Free Republic

After the Taliban took Kabul and desperate Afghans flooded the airport trying to escape the country, outgoing German Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed her dismay: “The developments are bitter, dramatic and terrible,” she said at a press conference on August 16. “It seems right now like it was all in vain.” For Germany, whose military has spent nearly 20 years in Afghanistan, the human and financial cost has been significant. The Bundeswehr, Germany’s army, entered Afghanistan to support the US after the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001 — in what would become its largest and longest military deployment abroad. Along the...

ANGELA MERKEL is facing the end of her political career at the helm of Germany, with more than 1,000 members of her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party voting on a new leader - with Armin Laschet, chairman of the North Rhine-Westphalia, emerging victorious.

After the newly-elected state leader of North Rhine-Westphalia, Armin Laschet, renamed all 12 ministries under his administration, he publicly responded on Monday to inquires as to why. […] Laschet decided to alter the names of the ministries, for example turning the “Justizministerium” (Justice Ministry) and “Finanzministerium” (Finance Ministry) into “Ministerium der Justiz” (Ministry of Justice) and “Ministerium der Finanzen” (Ministry of Finance), respectively. Nothing else about the ministries has changed, but the renaming will cost taxpayers a total of €26,000. […] On the question of efficiency improvements in the state administration posed by Ziemkeit, Laschet replied: “We are not dealing...

Report: Germany mulling cutting aid to PA Spokesman for ruling SPD party calls on EU foreign ministers to stop financial payments to Palestinians if the power fight in the government gets any worse. Maariv International Amidst corruption allegations and a leadership crisis, German politicians are calling for measures to be taken against the government of Yasser Arafat, including a freezing of European Union aid. The foreign policy spokesman for the ruling Social Democratic Party (SPD), Gert Weisskirchen, has told the Berliner Zeitung newspaper that EU foreign ministers should stop financial aid payments to the Palestinian Authority if the power fight...