Merkel to attend crunch Germany-Greece clash

AP photo

Chancellor Angela Merkel will attend the Euro 2012 quarter final between Germany and Greece on Friday, a spokesman said, a match with plenty of resonance off the field amid a crippling economic crisis.

"She is hoping for an exciting and fair match," the government's deputy spokesman Georg Streiter told reporters at a regular news conference here Wednesday.

Merkel will fly from a crucial four-way summit with the leaders of Italy, Spain and France in Rome which jittery financial markets are watching closely for signs of long-term solutions to the eurozone's painful debt crisis.

This meeting was brought forward at Merkel's request, the German government said later Wednesday, without drawing a direct link to the football.

"Chancellor Angela Merkel asked Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti to bring forward the meeting on Friday in Rome. Prime Minister Monti agreed and the chancellor has thanked him," Streiter said in a written statement.

Streiter had previously told reporters it was Monti who wanted the meeting to be held earlier than planned.

Germany coach Joachim Loew has sought to play down the wider political significance of the match in the Polish city of Gdansk, telling reporters he is preparing his side for "a normal football contest." But with Merkel cutting an unpopular figure in Greece for her insistence on painful austerity measures as the best response to the crisis, the match has taken on an added intensity.

The German football association (DFB) said Merkel's presence was sure to be a good omen for the clash.

"The last two internationals that the chancellor watched at the stadium resulted in big wins for the German team: 3-0 on October 8 against Turkey in Berlin and 4-0 in the World Cup quarter-final against Argentina in Cape Town," the DFB said.

While politicians and footballers have downplayed the crisis angle, newspapers in both countries have stoked the enmity.

"Bring us Merkel," read a headline in Goal News, while Germany's mass circulation Bild splashed: "Poor Greeks, we'll give you your next bankruptcy for free." Asked if Merkel might take advantage of the match to meet Greece's likely next leader, Antonis Samaras, Streiter said the trip "was all about sport" and quipped that if there were to be such a meeting, "it might be at half-time." "If he is there, they will of course meet and they will greet each other warmly and then talk about football: about offsides and other such miscellaneous topics," Streiter said, to laughter from the assembled reporters.

The announcement of Merkel's attendance at the match in Poland came as the British government said none of its ministers will go to England's Euro 2012 quarter-final against Italy, which takes place in co-host Ukraine.

Anger is running high across Europe over the treatment of jailed Ukrainian opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko, and other governments have been putting mounting pressure on Ukraine.

No British ministers attended England's three group matches -- against France, Sweden and Ukraine -- as they were all staged in Ukraine, though the ambassador to Kiev did go.
(BERLIN - Agence France-Presse)

Saudi Arabia wants more tanks: report

A German soldier walks past a Leopard II A5 type tank at a military base in Torgelow, eastern Germany. Saudi Arabi wants to buy up to 800 Leopard’s from Germany. AFP Photo

Saudi Arabia wants to buy 600 to 800 Leopard battle tanks from Germany, at least twice the number previously expected, a German newspaper reported on yesterday.

A deal for around 300 tanks was about to be signed, Bild am Sonntag newspaper said in a report sent to Reuters ahead of publication.

The newspaper said that while there was opposition to the deal in Germany’s Chancellery, Foreign Ministry and Defence Ministry, there was support for it within the Economy Ministry.

“The Saudi order could secure the future of German tank-makers Krauss-Maffei Wegman and Rheinmetall, which urgently need new markets because of the restructuring of the German army,” said Bild am Sonntag.

A German government spokeswoman declined to comment.

Last year, Germany denied reports that it had agreed to export 270 Leopard tanks to Saudi Arabia. Exports of military equipment cannot be officially acknowledged as they are confidential and disclosure is punishable by a fine or jail.

Opposition lawmakers heaped pressure on Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government after reports it had cut a secret deal to sell the tanks, saying it contravened the country’s export guidelines for military hardware.

Arms exports are a sensitive issue in Germany given its Nazi past as well as the role arms makers like Krupp played in feeding 19th and 20th century wars with exports to both sides of conflicts.

Saudi wants deal by July 20

Germany has refrained from exporting heavy weapons to Gulf states in the past, given its close relationship with Israel and more recently because of the so-called Arab Spring.

Citing industry sources, Bild am Sonntag said Saudi Arabia wanted to sign the deal by July 20, when the Ramadan festival starts.

Spanish firm General Dynamic/Santa Barbara would produce the tanks under license by the German firms, the newspaper said. (BARLIN - Reuters)

Turkey passes NATO role to Germany

Soldiers pose with Turkish, German and NATO flags during the ceremony.

The command of the Standing NATO Maritime Group-2 (SNMG-2) was handed over to Germany from Turkey, in a ceremony at the Aksaz Naval Base in the western town of Marmaris on June 15.

Only a few ship hijacking incidents had taken place in Somalia during Turkey’s period of duty, Rear Admiral Sinan Azmi Tosun said at the opening of the ceremony. Tosun, who handed over the mission to his German colleague Thorsten Kahler, said that during Turkey’s year-long duty, six and a half months had been spent in Somalia fighting successfully against sea pirates.

Tosun said they were proud that sea piracy had decreased by 65 percent during Turkey’s duty, thanks to their successful fight against it. “We conducted operations against 10 sea pirate ships and arrested 175 sea pirates … A total of 15 NATO ships were involved in operations during Turkey’s command,” he said.

The ceremony ended after the Turkish troops handed over the NATO flag to their German counterparts, who will now command operations. (MUĞLA - Anatolia News Agency)

Neo-Nazis, leftists clash in Germany

Police remove protestors during protests against a demonstration of a neo-Nazi group in downtown Hamburg, northern Germany in this June 2 photo. REUTERS photo

Clashes between neo-Nazi demonstrators and far-left counter-protesters overnight in the northern German port city of Hamburg left 38 police officers injured, police said yesterday.

Security forces were pelted with rocks, bottles and fireworks and responded by turning water canon and pepper spray on the rioting groups who turned out at a march by the far right. At least two parked cars and a police cruiser were set ablaze.

Police, who deployed 4,400 officers to keep the peace between the two sides, took 63 demonstrators into custody and formally arrested another 17. Around 3,500 people, mainly from the hard left, turned out to block a procession of about 700 right-wing skinheads, while more than 10,000 people attended a separate, peaceful rally against neo-Nazis in front of city hall. Police chief Wolfgang Kopitzsch said he was pleased “that so many people demonstrated peacefully for an open and tolerant Hamburg” but said “nothing could justify” the clashes. Organized marches by neo-Nazis in Germany generally meet with much larger counter-protests but are often accompanied by violence between the far-left and far-right.

Greek neo-Nazi MPs detained after attack

In the meantime, two freshly elected Greek MPs from the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party and its leader’s daughter were among six people briefly detained after an attack on a Pakistani immigrant, a police source said on June 2.

The two lawmakers, Ilias Panagiotaros and Ioannis Vouldis, as well as leader Nikos Michaloliakos’s daughter, were taken into custody but released for lack of evidence after the incident in Athens late, the source said.

The 31-year-old Pakistani man needed hospital treatment after being assaulted on June 1 by a group in helmets taking part in a motorbike demonstration “that started off from the headquarters of a political party,” police said. Golden Dawn party has denied its supporters were behind an attack.

Compiled from AFP and AP stories by the Daily News staff. (Berlin/Athens-Hürriyet Daily News)

Suspected PKK money man arrested in Germany

This file photo shows a police raid against a suspected PKK cell in Turkey in 2011. DHA photo

A suspected former financial manager working for the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in Europe was arrested in Germany on Friday in the city of Cologne, officials said.

The 45-year-old Turkish national, identified as Abdullah S., was "strongly suspected" of PKK involvement and operated a German regional cell under the code name "Hamza" in 2003 and 2004, federal prosecutors said in a statement.

He is also accused of taking orders from PKK in the north of Iraq and managing the European wing's financial affairs.

The PKK is listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union. (BERLIN - Agence France-Presse)

Jews welcome first annotated 'Mein Kampf' in Germany

Germany's Jewish community today welcomed a landmark decision to republish Adolf Hitler's manifesto "Mein Kampf" for the first time since World War II, in an annotated edition.

The southern state of Bavaria, which holds the rights, has not permitted reprints of the vicious anti-Semitic tract and rambling memoir since the Nazi leader's 1945 suicide.

But it said Tuesday it would release an edition with historians' commentary as well as a separate version for schools in 2015 before its copyright runs out at the end of that year in order to beat commercial publishers to the punch.

The head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Dieter Graumann, called Bavaria's decision "responsible" and a "good idea".

"If it is going to be released, then I prefer seeing a competent annotated version from the Bavarian state than profit-seekers trying to make money with Nazis," he told AFP.

"I would of course prefer it if the book disappeared on a dust heap of contempt but that will not happen," he added, noting that the text was already widely available to Germans on the Internet.

The book is not banned as such in Germany but because of Bavaria's blanket refusal to permit sales of old copies or reprints -- even taking potential publishers to court -- the decision marks a historic step.

Bavarian Finance Minister Markus Soeder said Tuesday that the state aimed to release an edition filled with respected historians' commentary that would be impossible to use as far-right propaganda.

"We want to make clear what nonsense is in there -- with, however, catastrophic consequences," Soeder said of the book on which much of the Nazis' genocidal ideology was based.

A spokesman for his ministry said Wednesday that the state had proceeded extremely carefully.

"We are aware of our responsibility," the spokesman, Thomas Neumann, told AFP. "We believe we can demystify the book with a clean edition." The German press appeared largely unfazed by the decision. The often excitable top-selling daily Bild put the news on its front page but in a short, matter-of-fact article.

And the website of influential news weekly Der Spiegel published a longer, neutral piece albeit with the provocative headline "'Mein Kampf' to Become School Book".

Bavaria intends to stump up 500,000 euros ($661,000) for the project and will reportedly publish an English edition, an electronic book and an audiobook in addition to the German annotated version and the school text with commentary targeted at a younger audience.

Hitler wrote "Mein Kampf" (My Struggle) in 1924 -- nine years before he rose to power -- while serving a prison sentence in Bavaria following his abortive Beer Hall Putsch the previous year.

The two-volume work combined elements of autobiography with his views on Aryan "racial purity", his hatred of Jews and his opposition to communism.

Around 10 million copies were published in Germany until 1945, according to British historian Ian Kershaw. From 1936, every German couple marrying received a copy as a wedding gift from the Nazi state.

Bavaria made its decision after winning a court battle last month against a British publisher who planned to release parts of "Mein Kampf", also along with commentary from historians.
(Agence France-Presse)

German government moves to block Quran distribution

Angela Merkel's ruling Christian Democratic Union Party recently began a campaign to prevent an Islamic group from distributing copies of the Quran on the street in Germany, private broadcaster NTV reported on its website.

Ibrahim Ebu Nagi, a Salafi Muslim of Palestinian descent, began his “Lies!” campaign to distribute Islam's holy book in Oct. 2011. The campaign has distributed over 300,000 books in 35 German cities, and is funded largely by Turkish families living in Germany.

German politicians have initiated a counter-campaign to end the distribution, saying the “Quran in every house" campaign should be stopped. The Islamic organization’s move threatens religious freedom, a member of the Christian Democratic Union Party said. (hurriyetdailynews)