A brutal war of words has broken out between the two major parties here over violence committed by youths with immigrant backgrounds, and neither side is backing down.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has found herself straddling the divide, caught between her contradictory roles as party leader during a heated regional election campaign and as the head of a delicate coalition government.
The controversy began suddenly late last month, when a 20-year-old Turk and a 17-year-old Greek were caught on videotape severely beating a 76-year-old retiree in the Munich subway. The pensioner's skull was fractured in the attack, which shocked the nation. Far from a brief flare-up, the political battle over crime, punishment and ethnicity has only intensified since.
Germany has its difficulties with its immigrants, of which Turks are the largest group, but nothing like the raw conflict seen in other European countries, particularly France. Germany's Nazi past and, as a result, the pains that mainstream German politicians usually take to avoid even the appearance of overt nationalist sentiment, have tended to restrain the kind of debate pursued more openly by far-right parties elsewhere on the continent.
Yet there are signs that could be changing. Roland Koch, a Christian Democrat and the premier in the state of Hesse, home to Frankfurt, seized on the Munich attack as an opportunity to push for tougher penalties for juvenile immigrants who commit crimes. Voters in Hesse and Lower Saxony go to the polls on Jan. 27 in closely watched races for their state parliaments, with Hamburg following next month.
At an election rally on Sunday before thousands of supporters, Koch made the typical candidate's speech, touching on roads and schools, chances missed by his Social Democratic predecessors and the successes of his own government. The loudest cheers came when he turned to his theme of law and order.
"Anyone who raises their fist in this country will experience the combined resistance of the entire civil society of this republic," Koch said. His position struck a chord with Christian Democratic voters.
"The others, their politics are all illusion and Utopia, as if all people are the same," said Herbert Thiel, 66, who had come from the Hessian town of Eschborn for the rally.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
‘BODIES EVERYWHERE’: The incident occurred at a Filipino festival celebrating an anti-colonial leader, with the driver described as a ‘lone suspect’ known to police Canadian police arrested a man on Saturday after a car plowed into a street party in the western Canadian city of Vancouver, killing a number of people. Authorities said the incident happened shortly after 8pm in Vancouver’s Sunset on Fraser neighborhood as members of the Filipino community gathered to celebrate Lapu Lapu Day. The festival, which commemorates a Filipino anti-colonial leader from the 16th century, falls this year on the weekend before Canada’s election. A 30-year-old local man was arrested at the scene, Vancouver police wrote on X. The driver was a “lone suspect” known to police, a police spokesperson told journalists at the
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has unveiled a new naval destroyer, claiming it as a significant advancement toward his goal of expanding the operational range and preemptive strike capabilities of his nuclear-armed military, state media said yesterday. North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Kim attended the launching ceremony for the 5,000-tonne warship on Friday at the western port of Nampo. Kim framed the arms buildup as a response to perceived threats from the US and its allies in Asia, who have been expanding joint military exercises amid rising tensions over the North’s nuclear program. He added that the acquisition
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