282/2017 • 2, DECEMBER 2017 WEEKEND ISSUE
DAILY NEWS IN ENGLISH
SPD denies ʼgreen lightʼ for new German government, but keeps options open He stopped short of a categorical no
Social Democratic Party leader Martin Schulz has refuted reports that his party was ready to start grand coalition talks with Chancellor Angela Merkelʼs conservatives. But he stopped short of a categorical no.
ʼNazi Grandmaʼ Holocaust denier may finally face jail
Iraqi army launches operation to clear IS remnants
A court in western Germany is considering the appeal of octogenarian Ursula Haverbeck, who has multiple convictions for Holocaust denial. Haverbeck has been handed several jail terms, but has so far avoided prison. A German court was due to make a decision on Thursday in the appeal of an 88-year-old woman convicted for incitement to racial hatred on multiple occasions. Ursula Haverbeck challenged two verdicts handed down by a court in the western town of Detmold, after she denied that the genocide of Jews between 1941 and 1945 had taken place.
The capture of Rawa last week signaled the fall of the final IS stronghold in Iraq, putting a decisive end to the terror groupʼs "caliphate" aspirations. Liberation forces are now pushing into the desert. Iraq launched an army operation to flush militants out of its border region with Syria, the military said on Thursday, as it pushes to entirely expel "Islamic State" (IS) from its lands. The Iraqi army, federal police and the Shiite paramilitary group Hashed al-Shaabi have begun "clearing" a large strip of desert in the west of the country, General Abdelamir Yarallah said in a statement.
A visibly irritated Social Democratic chairman Martin Schulz took to the podium in Berlin on Friday to deny that his party was ready to officially begin talks with conservatives toward forming a new grand coalition government. "I can completely repudiate the rumor that any green light has been given," Schulz said. "It is simply false and unacceptable. The way that erroneous reports are circulated destroys trust." Schulzʼs statement came the day after he met with conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel, Bavarian conservative leader Horst Seehofer and German President Frank Walter Steinmeier to discuss the possibilities for a new German government. Germanyʼs Bild newspaper reported early on Friday that a deal had been reached to pursue the grand coalition option. Schulz said that reports to that effect were the result of leaks from the conservative sources, adding that he had called Merkel to complain about the confidentiality of Thursdayʼs meeting being violated. At the same time, he didnʼt slam any doors on the eventuality that Germanyʼs two largest parties could form a new partnership. "There was a broad consensus about not closing down any options concerning the formation of a new government," Schulz told reporters. Earlier on Friday,SPD politicians said they would not be rushed into joining a new grand coalition. Speaking after
Schulzʼs statement, CDU chief executive Klaus Schüler said that his party respected what the SPD chairman had to say and wouldwait for the Social Democrats to make a decisionabout whether to officially pursue talks or not. The unusually testy tone Schulz struck is a reflection of the differences between conservatives and Social Democrats not just over the policies of a possible grand coalition, but whether or not to try to form one at all. Merkel would have few problemsgetting her parliamentary group to go along with talksabout extending their current collaboration with the Social Democrats, as there is broad consensus among conservatives that a grand coalition is the only way forward. But for the SPD the situation isnʼt nearly as clear. On September 24, the Social Democrats under Schulz took only 20.5 percent of the vote. It was their worst-ever election performance in post-war German history, and many Social Democrats blamed the compromises the party made as part of the grand coalition that has governed Germany for the past four years. Opinion surveys suggest that the SPD rank-and-file have decidedly mixed feeling about a new edition of the grand coalition, and the partyʼs youth organization, the Jusos, are dead set against it. By contrast, Steinmeier himself a former SPD leader - is known to favor the grand coalition option.
Police enter decommissioned Australian detention camp
FB to show users if they ʼlikedʼ alleged Russian propaganda
apua New Guinea police have moved in on the shuttered Australian-run Manus detention camp in an attempt to force hundreds of asylum seekers occupying it to leave. The camp long symbolized Canberraʼs strict asylum laws Authorities in Papua New Guinea are removing more than 300 asylum seekers from a squalid immigration camp on Manus island to another location Australia has paid PNG and the nearby island of Nauru to hold refugees as part of its controversial immigration policy.
The social media giant Facebook is working on a tool to let users know if they ʼlikedʼ any of the accounts allegedly pushing Russian propaganda. The company believes some 146 million Americans were exposed to such posts. The US-based company announced it would create a web page for its users to visit in order to find out if they liked or followed accounts with an alleged pro-Kremlin agenda. The tool would apply to accounts on both Facebook and Instagram, which has been owned by Facebook since 2012.