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Germany's Merz on range, Hamburg station knife attack and Cannes' power sabotaged

Germany's Merz on range, Hamburg station knife attack and Cannes' power sabotaged

Welcome to the new Alpine Security Monitor. This project is only in its pilot stage at present. However, you can sign up and subscribe for weekly updates on security and geopolitics as it concerns the Alpine region, namely Austria, Czechia, France, Germany, Italy, Slovenia and Switzerland (ok, little Liechtenstein and Monaco too when merited).

Currently, three tiers of subscriptions are offered: the free version (sign up below), member and warrior, available already for those who might stumble onto this site as we test what works and what does not.

BERLIN, GERMANY – Merz says Germany will step up defense aid to Ukraine; no more range restrictions?

  • At a joint press conference with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky Wednesday in Berlin, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said his country would step up with €5 billion in funding for the production of weapons to Ukraine, including long-range weapons, The New York Times reports.
  • Merz said last Monday that "there are no longer any range restrictions for the weapons that have been delivered to Ukraine" by his country as well as France and the UK, the AP reports. Though Tuesday he attempted to clarify those remarks by contradicting himself, which led to some infighting within his own party, the Christian Democrats (CDU), according to Politico.
  • In response to Merz last Monday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the move was "quite dangerous" given Taurus missiles have a range of up to 500 km (310 miles). Unspoken: what is the current state of European air defense?

 

HAMBURG, GERMANY – Knife attack injurs 17 at rail station

  • A 39 year old German woman injured at least 18 people, some with life threatening conditions, during rush hour last Friday at Hamburg's central train station, the AP reports.
  • The New York Times reports police Friday attributed the motive to "mental distress" and not alcohol or drugs nor political motives as two commuters helped subdue her, including a Syrian national from Aleppo according to Der Spiegel.
  • Deutsche Welle reported that a magistrate ordered that she be sent to a psychiatriac clinic due to "very concrete indicators of a mental illness," which were not specified. Victims ranged in age from 19 to 85 years old.

 

CANNES, FRANCE – Sabotage suspected in film festival power cut

  • A power cut in southern France disrupted the final day of the Cannes Film Festival, BBC reports, with sabotage suspected; film screenings were disrupted though generators provided sufficient supplies for the show to go on. A second power outage occurred Sunday, affecting 45,000 homes, BBC reports.
  • A substation in the town of Tanneron, the source of electricity supplies to Cannes, was set alight and a pylon at a different location was damaged, with the result that 160,000 homes in Cannes and the vicinity were left without power.
  • Quoteworthy: Courtesy Australian producer Darren Vukasinovic told Reuters, "Cannes is in a total slowdown, meltdown, there's no coffee anywhere, and I think the town has run out of croissants, so this is like crisis territory." Quelle horreur!

 

PRAGUE, CZECHIA – Czechs condemn China for hacking foreign ministry

  • Politico reports Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský planned to summon the Chinese ambassador after the Czech government accused Beijing of hacking his ministry's unclassified system in 2022 when Czechia held the rotating EU presidency.
  • Of note: "It is the first time the Czech government has attributed a national cyberattack to a state-backed actor."

 

VIENNA, AUSTRIA – New intel report says Iran has nuclear-delivery capable missiles

  • Fox News reports on a new intel report from the Austrian Directorate State Protection and Intelligence Service (Direktion für Staatsschutz and Nachrichtendiest or DSN) that states: " The Iranian nuclear weapons development program is well advanced, and Iran possesses a growing arsenal of ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear warheads over long distances."
  • Iran's sanction busting regime has also benefited Russia.
  • Fox notes the report "could be an unwanted wrench in President Trump’s negotiation process to resolve the atomic crisis with Iran’s rulers because the data outlined in the report suggests the regime will not abandon its drive to secure a nuclear weapon."

 

VIENNA, AUSTRIA – Ex-Chancellor Kurz wins appeal over prior perjury conviction

  • Former Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz won his appeal on Monday to have his conviction for perjuring himself to a parliamentary committee overturned, BBC reports.
  • Once Austria's youngest chancellor, he was a rising star of the far-right when he resigned from office in 2021 amid the fallout from the "Ibizagate" scandal. He received a suspended sentence of eight months last year.
  • After quitting politics, he went to work for German-American billionaire Peter Thiel.

 

VIENNA, AUSTRIA – Austria deporting Chechen asylum seekers over security fears

  • Barrons reports Austria is returning Chechen asylum seekers who could be at risk of recruitment to fight in Ukraine to Russia over security concerns.
  • Chechens in Austria and organizations like Amnesty International assert they are being "unfairly associated with religious extremism." Earlier this year, Austria deported two Chechens who received a conscription call up from the Russian army while claiming that there was no "credible" threat that they would be drafted and that they could "escape mobilization" by living in Moscow.
  • As flights to Russia from Europe have been cut, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Serbia are the transit countries for these deportation flights, AFP notes.

 

ROME, ITALY – Italian mafia divisions fading in favor of shared criminal interests

  • Italy's Anti-Mafia Investigation Division (Direzione Investigativa Antimafia or DIA) has a new report out that asserts the usual rivalries between Cosa Nostra and the Camorra around Naples are collaborating in Italy and beyond the country's borders while 'Ndrangheta is focused on public works projects, Reuters reports.
  • Areas of collaboration include the usual basket of mafia deplorables: money laundering, prostitution and drug trafficking.

 

BERN, SWITZERLAND – Police use tear gas, rubber bullets at pro-Palestine march

  • Two thousand people gathered in Bern last Saturday in support of the Palestinian cause and were met with rubber bullets, tear gas and water cannons after some broke through police cordons and threw objects at police including stones, glass bottles and fireworks, Der Bund reports.
  • Tram and bus service was disrupted for several hours as protesters marched on the Swiss headquarters of Israeli defense manufacturer Elbit Systems before attempting to reach the sole synagogue in Bern opposite the U.S. Embassy.
  • In total, at least eight people including six police officers were injured.

 

BERN, SWITZERLAND – Foreign ministry official to travel to Kremlin security conference

  • Gabriel Lüchinger, the Head of the International Security Division at the Swiss Foreign Ministry, will reportedly travel to Moscow at the end of the month to attend a Kremlin-sponsored security conference, Swissinfo reports.

And finally this week….

BLATTEN, SWITZERLAND – Glacier collapse levels Swiss village

  • The Washington Post reports an "unstable glacier" in the mountains of Vallis collapsed on the village of Blatten, resulting in a viral video and the obliteration of the town.
  • One person is missing though the town was evacuated a few weeks back and the debris blocked the flow of a river that resulted in flooding of any remaining structures.
  • Food for thought: neutrality can't stop nature.

Stay safe!

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