The French president and the German chancellor are set to visit Moscow on Friday after a trip to Kiev, in order to find a peaceful solution to the escalating violence in Ukraine, the Kremlin has confirmed. “I can confirm that indeed tomorrow [Friday] Putin, Merkel and Hollande will have talks. [...]

Syriza’s landslide victory in this weekend’s Greek elections has immediately been called a ‘political earthquake’. It’s more accurate to say that Greek voters have gatecrashed the Euro elites’ party and let off a grenade. Megalomania is a condition characterized by delusional fantasies of power and relevance, combined with inflated self-esteem. [...]

A German court has rejected a bid by opposition parties to bring ex-NSA contractor Edward Snowden to Berlin to testify about the US agency's intelligence activities in Germany before a parliamentary committee. Members of Germany’s Green and left parties petitioned Berlin’s Federal Constitutional Court to grant Snowden temporary entry to Berlin in order to answer questions about the National [...]

Out with boring public information leaflets and in with flashy TV ads. The German Ministry of Environment has come up with a series of commercials on the problems of climate change, featuring sex and zombies in the message. The scene: A young girl arrives home late one night and is confronted with the awkward situation of finding her parents engaged in the act inside a brightly lit room. After [...]

An elevator every 30 seconds will be a feature of future skyscrapers, promises German tech giant ThyssenKrupp. They have unveiled technology that allows more than one car in a single shaft and the lifts can go sideways as well as up and down. The company says its invention will revolutionize modern architecture, because central blocks of elevator shafts – a necessary element of today’s buil [...]

The mother of a victim killed in the Malaysian plane crash in eastern Ukraine has started legal proceedings to sue the Ukrainian authorities in the European Court of Human Rights, demanding about $1 million for pain and suffering. The mother of “Olga L.”, a German citizen, submitted her case against Ukraine to the European Court of Human Rights last week. She is demanding €800,000 (roughl [...]

Are the US, NATO and Russia on a mad spiral leading to war in Europe? Is it inevitable? Far from it. The US-propelled vassal Petro Poroshenko, currently starring in the oligarch dance in Ukraine this week advanced the proposition that Ukrainians in the near future, after his “reforms”, will be asked to vote on whether to join NATO. [...]

Formula 1 boss Bernie Ecclestone says "third world" Europe is finished and some British industrialists agree. However, the reality is far more complicated. It's not the continent that's finished - it's Europe's neoliberal elites who are in peril. Andy Street, the managing director of Britain’s prestigious retailer John Lewis claimed recently that France was “finished.” [...]

The West should not wait for Russia to solve the Ukraine crisis, but should instead try to influence the extreme policies of its "clients" in Kiev, Russian President Vladimir Putin told Hubert Seipel of the German channel ARD ahead of the G20 summit. Hubert Seipel: Good afternoon, Mr President. You are the only Russian President who has ever given a speech at the Bundestag. [...]

Senior EU officials insist that Britain must pay a €2.1 billion surcharge by December, and have the backing of France and Germany, despite Prime Minister David Cameron’s insistence that he won’t pay. Cameron stated flatly on Friday that Brussels “had another thing coming” if they thought they were going to get the €2.1 billion (US$2.7 billion) demand by the deadline. [...]

Saudi Arabia has unleashed an economic war against selected oil producers. The strategy masks the House of Saud,s real agenda. But will it work? Rosneft Vice President MikhailLeontyev; “Prices can be manipulative…Saudi Arabia has begun making big discounts on oil. This is political manipulation, and Saudi Arabia is being manipulated, which could end badly.” [...]

Intelligence service BND failed to protect the private data of German citizens as it handed over internet data collected at a Frankfurt traffic hub to the US, German media report citing secret documents. The documents cited by VDR and EDR television and the newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, which broke the news together, were obtained from the federal government during an ongoing parliamentary in [...]

Whenever the public right to know comes under attack, a heavy responsibility falls on the journalist. When I was 17, my teacher told the class this salient information. Did the Western mainstream media learn it too or have they simply forgotten it? “News is what someone wants to stop (you) from printing; all the rest is ads.”- William Randolph Hearst. [...]

The chief director of ARD, Germany's largest public TV broadcaster, responded to viewers' criticism and the supervisory committee over its coverage of the Ukraine crisis. He said it conveyed Russian interests "too little" and could question NATO more. [...]

The German Air Force has spotted a manufacturing fault in the hull of Eurofighter Typhoon multirole fighter jet. The Defense Ministry ordered annual flying hours for each aircraft be halved due to the fuselage possibly becoming unstable. The defect was discovered in the rear section of the aircraft’s hull, forcing the announcement of suspended delivery of the jets assembled at the EADS plant [...]

Berlin would not currently be able to keep its defense promises to its NATO allies, Germany's defense minister Ursula von der Leyen told Bild am Sonntag. “With our airborne systems we are currently below the target figures announced one year ago, defining what we would want to make available to NATO within 180 days in the case of an emergency,” von der Leyen stated. [...]

The CIA's European Division has halted its operations in Western Europe in response to several spying scandals in Germany and the continent's negative reaction to the revelations of spying by the National Security Agency on European leaders and citizens. The stand-down order has been in effect for two months. [...]

Journalists and dissidents are under the microscope of intelligence agencies, Wikileaks revealed in its fourth SpyFiles series. A German software company that produces computer intrusion systems has supplied many secret agencies worldwide. The weaponized surveillance malware, popular among intelligence agencies for spying on “journalists, activists and political dissidents,” is produced by [...]

The majority of German citizens, for the first time in history, insist on less dependence on the United States in terms of their national security and diplomacy, according to a major survey released by the German Marshall Fund think-tank. The study published on Wednesday shows that most Germans want their country to take a more independent position from the United States, especially on issues a [...]

Christine Lagarde, head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has urged Germany to increase spending to spur the eurozone's flagging economic recovery, and said that a number of structural reforms are needed to revive the bloc’s growth. "We think that public or private investment (in Germany) to finance infrastructure would be welcome," Lagarde told French daily Les Echos in an interview o [...]

The debate over Germany's insistence on euro-zone austerity has flared anew as an ailing France continues to demand economic stimulus. The European Central Bank may now be siding with Paris, leaving Merkel looking increasingly alone. The chancellor peered at her impassioned interviewer as if he were some kind of rare insect. [...]

Growth in Germany contracted 0.2 percent in the second quarter, the first fall in over a year, stoking worries Europe's biggest economy is slowing down, as the Ukraine crisis and weaker trade drag down what was once a glowing model for the rest of Europe. The seasonally-adjusted gross domestic product (GDP) from April to June was confirmed Monday by Germany's Federal Statistics Office to have d [...]