DAILY NEWS IN ENGLISH
German Islam Conference reconvenes search for German Islam This yearʼs German Islam Conference (DIK) will be held on Wednesday and Thursday in Berlin. It has been over a year and a half sincethe last DIK. For this latest iteration, German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer, of Bavariaʼs Christian Social Union (CSU), has invited some new faces to discuss a host of what he considers pressing issues. The overriding mission of the DIK remains unchanged: the "integration" of Germanyʼs 4.5 million Muslims into society, both in a religious and broader political sense. The twoday event will be inaugurated by Seehofer and then officially focus on efforts to promote integration and train imams in Germany. This latter issue will undoubtedly spark heated debates over the coming months and focus attention on what role Islamic theology should play in German universities, whether imams andmosquesshould receive funding from abroad, and what to make of Muslim congregations that make large financial contributions to certain causes.
Far-right populists and climate policy: an attempt to move the goalposts With the COP24 starting next week, right-wing populists are seeking to reframe the discussion about climate change even in ultra-ecological Germany. Environmentalists face a dilemma — to rebut or ignore the deniers. The environmental affairs spokesman for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), Karsten Hilse, is someone who rarely raises his voice or breaks into the sneers of party heads Alice Weidel and Alexander Gauland — to say nothing of the climate-changedenier-in-chief, US President Donald Trump. But Hilseʼs message is just as radical.
270/2018 • 29 NOVEMBER, 2018
Duterte plans anticommunist ʼdeath squadʼ in Philippines Rights groups fear this will escalate an already deadly environment in the country
The president of the Philippines has said he wants to counter communist rebels with their own weapon: armed death squads. But rights groups fear this will escalate an already deadly environment in the country.
EU consumer groups hit Google with location tracking complaints Consumer groups from across the bloc have signaled their plans to file formal complaints against the tech giant. Google has been accused of secretly tracking usersʼ movements even after they try to disable such features. European consumer agencies on Tuesday said they will file complaints against Google for allegedly breachingthe EUʼs data protection law GDPRby tracking the movements of users without their consent through
features such as "location history" and "web and app activity." Consumer groups from the Czech Republic, Denmark, Greece, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Slovenia and Sweden said they will file complaints with their countriesʼ respective data protection authorities, which is basic procedure under GDPR. Norwegian consumer group Forbrukerradet tweeted a video explaining Googleʼs practices, saying the tech giant "manipulates you to accept being followed step by step."
High Five: 5 artists whose works you will only recognize from on high By creating art that can only be seen from a birdʼs eye view, these artists demand that the viewer has a radically different perspective. This is not a recent trend. The view from above has been captivating humanity for a long time, with ancient artworks created to be viewed from the heavens long before there were planes or hot air balloons. To this day, these artworks that were seemingly intended for the gods are puzzling scientists. For example, how did Nazca Indians
in todayʼs Peru conjure animal geoglyphs hundreds of meters in length more than 1,500 years ago? While we can ascertain the methods behind contemporary large-scale artist works, they still manage to astonish us. Some employ the simplest mediums – for example, by leaving tracks in the deep snow or raking figures in the sand on the beach. They all have one thing in common: These works are huge and some are even recognizable from space.
Dutch trains to compensate descendants of Jews deported to Nazi camps The Netherlands state-owned train company, Nederlandse Spoorwegen (NS), will compensate individuals whose Jewish relatives were deported on its trains to concentration and extermination camps when the country was under Nazi-German occupation during World War II. Announced Tuesday on the nightly public television news show, the decision marks the first time that the train company will pay damages to individual descendants of Holocaust victims. Previously the NS had donated money to various remembrance projects. "We have jointly decided … to found a committee," NS President Roger van Boxtel said. "This committee will find out how we can arrange financial aid to those affected." The number of individuals to receive compensation, as well as the total to be paid out, remains unknown.
New Zealand blocks Chinaʼs Huawei from planned 5G roll out New Zealandʼs intelligence agency on Wednesday blocked mobile operator Spark from using equipment from Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei in its planned 5G roll out, citing "a significant network security risk." The move follows similar action by Australia earlier this year as Western powers are increasingly concerned about growing Chinese influence in the Pacific.
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