TEL AVIV – A senior official in Jerusalem denied a report on Saturday that claimed Germany is growing increasingly frustrated with Israel’s settlement policies and Chancellor Angela Merkel has said she understands why Palestinian President Mahmoud Abb…
Month: May 2016
Ted Cruz: ‘Environmental Policies’ Kill California Jobs over ‘Bait Fish’
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) waded into California water politics on Saturday, suggesting at the California Republican Party convention in Burlingame that eating the three-inch Delta Smelt with “cheese and crackers” rather than allowing “out of control environmental policies” to kill California jobs, including those for Hispanic farm workers.
Merkel’s Party Wants To Spy On Mosques
A senior member of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s party says the German government should record and spy on the content of speeches in German mosques. Christian Democratic Union MP Volker Kauder (pictured above, talking to Chancellor Merkel) has said that he wants the government to be more active and aware of what imams are preaching in German mosques. “We need to talk about that fact that in some mosques sermons are given that don’t chime with our understanding of the role of the state,” he said in an interview with Berliner Zeitung. In the interview Kauder was questioned about the policies of his government and what role it should have in combating radicalism among Muslims. He told the paper that Germany is a country “in which religion doesn’t take precedence over the state, but vice versa. This may be different in Islamic states. In Germany, the state sets the rules.” He compared the duty of Muslims to fight against Islamic radicalisation to the German experience with Nazism saying, “just as we as German a responsibility to ensure that Germany never returns to Fascism, we must confront neo-Nazi tendencies. So too Muslims are to stand firm against radicalisation and terrorism.” Kauder spoke of the need to have
Berlin Cracks Down On Airbnb Rentals To Cool Housing Market
Berlin has begun restricting private property rentals through Airbnb and similar online platforms, threatening hefty fines in a controversial move meant to keep housing affordable for locals. The German capital fears that the growing trend of people letting out apartments to tourists through sites such as Airbnb, Wimdu and 9Flats is cutting into a limited property supply and driving up rents. From May 1, the city-state will enact a new law known by the German mouthful of “Zweckentfremdungsverbot”, or prohibition of improper use. It is “a necessary and sensible instrument against the housing shortage in Berlin,” said Andreas Geisel, Berlin’s head of urban development. “I am absolutely determined to return such misappropriated apartments to the people of Berlin and to newcomers,” he said. Rents in Berlin shot up 56 percent between 2009 and 2014, although at around 10 euros per square metre this year, they are relatively low compared to other major European cities. Given that it is more profitable to rent out whole apartments for short holiday lets, some investors are holding on to apartments for such rentals rather than having long-term tenants. San Francisco-based Airbnb.com — short for the business’s original name AirBed & Breakfast — is the
Five Years After Bin Laden, Al-Qaeda Down But Far From Out
Five years after the killing of Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, the network he founded is far from dead even if it has suffered a series of setbacks. Replaced as the preeminent global jihadist power by the Islamic State group, Al-Qaeda nonetheless remains a potent force and dangerous threat, experts say. With last year’s Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris and a wave of shootings in West Africa, Al-Qaeda has shown it can still carry out its trademark spectacular attacks. And in Syria and Yemen its militants have seized on chaos to take control of significant territory, even presenting themselves as an alternative to the brutality of IS rule. The raid that killed Osama Bin Laden By the time US special forces killed bin Laden in Pakistan on May 2, 2011, the group he founded in the late 1980s had been badly damaged, with many of its militants and leaders killed or captured in the US “War on Terror”. Dissention grew in the jihadist ranks as new Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri struggled in bin Laden’s place, until one of its branches, originally Al-Qaeda in Iraq, broke away to form the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Soldiers patrol
Germany Begs European Commission To Allow Extension Of Border Controls
BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany will ask the European Commission to allow an extension of temporary border controls within the Schengen zone of passport-free travel beyond mid-May, Interior Minister Thomas De Maiziere said on Saturday. Germany and some other European Union members have introduced temporary border checks to control or halt record flows of migrants fleeing conflicts in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere and travelling to western Europe via the Balkans. Germany took in more than one million migrants last year. But the number of arrivals has slowed significantly after border clampdowns were imposed by Austria and other countries along the migrants’ main Balkans route northwards from Greece. “Even if the refugee situation has eased at internal borders along the West Balkan route, we look with concern at the developments on the external borders of the Union,” De Maiziere said in a statement. Berlin will therefore ask the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, to allow the border controls to be extended beyond May 12 when the legal basis for the current measures expires, he said. A German government official said the request was a joint initiative by Germany, France, Austria, Belgium, Denmark and Sweden and the letter would be sent to
GOP Vice Chair: California Primary Will Pick GOP Nominee
Harmeet Dhillon, who serves as Vice Chair of the California Republican Party and is a candidate for the Republican National Committee, urged the GOP to rally behind whoever the presidential nominee is, adding that the June 7 California primary could d…
Herzog Invites Britain’s Corbyn To Israel Amid Anti-Semitism Row
Israeli opposition leader Isaac Herzog on Saturday invited Jeremy Corbyn, leader of Britain’s Labour party, to visit the Yad Vashem holocaust memorial in Jerusalem amid a row over anti-semitism.