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GERMAN POLICE ARE investigating a possible explosive device close to a Christmas market in Potsdam, reviving fears of a repeat of last year’s terror attack that struck at the height of the festive season.
The device was uncovered in a package found at a pharmacy just off the Christmas market in central Potsdam, a picturesque city near Berlin.
Police said a pharmacist had sounded the alert after finding a canister with wires inside the package.
Investigators initially said in a tweet that “suspicions of an unconventional explosive device have been confirmed.”
But Brandenburg interior minister Karl-Heinz Schroeter later said a probe was still ongoing to determine “whether the device was actually capable of causing an explosion or not.”
Police found a canister filled with nails and powder, batteries and wires in the package, as well as a powerful firework of a type not allowed in Germany.
But investigators added that there was no sign of a detonator inside.
After clearing parts of the city centre and Christmas market, bomb disposal units defused the device shortly before 5pm.
Schroeter said officers were combing the area to check if other similar packages had been deposited.
“We are now carrying out searches because the package was delivered, apparently, and possibly other packages had been delivered nearby the Christmas market. That’s why we are only at the beginning of our job,” he said.
What is clear is that the scare, coming on the eve of the first Advent weekend, has sparked fear, said Schroeter. “We can see that it’s not possible to hold a proper Christmas celebration,” he said.
Christmas market organiser Peter Klemm told broadcaster NTV: “It’s not easy when you’re on the scene, we’re shocked. But the people here understand what’s going on and take the measures very seriously.”
“I’ve always felt safe in Potsdam. Now that feeling of security is ebbing away,” local resident Ingeborg Reetz told mass-market daily Bild.
Meanwhile, baker Erich Schroeter had kept his shop open for people displaced by the evacuation.
“We wouldn’t just put people out into the cold,” he said.
Germany has been on high alert for possible jihadist attacks after last December’s deadly assault at a Christmas market in central Berlin.
The attacker, Tunisian asylum seeker Anis Amri, hijacked a truck and murdered its Polish driver before killing another 11 people and wounding dozens more by ploughing the heavy vehicle through the market.
Four days later, while on the run, he was shot dead by Italian police in Milan.
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Not a mortgage holder, and I’m not unbiased, but fair play to the Govt for staring them down
No vested interests either, but I’m even more shocked that at the stance they took in the first place.
Like It takes guts to do that when the bank is state owned! Give yourselves a salary increase for help with our spin.
The PTSB are the biggest gangsters in this and are gettin away with it. They increased the rates 3 times recently and although they will be reducing this .25% they are still by far the dearest.
I think you’ll find Ulster bank are the most expensive at 5.1%
AIB only exists because stupid taxpayers pay their bills.
I can not believe that they are getting away with this. The Bank has 3,000 employees it does not need and coupled with a host of branches that should be shut the cost to the tax payer is truly astronomical. recent salary increases on top of inflated salary levels add to the pension fund cost.
Why is the EBS rate 1.5% higher than AIB and they are merged institutions?
The EBS borrowers are being excessively penalised….
I think every aib or bank worker on the journal is giving the thumbs down
What recent salary increase would that be?
I started with EBS, some years ago when they were among the cheapest on the market, and I liked the whole idea of a mutual. Because of the race to the bottom, driven in part by Anglo, AIB were at one (later) point the second cheapest on the market for mortgages, and this received some publicity, with the IT publishing a comprehensive “scoresheet” as it were of the rates available at that time-late ’06 or very early ’07.
So I called into them, just before the whole thing went South, and, like the guy on the bus, I didn’t know what a tracker mortgage was, but they offered me one, as well as the (declined by me) chance to buy another investment property, or take an ‘oul holiday.
Happily I took it, and even happier, they took on board a ridiculously high valuation of my family home, giving me a loan to value that bore no relation to reality. I still have that-and am gladdened by the fact that those on variable rates are getting a bite of the cherry-I could still be there myself but by chance.
if every aib account holder withdrew their deposits and moved them elsewhere, they’d get a rude awakening!
The Dutch did this a fews years ago over bonuses to top staff. They gave them back More power to the people
They didn’t rise rates in the first place like all the other wanks. People should do some research before judging.
People are just looking for money for nothing, now they are getting a better rate than before the ECB increases.
The ESB is state owned but does not entitle people to free electricity, why should it be different with the banks.
Still doesnt stop them giving there staff a pay rise
I think it was quite reasonable that if AIB didn’t pass on the recent rises, they should not have to pass on the cut. This turn around seems totally illogical to me. Nice for those affected & good luck to them but nevertheless quite daft!
Wow great, lucky us – taxpayer to pay back reckless mortgage holders loans
This is a direct transfer of cash from depositors to mortgage holders
Is there anything stopping the banks from raising their rates in say a months time, irrespective of any change in the ECB rate? It never seems to stop PTSB as far as i can see.
Great stuff, with govt interference like this how do they hope to get private investment in order to get the NPRF’s investment in AIB back? Very short sighted decision, especially given AIB never passed on the last two increases.
You couldn’t make this stuff up
Yeah but if you raise interest rates it pushes more people into the cannot pay bracket and so we end up paying anyway, at least this makes repayments more affordable.
More likely it pushes them to restructure or sell. Banks should not be in the business of giving away money.
Why does it feel wrong that banks are passing on a saving to customers ?
Oh no, wait a second ……
News flash – Banks claim PR error and state that it should of read raise rates by 0.25%. The error is set to cost taxpayers a Further 10billion for some reason but banks have decided the double the rate increase to 0.5% because a senior exec was afraid they mightn’t be able to fund the regular replacement of the gold chairs that they use while at their weekly meetings in their ivory tower in the Bahamas.
Instead of posting the new rates in papers banks have simply setup a very easy system in every branch to accommodate these new costs. All customers of the branches should empty their pockets into barrels that are marked “slush funds”. An Taoiseach should simply sign a blank cheque (as they might need more the 10bil, you never know) and make it payable to cash or C#^?s , either way the ecb will know who it’s for!
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