tagged w/ Merkel
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Common sense strikes another blow at austerity
"Chancellor Angela Merkel’s party suffered a severe defeat Sunday in a pivotal German state vote likely to award her main rivals a major boost in their bid to soften her austerity drive in Europe.
Around 16 months before national elections, the snap poll in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany’s most populous with 18 million people, is closely watched as a taste of things to come at federal level."...Common sense strikes another blow at austerity
"Chancellor Angela... more
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Crisis meeting between Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy was arranged before the participants knew of the disastrous growth figures in the Eurozone that emerged in the morning. Today the Germans and the European Union are once again focusing the peoples’ minds on the Holy Roman Empire. Otto von Hapsburg said, “The [European] Community is living largely by the heritage of the Holy Roman Empire, though the great majority of the people who live by it don’t know by what heritage they live.” http://www.makeahistory.com/index.php/recent-news/42996-fourth-reich-in-disguise-how-germany-is-using-the-financial-crisis-to-conquer-europeCrisis meeting between Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy was arranged before the... more
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worrg
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added this
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10 months ago
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Under pressure: German troops are calling on Chancellor Angela Merkel to tell them why they’re at war in Afghanistan
By Daily Mail Foreign Service (UK)
German soldiers are wearing their hearts on their sleeves – in the form of a badge that protests their country’s involvement in the war in Afghanistan.
Some troops have taken to wearing the cloth accessory that states – ironically – ‘I fight for Merkel’ in a bid to persuade the German Chancellor Angela Merkel to explain exactly what they are fighting and dying for.
Four more troops were killed, and five badly injured, in Afghanistan last week.
Seven soldiers have died there so far this month, bringing the total to 43 in all since they were first deployed eight years ago.
Unable to engage the Taliban directly on the ground, frustrated by their government’s inability to acknowledge they are even engaged in a war and angered by the lack of popular support for their mission, the badges are a low-key mutiny that has sent shock waves through the top brass of the Bundeswehr.
Soldiers were warned this week that it is illegal to sew the cloth patches on to their uniforms.
But that hasn’t stopped them from buying the badges in their hundreds, in desert beige or NATO green, at the ISAF camp at Mazar-e-Sharif.
‘They want the Chancellor, their ultimate boss, to finally find the clear words to put the war against the Taliban into black and white,’ Bild Zeitung, Germany’s biggest daily paper, said today.
Chancellor Merkel is to make a statement to parliament tomorrow. Her spokesman said she wants to make clear her ‘high-esteem’ for the work of the German soldiers in Afghanistan in the light of the recent casualties.
But she will be speaking in the Reichstag after being put under pressure from U.S. General Stanley McChrystal, who arrived in Germany today with a brief from the White House to get the Germans to do more in Afghanistan.
Germany has the third largest presence in Afghanistan after the U.S. and Britain. The German parliament approved the dispatch of a further 850 soldiers in February when it extended the mandate for the military mission.
Yet the political will for German troops to engage the enemy head-on remains lacking.
Cracks are growing in the parties that supported their engagement there up until now.
Ottmar Schreiner, a left-wing member of the opposition Social Democratic Party (SPD), said his party has ‘growing doubts’ about German involvement in Afghanistan.
He said: ‘If things haven’t improved in Afghanistan by next year then I don’t see where a majority for a new extension of the mandate is going to come from.’
The trouble for Mrs Merkel is that German involvement is deeply unpopular with some 80 per cent of the public, who want the troops to come home. Germany’s disastrous wars of the last century have left its public with a deep pacifistic streak.
The German press has been swift to condemn the government for its indecisiveness.
The Financial Times Deutschland said: ‘With every dead German soldier in Afghanistan, the calls for an immediate withdrawal grow louder. This reflex shows that the German public is still not clear about the character of the mission.
‘The politicians are largely to blame. Since the beginning of the mission eight years ago they suppressed a realistic description of the situation… Deaths, injuries, battles and heavy weaponry — none of these suit the picture that was painted back then.’
The left-wing Berliner Zeitung said: ‘Why are German soldiers in Afghanistan at all? As the chancellor and her government are still sticking to the military mission there it is their duty to explain it. But she has failed to do so.
‘This can be explained by her basic attitude – it is only worth talking about problems when they become virulent.
‘In the case of Afghanistan this is particularly catastrophic. Because the government has failed to make its case in what is the biggest foreign policy and security policy challenge in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1267802/German-troops-Afghanistan-Angela-Merkel-explain-theyre-war.html#ixzz0lqGVJe6LUnder pressure: German troops are calling on Chancellor Angela Merkel to tell them why... more
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"We all know, we have no time to lose."
These are the words of German Chancellor Angela Merkel today in an address to a joint session of the US Congress.
And she didn't stop there. She also said that dealing with climate change is one of the great tests of the 21st Century and that "in December the world will look to us, to the Americans and the Europeans," for leadership.
Most Republicans sat quietly during this while Democrats gave Chacellor Merkel a standing ovation.
I agree with Chancellor Merkel. Climate change is the test of our lifetimes. The Democratic majority and President Obama understand this and are taking a leadership role in guiding both the US and the world toward finding solutions.
Meanwhile, the Republicans dither. They whine that "EPA hasn't done an analysis of the impact," which, of course, is false. EPA has done an analysis. Republicans whine that they "don't have enough time to read the bill," though the major issues have been discussed for the last 9 months, the revised draft bill has been available for at least a week (and the original bill was available long before), and the process of discussion is ongoing. Perhaps if Republicans assigned their staffs to work on the bill rather than immediately find a microphone to whine about it they would actually be able to accomplish their jobs.
Merkel noted that "curbing greenhouse gas emissions would spur growth in innovative jobs" in the US, in Europe, and worldwide. Republicans seem intent on doing nothing but stand in the way of any meaningful legislation because they think it will help them keep their own jobs in next year's elections.
It's time for all of us to insist that Republicans start contributing to the solution rather than putting all their efforts into blocking any attempt by others to look out for the future of the United States.
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474977883493&grpId=3659174697241980"We all know, we have no time to lose."
These are the words of German... more
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Yesterday morning, while rubbing my sleepy eyes and trying to fully wake, an exclamation came from the other side of the house, “Now that’s political! OBAMA GOT THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE!”Yesterday morning, while rubbing my sleepy eyes and trying to fully wake, an... more
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No more Grosse Koalition, German people have chosen a new coalition with Liberals. And Social democrats have had the worst defeat in the history since 1949.No more Grosse Koalition, German people have chosen a new coalition with Liberals. And... more
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President Barack Obama called Friday for a redoubling of efforts toward separate Israeli and Palestinian states, saying ``the moment is now for us to act.''President Barack Obama called Friday for a redoubling of efforts toward separate... more
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Angela Merkel (Chancellor of Germany which is Europe's largest biofuel producer) is blaming the global food crisis on the people of India now eating two meals a day instead of just one, and fears that if the Chinese develop a taste for milk, they will make things much worse. Needless to say, she happily downs three large meals a day.Angela Merkel (Chancellor of Germany which is Europe's largest biofuel producer)... more
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