Free Republic

His name is Carsten Linke and he was recently promoted to a top post in Germany’s intelligence service, the B.N.D. The NY Times reports he was the “director of technical reconnaissance — the unit responsible for cybersecurity and surveilling electronic communications.” He was also a double-agent being paid cash to pass information to Russia. He was apparently asked for specific information on the location of US HIMARS launchers in Ukraine:Russia’s FSB spy service asked Carsten Linke last autumn via a courier to pass on precise information on the positioning of the Himars and Iris-T rocket systems that had been supplied...

According to Der Spiegel, during a secret meeting held this week in the Bundestag, the foreign intelligence service informed security politicians that Ukraine is losing a “three-digit number of soldiers” daily. The report doesn't specify how the losses are counted and do they include wounded and captured.These losses are suffered in Bakhmut, a strategically important city in Donetsk Oblast, Spiegel reports.The German Federal Intelligence Service warned that if Russians took Bakhmut, there would be severe consequences as it would give Russia the ability to advance.On Jan. 16, British intelligence noted that Ukraine’s two main supply routes into Bakhmut are under...

A government agency in Germany has announced a new scheme that will see power suppliers able to remotely limit home heating and electric car charging. Germany’s Federal Network Agency, a government watchdog responsible for the regulation of electricity and gas in the country, has announced a new plan that will allow power grid operators to remotely limit the use of heat pumps and electric car chargers in Germany next winter without the user’s permission. With the plans set to be put in place by January 2024, the measure has been described as a way of ensuring energy grid operators have...

Harsh words were exchanged in the German parliament amid calls from various leftist politicians to ban the country’s most successful populist party. Leftists in Germany are now openly calling for the populist Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party to be outright banned over alleged links to the so-called “Reichsbürger” movement in the country which questions the legitimacy of the current German state. Many legacy politicians and activists have been especially keen to link those in the party to the movement amid claims that the country’s police recently unearthed an attempt by a number of Reichsbürger adherents to violently overthrow the country’s...

The terrorist plot foiled by German security services makes abundantly clear that far-right extremism is not a uniquely American problem, but a pervasive threat to Western democracy. In a series of raids across Germany, 3,000 members of law enforcement apprehended 25 people suspected of plotting a coup. Eerily reminiscent of certain aspects of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. capitol, the plan called for storming the Bundestag (parliament), murdering the chancellor and seizing ministers. The plotters are associated with the Reichsbűrger movement, an anti-government group with approximately 21,000 followers that denies the legitimacy of the Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Federal Republic...

Members of Germany’s national soccer team protested FIFA’s ban on players wearing LGBTQ armbands at the World Cup by covering their mouths when posing for a team photo. All players for Germany’s starting 11 posed for the team’s official photo before their opening match Wednesday against Japan by using their right hand to cover their mouth. The protest was in response to the international soccer governing body’s threat to impose sanctions on Germany and six other European nations if their players wore rainbow-printed armbands in support of LGBTQ rights during this year’s World Cup tournament. According to FIFA rules, players...

Anna Delvey poses for a portrait while on house arrest at a private residence in the East Village on November 7, 2022 in New York City. It’s 4 p.m. on a Monday afternoon and Anna Sorokin is blasting Drake from her quaint apartment in the East Village of Manhattan. When I arrive at the top of her five-floor walk-up, she doesn’t come out, instead yelling from the bathroom to let myself in. “Sorry, I’ll be right out. I can’t figure out what to wear! What’s the vibe?” she asks, in that iconic European accent that Julia Garner mastered in her...

A third of the German Panzerhaubitze 2000 howitzers used by the Ukrainian army are already in need of maintenance and are to be sent for repair in Slovakia, German newspaper Spiegel reports, citing its own sources. According to the publication, from the very beginning, the Ukrainian military tried to fire special ammunition at too great a distance.

... Russia supplied around 40% of all the gas consumed in the EU in 2021. Germany is especially reliant on this supply of cheap gas. Gas only generates about 15% of the country’s electricity but many rely on it for heating and it is vital to heavy industries such as petrochemicals that use a lot of energy. Drastic measures are now necessary to secure alternative supplies, reduce gas demand and prepare for the possibility of shortages this winter. The EU’s Save Gas for a Safe Winter program aims to reduce overall gas demand by 15% across the bloc this winter...

German Federal Economy Minister Robert Habeck expressed concern over the looming energy crisis this winter, telling German media that the situation was extremely tense and there is a possibility that Germany may run out of gas. Habeck spoke on Friday, appealing to Germans to reduce their consumption of natural gas ahead of this winter a day after the German government launched a new price break programme to help Germans with the rising costs of energy.

Another apocalyptic conspiracy theory is going around on TikTok — but there’s a simple answer to it. The online panic started when a video of Friedrich Merz, a German politician, posted to Twitter saying, “Dear Colleagues…September 24, 2022, will be remembered by all of us as a day which we will say, ‘I remember exactly where I was.’ “ The remark sparked several conspiracy theories of things going wrong that day, including that a big solar flare would hit the earth and create tropical cyclones resulting in mass destruction, according to Middle East Mashable.

A Florida sex offender was arrested after he allegedly tried to “purchase” an 8-year-old girl for $100,000 at a grocery store, police said. Hellmuth Kolb, 85, approached the child’s mom at a Winn Dixie in Port Orange Thursday and made the indecent proposal, according to the Port Orange Police Department. Kolb was on probation and was banned from having contact with children after trying to buy a different child in Walmart in 2018, according to WESH-TV. Lauren Benning told the station she thought Kolb was just a lonely old man when he approached her and her daughter.

German producers are halting manufacturing in response to the surge in power costs brought on by Russia’s squeeze on gasoline provides, a development the federal government has described as “alarming”.Robert Habeck, financial system minister, mentioned business had labored laborious to scale back its gasoline consumption in current months, partly by switching to various fuels like oil, making its processes extra environment friendly and decreasing output.“It’s not good news,” he mentioned, “because it can mean that the industries in question aren’t just being restructured but are experiencing a rupture"Habeck mentioned rising gasoline costs have been affecting everybody from large industrial firms...

BERLIN, Aug 30 (Reuters) - German inflation rose to its highest level in almost 50 years in August, beating a previous high set only three months earlier, as energy prices drove up inflation, data showed on Tuesday.

FAKE SOCIAL MEDIA PROFILE Last December cops revealed they were investigating the fake “anthony_shots” social media profile created by Kegan Kline in connection with the case. The 27-year-old, who is currently in jail awaiting trial over child sex abuse allegations, has not been charged over the Delphi murders and denies any involvement. But transcripts of a police interview with Kline showed that the catfish account he created was in touch with Libby the day she and Abby were killed. And according to the transcripts, whoever was using the “anthony_shots” account was supposed to meet Libby and Abby on the trails...

Maritime archaeologists in northern Germany have discovered the wreckage of a 400-year-old cargo ship that "sank almost standing," escaped decay from ravenous shipworms and still has the barrels of lime it was carrying for the stone-building industry centuries ago. The ship, a rare discovery, is from the Hanseatic period, when a group of northern European trade guilds dominated the Baltic and North seas from the 13th to 17th centuries, Live Science previously reported. Wood quickly rots away underwater in this region, and few shipwrecks of this age have ever been found. But maritime archaeologists think the wreck survived beneath the...

Those wanting their first shot were cut off after July 1, and no one in the age group — aside from those who are considered “high risk” and have a doctor’s note — will be allowed to get a second shot after September 1. “Children and adolescents only very rarely become seriously ill from COVID-19 with the omicron variant. Therefore, from July 1, 2022, it will no longer be possible for children and adolescents under the age of 18 to get the 1st [shot], and from September 1, 2022, it will no longer be possible to get the 2nd [shot],”...

Residents express anger at Angela Merkel’s open border policy.. Some have expressed anger at former German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s open border migrant policy after a Syrian national was arrested for the murder of a teenage girl whose body was found at a sewage treatment plant. 17-year-old Tabitha E. left an apartment in Asperg, southern Germany, on Tuesday afternoon last week, but the alarm was raised after she didn’t return home that evening. After an extensive police search, the girl’s body was found on Sunday at the Leudelsbach sewage treatment plant. After the home of a suspect was search and investigators...

On Monday, the country recorded that imports outstripped exports for more than 30 years. Its entire economy has been built around creating an industrial machine that dominates global markets. That machine is now grinding to a halt. Exports unexpectedly fell, while imports surged as the cost of energy spiked. Until recently it was racking up surpluses of 8 or 9 per cent of GDP, or €20 billion a month, the biggest in the world. The German economy is based on selling high-end industrial goods to the rest of the world. Unlike many other countries, it doesn’t have huge service industries...

Merkel's Legacy as Russian Invasion Lays Up to the final hours before Russia began its invasion of Ukraine, former chancellor Angela Merkel had been touted as the person favored by Germans to try to talk President Vladimir Putin out of the conflict. But as Russian bombs fell on Ukrainian cities, a shadow has fallen on Merkel's 16 years in office, with some observers now questioning if her detente policies with Putin had in fact left Germany, and Europe, vulnerable. Once hailed as the leader of the free world, the veteran center-right leader has been accused by some of increasing Europe's...