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Angela Merkel Tag

Posted by David Gerstman on July 13, 2014 6 Comments
The Times of Israel sums up the casualties so far.
As of Saturday afternoon, the death toll in Gaza from Israel’s Operation Protective Edge had climbed to 127 people, after Israeli forces struck 60 targets overnight Friday and into Saturday; Israel had no breakdown on the proportion of civilian and combatant casualties. Among the dead was a relative of former Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniyeh, named as Nidal al-Malash, who the Israeli army said was in a terror cell that was hit as it prepared to fire rockets at Israel. No Israelis had been killed by rocket fire as of Saturday afternoon, though several were injured, including an Ashdod man badly hurt in a rocket strike at a gas station Friday. A Haifa woman suffered a fatal heart attack dashing for shelter on Friday.
The Times also notes that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said "that all Gaza casualties were 'the responsibility of Hamas,' since the Strip’s Islamist rulers deliberately put Gazans in harm’s way by firing on Israel, hiding out, and storing weaponry among the civilian population." In an implicit admission of Netanyahu's charges, Hamas told Gaza residents not post photographs of rockets being fired from their neighborhoods to social media. Also as the IDF tweets: 2014-07-13_065803_IDF_Warning

Posted by Mandy Nagy on October 24, 2013 19 Comments
(Photo: The Guardian) The US has begun the awkward process of notifying intelligence services in some countries that documents obtained by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden contained information about their cooperation with the US. From the Washington Post:
U.S. officials are alerting some foreign intelligence services that documents detailing their secret cooperation with the United States have been obtained by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, according to government officials. Snowden, U.S. officials said, took tens of thousands of documents containing sensitive material about collection programs against adversaries such as Iran, Russia and China, operations that in some cases involve countries not publicly allied with the United States. The process of informing officials in capital after capital about the risk of disclosure they face has been painful and delicate. In some cases, one part of the cooperating government may know about the collaboration while others — such as the foreign ministry — may not, the officials said. The documents, if disclosed, could compromise operations, officials said.
The duty of informing these other intelligence services, according to the Post, has fallen to the the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. This news comes as the administration is on the defensive about allegations that the NSA monitored the cell phone of German chancellor Angela Merkel.  President Obama spoke with Merkel on Wednesday, where he "assured the chancellor that the United States is not monitoring and will not monitor the communications of the chancellor," according to Politico.

Posted by Kathleen McCaffrey on February 17, 2012 18 Comments

The European Union is in deep water but that, thankfully, hasn't stopped the Europeans from laughing at themselves. einige Schadenfreude (some Schadenfreude): "Dinner for One" (with subtitles) There are apparently a series of videos with Merkel and Sarko dubbed over discussing the Euro Crisis. It's pretty funny ...

Posted by Kathleen McCaffrey on November 07, 2011 6 Comments

Over at the DailyBeast, Stefan Theil has a really great write-up about rich nations interacting with poor nations, using a comparison of Texas/Louisiana/Florida & Greece/Italy/Spain.   Imagine 27 Barack Obamas and John Boehners trying to get a debt and banking crisis under control. That, in essence,...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 22, 2011 21 Comments

Consider me a fan of Norway.  I traveled there extensively in my youth, and still have friends there.  It is a beautiful country, with a traditionally pro-American foreign policy.  It saddens me to see Norway have its version of the London bus bombings. Former congressional candidate...

Posted by Kathleen McCaffrey on May 30, 2011 7 Comments

KathleenDespite the fact that it is nowhere near a tsunami-prone area, the German government announced that it will phase out nuclear power over the next decade. Currently, Germany receives roughly a quarter of their energy from nuclear sources and no alternatives were cited in the...

Posted by Kathleen McCaffrey on March 22, 2011 5 Comments

In the past two weeks or so, everyone has been discussing the tragedy in Japan. In addition to the death toll, news headlines have been relentlessly speculating the impact of the Fukushima reactors. Matthew Shaffer's latest piece in NRO helps amalgamate some of the...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 05, 2011 6 Comments

David Cameron has generated a stir in Europe by giving a speech in which he said that state-sponsored multiculturalism has failed:Note that Cameron was not criticizing multi-racial or multi-ethnic societies; he was proclaiming the failure of policies which sought to segregate and separate groups in the...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 09, 2009 5 Comments

What a great day, the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. That symbol of tyranny and oppression fell after decades of U.S. and West European refusal to give in to what at the time was proclaimed by the left to be the...

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