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Author: Vijeta Uniyal

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Vijeta Uniyal

Vijeta Uniyal is an Indian journalist based in Germany. He is Senior Distinguished Fellow at the Gatestone Institute.

Islamist groups in Britain are "weaponizing" Islamophobia to silence legitimate criticism of Radical Islam, the country's counter-extremism tsar warned. The UK-based Muslim extremist groups "and their sympathisers weaponise Islamophobia in an attempt to shut down legitimate debate about Islamic extremism while undermining the general struggle against anti-Muslim hatred," Sara Khan, head of the UK Commission for Countering Extremism, said.

Chancellor Angela Merkel is expected to fire Germany's intelligence chief Hans-Georg Maassen after he refuted her claims of right-wing "mobs" chasing migrants during the late August demonstrations in the eastern German city of Chemnitz, German newspaper Die Welt reported. "We have video recordings of [people] hunting down others, of unruly assemblies, and hate in the streets, and that has nothing to do with our constitutional state," Chancellor Merkel said last month after residents in the eastern German city took to the streets in response the reported killing of a 35-year-old German by a group of migrants.

India, the second biggest oil customer for Iran, has begun cutting Iranian crude oil imports ahead of the November deadline set by the Trump administration, Indian newspapers report. The United States is expected to impose a fresh round of crippling sanction on Tehran in early November, targeting the country's oil industry -- Islamic Republic's main source of revenue.

The European Union parliament has overwhelmingly voted to censure Hungary over alleged "breaches of the EU's core values." The vote triggered the "Article 7" procedure of the EU constitution, paving the wave for economic sanctions and other punishing measures. The EU parliamentarians voted 448 to 197 in support of a resolution that accused "Hungary of threatening the rule of law by hampering press and academic freedoms, cracking down on NGO funding and denying rights to minorities and migrants," European media reports said. Parliamentarians cheered and applauded at the read out of the vote. It is the first time the punitive article has been triggered by parliament against an EU member.

Sweden faces political impasse after ruling left-wing coalition and the opposition center-right alliance failed to win a clear majority in Sunday's election. The biggest winner of the night was the nationalist party, the Swedish Democrats, who won 18 percent of the vote, compared to 12 percent in the 2014 elections. "We see that we are this election's winner, but now we enter a new mandate period and now we are going to get influence over Swedish politics for real," Jimmie Akesson, the leader of the Sweden Democrats, told supporters Sunday night. “We strengthen our kingmaker role. We will will have an immense influence over what happens in Sweden in the coming weeks, months, years," he added.

The right-wing Sweden Democrats (SD) are surging in polls ahead of the Swedish general election on Sunday. The final YouGov poll suggests the party will win nearly 25 percent of the vote becoming the largest party in parliament, beating the ruling Social Democrats (SAP). So far, most polls show Sweden Democrats emerging as the second largest party.

After days of unrest in eastern Germany, German politicians are calling for the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) to be placed under police surveillance. In a move that is seen as precursor to a nationwide surveillance of the party, German authorities placed the youth wing of the AfD in the states of Lower Saxony and Bremen under police observation. Thomas Oppermann, the vice president of the German parliament, said the German intelligence service BfV should monitor the AfD party for possible links to far-right groups. “The refugee question divides society, and the AfD is riding ever more radically on this wave,” Oppermann told German newspaper Die Welt. “That is why security services should be watching the collaboration between the AfD and neo-Nazis very closely.”

As the United States ends funding for the UN's Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), Germany is boosting the aid for the organization. Germany plans to pay a 'substantial' amount to offset the shortfall of estimated $217 million created by cutting of the aid by the U.S., German weekly Der Spiegel reports.

With US sanctions biting deep into Iran's economy, country's theocratic leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has admitted that European countries cannot to save the 2015 nuclear deal, Reuters news agency reported.

"There is no problem with negotiations and keeping contact with the Europeans, but you should give up hope on them over economic issues or the nuclear deal," Khamenei told President Hassan Rouhani and his cabinet on Wednesday.

The fatal stabbing of a German by a group of migrants has triggered riots in the eastern German city of Chemnitz. Several thousand demonstrators took to the streets on Monday night calling for an end to Chancellor Merkel's open borders policy, media reports say.

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas has laid out an ambitious plan to counter the United State at the world stage. In an article titled "Making Plans for a New World Order," Minister Mass talked about forming a "counterweight" to the US and called on the the European Union to become "a cornerstone of the international order." "[W]here the USA crosses the line, we Europeans must form a counterweight," German Foreign Minister wrote on Wednesday. "The main goal of our foreign policy is therefore to build a sovereign, strong Europe."

The head of Germany’s leading Jewish organisation criticized the use of "antisemitic stereotypes" in the school textbooks. Josef Schuster, president of The Central Council of Jews in Germany, slammed the Germany's schools and textbook publishers for doing too little to root out the problem. Many textbook illustrations in German textbooks resemble the anti-Semitic depictions from the Nazi-era newspaper "Der Stürmer," while at the same time failing to provide the appropriate historical context to the imagery, Schuster said.

The United States has imposed sanctions on Chinese and Russian companies for violating the trade restrictions on North Korea. The move highlights President Donald Trump's strategy to keep tightening the screws on Pyongyang over its nuclear program. The Treasury Department blacklisted a Russian port agency and two Chinese firms on Wednesday for aiding North Korea's shipping industry.

With the Turkish currency in free fall, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has announced a boycott of US-made electronic goods. Showing defiance in the wake of the recent US sanctions imposed in a dispute over the detention of an American pastor, Erdogan accused US President Donald Trump of waging "economic warfare" against the country.

Despite pressure from Prime Minister Theresa May and the UK Conservative Party, Britain's former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has refused to apologise for his critical remarks about women in burkas, the full-body Islamic veil. The senior Conservative politician stirred a controversy this week after likening burka-clad women to "letter-boxes" and "bank robbers". Johnson "won't be apologizing", reported the BBC citing a source close to the former Foreign Secretary. "We have to call it out. If we fail to speak up for liberal values then we are simply yielding ground to reactionaries and extremists," he reportedly added.

India and Israel are cementing bilateral cooperation in technology with the launch of a $40 million joint research fund. The 'Israel-India Industrial R&D and Technological Innovation Fund', or I4F as the project is formally known, was kicked off at a ceremony in India's capital New Delhi last week.

Germany's central bank, the Bundesbank, has revised its regulations to stop Iran from withdrawing €320 million ($400 million) in cash from the country's bank accounts. Under the new conditions, the Bundesbank can stop cash transfers that violate US Treasury sanctions, the German newspaper BILD disclosed. The drastic measure to physically ship the cash out of Germany demonstrates Tehran's demising trust in the European financial institutions as the US Treasury tightens screws on the regime's worldwide financial operations. The transaction is "one of the largest cash transfers ever in German history," a spokesman for the country's finance minister admitted.