Image 01 Image 03

Author: Vijeta Uniyal

Profile photo

Vijeta Uniyal

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

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.

An estimated 126,000 illegal immigrants set for deportation from Germany have slipped through the fingers of immigration authorities, German Federal Police office (BKA) disclosed. German police hope that some of these illegal immigrants may have voluntarily left the country, German newspaper Die Welt reported. The scenario of illegal immigrants “self-deporting” themselves out of Germany is most unlikely. It is more probable that many of these fugitives have acquired new identities and are drawing welfare from the state. As past Legal Insurrection reports indicate, it is very easy for asylum seekers to get multiple identities in Germany thanks to the bureaucratic chaos resulting from Chancellor Angela Merkel's open door migrant policy.

Germany's domestic intelligence agency, or BfV, has reported a significant rise in the number of Islamist extremists living in the country. Officially classified as Salafists, or radicalized Sunni Muslims, their numbers have reached a new all-time high according to the agency's annual report issued on Tuesday. The number of Islamists in the country has doubled in the past five years, crossing 10,800 individuals. This significant growth in the Islamist scene can be attributed to more than a million Arab and Muslim migrants taken in by the country since Chancellor Angela Merkel opened borders in the autumn of 2015.

President Donald Trump's former chief strategist Steve Bannon's plans to launch a foundation aimed at supporting populist and nationalist causes in Europe has triggered a sharp repose from Germany's establishment politicians and the country's mainstream media.  "German politicians want to aggressively counter US right-wing populist Steve Bannon's plans to support like-minded parties in the [2019] European election," reported German weekly Der Spiegel.

Hungary has decided to quit the United Nations migration pact ahead of its final approval. Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto slammed the UN-backed accord as a “threat to the world” and “entirely against” his country's national interests. “This document is entirely against Hungary’s security interests,” he said. “This pact poses a threat to the world from the aspect that it could inspire millions [of illegal migrants].”

President Donald Trump's meeting with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Helsinki received some sharp criticism from the mainstream European media. Following Monday's summit, newspapers and news outlets on this side of the Atlantic made hay about the critical remarks coming from Arizona Republican senators John McCain and Jeff Flake, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, and former CIA Director John Brennan. "Trump's behavior [at the summit] was catastrophic," said the German newspaper Die Welt. "He made too many concessions to Putin. Many Republicans were shocked. And the former CIA chief even spoke of treason," referring Brennan's tweet that Trump's "press conference performance in Helsinki" was "nothing short of treasonous."

President Donald Trump's week-long Europe visit not only provoked a 'day of rage' from leftist demonstrators in London, it also triggered mainstream German media and liberal politicians, with the former German Vice-Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel even accusing the U.S. President of striving for a 'regime change' in Germany.

President Donald Trump criticized Europe's open border policy, saying that mass immigration was permanently changing the continent for the worse. The UK is "losing" its culture as a result, he added. "I think it changed the fabric of Europe and, unless you act very quickly, it’s never going to be what it was and I don’t mean that in a positive way." Trump said in an interview with the British newspaper The Sun. The comments came on the first day of his visit to the UK.