BERLIN, Germany (LifeSiteNews) — A left-wing extremist group has claimed responsibility for an attack on the power grid that caused a massive blackout in Berlin.
On Saturday morning, around 45,000 homes and 90,000 people in southwest Berlin were without electricity after perpetrators set a fire on a power line supplying a gas power plant in the Lichterfelde district.
During the cold and snowy weather in Berlin, many households were without power and heating for days. According to BILD, the 97-year-old Ingeborg Esser was among those who had to sleep in a heated gym because her apartment was too cold.
In a letter published online on Sunday, the left-wing extremist “Vulkangruppe” (Volcano group) confessed to carrying out the attack in the name of saving the climate.
While Europe refuses to fortify its borders against mass migration, European cities are now forced to put up security barriers, concrete blocks, and even tank traps to prevent Islamic terrorists from driving vehicles into Christmas markets.
Writing for The Spectatormagazine (UK), Druin Burch noted recently how the Islamic “terror triumphed at the Christmas market” this festive season. A visitor to “Christmas markets in Berlin, London or Strasbourg” would see them “surrounded by steel posts, truck-proof planters, and one-way systems designed to stop SUVs achieving murderous velocities before hitting crash barriers,” he adds.
A student who “fell in love with terrorism” has been detained, suspected of “preparing a mass murder attack” at a European Christmas market. The student, named only by officials as Mateusz W., is believed to be attending the Catholic University of Lublin and wanted to commit an attack using explosives and planned to join a terrorist organisation, Jacek Dobrzynski, a spokesperson for Poland’s special services, said on Tuesday.
The student who is said to have become “deeply infatuated with Islam sought cooperation with the Islamic State”, planned to bomb a Christmas market in Poland using explosives, police said. He prepared, gathered information on how to construct explosives, and his goal was to kill and intimidate Poles,” Mr Dobrzyński said at a press conference. According to the Internal Security Agency (ABW), on November 30, officers of the Internal Security Agency (ABW) conducted searches and detained the student.
A terrorist attack on the Nuremberg Christmas market in Germany has been thwarted through the arrest of five suspects.
Bavaria’s Interior Minister Herrmann (CSU) spoke in Nuremberg on Sunday about the arrest of the men in Lower Bavaria who were allegedly planning to attack a Christmas market using a vehicle.
Multiple reports indicate that police believe the suspects – three Moroccans, an Egyptian and a Syrian – had an “Islamist motive.”
Terrorist attacks using vehicles to ram people have been on the rise in the past two decades. The method was used prominently by Palestinian terrorists in Israel in the early 2000s before a radical Muslim deployed the tactic at the University of North Carolina in 2006.
In Overath, Germany, this year’s Christmas market is dead because of fears of Muslim violence. A terrible, unmistakable capitulation.
Overath and Kerpen, both citing unaffordable anti-terror security measures after heightened risks from Islamist threats. Magdeburg’s market faced permit denial initially over an inadequate safety plan
The Magdeburg Christmas market in Germany has been cancelled over security concerns after last December’s car-ramming terror attack, which killed six people…
🇮🇪 Christmas is offending Muslims. Is this the real reason the Christmas market at Dublin Castle was cancelled and we no longer have Christmas Lights but winter lights ??
Muslims come to our countries and EXPECT US TO CHANGE FOR THEM. Do you think they would do the same ? https://t.co/m0AhG9DgOG
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has said it is not in the country’s interest to extradite a Ukrainian man to Germany for his alleged involvement in the 2022 Nord Stream pipeline explosions.
The Ukrainian suspect, Volodymyr Z, who is wanted in Germany in connection with the September 2022 blasts, was detained near Warsaw in late September.
A Polish court ruled on Monday that he must remain in custody for another 40 days while it considers Germany’s request to extradite him under a European arrest warrant.
Speaking on Tuesday, Tusk said it was ultimately the court’s decision to decide whether to hand over Volodymyr Z to Germany — and that the government would not interfere.
However, he once again stated Poland’s opposition to the pipelines, which it has long argued made Europe too dependent on Russian energy.
“The problem of Europe, the problem of Ukraine, the problem of Lithuania and Poland is not that Nord Stream 2 was blown up, but that it was built,” Tusk told a press conference.
“It is certainly not in the interest of Poland … to hand over this citizen to a foreign country,” he added.
Germany will give its federal police the power to shoot down drones, following the disruption caused by recent unknown drone sightings at Munich Airport.
On Wednesday, the cabinet approved the new reform, which now awaits approval in parliament.
The move comes after suspicious drone incursions at Munich Airport led to air traffic being suspended for several hours last week, with thousands of passengers directly affected.
Other European countries, including Denmark and Lithuania, have also spotted rogue drones in recent weeks.
In response, EU leaders such as German Chancellor Friedrich Merz have attributed the incidents to Russian hybrid warfare, something Moscow denies.
Days after the drone sightings in Munich, Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said federal police reform is intended to reorganise responsibilities and make it easier to defend against drones.
German government advisory body proposes raising retirement age to 73 by 2060– rmx.news Source Link Excerpt:
Germany’s pension system should gradually raise the retirement age to 73 by 2060, according to a report by the Economics Ministry’s new scientific advisory board.
The panel of economists warns that without significant reform, the system will become unsustainable as productivity stagnates and the population continues to age.
The report, presented on Monday and cited by Bild, concludes that demographic realities and low economic growth leave no alternative but to extend working lives. It was prepared by economists Justus Haucap of the University of Düsseldorf, Stefan Kolev of the Ludwig Erhard Forum, Volker Wieland of the Institute for Monetary and Financial Stability in Frankfurt, and Veronica Grimm of Nuremberg University of Technology. All four are known for advocating free-market solutions and limited government intervention.
“The time for reforms is becoming increasingly urgent,” the authors wrote. “Economic output has been stagnating for years, while comparable economies are growing significantly more dynamically.” The report attributes this to weak productivity growth and demographic decline, arguing that Germany must adjust its retirement policies to reflect rising life expectancy.
Germany’s “DeutschlandTrend” opinion poll shows that the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party would tie with the conservative CDU/CSU, if federal elections were held this Sunday. – facebook.com Source Link
AfD ties CDU in latest German poll as far-right makes western gains – Euractiv Source Link Excerpt:
A new poll puts Germany’s far-right AfD neck and neck with Chancellor Merz’s Christian Democrats, signalling a broader shift as the party expands beyond its eastern strongholds and builds national momentum.
The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) continues to put pressure on Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s Christian Democrats, with a widely watched poll released showing the two parties tied among voters at 26%.
The AfD have topped polls before after surging in popularity over the past year, but the latest edition of the public broadcaster ZDF’s Politbarometer poll underscores the party’s apparent staying power – and a threat to Merz from further to the right. His junior coalition partners, the once-mighty Social Democrats (SPD), stayed steady at 15% in the poll – once an unthinkably poor showing for the centre-left party.
The poll comes on the heels of last week’s election in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), Germany’s most populous state. Merz’s Christian Democrats managed to hold onto power in the vote – but the AfD made deep inroads, nearly tripling its share of the vote.
84 Per Cent of Germans Believe People Fear Speaking Their Mind– www.breitbart.com Source Link Excerpt:
More than eight in ten Germans said that they believe people are afraid to express their full opinions amid an increasingly censorious political climate in the country.
A survey published on Monday by the Institute for New Social Responses (INSA) found that 84 per cent of those surveyed believe that fellow citizens are self-censoring their opinions “because they are afraid of consequences.” In contrast, just nine per cent disagreed.
According to the pollster, this belief was shared across the political spectrum, with 77 per cent of supporters of the leftist-progressive Green party agreeing that people self-censor and 92 per cent of voters who back the populist-right Alternative for Germany saying the same.
When asked if they personally have hidden their true thoughts, 54 per cent said that they have had at least one experience when they did not feel able to speak freely. This represented a six-point increase since the pollster asked the same question just eight months ago.
German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul on Monday called for stepped-up pressure on Russia, including more aid for Ukraine, to push Moscow into concessions toward a “just and lasting peace.”
Wadephul spoke in Tokyo as U.S. President Donald Trump prepares to host Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European leaders including German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. The gathering follows Trump’s talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday.
“It is probably not an exaggeration to say the whole world is looking to Washington,” he said at a press briefing alongside Japanese Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya.
Since Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s center-left coalition collapsed over budget squabbles and a lost confidence vote on 16 December 2024, Germany has entered an unusually tense campaign ahead of snap elections on 23 February 2025.1 The country’s political arena has moved away from long-standing centrism toward heightened polarization — a shift that is also felt in the streets. Just weeks before the elections, hundreds of thousands protested nationwide after the center-right Christian Democratic Union party’s Friedrich Merz — the likely next chancellor according to polls — relied on support from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) to push a parliamentary motion for tougher migration laws.2 Although the bill was ultimately rejected and Merz ruled out any coalition with the far right, it nonetheless breached a post-war norm observed by Germany’s mainstream parties referred to as the ‘firewall,’ whereby collaboration with far-right forces was consistently avoided.3
Long seen as Europe’s engine of stability and growth, Germany is grappling with mounting challenges. A sluggish post-pandemic recovery, rising populism, and entrenched urban-rural and East-West divides have fueled discontent and polarization. Meanwhile, infighting among members of the ruling coalition and reignited debates over energy, immigration, and foreign policy have sparked street activism and bolstered the opposition.4 The AfD, in particular, is gaining ground, with polls projecting it as the second-strongest parliamentary force in the upcoming elections.5
Amid such polarization, national vote season appears to be an increasingly perilous time for German politicians. The 2024 European Parliament election campaign offered a worrying preview, as it was marred by a spate of aggressions against local centrist party officials, candidates, and campaign volunteers, while revealing a larger pattern of violence targeting politicians across the spectrum.6 Looking at both last year’s European vote and the high-stakes federal election on 23 February, this piece explores how rising polarization has intensified street activism in the form of demonstrations, both against far-right parties and government policies; it also considers whether polarization is contributing to an uptick in political violence, particularly amid the mounting tensions surrounding national elections.
“The humanitarian catastrophe that we are witnessing in Gaza must end now,” Sir Keir Starmer said in a joint statement with German chancellor Friedrich Merz and French president Emmanuel Macron.
The three leaders held discussions on the crisis in Gaza amid growing fears of mass starvation in the area.
In their statement they said: “The most basic needs of the civilian population, including access to water and food, must be met without any further delay,”
“Withholding essential humanitarian assistance to the civilian population is unacceptable.
“We call on the Israeli government to immediately lift restrictions on the flow of aid and urgently allow the UN and humanitarian NGOs to carry out their work in order to take action against starvation. Israel must uphold its obligations under international humanitarian law.”
German court acquits satirist over social media post following Trump assassination attempt – MSN Source Link Excerpt:
A German court on Wednesday acquitted a satirist who was charged with having approved of an assassination attempt against Donald Trump during last year’s U.S. election campaign in a social media post and disturbed the public peace.
In a quickly deleted post under his alias “El Hotzo” on X in July last year, Sebastian Hotz drew a parallel between Trump and “the last bus” and wrote “unfortunately just missed.” In a follow-up post, he wrote: “I find it absolutely fantastic when fascists die.”
(LifeSiteNews) — German authorities conducted more than 180 operations across the country, targeting individuals accused of spreading hate and incitement online – most of them tied to content considered far-right.
Tagesspiegelreports that the Federal Criminal Police Office (Bundeskriminalamt, or BKA) announced that more than 65 search warrants were executed, and many suspects questioned in connection with over 140 investigations.
The “Day of Action against Hate and Incitement Online,” coordinated by the BKA alongside state law enforcement agencies, is the twelfth such operation aimed at curbing illegal speech on the internet.
Prosecutors allege that many of the posts included criminal incitement to hatred (Volksverhetzung), insults against public figures, and the use of banned symbols linked to “unconstitutional or terrorist organisations.” Some suspects are also accused of endorsing or glorifying criminal acts.
According to the BKA, roughly two-thirds of the offending content came from purportedly far-right sources. One case cited involved a user on X (formerly Twitter) who allegedly posted: “Heil Hitler!! Once again. We are Germans and a successful nation. Male foreigners out.”
Merz arrives at White House for high-stakes Oval Office talk with President Donald Trump in the same format as recent clashes with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky and South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa.
Update 11:59 ET — Joke at Germany’s expense
President Trump says he’s happy about Germany spending more on defence, but jokingly citing the Second World War says that while he wants Germany to re-arm, he doesn’t want it to re-arm too much. This gets a smile out of Merz.
Germany’s military spending, which has been rock-bottom for many years, has long been a matter of contention with President Trump, who wants Europe to take on more responsibility for its own defence. As Trump himself has expressed, the contradiction between Germany’s historically low military spending and its position of Europe’s greatest economy had been too much to bear.
Germany has launched an emergency spending package to boost its armed forces but this tranche of funding is only due to run to 2027.
European opinion toward Israel appears to be shifting in a more negative direction as the war in Gaza grinds on. But in Germany, where a new government was formed on May 6, foreign policy will likely feature more continuity than breaks with the past.
The new government is led by the center-right Christian Democratic Union and its sister party in Bavaria, the Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU), which together took 29 percent of the vote. Friedrich Merz, a 69-year-old West German with no prior experience in a governing coalition, is the new chancellor.
German political commentators expect Merz’s chancellorship to be strongly oriented towards foreign affairs in a context of uncertainty over the outcome of the Ukraine war and Donald Trump’s tariff policies. In a sign of the importance Merz attaches to foreign policy, he was willing to make concessions to his partner, the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), in the allocation of other ministries in exchange for securing for his party the foreign ministry, which in Germany has traditionally gone to the government’s junior partner.
Merz also plans to create a national security council that would tie Germany’s foreign policy closer to the work of the chancellor. The choice of Johann Wadephul, a personal friend, to head the council is part of this effort to centralize foreign policymaking.
BERLIN, Germany — Three people in Germany were charged with working for one of Russia’s intelligence agencies and could have been plotting to kill a man, the German Federal Prosecutor’s Office said Wednesday.
The three men arrested in the “particularly serious case” on June 19, 2024 in Frankfurt were identified as Robert A., a Ukrainian citizen; Vardges I., an Armenian national; and Arman S., a Russian citizen. Their full names weren’t released in line with German privacy rules.
“The spying operation presumably served to prepare further intelligence operations in Germany, possibly even leading to killing,” the German Federal Prosecutor’s Office said.
German prosecutors said at the beginning of May 2024, Vardges I. received an order from a Russian intelligence agency to spy on a man living in Germany who fought in Ukraine’s armed forces after Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.
To do this, Vardges I. recruited Robert A. and Arman S., who are accused of trying to lure the man to a meeting in a cafe in downtown Frankfurt with the aim of identifying him and gathering further information about him. Because the man had previously been in touch with German police, no meeting ever took place, the Federal Prosecutor’s Office said, adding that the three men remain in custody.
Donald Trump grows angrier as Vladimir Putin exposes his impotence
As Washington settled in for a typically sleepy Memorial Day following the passage of Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” in the House, the president fired off one of his trademark furious rants on Truth Social, but the target was a surprise.
The Federal Police had actually issued several Identitarians with a travel ban, but they still flew to the “Remigration Summit 2025” in Italy. Upon their return, officers were waiting to place them in handcuffs. Are those affected facing prison sentences?
German police armed with machine guns stopped German Identitarian Movement (IB) activists after they landed back in Germany at Munich Airport, and they now face a year in prison simply for leaving the country to attend a conference.
The activists also shot video of the heavily armed police officers stopping them.
The conference in question, the “Remigration Summit 2025,” was hosted in Milan, Italy, and attended by a wide range of Europeans, including Austria’s Martin Sellner, Eva Vlaardingerbroek and French MEP Jean-Yves Le Gallou. They delivered speeches and shared ideas on why they believe Europe needs remigration.
In a video, three of the activists stated that they were met by “15 heavily armed federal police officers who had printouts of our faces in front of them so they could immediately identify us as serious criminals.”
84 Per Cent of Germans Believe People Fear Speaking Their Mind– www.breitbart.com