Perhaps some of those who don't want her to resign simply fear a worse alternative who will exarcerbate the problem.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-eu...-idUSKCN0V80IH

That's a new one. First she welcomed them. Then she talked about integrating them. Now she's talking about sending them all back?

And she thinks they will all go happily "with the knowledge they have gained"? What loopy fairy world is Merkel living in?

...or maybe she has something more diabolical in mind, like implanting millions of German speaking and German trained sympathizers into the heart of the Middle East in a quest for a greater "German Reich"? Maybe we all have Merkel pegged wrong.

...or wait, the hook is "they will return when there is peace in the Middle East", ah-ha, so basically never

Merkel is political corpse. Finally.

Was in Germany again this weekend with the Oh's family and just some random observations.

Some AfD lady let off a bomb recently saying that border guards ought to shoot people who don't stop when told to do so. Of course that was a silly thing to say, with that person probably trying to pull a Trump while failing to understand Trump's method. There was of course a huge fallout over that with all the usual suspects falling over one another to find the stronger condemnation, and with predictably some howlers going off. One person said on the radio something like "border gaurds would never used their guns to shoot defenceless refugees" making one wonder whether that last word was a Freudian slip, and which class of defencless people they might indeed be ordered to shoot at. The German media, being a bunch of Gutmenschen, didn't demand a clarification.

Meanwhile Merkel let off some guff saying that criminals who could not be sent to their own countries could be sent to third countries. She didn't say whether this also included German citizens, or indeed what special deal she was striking with these third countries to make them accept that. Echoes of extraordinary rendition? The Gutmensch media didn't ask and didn't mention it?

Meanwhile, an interesting story on repatriating failed asylum seekers. Some neighbours had "adopted" a young boy, a (supposed) minor, from Africa and applied for asylum for him. Well, it turned out it was all turned down and some armed gaurds knocked on their door at 3am and escorted him away. Turned out this boy had entered Germany from Switzerland and he was thus put on a plane to Zürich, caught a train, and was back with his family the very next day who have in the meantime made another asylum application for him. But I guess this is how they can populate the statistics of repatriating failed applicants.

Another interesting article from a Jewish/German perspective.

http://www.juedische-allgemeine.de/a.../view/id/24467

Merkel faces test as Germany votes in regional elections
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-35796831

Huge anti merkel demo in berlin yesterday... not widely reported on though

Wouldn't be surprised. Chancellor's latest actions drive lots of folks mad. Keeping one's fingers crossed won't simply help to solve humanitarian crisis with refugees, she put herself and everyone in.

Don't like Angela Merkel, she stands for nothing, has no backbone , the only
(politicial) goal she has to remain in power.
But the other political parties in germany are not an alternative, it is the same
(roughly), the major problems for germany remain unsolved, the gap between rich and poor will widen, the people pay a huge price for the succesful economy.The major problems are unemployment, Hospitalcare, the growing numbers of the ageing society, no future prospects for "the underclass", infrastucture, Pensions, refugees.
No political party in germany provides solutions or is even willing to discuss the matters. The voters in germany don't have much power at all, you can choose only between plague and cholera.

That sounds like a daily business in politics almost everywhere in the world, except when we start dreaming that there is an alternative

No... saying "they are all the same" just continues the paralysis... right now Germans need to send a strong message that they will vote in radicals if the establishment does not act.

I don't think her main goal is to remain in power. She would have changed course by now if that was the case and be doing something more wooly pretending to compromise and being mama of the nation again as she was in old times.

She has a messianic complex. She believes she is doing the right thing and she has burnt all bridges and does not have a plan B. She is prepared to go down gun in hand. All criticism only reinforces her resolve to stick the course. A cornered fox is a dangerous fox. It seems to me that all her actions of late have been geared towards preparing her own funeral pyre and making sure the flames shoot as high as possible.

Reminds me of a certain Austrian painter.

Right thing for who ? Certainly not for the German people , not for the million plus who have come in illegally with no hope of assimilation into normal German society since we learn now , despite the bleatings on this and other fora that they had skills - that more than 70% have no education to speak of.

I agree with you that this will end in very very bitter tears.

Another problem is that germany has no immigration law at all, like canada or australia.The took everybody from russia , who might be possibly related to a german. The open border policies encouraged even complete poor trained people to search for shelter in germany.The expectations of some refugees been way to high, the process of integration will take likely more then a decade.Some companys are happy trying acquire new staff for a salary next to nothing.A lot of people from the balkan states work for 2-3 euros an hour , they get picked up every day to work at construction sites or cleaning companys.
This will put a lot of pressure to the "underclass" in germany , who live from
"Hartz IV" or low paid work ( getting like a 1000 euros net or less).
Some soup kitchens in germany don't have enough supplies, so their clients can show up only once in 2 weeks.
The only solution will be an immigration law(System with points like Australia), but the parties in germany have other priorities, they tackle only the "current"problems what get attention in the media to calm the people(voters).

Germany is in the EU.
Basically anybody from any EU state (with exceptions from the newest Eastern-European ones - don't know if this restriction is still in effect) can move here and look for a job.
Though they can't rely in social security right away, AFAIK.
As for the rest of the world - it's not that easy to get accepted actually.
But until the final decision on that has been made, people stay here (often helped by a cottage industry of lawyers, NGOs and people who like to help other people in need).
This can take years.


Historically, politicians in Germany have certain reservations against immigration-systems that basically require "selecting" good from bad immigrants, if you get what I mean.
Voters for one party might not want any immigration at all, so a quota system would actually acknowledge the fact that there is immigration (a Pandora's box nobody wants to open).
Voters for other parties might object to the idea of "limits", "quotas" - or the above "selection"-process...
Historically, the SPD has been pro-immigration. Recently however, they've realized that their core-members and voters aren't really pro-immigration because their voters are actually marginalized by immigrants in the labor-market...
SPD is on the verge of becoming a fringe-party like the FPD.

These are the numbers of foreigners in each part of the country:

http://de.statista.com/statistik/dat...ro-bundesland/

These are the absolute number of foreigerns in germany:
http://de.statista.com/statistik/fak...n-deutschland/


These are the numbers of foreigners in germany Dec.31 2014, in the past year germany received more the one milion refugees.There have to be a
tool , to control who has a perspective in germany and who not.

Most foreigners concentrate in a few parts of germany, thats a big problem for the integration, when they live in their own parts of the city.

Can you wrap that into a code-block (the hash-sign next to the youtube button)?
It's unreadable.

Only Sweden was as welcoming to the migrants as Angela Merkel.

I admire her, she grew up in the DDR which couldn't have been easy, but was probably good training for her political career. She is a strong leader with a bunch of wimps in her party, pulling her party down to the average European view on migration.

It is disgraceful that the eastern European countries have closed their borders: they could easily have arranged for locked trains to take the migrants into Germany, instead they are pushing them into the arms of the people traffickers. For €6'000 the traffickers are offering a bus ride to Albania and a small rubber boat crossing to Italy.

The EU is waking up at last, and it looks like Turkey will be bribed to take them all in, while at the same time there are mutterings that Europe will take the established migrants into the EU.

You mean that Eastern European countries served the interests of the EU , unlike Greece & unlike Merkel's Germany.

AZR = Central Register of Foreigners
http://www.bva.bund.de/DE/Themen/Sic...ster-node.html