Author: Deutsche Presse-Agentur - Dpa
Italy’s right-wing government under Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is intent on maintaining its controversial reception centres for migrants in Albania despite several legal defeats. In a statement following a meeting on Monday between Meloni and several ministers, the government reaffirmed its “firm intention” to continue working on “so-called ‘innovative solutions’ to the migration phenomenon.” Italian courts have twice thwarted Meloni’s policy to have asylum applications from migrants crossing the Mediterranean decided in Albania. Judges initially justified their rejection of the measure on the basis that the migrants – who were sent to Albania after being picked up in the Mediterranean…
More than a thousand people gathered in Magdeburg on Saturday evening to commemorate the victims of the attack on a Christmas market in the central German city a day earlier. Five people were killed, including a nine-year-old child, and 200 injured when a car sped through the crowd at the busy festive market on Friday evening, according to the authorities. The suspect, a 50-year-old man from Saudi Arabia, was arrested at the scene and taken into custody. Relatives of the victims, emergency responders and invited guests including German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Chancellor Olaf Scholz attended a private memorial service…
More than a thousand people gathered in Magdeburg on Saturday evening to commemorate the victims of the attack on a Christmas market in the central German city a day earlier. Five people were killed, including a nine-year-old child, and 200 injured when a car sped through the crowd at the busy festive market on Friday evening, according to the authorities. The suspect, a 50-year-old man from Saudi Arabia, was arrested at the scene and taken into custody. Relatives of the victims, emergency responders and invited guests including German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Chancellor Olaf Scholz attended a private memorial service…
A hospital in the north of the embattled Gaza Strip has urgently appealed to the international community for medication and food, saying it is no longer able to care for patients. The Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia is also struggling with a shortage of drinking water, the Health Ministry said on Saturday. The Israeli military is refusing to supply the hospital with the essentials and is blocking access for doctors and nurses, the ministry said. The director of the hospital, Hussam Abu Safiya, warned that a number of patients would die if help was not provided quickly. Israel has…
Saudi Arabia had warned Germany about the man suspected of carrying out the incident at the Magdeburg Christmas market, according to Saudi Arabian security sources. Saudi Arabia requested the extradition of the suspect, named under German law as Taleb A., but Germany had not responded, the sources said. They said the man was a Shiite Muslim who comes from the city of Al-Hofuf in eastern Saudi Arabia. Shiites are a minority in the country, making up only around 10% in the majority Sunni nation. German authorities were alerted about the man about a year ago, dpa has learned, however the…
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has threatened further attacks on military installations in Russia, after Ukrainian strikes hit the Russian city of Kazan and a village in the Kursk border region. “We will definitely continue to strike Russian military targets – with drones and missiles, increasingly with Ukrainian-made ones, specifically targeting military bases and Russian military infrastructure used in this terror against our people,” he said in his evening video address from Kyiv on Saturday. He said the clean-up operations after a ballistic missile attack on Kyiv on Friday had only just been completed. The president also said that a cancer…
Tyson Fury says the joking stops here, vowing to put unified heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk in the “hurt locker” when they meet for their rematch in Riyadh on Saturday. Fury, known for his colorful antics, has been all business during the week’s promotional events. At Thursday’s press conference, the typically outspoken 36-year-old Brit kept his words brief but his demeanor intimidating. Tensions peaked during an intense 12-minute face-off as Fury taunted Usyk, prompting the Ukrainian champion to fire back with insults and a smirk before the two were pulled apart. Fury promised a brutal rematch, vowing to deliver “pain and…
Marathon talks between Volkswagen and labour representatives about cost-cuttings measures at the carmaker ended in a breakthrough on Friday, with both sides portraying the deal as a win even though tens of thousands of jobs will eventually be shed. While the IG Metall union said that the mass involuntary lay-offs and plant closures feared by employees have been averted, Volkswagen said its still plans to eliminate more than 35,000 jobs in a “socially responsible” manner by 2030 in order to regain its edge. “We had three priorities in the negotiations: reducing excess capacity at the German sites, reducing labour costs…
Elon Musk caused a political storm in Germany on Friday after saying only the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party can “save” the country. “Only the AfD can save Germany,” Musk wrote on the social media platform X, which he acquired in 2022. The AfD is in second place in German polls at around 19%, two months before early elections expected to be held on February 23. However, Germany’s established parties have ruled out cooperating with the party, which is under investigation as a suspected right-wing extremist group by domestic intelligence services. The AfD’s candidate for chancellor, Alice Weidel, responded…
A clear majority of German residents believe Syrian refugees should be allowed to remain in the country until conditions in their homeland are peaceful and stable enough to return, according to a new survey. The survey for German public broadcaster ZDF, released on Friday, showed 64% of respondents in favour of granting Syrian refugees time to assess developments in the Middle Eastern country after the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime. Germany is home to around 975,000 Syrians, according to Interior Ministry figures, with most arriving since 2015 as a result of the civil war that broke out in 2011. Since…