Category Archives: Germany

Hundreds run riot in Stuttgart city centre after drug checks

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More than 20 people arrested after police injured and shops looted in late-night rampage

German authorities have expressed shock over a rampage of an “unprecedented scale” in the centre of Stuttgart, where hundreds of partygoers ran riot overnight and into Sunday, breaking shop windows, plundering and attacking police.

Two dozen people, half of them German nationals, were provisionally arrested and police reported 19 officers hurt. “They were unbelievable scenes that have left me speechless. In my 46 years of police service, I have never experienced this,” said the Stuttgart police chief, Franz Lutz.

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Riots erupt in Stuttgart after police drug checks – video

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Police in the German city of Stuttgart have said 20 people were arrested and four police officers injured after a drugs check in the city centre sparked attacks on officers and police vehicles and widespread vandalism of stores. The disturbance started as an apparent reaction to the police’s search for drugs, as groups of people partied in a central park late on Saturday night. According to German TV reports, people then attacked store fronts in a nearby shopping street, tearing up paving stones and smashing store windows

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Lenin statue to be unveiled in Germany despite legal fight

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Gelsenkirchen bucks global trends with new monument as other cities confront relics of colonial past

While a global row rages over the controversial pasts of historical figures immortalised as statues, on Saturday a divisive new monument to the former Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin will be unveiled in Germany.

More than 30 years after the communist experiment on German soil that followed the second world war ended, the tiny Marxist-Leninist party of Germany (MLPD) will install Lenin’s likeness in the western city of Gelsenkirchen.

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Global report: Germany orders local Covid-19 lockdowns as Spain boosts tourism sector

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Spanish government injects £4bn while Sweden study casts doubt on herd immunity

More than 8,000 people have been quarantined in fresh outbreaks of Covid-19 in three areas of Germany, while the most comprehensive study yet on immunity in Sweden showed very few people had developed antibodies.

As governments across Europe continue to ease their restrictions, authorities in North Rhein Westphalia, the southern Berlin district of Neukölln and the central city of Göttingen imposed local lockdowns in an effort to halt the spread of the virus.

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German ministers hit back at Trump plan to withdraw US troops

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Foreign secretary says cutting troop numbers will weaken security of both Europe and US

German ministers have criticised Donald Trump’s plans to withdraw about 9,500 US troops from German soil, saying the move is likely to weaken America’s own security architecture as well as European security.

“We think that the US presence in Germany is important for the security not just of Germany but also for the security of the United States and especially for the security of Europe,” Heiko Maas, the foreign minister, said during a state visit to Poland on Tuesday.

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Medellín cartel co-founder transferred to Germany after prison sentence

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Carlos Lehder Rivas ran Medellín cartel alongside Pablo Escobar that smuggled cocaine worth billions to the US in 1970s and 80s

The man who co-founded the notorious Colombian Medellín drug cartel alongside Pablo Escobar has been transferred to Germany from the United States, according to Spiegel Online.

Carlos Lehder Rivas, who has both German and Colombian citizenship, was escorted to Germany by two US officials on a regular passenger flight from New York to Frankfurt and handed over to German authorities, the report said.

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Germany and France reopen borders as Europe emerges from lockdown

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Spain to reopen borders on 21 June but other countries are adopting more targeted approach

France and Germany became the latest European countries to reopen their borders as the continent emerges from its three-month Covid-19 lockdown.

Speaking on Sunday evening, France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, said the country’s Schengen borders would be open from Monday and its non-EU borders from 1 July.

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Madeleine McCann suspect told he was on German police radar in 2013

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Mistake raises questions over whether Christian Brückner had time to dispose of evidence

Criminal investigators in Germany notified Christian Brückner as early as 2013 that he was on their radar in connection with the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, raising questions over whether they inadvertently allowed the suspect to dispose of evidence.

According to a report in the news weekly Der Spiegel, Brückner received a letter from police in Braunschweig on 4 November 2013 inviting him to be interviewed as a witness in the “missing person case Madeleine McCann”.

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Global report: India reports surge in Covid-19 cases as lockdown eased

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Almost 10,000 new cases in India on Thursday as WHO warns situation outside Europe deteriorating

India reported almost 10,000 new coronavirus cases on Thursday, with hospitals swamped in the worst-hit cities of Mumbai, New Delhi and Chennai, and predictions that the infection rate will not peak before the end of next month.

The country of 1.3bn people now has the fifth highest number of confirmed cases in the world, at 286,579. Over the last 24 hours 357 people have died from the virus, bringing the official toll to 8,102.

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Trump move to take US troops out of Germany ‘a dangerous game’

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UK politicians and military experts warn decision could hand advantage to Russia

British politicians and European military experts have warned that Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw 9,500 troops from Germany risks handing a strategic advantage to the Kremlin and undermining the postwar western military alliance.

It would also affect the United States’s ability to operate in the Middle East and Africa – although there is scepticism as to whether the notoriously fickle president will be able to carry out the threat before November’s election.

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German suspect in Madeleine McCann case linked to two more child disappearances

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Father of six-year-old who vanished in Portugal in 1996 hopes to finally learn what happened to his son

The father of a six-year-old German boy who disappeared on holiday in Portugal nearly 24 years ago says the recent dramatic developments in the Madeleine McCann case have given him hope he will finally learn what happened to his son.

Andreas Hasee said a German investigator called him on Friday to confirm they were reopening the case of his missing son, René, following the identification of the prime suspect in the 2007 disappearance of three-year old Madeleine.

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Europe’s big two kiss and make up for pandemic rescue deal

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Germany amazed the whole continent with last week’s stimulus package, but it paves the way for countries such as France to agree an effective coronavirus response

From champion of austerity to Europe’s biggest spender – Germany has travelled a long way in just a few months. The notoriously frugal ministry of finance has agreed to spend €130bn – a sum equal to 4% of national income – on more than 50 initiatives to promote growth across the country.

This breathtaking investment programme comes on top of the almost 30% of GDP the government has so far spent on rescuing businesses and protecting jobs during the coronavirus crisis.

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‘Regrettable’: Germany reacts to Trump plan to withdraw US troops

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Reduction of 9,500 personnel criticised by the German right and welcomed by the left

Donald Trump’s plans to withdraw roughly a third of the US troops stationed in Germany have been criticised in the country by conservatives and welcomed by leftwing politicians.

The US president has reportedly ordered the Pentagon to reduce the number of troops by 9,500 from the 34,500 permanently assigned in Germany as part of a long-standing arrangement with Washington’s Nato ally.

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Madeleine McCann: German authorities ‘ignored warnings over suspect’

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Authorities accused of failing to act on tip-off from local force that Christian Brückner should be regarded as key suspect

German media are focusing their attention on whether the federal police ignored warnings in 2013 from a local force that was on the trail of the Madeleine McCann suspect Christian Brückner for a variety of crimes, including child abuse and drug dealing.

Investigators in Braunschweig who had been closely monitoring Brückner believed he should be viewed as a key suspect in the girl’s disappearance. But their alert was reportedly ignored by Germany’s Federal Criminal Office, the BKA, according to Der Spiegel, which has a team of 10 reporters working on the case.

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Merkel among winners as Europeans give verdict on anti-Covid battles

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Satisfaction levels across the continent have risen and fallen, but nowhere have they plunged as for Boris Johnson’s government

All across the continent, most Europeans now trust their leaders generally, and how they have handled the coronavirus pandemic in particular, a little less than when the crisis began – but nowhere has public confidence fallen as far and as fast as in the UK.

Even leaders seen as having managed Covid-19 the most successfully, such as Germany’s chancellor Angela Merkel and Denmark’s prime minister Mette Frederiksen, have suffered slight dips in popular satisfaction as the weeks have worn on.

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Donald Trump orders 9,500 US troops to leave Germany

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White House says move due to more Nato defence spending, not tensions with Angela Merkel

Donald Trump has ordered the US military to remove nearly 9,500 troops from Germany in a move likely to raise concerns in Europe about the US commitment to the region.

The move would reduce US troop numbers in Germany to 25,000, compared with the 34,500 currently there, a senior US official said.

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Madeleine McCann suspect investigated over two other missing children – reports

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Christian Brückner may be linked to disappearance of a five-year-old girl in Germany and six-year-old boy in Portugal

German prosecutors are investigating whether the prime suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann was involved in a similar case of a five-year-old girl who went missing in Germany in 2015.

Reports on Friday night also said authorities were looking into connections with the disappearance of a six-year-old German boy in Portugal in 1996.

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German prisoner is ‘strongest Madeleine McCann suspect yet’

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Police in UK, Portugal and German launch joint appeal for information about Christian Brückner

Detectives in three countries have appealed for evidence in relation to the strongest suspect they have had in 13 years to the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, as German authorities said they believe she is dead.

Circumstantial evidence has convinced detectives that a 43-year-old German child sexual offender and rapist, identified by Portuguese sources on Thursday as Christian Brückner, is their prime suspect as it emerged he has been known to police for years.

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Angela Merkel has become the spend, spend, spend chancellor | Larry Elliot

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With its €130bn stimulus package, Germany is showing others how to do the recovery

And in one bound she was transformed. For Angela Merkel, the days of being lampooned as the archetypal Swabian housewife keeping tight control over the purse strings are over. Now, courtesy of a €130bn (£116bn) stimulus package, she is the spend, spend, spend chancellor.

Make no mistake, much of the past criticism of Germany’s frugal approach to government spending and budget deficits was justified. Saving some money for a rainy day is one thing but running surpluses worth 8% of national output was unnecessary and harmful to the global economy.

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EU leaders will intervene in Brexit talks in autumn, says German official

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Michael Clauss says talks will be a focus from September and UK needs more realistic approach

Britain must give away some sovereignty to secure free trade with the EU but Europe’s leaders will intervene in the negotiations in the autumn with the aim of sealing a compromise deal at a summit on 15 October, Germany’s ambassador in Brussels has said.

Michael Clauss, whose country will take over the rolling presidency of the EU for the second half of the year, said there had been “no real progress” in the talks so far but predicted they would become the EU’s main political focus in September and October.

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