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Germany Tag

The United States has sanctioned Iran's biggest oil company because of its links to the country's Islamic Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), a designated terrorist group. Tehran's Persian Gulf Petrochemical Industries Company (PGPIC) and its 39 subsidiaries have been providing "financial lifelines to the IRGC," the U.S. Treasury Department said.

The German government's commissioner for Antisemitism has warned Jews living in Germany against wearing Kippah, or the Jewish skullcap, in public. "I can't advise Jews to wear Kippah at all times and everywhere in Germany. I have to say this with regret," Felix Klein, who heads the German government's Antisemitism office, told German newspaper group Funke.

In a devastating blow to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, Germany's parliament has passed a resolution condemning BDS as antisemitic. The resolution titled "Stand Resolutely Against the BDS Movement: Combat Antisemitism" calls for cutting state funding to organizations supporting anti-Israel boycott. The motion is first of its kind adopted by any European country.

Germany's domestic intelligence service has published its first detailed report on Muslim anti-Semitism spreading across the country. Muslim anti-Semitism poses a significant threat to German society, the report titled "Antisemitism in Islamism" concluded. "The antisemitic ideology being spread by Islamist group and individuals poses a significant challenge for the peaceful and tolerant coexistence in Germany," the 44-page document said.

Germany's center-right Free Democratic Party (FDP) has introduced a bill to end government support for anti-Israel BDS Movement. The proposed legislation seeks a ban on state funding to organizations involved in boycott and delegitimization campaign against Israel. Germany—directly as well as thorough European Union institutions—hands out millions of euros each year to activists and NGOs that run the anti-Israel boycott campaign.

The Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has invited Steve Bannon to speak at the country's parliament next month, the Hamburg-based news weekly Der Spiegel disclosed. "The AfD is planning a meeting for right-wing bloggers and writers at the Bundestag," the magazine reported. "The party has invited U.S. President Donald Trump's former chief strategist Steve Bannon."

Germany's domestic intelligence chief has warned of the threat posed by the resurgence of left-wing extremists in the country. The Left-wing extremists were engaged in violence against police and political opponents in Germany, Thomas Haldenwang, president of country's Office for the Protection of the Constitution, told German newspaper Die Welt am Sonntag.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel welcomed former U.S. President Barack Obama in Berlin on Saturday. The meeting was closed to the press. The German government spokesman, Steffen Seibert, declined comment on the content of the talks, calling Obama's visit to the Chancellery in Berlin a "private meeting."

Germany's leading Muslim organization has urged the government to appoint a Federal Commissioner to counter anti-Muslim attitudes in the country. "Such a Commissioner is needed more than ever because we have a latent anti-Muslim sentiment in Germany," president of the country's Central Council of Muslims, Aiman Mazyek, said.

An appeals court in Berlin has ordered the deportation of the convicted Palestinian terrorist, Rasmea Odeh. The Higher Regional Court was responding to an appeal filed by Odeh's lawyer, challenging the earlier deportation order issued by Berlin State's Home Affairs Department, or Innensenat, ordering her to leave the country. That deportation was promptly carried out. Odeh is out of Germany.

German police have arrested ten Islamists on suspicion of planning terror attacks. The suspects were plotting car ramming attacks and mass shootings with the aim to "kill as many 'non-believers' as possible," the prosecutors in the city of Frankfurt said.

Germany won't be meeting its NATO spending target this year, the country's finance ministry disclosed. "Defense spending is projected to fall well short of NATO's 2 percent target," German state broadcaster DW News reported Wednesday.

Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, German Chancellor Angela Merkel's successor, has come under fire for make a joke about gender-neutral bathrooms. Her remark was in response to a campaign waged by the left-wing Green Party to introduce gender-neutral bathrooms in official builds in the state of Berlin. She said the third-gender toilets were for "men who cannot decide if they want to sit or stand when they pee" on a carnival-themed TV show.