The German Card

Top intelligence officers rarely reveal secret strings, pulling the nation’s political mechanism. Publication of a book like The German card. The obscure game of secret services, authored by Gerd-Helmut Komossa (Gerd-Helmut Komossa. DIE DEUTSCHE KARTE. Das verdeckte Spiel der geheimen Dienste. Ares-Verlag, Graz 2007. – 230 S.), is an exceptional occurrence. Raising very sensitive issues, the author appeals to the core of German identity that had been deliberately suppressed for decades by the United States and its allies.

The book is focused on contradictions between the United States and Germany, sometimes very strong but not supposed to be discussed in public. It was published in Austria, and its distribution in Germany may encounter certain difficulties today. Still, the very fact of its appearance indicates that the German intelligence community is increasingly dissatisfied with the role of a vassal of the United States (the definition applied to Europe by Zbigniew Brzezinski), imposed on Western Germany after World War II.

Gerd-Helmut Komossa reveals the uncomfortable truth about the post-war conditions, dictated by the US and its allies. The state treaty, dated May 21, 1949 and classified by BND as top secret, suggests restrictions of state sovereignty of the Federal Republic of Germany, introduced for a period until 2099. These restrictions include the provision that the winning coalition exercise complete control over Germany’s mass media and communications; that every Federal Chancellor is to sign the so-called Chancellor Act; that the gold reserve of Germany is kept under arrest.

In fact, all the German Chancellors, including the incumbent Chancellor Angela Merkel, pay their first foreign visit necessarily to the United States. The whole spectrum of German political parties is supervised by a special Washington-based controlling body, while local US-licensed media serve as a more sophisticated means of brainwashing than the Nazi propagandist machine. Meanwhile, Germany’s territory is still occupied by US troops.

This astonishing picture is not a fancy concoction of a political leftist. It is drawn by a military man whose mind has accumulated the experience of several crucial stages of development of the European civilization and Germany in particular. Gen. (Ret.) Gerd-Helmut Komossa took part in World War II and later in the Cold War. Possessing huge amounts of information, he analyzes the existing mechanisms of global policy with strong criticism.

Joining the Wehrmacht in 1943 as a volunteer, Komossa served at the Eastern front. Between May 1945 and April 1949, he was a prisoner of war. In the USSR, he got acquainted with many Russians who appeared to be quite different from the image imposed by the official Nazi propaganda.

Since 1956, he served in the German Bundeswehr, re-established under certain conditions. The abovementioned secret treaty admitted that the German sovereignty is sufficient for the right to build up military forces. According to the Constitution, the troops of the Federal Republic of Germany are carrying out exceptionally defensive functions. However, the Western coalition was pursuing different goals. It needed an army in new uniforms but with the same skills as the Nazi soldiers, perfectly fighting on land, on sea and in the air, and irrecusably abiding orders. Such a type of soldier was essential not only for the occasion of possible military collision with the Soviet bloc but also for fulfilling global missions. The coalition required at least 500,000 German soldiers. In addition, the newly-built army was supposed to purchase weapons and materiel solely from the United States.

During the last two decades, Washington has been trying to force Germany into military partnership in globalistic control. However, the massive effort to get Germany involved in US operations in Somalia and Bosnia, as well as in campaigns in Serbia, Iraq and Afghanistan, has brought about a reverse result, sparking a shift in approach in German strategic circles. The implicit discontent with American policy and essential difference in views on the role of the German people in current history eventually reached a critical dimension.

Since mid-1990s, the attitude of many German military to the United States, and significantly also towards NATO, has essentially changed. Though most of the German officers were not originally inclined against America, a lot of them being educated in the United States, they are now experiencing disappointment and even disgust with Washington’s policies. These officers realize that the hegemonistic policy is destined for destruction of socioeconomic systems of particular nations and whole regions, while the so-called order Washington is trying to impose is just a synonym for chaos.

Gerd-Helmut Komossa, in his former capacity of MAD (Military Counterintelligence) Director, was frequently called “a soldier with political thinking”. Today, he openly denounces the Bundeswehr’s involvement in foreign interventions, referring to the army’s constitutional duties.

Meanwhile, Washington urges Germans to go fighting. Conceding to the pressure, Berlin deployed a contingent of troops to Afghanistan. But even this was not sufficient for NATO bosses. Recently, NATO General Secretary Jaap de Hoop Scheffer accused the Bundeswehr of idleness in military operations in the region, and insisted that Germany “increase flexibility” and expand its military mission to the southern regions of Afghanistan.

In his book, Komossa inquires whether the state of affairs when young Germans are recruited in the national army for fulfilling overseas goals for other nations, could be acceptable. The map of operations, supposed to involve German troops, far exceeds the European continent, and has nothing to do with German national interests. “Do Germans expect this from the Bundeswehr? Would they like their soldiers to be called assassins again?” he asks.

However, the United States and its allies don’t care much for moral problems. As the secret treaty is valid until 2099, Germans are supposed to go and fight where they are told to.

The German audience will require certain time to digest the shocking information disclosed by General Komossa. But eventually, the nation with a great cultural and historical tradition will hardly agree to continue tolerating the American loop on its throat for decades more.

The publication of Komossa’s “German Card” is one more proof of the world’s transformation into a multipolar system. It indicates that Germany is likely to achieve complete sovereignty without waiting for eighty years.

Anna Voronova

About 40 countries to take part in US anti-ISIS campaign

The US is keeping quiet about which countries are taking part in the fight against ISIS.

Secretary of State John Kerry told CBS that nearly 40 nations have agreed to contribute to the fight, but “it’s not appropriate to start announcing” what roles each will play.

However, an international conference on the ISIS situation took place in Paris on Monday, with world leaders set to debate the anti-ISIS coalition. The meeting includes representatives of some 30 countries, but excludes Iraq’s neighbors Syria and Iran.

Turkey and Jordan, key US allies in the region, are thought to be reluctant to intervene directly.

Turkey is a NATO member, and borders both Syria and Iraq from the north. Despite this, it won’t let the US use its facilities in the mission against the IS, a government official in Ankara told AFP.

Turkey was also absent during the signing of a joint communiqué on the situation in Iraq on Thursday.

The US State Department meanwhile praised The Netherlands for “leading an effort” to stop the foreign fighters supporting terrorism from arriving in the country.

Britain became the first country to officially join the military operation. UK Prime Minister David Cameron called IS “the embodiment of evil” on Sunday, following the group’s beheading of its third Western hostage, this time British citizen David Haines. Earlier, IS killed two US journalists in the same manner.

Germany, Australia, France and Canada are also part of the campaign.

Europe created the Afrikaner problem in South Africa

A recent statement by the FW de Klerk Foundation in Cape Town after the Constitutional Court’s finding in the Renate Barnard affirmative-action case, said that “[the judgement] is, in effect, a prescription for, and validation of, harmful discrimination against millions of South African citizens for an indefinite period, on no basis other than their race – and with no reference to their individual merits, circumstances or concerns”.

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roodt_fbfotoLegalised “positive discrimination” against South African whites is now a fact of life, as is the growing racial nationalism of the country’s blacks. “Africa for the Africans” is the underlying slogan in South Africa, by which we must understand “African” in a racial sense. Many of South Africa’s radicalised black intellectuals and celebrities affirm that every African has the right to cross the border and settle in South Africa, but that whites “belong to Europe”.

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In essence, what black racial nationalists assert is that Afrikaners have not naturalised after 360 years in the country. This might have been dismissed as simple talk by blacks, if it were not supported by the courts and the political system in South Africa which effectively exclude the Afrikaner minority of all political power and influence. Outside the Western Cape, there is not even a single municipality where Afrikaners have any say in how their taxes are spent, let alone a province or the central government.

Objectively speaking, Afrikaners have been disarmed, disenfranchised, culturally marginalised and now find themselves in the position summed up by the Canadian political scientist, Heribert Adam, as an “internal diaspora” in South Africa. Being an internal diaspora is but a few nuances removed from having the status of internal refugees.

Since 1994, criminal, political and social violence has been constantly rising in South Africa and Afrikaners have been victims of so-called “farm murders” and attacks during which they are tortured and executed in dehumanising ways reminiscent of ethnic war and ethnic cleansing. In the cities too, house robberies and interracial attacks are rising. Together with legislation all but prohibiting them from holding state and corporate jobs, it is clear that the only rational choice for Afrikaners is to leave as many have already done, emigrating to Australia, New Zealand and other countries in the British Commonwealth.

With the benefit of hindsight, both South Africa and the ex-Rhodesia were deliberately brought under the control of radical black-nationalist movements that saw no long-term future for whites in Southern Africa, notwithstanding the posturing of Nelson Mandela before the world media, which was simply meant to ensure a smooth transfer of military and police power to the ANC and the South African Communist Party.

Over the past decade or two we have seen many countries destabilised by the Western drive for “democracy”, which is usually an ill-concealed strategy to strip the target countries of their mineral wealth and other assets. In that respect, South Africa is no different to Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen where the USA is currently fighting wars. America also has military personnel deployed in other states, including Algeria, Bahrain, Djibouti, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, and the United Arab Emirates.

While Europe normally pays obeisance to the USA in its global strategy and foreign adventures, lately also seen in Ukraine where Russian commentators have accused the EU of being a “lapdog” of the USA, the Old Continent carries a heavy responsibility for the destabilisation of Southern Africa. Instead of finding a compromise between the various peoples and interest groups in this part of the world, European states have consistently supported the most radical, anti-white, quasi-Marxist revolutionary groups. The rise of Malema and the Economic Freedom Fighters in South Africa portend exactly the same future for South Africa as the present Zimbabwe, with the confiscation of white-owned farms, urban property and other assets.

As in Gabriel García Márquez’s famous novel, Chronicle of a Death Foretold, we know exactly what the outcome is going to be: the ethnic cleansing of Afrikaners from South Africa, with or without even more violence than we are experiencing at present from the marauding, anomic killers that prosper under the ANC government’s policy of laissez-faire and a gradual descent into general lawlessness.

At least five European states may be held accountable for Afrikaners’ becoming a stateless people: Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, (East) Germany and our former colonial power, the United Kingdom. They financed and supported, also through propaganda and diplomatic means, the African National Congress and South African Communist Party, knowing full well that these were radical, revolutionary movements that would ultimately “chase the whites into the sea” as had occurred in several other African states, notably the Belgian Congo (currently the DRC), Algeria, and the Portuguese colonies such as Mozambique and Angola.

It is telling that, after finally seeing the writing on the wall, albeit 20 years too late, the FW de Klerk Foundation has just launched an appeal to the “international community” in trying to stem the devastating effects of permanent affirmative action upon a politically powerless minority. According to the FW de Klerk Foundation, “We must make it clear that we are not prepared to accept a status as second-­‐class citizens.”

Clearly, De Klerk merely followed European and particularly British dictates twenty years ago, in the optimistic belief that there would be some kind of Western or European “veto” in the future if things had to go wrong. However, with so many countries being destabilised by American wars, the international community would simply regard South Africa as yet another casualty of internal divisions without acknowleding the key role played by Europe in setting what used to be an organised Western-style industrial state on the road to radicalism, revolution and ethnic cleansing.

There is an expression in Afrikaans, gedane sake het geen keer, which is more or less equivalent to the English “no use in crying over spilt milk”. Afrikaners will never rule South Africa again and the country is living through a miniature “decline of the West”, with long-forgotten African beliefs and superstitions displacing Christianity and even the secular, scientific thought of the European Enlightenment. Mbeki’s so-called AIDS denialism was but one, highly publicised challenge to science which is also taking place in many other fields.

South Africa, like Zimbabwe, has been broken and it will never be fixed, unless there takes place such a vast conceptual revolution in the world which makes possible another basis for political power besides sheer numbers and demography, but there are very few signs of such a development. In truth, no-one cares about the fact that Zimbabwe has gone from bread basket to basket case, and neither does anyone care that South Africa is slouching towards the same fate.

VOC_shipThe only question that remains is: What is to become of the Afrikaner people? We started life out here in this colony almost four centuries ago as either refugees from Catholic France or as indentured employees of the Dutch East India Company. Today and once more, we have become at best a stateless people or “minority at risk”, holding South African passports but without any say in government, in our schools, universities, municipalities or other institutions from which we are being increasingly displaced. Everywyhere, we are subjected to a rapidly intensifying racial quota system and our children hardly have the right to study, let alone to find work within the state or corporate sector. At worst, we are already internal refugees and unlike the Portuguese of Angola or Mozambique, or even the white Rhodesians, we do not have the luxury of holding European passports. In a certain sense, having destroyed or at least destabilised our heimat, Europe does not want us back.

The behaviour of Europe could perhaps be compared to that of a man burning down his brother’s house and then refusing him shelter afterwards. Being the victims of European and American geopolitical scheming and social engineering, we do not have any form of recourse as to the consequences of their destructive designs. It was also cleverly done by means of indigenous proxies or “exiled” ones, so it is going to be difficult to prove European mischief in destabilising South Africa.

Even though we speak a variant of seventeenth-century Dutch and Low German, that former lingua franca of Northern Europe from 1300 to 1600 when the Hanseatic League held sway, we have long since ceased to think of ourselves as Europeans. We named the standardised form of our language “Afrikaans” in honour of our adopted continent, that same continent which is now rejecting us in the name of the slogan, “Africa for the Africans”, understood in a racial and cultural sense. The paradox is that the anglicised or americanised African speaking English, but racially African, is able to stigmatise the white Afrikaner as a foreigner, an interloper, despite the fact that our cultural roots in this place are deeper and more ancient than his.

However, Europe too, although it does not seem to accept the principle of “Europe for the Europans”, also enthusiastically supports the notion of “Africa for the Africans”. Most European companies apply discrimination against indigenous whites with alacrity, as it is the law of the land.

Given the continuing African population explosion, with the continent’s population set to rise to 2,5 billion in the next 30 years, the demographic pressure on us is going to be relentless, added to all the other pressures such as the violence and institutionalised discrimination. What kind of racial quota do you get by the time that you constitute only one or two percent of the population? A percent or nothing?

During the call for sanctions against South Africa during the 1980s, Mrs. Margaret Thatcher opposed it on the basis that up to a million whites from here had British passports and could therefore swell the ranks of British unemployed. Presumably the same million whites of British descent could still return to the United Kingdom, like the Portuguese from Africa did or the French pieds noirs from Algeria. But what about us, descendants of the French Huguenots, the Dutch, the Flemish and the Northern Germans whose forgotten trading language from centuries gone by we still speak, write and school our children in?

If all else goes wrong, as increasingly seems likely, do we not have the same right of return as the British, the Portuguese, the pieds noirs or the Belgians, even though we are technically “non-Europeans”?

Will Europe, as it welcomes the Syrian, Iraqui, Afghan and other refugees from destabilised countries where the Anglo-Saxon oil wars have played themselves out, reject us, despite being its own flesh and blood? Not only that, but we are truly the victims of the European political junkyard dumped on South Africa, with its Swedish theory of the melting pot, of multiculturalism, of communism, of white guilt and the rest.

In more senses than one, Afrikaners are a problem of Europe’s making.

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‘Russia key strategic German partner’

Despite the sanctions, Russia is still key strategic partner for German businesses, Michael Harms, Chairman of the German-Russian Chamber of Commerce in Moscow, said Thursday.

“Unfortunately, the paradigm of our cooperation has changed significantly. At the beginning of the year I was working on the framework of a new Germany- Russia Partnership for Modernization, and today we have to speak about the impact of sanctions. Nevertheless, I would like to emphasize that from the perspective of the German business, Russia remains its strategic economic partner,” Harms noted at the news conference presenting the results of the poll on the impact of sanctions.

According to the survey conducted by the German-Russian Chamber of Commerce revealed Tuesday, most German companies operating in Russia believe that economic sanctions against Moscow are not proving effective. Almost 80 percent of the polled enterprises believe that economic sanctions are counterproductive and not conducive for political objectives. One third of the respondents agree that sanctions still need to be introduced. Two thirds, on the contrary, think that the sanctions are not necessary. The respondents said the sanctions will lead to further deterioration of the economic environment. Some 71 percent of enterprises expect economic slowdown by the end of the year.

Moreover, German medium-size businesses warned September 9 that European sanctions against Russia could cost them precious market share to companies in Asia. “China is the distinct beneficiary of Europe’s sanctions policy toward Russia,” The Wall Street Journal reported Rainer Seele, president of the German-Russian Foreign Chamber of Commerce, as saying Tuesday. He explained that sanctions were threatening long-standing economic ties between Germany and Russia.

Former US Intel officials urge Merkel to reject politicized intelligence

A group of former U.S. Intelligence officials including William Binny, the first whistleblower to report on the NSA’s mass surveillance, has sent an open letter to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, warning her of the risks of Ukrainian NATO membership and of the dangers of faulty intelligence resulting in an escalation of the conflict, as published on the website Antiwar.org

Addressing Mrs. Merkel, the letter states that “accusations of a major Russian ‘invasion’ of Ukraine appear not to be supported by reliable intelligence…[and] the ‘intelligence’ seems to be of the same dubious, politically ‘fixed’ kind used 12 years ago to ‘justify’ the U.S.-led attack on Iraq.” It also notes that last year, “hawkish State Department officials and their friends in the media very nearly got Mr. Obama to launch a major attack on Syria based, once again, on ‘intelligence’ that was dubious, at best.”

This statement, released by the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), has been published ahead of the NATO Summit to take place September 4-5. The most prominent member of the group, William Binney, is a former high ranking NSA official and the first whistleblower to come out and speak out against the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping program.

He and the group use the letter to draw comparisons between the lead up to the 2003 Iraq war and the current escalation happening right now in Ukraine. The main point that they make is that the intelligence being used now to justify NATO intervention into Ukraine is unsubstantiated and politicized. They say based on their “considerable experience collecting, analyzing, and reporting on all kinds of satellite and other imagery [and] other kinds of intelligence” that the evidence being used to charge Russia with invading Ukraine has “a very flimsy basis.” They further note that the evidence is reminiscent of that presented by Colin Powell at the UN in February 2003 ahead of the Iraq War, which turned out to be false. They add further that twelve years ago, then Chancellor Gerhard

Schroeder refused to join the attack on Iraq because of the lack of solid evidence.

In the several months since the conflict in Ukraine started, there have been many reports about both sides which have turned out to be false. In their letter, the group points to cases of dissonance between President Barack Obama’s words and their own officials’ rhetoric. The Western media and many leaders have recently jumped on Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko’s claim of a Russian invasion into Ukraine.

Poroshenko even cancelled a foreign trip to stay and address the situation. Since then, many media outlets reported a massive invasion by the Russians, both with troops and armored vehicles. Obama on the other hand, has instead said that what is going on in Ukraine is “a continuation of what’s been taking place for months now…it’s not really a shift.”

Noting this dissonance, the group urges Mrs. Merkel and other European leaders to use “judicious skepticism” in their discussions of the crisis.

They also urge Chancellor Merkel and her colleagues to push for a “concerted effort [toward] a ceasefire,” which they believe Kiev has been responsible for delaying. The letter urges the Chancellor to tell the Ukrainian government “’flat-out’ that membership in NATO is not in the cards –and that NATO has no intention of waging a proxy war with Russia.”

The summit has been planned to take place on 4-5 September in Cardiff, Wales.

Following Crimea’s reunification with Russia in March 2014, NATO has been boosting its military presence close to Russia’s border. In particular, the bloc dispatched a number of warships to the Black Sea, and reinforced air patrolling missions in the airspace of the Baltic states.

In April, Washington sent four airborne units to Poland, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia to support its NATO allies amid the fighting in eastern Ukraine.

NATO plans to establish five additional military bases in Eastern Europe, the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported on Saturday.

Russia has repeatedly expressed concern over NATO’s increasing military presence in its neighboring states.

Source: Ria Novosti

Let my people go!

The peoples of Europe are suppressed. Don’t fool yourself that living in the EU is good. It is not. The living standard of the average German has fallen in the last 15 years. The living standards of the Greeks, the Spanish and many others have been smashed. The EU is an instrument for the exploitation of the average people to the benefit of the few. And this is why Oligarchs want you to be in the EU: To institutionalize your suffering and exploitation.

For me, as a German with strong liberal views, it is hard to say this, but it is true: The hope for a better Europe today comes from the East.

If Ukraine goes to the West, it will go into the sunset of a declining part of the world.

If you go East, you will go into the sunrise of a rich and prosperous commonwealth.

I wished we in Germany would have the choice.

Make your choice wisely.

Dr. Bernhard Seitz, Stuttgart, Germany

Economic expectations collapse as sanctions hit German consumers

It starts out un-alarmingly. The optimism of German consumers weakens somewhat, according to the forward-looking Gfk survey, conducted on a monthly basis for the European Commission. So the overall index fell to 8.6 for September, from 8.9 in August. It was the first decline since January 2013.

The index bottomed in late 2008 below 2, after a breathtaking crash during the financial crisis. In late 2007, it had hovered above 9. Early 2014 was the first time since the prior bubble that the index broke above 8. And August’s level of 8.9 represented an “extremely optimistic economic outlook,” as Gfk calls it. German consumers have been feeling good, and according to the headline index, they’re still feeling good up there somewhere in the rarefied air above 8.

But beneath the surface, there is serious trouble. Gfk reports that the sub-index of economic expectations, “in light of the intensified state of international affairs, completely collapses.”

It plunged 35.5 points to 10.4. The worst monthly plunge since the beginning of the survey in 1980. In a single month, it nearly wiped out all the gains of the boom of the last 12 months. Gfk cites the escalation of the situation in Iraq, Israel, the Eastern Ukraine, and particularly “the faster rotating sanctions spiral with Russia.”

Since there appears to be no sustainable solution to any of the trouble spots, consumers are showing increased uncertainty about the possible consequences for the German economy, Gfk reports. “Particularly the sanctions against Russia, which have already hit exports noticeably, could become a real danger for the German economy.”

The two sub-indices for income expectations and propensity to spend have been spared so far this type of brutal collapse, though they both fell from their lofty perches. Income expectations hit an all-time record in August. But for September, the index dropped 4.6 points to 50.1. The propensity to spend dropped 1.7 points to 49.3. At these levels, both are still “relatively robust.”

Gfk credits “the continued stable domestic conditions, stable employment levels, good income development, and low inflation” for limiting so far the impact of collapsing economic expectations on income expectations and the propensity to spend.

ECB President Mario Draghi, along with inflation mongers in the new French government, at the Fed, on Wall Street, and elsewhere should take note: inflation, as the report points out repeatedly, is important to Germans. Watch what happens to German consumer attitudes – and spending – if you steal their income and scarce savings one bite at a time.

But dark clouds have already appeared over German consumer spending: Gfk cites the increase in the propensity to save in August as “the first indicator that the consumer will be more careful in the future and that the impulses for the propensity to consume could decline.”

For this still “relatively robust” propensity to spend to continue, “it is necessary from the consumer’s point of view, that the situation in the crisis regions does not escalate further, but that sustainable solutions are found.” Gfk then warns: “If domestic conditions deteriorate significantly in the wake of a possible further escalation, difficult times loom ahead for the economy.”

Given the new economic malaise in Germany [Sanctions Are Eating their Lunch: Russian CEO Begs for Bailout, German Economy Swoons], any decline in consumer spending, which grew at a measly 0.9% last year, could wreak real havoc, not just in Germany, but also in its most critical trading partner France, in Italy, and other struggling economies in the Eurozone. German consumers are infamous for closing their wallets. And if they do it again, after they finally started spending more, they’d quickly prick any remaining hopes for a “recovery” in the Eurozone.

Even the folks at the German Ministry of Finance very belatedly admit that the sanctions spiral caused Germany’s current economic problems.

Source: testosteronepit

Putin, Merkel urge de-escalation in Ukraine

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have emphasized the importance of international efforts of the contact group on Ukraine, which is expected to resume its work in the soonest time.

The Kremlin press service reported this on Wednesday.

In a telephone conversation, the Russian president notified Merkel “about the intention of the Russian side to provide further supplies of humanitarian aid to the population of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions”. The two leaders also spoke for the soonest possible termination of bloodshed and rectification of humanitarian situation in Ukraine’s southeast, as well as for the need to take the path of political settlement of the conflict.

During the conversation initiated by the German side, Putin informed the German chancellor “about the main results of the meeting between leaders of the Customs Union’s member states with the Ukrainian president and representatives of the European Union in Minsk, at which they exchanged views on issues related to the consequences of Ukraine’s signing of the association agreement with the EU”.

The Kremlin press service reported that “Merkel backed the reached agreement about holding intensive talks on the matter between experts from Russia, Ukraine and the European Commission”. “In addition, the relevance of contacts in the issue of natural gas transit to Europe through Ukraine has been noted,” the statement says.

The two leaders have agreed to continue exchanging opinions on the whole complex of discussed issues on a regular basis.

Rheinmetall seals deal with Algeria

Germany’s Economy Ministry has approved plans by defence group Rheinmetall to deliver an armoured vehicle assembly plant to Algeria, according to a reply sent by the ministry following a request from a member of parliament.

Rheinmetall’s delivery to Algeria includes a production line to assemble the Fuchs armoured vehicle, as well as other parts valued at more than 28 million euros ($37 million), according to the document. German magazine Der Spiegel had earlier reported on the approval, according to Reuters.

The planned factory, located about 400 km east of Algeria’s capital Algiers, is to build nearly 1,000 armoured vehicles, Der Spiegel said, adding parts would be exported to the country, where workers would assemble them. It was earlier reported that 980 Fuchs 2 vehicles will be built as part of a 2.7 billion euro deal. Apparently Algeria has agreed not to sell the vehicles to other countries.

The deal is the result of a visit to Algeria by German Chancellor Angela Merkel in 2008 and was largely approved by the previous government, Der Spiegel said.

Algeria has ordered around ten billion euros worth of military equipment from Germany in the last few years, including two Meko A200 frigates from Thyssen-Drupp and SUVs and trucks from Daimler. Last year Algeria purchased 825 million euros worth of tank parts, SUVs and trucks from Germany.

In 2011 Germany authorised the export of 54 Fuchs vehicles worth 195 million euros to Algeria, as well as other military vehicles worth 286 million euros, according to Der Spiegel.

Algeria is greatly expanding its military and just this year ordered two Kilo class diesel electric submarines from Russia, and in 2015 the Algerian Navy will take delivery of the landing and logistic support ship Kalaat Beni-Abbes. 42 Mi-28N Night Hunter attack helicopters and six Mi-26T2 cargo helicopters were ordered this year in a nearly $3 billion deal from Russia. Also this year it emerged that Algeria’s military has acquired self-propelled artillery from China.

Earlier this year, Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel said he would tighten rules on arms exports, curbing sales to states such as Qatar and Saudi Arabia, whose purchases had previously helped make Germany the world’s third largest arms exporter, Reuters reported.

Germany earlier this month permanently halted Rheinmetall’s planned export of combat simulation equipment to Russia, going beyond recently imposed European Union sanctions which block future defence contracts.

As a result, Rheinmetall cut its 2014 operating profit aim, and now expects group earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) of between 200 million euros and 220 million euros, down from a previous target range of 230 million to 250 million.

Source: defenceweb.co.za

French government resigns

France’s government of Prime Minister Manuel Valls has resigned; after senior ministers slammed President Francois Hollande’s plans for taxation and spending cuts, and called for alternative ways to Germany-led austerity to exit the crisis.

The statement published Monday said the new office would be formed on Tuesday and would be in the “direction he (the president) has defined for our country.”

Economic Minister Arnaud Montebourg said it was time to resist Germany’s “obsession” with austerity and work out some alternative ways to promote household consumption. He said that measures that had been introduced since the 2008 financial crisis were not doing anything to help the country’s economy grow.

“You have to raise your voice. Germany is trapped in an austerity policy that it imposed across Europe,” the Socialist minister said in the interview.

“France is the eurozone’s second-biggest economy, the world’s fifth-greatest power, and it does not intend to align itself, ladies and gentlemen, with the excessive obsessions of Germany’s conservatives,” the Economic Minister added.

The announcement comes after the country’s Education Minister Benoît Hamon criticized Hollande’s economic policy, calling to shift the focus form the deficit-reduction measures.

“The priority must be exiting crisis and the dogmatic reduction of deficits should come second,” Mr. Montebourg said in an interview with Le Monde published ahead of the annual Fête de la Rose meeting of Socialist Party activists at Frangy-en-Bresse in eastern France.

Finance Minister Michel Sapin said this month that if the economy did not pick up, France would miss its deficit-reduction target for this year. However, he stressed that there was no need to panic and that the government would continue cutting the deficit “at an appropriate pace”.

The Ministers reminded that the economic weakness was causing political extremism and could turn into recession.

Hollande is facing a lot of domestic pressure, due to his failure to get the economy moving in the right direction.

An Ifop poll on Sunday showed he was the most unpopular president in France in more than 50 years. Meanwhile, Valls, who was appointed to the position of Prime Minister in March, had an approval rating of just 36 percent.

Source: RT

FBI, DHS says ISIS no threat

The FBI and Homeland Security Department say there are no specific or credible terror threats to the U.S. homeland from the Islamic State militant group.

An intelligence bulletin, issued to state and local law enforcement, says while there’s no credible threat to the U.S. as a result of recent American airstrikes in Iraq, officials remain concerned that Islamic State supporters could attack overseas targets with little warning.

U.S. law enforcement has been trying to identify Islamic State sympathizers who could help export the group’s brand of violent jihad to the United States.

U.S. airstrikes against the Islamic State group intensified after militants appeared to behead American journalist James Foley. The group called Foley’s killing revenge for previous strikes against militants in Iraq.

It is not sure if the decapitation was real or faked.

A Western intelligence agency has been assisting the Syrian government of Bashar al Assad fight militants of Isis (now called the ‘Islamic State’), by providing details on the location of militant leaders for targeted air strikes.

The information was passed to Assad’s government by German intelligence service Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), which acted as an intermediary, a source told the Independent.

Source: www.local12.com/ibitimes.com

German Vice Chancellor urges federalization of Ukraine

German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel on Saturday said that federalization of Ukraine was the only viable solution to the crisis that has engulfed this East European country.

Speaking in an interview with the German weekly Welt am Sonntag, Sigmar Gabriel said that, “A smart concept of federalization seems to me the only viable solution.”

Gabriel, who also serves as Germany’s minister for economic affairs and energy, added that “an offer” has to be made to those regions in Ukraine where populations are predominantly ethnic Russian.

“Ukraine’s territorial integrity can only be preserved if an offer is made to regions with majority Russian population,” he stressed in an interview to appear on Sunday.

The vice chancellor said that Germany’s ultimate goal in Ukraine was “to prevent by any possible means a direct military confrontation between Ukraine and Russia.”

Excerpts from this interview appeared in the weekly hours before Chancellor Merkel’s official visit to Kiev on Saturday.

Ukraine’s southeast has been under fire since mid-April, when Kiev launched a special military operation aimed at suppressing the pro-federalism movement in Luhansk and Donetsk regions.

Moscow has repeatedly condemned Kiev’s military campaign against the Russian-speaking population in the east of the country and urged for an immediate stop to the punitive operation, advocating a peaceful resolution to the crisis.

Over 2,000 people have been killed and more than 5,000 injured since the start of Kiev’s military operation against independence supporters in eastern Ukraine in mid-April, according to the United Nations.

German economy shrinks as result of Russian sanctions

Germany’s sudden second-quarter economic contraction was probably due to Russian sanctions and confidence eroded by the crisis in Ukraine, Reuters news agency quoted the finance ministry as saying on Friday.

The ministry’s monthly report obtained by Reuters shows that Europe’s largest economy shrank by 0.2% between April and June after growing 0.7% in the first quarter thanks largely to an unusually mild winter that gave a boost to construction activity at the start of the year.

“The decline in gross domestic product (GDP) goes beyond the expected counter-effect to the very strong weather-related performance in the previous quarter,” the finance ministry said in its report, attributing this “to the effect of sanctions and negative effects on confidence due to the Ukraine crisis”.

Uncertainty over Ukraine was likely to have resulted in the dampening of industrial activity in the second quarter, it said, adding that “other geopolitical tensions” and “weaker economic development in the euro zone” had also contributed to the contraction.

“If the Ukraine crisis does not escalate further and no further serious stages of sanctions are imposed, it is to be expected that the current economic slowdown is only temporary,” the finance ministry said, noting that if this was the case, investment was likely to pick up as the year progressed.

Some progress during Berlin talks on Ukrainian crisis – Russia

MOSCOW, August 18 (RIA Novosti) – The foreign ministers of Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France have made some progress during Sunday’s talks on the settlement of the Ukrainian conflict, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Monday.

The sides discussed international efforts towards the settlement of the Ukrainian crisis, the ministry reminded.

“Some progress was made in all issues. It was agreed to continue the dialogue in this format, which could find concrete proposals for consideration of Russian, German, France and Ukraine leaders,” the ministry wrote on its Facebook page.

Negotiations between Sergei Lavrov of Russia and Pavlo Klimkin of Ukraine seeking to end fighting in eastern Ukraine were held Sunday night at the Villa Borsig hotel in Berlin, Germany. They were also attended by German foreign chief Frank-Walter Steinmeier and his counterpart in France, Laurent Fabius. According to Steinmeier, the talks were difficult, but the sides made progress on certain points.

The foreign chief are expected to report back to their respective heads of government and decide on Monday or Tuesday on the format of follow-up negotiations.

This is the second four-party meeting of the kind. During the previous talks on July 2, also in Berlin, the four foreign ministers agreed on a declaration that called for a peaceful resolution to the conflict in Ukraine’s southeast.