Denmark is to impose temporary border controls at the Swedish border next month, after Swedes were suspected of being behind a number of serious attacks this year in the Danish capital Copenhagen, the justice minister said on Thursday.

Sweden, which itself has had controls at the border since 2015 to try to stop asylum seekers from entering the country, welcomed the move.

Denmark is connected to Sweden via the Oresund bridge across a 16-kilometer (10-mile) strait. Thousands of citizens commute across the border daily.

Two Swedish nationals are currently in custody in Denmark suspected of involvement in an explosion outside the Danish Tax Agency in August. Five Swedes are also in custody in Denmark on suspicion of carrying out two killings in a Copenhagen suburb in June. They have yet to be formally charged.

August’s attack prompted Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen to say at the time that she considered strengthening controls at its border with Sweden.

“To counter the threat of serious cross-border crime, we are now strengthening the protection of the border against Sweden by introducing temporary border control and strengthening police efforts in border areas with Sweden,” Justice Minister Nick Haekkerup said at a news conference on Thursday.

The controls will begin on Nov. 12, he said, adding police would aim to avoid causing delays for the commuters.

Both countries are members of the European Union, which needs to approve the move. Sweden applauded Denmark’s action and said it was looking into the possibility of giving police more access to operate in border areas, including camera surveillance of vehicles

“We welcome that Denmark is taking action to fight crime in the Oresund region,” Sweden’s Minister for Home Affairs Mikael Damberg said in a statement.

Violent crime in Sweden, with assailants using firearms and high explosives, has become a major political issue over the past years and prompted political moves such as one of the tougher gun laws and tougher sentencing for some offenses.

Among the highest profile incidents in recent months, a massive blast demolished parts of an apartment building in the southern town of Linkoping in June, injuring around 20 people, while a mother was gunned down in broad daylight on a street in Malmo, across the bridge from Copenhagen.

The cases have yet to result in convictions.

Haekkerup said a new center to prevent cross-border crime will be set up in Denmark and staffed by Danish police officers, who will be working closely with colleagues in Sweden.

(Source: Reuters)

French authorities on Wednesday banned a demonstration by activists claiming the police staffer who stabbed four colleagues to death was not an Islamist radical but was instead a man discriminated against because he was partially deaf.

The killing last week of the four police employees at the headquarters of Paris police shocked the country and prompted President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday to promise an “unrelenting” fight against what he termed the “Islamist hydra”.

The assailant, Mickael Harpon, converted to Islam about 10 years ago and, according to investigators, had adopted increasingly radical beliefs and been in contact with a radical Salafist imam.

A local activist, Hadama Traore, had called for a demonstration Thursday in Gonesse, the northeastern Paris suburb where Harpon lived, insisting that he was “not a religious extremist”.

Writing on Facebook, Traore claimed that Harpon suffered discrimination and mockery at work because he was hard of hearing.

“That’s the context which explains why he cracked,” he wrote, while condemning the “atrocious” killings.

‘Obscenity and insult’

The leader of the far-right National Rally (RN), Marine Le Pen had urged the government to ban the protest.

“How can we believe that Emmanuel Macron will fight against the ‘Islamist hydra’ when he cannot even ban a demonstration supporting an assassin of four police organised by an earthworm?” she wrote on Twitter.

Interior Minister Christophe Castaner insisted the demonstration would be banned, calling it an “obscenity and insult to the memory of our police”.

Castener is under huge pressure as the government is pressed to explain how Harpon’s radicalisation failed to raise red flags.

On Tuesday, the minister appeared before a parliamentary committee, conceding there had been a “malfunction” in not reporting the signals.

Analysts say Macron and his government want to show they are tackling Islamist extremism to prevent a drift of voters to the far right.

Macron’s speech Tuesday at a ceremony for the slain police marked a toughening of rhetoric, with the president calling on France to be a “society in a state of vigilance”.

(AFP)

A stolen truck ploughed into cars in the centre of the German city of Limburg on Monday leaving several people injured, police said, adding that the driver had been detained.

“Based on what we have learned and several witness accounts, the man seized control of the truck at about 5:20 pm (1520 GMT),” police said in a statement.

Soon after, the truck slammed into cars waiting at a stoplight near the main railway station of Limburg in Hesse state, “crushing them together”.

“Several people are being treated in hospital” and the driver, who is in custody, was slightly injured, police added.

German news agency DPA quoting regional police put the number of people hurt at 16 including one person in a critical condition.

Police said it was too soon to speculate about a motive.

“We currently do not have sufficient information about what was behind it,” they said.

“The investigation, including questioning witnesses and collecting evidence, is ongoing.”

Police conducted a major deployment of officers and vehicles, with a helicopter circling overhead in the city of 35,000, about an hour’s drive from the financial capital Frankfurt.

They urged users of social media not to jump to conclusions on the motive.

“We are not ruling anything out,” a spokesman for the state police force quoted by DPA said. “But we call on you: don’t take part in speculation!” the regional police wrote in several tweets.

‘Didn’t say a word’

The daily Frankfurter Neue Presse (FNP) quoted the rightful driver of the truck, who was not named, as saying: “A man dragged me out of my lorry.”

He said the man, in his 30s with short dark hair and a full beard, had yanked open the driver-side door and stared at him wide-eyed before forcing him out of the vehicle.

“I asked him ‘What do you want from me?’,” he told FNP. “He didn’t say a word.”

The newspaper quoted witnesses saying the truck then sped into the parked cars before coming to a stop several metres from the traffic light.

When the man behind the wheel of the white truck emerged from the crash, several passers-by provided first aid, FNP reported.

“The passers-by said the driver said ‘Allah’ several times” and spoke Arabic, FNP reported. Police did not confirm this account.

Bettina Yeisley from Limburg, whose office is directly next to the scene of the crash, told FNP that she heard a loud bang and ran out onto the street with colleagues.

They found the man sitting beneath a tree without knowing he had been driving.

“He was bleeding from the nose, his hands were bloody, his trousers torn. He said that everything hurt. I asked him his name and he said, ‘My name is Mohammed’.”

Germany has been on the alert following several jihadist attacks in recent years claimed by the Islamic State group.

The most deadly was committed in 2016 by 23-year-old Tunisian Anis Amri, who killed 12 people when he stole a truck and ploughed it through a Berlin Christmas market.

The Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Germany’s domestic security watchdog, warned in April of an increased risk posed by IS fighters returning from Syria and northern Iraq.

Its director Thomas Haldenwang said that an estimated 2,240 Islamists with “terrorist potential” were living in Germany.

Last Thursday in neighbouring France, a Muslim convert who had reportedly started adopting increasingly radical beliefs stabbed four colleagues to death at Paris police headquarters.

(AFP)

Embattled Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been hit by fresh controversy, this time, focused on his tenure as London mayor.

The allegations, related to favouritism and the granting of privileges, which can potentially amount to the criminal offence of misconduct in public office, were first raised by the Sunday Times on September 22.

According to the Sunday Times, London-based American model and businesswoman, Jennifer Arcuri, received favourable treatment on account of her strong friendship with Johnson.

The favours and benefits were bestowed on Arcuri, who is widely described as a “model-turned-technology entrepreneur”, during the time Johnson served as London mayor.

Most damningly, the Sunday Times reveals that Arcuri was granted £126,000 in public funds and was in addition given privileged access to three official overseas trade missions led by Johnson.

Jonson reportedly regularly visited Arcuri’s flat in the Shoreditch district, located in the East End of London.  

Whilst not denying his friendship with the American model, Johnson still maintains that “everything was done in the proper way”.

Despite Johnson’s claims of propriety, the allegations are serious enough for the Greater London Authority’s monitoring officer (whose job is to monitor the conduct of the mayor) to refer the PM to the Independent Office for Police Conduct.

Meanwhile, the story keeps on developing as other media organisations try to expand the investigation.

In an exclusive report, the Guardian reported yesterday that Arcuri won a highly sought after entrepreneur visa to stay in the UK after securing Johnson’s endorsement for her firm, ‘Innotech’.

For its part, the BBC has spoken to “several” people who went on the same overseas “trade missions” as Arcuri.

The BBC’s Home Affairs correspondent, Daniel Sandford, says that people who went on those trade missions report that Arcuri “seemed a bit out of place” as her companies were “much less substantial” than the companies which had gained entry more legitimately.

Source: Presstv

Thirty-seven of France’s top charities issued a report on the fight against poverty, describing a situation which continues to dramatically worsen seemingly every year during the age of austerity.

The report called the Yellow Vest protests a, “long overdue expression of a real social unhappiness to the highest levels of society.” They noted that a majority of those who accessed their charity services supported the anti-government and anti-austerity movement.

The report found that the biggest problems the poor face are access to their legal rights, followed by decreased wages which are further compounded by inflation, isolation from society, poor health care and poor lodging.

There seems to be little help on the horizon for France’s poor from Macron. He has begun his unpopular efforts to roll back the pension system, with the unemployment system to be targeted next.

Right-wing economic austerity continues to cut social services just as the French need them more than ever, while also failing to produce the long-promised economic growth. Over the previous “lost decade” French inequality rates have soared even as their corporate profits have set records repeatedly.

Homelessness has hit new highs, as have evictions, while France has been repeatedly condemned internationally for failing to lift their small refugee population out of makeshift slums.

Source: Presstv

Police officers escaped injury after an explosive device detonated in Wattlebridge, County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland.

The bombing appears to have been a highly sophisticated trap involving a telephone warning and a hoax device discovered close to where the actual bomb exploded in a follow-up operation.

Army bomb disposal officers, who were deployed to the area at the weekend, initially declared the item to be a hoax. But, according to multiple reports, another device exploded on the main A3 Cavan Road on the morning of August 19th.

This well-planned attempt at killing and maiming Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) and army bomb disposal officers has caused deep worry and anxiety amongst the security establishment in Northern Ireland.

PSNI Deputy Chief Constable, Stephen Martin, said he is of the “firm belief” the attack was designed to “lure” PSNI and army personnel into the area “to murder them”. 

According to Martin, there have been five attempts to murder police officers this year and that the adverse security situation is becoming “more entrenched”.

The PSNI, and the broader security establishment in Northern Ireland, have lost no time in attributing the bombing to “dissident republicans”, which is often a reference to two groups, the Continuity IRA and the New IRA.

For their part, mainstream republicans in Sinn Fein have condemned the attack as “totally wrong”.

Sinn Fein MP for Fermanagh and South Tyrone, Michelle Gildernew, said: “Those responsible for this incident have nothing to offer society and need to end these actions immediately”.

This latest bombing occurs against the backdrop of an intensifying political crisis in Northern Ireland.

Power sharing arrangements and devolved government collapsed in January 2017 in the wake of a flawed green-energy scheme.

Furthermore, the looming prospect of a no-deal Brexit, and by extension the return of a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic, has caused deep anxiety in the nationalist/republican community.

In late July, Sinn Fein President, Mary Lou McDonald, called for an Irish unification referendum in the event of a no-deal Brexit and the return of a hard border.

Source: Presstv

A customer shot a waiter dead at an eatery on the outskirts of Paris, apparently enraged at being made to wait for a sandwich, a source close to the investigation said Saturday.

The waiter’s colleagues called police after he was shot in the shoulder with a handgun in the Noisy-le-Grand suburb east of Paris on Friday night, the source said.

Attempts to revive the 28-year-old failed and he died at the scene.

The gunman, who a witness said lost his temper “as his sandwich wasn’t prepared quickly enough”, fled the scene.

Police told AFP a murder investigation has been opened.

With the shooter still on the run Saturday, shocked residents gathered outside the pizza and sandwich eatery.

“He was killed for a sandwich?” one asked in disbelief. 

It is sad,” said a 29-year-old woman. “It’s a quiet restaurant, without any problems. It just opened a few months ago.”

But others noted high crime levels in the area, notably drug-dealing and public drunkenness.

(Source: AFP)

There are growing signs that Irish nationalists are mobilizing in the north to meet the challenge from the new Tory administration in London led by Boris Johnson.

The upsurge of nationalist activity has even forced the BBC to take note, as demonstrated in a report by Emma Vardy showcasing the blatantly open takeover of the Creggan estate in Derry by nationalist groups.

The Creggan estate is a large housing quarter in Derry which, since the late 1960s, has been a bastion of opposition to British rule in Northern Ireland. 

Boris Johnson’s ascent to the premiership, coupled with a shift to the hard right by the Tory party, has touched off deep-seated anxiety in Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic.

Johnson’s willingness, even determination some would say, to exit the European Union (EU) without a deal, is opposed by all key stakeholders in the island of Ireland, save the Unionist factions.

The danger for Britain is that Irish nationalists gain ground as a result of London’s chaotic approach to Brexit. 

The Financial Times highlighted these dangers in March when it warned that Northern Ireland “dissidents” might be able to “exploit” Brexit. 

What the British press describes as “dissidents” are in fact the new generation of militant Irish nationalists who are opposed to the Good Friday Agreement of April 1998, which brought the armed struggle in Northern Ireland to a close.

The term “dissident” is used to define these groups, notably the New IRA and the Continuity IRA, as marginal to the broader republican movement.

But just how marginal are these groups? In 2019 there has been a marked increase in militant activity. Most recently, on July 27, Irish nationalists attempted to attack police officers in an operation in Craigavon, County Armagh.

Irish nationalist activity has escalated to the point where the so-called dissident groups are now operating in plain sight. This was revealed in the BBC’s hard-hitting report on the Creggan estate.

The estate is dominated by nationalist murals and graffiti which make it clear that symbols of the British state, including the Police Service of Northern Ireland (the successor to the Royal Ulster Constabulary), are not welcome.

Activists from “Saoradh” (Liberation) campaign openly on the streets, even though they refuse to answer questions from the BBC reporter, Vardy.

Saoradh is widely believed to be the political wing of the New IRA.

The open political activity by Saoradh casts doubt on the British media’s attempt to dismiss the new generation of Irish nationalists as mere “dissidents”.  

Source: Presstv 

An Eritrean man accused of killing an eight-year-old boy by pushing him under a train in Germany had been on the run from Swiss police after a violent incident last week, authorities said Tuesday.

The married father-of-three, identified by German media only as 40-year-old Habte A., had also undergone psychiatric treatment this year, said police in the Swiss canton of Zurich where he lived.

Last Thursday, he had flown into a rage and threatened a neighbour with a knife and locked her up, and also trapped his wife and their children, aged one, three and four, in their flat before running away.

Spiegel Online reported that the asylum seeker who had lived in Switzerland for 13 years had worked in tram maintenance for the Zurich Transport Authority since early last year.

German federal police chief Dieter Romann said it appeared the suspect had not been listed as wanted in European police databases and had been able to cross borders freely.

German prosecutors laid murder and attempted murder charges against the man over the attack Monday that left eye-witnesses in need of trauma counselling and shocked the nation.

He allegedly also pushed the boy’s mother onto the tracks at Frankfurt’s main station, and tried but failed to do the same to a 78-year-old woman.

“While the mother could roll off after the fall and move herself onto a narrow footpath between two tracks, her child was caught by the arriving train and died, on the spot, of his injuries,” said a statement by Frankfurt prosecutors.

– Psychiatric examination –

The man ran down a platform and across tracks but was followed by passers-by including an off-duty officer, and overpowered by police two blocks from the station.

The suspect did not previously know the victims and showed no signs of alcohol or drug use, prosecutors spokeswoman Nadja Niesen said.

“The crime suggests a psychiatric disorder,” she told a press conference, adding that an examination would ascertain the level of his criminal culpability.

The horrific crime has dominated newspaper front-pages and TV news bulletins, and led politicians to call for heightened security, more camera surveillance and tighter border controls.

Citizens have laid flower wreaths, candles and stuffed toys at the site of the killing and a memorial service was scheduled at the station in the evening.

German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer cut short his summer holiday to meet the heads of major security agencies in Berlin.

Niesen said the man in custody had not yet spoken about a motive.

If formally charged, tried and then found guilty, he would face a likely term of life in prison, she said.

In a similar case earlier this month, a 34-year-old mother died after being pushed in front of a train, allegedly by a Serbian man.

Germany’s far-right has seized on both killings to once more criticise would it regards as the flawed immigration policies of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government

Source: AFP