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Germany Tag

The year began with an ominous warning from the German authorities. A team of researchers commissioned by the Ministry of Family Affairs found a "correlation between the refugee arrivals and violent crimes." Not that anyone needed a report to prove the obvious. The mainstream German media predictably trashed the findings and politicians in Berlin ignored them.

German prosecutors have charged a 27-year-old ISIS bride with the murder of a 5-year-old 'slave' girl. The German national, named in the media as Jennifer W., traveled to Syria in 2014, where she and her husband bought the little girl as a slave.

Germany wants to introduce a "mosque tax" for German Muslims to fund mosques and Islamic religious activities. The measure proposed by the lawmakers of Chancellor Angela Merkel's coalition aims to win the loyalty of Muslim clerics who receive generous funding from Islamic countries such as Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Iran.

German weekly Der Spiegel has fired an award-winning journalist for faking news stories for years, the publication said Wednesday. "Claas Relotius, a reporter and editor, falsified his articles on a grand scale and even invented characters, deceiving both readers and his colleagues," Der Spiegel disclosed.

The German parliament approved a 'third gender' identity, allowing people to identify themselves as "diverse" on official documents instead of the usual male or female option. The new law introduced by Chancellor Angela Merkel's coalition has been passed by both chambers of German Bundestag, with the upper house adopting it on Friday.

The number of weapon permits in Germany is soaring to record heights since Chancellor Angela Merkel opened the country's borders to migrants in the spring of 2015. German authorities issued 600,000 basic weapon licenses since 2014, an increase of 130 percent, figures published by the German state broadcaster Deutsche Welle show. The surge in weapon ownership reflects the waning public confidence in the German government's ability to protect ordinary citizens.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been working behind the scenes to prevent European Union member countries from recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, the newspaper Jerusalem Post reported. The revelation was made by Tomas Sandell, the director of the European Coalition for Israel in Brussels. Chancellor Merkel made a series of calls to European leaders in April while "many of the nations were seriously considering moving their embassies." Sandell said. "This is not the Germany we once knew. This is not the even Angela Merkel we once knew when she was elected."

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has successfully lobbied the United Nations to classify Climate Change as legitimate grounds for migration, a communique issued by the German parliament disclosed. "In order to shape migration in the context of Climate Change in sustainable manner, Germany advocated to recognize Climate Change as basis for migration in international negotiations for the global migration pact," a parliamentary bulletin surfaced on Monday said.  The document was made public on Twitter by Ralf Schuler, the parliamentary correspondent for the German newspaper Bild.

Amid rising antisemitism and anti-Israel activism in Europe, over 3000 members of Jewish diaspora and supporters of Israel gathered in Frankfurt, Germany, for the 5th German Israel Congress this weekend. Widely regarded as the biggest pro-Israel event in Europe, the conference was attended by leading politicians, government officials, and public figures from Germany and Israel. Israel's Strategic Affairs Minister Gilad Erdan took the opportunity to urge the German government to take a tougher stance on Iran. "Germany should take a more aggressive stance against the Iranian regime," Minister Erdan said. "It was only yesterday that President Rouhani called Israel metastatic cancer. History has taught us that anti-Semitic threats from fanatical leaders, and exporters of terror who have hegemonic aspirations, must be taken seriously."

The Friedrich Ebert Foundation, a leading left-wing German think tank, has called off its plans to honor the Woman's March USA over allegations of antisemitism. Two leaders of the group, Linda Sarsour and Tamika Mallory, have not shied away from displaying their affection for notorious anti-Semite and racist Louis Farrakhan. The foundation, affiliated to Germany's ruling Social Democratic party, rescinded the award after weeks of protests from academics and researchers associated with the state-funded organisation, German newspapers report. "After careful consideration, the executive board has decided to cancel the award ceremony and the let the issue be examined by an independent entity," the foundation declared on its website.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced she will step down as leader of her Christian Democratic party (CDU) after massive losses in Sunday's election in the key German state of Hesse. Germany's ruling CDU suffered a second electoral drubbing in almost a fortnight, after voters in Bavaria and Hesse abandoned the party in droves. Speaking to the media, Merkel also confirmed her decision not to seek another term as Chancellor in the 2021 general elections and ruled out taking a position at the European Union after leaving the office. The four-term German Chancellor was expected to stand for a re-election as leader in the party's conference in December.

German police are carrying out raids in connection with yesterday's attack at a Cologne central train station. On Monday afternoon, Special Forces stormed the station compound after an Arabic-speaking man, claiming allegiance to the Islamic State, set fire to a 14-year-old girl and took another woman hostage. The attacker tied gas canisters around the hostage and threatened to blow her up, forcing the Special Forces to move in. The suspect, identified as a Syrian asylum seeker, sustained several gunshot wounds during the rescue operation.

A German court has ordered the extradition of an Iranian diplomat suspected of involvement in a bomb plot over to Belgium, German media reported. Assadollah Assadi, a diplomat posted to Vienna, was arrested by German police in early July for planning an attack on an Iranian opposition rally in France. The event organized by an exiled Iranian opposition group was attended by several prominent figures, including former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner.

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.

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.

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.