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Germany Tag

Posted by Vijeta Uniyal on March 09, 2017 10 Comments

While the Merkel government and German media don't like to talk about the No-Go Zones and the rising wave of migrant crime in the country, a popular German TV show "Akte 2017" has brought the issue to the forefront. German journalist and moderator Claus Strunz went to Berlin's Kottbusser Tor area -- dubbed as the 'most dangerous place in Germany' -- to record the latest edition of his show.

As Berlin's Left-wing state government prohibits police from carrying out video surveillance in the capital on the grounds of 'preserving individual privacy', Strunz and his crew installed 9 cameras in and around Kottbusser Tor, and ran them for 48 hours. Last year, Berlin police registered 1,600 crimes in Kottbusser Tor. However, according to the show's moderator Strunz, his crew recorded 'hundreds of crimes' in just 48 hours and with just 9 cameras.

Posted by Mary Chastain on March 08, 2017 4 Comments
The news has lately shown steady and growing markets, pushing optimism to new heights. But is it worth it? Central banks around the world have gone into self preservation mode. While the subject is not sexy, everyone should have information on the financial market. It's another reminder how fragile the global economy remains:
These central banks are showing crisis-like behavior to protect their currencies even in the absence of obvious trouble. This exposes them to losses if their currencies fail to weaken on their own. It also raises doubts as to how long they can keep this up in an era when economic and political uncertainties appear to be a lasting feature of the world economy.

Posted by Vijeta Uniyal on March 07, 2017 15 Comments
'Never believe anything until it has been officially denied,' they use to say in days of the Soviet Union. Today, the same is apparently true for the European Union. After years of official denials, E.U. has announced its plans to build a unified military command in the Belgian city of Brussels -- a move set to take NATO's European partners away from the existing transatlantic alliance. Germany's state-run ARD broadcaster called it an "attempt to transform European Union into a real defense union". Just last year in the run-up to the Brexit vote, U.K.'s Deputy Prime Minister and pro-E.U. campaigner Nick Clegg blasted U.K. Independence Party's (UKIP) leader Nigel Farage for misleading the voters on the issue of a proposed E.U. Army ahead of the referendum, saying Farage was spreading a 'dangerous fantasy that is simply not true.' That 'dangerous fantasy' is now coming true.

Posted by Vijeta Uniyal on March 05, 2017 6 Comments
The number of Islamists leaving Germany to join the ranks of Islamic State fighters is on the rise, German news magazine DER SPIEGEL reports. More than 910 German residents have left the country to fight under the banner of ISIS including nearly 200 female fighters, DER SPIEGEL wrote citing Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, or BfV. What makes these revelations most disturbing is the fact that 300 ISIS members -- many of whom have active combat experience -- are already back in Germany. Most of these battle-hardened terrorists are now back in their communities and in many cases not even under full surveillance.

Posted by Vijeta Uniyal on February 28, 2017 4 Comments
The Chief of European border agency Frontex has accused non-government organisations (NGOs) of encouraging migrant traffickers. The 'rescue operations' by European NGOs off the North African coast are putting lives at risk, as they encourage traffickers to "put even more migrants onto unseaworthy boats with little water and fuel", Frontex Chief Fabrice Leggeri told the German newspaper DIE WELT. With East European countries like Hungary and Croatia closing the Balkan route -- the main passage for migrant influx into Germany and Central Europe -- by securing their borders, traffickers are increasingly turning to North African country of Libya as bridgehead for crossing into Europe.

Posted by Vijeta Uniyal on February 23, 2017 4 Comments
Wednesday, Swiss Police raided a mosque and several houses in search of terrorists belonging to Islamic State. Around one hundred law enforcement officers were involved in the counter-terrorism operation carried out in the Italian-speaking region of Ticino. Police arrested two Islamists of Turkish origin, including a recruiter for Islamic State. So far, Switzerland has been spared terrorist attacks such as those carried out in France, Belgium and Germany, but the country has long been in the crosshairs of Jihadists. ISIS had previously released propaganda clips calling Switzerland part of the "coalition of devil" and threatening to carry out terrorist attacks inside the country.

Posted by Vijeta Uniyal on February 22, 2017 10 Comments
With less than 6 months to go until Germany's parliamentary election, Chancellor Angela Merkel's economic advisor has come out against her Refugee Policy. Merkel government should have shut the borders to migrants coming from safe countries, Merkel's senior economic advisor Professor Hans-Werner Sinn told German language magazine The European. According to Hans-Werner Sinn, Germany won't be able to sustain another wave of migrants, given its heavy economic cost. The migrants let in by Merkel between 2015-16 alone, were going to cost $400 billion to the taxpayers, he told the German magazine -- referring to an earlier study published by University of Freiburg Professor Bernd Raffelhüschen.

Posted by Mary Chastain on February 18, 2017 5 Comments
Vice President Mike Pence attended the Munich Security Conference in Germany where he told Europe that America will stand behind its NATO allies. Pence also met with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to assure him that America remains committed to Ukraine and that Russia upholds the Minsk Agreement. President Donald Trump rattled some cages on the campaign trail when he stated his beliefs that NATO was obsolete, leading many to believe America will abandon the organization. Pence said that will not happen:

Posted by Vijeta Uniyal on February 16, 2017 14 Comments
A commission chaired by Germany’s immigration and refugee czar has proposed voting rights for migrants living in the county. According to the Federal Integration Commissioner Aydan Özoguz, "people who permanently live in a country should be able to participate in democratic decision making." Keeping a Brexit-like scenario in mind, commission wants the voting rights for migrants and refugees at par with German citizens in any future referendum. The head of the commission, Turkish-origin Aydan Özoguz, has been serving as Minister of State in Merkel’s Chancellery since 2013. As Federal Commissioner for Immigration, Refugees and Integration she has been instrumental in shaping and executing Merkel’s ill-advised "Refugee" Policy.

Posted by Vijeta Uniyal on February 14, 2017 13 Comments
With five weeks to go before Dutch elections, politian Geert Wilders' Party of Freedom (PVV) is leading all the major polls with just below 20 percent of the votes. If Wilders' PVV manages to emerge as the single largest party, as polls currently suggest, the 53 year old Dutch politician could be called to build the next coalition government with him as Prime Minister. Capitalising on last year's Brexit vote and President Trump's victory in the U.S. election, Wilders is campaigning with the slogan "The Netherlands is ours again." His 11-point programme aims to "de-Islamise" the country and end the E.U.-mandated Open Borders Policy.

Posted by Vijeta Uniyal on February 07, 2017 3 Comments
German intelligence agencies are alarmed over the growing influence of radical Islamist "Muslim Brotherhood" organisation in the state of Saxony. The Islamist group is buying large number of properties and setting up mosques all across the state, Saxony's Office for the Protection of Constitution (LfV) said. "The aim of Muslim Brotherhood is to establish Sharia in Germany," Head of LfV, Gordian Meyer-Plath told German newspaper Die Welt. Muslim Brotherhood came out of Egypt in 1920s and has influenced Jihadi terrorist movements all across the Muslim world.  ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, both got their ideological training as members of Muslim Brotherhood. Gaza-based terrorist outfit Hamas is also an offshoot of Muslim Brotherhood.

Posted by Vijeta Uniyal on January 30, 2017 35 Comments
European Union's Foreign Minister Federica Mogherini has issued a threat directed at U.S. President Donald Trump. Mogherini warned President Trump that he would "end up being in a prison" for his executive orders, one which temporarily halted the entry of Syrian refugees and another which seeks to begin the construction of a southern border wall, UK newspaper Express reports. Mogherini also lectured President Trump on European history and tradition, and on how Europeans celebrate "when walls are brought down and bridges are built." Italian politician Mogherini played a key role in negotiating the Iran Deal or the "worst deal ever negotiated" as President Trump pointed out. She began her political career with the youth wing of the Italian communist party and made it to the post of E.U.'s High Representative on Foreign Affairs and Security Policy as a member of the 'Party of European Socialists'.

Posted by Vijeta Uniyal on January 26, 2017 11 Comments
An employee of Migrant Reception Agency in the German state of Lower Saxony lost her job after she raised alarm upon uncovering around 300 cases in which her agency had been making fraudulent cash payments to 'refugees' for over a period of several months, Austrian newspaper Kronen Zeitung reports. Migrant Reception Agency tried to hush up the crimes by burying the evidence and firing the whistleblower. With only eight months to go for the country's parliamentary election, Chancellor Angela Merkel and her government are keen to avoid negative media coverage connected to their overly generous 'Refugee Policy'.

Posted by Vijeta Uniyal on January 24, 2017 5 Comments
Nearly a month after the Berlin Christmas market attack that killed 12 people and injuring 48 others, local authorities are moving in to close a Berlin mosque linked to the assailant. Tunisian asylum-seeker Anis Amri, who drove a lorry loaded with 20 tonnes of steel beams into a busy Christmas market, had frequented the inner-city mosque. According to German intelligence agency, the "Fussilat Mosque" is known to be a popular hangout for ISIS sympathisers. As far as last month's terrorist attack goes, Merkel government and local authorities have a lot to answer for. More than 40 German agencies "worked" on Amri's case before he carried out the massacre in Berlin. Security agencies failed to stop the Tunisian-born terrorist despite having him on their radar for years. The known ISIS-sympathiser received welfare payments and was allowed to stay in the country despite a deportation order. And despite a EU-wide manhunt, Amri evaded authorities -- travelling through 5 countries in 5 days -- before he was killed by the Italian police in a shootout.

Posted by Vijeta Uniyal on January 19, 2017 5 Comments
"The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the Islamic faithful our soldiers," Turkey's President Recep Erdogan proclaimed these prophetic words during his 'wilderness years' in 1990s. Now firmly in power for well over ten years, Erdogan is executing this game-plan down to the last word. If German Federal Prosecutor is to be believed, mosques across Germany are running spy operations under the directions of Erdogan regime. On Wednesday, Germany’s top state attorney opened an investigation into the activities of Turkish-Islamic organisation known as 'Ditib,' that operates nearly 900 mosques in Germany. Imams in this particular case were reportedly following the orders from Turkey’s state-run religious agency, known as Diyanet, which reports directly to Turkey’s Prime Minister.

Posted by Vijeta Uniyal on January 17, 2017 32 Comments
With German Chancellor Angela Merkel threatening U.K. with tough trade negotiations -- or ‘hard Brexit, -- for daring to leave the E.U., the Trump presidency has come at a very opportune time for the beleaguered British government. President-elect Donald Trump's proposed U.S.-U.K. trade deal could destroy EU's designs, Professor Ted Malloch said, the man tapped to be the next U.S. ambassador to the E.U. in the Trump administration while talking to the British newspaper Daily Express. Malloch, who is reportedly being vetted by the presidential transition team, was optimistic about a bilateral trade agreement once U.K. formally leaves the union. "I would hope on the day Britain triggers Article 50 [formal notification of withdrawal from the E.U.], Mrs. May will be able to announce we’ve just started discussions with the United States – an even larger market for free trade," Malloch said.
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