Germany Admits Europe Was Freeriding on USA

Germany's Merz tells BBC Europe was free-riding on US

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has accepted US accusations that Europe was doing too little to fund its own defence and security, but now believes they are on the same page.

"We know we have to do more on our own and we have been free-riders in the past," he told the BBC's Today Programme, "they're asking us to do more and we are doing more."

Merz was in the UK to boost defence ties with Germany, as part of an historic friendship treaty that also aims to tackle irregular migration and promote youth exchanges.

Russia's war with Ukraine has framed the early weeks of his chancellorship, as has US President Donald Trump's threat to impose 30% import tariffs on European Union exports from 1 August.

Merz told Nick Robinson, in his first UK broadcast interview as chancellor, that he had now met Trump three times and they were on good speaking terms: "I think President Trump is on the same page; we are trying to bring this war to an end."

"We are on the phone once a week; we are co-ordinating our efforts. One issue is the war in Ukraine, and the second is our trade debates and tariffs."

Merz was a vocal supporter of Ukraine on the campaign trail, and visited Kyiv months before he took Germany's centre-right Christian Democrats to victory in elections in February.

Four days after he was sworn in early in May, he was on a train to Kyiv in a show of solidarity with Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and President Emmanuel Macron of France.

"We are seeing a big threat, and the threat is Russia. And this threat is not only on Ukraine. It's on our peace, on our freedom, on the political order of Europe," he warned.

In the run-up to the German elections, US Vice-President JD Vance shocked an audience at the Munich Security Conference with a list of accusations against European allies, including the UK.

Reflecting on the remarks, Merz said the government "had to draw our consequences out of that". The message from Vance's "very open manner" had, in other words, been heard loud and clear.

Jeff Overs/BBC

Merz was speaking to the BBC's Nick Robinson in his first UK broadcast interview as chancellor

Canan Atilgan of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in London which is closely affiliated to Merz's party believes that had a profound effect on the incoming chancellor: "I think in Munich he thought we lost the Americans - we have to look after ourselves - and then Zelensky in the Oval Office happened."

Even before he had been sworn in, the chancellor steered through a change in the German constitution to enable a huge rise in defence spending, saying the rule now for German defence was to do whatever it takes.

"We are not strong enough, our army is not strong enough, so that's the reason why we are spending a lot of money," he said in his BBC interview.

Together, the UK, Germany and France are working on a triangular alliance of major European powers, dubbed the E3, which Merz says will focus not just on security and foreign policy but on economic growth as well.

The chancellor said he was now "very close with Keir Starmer" and with the French president too. Macron is due to visit him in Berlin next week.

The French leader signed a wide-ranging treaty with Germany in Aachen in 2019, and last week he agreed a deeper defence pact during a state visit to the UK, so the UK-German friendship treaty completes a triangle of bilateral ties.

Sitting in the plush surroundings of the German embassy, Friedrich Merz was about to head to the Victoria and Albert Museum to sign the pact with the Prime Minister.

EPA

The two leaders signed the treaty at the Victoria and Albert museum about a mile from the German embassy

Merz said the bilateral treaty renewed the two allies' commitment to defend each other - which is not just part of the Nato treaty but was also previously part of their alliance when the UK was in the EU.

British and German firms already collaborate in making products such as Typhoon Eurofighter jets and Boxer armoured vehicles, and the two governments have agreed to launch joint export campaigns that Downing Street believes could attract billions of pounds.

They are also developing a missile with a range of 2,000km (1,250 miles) and the chancellor later told a press conference that Ukraine would soon receive substantial additional support in "long-range fire".

Merz, 69, is regarded as a strong believer in the transatlantic alliance and knows the US well from his years outside politics working for an American investment firm.

However, on the night of his election victory he declared that the Trump administration was "largely indifferent to the fate of Europe", a remark seen at the time as undiplomatic for a chancellor-in-waiting.

Asked if he had since changed his mind, he said he had not, as Trump was "not as clear and as committed as former US presidents were, former US administrations were".

The Americans were moving away from Europe and turning to Asia, he observed, and that was why it was important to look at greater independence from American defence.

The UK has largely escaped the turbulence surrounding US tariffs on its exports, but the European Union is facing a deadline less than two weeks away, and the threat of 30% tariffs on all its goods.

EU trade negotiator Maroš Šefčovič travelled to Washington this week in search of a deal that would spare all 27 member states from a surge in US import taxes.

Merz sees the high tariffs as unacceptable and killing Germany's export industry.

"My observation is that the president himself is seeing the challenges and that he is willing to come to an agreement. He gets it."

Another important element of the UK-German treaty is Berlin's agreement to change the law to criminalise smugglers storing small boats in Germany for use in illegal Channel crossings. The storage of boats in Germany was revealed by a BBC investigation last year.

The chancellor said his government would "do our homework immediately" and expected it would not take long to push through parliament after the summer recess.

There are also plans for a direct rail link from London to Berlin, and for British and German students to take part in exchanges, which have declined since Brexit.

Merz said he very much hoped that the first people who might see a practical difference from the friendship treaty would be students, so that the younger generation could drive relations between the two allies in the future.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckg6v0pk964o

New Discoveries at site of Ancient Troy

Groundbreaking discovery at ancient city of Troy may prove legendary Trojan War true

Archaeologists digging at the ruins of ancient Troy have unearthed fresh evidence of a violent Bronze Age conflict, one that mirrors Homer's Iliad.

According to Homer's Iliad, the war began after Paris of Troy abducted Helen, wife of the Spartan king, triggering a Greek siege lasting 10 years. 

The most famous scene of the tale is the wooden horse used by the Greeks to sneak into the city and destroy it from within. 

Now, a team of Turkish researchers have uncovered dozens of clay and smoothed river rock sling stones, unearthed just outside what would have been the palace walls, along with arrowheads, charred buildings, and hastily buried human skeletons.

Together, experts say, the clues paint a chilling picture of close-range fighting and a sudden, catastrophic fall, just as the ancient Greeks described.

'This concentration of sling stones in such a small area suggests intense fighting, either a desperate defense or a full-scale assault,' said Professor Rustem Aslan of Canakkale Onsekiz Mart University, who is leading the excavation.

The sling stones, smoothed to aerodynamic perfection, were one of the Bronze Age's deadliest weapons, capable of cracking skulls at range when hurled from leather slings.

The stones found at the site date to around 3,200 to 3,600 years ago, exactly the period believed to match the Trojan War, which according to Greek historians took place around 1184 BC. 

Archaeologists have uncovered 3,500-year-old evidence at the ancient city of Troy that may point to a real war behind Homer's legendary tale

According to the archaeologists, sling stones were common battlefield weapons in the Bronze Age, and their concentrated presence points to a siege, not a peaceful decline. [This is the first time I've seen pictures of the rocks used by the slingers, one of the main and most deadly types of fighters in those days. We used to call them "skipping rocks", good for skipping across the surface waters of rivers and bays. -AA]

For centuries, scholars dismissed Homer's Iliad as pure myth, a poetic fantasy centered on a quarrel over Helen, the 'face that launched a thousand ships,' and a wooden horse that tricked an entire city.

But the new finds suggest there may have been a real war behind the legend.

This summer's excavation, part of the Legacy for the Future Project, backed by Turkey's Ministry of Culture and Tourism, focused on the palace, marketplace, and defensive walls of Troy, a heavily fortified city once known as Wilusa in Hittite texts.

There, archaeologists discovered a cache of war relics: bone tools, a pointed 'biz' used for piercing leather armor, and even a knucklebone likely used as a gaming die, hinting at the lives of soldiers waiting for battle.

But it's the destruction layer, first uncovered in 2024 and now further expanded, that has stunned researchers. 

It contains burned ruins, broken weapons, and human remains buried in haste, signs of a sudden, brutal attack, not a slow decline.

The team's discovery, combined with arrowheads from previous digs, strongly suggests close-quarters fighting erupted in this part of the city, a likely battleground where defenders made a final stand. It also lines up with ancient texts.

Both Herodotus and Eratosthenes, Greek historians writing centuries later, claimed the Trojan War was a real event, while Roman poet Virgil immortalized its aftermath in the Aeneid, describing survivors fleeing the burning city.

There, archaeologists found war relics clustered together including, bone tools, a pointed 'biz' used for piercing leather, and a knucklebone likely used as a gaming die

Archaeologists are continuing excavations at the ancient city of Troy in northwestern Turkey, a UNESCO World Heritage Site with a history spanning 5,500 years, aiming to uncover new evidence connected to the legendary Trojan War

According to legend, one such survivor, Aeneas, would go on to found the line that led to Rome itself.

Ancient Troy was no backwater. Its location near the Dardanelles made it a vital trade hub between Europe and Asia, rich with goods and strategically placed to control naval access.

The city boasted stone towers, long walls, and a complex urban structure, making it a prized, and well-defended, target.

Modern archaeologists have worked the site since the 1870s, but attention has now turned to a very specific window: 1500 to 1200BC, the era most commonly associated with the Iliad.

Experts widely agree that Troy existed, but now, many also believe it suffered a real war during the Bronze Age collapse, a time when empires across the Mediterranean crumbled amid invasion, rebellion, and mass migration.

There’s still no physical evidence of a wooden horse, and scholars caution it may have been poetic symbolism, a metaphor for subterfuge or betrayal.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-14908647/Groundbreaking-Trojan-War-discovery-prove-legendary-tale-true.html

Pictured, a depas goblet (depas amphikypellon), excavated by German archeologist Heinrich Schliemann in the 19th century, measuring about 6 inches (15cm) high. This was one type of goblet from which the people of Troy drank wine

The site of Troy was first settled in the Early Bronze Age, from around 3000 BC. Troy fell into ruin at the end of the Bronze Age, around 1180 BC

Pictured, a Trojan Horse replica at Çanakkale, the site of ancient Troy, Turkey

Pictured: Another version of the Trojan horse 

Painted in Ancient Pompeii onto a black background, this scene shows Helen of Troy, a beautiful woman in Greek mythology (left with a nurse or maid), meeting Paris, prince of Troy (right with his dog). 

Leda, mother of Helen of Troy, about to conceive with Greek god Zeus, disguised as a randy swan

Soldiers fighting during the Trojan War, that was started because the Prince of Troy stole a Spartan's wife

Movie scene recreation of Hector's (pictured) fight against Achilles, attempting to show the types of weapons and shields used in those days.

The Wounded Achilles, 1825 by Filippo Albacini) 

A huge wine-mixing bowl from 5th-century BC Athens. c 530 BC, showing Achilles killing Penthesilia

Islamic Terror News: Terror risk at UK kids’ camp? UKLFI warns Islamic camp may be tool for radicalization

 

Terror risk at UK kids’ camp? UKLFI warns Islamic camp may be tool for radicalization

Girls who attend are required to wear the hijab and are mainly segregated "to ensure minimal overlap between girls and boys."

By Mathilda Heller, Jerusalem Post, July 14, 2025

https://www.jpost.com/international/islamic-terrorism/article-860984

Camp Wilayah (photo credit: SCREENSHOT/X)

An Islamic summer camp for preteens in the UK may be a tool for extremism and radicalization, thus breaching the Terrorism Act, UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) warned on Sunday.

These concerns relate to Camp Wilayah, which is set to take place in the Phasels Wood Activity Centre between August 22 and August 25. It is run by the Ahlulbayt Islamic Mission (AIM), a UK-based Shi’ite Muslim organisation established in 2003.

The camp’s stated aim is to allow “young campers [aged 8-13] to enjoy the outdoors, make new friends, and deepen their understanding of Islamic values – all in a fun and inspiring environment.” Girls who attend are required to wear the hijab and are mainly segregated “to ensure minimal overlap between girls and boys.”

AIM overtly supports the Islamic Republic and its Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The charity sells both original works and commissioned translations on its website, including three books by Khamenei: Tabyeen: The Neglected Obligation, The Compassionate Family, and Islamic Beliefs: Reclaiming the Narrative.

It also features former Iranian Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini’s Islamic Government and several books honoring IRGC jihadists.

The UKLFI highlighted AIM’s pro-Iranian regime dogma and claimed it “disseminates revolutionary Islamist ideology, glorifies martyrdom, and spreads antisemitic, conspiratorial, and extremist content online, including support for Hamas and Holocaust inversion.”

“Reports describe AIM as the British chapter of the AhlulBayt World Assembly, an Iranian-backed NGO operating globally to disseminate Khomeini’s vision of an Islamic Revolution,” according to the UKLFI.

Involving British authorities

The organization said that it wrote to the head of Safeguarding and Prevent at both the Brent Council, where AIM is based, and the Hertfordshire Council, where the camp will take place, calling on them to prevent the camp from proceeding and to take immediate action under the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015 and the Children Act 1989.

It also warned the council heads that AIM poses a serious risk of radicalizing children and breaching terrorism and public order laws. “AIM promotes isolation from Western society, denigrates integration, and glorifies violent resistance.”

The UKLFI suggested that AIM may be breaching Sections 5 and 18, 19, 21, and 23 of the Public Order Act 1986, Section 26 of the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015, and Section 47 of the Children Act 1989.

UKLFI’s Caroline Turner told The Jerusalem Post on Monday that the goal is for the authorities to investigate this camp to ensure that children are not being radicalized, but that it is not taking legal action.

While Iran and the IRGC are not proscribed in the UK, Hamas is, and Turner said that AIM has published justifications of Hamas’s October 7 massacre and has expressed opinions or beliefs that support the terrorist organization, which is potentially an offence under section 12 (1A) of the Terrorism Act 2000.

“We were concerned that AIM’s social media activity includes posts that advance an extremist ideology and promote antisemitic narratives,” she said.

“These include the glorification of martyrdom in violent conflicts,” such as statements saying that “AIM honors the martyrs of Palestine and Lebanon who have been killed by the Zionist regime,” Turner detailed.

“Glorifying individuals who have died in the context of the armed conflict with Israel risks encouraging others to seek martyrdom through violence and frames death in conflict as an aspiration,” she said.

“AIM’s dangerous and violent worldview could incite hatred and violence,” Turner added, “and we are concerned that this ideology would be inculcated in the children at its camp.”

The NUFDI report

The charity and the camp were mentioned in a May 2025 report on the Islamic Republic’s influence in the UK. The report, carried out by NUFDI, was previously written about by the Post.

NUFDI said that AIM’s London office is operated by the World Ahlul Bayt Foundation, which is currently directed by Hojjat al-Islam Muhammad Hassan Akhtari, a supposed co-founder of Hezbollah and a close ally of Khamenei.

It also claimed that AIM frequently posts controversial and partisan content on X/Twitter and its website, but removes it quickly soon after.

AIM also runs an e-commerce store called the House of Taha, which sells flags and insignia of Iranian-backed militias such as the Popular Mobilization Forces and Hezbollah, as well as texts from Khamenei and other Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commanders.

According to The Times, on October 12, 2023, AIM’s Instagram account shared a message saying that “a flood was inevitable” and the “Zionists brought this disaster on themselves”.

Lord Walney, the British government’s former extremism adviser, told The Times in May: “We cannot allow propaganda and influence from this theocratic dictatorship to be spread to children in the UK.”

“It is deeply alarming that schoolchildren are being taken to these camps. This raises further questions about the influence of Iran here in the UK,” he told the publication.

AIM’s response

In response to the reports on Sunday, AIM released a statement on Monday saying it “firmly rejects the defamatory and politicized claims made by certain media outlets, based on allegations from the UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI).”

“These accusations, framed in inflammatory language around ‘radicalization’ and ‘extremism,’ are part of a targeted smear campaign against a lawful British Muslim organization engaged in religious education, youth work, and community development.”

It added that it has continuously operated in “full compliance with UK law” and that Camp Wilayah has been operating as a “safe, well-supervised summer retreat for children” for 20 years.

AIM added that the claims of indoctrination at the camp are a means of “sowing fear and suspicion of Muslims” and are “Islamophobic in tone and discriminatory in impact.”

It lambasted the UKLFI specifically, calling the organization a “front group operating on behalf of the illegitimate and genocidal Zionist entity” and said that the platforming of it in the UK media is a sign of “decaying sovereignty in the UK.”

“We will not accept defamation, intimidation, or the outsourcing of UK civil society policy to the proxies of a foreign regime committing genocide against the indigenous people of Palestine.”

It made similar remarks following the publication of The Times report in May, saying, “Unlike the roughly 3,000 Zionist organizations in the UK, [AIM] neither takes orders from nor represents the interest of any foreign power.”

“We are proud of our record in opposing the 140-year Zionist campaign of genocide against the people of the Levant, which has included forced displacement, ethnic cleansing, and indiscriminate aerial bombardment, among many other crimes.”

According to AIM, “Times readers should ask themselves why this newspaper is so invested in laundering propaganda for the State of Israel and attempts to smear British citizens on behalf of a hostile and illegitimate foreign state.”

Turner told the Post that AIM’s statement about the UKLFI “illustrates that they are an extremist organization that doesn’t recognize the State of Israel or its legitimacy, even though it is a recognized state and a member of the United Nations.”

“Our statement was not Islamophobic or discriminatory, but merely concerned that children would be influenced by an extremist organization and inculcated with its views,” Turner continued.

She added that the matter should be handled by local authorities and the organization Prevent, which identifies individuals at risk of radicalization, offering them support and interventions, and countering extremist ideologies. 

“The UKLFI is an independent organization that is independent of the State of Israel,” Turner further said.

99% of ALL terrorist attacks carried out (globally) in just one month on record were by Islamists, explains senior Canadian intelligence veteran, Phil Gurski.

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