Wolfgang Schaeuble, who served as a member of the German parliament for over half a century, has died aged 81, ending one of Germany’s longest political careers in which he helped secure his country’s place at the heart of Europe.

Schaeuble devoted much of his career to re-unifying his country and later served as former chancellor Angela Merkel’s finance minister during the eurozone debt crisis. He died peacefully late on Tuesday, a spokesperson for the centre-right Christian Democrats (CDU) said on Wednesday.

Schaeuble was born in 1942 in the southern city of Freiburg and had been a member of parliament without interruption since 1972.

“Germany has lost a formative Christian Democrat who loved to argue and yet never lost sight of what politics is all about: making life better for citizens,” said German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in a statement.

As interior minister, Schaeuble, who represented the West, was key in drawing up the terms of Germany’s reunification treaty, signed in August 1990, after the fall of the Berlin wall.

“He epitomised post-war democratic Germany like few others,” said Interior Minister Nancy Faeser.

The CDU praised Schaeuble’s commitment to stability and responsibility in financial matters, saying “his legacy will live on in the annals of German and European history”.

As finance minister, Schaeuble pulled the strings of Germany’s policy response to the euro zone crisis, securing support on the right of Merkel’s conservative bloc for three Greek bailouts.

That determination bordering on intransigence helped make him the most popular German politician at home and the most hated abroad, earning him the soubriquet – bestowed by news magazine Spiegel – of “chancellor behind the scenes”.

Former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis, who was outspoken in his criticism of the austerity policies championed by Berlin at the height of the debt crisis, said on Wednesday that history would judge Schaeuble harshly.

“Wolfgang Schaeuble was the embodiment of the political project of buttressing a monetary union in which he himself did not believe,” wrote Varoufakis on his website.

However, praise for his contributions came from across Europe, including from leaders in France, Slovakia, the Netherlands and Italy.

“Europe loses one of its staunch supporters,” said Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani on X.

Schaeuble served as finance minister until 2017, when he took over as president of the Bundestag lower parliamentary house, showing the same focus that saw him adapt to paralysis after being shot three times at an election campaign event a few days after German reunification in 1990.

While that drive won him the respect of fellow conservatives and lawmakers from other parties, his career was not without setbacks.

For a time in the 1990s, Schaeuble was considered the anointed successor to former conservative chancellor Helmut Kohl. As head of the CDU in 1998 following Kohl’s election loss, Schaeuble had named Merkel as his deputy.

However, it was a pairing that would last less than a year and a half: Merkel was instrumental in forcing him to resign the CDU leadership in 2000 after a funding scandal, with Merkel taking over and eventually serving as chancellor in 2005.

“We will miss Wolfgang Schaeuble’s voice in Germany, I will personally miss his advice,” said Merkel in a statement. “I mourn the loss of a politician who shaped our country in many ways.”

Source: Reuters

Prince Harry has won 15 claims in his case accusing Mirror Group Newspapers of unlawfully gathering information for stories published about him.

A judge has ruled in his favour on almost half of the sample of 33 stories used in his claims of phone hacking and other methods.

A High Court ruling found evidence of “widespread and habitual” use of phone hacking at the Mirror newspapers.

Prince Harry described it as a “great day for truth” and accountability.

He was awarded £140,600 in damages and in a statement read out on the Duke of Sussex’s behalf outside the High Court, his lawyer David Sherborne called the ruling “vindicating and affirming”.

“This case is not just about hacking – it is about a systemic practice of unlawful and appalling behaviour, followed by cover ups and destruction of evidence, the shocking scale of which can only be revealed through these proceedings,” he said.

“I’ve been told that slaying dragons will get you burned. But in light of today’s victory and the importance of doing what is needed for a free and honest press – it’s a worthwhile price to pay,” Prince Harry’s statement said.

He also called on the police and prosecuting authorities to “investigate bringing charges against the company and those who have broken the law”.

The stakes have also been high for the Mirror newspapers – the Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror and People – with estimates that £100m has already been spent on damages and legal costs over previous hacking cases.

Mr Justice Fancourt ruled that unlawful information gathering had been “widespread” at all three of the Mirror titles and had become “habitual”.

In response a Mirror Group Newspapers spokeswoman said: “We welcome today’s judgment that gives the business the necessary clarity to move forward from events that took place many years ago.

“Where historical wrongdoing took place, we apologise unreservedly, have taken full responsibility and paid appropriate compensation.”

The landmark ruling follows Prince Harry’s appearance at the High Court in June, where he became the first senior royal of modern times to give such extensive evidence in court in person.

Over two days, he was grilled about his claims that the group’s newspapers had published many stories about him, over several years, based on phone hacking and other unlawful ways of obtaining information.

Source: BBC

25 years of Africa Positive

Dortmund-based association celebrates its 25th anniversary with the conference “Sustainable development and the role of the media – changing perspectives between Africa and Europe”. The conference took place on the 18th November 2023

The conference focused on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted in 2015, which aim to achieve peace and prosperity for all humanity by 2030 as part of an action plan.

The current situation regarding efforts to achieve these goals and further developments from a European and African perspective were discussed in presentations and working groups.

Keynote speaker, Dr. Oluseyi Soremekun from the United Nations Information Centre in Nigeria, called for a strong political will from the so-called developing countries to implement the goals. National governments must not only translate improvements into words, but also into action. He also called for better representation of developing countries in international politics.

Prof.  Dr. Jürgen Scheffran from the University of Hamburg stated that six (of nine) so-called planetary boundaries had been reached. As all of the world’s major problems are interlinked, politics must focus on the “global whole”. The significance of national borders was becoming less important. So-called tipping points in political decisions would irreversibly steer developments in one direction or another. Scheffran went on to say that North-South cooperation was particularly important when it came to climate change. We must not play off against each other here – this is also linked to the causes of flight.

Nathalie Yamb, a pan-Africanist from Switzerland, called on African governments to initially only utilise the continent’s resources on the African continent and only sell them to other parts of the world if they are not needed in Africa.

The debate in these working groups focussed on two main questions: How have the corona pandemic and the war in Ukraine affected the implementation of SDGs? How should global goals such as SDGs be implemented in a world where there is no uniform monopoly on the use of force and where power is unfairly distributed?

During the discussion, it became clear that the first question has the answer in the second question. Unfairly distributed power relations have led to resource-rich countries in Africa being asked by countries such as Germany to mine more coal, for example, which diverts the focus away from global sustainability goals.

Another important point of discussion was that the world, especially the major powers, use their advantages in the world for their own national interests, usually at the expense of sustainable development goals. Connections between national and global goals are ignored, as are crisis situations.

 As the global community in the form of the United Nations (UN) has no monopoly on the use of force, sustainable development cannot be enforced on a global scale. Against this background, the new, emerging multipolar world order was seen as problematic in some cases. At the same time, most participants were of the opinion that countries in Africa could have a better chance of protecting and asserting their own interests in the multipolar world order. There was a broad consensus that the multipolar world needs rules in order to be able to treat national and global interests fairly.

Africa Positive, one of the oldest and most successful African organizations in Germany, celebrated its 25th anniversary at its birthplace, TU Dortmund University, with numerous prominent guests and participants from African countries, Germany and Switzerland. Around 130 people took part in the international conference “Sustainable development and the role of the media – changing perspectives between Africa and Europe”.

Among the guests were well-known personalities from politics and other areas of public life: Thomas Westphal, Lord Mayor of the City of Dortmund, Mayor Barbara Brunsing, Police Commissioner Gregor Lange, former Mayor Ullrich Sierau, keynote speaker Dr Oluseyi Soremekun from the United Nations Information Centre in Lagos, Nigeria, Prof. Dr Jürgen Scheffran from the University of Hamburg and members of the state parliament Anja Butschkau and Volker Baran as well as Astrid Müller from the Foundation for Environment and Development NRW.

About Africa Positive e.V.

Africa Positive e.V. was founded 25 years ago by computer science student Veye Tatah from Cameroon at TU Dortmund University. Initially, the magazine of the same name was at the centre of the association’s work. The name “Africa Positive” refers to an important motivation for the magazine – the conviction that the African continent offers a lot of positive perspectives, especially when negative developments are specifically named. At the same time, it was hoped that differentiated reporting would help to break down prejudices against Africa and its people, facilitate dialogue at eye level and highlight its innovative strength.

Today, Africa Positive supports numerous intercultural activities and various projects in the areas of media work, development policy, youth work, integration, science and education.

In November 2018, the Africa Institute for Media, Migration And Development (AIMMAD) was founded for educational and research issues. Its work focuses on “journalism in a global context”.

Russia has launched its biggest drone attack on Kyiv since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine began last year, the city’s mayor has said.

Residents were woken by explosions before dawn on Saturday, and for more than six hours, the booms of Kyiv’s air defences echoed through the city.

There was wave after wave of attacks from the north and east.

Officials said more than 75 Iranian-made Shahed drones were fired at the capital – all but one were shot down.

With Russia’s dwindling missile stocks, Shahed drones are seen as a cheap alternative. They are slower than ballistic missiles and have a distinctive wingspan.

It was a night where the whines of their engines blended with the booms of the city’s air defences.

As ever, even if a missile or drone is intercepted, the falling debris can be lethal too.

There have been no reported deaths from this attack, but at least five people were injured, including an 11-year-old child, Kyiv’s mayor Vitaliy Klitschko said.

A kindergarten was among the buildings damaged.

Source: BBC

A night of torched vehicles and shop looting sparked in Dublin after a knife attack outside a school was of an “extraordinary” level of violence unseen in decades, police said Friday.

The violence started when a group broke through a police cordon Thursday in the area where three young children and a women who was caring for them were injured in a knife attack.

Groups went on to torch busses and trams and loot shops in one of Dublin’s most famous throughfares, O’Connell Street.

Garda Commissioner Drew Harris told a press conference in the Irish capital on Friday that multiple Irish police officers were injured in a running battle with the group that stormed the crime scene in Dublin on Thursday night.

He said that one officer received a serious injury, with “numerous other members injured” as missiles were thrown at them.

“What we saw last night was an extraordinary outbreak of violence,” Harris said. “These are scenes that we have not seen in decades.”

Harris said “all lines of inquiry” are open to determine the motive for the knife attack.

Harris said 34 people were arrested after “huge destruction” by the “riotous mob” with 13 shops significantly damaged or subjected to looting.

A police cordon was set up around the Irish parliament building, Leinster House, late on Thursday night, amid concerns that the violence could spread.

‘Motivated by hate’

Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said that protesters who battled police and looted shops were motivated by “hate” and brought “shame on Ireland”.

“Those involved brought shame on Dublin, brought shame on Ireland and brought shame on their families and themselves,” Varadkar told reporters.

For his part, Harris blamed a “complete lunatic faction driven by far-right ideology” for the disorder.

“We have a complete lunatic hooligan faction driven by far-right ideology, and also then this disruptive tendency engaged in serious violence.”

Harris said calm was restored in the city shortly after midnight.

Irish Justice Minister Helen McEntee said the scenes of disorder were “intolerable” and that a “thuggish and manipulative element must not be allowed to use an appalling tragedy to wreak havoc”.

“We will not tolerate a small number using an appalling incident to spread division,” she said.

Some protesters carried signs reading “Irish Lives Matter” and waved Irish flags through a neighbourhood home to a large immigrant community.

One protester told AFP that “Irish people are being attacked by these scum.”

Ireland has been facing a chronic housing crisis, with the government estimating that there is a deficit of hundreds of thousands of homes for the general population.

Inflated rents, high interest rates and lack of supply create European housing crisis

Widespread dissatisfaction has fed into a backlash against asylum seekers and refugees, and far-right figures have promoted anti-immigration sentiment at rallies and on social media with claims that “Ireland is full”.

Source: AFP

A Paris court on Wednesday began hearing former president Nicolas Sarkozy’s appeal against his conviction for illegal campaign financing in a failed 2012 re-election bid.

The 68-year-old former French head of state appeared relaxed as he appeared for the hearing in a grey suit, speaking with people in the public gallery before proceedings began.

Conservative Sarkozy has faced a litany of legal problems since his one term in office from 2007 until 2012, and has been charged separately with corruption, bribery, influence-peddling, and breaking campaign financing laws.

In the so-called “Bygmalion affair”, the former head of state was sentenced to one year in prison in September 2021 on charges that his right-wing party, then known as the UMP, worked with a public relations firm to hide the true cost of his 2012 re-election bid.

France sets strict limits on campaign spending.

Prosecutors said that the firm, Bygmalion, invoiced the UMP rather than the campaign. They said Sarkozy spent nearly 43 million euros on his 2012 campaign, almost double the permitted amount of 22.5 million euros.

Thirteen other people — including members of the UMP party, accountants and Bygmalion executives — were found guilty of various charges, ranging from forgery and fraud to complicity in illegal campaign financing.

In the original trial, only four defendants, including the deputy head of the campaign, Jerome Lavrilleux, admitted any responsibility.

Sarkozy denied all wrongdoing, insisting that while there had indeed been “false invoices and fictitious agreements… the money had not gone into (his) campaign”.

The appeal trial is scheduled to last nearly five weeks, with Sarkozy slated to testify on November 23.

Contacted by AFP, Sarkozy’s lawyers declined to issue any statements prior to the hearing.

Sarkozy, who was criticised by the prosecution in the original trial for only turning up for the day of his actual hearing and deeming himself to be “above the fray”, is expected to attend some of the most important sessions this time around.

He was charged last month in a separate witness tampering case relating to alleged Libyan financing of his 2007 presidential win.

Sarkozy also faces a separate probe into possible potential influence-peddling after he received a payment by Russian insurance firm Reso-Garantia of three million euros in 2019 while working as a consultant.

Despite his legal troubles, Sarkozy remains a hugely influential figure on the French right, courted by politicians and writing regular books that are major publishing events.

Source: AFP

More than 1,400 African migrants have reached Spain’s Canary Islands this weekend, with one vessel bringing a single-boat record of 321 people, authorities said Sunday.

A total of 1,457 migrants had reached the Spanish islands off the western African coast between Friday night and Sunday morning, the authorities said on X, formerly Twitter, adding to a recent spike in arrivals.

An emergency services spokesman said all of the arrivals hailed from sub-Saharan Africa.

Saturday saw 321 people reach the island of El Hierro aboard one vessel, a rescue services spokesperson told AFP, surpassing the previous record for a single boat of 280 on October 3.

Spanish broadcaster TVE showed images of a multicoloured vessel crammed with smiling and waving passengers reaching port.

Latest data from Spain’s interior ministry show 23,537 migrants reached the Canaries between January 1 and October 15.

The first fortnight of this month alone saw 8,561 arrivals — a record for a fortnight since a previous migration crisis in 2006.

Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska last week said on a visit to the archipelago the spike in numbers resulted from political “destabilisation in the Sahel”.

The Canaries route has been favoured in recent years with controls having been tightened in the Mediterranean.

However, many barely seaworthy vessels have not made it to shore as thousands of migrants risk their lives on the long and dangerous crossing from Morocco or Western Sahara — 100 kilometres (60 miles) away.

Others try even riskier routes from Mauritania, Senegal and even Gambia, around 1,000 kilometres away.

Source: AFP

The UK’s King Charles III starts a three-day state visit to France on Wednesday meant to highlight both nations’ friendship, after the trip was postponed in March amid widespread demonstrations against President Emmanuel Macron’s pension changes.

Charles and Queen Camilla were greeted by Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne at Paris-Orly airport, before heading to the city centre for a ceremony at the Arc de Triomphe in the presence of Macron and his wife, Brigitte.

Both nations’ hymns will be played during the ceremony before a review of French troops and a wreath laying at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier to “mark the shared sacrifices of the past and an enduring legacy of cooperation”, according to Buckingham Palace.

The jet fighters of the Patrouille de France and Britain’s Red Arrows, the acrobatic teams of the countries’ air forces, will fly above the monument.

The presidential and royal couples will then head by car to the presidential palace, parading on the Champs-Élysées avenue.

Macron and Charles will hold a bilateral meeting expected to cover topics including Russia’s war in Ukraine and the migration issue as Italy’s southern island of Lampedusa was in recent days overwhelmed by people setting off from Tunisia.

The visit “symbolizes the relationship of friendship and trust” between them since they both ”have in the past worked closely together to protect biodiversity and combat global warming”, the French presidency stressed.

A state dinner on Wednesday in the Hall of Mirrors of the Palace of Versailles in the presence of more than 150 guests will be one of the highlights of the visit.

On Thursday, Charles will address French lawmakers at the Senate, providing a new venue for the king to show off his language skills after he wowed his audience by switching seamlessly between German and English during a speech to Germany’s parliament in March

He will later rejoin Macron in front of Notre-Dame Cathedral to see the ongoing renovation work aimed at reopening the monument by the end of next year.

Charles and Macron will also both attend a reception for British and French business leaders about financing climate-related and biodiversity projects.

The king will end his trip on Friday with a stop in Bordeaux, home to a large British community. He will meet emergency workers and communities affected by the 2022 wildfires in the area and visit the Forêt Experimentale, or experimental forest, a project designed to monitor the impact of climate on urban woodlands.

He will also tour a vineyard, which has pioneered a sustainable approach to wine making.

Source: FRANCE 24

Charles III finally makes it across the Channel from Britain to France this week, six months after rioting and strikes forced the last-minute postponement of his first state visit as king.

The 74-year-old British head of state’s rescheduled three-day trip to Paris and Bordeaux with his wife Queen Camilla, 76, starts on Wednesday, with the itinerary largely unchanged from March.

It includes set-piece ceremonial events with President Emmanuel Macron, whose unpopular pension reforms sparked the civil unrest earlier this year, as well as more informal meetings with the public.

The royal couple, Macron and his wife Brigitte will be officially welcomed at the Arc de Triomphe and lay wreaths of remembrance before a procession down the sweeping Champs-Elysees avenue.

The French leader and First Lady will host Charles and Camilla at a state banquet at Versailles, the palace west of Paris synonymous with French royalty — and the bloody republican revolution of 1789.

Source: France 24

Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy will face a trial in 2025 on charges of corruption and receiving illegal funding from former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi for his successful 2007 presidential campaign, according to France’s financial prosecutors.

An initial hearing is set for March 7, 2024, the prosecutor’s office said, with the trial itself scheduled to take place between Jan.6, 2025 and April 10, 2025.

The 68-year-old is also fighting various other charges, including “concealment of embezzlement of public funds, passive corruption, and illegal campaign financing, the prosecutor’s office said.

The investigation was sparked by revelations from the investigative website Mediapart which published a document purporting to show that Gaddafi agreed to give Sarkozy up to 50 million euros ($54 million at current rates).

Sarkozy could face up to 10 years in prison if convicted in the case, while he has repeatedly denied the accusations. “There’s not even the smallest inkling of proof,” he said in an interview in 2018.

In addition to Sarkozy, there are 12 others facing the trial among them heavyweights such as Sarkozy’s former right-hand man Claude Gueant, his then head of campaign financing Eric Woerth and former interior minister Brice Hortefeux.

Sarkozy has already been convicted twice for corruption and influence-peddling in separate cases involving attempts to influence a judge and campaign financing.

He lost an appeal in May against a 2021 conviction for corruption and influence peddling. His legal team promised to challenge that at France’s highest court.

Sarkozy championed a NATO-led military intervention in Libya, taking advantage of an uprising against Gaddafi in 2011, which plunged the African country into chaos and infighting continuing to this day.

Before Sarkozy, the only former French leader to be sentenced at trial was his predecessor Jacques Chirac, who received a two-year suspended sentence in 2011 for corruption over a fake jobs scandal relating to his time as Paris mayor.

Source: Presstv