End of Issue #32 |

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Editorial and Rants
More proof "multinational" forces don't work.
Kill all Eurosavages.
Confronted by the Islamist Threat on all Sides, Europe Pathetically Caves In
September 22, 2006 - From: www.timesonline.co.uk
By Gerard Baker
LATE LAST YEAR, at the invitation of Nato, and in the company of a small band of globetrotting pundits, I travelled to Afghanistan to witness first-hand the allied operation to reconstruct the benighted country.
After a day of briefings in Kabul, our friendly Nato hosts flew us by military transport to Herat, on the western border with Iran. We were due to spend a day touring a Nato post in the city and then fly back that evening to the capital. But the Danish plane that had taken us developed propeller problems and was grounded. As we cooled our heels outside the airfield , we waited for word of the aircraft that was supposed to come for us: a German C-130.
It soon became clear that the replacement plane was not coming. The reason, it turned out, was that the Germans would not fly in the dark. German aircraft are not permitted by their national rules to undertake night flights.
Now to those who survived the Blitz and Barbarossa, the news that today's Luftwaffe will not fly at night in potentially hostile environments might be regarded as a welcome historical development. But when you are trying to fight a war against a ruthless band of terrorists who operate 24/7, never pausing to consider the dangers of venturing out in the dark, limiting yourself to daytime operations is a little constraining.
The Germans are not alone. Many of the European nations with forces in Afghanistan are operating under similarly ludicrous restrictions. Though their soldiers and airmen are highly capable and indeed eager to take the fight to the Taleban, their governments are desperately fearful of the public reaction should their soldiers suffer significant casualties. They don't think that their voters will stomach it. And the tragedy is, they are probably right.
I was reminded of my unscheduled night in Herat, and what it said about Europe's dwindling commitment to its own survival, by a series of disheartening developments in the past week on the political and diplomatic front.
Last week we had the tragicomic spectacle of European Nato countries lining up to decline politely the request to beef up their forces in Afghanistan, many of whom are now fighting in perilously under-resourced conditions against a resurgent enemy.
Then on Monday Jacques Chirac went to New York to upend the long, delicate diplomacy designed to deny Iran nuclear weapons. He said France no longer thought the UN should impose sanctions if Iran did not end its uranium enrichment programme.
Various explanations were offered by commentators for this volte-face -- from the thought that France might be fearful of the economic consequences of sanctions, to the possibility that M Chirac was trying to curry favour with sanctions-opposing Russia and China, to the suggestion that Paris worries that its new peacekeeping force in Lebanon might come under fire from Hezbollah if France acted tough with its Iranian sponsors.
Whatever the proximate cause of this latest French surrender, the basic reality is that Europeans have been extremely reluctant to press Iran with sanctions all along -- the same noises are coming out of Berlin now -- and are content instead to acquiesce in the nightmare of a nuclear-armed Tehran.
Then, of course, we have had the predictable European outrage following the latest apparent provocation of Islamic extremists by free speech in the West -- Pope Benedict XVI's remarks last week on Islam.
I actually heard a senior member of the British Government chide the Pope this week for what he described as his unhelpful comments. This minister went on to say that the Pope should keep quiet about Islamic violence because of the Crusades.
It was a jaw-dropping observation. If it was meant seriously its import is that, because of violence perpetrated in the name of Christ 900 years ago, today's Church, and presumably today's European governments (who, after all, were eager participants in the Crusades) should forever hold their peace on the subject of religious fanaticism. In this view the Church's repeated apologies for the sins committed in its name apparently are not enough. The Pope has no right, even in a lengthy disquisition on the complexities of faith and reason, to say anything about the religious role in Islamic terrorism.
It is apt that Pope Benedict should have received such European opprobrium for his remarks. His election last year looked like a final attempt by the Church to revive the European spirit in the face of accelerating secularisation and cultural morbidity.
But the scale of Europe's moral crisis is larger than ever. Opposing the war in Iraq was one thing, defensible in the light of events. But opting out of a serious fight against the Taleban, sabotaging efforts to get Iran off its path towards nuclear status, pre-emptively cringing to Muslim intolerance of free speech and criticism, all suggest something quite different.
They imply a slow but insistent collapse of the European will, the steady attrition of the self-preservation instinct. Its effects can be seen not only in the political field, but in other ways -- the startling decline of birth rates across the continent that represent a sort of self-inflicted genocide; the refusal to confront the harsh realities of a global economy.
It may well be that history will judge that Europe's decline came at the very moment of its apparent triumph. The traumas of the first half of the 20th century have combined with the economic successes of the second half to induce a collective loss of will. Great civilisations die not in the end because of external force majeure but because internally the will to thrive is sapped.
The symptoms of this moral collapse may be far away from the affluent and still largely peaceful cities and towns of the old continent -- in the mountains of Afghanistan, the diplomatic reception halls of Tehran and the angry Pope-effigy-burning streets of the Middle East. But there should be no doubt that it is closer to home where the disease has taken hold.
You didn't see this on CNN!
Kill all Eurosavages.
Iraqi Report Could Prove Damaging to Germany
December 17, 2002 - From: www.dw-world.de
Just as the heated debates within the German government over the role of German troops and equipment in a possible war against Iraq seem to be cooling down, another potential bombshell threatens to reignite the fires.
On Tuesday, the Berlin-based left-wing paper, Tageszeitung reported that aspects of the 12,000-page Iraqi report on Iraq's weapons programs, submitted to the U.N. last week, could prove highly embarrassing for Germany.
The newspaper - believed to be the first to have access to the top-secret dossier - has written that the Iraqi declaration contains the names of 80 German firms, research laboratories and people, who are said to have helped Iraq develop its weapons program.
Germany, Iraq's number one arms supplier?
The most contentious piece of news for Germany is that the report names it as the number one supplier of weapons supplies to Iraq. German firms are supposed to easily outnumber the firms from other countries who have been exporting to Iraq.
They have delivered technical know-how, components, basic substances and even entire technical facilities for the development of atomic, chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction to Iraq right since 1975.
In some cases, conventional military and technical dealings between Germany and Iraq are said to date till 2001, ten years after the second Gulf war and a time when international sanctions against Saddam Hussein are still in place.
The paper reports that the dossier contains several indications of cases, where German authorities right up to the Finance Ministry tolerated the illegal arms cooperation and also promoted to it to an extent.
Wait and watch says German Finance Ministry
The German Finance Ministry has said that it will react to the report only once it has studied the Iraqi declaration.
"We'll first wait till the report is in our hands," a spokesman from the ministry said on Tuesday.
The spokesman however said that the German government of the time in 1990 had informed the parliament about such German supplies to Iraq.
Ever since Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, there has been a strict embargo against the country. The spokesman said that there have been a few cases of violation of the embargo and the government has initiated investigations.
German military exports to Iraq nothing new
Explosive as the newspaper report may appear, it's not the first of its kind.
For months rumors have been circulating in the German media of murky deals between German arms companies and businessmen with Iraq despite the rigid embargoes in place.
In October this year, a magazine of the German radio channel, Sudwestrundfunk reported that electronics giant Siemens had delivered specialized technical equipment to Iraq for the treatment of kidney stones, but which could also under certain circumstances be used as a detonator for atom bombs.
Siemens insisted that the device could not be misused because it had commissioned an Iraqi company to regularly monitor the equipment. In fact the delivery was even sanctioned by the sanctions council of the U.N. and the Federal Office of Economics and Export Control (BAFA).
The latest newspaper report also touches upon the gray zone between medicine and armaments and writes of so-called dual-use goods that can be used for developing weapons as well as for civilian purposes.
The German government was apparently informed in 1999 of the delivery of such dual-use goods to Iraq, but is said to have turned a blind eye.
German defense firms conduct roaring trade with Baghdad
German arms companies in the meantime have been conducting booming business with Iraq in recent years. According to the German Federal Statistics Office, German military exports to Iraq have been steadily rising from year to year.
From annual exports amounting to 21,7 million euro in 1997, the volume of exports for the following year shot to some 76,4 million euro. The trend continued in 2001 with exports to Iraq bringing German firms profits in the range of 336,5 million euro.
German goods worth 226,2 million euro have already been shipped to Iraq in the first half of this year. Some of the official heavyweights in the export scene are the German electronics firm Siemens with medical equipment and energy distribution systems and carmaker DaimlerChrysler. Both are reported to rake in revenues worth double digit figures in the millions.
Chancellor Schroeder in precarious situation
Though the German government has not officially reacted to the Iraqi declaration detailing its role in supplying Iraq with arms, there is little doubt that the issue is bound to stoke passions.
Ever since Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder refused to be part of any military action in Iraq before the German general elections in September, Berlin's relation to Washington has been a strained one.
With Schroeder sticking to his pacifist line, but dithering over the level of cooperation with the U.S. in the case of a war against Iraq, the latest report is guaranteed to provide ammunition to the opposition who have strongly criticized Schroeder's policy towards America.
Another real fear is that Schroeder's image as a staunch pacifist might now be sullied if it emerges that Germany has all along been helping the very leader who it has been unwilling to topple, to stockpile his weapons.
The report could also provide the U.S. with an excuse to step up the pressure on Germany to give in to American military demands for deployment of German troops and use of German military equipment in the case of a military attack on Iraq.
Norway has several oil drilling operations in northern Iraq. Funny, they can protect that...
Kill all Eurosavages.
No to NATO
September 13, 2006 - From: www.aftenposten.no
The Norwegian soldiers, many of them fresh from basic training, were in danger earlier this month of being sent from the relatively calm north to escalating conflicts with the Taliban in the south.
NATO wants to shift more force to fight the Taliban in the area and sketched out a draft order that would move Norway's Quick Reaction Force from the north to Kandahar in the troubled south. There it would relieve an allied watch force which in turn would join the fight against the Taliban.
Defense Department spokesman Kjetil Eide in Oslo said that NATO had sent an 'inquiry' and not an 'order'. Norway's vice-admiral Jan Reksten decided to exercise the right of members to veto ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) orders.
"This was an assignment not in keeping with the what the Norwegian soldiers were sent to Afghanistan to do," brigadier Gunnar Gustavsen, chief of staff at the Joint Defense operative headquarters, told Aftenposten.
According to Aftenposten's sources, the NATO plan would not have meant using Norwegian soldiers in combat operations.
Norway has made it clear that its forces in Afghanistan are not sufficiently trained to take part in combat and not properly equipped to do so either.
Wow! A Eurosavage country helping Al-Qaeda. There's a real shocker!
Kill all Eurosavages.
Weekly Claims Wartime Bosnian President Linked to Al-Qaeda
September 8, 2006 - From: www.adnki.com
Bosnia's wartime president, the late Alija Izetbegovic received money from a Saudi businessman, Yassin al-Kadi - who has been designated by the United States, the United Nations, and the European Union as a financier of al-Qaeda - Sarajevo weekly Slobodna Bosna (Free Bosnia) has reported, quoting local and foreign sources.
Izetbegovic, a Muslim, who died in 2003, received 195,000 dollars in 1996 from al-Kadi, Slobodna Bosna alleges. Al-Kadi's bank accounts were frozen in 2001 by the United States authorities for money laundering and financing al-Qaeda.
The weekly said that Bosnian authorities obtained the information on this transaction from a British bank in the process of investigation of activities of al-Kadi's humanitarian organisation, Mufavak, which was outlawed four years ago and which began operating in Bosnia under the name 'Blessed relief'.
Under the guise of humanitarian aid, Mufavak channelled 15-20 million dollars to various organisations, which at least three million dollars went straight into the bank accounts of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, Slobodna Bosna said, quoting unnamed Saudi sources.
Izetbegovic led Bosnia to independence from the former Yugoslavia, and thousands of foreign fighters or 'mujahadeen' from Islamic countries came to Bosnia to fight on the side of local Muslims in bloody 1992-1995 civil war. The war effort was partly financed under the cover of 'humanitarian' organisations from Islamic countries, according to intelligence sources.
Many mujahadeen remained in Bosnia after the war, and some have been operating terrorist training camps and indoctrinating local youths with radical Islam, intelligence reports have claimed. The Bosnian authorities are currently reviewing the citizenship Izetbegovic's government granted to 1,500 individuals from Islamic countries. So far, 50 people have been stripped of their Bosnian citenship as a result.
Wow! The Germans are helping terrorists. There's a real shocker!
Kill all Eurosavages.
Terrorist Ali Hamadi Rejoins Hezbollah Following Release From Prison
September 12, 2006 - From: www.foxnews.com
By James Rosen
WASHINGTON -- One of the most infamous terrorists of the 1980s has rejoined Hezbollah following his release from a German prison and deportation to his native Lebanon in December 2005, a senior Bush administration official told FOX News.
Mohammed Ali Hamadi was released despite strong U.S. objections, FOX News learned. Those objections were raised in phone calls to German authorities by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and FBI Director Robert Mueller, as well as by top-level State Department and administration counter-terrorism officials.
"[The Germans] ignored us and didn't give us enough time to pursue it through legal action," an official told FOX News on the condition of anonymity. "They gave us very short notice."
U.S. officials said they "can't rule out" the possibility that Germany deported Hamadi, after he had served 19 years of a life sentence, in exchange for the release of Susanne Osthoff, a German archeologist taken hostage in Iraq and freed four days after Hamadi's deportation. German authorities have denied any such deal was made.
In June 1985, Hamadi was one of four Islamic militants who commandeered TWA Flight 847 -- en route from Athens to Rome -- and hijacked it to Beirut. The ensuing hostage ordeal lasted 17 days, with the plane shuttling among various Mediterranean airports.
On the second day of the hijacking, Hamadi and his accomplices learned that U.S. Navy diver Robert Dean Stethem was on board. Hamadi and his co-conspirators beat Stethem unconscious, then shot him to death and dumped his body on the tarmac of the Beirut airport. The hijackers later escaped.
In 1987, Hamadi was arrested in Frankfurt, Germany, for carrying explosives in his bag at the airport. He was convicted both on that charge and of Stethem's murder and sentenced to life in prison. Late last year he was paroled by the German authorities and deported to Lebanon.
On Dec. 21, 2005, shortly after Hamadi's return to Lebanon, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters: "I think what I can assure anybody who's listening, including Mr. Hamadi, is that we will track him down, we will find him and we will bring him to justice in the United States for what he's done.
"We will make every effort, working with the Lebanese authorities or whomever else, to see that he faces trial for the murder of Mr. Stethem."
At a press briefing Tuesday, State Department spokesperson Tom Casey confirmed that contact had been made with the Lebanese government regarding Hamadi, and that the case remains active.
"The United States still believes that he and anyone else who is responsible for such heinous acts should face justice," Casey said. "And we do continue to wish to see him be brought to the United States to face trial here."
Hamadi's alleged accomplices -- Hassan Izz-Al-Din, Ali Atwa and Imad Mughniyeh -- were never captured.
Mughniyeh is also believed to be responsible for the 1983 barracks bombing that killed 241 U.S. Marines in Lebanon and for the 1984 torture and murder of William Buckley, the CIA Station Chief in Beirut.
Mughniyeh, who is believed to have undergone extensive plastic surgery to make himself unrecognizable, has been described in the media as "probably the world's most wanted outlaw."
Upon hearing news of Hamadi's release in 2005, Stethem's family members said they would keep pressuring the U.S. government to seek extradition from Lebanon.
"We'll be after him," Stethem's mother, Patricia, said of Hamadi. "We won't let it rest."
And you wonder why Eurosavages don't support sanctions. They are in bed with the ragheads!
Kill all Eurosavages.
Iran's Commercial Ties With Italy Growing
August 28, 2006 - From: www.iranmania.com
LONDON, August 28 (IranMania) - Secretary of Iran-Italy Chambers of Commerce said that investing in Iranian projects implies concurrent investment in all regional countries given that Iran is the pivotal country in the Persian Gulf and Central Asia-Caucasus regions.
Speaking to ILNA, Jamshid Haqgou added that the volume of trade between Iran and Italy in 2006 has increased. This is while in 2005 bilateral trade amounted to over five billion dollars, he said noting, "The figure is rapidly increasing and we predict that by the end of this year it will exceed $5.5 billion."
He added, "Iranian investments in Italy are very meager and limited to small companies only. However, there are more opportunities for Italian businessmen to invest in Iran than the other way around."
Haqgou recalled that investing in Iranian undertakings can be very attractive for Italians and Europeans.
"However, suitable conditions do not exist for investments due to tensions in the Middle East. The most important barriers are regiona conditions and local banking regulations. This is while Iran needs foreign investments to ensure its advancement based on its 20-Year Vision," he noted.
Eurosavages care about "human rights" only when it can bash America.
Kill all Eurosavages.
Europe's 'Moral Outrage'
December 4, 2005 - From: www.opinionjournal.com
Europe is enthralled by another American "torture scandal." Governments demand the truth behind allegations, first made by the Washington Post last month, that the CIA has operated covert prisons in Europe and secretly transported terrorist suspects through European airports. Human Rights Watch claims to have located the prisons in "New Europe"--Poland and Romania.
The outrage on the Continent is deafening. Franco Frattini, the normally level-headed European Commissioner for Justice, threatened "serious consequences," including the unprecedented "suspension of voting rights" in the European Union for the Poles and Romanians if the allegations prove true. After all, "European values" would have been violated.
It is difficult to comment on the substance of the allegations because there isn't much substance at the moment. Both the Romanian and Polish governments have denied the reports, while Washington promised to look into the case. So for the time being, there are only allegations and a lot of moral outrage. That moral posturing, though, deserves a closer look.
We'd be the first to applaud Europeans for finally concerning themselves with moral principles instead of commercial interests. Many of the Middle East's problems, including terrorism, would be easier solved if Europe were seriously concerned about morality. Europe would no longer be Iran's No. 1 trading partner, and its companies wouldn't be able to attend trade fairs in Sudan anymore.
Unlike American companies--recently defamed in Germany as "(blood) suckers" and "locusts" by the former government--European firms are quite busy in Sudan. The chamber of commerce and industry in Stuttgart has enthused over what great opportunities Sudan's oil resources offer to German companies.
Lest people think they are doing something morally reprehensible, the salesmen from Stuttgart prefer to describe the massacres of black Africans in Darfur as "political disturbances." The German economics ministry, which sponsored the German pavilion at last February's trade fair in Sudan, will also support next February's event, the chamber of commerce assures its members.
Where is the outrage? How does that jibe with supposed European values?
Or who in Europe has heard of Soghra, an Iranian woman sentenced in October to death by stoning for adultery? Or Mokhtar N. and Ali A., hanged last month in a public square in Iran for homosexuality?
In much of Europe's public debate, the true meaning of human rights has degenerated into a tool that gives anti-Americanism an aura of legitimacy. The real, horrendous human-rights violations in the Middle East, North Korea, China, Cuba, etc., are largely ignored or relegated to news blurs on the back pages. For front-page coverage, you need an American angle.
It is often said that this has nothing to do with anti-Americanism but with the fact that democracies, such as the U.S., must be held to higher standards. Really? Let's look at some recent European violations of human rights.
In October, the European Council's Commissioner for Human Rights inspected what the French call a detention center for foreigners. Alvaro Gil-Robles believes it is more properly called a dungeon. "With the exception of maybe Moldavia, I have not seen a worse center," he said about the facilities underneath the Palais de Justice in Paris, located not more than a few hundred yards from Notre Dame.
And what was Europe's reaction to these astonishing accusations? A yawn, a few wire reports and press pickups; that's it. After all, those prisoners, locked up under horrendous sanitary conditions, without natural sunlight and ventilation, some of whom, according to one prison guard, have in desperation mutilated themselves and smeared their blood on the walls, were only simple illegal immigrants. No need to suspend French voting privileges on their account, that's for sure.
Let's imagine for a moment the media coverage, the moral outcries and the calls for inquiries if those unfortunates had not been harmless migrants held in the City of Lights but jihadi terrorists held by Yankee soldiers?
Or take the double standard about allegations that CIA planes have used European airports to bring terror suspects to third countries where they might be tortured. The fact that Europe routinely sends back thousands of asylum seekers to countries where they could be tortured does not make the front pages, though. As recently as October, Amnesty International accused the Spanish government of violating the European Human Rights Convention for the mass expulsion of African migrants from the Spanish enclaves in Morocco. "Torture and bad treatment is endemic in Morocco," Esteban Beltran, the director of the Spanish Amnesty International section said.
If he could have proved that some of those poor souls trying to reach Europe to start a better life were in fact terrorists, and if he could have also somehow implicated the U.S. in their expulsion, he might have been able to get an audience for his complaints.
Anti-Americanism is so prevalent in Europe that it has permeated almost all areas of public discourse--from arts to politics to economies. "American conditions" is a popular German slur against alleged social coldness in the U.S.--one that former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has "successfully" used to reject necessary economic reforms. And just as it has poisoned the economic debate in Europe, anti-Americanism also poisons the debate about how to deal with terrorism. Any measure that involves the U.S. is almost immediately tainted as being beyond the pale.
That's particularly true because in the public debate in Europe, as all too often in the U.S. as well, terrorism is still seen as a conventional threat. That it is decidedly not, one doesn't need to trust the Bush Administration alone. Here is what Europe's antiterror czar, the Dutch Gijs de Vries, told us recently: "Bin Laden has called the acquisition of nuclear weapons by terrorists a religious duty. There is every reason to believe that here, as elsewhere, he is deadly serious about this."
Those decrying secret prisons and tougher interrogation methods (assuming the allegations have some validity) have yet to spell out what kind of "humane" treatment they would give to bombers whose mission it is to destroy Western civilization. If they can't, their complaints are hypocritical and intellectually shallow. How many bombing murders on European soil does it take for this realization to sink in?
Were they wearing a "Free Mumia" T-shirt?
Kill all Eurosavages.
Outrage After Two Police Ambushed in Suburb
September 20, 2006 - From: www.expatica.com
EVRY, France, Sept 20, 2006 (AFP) - Police unions reacted with outrage Wednesday after two members of a CRS anti-riot unit were badly hurt in an ambush by youths in the southern Paris suburb of Corbeil-Essonnes.
The men were patrolling Tuesday night in an unmarked car in the Les Tartarets housing project when the vehicle was attacked with stones, a police spokesman said.
When one of the officers left the vehicle, he was set upon by about 20 youths who had been hiding in the undergrowth.
"The driver rushed to help. The two were then covered in blows to the face and other parts of the body as they lay on the ground," the spokesman said. The gang dispersed when reinforcements arrived.
Both officers suffered injuries to the face and head, as well as bruising to the body. One was hospitalised.
The Synergie-Officier police union said it was "revolted by this savage attack .... These explosions of violence against the police are a kind of guerrilla warfare aimed at getting the forces of law and order to leave certain areas in order to immerse them in a logic of sedition and terror."
The UNSA union said the officers were "victims of a genuine ambush by individuals whose sole aim was to attack the forces of law and order."
Opposition parties said the attack was a sign that the security policies of Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, a likely presidential candidate in next year's election, have failed.
It followed a stark warning about the risk of a new outbreak of suburban rioting in a letter published Tuesday from the prefect or state-appointed governor of the Seine-Saint-Denis department, centre of last year's disturbances.
Jean-Francois Cordet told Sarkozy in a letter sent in June that tensions were continuing to rise in the northern Paris suburbs -- with rising crime, a court system that was failing to punish, and the active incitement of Islamic radicals.
In a statement Wednesday the Socialist party (PS) said that the attack on the two policemen "showed that the alarming comments made by the prefect of Seine-Saint-Denis apply to many other suburbs as well."
Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin said that the government will "draw lessons from what has happened in order to devise appropriate responses ... to the risks to which part of our forces of law and order are exposed."
Is that part of that infamous "cultural superiority?"
Kill all Eurosavages.
Nazis Set to Claim German Seats
September 14, 2006 - From: www.theage.com.au
By Allan Hall
NEO-NAZIS are set to gain important seats in German Chancellor Angela Merkel's home state on Sunday in an election that will show a dark past continues to haunt the country.
As many as 12 MPs are forecast to be elected in the state near Berlin, which US President George Bush visited in July. They will join other neo-Nazis elected in Saxony two years ago as legislators in a state government.
Despite attacks against black people in the run-up to the World Cup -- itself themed against racism -- and warnings of no-go zones in the former communist east because of right-wing violence, the lure of extremist politics remains strong in the region.
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, near Berlin, will vote on Sunday for a new legislature that will control vital areas such as police, education and health. A bloc of NPD (National Democratic Party) politicians would be embarrassing and controversial, influencing policy in the region.
The strength of the far-right highlights the continuing agony of east Germany 15 years after the Berlin Wall fell. Unemployment remains above 20 per cent in most places, more than a million people have gone west and little investment has been forthcoming for those left behind.
In the past decade-and-a-half, Berlin has hurled about $A2.5 trillion at the 17 million citizens who once lived behind the Iron Curtain.
East Germany loses 80 people a day. Since reunification, 1.4 million of its best and brightest young people have left.
In Meck-Pomm, as locals call it, that has left behind the hardened skinheads and others who have turned to the dubious glories of the Nazi period. In some towns unemployment is as high as 25 per cent.
The NPD is Germany's oldest neo-Nazi party and is set to win about 6 per cent of the vote in the September 17 election. Far-right parties would then be represented in three of the six state parliaments in eastern Germany.
Its xenophobia, anti-semitism and fondness for the Third Reich are couched behind populist rants against globalisation and the European Union.





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