For most people, reaching 100 would be reason enough to put one’s feet up and take things easy, but Lisel Heise has other ideas.
The German centenarian, a former sports teacher, has started a new chapter in her life by standing for election to the council in her home town of Kirchheimbolanden.
Continue reading...Follow all the latest as the prime minister awaits the EU’s decision on a delay to Brexit
This is from the Telegraph’s James Crisp.
Theresa May has left the summit building for dinner. She is expected to return later.
France and Germany are understood to be at loggerheads over both the length of the extension and the conditions that the EU should put on a delay to Brexit.
The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, is arguing that a short extension to 30 June is unlikely to provide enough time for the impasse in Westminster to be broken, and Berlin is seeking an extension until 31 December.
Continue reading...Alleged target is Inferno Cottbus ’99 group, suspected of criminal activity and neo-Nazism
Police have carried out extensive raids in four German states on premises linked to suspected far-right extremists.
Thirty properties including flats, offices and commercial premises in the states of Brandenburg, Berlin, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Saxony were searched in the operations which began at dawn and continued into Wednesday afternoon.
Continue reading...Vessel barred from entering Italy or Malta since picking up dozens of refugees on 3 April
Concerns are rising for the wellbeing of 64 people stranded on a migrant rescue vessel in the Mediterranean for a week because neither Italy nor Malta will allow the boat to dock.
The migrants and refugees were rescued from a dinghy off Libya on 3 April by a rescue boat operated by the German NGO Sea-Eye and named Alan Kurdi after the Syrian boy who drowned in 2015.
Continue reading...Rolling coverage of the day’s political developments as they happen, including Theresa May’s talks with Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron, and MPs debating how long the article 50 extension should be
These are from my colleague Angelique Chrisafis in Paris.
Before Macron meets May, Elysee official insists any long extension would need ‘very strict guarantees’ that UK as an exiting state wouldn’t fully take part in or disrupt key decisions on future of EU eg commission head, budget. Would mean regular checks that UK abiding by this
Elysee source on length of possible Brexit extension: ‘we think one year would be too long’
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EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier fails to convince bloc May has plan to break deadlock
Britain is likely to be offered a final long extension ending on 31 December after the EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, failed to convince the bloc’s capitals that Theresa May has a plan to break the Brexit impasse.
A number of member states, most prominently France, along with Slovenia, Greece, Austria and Spain, remain sceptical about a lengthy extension, citing the risks to the EU of Britain behaving badly.
Continue reading...Britain’s membership could be extended to March 2020 after PM fails to sell her plan in dash to Paris and Berlin
Theresa May’s request for a short Brexit delay has been torn up, putting the EU on track to instead extend Britain’s membership until 2020.
Despite the prime minister’s desperate dash to Paris and Berlin to convince leaders of her plan to break the Brexit impasse, the European council president, Donald Tusk, signalled EU politicians’ lack of faith in her cross-party talks.
Continue reading...Jody Williams and Mary Wareham were leading lights in the campaign to ban landmines. Now they have autonomous weapons in their sights
It sounds like something from the outer reaches of science fiction: battlefield robots waging constant war, algorithms that determine who to kill, face-recognition fighting machines that can ID a target and take it out before you have time to say “Geneva conventions”.
This is no film script, however, but an ominous picture of future warfare that is moving ever closer. “Killer robots” is shorthand for a range of tech that has generals salivating and peace campaigners terrified at the ethical ramifications of warfare waged via digital proxies.
Continue reading...Art collective likened to ‘terrorist organisation’ by far-right politician Björn Hocke
When a group of performance artists erected a replica of Berlin’s Holocaust memorial next to the home of a far-right politician, they were hoping to draw attention to the revisionist views of a rising figure on Germany’s nationalist right.
But as the collective finds itself targeted by the first criminal investigation of its kind against a group of artists in modern German history, their stunt is instead putting the spotlight on the proximity between far-right politics and the public servants in formerly Communist east German states.
Continue reading...EU gives car manufacturers 10 weeks to respond to findings from antitrust investigation
The European commission has charged BMW, Daimler and Volkswagen with colluding to limit the introduction of clean emissions technology, in the preliminary findings of an antitrust investigation.
The car manufacturers have 10 weeks to respond and could face fines of billions of euros – up to 10% of their global annual turnover – if their explanations are rejected.
Continue reading...Charity Commission to assess whether money sent abroad was subject to due diligence as German MPs urge funding halt
Britain’s charity regulator has launched a formal investigation into the World Wide Fund for Nature, following allegations the conservation group is implicated in human rights abuses against people in Africa and Asia.
The inquiry by the Charity Commission will assess whether WWF’s UK arm followed “due diligence” in ensuring that money sent abroad did not contribute to abuse.
Continue reading...Donald Trump has again wrongly claimed that his father, Fred Trump, was born in Germany. The president made the claim about his New York-born father during a press conference with the Nato secretary general, saying: 'My father is German, was German, born in a very wonderful place in Germany.' Trump’s grandfather, Friedrich Trump, was born in the German village of Kallstadt
Continue reading...President made the claim about his New York-born father, Fred Trump, during a press conference with the Nato secretary general
Donald Trump has wrongly claimed his father was born in Germany, again, during a press conference with the Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg.
Trump made the claim while criticizing Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel, whose country, the president said, “was not paying their fair share” toward the military alliance.
Continue reading...Cäcilie Albrecht excludes late son’s wife and children from future roles in the company
The late wife of one of the founders of the discount supermarket chain Aldi has plunged the family into a bitter row after declaring in her will that her grandchildren and their mother are excluded from future business decisions.
Cäcilie Albrecht, known as the grande dame of the Aldi clan, vented her anger towards the five offspring of her late son, as well as his widow, Babette, accusing them of lavish spending not in keeping with the firm’s frugal philosophy, and of siphoning millions from company funds to finance their luxury lifestyles.
Continue reading...Natalia Fileva, a co-owner of private Russian airline S7, died when her plane went down in a field south of Frankfurt
One of Russia’s richest women has died in a plane crash in south-western Germany along with two other people.
Natalia Fileva, a co-owner of private Russian airline S7, also known as Siberia Airlines, was confirmed as one of the victims of Sunday’s crash in statement issued by her company.
Continue reading...Grassroots campaign hopes to save city’s Litfaß columns from being destroyed by authorities
They have been an integral part of the city’s furniture for so long, Berliners admit to taking them for granted.
But concrete advertising pillars, known as Litfaßsäule – or Litfaß columns – after the man who invented them, around 3,000 of which dot the German capital, are under threat. A low-key, grassroots protest has sprung up in an effort to save them from destruction and sparked a trend involving writing messages on the pillars, as well as poems and heart felt tributes.
Continue reading...Prosecutors said suspects arrested for allegedly plotting ‘state-endangering crime’
German police arrested 11 people in pre-dawn raids on Saturday on suspicion they were planning major attacks with stockpiled weapons and explosives, a prosecution spokesman said.
One of the 11 was confirmed as a Tajikistan national, but officials disclosed few other details about the suspects, who were detained in the early hours in western and southern parts of the country.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Yemen rebel chief says foreign secretary ‘cannot be a peace broker and arms salesman’
The leader of the Houthi movement in Yemen has condemned the British foreign secretary for pressing Germany to relax its arms sales ban on Saudi Arabia, saying it was not possible for the UK to be a peace-broker in the country and an arms seller.
“Britain sending aid does not change the tragic reality of its arms sales. Jeremy Hunt cannot promote peace while at the same time acting as an arms salesman,” said Mohamed Ali al-Houthi, the head of the supreme revolutionary committee, in an interview with the Guardian.
Continue reading...Suspects detained following police raids in Frankfurt region
Ten people have been arrested in Germany on suspicion of planning a terror attack using a car and guns with the aim of killing as many people as possible.
The suspects, whose ages ranged from 20 to 42, were detained on Friday in raids conducted by police in the region around Frankfurt, prosecutors said a statement. No details were provided on the nationalities of the suspects.
Continue reading...Suspects aged between 20 and 42 detained after police raids in Frankfurt region
Ten people have been arrested in Germany on suspicion of planning a terrorist attack using a car and guns with the aim of killing as many people as possible.
Several of the suspects, aged 20 to 42, were German citizens, a spokeswoman for the prosecutor’s office said, without naming the other nationalities.
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