BREAKING NEWS

German minister eyes police overhaul after Christmas market attack

BERLIN - Germany must grant federal police more powers to counter threats like terrorism and cyber attacks, Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said on Tuesday, two weeks after a failed asylum seeker rammed a truck into a Christmas market and killed 12 people.
In his most detailed response yet to the Dec. 19 attack, de Maiziere said Germany lacks laws that other countries have, and police and intelligence bodies are too fragmented.
"Our state must be better prepared for difficult times than it has been," de Maiziere said at the start of an election year in which immigration and security will be at the top of the political agenda.
"The federal government needs to be able to steer all security authorities where central government and the states work together on national security," he wrote in a full-page newspaper article in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.