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German far-right leader questions NATO membership

German far-right leader questions NATO membership
‘NATO is currently not a defense alliance. A defense community must accept and respect the interests of all European countries — including Russia’s interests,’ the AfD’s Tino Chrupalla said. (AFP)
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German far-right leader questions NATO membership

German far-right leader questions NATO membership
  • ‘Europe has been forced to implement America’s interests. We reject that’
Updated 9 sec ago
AFP
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BERLIN: The co-leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party on Sunday said Germany should reconsider its membership of NATO if the US-led military alliance did not consider the interests of all European countries, including Russia.
“Europe has been forced to implement America’s interests. We reject that,” the AfD’s Tino Chrupalla told German daily Welt.
“NATO is currently not a defense alliance. A defense community must accept and respect the interests of all European countries — including Russia’s interests,” Chrupalla said.
“If NATO cannot ensure that, Germany must consider to what extent this alliance is still useful for us,” he added.
The far-right AfD is polling at around 18-19 percent ahead of snap elections on February 23, following the collapse of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s coalition government last month.
The score puts the party ahead of Scholz’s Social Democrats on 16-17 percent and behind only the conservative CDU-CSU bloc, which is polling around 31-32 percent.
The AfD has little chance of forming a government because other parties have ruled out cooperation with the far-right group.
But it could continue a streak of strong electoral showings, after a landmark win in Thuringia, one of the regions in Germany’s formerly communist east.
The far-right party has been a vocal critic of Germany’s military support for Ukraine and has argued for a swift end to the war prompted by Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022.
“The German government must finally get to the point of wanting to end the war,” said Chrupalla, whose colleague Alice Weidel will lead the AfD into the election as the party’s candidate for chancellor.
“Russia has won this war. Reality has caught up with those who claim to want to enable Ukraine to win the war,” he said.
The conflict in Ukraine is set to be one of the major themes of the campaign, which will culminate on the eve of the third anniversary of the invasion.
Scholz has pledged sustained support for Ukraine but has counselled prudence, as he hopes to tap into pacifist currents among voters, which are particularly strong in the east.
The chancellor has resisted calls to send long-range missiles that Kyiv could use to strike Russian territory for fear of being drawn into the conflict, and recently reinitiated direct contact with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Topics: Germany NATO

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DR Congo, Rwanda peace talks canceled

DR Congo, Rwanda peace talks canceled
Updated 27 sec ago
AFP
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DR Congo, Rwanda peace talks canceled

DR Congo, Rwanda peace talks canceled
  • Since 2021 a Rwanda-backed rebel militia has seized swathes of the eastern the Democratic Republic of Congo
  • The Congolese government says that the M23 rebels only exist because of Rwandan military support
Updated 27 sec ago
AFP
LUANDA: Talks due Sunday between the leaders of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo to end conflict in the eastern DRC were called off after negotiations deadlocked, officials said.
Since 2021 a Rwanda-backed rebel militia has seized swathes of the eastern DRC, displacing thousands and triggering a humanitarian crisis.
There had been high hopes that the summit hosted by Angola’s President Joao Lourenco – the African Union mediator to end the conflict – would end with a deal to end the conflict.
But around midday Sunday the head of the Angolan presidency’s media office said it would not go ahead.
“Contrary to what we expected, the summit will no longer be held today,” media officer Mario Jorge told journalists.
Lourenco was meeting with DRC leader Felix Tshisekedi and without Rwandan President Paul Kagame, he said.
The Congolese presidency said that negotiations had hit deadlock over a Rwandan demand that the DRC hold direct dialogue with the Kigali-backed and largely ethnic Tutsi M23 rebels who have since 2021 seized swathes of the eastern DRC.
“There is a stalemate because the Rwandans have set as a precondition for the signing of an agreement that the DRC hold a direct dialogue with the M23,” Giscard Kusema, the Congolese presidency spokesman present in Luanda, said.
Rwanda’s Foreign Minister Olivier Nduhungirehe said Friday that his country wanted “a firm commitment from the DRC to resume direct talks with the M23 within a well-defined framework and timeframe.”
The Congolese government says, however, that the M23 only exists because of Rwandan military support.
“If Kigali is in good faith in the negotiations and on its promise to withdraw... its troops from Congolese soil, the conflict will end with the M23, and at the same time it will stop with Rwanda,” a Congolese government source said.
Kagame and Tshisekedi last saw each other in October in Paris but did not speak, though they have maintained dialogue through the mediation of Luanda.
In early August, Angola mediated a fragile truce that stabilized the situation at the front line, but both sides continued to exchange fire and clashes have intensified since late October.
Home to a string of rival armed groups, the mineral-rich eastern DRC has been plagued by internal and cross-border violence for the past three decades.
“Our country continues to face persistent rebellions, including the aggression by the Rwandan army and the M23 terrorists,” Tshisekedi said in parliament Wednesday, calling the militants and Rwanda “enemies of the Republic.”
The capital of DRC’s North Kivu province Goma, home to about one million people and another million displaced by war, is now nearly surrounded by M23 rebels and the Rwandan army.
Early in November, the two central African neighbors launched a committee to monitor ceasefire violations, led by Angola and including representatives from both the DRC and Rwanda.
Kinshasa and Kigali a few weeks later approved a document setting out the terms by which Rwandan troops will disengage from Congolese territory.
A previous draft dated in August listed the dismantling of the FDLR militia, created by ethnic Hutus involved in the Rwandan genocide in 1994, as a precondition for Rwanda’s withdrawal.
Often portrayed by Kigali as a threat to its security, the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) is one of various disparate militias fighting alongside the Congolese army against the M23.
The August draft was rejected by the DRC, which demanded that the withdrawal occur at the same time as the FDLR’s dismantling.
The final strategic document, seen by AFP, planned for a period of 90 days to “conclude the neutralization of the FDLR and the lifting of Rwanda’s defensive measures.”

Germany warns Assad supporters involved in atrocities in Syria against trying to flee there

Germany warns Assad supporters involved in atrocities in Syria against trying to flee there
Updated 15 December 2024
AP
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Germany warns Assad supporters involved in atrocities in Syria against trying to flee there

Germany warns Assad supporters involved in atrocities in Syria against trying to flee there
  • Germany has been a major destination for Syrian refugees over the past decade, and several hundred thousand Syrian nationals live there
Updated 15 December 2024
AP

BERLIN: Germany’s foreign minister is warning anyone involved in atrocities for the ousted Syrian government against seeking refuge in her country, saying they would face “the full force of the law.”
Germany has been a major destination for Syrian refugees over the past decade, and several hundred thousand Syrian nationals live there. In rulings since 2021, former Syrian secret police officers already have been convicted in Germany for overseeing or facilitating the abuse of detainees.
“To any of (former President Bashar) Assad’s torturers who might be considering fleeing to Germany now, I can only say clearly: We will bring all the regime’s henchmen to account for their terrible crimes with the full force of the law,” Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock told Sunday’s edition of the Bild am Sonntag newspaper.
Baerbock called for international security authorities and intelligence services to work closely together.
Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said Germany is “extremely vigilant” and pointed to border checks that the country already has put in place on its frontiers as it tries to reduce irregular migration.
She told Bild am Sonntag that “no one who participated in atrocities is safe from prosecution here.” She said the convictions already handed down show that Germany pursues such crimes rigorously and should act as a deterrent against people involved in them going there.
More broadly, German officials have stressed that many well-integrated arrivals of recent years will be welcome to stay after the removal of Assad. That was followed by some talk of Syrians going home, which Chancellor Olaf Scholz acknowledged in a video released Friday “deeply unsettled” them.
“Anyone who is working here, who is well integrated, is and remains welcome in Germany,” he said. “That goes without saying.”
“Some of the refugees hope they can soon return to their homeland. We will support that as soon as the situation allows,” he added. But “only the coming days, weeks and months will show what direction Syria takes after Assad.”

Topics: Germany Bashar Assad Syria Fall of Assad

Francis makes first visit by a pope to Corsica

Francis makes first visit by a pope to Corsica
Updated 15 December 2024
AFP
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Francis makes first visit by a pope to Corsica

Francis makes first visit by a pope to Corsica
  • Tens of thousands of people are expected to welcome Pope Francis in Ajaccio
  • Around 90 percent of Corsica’s 350,000 inhabitants are Catholic
Updated 15 December 2024
AFP

AJACCIO, France: Pope Francis arrived in Corsica, a stronghold of the Catholic faith, on Sunday, with locals hotly anticipating the first-ever trip by a pontiff to the French Mediterranean island.

Sitting in a wheelchair and wearing his white vestments and skullcap, a smiling Francis was greeted on the tarmac by French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau and a military band as he emerged from the papal plane.

Television images showed him handing local children small gifts after they brought him flowers.

In a packed timetable for the 87-year-old pope, Francis will speak at a congress on religion in the Mediterranean, hold an Angelus prayer and celebrate an open-air mass during the one-day visit.

He will also meet President Emmanuel Macron before his departure around 6:00 p.m. (1700 GMT).

Tens of thousands of people are expected to welcome Francis in Ajaccio, capital of what is popularly known as the “Ile de Beaute” (Island of Beauty).

The city was decked out in decorations in the papal colors, yellow and white, while cars had been banished from central streets with parking bans.

Around 2,000 police reinforcements were sent to Ajaccio to beef up security.

Francis’s short trip, based around a congress on faith in the Mediterranean region, comes just a week after he snubbed the re-opening of Notre Dame cathedral in Paris five years after a devastating fire.

The relaunch was attended by a long list of bigwigs, royalty and world leaders, including US President-elect Donald Trump and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Francis declined the French government’s invitation to attend.

But he agreed to the Corsica trip hosted by the island’s popular, media-savvy cardinal, 56-year-old Francois-Xavier Bustillo.

“Corsica has been preparing to host (Francis) for a long time,” Bustillo told AFP this week.

Although “it’s a poor diocese... we’ll manage a welcome worthy of the pope” thanks to donations from businesses and individual churchgoers, he added.

Corsica’s prefect Jerome Filippini said that the visit would also cost the French state “several million euros” over its few hours.

Workers have repainted the facade of Ajaccio’s Notre-Dame de l’Assomption cathedral and built a wheelchair ramp for Francis, who has limited mobility, to enter by its main door.

New pews have been delivered and yellow-and-white flags hung behind the altar.

Near the cathedral, a colorful street-art style fresco by Ajaccio artists shows Francis in front of stained-glass windows and a map of Corsica.

Francis, who will turn 88 two days after his trip, will make two speeches and celebrate mass at an open-air theater.

He is also expected to greet the crowds from his popemobile in Ajaccio’s streets.

“We’re proud, it’s a privilege for (the pope) to come here rather than Paris,” said Paule Negroni, a 52-year-old bookshop owner.

Around 90 percent of Corsica’s 350,000 inhabitants are Catholic, according to the local Church.

Francis “comes to see poor people and children, he’s very popular,” said Helene Politi, who will be one of 250 people singing for Francis at mass.

The pope has made several visits around the Mediterranean, from the Greek island of Lesbos to Malta and Sicily.

But this is the first visit by a pope to Corsica, a French region with a distinctive identity, fierce independence movement and a special constitutional status currently under discussion between Paris and local elected officials.

It is Francis’s third visit to France as pope, after eastern city Strasbourg in 2014 and Mediterranean port Marseille last year — although none has been an official state visit to the country.

Some have seen that as a sign of his disapproval of French policy changes away from Church doctrine during his papacy, including on gay marriage and an ongoing public debate about assisted dying.

Some French Catholics have expressed disappointment that the pope stayed away from Notre Dame’s grand reopening.

Francis’s defenders highlight that the pontiff, concerned with the world’s marginalized people, largely shuns capital cities and sumptuous receptions.

Born in Argentina, he has never visited Spain, Britain or Germany as pope.

Even in the Vatican, he prefers closed-door audiences with pilgrims, homeless people or migrants to meetings with the powerful.

Recent health problems have not kept the pope from looking in good form in recent months.

The Corsica visit will be his 47th overseas visit since his 2013 election and the third in 2024.

Topics: Pope Francis Corsica

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Cyclone kills 14 people in France's Mayotte: security source

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Updated 15 December 2024
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Cyclone kills 14 people in France's Mayotte: security source

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Updated 15 December 2024
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PARIS: Cyclone Chido killed at least 14 people on the French Indian Ocean island territory of Mayotte, a security source told AFP Sunday in an updated provisional toll.
The storm headed for the coast of Mozambique after sweeping through Mayotte's shantytowns, with French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau warning the final toll was feared to be heavy.

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Macron has a new prime minister but the same old problems

Macron has a new prime minister but the same old problems
Updated 15 December 2024
Reuters
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Macron has a new prime minister but the same old problems

Macron has a new prime minister but the same old problems
  • Bayrou, 73, named prime minister to replace Michel Barnier
  • Analysts expect little progress on reducing deficit
Updated 15 December 2024
Reuters

PARIS: When veteran centrist Francois Bayrou, France’s new prime minister, was education minister in the 1990s, his plan to increase subsidies for private schools led to nationwide protests. He quickly caved in and would stay in the post for four more years.
Three decades later he will face a different force in the shape of a fractured and fractious parliament where one of his earliest tasks — as President Emmanuel Macron’s fourth prime minister of the year — will be to pass a budget for 2025.
First he must name a government which, like that of his predecessor Michel Barnier, will have minority support in parliament and be vulnerable to attack from far-right and left-wing opponents.
The ouster of Barnier and his cabinet — the first time France’s parliament had voted to remove a government since 1962 — seemed to stun even those behind the move. For now, there is cross-party support for emergency legislation to ensure government funding does not dry up — but then the hard work on a budget for next year will begin.
“The difficulties remain the same as under Michel Barnier,” Arnaud Benedetti, a professor at the Sorbonne university, told Reuters. “At least, a motion of no-confidence doesn’t seem likely in the very short-term.”
A Macron aide said Bayrou was the “most consensual candidate able to bring people together.” Socialists said he represented more of the same.
A career politician, Bayrou, 73, was the torch-bearer of centrism until Macron reshaped the political landscape in 2017, dynamiting the traditional mainstream parties in a campaign Bayrou rallied behind.
Bayrou has in the past talked tough on the risks posed by France’s rising debt pile.
He did so again on Friday, saying the country’s debt was a “moral problem” as much as a financial one. “I hear your warning on the seriousness of the situation and I agree,” he told Barnier.
But he has placed a high value on keeping the peace, whether with the unions, lawmakers or the myriad of powerful vested interests in France.
Keeping the peace in a National Assembly dominated by three warring factions will be nigh-on impossible, however.
Lawmakers’ pushback over the 2025 budget bill led to Barnier’s downfall and left-wing leaders say they may try to topple Bayrou should he also use special constitutional powers to ram through the budget without a vote in parliament.
“Bringing onboard demands from opposition parties may be fiscally costly and the degree of fiscal consolidation may be limited next year as a result,” said JP Morgan’s Raphael Brun-Aguerre in a note.
Far-rights budget red lines endure
Through the week Macron held talks with party chiefs spanning the center-right Republicans to the Communists.
He appealed to all ‘Republican forces’ to unite but opted to resist Socialist Party calls to appoint a premier from within their ranks, unwilling to risk unwinding reforms that liberalized the euro zone’s second-largest economy and placed the pension system on a more financially sound footing.
Even so, the president’s 2023 pension reform will remain in his opponents’ crosshairs.
“Our red lines remain,” Jordan Bardella, leader of the far-right National Rally told reporters shortly after Bayrou was named. Those red lines include indexing pensions to inflation throughout 2025.
One opinion poll this week showed that 35 percent-38 percent of voters intended to support Bardella’s boss, Marine Le Pen, in the next presidential election due in 2027 — a level not seen before for the far-right leader and putting her in the lead.
Furthermore, even if Bayrou’s political opponents do not get in the way, the challenges for his future government will be immense.
It will need to reduce the budget deficit from a projected 6.1 percent for 2024 whilst keeping protest-prone trade unions at bay, increasing military spending for Ukraine and finding ways to support an ailing industrial sector.
Barnier had promised to bring the deficit down with tax rises for the wealthy and for big companies, as well as a curbs on the planned rise in pension payments. But these measures fell by the wayside when his government was toppled.
Former finance minister Bruno Le Maire, who has been grilled by lawmakers investigating his role in France’s failure to curb its deficit, gave a scathing indictment of parliament.
“This assembly taxes, spends, censors,” he said. “It has long lost any sense of economic and budget realities.”

Topics: France

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