

(MENAFN - AFP) A manufacturing fault has been discovered in the Eurofighter Typhoon warplanes, Germany said Tuesday, announcing it was suspending deliveries of the sophisticated jets. The news was another blow to the troubled and costly Eurofighter programme -- and raised concerns over the use of the planes. According to Germany's defence ministry, the defect discovered was in the rear fuselage of the twin-engine multirole fighter. As a result, Berlin has decided to cut the time its Eurofighters spend in the air each year in half, from 3,000 hours to 1,500 hours. The news website Spiegel Online reported that, in...

A city in western Germany will start a controversial project on Wednesday to employ alcohol and drug addicts to clean the streets in return for beer, tobacco, food and small amounts of cash. Social workers will closely oversee the project dubbed “Pick Up” in a dilapidated area around the central railway station of the industrial city of Essen, North Rhine-Westphalia. An initial six people will sweep streets and collect garbage in return for €1.25 per hour, a warm meal and three bottles of beer after their shift, as well as tobacco for smokers. …

Investigators believe a Molotov cocktail thrown at the Reichstag building in Berlin early on Monday morning was the work of a far-right group, a police spokeswoman said on Tuesday. […] A flyer from a neo-Nazi group was found at the Paul-Löbe-Allee entrance to the parliament building where a Molotov cocktail was thrown at around 2am. …

A retired top-ranking German general said Monday a string of recent embarrassing military equipment failures shows the country needs to spend more on defense, as another aircraft breakdown came to light. […] Former chief of staff Harald Kujat told rbb-radio the problem comes because the German military has been increasingly involved in large operations like in Afghanistan, but has neglected equipment maintenance and replacement. Germany this year reduced defense spending by about €800 million to €32.44 billion ($41.30 billion)—far below NATO’s recommended level of 2 percent of GDP. …

Possibly fearing the increasing loss of their Jews as European Aliyah escalates, European leaders and communities are taking steps to combat local anti-Semitism. French Prime Minister Manuel Valls visited the Great Synagogue in Paris just before Rosh Hashanah, and declared, "Denying the existence of Israel is the first step towards anti-Semitism." Speaking to more than 1,000 representatives of the French Jewish community, Valls assured them that the fight against anti-Semitism is a national cause. 'To be a Jew, to be French, French and Jewish identities are inseparable,’’ he said. In Italy, the Jewish community announced the launch of a special...

Poland kicks off major military exercises involving eight NATO partners on Wednesday amid the West's worst standoff with Russia since the end of the Cold War sparked by differences over the Ukraine crisis. Organised every two years since 2006, this year's Anaconda manoeuvres involve 12,500 soldiers, with 750 from NATO members the US and Britain among others, the Polish defence ministry said, adding the event "has become a permanent training element of the North Atlantic alliance". The exercises are designed to coordinate cooperation with NATO's rapid reaction forces, created at the alliance's Cardiff summit earlier this month. They also come...

Cooperation between Germany's foreign intelligence service, the BND, and America's NSA is deeper than previously believed. German agents appear to have crossed into constitutionally questionable territory.

"God bless you, and God bless the Homeland."It won't surprise me if that's how a future President closes one of his "State of the Union " addresses. The un-American term "the homeland" is taking over America. Everywhere I turn it's being used to replace the words "country" or "nation" or "the United States." All the media have accepted the phrase. It's all over CNN, FOX, MSNBC. I hear it on NPR.It's in the news pages and headlines of the Washington Examiner, the Washington Post and the Weekly Standard. "The homeland" is a bipartisan insult to America. It's being used by...

Alternative für Deutschland has swept through Germany like a tornado, winning 12.6pc of the vote in Brandenburg and 10.6pc in Thuringia ___ The stunning rise of Germany’s anti-euro party threatens to paralyse efforts to hold the eurozone together and may undermine any quantitative easing by the European Central Bank, Standard & Poor’s has warned. Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) has swept through Germany like a tornado, winning 12.6pc of the vote in Brandenburg and 10.6pc in Thuringia a week ago. The party has broken into three regional assemblies, after gaining its first platform in Strasbourg with seven euro-MPs. The rating agency...

Islamist militants in the Philippines are understood to be threatening to behead one of two German hostages being held, unless Germany agrees to pay a large ransom and withdraw all support for the US-led attacks on ISIS in Iraq and Syria within 15 days. Germany has stressed that it will not be threatened in this way, The Local has reported. The hostages, reported to be a German doctor and his girlfriend, were sailing a yacht between Malaysia and the Philippines in April this year when they were abducted by Abu Sayyaf, a militant Islamic group acting in the region. It...

Europe’s Panavia Tornado will remain in use as a relevant frontline asset for more than another 10 years, according to its programme partners, even though one of its main operators does not plan to retain the type beyond the end of the decade. The multinational effort that led to the Tornado’s creation began in 1969, and partner nations Germany, Italy and the UK on 16 September formally marked the 40th anniversary of the variable geometry design’s first flight. Also present were senior representatives from the Royal Saudi Air Force: the only export customer to have introduced the model. Staged at...

Medicine deliveries to a pharmacy on a North Sea island will be made by a drone, Deutsche Post announced on Wednesday, in the first project of its kind. It is the first time that an unmanned drone will be used for a practical business purpose in Europe, the company claims. Inhabitants and visitors on the island of Juist, which has a population of fewer than 2,000, will be able to order medicines from the Seehund Pharmacy and have them delivered from the mainland by the drone. …

Gun control in Britain passed in stages, beginning just after World War I and continuing in a reactionary fashion with increasing strictness through the 1990s. When the final stage arrived in 1997, and virtually all handguns were banned via the Firearms Act, the promise was a reduction in crime and greater safety for the British people. But the result was the emergence of Britain as the "most violent country in Europe." Britain began placing restrictions on gun ownership after World War I with the Firearms Act of 1920. .... The Firearms Act of 1920 did not ban guns. Rather, it...

BERLIN: Germany said today it would not withdraw support for US action against jihadists in Iraq and Syria following a reported ultimatum from Philippine Islamist militants reportedly threatening to kill a German hostage. A foreign ministry spokeswoman said the German government had “heard about the report” but stressed that “threats are not an appropriate way to influence our policy in Syria and Iraq”. “There will be no change to our Syria and Iraq policy,” she added. A terrorism monitoring group reported yesterday that the extremists said they would kill one of two German hostages unless a 250 million pesos (US$5.62...

Laws banning incest between brothers and sisters in Germany could be scraped after a government ethics committee said the they were an unacceptable intrusion into the right to sexual self-determination. “Criminal law is not the appropriate means to preserve a social taboo,” the German Ethics Council said in a statement. “The fundamental right of adult siblings to sexual self-determination is to be weighed more heavily than the abstract idea of protection of the family.” Their intervention follows a notorious case in which a brother and sister living as partners in Saxony had four children together. The couple had been raised...

The I.N.S Tannin (named after the biblical sea monster) is sleek and mysterious, even more so than her older sisters; she is also much more technologically advanced than her older sisters. Tanin submarine. (photo credit:IDF SPOKESMAN’S UNIT) Mazal tov Israel! Mazal tov IDF and mazal tov to the Israeli navy! The newest addition to the Israeli submarine fleet is entering her new home – an Israeli port. The I.N.S Tannin (named after the biblical sea monster) is sleek and mysterious, even more so than her older sisters; she is also much more technologically advanced than her older sisters. The new...