Free Republic

World leaders played an interactive nuclear war game designed to test their responses to a terrorist atomic "dirty bomb" attack that threatened the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. David Cameron joined Barack Obama, Angela Merkel and Xi Jinping and other world leaders to play a "nukes on the loose" war game to see how they would cope with a terrorist nuclear attack. The German chancellor grumbled at being asked to play games and take tests with the Prime Minister, US and Chinese presidents around a table with dozens of heads of state at a nuclear summit in The...

China's top envoy to Germany has warned the West against punishing Russia with sanctions for its intervention in Ukraine, saying such measures could lead to a dangerous chain reaction that would be difficult to control. In an interview with Reuters days before the European Union is threatening to impose its first sanctions on Russia since the Cold War, ambassador Shi Mingde issued the strongest warning against such measures by any top Chinese official to date. "We don't see any point in sanctions," Shi said. "Sanctions could lead to retaliatory action, and that would trigger a spiral with unforeseeable consequences. We...

School students should be given a “European Union education” in the classroom to tackle “ignorance” and growing public Euro-skepticism, according to an election manifesto signed by Angela Merkel and eight other of Europe's leaders. The European People’s Party (EPP), the EU’s biggest political grouping, is convinced such a program would improve the public image of Brussels, which has never been lower. Its manifesto for May’s European elections calls for the introduction of “EU education in schools across Europe in order to prepare the next generation for future challenges and to nurture a European approach”. […] Rather than scaling back the...

She quickly seduced French officialdom after arriving from Ukraine, winning political asylum within a year of her application. Her visage, framed in blond hair crowned with flowers, helped inspire France's latest postage stamp. Few French people knew back then that they were dealing with a radical soldier for the feminist cause, in town to organize the ranks of women for a radical insurgency with bare breasts as weapons. The sweet start for 23-year-old Inna Shevchenko is souring. The defiant chief of the Ukraine-born Femen movement now risks up to five years in prison and a 75,000-euro ($103,000) fine for bashing...

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said she will fully support efforts by US Secretary of State John Kerry to relaunch the Middle East peace process during her upcoming visit to Israel. “We need, as soon as possible, a stable two-country solution, with a Jewish state of Israel and at the same time a state for the Palestinians,” Merkel said in her weekly podcast. …

German-Israeli relations are at a nadir as German Chancellor Merkel begins her third term. When leaders of the countries meet next week, deals on smaller issues may be possible, but divisions over Israeli settlements will persist. […] Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman—with whom (German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter) Steinmeier already had a tepid relationship—read out a laundry list of complaints to his colleague from Berlin. It even included lesser issues, like research and scientific cooperation, an area in which Israel claims Germany is imposing unacceptable conditions. Lieberman said Berlin often hides behind European Union positions rather than presenting its own views....

German leader Angela Merkel has said she will hold talks with France on creating “safe communication networks” in the EU in the wake of the US spy scandal. She said in her weekly podcast on Sunday (16 February) that: “We will speak to France about this and about all things regarding what kind of European providers we have who can offer security for our citizens: So [that] we don’t even have to go with our emails and other information over the Atlantic, but that we can set up safe communication networks within Europe.” She noted the EU is currently in...

The US government’s top official in Europe risked triggering a diplomatic crisis after she was caught on tape saying ‘F*** the EU’. Victoria Nuland, the assistant secretary of state for European Affairs, made the comment while discussing how to resolve the crisis in Ukraine which is gripped by fierce protests. But her private telephone conversation with Geoffrey Pyatt, the US ambassador to the country, appears to have been intercepted and uploaded onto Youtube by an anonymous user. In it, she tells her colleague about discussions with other top American officials about how to end the deadlock, and how she wants...

...Illustrating how testy relations with Washington have become, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, earlier the target of American monitoring of her cellphone, issued an unusually sharp statement saying that Ms. Nuland’s remarks were “completely unacceptable.”...

Germany's Angela Merkel has said a US official's apparent insult of the EU's efforts to mediate in the Ukraine crisis is "totally unacceptable". Victoria Nuland has apologised after she referred disparagingly to the EU's role during a conversation said to be with the US ambassador to Ukraine. Germany's Angela Merkel has said a US official's apparent insult of the EU's efforts to mediate in the Ukraine crisis is "totally unacceptable". Victoria Nuland has apologised after she referred disparagingly to the EU's role during a conversation said to be with the US ambassador to Ukraine. A recording of the exchange was...

Germany’s governing coalition is squabbling over calls to restrict welfare payments to European immigrants as the continent’s labor markets open to Romanians and Bulgarians.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has fractured a bone in her pelvis in a cross-country skiing accident in Switzerland, her spokesman says. She will have to remain lying down as much as possible in the next three weeks and several visits will be cancelled, Steffen Seibert said. She also suffered heavy bruising in the accident, in the alpine Engadine region of eastern Switzerland. Ms Merkel was not skiing fast at the time, the spokesman added. He called the injury "severe bruising linked with a partial fracture on the left, rear part of the pelvis". Immediately after the accident, during the Christmas......

Here is an interesting article in Der Spiegel Online that echoes recent statements of mine. Please consider Der Spiegel Online article: Not Fit for the Next Crisis: Europe's Brittle Banking Union. German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble has negotiated a European banking union suited perfectly to his country's tastes. It looks like a victory, but it could prove to be very expensive if Europe or Germany face another financial crisis. Will, Not If I could easily stop right there, with slight modifications as follows: "It will prove to be very expensive when Europe or Germany face another financial crisis." Nonetheless, let's...

BERLIN (Reuters) - Angela Merkel is expected to name Ursula von der Leyen as her new defense minister when she presents her cabinet list on Sunday, a surprise choice that could vault the ambitious ally into the lead as the front runner to succeed the chancellor.

Russian leader Vladimir Putin has trumped US President Barack Obama as the most powerful man in the world, while German Chancellor Angela Merkel retains her title as the world's most powerful woman, according to a yearly ranking published by Forbes magazine on Wednesday (30 October). With his signature healthcare legislation under fire, allies outraged over spying and a barely-averted default on US debt, Obama can no longer be seen as the most powerful man in the world, Forbes editors write. "It appears that President Obama's lame duck period has set in earlier than usual for a two-term president, causing him...

In Brussels, Germans have shrugged off their postwar reserve and make no apology for shaping Europe’s future, taking key posts in EU institutions and pushing Berlin’s trade interests with vigor.As Angela Merkel forms a new coalition government after a third successive election triumph, the conservative chancellor can build on efforts, in place since her first term in 2005, that have increased not just the number of Germans in senior jobs in Brussels but the extent to which they answer to Berlin. And where that fails to ensure EU policy acceptable to the bloc’s biggest economy, Merkel has shown she is...

Germany’s foreign minister Guido Westerwelle has warned Israel to face a periodic United Nations Human Rights Council (U.N.H.R.C.) Periodic Review—or face severe diplomatic consequences, according to a Haaretz report (Sunday). … In a personal letter to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Westerwelle warned that Israel’s failure to attend the periodic evaluation—a review infamous for its anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian measures—would alienate Israel’s allies and cause “severe diplomatic damage”, Haaretz reports. …

Not for the first time since he took office, President Obama is being accused of looking a lot like his predecessor when it comes to terrorism. This week, the anger came from media reports detailing the scope of National Security Agency (NSA) espionage in Europe, including bugging the cellphone of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and a sweep of French metadata from phone calls, e-mails, and other electronic communications similar to what it has done in the US. For a man who first took office promising change in how America treated the world, it looked like more of the same. Already,...

The chief of the US spy agency NSA has not discussed the alleged bugging of German chancellor's phone with President Barack Obama, officials say. Gen Keith Alexander never discussed alleged operations involving Chancellor Angela Merkel, an NSA spokeswoman said. German media say the US has been tapping the chancellor's phone since 2002, and Mr Obama was told in 2010. The row has led to the worst diplomatic crisis between the two countries in living memory. A report in German tabloid Bild am Sonntag claimed that Gen Alexander had told the president about the bugging himself. An NSA source told the...

President Barack Obama was told about monitoring of German Chancellor in 2010 and allowed it to continue, says German newspaper. President Barack Obama was personally informed about secret US monitoring of Angela Merkel three years ago, according to latest reports on the eavesdropping affair. The President allowed the National Security Agency (NSA) to continue spying on the German chancellor, it was claimed. Mr Obama was told of the secret monitoring of Mrs Merkel by General Keith Alexander, the head of the NSA, in 2010, according to Bild am Sonntag, a German newspaper. “Obama did not stop the action at that...