Free Republic

The German government is expecting around 175,000 people to file applications for asylum this year, the highest number in two decades. Regional politicians are acting surprised, but there have been signs of this development for years now. […] The refugees in Germany are fleeing many things: the civil war in Syria, the recent wave of terror in Iraq, torturous regimes but also, in many cases, a life of poverty and no prospects, be it in Africa or as a member of the Roma minority in Serbia. Germany’s Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) estimates that as many as 175,000...

Former U.S. secretary of state Hillary Clinton called Chancellor Angela Merkel “the greatest leader in Europe” during a visit to Berlin on Sunday and said it was high time America had a woman leader too, though without confirming she would seek the job. Clinton also referred to Russian President Vladimir Putin as a “tough customer with a pretty thin skin” in an appearance at a Berlin theater to promote her new book, “Hard Choices”. …

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The U.S. will work with Germany to resolve its concerns over reports that a German intelligence employee spied for the United States, the White House said Monday. White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the U.S. is aware that a German citizen was arrested amid allegations he was purportedly working for the U.S. But he would not say whether the reports are accurate. "This is an intelligence matter, it's a matter that is under investigation by the German law enforcement authorities, so I'm not in a position to comment on it from here," Earnest said. German Chancellor Angela...

Germany may step up its counter-espionage efforts after an employee of its intelligence service was arrested on suspicion of spying for the US. Measures being considered in response to scandal include monitoring the intelligence activities of nominal Nato allies such as America, Britain and France, as well as expelling US agents from Germany. According to a report in Bild, interior minister Thomas de Maizière has emphasised the urgent need for a "360 degree vision" of the foreign secret agency's activities. The newspaper claims to have obtained an internal document which outlines "concrete counter measures", thus moving away from a policy...

German Chancellor Angela Merkel heads to China this weekend for her seventh visit, eager to deepen trade and investment ties between the export powerhouses of Europe and Asia. For the EU’s biggest economy, China is a crucial mass market, where companies want its technology and millions of newly prosperous crave German goods from Audi sedans to luxury home appliances. […] China is Germany’s number-two export market outside Europe after the United States. It sold goods worth €67 billion to China last year, while imports from the Asian giant topped €73 billion. …

It seems that every day brings new claims and counter-claims about who’s spying on whom. Governments are trying to limit the damage, but that damage is not limited to governments, expert Jeremie Zimmermann told DW.… It’s something of historical amplitude and we still need to take some distance to be able to understand what is exactly going on. What we see is the unraveling of the very infrastructure for a total surveillance society that we are realizing, day by day, is already deployed all around the world under our feet. The infrastructure for surveilling everything about everybody all the time....

An employee of Germany's intelligence agency has been arrested on suspicion of spying for the US, reports say. The man is said to have been trying to gather details about a German parliamentary committee that is investigating claims of US espionage. German media say the man arrested this week is a 31-year-old employee of the federal intelligence agency, known as the BND. The German federal prosecutor's office confirmed the man's arrest, but gave no other details. A spokesman for Ms Merkel said she had been informed of the arrest, as had the members of the nine-strong parliamentary committee investigating the...

Twelve EU countries have warned investors not to do business with Israeli settler entities, amid a security crisis in Israel and Palestine. The group includes: Austria; Belgium; Croatia; Denmark; Finland; Greece; Ireland; Luxembourg; Malta; Portugal; Slovakia; and Slovenia. Portugal published its statement on Wednesday (2 July) and the others came out on Thursday. France, Italy, and Spain put out similar communiques earlier this week. Germany and the UK already did it months ago. Poland is expected to publish a warning shortly. The Irish foreign ministry said the action “has been coordinated at EU level”. …

(Reuters) - Luxury car maker BMW (BMWG.DE) revealed a $1 billion Mexican plant investment on Thursday, becoming the latest in a line of major automakers to take advantage of the country's growing industrial base and tariff-free access to the U.S. market. BMW outlined plans to build a factory near San Luis Potosi, central Mexico, in a move that will reduce the German company's dependence on higher-cost plants at home. The plant will begin assembling unspecified models in 2019 with an initial workforce of 1,500 and annual production capacity of 150,000 vehicles, the company said. "Mexico is an ideal location for...

Americans frustrated by German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s reluctance to meet demands for stronger sanctions against Russia have now begun to ask if there is a good reason the German leader has been targeted by US spies. Questions are being raised about Merkel’s early life in totalitarian East Germany, the extent of her ties to its communist regime and her history as "an ardent Russophile" in Soviet-dominated East Germany. Last year, in information leaked to the German news magazine Der Spiegel by former US National Security Authority contractor Edward Snowden, Merkel learned that the US intelligence service had been tapping her...

...Supporters say creating the world's largest free-trade pact, and a marketplace of 815 million people, could boost the EU and U.S. economies by $100 billion a year each.

Students at German universities have shown themselves to be a risk-free lot in a survey by Ernst & Young. The civil service is their most popular choice of future profession, while job security is valued above all else. […] The number was higher for female students (36 percent), but government work also came in first among men with 23 percent choosing it as their preferred career path. […] Other future positions popular with students were in the fields of science (19 percent) and culture (17 percent). Consultants and auditors were the private sector jobs most interesting for students in Germany...

German lawmakers on Thursday voted to introduce a minimum wage of €8.50 per hour, despite criticism from both unions and employers of the new law. While employers said the law could cost jobs, unions criticized the final version for falling short. […] Labor Minister Andrea Nahles praised the government’s bill before the vote. “Cheap, unprotected—that is over,” Nahles told lawmakers. Her center-left Social Democrats (SPD) had made the minimum wage a condition for joining Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) in a coalition government at the end of last year. …

The joke’s on you! A baby in a photo chosen by Nazis as the perfect Aryan baby has been revealed to in fact be Jewish, not German. Hessy Taft, who was 6 months old when the picture was taken, found out about the photograph after an aunt recognized her on a postcard, the Telegraph reports. But apparently the Nazis had no idea that the precious baby they deemed the “perfect Aryan” was actually a descendant of the House of David. Taft lived with her parents, Jacob and Pauline Levinsons, in Berlin during the height of the Nazis’ takeover in 1935....

The euro crisis may have eased recently, but companies and countries in the common currency zone still aren’t investing enough to fuel growth. The best solution, a Berlin economics institute argues, is to establish an EU-wide investment fund. […] But simply ratcheting up public expenditures, as some Southern European governments have advocated, is not a sound strategy for improving the situation, the [German Institute for Economic Research (DIW)] believes. “One of Europe’s biggest weaknesses is the lack of private investments,” (Marcel) Fratzscher says. “We have to close the gap by way of a European investment agenda.” …

Instead of a no-spy deal, the US has begun a Cyber Dialogue with Germany. In a Spiegel interview, John Podesta, a special advisor to President Barack Obama, speaks of the balance between alliances and security and says that changes are being made to NSA espionage practices. […] “(W)ith respect to what German citizens think, the United States has a pretty good track record of standing up for values of global democracy, of free expression, of protecting the rights of individuals, of trying to ensure that people are not discriminated against, of not suppressing free speech. Every country has a history...

Less than three weeks after the publicity surrounding Payhembury School in Devon, where the school staff have been pressured into bussing their pupils into a highly multiracial part of London on ‘exchange’ trips designed to promote multiculturalism and multiracialism, another school has been singled out for attack by Ofsted inspectors because of alleged ‘racist’ bullying, even though the pupils are all White. Payhembury School in Devon was criticised in its 2010 Ofsted report because all of the pupils attending the school are White and because the school is situated in an all White area. Payhembury School was graded merely, ‘good’,...

David Cameron has suffered "utter humiliation" over the nomination of Jean-Claude Juncker as European Commission president, Ed Miliband has claimed. The Labour leader told MPs the PM's renegotiation strategy for the UK in Europe was now "in tatters".

The '20 July plot', as it came to be known, saw German army officers from Hitler's inner circle team up with members of the resistance to try to blow up the Nazi leader at his headquarters in Rastenburg, Eastern Prussia, now part of PolandGerman Chancellor Angela Merkel paid tribute on Saturday, June 28, to the army officers who attempted to assassinate Adolf Hitler towards the end of the Second World War. Speaking ahead of the 70th anniversary of the failed plot, Merkel said those responsible had acted "in accordance with their conscience."

Germany wants to promote structural economic, financial market and tax reform when it takes over the presidency of the G7 club of rich nations next week, German media reported on Sunday. Member states must “join forces to support an even stronger economic recovery”, Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble and central bank chief Jens Weidmann said in a written message to other G7 members, the Handelsblatt business daily said. […] Germany—the Eurozone’s largest economy—also called for progress to address “the remaining gaps in financial market regulation”, including shadow banks, and on the automatic exchange of tax information. Schäuble also wants to promote...