German authorities have detained a Syrian man suspected of planning a machete attack on soldiers in the southern state of Bavaria, prosecutors in Munich said on Friday.
The 27-year-old man is accused of planning an attack on soldiers in the northeastern Bavarian town of Hof. Police officers arrested the man on Thursday in the Hof region.
An investigating judge issued a warrant for his arrest on Friday morning and the suspect was detained shortly afterwards.
ATHENS — If Poland’s recent alarm over Germany’s announcement that it will start new checks at its border crossings strikes some as slightly off key, Greece in a roundabout way has just offered a clue why. It comes as more politicians from Germany’s increasingly pressured center sound off in frustration with years of failed liberal policies on immigration and asylum for refugees.
This is all happening at a rapid clip ahead of two key events. One is the introduction of border checks, beginning Monday, at all of Germany’s land borders. Two is elections in the eastern state of Brandenburg, which will take place the following week.
A controversial online handbook for avoiding deportation is nearly completely funded by the European Union, it has been revealed. Initially, the instructions provoked concern that they were being paid for by the German government. Under pressure from questions in the Bundestag, officials conceded they did partially fund it, but that 90% of the project funding comes from the EU’s Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund (AMIF).
Germany risks border chaos and confrontation with EU neighbours after announcing frontier checks in an attempt to return illegal migrants and asylum seekers.
Controls at all German land borders will be introduced for six months from next Monday to stop illegal migrants entering the country, although details of the rules for rejection have not yet been released.
Right-wing anti-immigration AfD’s strong performance in last week’s German regional elections (first place in Thuringia and runners-up in Saxony) has evidently propelled the party to the top of the opinion polls in the state of Brandenburg.
The party received around a third of all votes in the elections on September 1st and, according to a recent survey, is set to do the same in another eastern state, Brandenburg, which is holding elections on September 22nd.
Germany’s migration commissioner has proposed sending migrants to Rwanda, where facilities prepared for Britain’s now-scrapped deportation deal are sitting empty.
Joachim Stamp, a Free Democratic Party member of chancellor Olaf Scholz’s governing coalition, said that the scheme would target refugees crossing the European Union’s eastern borders.
Anti-globalist nationalist-populist parties from the Right (AfD) and the Left (BSW) cleaned up in Germany’s regional elections in Thuringia and Saxony on Sunday, reflecting the discontent voters feel towards the current center-left governing parties. The results are a significant milestone in the ongoing struggle between Germany’s ruling elites and the people—something that is playing out in similar ways across the Continent.
While the media would like to characterize these elections along Right/Left—or East/West—lines, the truth is that these elections reflect the divide between the elites and ordinary people.
It’s not often that German regional elections capture the world’s attention, but establishment parties all across the West have good reason to be terrified by Sunday’s results. In the east German states of Thuringia and Saxony, the three ruling parties – the Social Democrats (SPD), Greens and Liberals – came under assault from both ends of the political spectrum. The right-populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) scored an historic victory in Thuringia, winning its first-ever state election. Just as striking was the success of another consciously populist party, the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), which emerged from the rubble of the German left.
She preaches old school leftism. Pro-worker, anti-open borders/mass immigration and an avoidance of foreign entanglements.
Exit poll data shows not only a remarkable voting trend among under-25s but a transformation in the way general voters view the hard-right party
The resounding defeat of Germany’s ruling parties in Saxony and Thuringia has inevitably prompted a great deal of gossip-mongering about whether the chancellor might be ousted or his coalition might finally fall apart.
The conjecture is not completely futile. Even if the government is likely to hold together through sheer inertia and fear of something worse, there is certainly plenty of mischief afoot.
Olaf Scholz, the German chancellor, is struggling to hold his coalition government together after what he described as a “bitter” victory for the radical right in the eastern state of Thuringia.
The Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, after a campaign spearheaded by the unapologetically ethno-nationalist Björn Höcke, won 32.8 per cent of the vote on Sunday. AfD was more than nine points ahead of its closest rival.
It was the first time a hard-right party had come first in an election at this level since the Nazi era.
Olaf Scholz is poised to remove benefits from refugees who arrive in Germany through other EU countries, leaving them with the bare essentials of “bed, bread, and soap.”
Following the Islamic State-inspired terror attack in Solingen last Friday, the German chancellor is said to be preparing new measures to tackle illegal migration.
According to reports from various German media outlets, Mr Scholz will cut all welfare payments for migrants previously registered in other EU countries.
Sure they will …
German State-Funded Website Teaches Migrants How To Avoid Deportation
An investigation by the German outlet Apollo News revealed the existence of an online platform funded by the German government and the European Union, one of the aims of which is to provide practical and legal advice to migrants so that they can oppose their possible deportation, in the name of a “right to remain for all” on German soil.
The site, called Handbook Germany, takes the form of an information site aimed at immigrants arriving on German soil, with an apparently harmless programme: ‘orientieren—informieren—austauschen’ (find your way around, get informed, exchange information).
Germany’s anti-immigration party Alternative for Germany (AfD) is on course for victory in the eastern state of Thuringia, according to projections.
The AfD is set to win 32.8% of the vote, says a projection for public broadcaster ARD, nine points ahead of the conservative CDU, and far in front of Germany’s three governing parties.
If confirmed, it would give the far right its first vote win in a state parliament since World War Two, although it has little hope of forming a government in Thuringia.
The far right is on the cusp of winning the most votes in German state elections for the first time since the Nazis.
For some in Germany, the rise of Alternative for Germany (AfD) is a literal nightmare.
But others, particularly in the east, say the AfD is a chance for change.
All year, the temperature has been rising in German politics and Sunday’s vote in Thuringia and Saxony may be the boiling point.
The anti-immigration, anti-globalist Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party is set to achieve its best ever election result as it contests two regional elections in the states of Saxony and Thuringia on Sunday, September 1st.
If confirmed, such results would signal a spectacular rejection of Germany’s ruling parties and could strengthen populist voices across Europe.
Anna Wenske, 69, worked for decades at the national theater of East Germany, where she was born and still lives. “After the reunification, everything went kaput,” she said. She lost her job and her savings; it took her years of part-time work to reach a kind of equilibrium.
Now she resents what she considers the easy path offered to refugees while Germans suffer.
“Too many people exist on this planet and everyone wants to come to us,” she said in a sunny Weimar, “and we tell everyone welcome and we have nothing left for ourselves.” When it comes to Ukraine, she said, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia lied when he said he would not invade, “but I don’t trust the United States any more than Russia.”
According to the NYTimes voting for your own best interests is a Nazi thing.
