Muslim Community rally in Berlin

Thousands of people joined a Muslim community rally against Islamophobia in Berlin Tuesday, where Chancellor Angela Merkel said her government would do everything in its power to fight intolerance amid a growing anti-Islamic movement in the country.

Merkel used the occasion to deliver her strongest condemnation yet of Germany's new right-wing movement the "Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the Occident", or PEGIDA.
“What we need to do now is to use all the means at our disposal ... to combat intolerance and violence,” Merkel said.
“To exclude groups of people because of their faith, this isn’t worthy of the free state in which we live. It isn’t compatible with our essential values. And it’s humanly reprehensible. Xenophobia, racism, extremism have no place here,” she added.
Marchers also held a vigil for the victims of the Paris terrorist attacks last week that claimed 17 lives.
Declaring in French “I am Jewish, I am Muslim”, Aiman Mazyek, head of the German Council of Muslims, told the rally: “We stand together for a Germany that is open to the world, with a big heart, which honours freedom of opinion, of the press and of religion.” Christian and Jewish leaders also spoke.
Merkel and half of her cabinet were among the guests at a wreath-laying ceremony outside the French embassy and listened as an Imam recited Koranic verses condemning the taking of life.
‘Islam is part of Germany’
Monday night saw PEGIDA hold a rally in the city of Dresden that attracted 25,000 marchers, calling for stricter immigration rules and an end to multiculturalism in Germany, home to 4 million Muslims, most of Turkish origin.
Founded on Facebook and launched with several hundred people in October, the group has grown week by week and spawned smaller copycat groups nationwide, provoking much soul-searching in a country haunted by its history of Nazi terror and the Holocaust.
Across Germany, 100,000 people took to the streets in counter-demonstrations Monday night, voicing support for multiculturalism and Germany's Muslim community.
Merkel, who is often known to avoid controversial issues, has weighed in strongly, condemning PEGIDA's leaders and stressing on Monday that "Islam is part of Germany" – a comment that was plastered on the front pages of leading newspapers.
But it drew criticism from a range of right-wing politicians, including members of Merkel’s CDU.
“What Islam does she mean? Does this include fundamental Islamist and Salafist currents?” said Wolfgang Bosbach, a veteran CDU lawmaker. “Germany has a Judeo-Christian, not an Islamic, cultural tradition.”
Bernd Lucke, a leader of the AfD party, said: “If we’re honest about it, Islam is foreign to Germany.”
A recent poll by the Bertelsmann Foundation showed 57 percent of non-Muslim Germans feel threatened by Islam. It was conducted before the attacks in Paris.
With one of the lowest birth rates in Europe, Germany faces a demographic crisis over the coming decade and Merkel’s government is encouraging immigration to combat this.
In 2013, Germany saw net immigration of 437,000 people, its highest level in 20 years. It also welcomed close to 200,000 asylum seekers last year, many from war-torn Syria.

Election of New head of State

Italy's veteran President Giorgio Napolitano resigned Wednesday, setting the stage for the election of a new head of state, a thorny process which could prove a political headache for Matteo Renzi's government.

The 89-year old had announced in December that he would be leaving office well before the end of his term in 2020 because of his advancing age.
He had been persuaded in 2013 to stay on for an unprecedented second term after deadlocked elections sparked a political crisis in the eurozone's third-largest economy -- but had always been expected to step down early.
Prime Minister Renzi paid tribute to the president on Tuesday, telling the European Parliament that Napolitano had been a man driven by the desire to reform, who "faced moments of great difficulty with intelligence and wisdom."
Parliament now has to meet within 15 days along with 58 regional deputies to begin elections to choose a new president.
Potential candidates for the new head of state include former prime ministers Romano Prodi and Giuliano Amato, as well as Economy Minister Pier Carlo Padoan, Defence Minister Roberta Pinotti and former Rome mayor Walter Veltroni.
European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi on Wednesday rejected speculation that he had his eye on the job.
"The election of the President of the Republic, just like the election of the pope, is completely unpredictable, but unlike a conclave (papal election), it doesn't even have the help of the Holy Spirit," said Luigi La Spina, editorialist for La Stampa daily.
While the post of president is largely ceremonial, it takes on vital importance during times of political crisis when the president can help steer the formation of a new government.
'Election will be complex'
"Napolitano has been president in one of the most difficult phases in our country, not just politically but economically," Francesco Clementi, professor of constitutional law at the Luiss University in Rome, told AFP.
"I think the presidential election will certainly be complex... the government will have to work hard" to find a figure who will suit parties from across the political spectrum, he said.
The election does carry political risks for Renzi, whose government was ushered into power last year with Napolitano's blessing.
The successful candidate must win the votes of two-thirds of lawmakers in both houses of parliament -- and Renzi will need to keep the more rebellious wing of his party in line to ensure he gets his man.
The 40-year old will want a candidate who can help bridge political differences which otherwise threaten to scupper the PM's ambitious reform programme.
Renzi also needs someone willing to dissolve parliament and call snap elections, if as experts say has not ruled out another poll as a last resort to push through his reforms.
Christian Schulz, Berenberg senior economist, warned investors would be watching closely "after the recent experience of Greece, where the pro-reform government tripped over presidential elections on 29 December, triggering snap elections that look set to be won by the radical left."
"Failure to elect a president would probably force a new election, maybe even a change of leadership in the ruling Democratic Party," he said.
In order to stave off a crisis, Renzi may be forced to clinch a deal with the opposition, particularly former premier Silvio Berlusconi -- a likely but controversial move bound to spark a heated response from those on the far left of his Democratic Party (PD).

Spains High Court Investigation

Spain’s High Court on Thursday ordered an investigation into time spent in the country by French supermarket gunman Amedy Coulibaly days before he launched a deadly attack on a Jewish supermarket in Paris.

Coulibaly killed a policewoman and four customers at a kosher shop in Paris on Jan. 9. Two other gunmen shot 12 people at and near the offices of the Charlie Hebdo newspaper.
During his stay in Spain, Coulibaly was accompanied by his wife Hayat Boumeddiene and a third party who could have aided the latter’s escape to Syria, the High Court said in a statement.
In the Spanish judicial system, the High Court can open an investigation and appoints a judge to the case who then receives police help.
Coulibaly spent the weekend of Dec. 30 to Jan. 2 in Madrid with Boumeddiene who later went to Syria via Turkey, state security sources told La Vanguardia newspaper. He returned to France on Jan. 2, accompanied by a third party, the paper said.
Interior Minister Jorge Fernandez Diaz said on public television the Spanish authorities were co-operating with French counterparts but he declined to confirm whether Coulibaly had been in Madrid or say who he could have been in contact with.
Spain’s Interior Ministry declined to make further comment.
France launched a search for 26-year-old Boumeddiene after police killed Coulibaly while storming the Jewish supermarket where he had taken hostages. Authorities described her as armed and dangerous.
Footage from security cameras posted on the HaberTurk news website showed a woman it identified as Boumeddiene walking with a man to passport control at Istanbul’s Sabiha Gokcen Airport after flying in from Madrid.

Russia likely to demand early repayment of Ukraine's $3 bln debt

Moscow - It is "highly likely" that Russia will demand early repayment of $3 billion in debt owed by Ukraine, Russia's RIA Novosti agency reported on Saturday citing an anonymous government source.

The source told the agency that Ukraine was in violation of a "whole series" of conditions for Russia's loan.

"In these circumstances it is highly likely that Russia will be forced in the near future to demand from Ukraine the early repayment of the $3 billion debt," the source said. 

Ukraine accuses Russia of breaking CIS agreements over Yanukovych extradition

Ukraine's Interior Minister Arsen Avakov has accused Russia of deliberately refusing to put Viktor Yanukovych and other former high-ranking officials on the CIS wanted list.

"The Russian prosecutor general (…) is manipulating the truth when he says that 'the Russian Prosecutor General's Office has yet to receive requests from Ukrainian counterparts for the extradition of Ukrainian ex-president Viktor Yanukovych and other politicians," Avakov wrote on Facebook on Monday.

"The request for extradition of a wanted person or a criminal is made to the authorities of the country where the wanted person was detained as part of a search announced earlier. Russia, in accordance with its commitments under the CIS agreements regarding the search for criminals, was obligated to put the individuals requested by Ukraine, Yanukovych and 23 other individuals, into the search system," Avakov claimed.

In latest challenge to Putin, Russian activist Navalny breaks house arrest

MOSCOW — Russia’s most prominent opposition activist announced on his Web site Monday that he was breaking his house arrest, his latest open challenge to authorities since a Moscow court convicted him and his brother of fraud last week.

Calling the terms of his detention “illegal,” Alexei Navalny, a flamboyant critic of President Vladi­mir Putin, posted a picture of an electronic monitoring bracelet he said he cut off with kitchen scissors. He said he was within his rights to “refuse to fulfill the requirements” of his court-imposed home imprisonment.

Navalny received a 3 1 /2 -year suspended sentence for embezzlement last Tuesday and was ordered to remain under house arrest until his sentence takes effect. In a trial widely viewed as politically motivated, his brother Oleg was sentenced to a 3 1/2 -year prison term.

The verdict, which originally was scheduled to be announced Jan. 15, was abruptly changed with less than 24 hours’ notice and drew about 2,000 protesters to a rally outside the Kremlin last Tuesday night clamoring for a “Russia without Putin” and “freedom” for the brothers. Navalny, who had encouraged his supporters to take to the streets, broke his house arrest to join the crowd but was promptly detained and returned home.

Critics interpreted the authorities’ reluctance to jail Navalny — along with the court’s snap decision to push up the verdict to the day before New Year’s Eve, Russia’s biggest holiday — as a sign that officials feared turning him into a political martyr.

Navalny’s popular influence is considerable in a Russia where the state still commands an overwhelming measure of authority and public support. He led mass demonstrations against Putin in 2011 and 2012 and challenged the Kremlin’s handpicked candidate for Moscow mayor in 2013. Before the date of the verdict was changed, more than 30,000 people had pledged to attend a protest on Jan. 15.

In his notice that he had broken his house arrest, Navalny announced no plans to stage additional protests, citing only plans “to travel from home to the office and back, and spend free time with family.”

Navalny maintains that the court has no right to keep him at home, because he already has been convicted and the verdict has been announced. He added that he still had not received the text of his sentence, hindering his ability to appeal. The deadline for receiving a copy of the verdict, he added, has expired.

Navalny’s attorney, Olga Mikhailova, told the Russian news service Interfax that it is “illegal to keep him under house arrest in the absence of a motivated court judgment,” thus justifying Navalny’s decision to free himself.

Moscow police told Interfax that they would return Navalny to his home if they find he has left his apartment — and if federal authorities instruct them to do so.

Turkish Police Shut Down Printing of Charlie Hebdo in Turkey

Police raid Turkish daily publishing Charlie Hebdo

Police raided the printing press of Turkish daily Cumhuriyet on Jan. 14, as it prepared to distribute a four-page selection of Charlie Hebdo’s post-attack issue in an act of solidarity with the French satirical weekly.

The police also took extreme security measures ahead of the scheduled publication of the supplement.

Police cars were sent to the printer of the daily in Istanbul early on Jan. 14 and halted trucks to prevent the distribution of the Jan. 14 edition. The distribution was eventually allowed after the prosecution made sure that cartoons representing the Prophet Muhammad were not included in the selection.

The editor-in-chief of the daily, Utku Çakırözer, stated earlier that they had decided not to publish a cartoon on the cover featuring the Prophet Muhammad in tears holding a “Je suis Charlie” banner, in reference to solidarity protests with the magazine.

“When preparing this selection, we have been attentive to religious sensitivities as well as freedom of belief, in line with our editorial principles,” Çakırözer said via Twitter Jan. 13. “We didn’t include the cover of the magazine after a long deliberation.”

Death threats

Despite the daily’s decision not to publish the most controversial cartoons, police extended security measures in the surroundings of its offices in Istanbul’s central Şişli neighborhood.

An employee of daily Cumhuriyet told the Hürriyet Daily News on condition of anonymity on Jan. 15 that the newspaper had received hundreds of death threats.

Despite the official message of support to the victims, the magazine has been chided by many officials and commentators for publishing cartoons of Muhammad.

“Daily Cumhuriyet will be complicit with a magazine that insults sacred values and commits hate crimes against Muslims, slamming religion,” said conservative daily Yani Şafak, known for its closeness to the government.

'Most important version'

The surviving members of Charlie Hebdo announced on Jan. 13 that the new issue would be printed in 14 languages, including Turkish and Arabic. Its editor-in-chief, Gérard Biard, argued that the Turkish version was "the most important."

“Turkey is in a difficult period and secularism there is under attack,” Biard told Agence France-Presse.

Charlie Hebdo’s defiant cover had drawn ire from Muslim groups, who warned that it could still inflame tensions despite the massacre among those who believe any depiction of the Prophet Muhammad is blasphemous.

The magazine’s move especially prompted French Muslim groups to urge their communities to “stay calm and avoid emotional reactions” to the cartoon.

Hollande Seeks to Calm Rising Tensions

French President François Hollande insisted Thursday that any anti-Muslim or anti-Semitic acts would be be “severely punished,” as he sought to calm rising social tension after his country’s bloodiest terrorist attacks in decades.

“Anti-Muslim acts, like anti-Semitism, should not just be denounced but severely punished,” Hollandesaid Thursday at the Arab World Institute in Paris.

Noting that Muslims are the main victims of Islamic extremist violence, he said, “In the face of terrorism, we are all united.”

With 120,000 security forces deployed to prevent future attacks, France is tense after 17 people were killed in its capital in last week’s rampage carried out by three radical Muslim gunmen.

The three days of terror began on January 7 when two brothers, Saïd and Chérif Kouachi, massacred 12 people, including two policemen, at the headquarters of satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo. The following day, another militant Islamist, Amédy Coulibaly, killed a policewoman on the outskirts of the capital. On January 9, Coulibaly stormed a kosher supermarket in eastern Paris, killing four people.

Commando units killed all three gunmen in twin assaults on Friday.

While the Kouachi brothers said they were financed by al Qaeda in Yemen, Coulibaly claimed allegiance to the Islamic State (IS) group.

On Wednesday, a leader of Yemen’s al Qaeda branch officially claimed responsibility for the Kouachi brothers’ attack, saying in a video posted online that the slayings were committed in “vengeance for the prophet”, referring to cartoons of Prophet Mohammed created by Charlie Hebdo staff.

The Muslim faith forbids depictions of the prophet.

The attacks occurred in an atmosphere of rising anti-Semitism in France, and have prompted scattered attacks on Muslim sites around France in an apparent backlash. They have also put many French Muslims on the defensive.

Homegrown terrorism?

US and French intelligence officials are leaning toward an assessment that the Paris terror attacks were inspired by al Qaeda but not directly supervised by the group, a view that would put the violence in a category of homegrown incidents that are extremely difficult to detect and thwart.

In his speech, Hollande said that France’s millions of Muslims should be protected and respected, “just as they themselves should respect the nation” and its strictly secular values.

Earlier this week, French justice officials also began cracking down by arresting dozens of people who glorified terrorism or made racist or anti-Semitic remarks.

Hollande’s comments come on the same day that two of Charlie Hebdo’s best-known cartoonists  – Georges Wolinski, 80, and Bernard "Tignous" Verlhac, 57 – were laid to rest in private family funerals.

Meanwhile in Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel on Thursday pledged to heighten security measures against militant Islamists and “hate-preachers”.

"Hate preachers, violent delinquents who act in the name of Islam, those behind them, and the intellectual arsonists of international terrorism will be rigorously fought with all legal means at the disposal of the state," she said in a speech to parliament.

Charlie Hebdo First Post Attack Issue

The first post-attack issue of Charlie Hebdo, completed by the survivors of last week’s massacre on the French satirical magazine that left 12 dead, sold out within just a few hours when it hit French newsstands Wednesday.

Even before dawn, most French kiosks had sold out of the much-anticipated issue – despite a record print run of three million copies from the usual 60,000 – but people still lined up in the hope of getting their hands on a spare copy.  On Wednesday, the magazine announced it would make five million copies available, including translations into five languages.

The core of the magazine’s staff died last Wednesday when militants Islamists stormed its central Paris offices and killed a total of 12 people, including some of France’s finest cartoonists.

Here are some tweeters' accounts of the rush to newsstands.

"Charlie Hebdo sold out. On sale tomorrow,” a sign at a newsstand says.

People were seen queuing for a copy all across France. By 10am vendors said the first post-attack issue of Charlie Hebdo had sold out.

At Place de la République in central Paris, the line to the newsstand was overwhelming.

Despite the newsstands selling out of copies, many people chose to wait around in case a new Charlie Hebdo shipment would arrive. Here in Bordeaux.

Even abroad, people were wondering where they could get hold of a copy.

Belgian Anti Terrorist Raid

Belgian police killed two men who opened fire on them during one of about a dozen raids on Thursday against an Islamist group that federal prosecutors said was about to launch “terrorist attacks on a grand scale”.

Coming a week after Islamist gunmen killed 17 people in Paris, the incident heightened fears across Europe of young local Muslims returning radicalised from Syria. But prosecutors’ spokesman Eric Van Der Sypt said the Belgian probe had been under way before the Jan. 7 attack on French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo.

A third man was detained in the eastern city of Verviers, where police commandos ran into a hail of gunfire after trying to gain entry to an apartment above a town centre bakery. All three were citizens ofBelgium, which has one of the biggest concentrations of European Islamists fighting in Syria.

Other raids on the homes of men returned from the civil war there were conducted across the country, Van Der Sypt said, adding that they were suspected of planning attacks on Belgian police stations. Security had been tightened at such sites.

“The searches were carried out as part of an investigation into an operational cell some of whose members had returned from Syria,” he said. “For the time being, there is no connection with the attacks in Paris.”

Describing events in the quiet provincial town just after dark, he said: “The suspects immediately and for several minutes opened fire with military weaponry and handguns on the special units of the federal police before they were neutralised.”

Earlier in the day, prosecutors said they had detained a man in southern Belgium whom they suspected of supplying weaponry to Amédy Coulibaly, killer of four people at a Paris Jewish groceryafter the Charlie Hebdo attack.

After the violence in Verviers, La Meuse newspaper quoted an unidentified police officer saying: “We’ve averted a Belgian Charlie Hebdo.”

Two French brothers, who like Coulibaly claimed allegiance to Islamist militants in the Middle East, killed 12 people at the offices of Charlie Hebdo.

Islamist strength

Belgium has seen significant radical Islamist activity among its Muslim population.

Public television RTBF showed video of a building at night lit up by flames, with the sound of shots being fired. Marie-Laure from Verviers told RTBF she was in the street with her children when a police commando told them to run for cover.

“When we began running, we heard three or four big explosions and shots,” she said. “It was really startling.”

Per head of population, Belgium is the European country from where the highest number of citizens have taken part in fighting with Syrian rebels in the past four years, data compiled by security researchers have shown.

Belgium has taken a lead in EU efforts to counter the threat perceived from the return of “foreign fighters” from Syria. The Belgian government believes about 100 of its nationals have come back from there, while a further 40 may have been killed and about 170 are still in the ranks of fighters in Syria and Iraq.

Belgium is part of the US-led coalition fighting Islamic State and has six F-16 aircraft taking part in bombing raids on Syria and Iraq.

A court in Antwerp is due to deliver its verdict on 46 people accused of recruiting young men to join jihadists or of becoming jihadists in Syria, Belgium’s largest Islamist militant trial to date. The court was to have given its verdict this week, but it was delayed for a month after the Paris violence.

In Germany, police arrested a suspected supporter of the insurgent group Islamic State who was recently in Syria, federal prosecutors said.

Italian President Resigns

Italy’s president resigns, setting challenge for PM Renzi

Italy's veteran President Giorgio Napolitano resigned Wednesday, setting the stage for the election of a new head of state, a thorny process which could prove a political headache for Matteo Renzi's government.

Paris attacks give boost to German anti-Islamist movement

Chancellor Angela Merkel and other senior German politicians have called for people to stay away from rallies organised by PEGIDA, or Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West – people who Merkel has said have “hatred in their hearts”.

On Tuesday she will take part in a vigil in Berlin organised by a Muslim group to remember the 17 people killed in Islamist attacks at the offices of satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo and a kosher supermarket in Paris.

About 7,000 more protesters than last week turned out for the march, a police spokesman said.

Leader Lutz Bachmann set out PEGIDA’s demands for the government including drawing up a new immigration law, forcing immigrants to integrate and making sure that Islamists who leave Germany to fight are not allowed back into the country.

Merkel to take part in German Muslim rally condemning Paris attacks

Chancellor Angela Merkel is set to join a Muslim community rally Tuesday to promote tolerance, condemn the jihadist attacks in Paris last week and send a rebuke to Germany's growing anti-Islamic movement.

President Joachim Gauck will address the vigil starting at 1700 GMT at Berlin's iconic Brandenburg Gate, organised by the Central Council of Muslims in Germany under the banner "Let's be there for each other. Terror: not in our name!"

Merkel, to be joined by most of her cabinet at the event, has spoken out against the right-wing populist "Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the Occident", or PEGIDA, and stressed on Monday that "Islam belongs to Germany".

Thousands rally against Islamophobia in Germany

Thousands of people joined a Muslim community rally against Islamophobia in Berlin Tuesday, where Chancellor Angela Merkel said her government would do everything in its power to fight intolerance amid a growing anti-Islamic movement in the country.

Merkel used the occasion to deliver her strongest condemnation yet of Germany's new right-wing movement the "Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the Occident", or PEGIDA.

“What we need to do now is to use all the means at our disposal ... to combat intolerance and violence,” Merkel said.