Month: October 2023

Although the Christian Democrats (CDU) party has steadfastly denied it will ever form a coalition with the Alternative for Germany (AfD), there are signs that, at least in the east of the country, the CDU is more than willing to work with the party on a range of issues, especially immigration.

In Saxony, where the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) is consistently polling over 30 percent, the party is finding willing partners on the issue with the Christian Democrats (CDU) and the Free Voters, with the three parties joining together in the district of Central Saxony to stop additional expenditures for asylum seekers.

The move has angered the district administrator for the area, Dirk Neubauer, an independent supported by left-wing parties, who reacted with outrage after the right cut funding to migrants and blocked the additional €3.5 million he had requested.

The reason behind the proposed expenditure is due to growing immigration into Saxony. The Central Saxony district indicated that the district was receiving more migrants than expected while the length of each person staying has also been prolonged.

In the wake of the vote, Neubauer, who has the support of the Left Party, the Greens and the SPD, reportedly shouted at representatives of the AfD, CDU and Free Voters faction:

“All those who voted against this bill should be aware that they voted against the constitution,” he stated. Neubauer said he now plans to file a disciplinary complaint against their vote.

Rolf Weigand, deputy leader of the AfD parliamentary group, expressed his pleasure in how the vote went, saying it was “a clear signal in the direction of Berlin” that the district council had not decided on “further expenditure for this asylum chaos.”

Weigand, who is also a member of Saxony’s state parliament, said he hopes that other county councils follow the example they have set in Central Saxony.

As Remix News has reported, the ability of states and municipalities to continue funding the immigration wave hitting Germany has become a deep source of frustration and a massive financial burden. The federal government already estimates the country will spend €36 billion, but in Saxony, the €3.5 million requested was not even budgeted and was seen as an additional expenditure. If all of these “additional expenditures” are added up across Germany, it could come out to hundreds of millions of euros not even included in the €36 billion figure — or perhaps even billions.

Perhaps the most pressing topic at the moment is mass immigration, with two-thirds of the German public saying that the country needs to accept fewer migrants, according to the latest polling.

https://rmx.news/germany/germany-afd-teams-up-with-cdu-and-free-voters-to-cut-e3-5-million-in-handouts-to-migrants-in-saxony/

Several voices in the UK Conservative Party are campaigning for the country to leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

The party is hosting its 2023 conference in Manchester from October 1-4.

During the meeting the New Conservatives, a parliamentary group of predominantly “red-wall” Conservative (Tory) MPs, are expected to push Right-wing proposals including Britain’s departure of the ECHR. The red wall is a term used in British politics to describe the UK Parliament constituencies in the Midlands and Northern England that historically supported the Labour Party.

The New Conservatives’ five pledges aim to form “the backbone of the next Conservative Party manifesto”.

The proposals are: “Replace Labour’s European rights and equalities laws with a new British framework for rights and freedoms. Cut taxes for families, small businesses and entrepreneurs. Reduce immigration by halving the number of visas awarded to migrant workers, foreign students and their families.

The last two aim to “stop students who fail their A-levels from getting taxpayer-funded loans to attend university, and invest in apprenticeships instead; and ban gender ideology in schools and ensure parents’ rights to oversee the sex education their children receive”.

Not long until our first event at #CPC23 – will you be joining us?

Exchange 9, 3PM onwards! #newcons pic.twitter.com/5rxtQGdkoT

— The New Conservatives (@thenewcons) October 2, 2023

The first pledge is somewhat carefully framed but in essence it entails the withdrawal from the ECHR as it is seen as an impediment to enacting strong measures against illegal migration.

According to recent polling, most UK voters support the idea of Britain withdrawing from Europe’s human rights treaty to facilitate the deportation of undocumented immigrants. According to the polls, 54 per cent of the British people support leaving the ECHR while 27 per cent oppose it. The rest replied they “don’t know”.

Some 86 per cent of self-identified Tory voters support “replacing the current European system of human rights laws” with “new British laws that protect rights like free speech but enable the Government to promptly deport illegal migrants”.

Suella Braverman, the home secretary, raised the prospect of Britain leaving the convention if it continued to hold up the UK’s Rwanda migrant deportation policy.

Other issues the New Conservatives want to make prominent are lower taxes and fighting what they see as a culture war. Gender ideology, according to the group, should be forbidden in schools and parents should have the right to monitor their children’s sex education.

Cutting taxes was also proposed by Liz Truss, the former British prime minister. She was warmly received by the Conservative audience.

Less well received was Steve Bray, a vocal anti-Brexit activist. Bray disrupted a meeting and was kicked out of the conference. He had been protesting outside the event before it started.

Steve Bray ejected from the Bruges Group event

If a Brexiteer heckled a pro EU event in this manner, the “sensible” centrists who admire him would class him as a drunken hooligan. I don’t see why Steve is just laughed off when he has some serious issues.
pic.twitter.com/GncoANDYHm

— Chris Rose (@ArchRose90) October 2, 2023

https://brusselssignal.eu/2023/10/british-conservatives-push-to-leave-european-convention-on-human-rights/

A man (50) allegedly sexually molested at least four girls in a public swimming pool in Magdeburg and even abused one of them.

“He is suspected of having performed sexual acts in front of children aged between nine and twelve in several cases last Saturday,” police spokesman Stefan Brodtrück said on Monday.

In one case, the Iranian is alleged to have forced an eleven-year-old to touch him in the genital area, which is considered sexual abuse under criminal law.

According to information from the newspaper BILD, the assaults allegedly took place in the changing area of the “Nemo” fun pool (photo above).

After the police were alerted, officers were able to arrest the 50-year-old while he was still in the bath. A public prosecutor on standby applied for arrest. On Sunday, a judge issued the arrest warrant. The suspect was taken to a prison and is now in custody.

The investigators currently cannot rule out the possibility that there are even more harmed children who were molested or abused in the swimming pool on Saturday!

The police are therefore asking for help from the public. Anyone who might have seen or noticed something, or even become a victim themselves, should please come forward urgently.

Information can be given to the police in Magdeburg by calling 0391/546-3191 or at any police station.

Only in mid-September, a horrific incident took place in Cologne: in the outdoor pool of the Agrippa baths, eight young men (16 to 26) allegedly harassed and sexually molested a 13-year-old girl. One Iraqi (16) allegedly grabbed the child’s swimming trunks.

The girl managed to free herself and get help. A pool attendant alerted the police and all suspects were arrested. In the meantime, they have been released and the investigation is ongoing.

Magdeburg: Mädchen (11) in Schwimmbad missbraucht – drei weitere Kinder belästigt | Regional | BILD.de

A terrifying incident. A student at the Lycée professionnel Galilée in Vienne, Isère, shouted “Allah Akbar” in the middle of class after watching a video on his computer linked to Islamic State on Friday September 29, we have learned.
At around 11.00am, the high school student stood up in his classroom as he was about to shout the exclamation, which is usually chanted by Islamist terrorists. He was immediately isolated from his classmates and waited for a police patrol to arrive at the school.

The 16-year-old youth, who was known to the law enforcement agency TAJ (Traitement d’antécédents judiciaires) but unknown to the territorial intelligence service, was arrested and taken into police custody. “He allegedly made threats to the education staff to commit an attack if he was expelled,” a police source said.

The public prosecutor’s office in Vienne, contacted by Valeurs actuelles, has not yet responded to the request.

🔴 [Info @Valeurs] Un élève du lycée professionnel Galilée de Vienne (38) s'est levé en plein cours et a crié "Allah Akbar" après avoir regardé sur son ordinateur une vidéo liée à l’Etat islamique, ce vendredi, indique une source policière. Il a été aussitôt isolé en attendant la…

— Amaury Brelet (@AmauryBrelet) October 2, 2023

Valeurs actuelles

Early on Saturday morning, a seriously injured man was found in the old town of Schaffhausen and he died of his injuries on the spot. Another person was taken to hospital injured. The third person, the alleged perpetrator, was arrested at the railway station and is now in police custody – the Schaffhausen police are investigating a homicide. New information on the victims and the alleged perpetrator is now available.

The public prosecutor’s office of the canton of Schaffhausen told the newspaper “Schaffhauser Nachrichten” that the man who was killed was born in 1998. The second victim, who was treated in hospital after the crime, is much older, born in 1962. The alleged perpetrator is the youngest: he was born in 1999 and originates from Somalia. He was already being prosecuted for brawling, i.e. participation in a brawl.

The alleged perpetrator was questioned by the public prosecutor’s office on Sunday and will probably be remanded in custody soon. He is still presumed innocent. The authorities did not want to give any information about the murder weapon, but according to the “Schaffhauser Nachrichten” it was a stabbing. No information could be given on the exact cause of death either, as the autopsy is still ongoing.

The foster father of the dead man spoke in an interview with the newspaper “Blick” about the night of the crime. He regretted not picking up his foster son from the station. Instead, he had told him to take the train home. His foster son died on the spot due to the severe injuries. Shortly after 5 a.m., the Schaffhausen police control centre received a report that two injured persons were lying on the ground on Safrangasse in Schaffhausen, as the police reported in an initial statement.

https://www.20min.ch/story/schaffhausen-neue-details-zum-toetungsdelikt-am-bahnhof-schaffhausen-bekannt-263881770228

Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer has come under heavy criticism after a video emerged showing him saying that low-income parents should feed their children McDonald’s burgers.

In the video, the center-right politician, Nehammer, of the Austria People’s Party (ÖVP), talks about poverty and then complains about how the press covers child hunger.

“So, what does it mean that a child in Austria doesn’t get a hot meal? Do you know what the cheapest hot meal in Austria is? It’s not healthy, but cheap: A hamburger at McDonald’s is €1.40 — if I add fries, it’s €3.50. Now, someone is seriously saying that we live in a country where parents cannot afford this food for their children?” he said.

“If I have too little money, I go to work more,” he added in the video, which was filmed at an event near Salzburg.

Österreichs Bundeskanzler @KarlNehammer verhöhnt Eltern, die sich für ihre Kinder kein warmes Essen mehr leisten können:
"Sollens halt den billigsten Burger mit Pommes bei McDonalds kaufen."

#Nehammer pic.twitter.com/7BRtCKg9Pk

— Hartes Geld (@Hartes_Geld) September 28, 2023

The right-wing Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) leader Herbert Kickl slammed the chancellor’s remarks, stating that the comments made in the “wine cellar” show the “true face of the ÖVP chancellor.”

Other members of the FPÖ took issue with Nehammer’s remarks, pointing out that his party, along with its Green party coalition partners, have unleashed inflation across Austria due to their disastrous sanctions policies directed against Russia.

“The picture of people at risk of poverty, women and single parents that Nehammer again paints in this video is inhumane, condescending, shameful and unworthy of a chancellor’s party,” says the FPÖ’s women and family spokeswoman Rosa Ecker. “With his party colleagues, ÖVP Chancellor Karl Nehammer mocks people at risk of poverty, but especially women, mothers and single parents who fight every day against the inflation caused by the black-green government in order to somehow make ends meet.

“No, Mr. Chancellor, hamburgers and fries are not the classic warm dishes that parents want to serve their children. The way the People’s Party not only thinks about people at risk of poverty, but now speaks openly and loudly about them, is simply shabby. Nehammer and his elite party colleagues obviously live in a parallel world and no longer know what worries and fears they bring to the families and women in our country,” Ecker stated.

A spokesman for McDonald’s Austria told Brussels news agency Politico that although prices vary, it is possible to eat as cheaply as Nehammer suggested.

“From a common-sense point of view, this is obviously the worst health advice we can give to anyone, but especially children,” said Dorota Sienkiewicz, EuroHealthNet’s policy director.

“No one in Austria has to starve or freeze to death in winter, we are born in a lucky place in that respect. But anyone who says that no one in Austria is starving or freezing has no idea of the reality,” said Michael Landau, president of Caritas Austria, which works to improve the living conditions of the poor, on X.

Nehammer posted a video on X on Thursday in which he defended his government’s assistance to what he called low-income families, but made no apologies.

“I stand for rewarding achievement, and I stand for the duty of parents to care for their children,” he said.

The ratio of people “at risk of poverty” in Austria stood at 19.2 percent last year according to Eurostat, just below the euro area average of 20.1 percent.

https://rmx.news/austria/poor-kids-should-eat-mcdonalds-during-inflation-crisis-suggests-austrian-chancellor/

SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk slammed the Justin Trudeau government in Canada for “crushing free speech” in the country. 
His remark came in wake of a recent order of the Canada government which makes it compulsory for online streaming services to formally register with the government for ‘regulatory controls’. 

Musk was responding to a post by journalist and author Glenn Greenwald who was commenting on the ruling. 

“The Canadian government, armed with one of the world’s most repressive online censorship schemes, announces that all “online streaming services that offer podcasts” must formally register with the government to permit regulatory controls,” Greenwald posted on X (formerly Twitter) 

Responding to this, Elon Musk stated, “Trudeau is trying to crush free speech in Canada. Shameful”.

Notably, this is not the first time the Trudeau government is being accused of acting against free speech. 

In February 2022, Trudeau invoked emergency powers — for the first time in country’s history — to arm his government with more power to respond to the trucker protests, who were opposing the vaccine mandates at that time.  

Meanwhile, the Canadian PM created an uproar after he alleged India’s role in the killing of Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar. 
However, India has outrightly rejected the claims, calling it ‘absurd’ and ‘motivated’. 

Notably, Canada has yet to provide any public evidence to support the claim about the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar. 
India has suspended its visa services in Canada, following Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau’s allegations of Indian involvement in the killing. 

Amid strained ties, India issued an advisory for its citizens and those who are traveling to Canada to exercise “utmost caution in view of growing anti-India activities and politically-condoned hate crimes and criminal violence” in the country.

(This news report is published from a syndicated feed. Except for the headline, the content has not been written or edited by OpIndia staff)

https://www.opindia.com/2023/10/justin-trudeau-trying-to-crush-free-speech-in-canada-says-elon-musk-after-govt-initiates-censorship-for-podcasts/

Premier Giorgia Meloni on Monday expressed shock at a decision by a Catania court to release a migrant from detention on the grounds that measures in a recent government decree are allegedly illegitimate.
Under the decree, migrants can be held in pre-expulsion CPR centres for up to 18 months but can post a ‘bail’ of 5,000 euros in order to avert being detained, a measure that has spurred widespread criticism.
“I was astonished by the Catania judge’s ruling, which, on incredible grounds… freed an illegal immigrant who had already received a deportation order, unilaterally declaring Tunisia an unsafe country (which is not the judiciary’s job) and going against the measures of a democratically elected government,” Meloni said in a social-media post.
“It is not the first time this has happened but we will continue to defend the borders (of Italy)”.

Meloni ‘astonished’ by court ruling against govt’s migrant decree – English – ANSA.it

A university professor is set to launch a “faculty for common sense” at a rival institution after being “cancelled” by his students.

Eric Kaufmann, former head of Politics at Birkbeck, University of London is creating a Centre for Heterodox Social Science which focuses on academic free speech at the University of Buckingham.

The centre for research will investigate woke attitudes and controversial subjects such as trans rights and critical race theory.

It follows what Kaufmann claims was a five-year campaign to drive him out of Birkbeck for his right-leaning views.

Following a 20-year career, he quit the university at the end of August.

“I was cancelled by 1,000 cuts. Academia should be about the advancement of knowledge but you’re not allowed to advance theories which go against the progressive narrative,” he told the Daily Mail.

“If you have a different viewpoint, you’re in the crosshairs.

“The climate at British universities has worsened because morally absolutist, often younger, illiberal progressives are using pressure, public reputational attacks and social media to limit academic freedom.

“It’s a target-rich environment. The woke left can make your life hell and they know it.

“You worry about saying the wrong thing in class so you make it vanilla. You worry about getting your research grant so you self-censor.”

He added: “I believe this new woke ideology threatens the foundations of our civilisation. Every parent in the UK – and around the world – should be concerned at how far it has penetrated into our universities, schools and elite institutions.”

Kaufmann, who is half Jewish, a quarter Chinese and a quarter Costa Rican says he has been described as a white supremacist and a racist apologist for holding views that he defines as “liberal-conservative”.

The professor claims he has faced social media abuse and three internal inquiries following several hostile student course evaluations.

An open letter to the Master of Birkbeck also condemned him and called for him to be fired “for his defence of white identity politics and his countless attacks against Black Lives Matter and other activists and scholars of colour on social media”.

Professor Kaufmann’s first course, “Woke: the Origins, Dynamics and Implications of an Elite Ideology,” will be launched in January.

https://www.gbnews.com/news/university-professor-cancelled-birkbeck-eric-kaufmann-woke

Outraged parents have condemned the local mayor’s decision to accommodate up to 80 asylum seekers in containers on the grounds of a primary school in the German town of Monheim am Rhein.

Dozens of local residents attended a recent question time of the local council to voice their displeasure over the controversial move proposed by Mayor Daniel Zimmerman’s administration and expressed their concerns for child safety, calling the plans both inappropriate and unacceptable.

Starting next spring, a cohort of migrants will reside in containers located on the school grounds, which are no longer used for educational purposes.

In response to the protestations of locals, the council cited economic factors as a primary reason for the move, insisting that the estimated €150,000 it would cost to convert the containers into housing was substantially lower than the cost of renting private accommodations, where around 80 percent of the migrants recently received by the municipality currently reside.

“We simply can’t keep up with renting anymore,” a city press spokesperson told parents at the meeting.

Concerned parents told the council meeting that the housing of traumatized refugees in the vicinity of young children was wholly irresponsible, and expressed worries of potential conflict between the new arrivals and their children including the danger of rape or abuse.

However, Zimmerman called these fears “unfounded” and insisted that the migrants are “people like you and me” and are not dangerous.

“The safety of our children is the primary goal – I personally guarantee that,” the local mayor assured parents.

He explained that with the municipality receiving significantly more refugees from Ukraine, Syria, and Afghanistan, private accommodation in Monheim has become saturated and the town is reaching its acceptance limits. The council therefore needs to resort to alternative measures to accommodate further arrivals.

The mayor added that while he was open to discussing the matter further with concerned parents in the next few weeks, for instance at parent meetings, such correspondence will not change the city’s decision to repurpose the containers on the school grounds and considered the matter to be closed.

https://rmx.news/migrant-crisis/german-mayor-calls-concerns-over-child-safety-unfounded-amid-plans-to-accommodate-80-asylum-seekers-at-a-primary-school/