Tag: germany

 Here are the Three Biggest US-Backed Interferences in Austrian and German Democracy

In February, a federal judge ordered health care agencies to restore websites about transgenderism that President Donald Trump removed by executive order. Elon Musk revealed on X that the judge’s wife had received funding from USAID, calling him “corrupt.”

Despite the attention USAID has received in the U.S., its role in meddling with democracy in Austria and Germany is not well understood.

Surprisingly, foreign interference from the U.S. not only undermines democracy abroad, but also on American soil.

In 2017, the German journalists Frederik Obermaier and Bastian Obermayer demanded “solidarity” and a “collaborative investigation” from the media against President Donald Trump.

Obermaier and Obermayer, who broke the Panama Papers for the Süddeutsche Zeitung two years earlier, were and still are part of several USAID-funded networks that have caused the first impeachment against Trump.

Similar playbooks were used in Austria and Germany which had a much more pronounced impact than the Trump impeachment, which ultimately failed.

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DHL to suspend global shipments of over $1,000 to US consumers

DHL Express, a division of Germany’s Deutsche Post, said it would suspend global business-to-consumer shipments worth over US$800 (S$1,000) to individuals in the United States from April 21, as US customs regulatory changes have lengthened clearance.

The notice on the company website was not dated, but its metadata showed it was compiled on April 19.

DHL blamed the halt on new US customs rules that require formal entry processing on all shipments worth over US$800. The minimum had been US$2,500 until a change on April 5.

DHL said business-to-business shipments would not be suspended but could face delays.

Shipments under US$800 to either businesses or consumers were not affected by the changes.

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Germany wants the UK to hold its hand while it starts WWIII

Germany’s chancellor-in-waiting Friedrich Merz doesn’t officially take office until May 6, but that hasn’t stopped him from hitting the press circuit like it’s demolition day. Apparently, he’s got some lost time – and infrastructure – to make up for. 

In a chat with Germany’s public broadcaster, ARD, he floated the idea that Kiev, which seems to rank higher than Berlin on his priority list, needs to “get ahead of the situation” on the battlefield and “shape events” instead of playing defense. The event he seems most eager to shape? Oh, just the Third World War, apparently. Because he pivoted straight to the Kerch Bridge – mainland Russia’s lifeline to the Crimean peninsula – like it’s been living on borrowed time.

Merz said that “if for example, the most important land connection between Russia and Crimea is destroyed, or if something happens on Crimea itself, where most of the Russian military logistics are located, then that would be an opportunity to bring this country strategically back into the picture finally.” Cool, cool. Which picture would that be, exactly? The one labeled “Catastrophic Misjudgments of the 21st Century”?

Probably. Which is why Merz needs a useful idiot to ride shotgun alongside him in the doltmobile to share in any responsibility for the eventual mayhem when things inevitably go pear-shaped.

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Russia Issues Dire Warning: Germany Will Be ‘Active Combatant’ If Taurus Missiles Hit Russian Targets

As global tensions climb and Europe’s leadership continues to drift away from the interests of its people, Russia is sounding the alarm over Germany’s latest flirtation with war.

The Kremlin issued a clear warning on Thursday: if Berlin green-lights the transfer of Taurus long-range cruise missiles to Ukraine, it will mark Germany’s full-blown entry into the conflict, bringing with it severe consequences, Deutsche Presse-Agentur reported.

Maria Zakharova, the outspoken spokeswoman for Russia’s Foreign Ministry, pulled no punches, per usual. Speaking at a press conference Thursday, she stated bluntly that if Taurus missiles—capable of hitting targets 300 miles away—are used on Russian infrastructure, like the Crimean bridge, it will be considered a direct act of war by Germany against Russia.

“This will be considered direct participation by Germany in hostilities on the side of the Kyiv regime, with all the consequences that this entails for Germany,” Zakharova warned, making it clear that Moscow won’t turn the other cheek.

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Germany tells teachers to get children ready for WAR: Schools urged to give ‘greater focus’ to civil protection after EU told citizens to prep 72-hour survival kits amid growing WW3 threat

Germany‘s Interior Ministry has called for civil defence training in schools and is urging citizens to stockpile food, water and essentials in response to the deteriorating security situation in Europe and a growing WW3 threat.

The unprecedented move, confirmed in a statement to Handelsblatt newspaper, would see German schoolchildren taught how to respond in volatile war-like scenarios.

A ministry spokesman said civil protection ‘should be given greater focus, including in schools’, given the alarming recent geopolitical developments and expert testimonies that Russia could be ready to strike NATO territory within a few years.

Defence spokesperson Roderich Kiesewetter for the conservative CDU party said it was ‘absolutely necessary’ for schoolchildren to train for emergencies, calling them ‘especially vulnerable and particularly affected in an emergency’.

He is calling for mandatory basic training in disaster response, modelled on systems in Finland, which has been preparing citizens for the possibility of a war with Vladimir Putin‘s Russia for years.

Berlin says it even stands ready to provide all schools and teachers with national crisis materials via the Federal Office of Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance (BBK) – and this is although technically education matters are something decided independently by each federal state.

The ministry also approved a new EU Commission initiative on wartime readiness, and recommended that all German citizens even prepare emergency supplies to last at least 72 hours as per recommendations from the European Union.

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Two Million User International Paedophile Child Porn Ring Busted by Europol

A massive international pedophile network spanning across over 30 countries was shut down, and dozens of arrests were made relating to child pornography, the Europol police agency announced on Wednesday.

The European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation said that the Darknet child porn platform “Kidflix” has been shut down under the direction of the Bavarian State Criminal Police Office in Germany.

Europol said that the platform had an estimated 1.8 million users throughout the world, with investigations being coordinated across 35 counties.

So far, 79 people have been arrested and nearly 1,400 further suspects have been identified, over one hundred of whom were located in Germany, broadcaster NTV reports.

The platform, which was created in 2021, is said to have been one of the largest of its kind in the world and the largest to date to have existed in Europe.

According to the investigators, the site had over 91,000 child porn videos before it was shut down, with an average of three and half videos being uploaded to the site every hour. In exchange for paying a fee to the site, users were able to stream and upload videos of child sex abuse.

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Top German Politicians Are Calling For Resumption Of Russian Gas

In Europe, the lure of a return to cheap energy is ever-present, and that conversation is becoming easier as the Trump administration in Washington pushes hard for ceasefire negotiations with Moscow.

Senior German politicians are already calling for a resumption of ties with Russia. For example Michael Kretschmer, a senior member of Friedrich Merz’s centre-right Christian Democrats, is now arguing that EU sanctions on Russia are “completely out of date” as they increasingly openly contradict “what the Americans are doing.”

Financial Times in a fresh report quoted Kretschmer’s words to the German press agency DPA as follows: “When you realize that you’re weakening yourself more than your opponent, then you have to think about whether all of this is right.”

The same publication has observed the expected immediate backlash to the statements as follows:

Kretschmer, who is also a long-standing opponent of weapons deliveries to Ukraine, is the latest in a string of figures from both Merz’s centre-right CDU and the centre-left Social Democrats to have gone public in recent weeks with calls to resume economic or energy ties with Russia.

That has created a problem for Merz — who is all but certain to be Germany’s next chancellor — as well as for his likely coalition partners in the SPD at a time when he is trying to cast himself as a strong partner for Ukraine and for Europe. Germany’s Green party, which is strongly pro-Kyiv, called on Sunday for Merz to clamp down on “friends of Putin” in his party. 

But Merz hasn’t himself actively tried to silence this growing desire in some political circles for rapprochement with Russia.

But Bloomberg reported Monday, “The co-head of Germany’s Social Democrats party and frontrunner to become the next finance minister Lars Klingbeil dismissed swirling speculation over reviving pipeline gas deliveries from Russia after a potential peace deal for Ukraine.”

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German Dystopia: Friedrich Merz’s and Olaf Scholz’s Incoming Coalition To Turn Censorship Into Overdrive, Crack Down on Social Media and ‘Ban Lies’

If one thinks that de-industrialized and immigrant-flooded Germany was in a poor state, we just have to wait until the new incoming coalition is in place to see how bad things are about to become.

German tabloid BILD has had access to documents from the negotiators of the ‘black-red coalition’ (Friedrich Merz’s CDU and Olaf Scholz’s SPD). And what it found is quite disturbing: they want to take hard action ‘against lies’ – i.e. they are about to double down on censorship and propaganda.

These plans emerge from the negotiation paper ‘Culture and Media’ working group, predicting that the pressure on social media is to be considerably expanded and whatever they deem to call ‘fake news’ is to be severely restricted.

BILD reported:

“The exploratory paper already stated that ‘disinformation and fake news’ threatened democracy. The negotiating paper now even states: ‘The deliberate dissemination of false factual allegations is not covered by freedom of expression’.

The consequence: ‘Therefore, the media supervisory authority, which is independent of the state, must be able to take action against information manipulation as well as hatred and incitement on the basis of clear legal requirements, while preserving freedom of expression’.”

Pressure on platforms like X is expected to increase, and certain ‘false statements’ are to be ‘prevented’, i.e., CENSORED.

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Germany ‘forming secret alliance of nations that will turn away migrants at their borders’

Germany is secretly forming an alliance of European countries that will turn away asylum seekers at their borders, it has been reported. 

Friedrich Merz, the country’s next chancellor, has begun informal talks with neighbours France, Poland, the Czech Republic, Austria and Switzerland, according to The Telegraph.

While precise details of the plan remain unclear, Merz is under pressure to cut the number of refugee arrivals into Germany. 

Concerns about immigration have been pushed to the forefront of German politics, heightened by a series of attacks carried out by Islamists and the rise of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.

The AfD polled 20.8 per cent in the February elections, making them the second largest party in German. 

Ahead of the elections in February, Merz, 69, the leader of the victorious Christian Democratic Union (CDU), promised to stop all illegal migration at Germany’s land borders. 

While the new policy is still being worked out, he is said to have been strongly influenced by an initiative presented by Polish prime minister Donald Tusk in January.

In a speech upon taking the reins of the EU council, Tusk called illegal immigration ‘a threat to the security and territorial integrity of the entire union’ and suggested the need to use ‘all available leverage’ to force nations external to the US to take back their citizens.

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Germany’s Stern magazine calls for conscription of young people to take up arms ‘to defend diversity’ in pro-war propaganda piece

Stern Magazine is calling for mass conscription of German youths to join the army, including to ensure the defense of “freedom and diversity.” The reaction to the article has been harsh to say the least, with hundreds of negative comments directed at Stern.

The article, entitled “Others no longer defend us? Then we must do it ourselves!” claims that “the USA no longer wants to protect Germany. This brings a bitter realization: Our unbearable complacency must end.”

The solution? Start drafting German youth to fight the future wars. The author, Tilman Gerwien, a German male noticeable well past the age of someone who might typically be drafted, says that the days of a “dollhouse-like Bullerbü” are over and “we have to grow up.” He details the left’s traditional stance against conscription, which saw German youths demanding American troops leave Germany, was “not only a matter of conscience, but also a lifestyle.” He noted that at demonstrations against NATO, “people hopped around in peace-loving spirits, chanting ‘Out of NATO, into fun!’” All of this has to end, according to Gerwien, who does not seem particularly like the type of person to rush into battle himself.

There is no way to know if Gerwien was ever a part of these previous protests or ever shared those sentiments at one time, but it is notable that he is now old enough to not have to face the draft himself. Lucky him.

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