Merz woos Trump with invitation to German ancestral village – The chancellor appears to want to appeal to the American president’s German ancestry in order to improve frayed relations.
Check out this pre-Trump hysteria film report about this village (Heinz came from here too). Start watching around 34:50. It’s positive. It’s friendly. Times (and attitudes) change.
Version 9 as in nein as in it ain’t never gonna happen.
Aiming to strengthen the Bundeswehr to match the size and punch of a medium-sized American city’s police force…
Germany’s Merz vows to build Europe’s strongest army – “Our friends and partners also expect this from us, and what’s more, they are actually demanding it,” said the new chancellor.
Only it doesn’t. None of them work.
It’s the 800-pound gorilla locked away in every country’s closet – for now.
Germany struggles to fix its pension system – Germany’s aging population is putting the country’s pension system under strain. The new Labor Minister Bärbel Bas has ruffled feathers with a proposal for how to fix it.
Good luck with that.
Still losing votes after their recent attempt to ban fire, Germany’s Greens are now taking a more innovative approach to reduce the country’s carbon footprint by launching a newly discovered Neanderthal technology.
Wooden spears made of spruce and pine will now be used to fend off wolf attacks while collecting nuts and berries in the pristine German forest. Gunfire is way too yucky.
Neanderthals were not, after all, the brutish loners of early scientific portrayals. Instead, they too may have been innovative, social hunters with advanced toolmaking and social strategies, just like the Greens of today.
That means fairytale forest.
You know, the German Brothers Grimm kind. The kind Germans these days level for wind parks.
Plan for windfarm in German ‘fairytale forest’ stokes green energy culture war – Far right accused of misinformation over turbines at Reinhardswald, which has left local people divided.
Deep in the woods that inspired the Brothers Grimm, past the tower from which Rapunzel threw down her hair and the castle in which Sleeping Beauty slumbered, lies a construction site that the far right has declared a crime against national soil and identity.
In this quiet corner of Germany’s “fairytale forest”, workers are clearing land and building access roads to erect 18 wind turbines.
Very, very, lean.
But at least it’s clean. Whatever that should mean.
Clean energy sources generated the smallest amount of Germany’s electricity in over a decade so far in 2025, dealing a blow to the energy transition momentum of Europe’s largest economy.
Electricity generation from clean power sources totalled just under 80 terawatt hours (TWh) during the first four months of the year, according to data from energy think tank Ember.
That clean energy volume is down 16% from the same months in 2024 and is the lowest for that period since at least 2015.
That means free-riding.
After solomnly commemorating the end of World War II 80 years ago…
German politicians solomnly commemorated the end of 80 years of free-riding on defense spending.
It was emotional.
Newly elected German Chancellor Friedrich Merz joined a wreath-laying ceremony in Berlin. The Bundestag also held its own remembrance service.
That means to circumvent.
Punitive tariffs: Audi apparently plans production in the USA – According to media reports, Audi is planning to build cars in the USA in order to avoid import tariffs. Until now, Audi has been serving the US market via imports, but the Ingolstadt-based car manufacturer is now confronted with the 25 percent tariffs announced by US President Donald Trump in recent weeks.
According to the report, Audi is looking at three US sites and could also use production capacities of the Volkswagen Group – the manufacturer has not yet wanted to comment on the media reports.
“Germany’s incoming government might be better advised to consider why the AfD continues to gain electoral ground and how Germany’s government can address the reasonable concerns of its citizens.”
Cotton asks Gabbard not to share intel with Germany that can be used against far-right party – Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) asked Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard to refrain from sharing intelligence with Germany’s domestic intelligence agency days after the country’s spy arm labeled the far-right Alternative for Germany, or AfD, as an “extremist” political party.
Cotton requested that, until Germany treats the AfD as a “legitimate opposition party” and not as a “right-wing extremist organization,” Gabbard should direct the U.S. intelligence agencies to halt sharing intelligence with the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV).
He also asked that Gabbard deny Berlin’s potential requests to assist in surveilling the AfD and review if intelligence agencies during former President Biden’s administration “cooperated with German requests to surveil the AfD or other opposition parties.”
That means every beginning is hard.
And this one was hard to believe. And hard to follow.
Germany’s Merz becomes chancellor after surviving historic vote failure – Conservative leader Friedrich Merz has won a parliament vote to become Germany’s next chancellor at the second attempt.
Merz had initially fallen six votes short of the absolute majority he needed on Tuesday morning – a significant blow to his prestige and an unprecedented failure in post-war German history.
As it was a secret ballot in the 630-seat Bundestag, there was no indication who had refused to back him – whether MPs from his centre-left coalition partner or his own conservatives.
Observing Hermann 