Deutsche Bundesbank Had to Leave 1200 Tons of Gold in NY, they still can't go in and check or count the gold.

Deutsche Bundesbank Had to Leave 1200 Tons of Gold in NY, they still can't go in and check or count the gold. HT: Cryptogon. Source: Norberthaering.

With big fanfare, Deutsche Bundesbank announced on February 9 that ahead of plan they had repatriated 300 tons of gold from New York. This put a positive spin on a rather disturbing fact –1236 tons of gold that is supposed to be part of Germany’s currency reserve will continue to be kept outside of German control in New York – indefinitely.

The German gold in question is being kept in storage at the New York Fed, an institution that is owned and controlled by Wall-Street-banks, in a country, whose current president considers it an imposition that the law and so-called judges tell him what he is allowed to do and not allowed to do.

I am not criticizing the Bundesbank for storing 37 percent of Germany’s official gold in in a place there it has no control over it. It seems clear that they negotiated hard with the US and acted rather shrewdly. Their negotiation position was much enhanced in 2012 by the leakage of a report of the German Court of Auditors, which was very critical of the conditions under which German gold was being held in New York. This created public and political pressure on the Bundesbank to renegotiate and to get that gold out of New York. At the same time, the US-side could hardly afford to snub this demand, because there was lots of speculation, even in the US, that something was amiss with the gold reserves of the US and the rest of the world that were stored in the country. 

The way in which the official gold of the US, and the gold held in custody for other countries, is guarded against public scrutiny and shielded from its owners, gives fodder to any number of conspiracy theories. Had the New York Fed refused to let a foreign central bank, which was under such obvious pressure, retrieve some of their gold, these conspiracy theories around official gold might very well have become intense enough to damage trust in the dollar.

Reaching an agreement was apparently not easy. On the way, the Bundesbank announced a relocation plan for the next three years and then, very soon, superseded it by anouther one that allowed time until 2020 for finishing the intended relocations. First they said they were going to publish the report of the auditors, then they didn’t. This kind of behavior would not be expected if the semi-official story (from unnamed sources) was true, that the Bundesbank just had to say how much gold they wanted at what time and the Fed would have put it at the gate at that time with no further questions asked.

The Dutch Get in the Way

According to its (second) gold relocation and storage plan, unveiled in early 2013, the Bundesbank will be storing half of Germany’s gold reserves in its own vaults in Frankfurt am Main by 2020. This required a transfer to Frankfurt am Main of 300 tons of gold from New York and 283 tons of gold from Paris. 1236 tons will continue to be kept in storage in New York, plus (a much more reasonable) 432 tons in London.

In the summer of 2013 Bundesbank started with a first transport of 5 tons of gold to Frankfurt and then stopped the transports again right away. In hindsight, a plausible explanation for this unusual behavior could be a when secret repatriation program of the Dutch central bank, which was only made public when it was concluded in 2014. 

Apparently, the Dutch came out and said something like “If the Germans are allowed to take out their gold, we want to have our’s too.” This created the threat that more and more countries would use the precedent of the Fed’s lenience with the Germans to demand getting back their own gold. 

The withdrawals were halted until a plan was in place of how everybody could be treated the same and nobody could take out too much gold. Judging from what the Germans and the Dutch did, the scheme seems to be that the US will allow central banks to repatriate as much gold from New York as is absolutely necessary to allow them to have half of their gold at home.

After that was settled, the Dutch were first to be allowed to withdraw their allotment. They were finished in late summer 2014. The Bundesbank managed to get 85 tons out in the rest of the year. In 2015, another as yet unknown institution besides the Bundesbank withdraw gold -30 tons overall. The Bundesbank got 99 tons back. 

In 2016, finally, Bundesbank was alone in withdrawing gold from New York. This might explain why the Fed was more forthcoming than the Bundesbank had expected and handed out the final 111 tons of their 300-ton-allotment.

A hiden message

When the Bundesbank had announced their plan of where to keep how much gold in the future, it was craftily sold as a message to the German people and politicians that they would get a chunk of the gold that was in New York under their control and store half of the official German gold in Germany. This, however, was not the main message.


The main message had New York and Washington as addressees. It consisted in the promise that in exchange for getting those 300 tons, they would leave four times as much in New York and stop forever fussing about it. This is my reading anyway, based on what I understand is usual diplomatic custom and lingo in such affairs. 

This way of reading it is bolstered by the fact that the conveniently critical Court of Auditors has gone completely silent since the Bundesbank announced their new plan for where to store the gold. 

This is not what one should have expected. None of the concerns of the auditors has been addressed in any significant way. The Bundesbank can still not go in and check or count the gold. There are still the terms and conditions of the New York Fed, which say that they give no guarantee. 

If it should turn out that the gold has been stolen in some mysterious way, that’s bad luck. None of the other problems were fixed and no convincing reason was provided why it should be in Germany’s interest to keep such a large portion of its gold outside its control. The fact that a fifth of the gold that used to be kept in New York under such unfavorable conditions has been retrieved, is not a very convincing reason for the auditors to fall completely silent. After all, they had clearly said that the way that the German national treasure is stored there, is against the law. Read the full story Here.

Alleged Iranian spy to be put on trial in Germany, spied on Israeli and Jewish institutions.

Embed from Getty Images

Alleged Iranian spy to be put on trial in Germany, spied on Israeli and Jewish institutions. (DS).

A 31-year-old Pakistani man is going on trial in Berlin on allegations he spied for Iran on Israeli and Jewish institutions in Germany and elsewhere in Europe.

Syed Mustufa H., whose full name was not giving for privacy reasons, is due in court Wednesday on espionage charges.

H., who came to Germany in 2012 to go to university, is accused of having collected information on a professor at a university in Paris, the former president of the German-Israel Society and others in Western European countries.

Prosecutors say he then passed the information to a contact person with the Iranian intelligence agency. He's alleged to have received at least 2,052 euros ($2,170) for his spying activities.
H., who was arrested in July 2016, faces a possible five years in prison.

Saxony security Chief warns: "'Muslim Brotherhood expands presence in Germany, seeks to establish Sharia law".

Saxony security Chief warns: "'Muslim Brotherhood expands presence in Germany, seeks to establish Sharia law". (RT).

Islamic radicals from the Muslim Brotherhood are actively trying to gain a "monopoly" over mosques in the eastern German state of Saxony to attract more followers and increase their influence, the local security service chief has warned.

The members of the radical Salafist organization, the Muslim Brotherhood, which was established in Egypt in 1928, “have long been active in Saxony, although they were stealthy,” Gordian Meyer-Plath, the president of the regional department of the German domestic security and anti-terrorist service, the BfV, told Germany’s MDR broadcaster.

Meyer-Plath warned, however, that “only now, when a [large] number of Muslims have come to Germany, do they see a chance to expand their network beyond some central structures and become interesting for the new Muslims in Saxony.”

While downplaying the threat posed by the Muslim Brotherhood in Germany as being “beyond Jihad,” meaning that the group is not actively involved in terrorist attacks, the security official pointed to the threat it poses to democratic society.

“The Muslim Brothers still want to establish Sharia law in Germany,” which would have grave consequences for religious freedom, women’s rights and democratic values, Meyer-Plath said.

The group is active in about 70 countries, where it builds mosques, schools and hospitals, presents itself as a democratic force and officially distances itself from an idea of the global Jihad in an attempt to win the sympathies of locals.

In Saxony, the Salafist group has been actively sponsoring the construction of new mosques. It has already built several mosques and plans construction of more places of worship in such cities as Dresden, Leipzig, Meissen, Riesa, Pirna, Bautzen und Goerlitz.

Meyer-Plath drew attention to the fact that, while western Germany has numerous Muslim associations that offer their services to newly arrived Muslims, the eastern part of the country lacks them. The Muslim Brotherhood “is trying to break into this vacuum and secure a monopolistic position,” he said, adding that the opportunity to spread the group’s influence came with the ongoing refugee and migrant influx from Muslim-majority countries.

“Offering prayers is a religious duty for Muslims. And when there are no [other] mosques in the region, they go to those that exist there,” Meyer-Plath explained, adding that “it is needless to say that it is a bad situation when the only Muslim structures in the area are controlled by Islamists and political extremists.”

The security official believes that the group has vast financial reserves as it does not lack money for sponsoring new construction projects or just buying real estate.

“They are going through the land with a fantastic sum of money and are just buying real property” to turn it into mosques, Meyer-Plath said, adding that the local Muslims often appreciate their efforts. Read the full story here.

Merkel: 'The Euro is too low for Germany, If we still had the (German) D-Mark it would surely have a different value'.

Merkel: 'The Euro is too low for Germany, If we still had the (German) D-Mark it would surely have a different value'. HT: KeeptalkingGreece.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel suggested on Saturday that the euro was too low for Germany but made clear that Berlin had no power to address this “problem” because monetary policy was set by the independent European Central Bank.

Merkel made her remarks at the Munich Security Conference as U.S. Vice President Mike Pence looked on. They seemed aimed at addressing recent criticism from a top trade adviser to President Donald Trump, who has accused Germany of profiting from a “grossly undervalued” euro.

“We have at the moment in the euro zone of course a problem with the value of the euro,” Merkel said in an unusual foray into foreign exchange rate policy.

“The ECB has a monetary policy that is not geared to Germany, rather it is tailored (to countries) from Portugal to Slovenia or Slovakia. If we still had the (German) D-Mark it would surely have a different value than the euro does at the moment. But this is an independent monetary policy over which I have no influence as German chancellor.”


The euro has fallen nearly 25 percent against the dollar over the past three years, touching a 14-year low of $1.034 in January. But it has since risen to roughly $1.061.

In late January, Peter Navarro, the head of Trump’s new National Trade Council, said the euro’s low valuation was giving Germany an edge over the United States and its European Union partners. Read the full story here.

Related:

'What's Up Doc?' - Germany brings back 300 tons of reserve gold from US.

'What's Up Doc?' - Germany brings back 300 tons of reserve gold from US.

'What's Up Doc?' - Germany brings back 300 tons of reserve gold from US.

Germany's central bank has completed an effort to bring home 300 tons of gold stashed in the United States, part of a plan to repatriate gold bars kept abroad during the Cold War.

The Bundesbank said 111 tons of gold were brought back from the Federal Reserve in New York in 2016, the last of 300 tons slated for return. It also repatriated 105 tons from Paris. 

The bank in 2013 launched the transfer to Frankfurt of 300 tons of gold from New York and 374 tons from Paris. It still has another 91 tons to return from Paris.

Once the transfers are completed this year, Frankfurt will hold half of Germany's 3,378 tons of reserve gold, with the rest in New York and London.


IN a relevant article Reuters writes:

Stashed away at the height of the Cold War in safe havens well out of Moscow’s reach, the 3,378-tonne, 120 billion-euro (102 billion-pound) gold stockpile has become a symbol of Germany’s economic ascent and a guardian of its stability.

But with Europe stumbling from crisis to crisis, the German public has grown uneasy about keeping the gold abroad. Some even argue the world’s second biggest bullion reserve may be needed to back a new deutschmark, should the euro zone break up.

Having already moved 583 tonnes of gold out of New York and Paris, the Bundesbank plans to have half its gold in Frankfurt by the end of 2017, years ahead of its 2020 schedule, with the rest split between the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the Bank of England.

“We have a lot of discussions about (U.S. President Donald) Trump, regarding implications on monetary policy, macroeconomics, etc., but we trust the central bank of the U.S.,” Bundesbank board member Carl-Ludwig Thiele told a news conference.

“Trump has not triggered a discussion about the storage facility in New York,” he said.

With French Presidential candidate Marie Le Pen and Italy’s 5-Star Movement openly campaigning to pull their nations out of the euro, confidence in the common currency appears to be waning. (full article Reuters) Hmmm......Someone expecting a EU breakup?

Turkish intelligence service MIT has allegedly built up an extensive spy network in Germany (EU) with thousands of informants.

The Turkish intelligence service MIT has allegedly built up an extensive spy network in #Germany with thousands of informants. pic.twitter.com/wbQ8rSa2DA

— dwnews (@dwnews) February 4, 2017

Berlin Christmas market attack, Wanted Tunisian suspect was known connected to Islamic state recruiters.

Berlin Christmas market attack, Wanted Tunisian suspect was known as Islamic state recruiters. (TN).

Anis Amri, the number one suspect in the ramshackle attack which killed 12 people Monday in Berlin, was suspected of preparing an attack by the German services before he went in action.

He was reported to the German counter-terrorism center in November.

German police are actively searching all over the country Anis or Ahmed Amri, a young Tunisian whose identity papers were found in the ram-truck at the origin of the attack on a Christmas market in Berlin claimed by the Islamic State (IA) group, according to media reports.

The investigators found his ID document under the driver's seat in the truck cabin which deliberately run in on wooden chalets of the busy market, killing 12 people, according to several German newspapers.

The man, known under three different identities and three different ages, reportedly applied for asylum in Germany in April.

Refused in June, he would not have been deported from Germany.

The suspect is allegedly linked to a network of alleged IS recruiters in Germany and considered particularly dangerous, according to the newspapers Süddeutsche Zeitung and Bild.

The attack took place on Monday evening in a very touristic place of Berlin, the attack also made 48 wounded, of which about fifteen between life and death. It was claimed Tuesday night by the jihadist group EI.

So far, only 34,000 refugees, which means Two percent have found jobs in Germany.

So far, only 34,000 refugees, which means Two percent have found jobs in Germany. (TheLocal).

In the last two years 1.2 million people have arrived in Germany seeking asylum. New government figures show that getting into work takes time.

A total of 34,000 refugees have found work in Germany over the past 12 months, the figures released on Monday by the government’s Institute for Labour Research (IAB) showed.

Almost quarter (22 percent) of those who have found work are on temporary contracts.

The numbers are for refugees out of the eight most important countries of origin, including Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Eritrea.

“If we manage to get 50 percent of them into work which pays for their lives in five years, that’d certainly be a success,” said Joachim Möller, director of the IAB.

But he cautioned that “it would be an illusion to believe that we will manage to find jobs for a decent proportion of refugees in well-paid industry jobs like car manufacturing.”

Möller added that temporary jobs were important to help refugees get a foot in the door.

“Many companies are sceptical, so temporary work can help them get a feel for someone.”

The refugee influx has also created between 50,000 and 60,000 jobs for Germans, with extra jobs in professions such as teacher and social worker likely to be needed for years to come, according to Möller.

'The war on Christianity' - 743 Christians Attacked by Muslims in German Refugee Camps in 2016.

'The war on Christianity' - 743 Christians Attacked by Muslims in German Refugee Camps. (Voiceofthepercecuted).

As Voice of the Persecuted has reported in the past, Christians fleeing violence are persecuted in Europe’s refugee centers.

(CBN) A new report from a coalition of Christians groups in Germany has found that 743 Christians and 10 Yezidis were victims of religiously motivated attacks in refugee camps so far this year.

The report comes from Open Doors Germany, AVC (Action on Behalf of Persecuted Christians and the Needy), IGFM (International Society for Human Rights), Aid to the Church in Need, and ZOCD (Central Council of Oriental Christians in Germany).

“The situation of Christian refugees in German refugee shelters is still unbearable. As a minority they are discriminated against, beaten up by and receive death threats from Muslim refugees and partly by the Muslim staff (security, interpreters, volunteers) on grounds of their religion,” the report says.

The Christian groups believe attacks on Christians are even more widespread than the number of reported incidents.

They call the survey, “the tip of the iceberg in regard to the number of religiously motivated attacks on Christian refugees and other religious minorities.”

“It must be assumed that there is a high number of unreported cases,” they conclude. “Effective measures for the protection of religious minorities (in refugee camps have) yet to be implemented.”

German Officials to Be Banned from Wearing Burqa and face veils.

German Officials to Be Banned from Wearing Burqa and face veils. (FP).

According to a report by Der Spiegel, citing a representative of the Ministry of internal Affairs of Germany, a bill has been proposed to ban public officials from wearing full Islamic face veils on the grounds that it obstructs clear communication.

The authors of the bill emphasize that the hidden face “restricts the ability of travelers and does not allow to assess the personality”.

“Open communication is a formative part of the ability to live together in a free, democratic society,” the draft bill read.

The proposal, presented by the German interior ministry on Friday, further states that the face veil hinders “the possibility to get to know and evaluate someone’s personality,” as reported by i24news and covered by YJC.

The bill calls on state officials to not wear “clothing that makes open communication impossible or more difficult,” including women employed as public officials.

It further stipulates that women who wear the veil show their faces during passport control, court rulings, and at polling stations.

German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere came in favor of a partial ban on the burqa in August amid a fierce national debate on integration.

“We agree that we reject the burqa, we agree that we want to introduce a legal requirement to show one’s face in places where it is necessary for our society’s coexistence — at the wheel, at public offices, at the registry office, in schools and universities, in the civil service, in court,” he said at the time.


According to official data collected in 2009, 28 percent of women in German identifying as Muslim wore some kind of covering, including either a headscarf or full face veil.

Video - German doctor attacked in office by Muslim assailant who claimed to be a Palestinian 'Jew Killer'

Hmmm........All were released.

Video - German Salafi Preacher Pierre Vogel Responds to ISIS Death Threats: Their Understanding of Jihad Is "Pure Nonsense"

Hmmmm......It's not Ok to kill women, children and Muslims....But it's OK to kill men and Non Believers.


Salafi-jihadi sheikh Abu Mundhir Al-Shinqiti said: "Sheikh Hazem [Abu Isma'il] will never be able to implement Allah's shari'a by means of these elections that perpetuate democracy, and I believe that many of the sheikhs who ruled [that people must] vote for him would agree with us that democracy and Islam are incompatible."

German police registers 69,000 Crimes committed or tentative to crime by Migrants in the last three months.

German police registers 69,000 Crimes committed or tentatives by Migrants in the last three months. (ZeroHedge). (HLN).

In the latest development that is certain to raise the heat under Merkel's cabinet and may lead to even higher support for Germany's anti-immigrant AfD party,

Reuters reports that migrants in Germany committed or tried to commit some 69,000 crimes in the first quarter of 2016, according to a police report "that could raise unease, especially among anti-immigrant groups, about Chancellor Angela Merkel's liberal migrant policy."

The report from the BKA federal police showed that migrants from northern Africa, Georgia and Serbia were disproportionately represented among the suspects. Absolute numbers of crimes committed by Syrians, Afghans and Iraqis - the three biggest groups of asylum seekers in Germany - were high but given the proportion of migrants that they account for, their involvement in crimes was "clearly disproportionately low", the report said.

In other words, just because there was so many of them, it is difficult to give a clear picture of the criminal recidivism resulting from the latest immigrant wave. The report gave no breakdown of the number of actual crimes and of would-be crimes, nor did it state what percentage the 69,000 figure represented with respect to the total number of crimes and would-be crimes committed in the first three months of 2016.

The report showed that 29.2% of the crimes migrants committed or tried to commit in the first quarter were thefts, 28.3% were property or forgery offences and 23% offences such as bodily harm, robbery and unlawful detention. Drug-related offences accounted for 6.6% and sex crimes accounted for 1.1%. Read the full story here.

'Sometimes NATO Ally' Turkey may restrict Germany’s access to Incirlik air base.

'Sometimes NATO Ally' Turkey may restrict Germany’s access to Incirlik air base. (Azernews).

Turkey may restrict Germany’s access to Incirlik air base in Adana province in a response to the Bundestag's resolution to recognize the 1915 pseudo “Armenian genocide" on June 2, reported Turkish mass media.

The issue is expected to be discussed by the Turkish government this week.

Earlier, Berlin demanded from Ankara to grant Germany additional opportunities for its air forces on Turkish territory within the framework of talks between Germany and Turkey launched in February 2016.

Incirlik air base, which was built in early 1950s, has been mostly used by the U.S and Turkish air forces as Turkey is a member of NATO.

Germany planned to build a military base to deploy its Tornado jets and soldiers, which it intended to use in a combat against ISIS.

To date, existence of the German army in Incirlik air base was temporary. If the military base is built, then German soldier will stay permanently.

At the same time, Spiegel Online reports that after the Bundestag’s resolution, it will be hard to enlarge the patrol operations against human trafficking in some parts of Aegean Sea. Read the full story here.

Merkel's Deal with Turkey in Danger of Collapse, especially with Germany planning to recognize the Armenian genocide.

Source quote here.

Merkel's Deal with 'Angry man of Europe' Turkey in Danger of Collapse. (Spiegel).

On Thursday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was standing on a stage in Ankara raging against the European Union. "Since when are you controlling Turkey?" he demanded. "Who gave you the order?" He then accused Brussels of dividing his country. "Do you think we don't know that?" It sounded as though he was laying the groundwork for a break with Europe.

 no one aside from the German chancellor appears to have much interest in the agreement anymore. Erdogan certainly doesn't: He does not want to make any concessions on his country's expansive anti-terror laws, the reform of which is one of a long list of conditions Turkey must meet before the EU will grant visa freedoms. The Europeans at large, wary of selling out their values to the autocrat in Ankara, are also deeply skeptical. And in Germany, Merkel's junior coalition partners, the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), have seized on the deal as a way to finally score some much needed political points against the powerful chancellor. Even within Merkel's own conservatives, many are seeing the troubles the deal is facing as an opportunity to break with the chancellor's disliked refugee policies.

The SPD, which has thus far supported Merkel and consistently argued that Turkey's path into the EU should be kept open, is now increasingly turning its back on the chancellor. At a joint breakfast attended by SPD government ministers on Wednesday morning at the Economics Ministry, one of those present made a plea for a more aggressive position when it comes to Turkey and the chancellor. "It's Merkel's thing and it has to remain her thing."

Horst Seehofer, head of the Christian Social Union (CSU), the Bavarian sister party to the CDU, is also taking advantage of Merkel's precarious position. "I was always skeptical as to whether the deal would work," he says. "The most recent developments have not served to reduce that skepticism." The situation, he adds, "is becoming extreme."

Manfred Weber of the CSU, who is floor leader of the center-right European People's Party, has threatened to lift Turkey's privileged access to the European market and the simplified visa application process available to Turkish businesspeople. "These things are not automatic. If President Erdogan continues to threaten us and bombard us with insults, then we'll find ourselves at a dead-end," says Weber. "Europe is not dependent on Turkey."

Currently, officials are looking into whether the results hoped for from a change to Turkey's anti-terror laws -- the protection of Kurds, opposition parliamentarians and journalists -- can be achieved in a different way. If they can, that would be a path worthy of discussion, say EU diplomats.

EU negotiators are paying particularly close attention to a constitutional amendment that the Turkish parliament intends to pass next week. The change would make it possible to lift the parliamentary immunity enjoyed by Turkish lawmakers and it is feared that such a change could disproportionately affect Kurdish parliamentarians. "Were that to come, it would have the flavor of a coup d'état," says a Brussels source.

The tone between Ankara and Berlin is likely to worsen even further on June 2, when the German parliament intends to pass a resolution commemorating the 1915 genocide carried out by Turkey on the Armenians. 

Out of consideration for the sensitive negotiations with the government in Ankara, coalition parliamentarians opted not to pursue such a resolution last year. But now, with Erdogan not showing much interest in de-escalation, Merkel's conservatives along with the SPD want to pass the bill in three weeks' time. The draft resolution speaks clearly of "genocide" and of "planned expulsion and destruction."

Germany's Foreign Ministry is certain that Ankara will summon the German ambassador to Turkey on the same day the resolution is passed. Hmmm.....Expect Erdo to go ballistic on June the second. Read the full story here.

'More Islamic State terrorist suspects traveled among incoming refugees than suspected' German Federal Criminal Police.

'More Islamic State terrorist suspects have traveled among incoming refugees than thought' German Federal Criminal Police. (DW).

Since the beginning of the refugee crisis last year, the BKA has received some 369 tipoffs regarding either specific jihadi smugglers or people supporting a terrorist organization, German newspaper "Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung" reported on Wednesday.

According to statistics provided by the BKA, some 40 investigations have been opened against the suspects, with complaints including the membership in a terrorist organization and the preparation of a serious crime.

The BKA stressed that the threat of a terror attack Germany and Europe remains high.


"More attacks by Islamist terrorist cells cannot be ruled out," the BKA said, adding, however, that they currently have no concrete evidence of a planned attack.

 Politicians from Germany's Left party, however, have warned against anti-refugee "scaremongering."
The Left's domestic policy spokesperson in the Bundestag, Ulla Jelpke, said, "The possibility that individual IS-members - including trained assassins - could be among refugees mustn't lead to asylum seekers from Syria and Iraq generally being suspected of terrorism." Read the full story here.

German Terror Expert: 'Even Germany Is Doing Too Little'.

German Terror Expert: 'Even Germany Is Doing Too Little'. (Spiegel).

In an interview following the Brussels attacks, terrorism expert Peter Neumann discusses the growing threat in Europe. Data sharing between police and intelligence agencies must be vastly increased, he argues.

Neumann: We long assumed that, in the West, IS would focus on inspiring single, independent attackers, the so-called "lone wolves." As a result, many security services were taken by surprise that IS could organize relatively complex attacks so quickly and aggressively.

SPIEGEL: Were all security services wrong in their estimation of IS?


Neumann: A high-ranking official of an intelligence service told me that no one apart from the British had anticipated anything like what we have seen. The Americans were aware of course as well, but they always warn of so many scenarios that they at times aren't even taken seriously anymore.

SPIEGEL: Are there individuals in Germany who have returned from Syria with such missions?
Neumann: Of course.

SPIEGEL: What size are IS' reserves? How many suicide bombers are waiting for their call to action?

Neumann: There are around 5,000 to 6,000 Europeans who have traveled to IS in Syria or in Iraq. Around 15 percent of those are likely to have been killed; between 25 and 50 percent will already have returned. Not every returnee is willing to fight.

But, to contrast the situation with al-Qaida, who 10 years ago had perhaps 200 fighters, the number of people they are potentially able to draw upon is a four-digit figure. There aren't just the returnees, but also the supporters in Europe who have never traveled to Syria -- such as the captured Salah Abdeslam.

SPIEGEL: The exchange of information about suspects at the European level is still lacking, despite the establishment of the European Counter Terrorism Center at Europol, the European police agency, and cooperation between intelligence services.

Neumann: Yes, we have no central database in which all the names of individuals likely to threaten public safety or formal suspects are listed. The Left Party in Germany's parliament, the Bundestag, made a small information request last year, and it emerged the database for foreign fighters contained around 2,000 names -- not even half the number of European jihadists who are fighting abroad.

And only five countries provided data at all. Even the Interpol database of stolen and lost passports is rarely used by European countries. We're not talking about a technical problem here, but a political one. If we want the Schengen area to have open borders, then we need to cooperate within it. Even Germany is doing too little in this regard.

SPIEGEL: On top of this is the fact that police forces and security services have different ways of collecting and interpreting data.


Neumann: In part they're even forbidden from sharing data. In Germany, there is a data separation rule (a post-World War II law that stipulates the separation of the work done by police and intelligence services), which is historically justified. We have to accept though that the vast majority of information about jihadist terrorists is in the hands of the secret services. I think it's sensible that the police have greater access to this information. At the moment we have a situation in Europe where the intelligence services' anti-terror task forces are not working with Europol's anti-terror department. In light of the threat posed, this is absurd.

Peter Neumann, 41, is a professor for security studies at King's College in London. In his latest book published in Germany, "The New Jihadists," he warns that Europe is facing a wave of terrorism that will haunt us for decades to come.

Video - Germany Crosses the Demographic RUBICON: Ethnic German 20-35' year old's to be a MINORITY by 2020.

"Germany abolishes itself" is the English translation of the 2010 best selling book by author Thilo Sarrazin. It was written well before the current crisis and with foresight, Mr Sarrazin delineates the costs and failure of the post war immigration system in Germany.

Hatred in their luggage.

Hatred in their luggage. (tagesspiegel)BY HANNES HEINE [Google Translated].

Ahmed, Abdul and Mohammed live in a Berlin refugee camp. From their home they have brought their code of honor. And hatred of gays, blacks and other faiths. It will be long before they actually arrive.

Tamer, is the security guard, for refugee camp. It drizzles, a dull day. In the building around 300 asylum seekers living in two- to four-bedded rooms. Three of them sit in the home kitchen.

• Jews? They control the Media, in the West but also in Russia and Iran. Says Ahmed, wiry, 20, from Syria.
• Black? Some "monkey" are clean, most of them are a plague. Says Mohammed, well fed, 20, from Egypt.
• Homosexuals? Disgusting, it was up to God, they should not live. Says Abdul, gaunt, 30, from Afghanistan.

Unexcited, kind and gentle the three men explain: women obey the man. Strikes were permissible but unwanted. Women must indeed obey.

Once has an apartment, Abdul wants more children. And the daughter should marry. At 14, 15 year age. What, in Germany nude women are allowed lying on the beach, but young girls can not get married? Read the full story here. (German).

German regional elections - big winner was without question the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD).

German regional elections - big winner was without question the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD).

The day’s big winner was without question the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). The party ran a xenophobic campaign that played on public fears about refugees. It took nearly a quarter of the votes in Saxony-Anhalt, where it finished second. The party, which appeared on the ballot for the first time, won more than 10 percent of the vote in the other two states as well, signaling broad regional opposition to Merkel’s stance on refugees.

All of the established parties took a thrashing in at least one state. The Greens, for example, won Baden-Württemberg but collapsed in Rhineland Palatinate. The Social Democrats held Rhineland Palatinate but slumped in the other two states to historic lows.

But no party was hit harder than Merkel’s CDU, with declining support across the board. The result will have profound political implications for the chancellor both in Germany and Europe.

For years, Germany appeared to be an island in Europe as the only major country without a strong far-right populist movement. Political scientists and columnists debated the degree to which the German anomaly was rooted in the trauma of the country’s 20th century history.

Turns out these voters were always there, they just weren’t voting. In all three states that held elections Sunday, the main source of the AfD’s support was from voters who hadn’t cast a ballot in the last election. It also poached hundreds of thousands of voters from the established parties, in particular, Merkel’s CDU. The AfD’s strong showing reflects deep dissatisfaction in many parts of Germany with the political establishment.

Support for such parties in other countries has proved volatile. While the refugee backlash proved to be a perfect match for the AfD’s anti-foreigner message, support for such parties in other countries has proved volatile.

Nonetheless, that the party managed to capture between 12.5 percent and 24 percent of the vote in its first running in the three states that held elections on Sunday is nothing short of stunning. It suggests that AfD, which has morphed from an anti-euro movement into the kind of right-wing populist party typical across Europe, is here to stay.

The CDU and the CSU, its more conservative Bavarian sister, will likely be tempted to try to recapture the support they’ve lost on their right flank.

So far, those attempts have largely failed, as voters opted for the original. Hmmm......As i predicted months ago ! In my opinion this doesn't mean that all voters of AfD are right extreme , just if their current leadership doesn't act on their grievances they will look for an alternative that will. (Protest votes). Read the full story here.

@HasanSari7 @EjmAlrai predicted Right wing extremism will rise everywhere, if govs don't handle events well, they will look for new leaders

— MFS - The Other News (@MFS001) November 21, 2015