I spent months digging into Ahmad Mansour, visiting Tira, spoke to classmates, family, and his college. Much of his backstory is an exaggeration or a fabrication. He was never a Muslim Brother, the Imam wasn’t an Imam, he didn’t study psych @ Tel Aviv Uni
hyphenonline.com/2023/07/03/cri… The story told by Mansour about radicalisation by a bushy-eyebrowed Imam didn’t match what contemporaries said about Mahmoud Mansour, a religion & arabic teacher who wasn’t an official Imam, 3 people who knew him said

German leftist: “For NATO-Ukraine you are turning Germany into ruins?!?”

The same day, Dnipro in Ukraine was bombed to actual ruins.

There’s a German word for this Wohlstandsverwahrlosung - living in such prosperity you lose grip on reality updated my bio

Every Monday across eastern Germany, 1000s march demanding an end to "tyranny" & costly sanctions on Russia.

War has led to a surge in support for the AfD, radicalisation of protesters & attacks on Ukrainian refugees.

My dispatch from Saxony for @TIME 🧵
time.com/6240005/german… @TIME These demonstrations are styled after weekly protests in the 1980s against the GDR.

One speaker in Zittau asked "How did an ideology-driven elite manage to completely destroy the livelihoods of of such a well-educated people as the Germans?" 2/

Elon Musk overpromising, under-delivering and struggling to keep staff.

Twitter? No, Tesla.

Vacancies have DOUBLED since mid-June, with particular problems hiring qualified staff in Berlin where they compete with VW

My investigation for @WIRED🧵

wired.com/story/tesla-va… @WIRED Staff have described the plant as "total chaos", with workers wasting weeks while waiting for machines to function.

Giga Berlin wanted 12,000 staff by the end of the year, but only hired 7000. Of these, 1000 were previously registered unemployed. Not good for production quality

Remember Angela Merkel? it's hard to think of a political figure whose star has faded so much without being sent to prison. Her legacy in Germany has received blow after blow and she already seems like a relic of a bygone era.

Me for @NewsweekOpinion 🧵

newsweek.com/merkels-murky-… @NewsweekOpinion Merkel backed Nord Stream 2 gas to the hilt, even after Putin showed his imperialistic intentions. Through self-delusion or myopia, she made energy-hungry Germany dependent on the whims of a murderous dictator, against the protests of eastern European allies who knew better 2/

Were changes to Bosnia's election laws made while votes were still being counted an "illiberal putsch" or necessary to stop the Bosniak majority undermining the Dayton peace agreement?

It depends what kind of state you want Bosnia to be
Me for @euobs 🧵
euobserver.com/world/156234 @euobs Most Bosnians want a functioning government, something they haven't had since 2018, blocked by the Croat HDZ.

Many Bosnian Croats feel disenfranchised. Petra in Mostar told me "We are really fed up.... We cannot elect our own President."

This is due to an legal loophole.

I was spending a week in Tblisi when Putin's mobilization was announced.

A taxi driver charging Russians $100 each for rides from the border summed up the mood to me "I would kill them all if I could, but after I get their money.”

my debut for @TIME🧵

time.com/6217860/russia… @TIME As well as memories of the 2008 war, ordinary Georgians have pragmatic reasons not to want more Russians here. The roads and subways are packed and prices have skyrocketed.

Irakli Khekhelashvili's landlord raised his rent as Russians could afford more. He had to move out.

Longtime German Left MP Dieter Dehm called the description of Russian mass killings in Bucha “probably faked” “The deaths were not faked but the description of the causes were probably faked”

Everyone knows when WW2 started in 1939, when the Nazis invaded Poland.

So why do the biggest war memorials in Berlin say the war started in 1941, and what does this tell us about the memorial debate in C Eastern Europe? 🧵 As the 30s started, it was obvious that Europe was heading for another war. Countries scrambled around for what to do to protect themselves.

The West largely chose appeasement and refused to take the Nazi threat seriously.

The Soviet Union chose a different path.

Ukrainians in Eastern Germany are facing widespread targetted harassment 🧵

Activists at @Vitsche have faced rape threats, FSB style break-ins and masked men ringing doorbells at 3am
Me for @euronews
euronews.com/my-europe/2022… @Vitsche @euronews Abuse on the metro just for wearing Ukrainian colours is common form - I spoke to 3 people who have experienced it in Berlin alone.

Meanwhile in Frankfurt (Oder) an entire dorm of ukrainians was plastered in Zs

A lot of prominent Germans on left and right have been backing away from arming Ukraine because “you can’t beat war with war.”

do they think the Nazis just gave up? I want peace, you want peace, everyone wants peace. the only way to get peace with an ethnic cleansing invader is to beat them back and hurt them so much they hurt you. Tattoo this inside your eyeballs, pacifists

A very German scandal?
In today's Times I covered a once-rising star of the SPD. A young woman from the east, she is now First Minister of Merkel's home state. But recent revelations show she "turned her office into a branch of Gazprom"

thetimes.co.uk/article/german… She set up a fake environmental NGO where they brainstormed how to use their status to evade US sanctions on the now-cancelled Nord Stream 2 pipeline

thetimes.co.uk/article/german…