International
Nine people every day were targeted in 2023 by far-right attacks in Germany
An average of nine people each day were subjected in 2023 to extreme right-wing, racist or anti-Semitic violence in 11 of the 16 federal states of Germany, according to the annual report presented on Tuesday by the association of counseling centers for victims of this type of aggression, which spoke of an “alarming balance.”
Thus, 3,384 people were directly affected by the 2,589 far-right, racist or anti-Semitic aggressions (an average of seven per day) in East Germany (Mecklenburg-Antepomerania, Brandenburg, Berlin, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia) and Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg, Hamburg, North Rhine-Westphalia and Schleswig-Holstein.
The increase of more than 20% of aggressions compared to last year constitutes “a very serious development, which illustrates how much the threat situation has become acute, especially for vulnerable groups.”
This was expressed at a press conference by Judith Porath, of the board of directors of the Association of Counseling Centers for Victims of Far-right, Racist and Anti-Semitic Violence (VBRG) and director of the Association Perspective of the Victims of Brandenburg.
The total number of assaults also includes two crimes of homicide and 18 attempted murder.
“The normalization of anti-Semitism, racism and conspiracy narratives is also reflected in the increase in more than a third of the threats and coercions recorded, up to 1,022 cases,” he said.
He drew attention to the “alarming number of 585 children and adolescents assaulted” and stressed that in this group, very in need of protection due to their age, violence and experiences related to marginalization can have very serious consequences for their further development.
He also referred to the worrying typology of crimes: thus, with 1,402 cases, the crimes of physical assault predominate, which increased by 12.4%, compared to 1,247 in 2022, and accounted for more than half of all the attacks recorded.
Racist-motivated attacks grew by 33% and were the most common reason for crimes, with 1,446 cases recorded compared to 1,088 in 2022.
The report also highlights the worrying increase of a third of anti-Semitic attacks, from 201 in 2022 to 318 in 2023.
Physical assaults for anti-Semitic reasons more than tripled, from 21 in 2022 to 71 in 2023, and threats and coercions for this reason almost doubled, from 121 to 211.
The number of far-right attacks against political adversaries remained at a consistently high level, with 315 cases in 2023 compared to 387 a year ago.
“The alarming dimension of far-right, racist and anti-Semitic violence shows how threatened democracy is,” said the director of the memorial centers of the former Nazi concentration camps of Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora, Jens-Christian Wagner.
He referred to “years of far-right agitation and historical revisionism” practiced by the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD).
International
Trump appoints Stallone, Voight, and Gibson as special ambassadors to Hollywood
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump announced on Thursday the appointment of actors Sylvester Stallone (‘Rocky’) and Jon Voight (‘Midnight Cowboy’), as well as actor and director Mel Gibson (‘Braveheart’) as special ambassadors to the “very problematic” Hollywood.
“They will help me as special envoys to make Hollywood, which has lost many overseas businesses in the last four years, COME BACK BIGGER, BETTER, AND STRONGER THAN EVER,” he posted on his social media platform, Truth Social.
The Republican lamented all the “problems” he claims Hollywood faces and created this role with the aim of improving the situation from a business perspective.
“These three talented men will be my eyes and ears. I will do whatever they suggest,” he said.
Stallone had previously described Trump as the second George Washington, the first U.S. president (1789–1797) and one of the nation’s founding fathers, during a dinner after his victory in the November presidential elections, where he served as the master of ceremonies.
Meanwhile, Gibson attacked Trump’s rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, accusing her of having “the IQ of a fence.”
The Republican leader will be sworn in as president on January 20 on the steps of the U.S. Capitol, succeeding Democrat Joe Biden.
International
Latin American and Caribbean diplomats voice concern over U.S. mass deportation plan
Diplomatic chiefs from ten Latin American and Caribbean countries expressed their “serious concern” over the announcement of a mass deportation of migrants, a measure they consider incompatible with human rights, according to a joint statement released this Friday.
The statement, which does not attribute the measure to any specific country, refers to the announcement made by U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, who has promised to carry out the largest foreign deportation operation in the history of the nation once he takes office next Monday. “The announcements of mass deportations are a serious cause for concern, especially due to their incompatibility with the fundamental principles of human rights and their failure to effectively address the structural causes of migration,” the statement said, released by Mexico’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SRE).
The signing countries—Brazil, Belize, Colombia, Cuba, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, and Venezuela (almost all migrant-sending nations)—also committed to “defend the human rights of all migrants.”
This includes “rejecting the criminalization of migrants at all stages of the migration cycle” and “protecting them as a priority from transnational organized crime that profits from migration,” the document adds.
International
Noboa once again entrusts the Vice President of Ecuador to the vice president he appointed by decree
The President of Ecuador, Daniel Noboa, returned this Thursday to delegate – for the second time – the Presidency to the Secretary of Public Administration and Cabinet of the Presidency Cynthia Gellibert, whom he himself appointed by decree vice president in charge, in the face of the open confrontation he maintains with the vice president, Verónica Abad.
As he did last week, Noboa again issued a decree in which he announces that he is absent from the Presidency from Thursday to Sunday, to make an electoral campaign in search of his re-election in the elections of February 9, and during that period of time it will be Gellibert who will be in charge of the head of the State.
This action of the president of Ecuador is a matter of evaluation by the ordinary and constitutional justice at the request of the vice president, Verónica Abad, who claims to assume the presidential functions during the full period of the electoral campaign, in which according to the Constitution the head of state must ask for leave for being a candidate for re-election.
In his decree, Noboa argues that, although the Constitution determines that the Vice Presidency must assume the head of State in the event of the absence of the president, this “is not limited to the elected vice-president, but to the person who to date is exercising the functions of the Vice Presidency.”
Before appointing Gellibert as vice president in charge by decree, Noboa sent Abad to the Ecuadorian Embassy in Turkey, after a judge annulled the five-month suspension that the same Government had imposed on him. Until now, the vice president remains in Ecuador to claim to be the one who temporarily assumes the Presidency.
The new period of Gellibert with presidential powers began at 18:00 local time (23:00 GMT) this Thursday and is scheduled to end at 22:00 (03:00 GMT) next Sunday, time at which the debate between presidential candidates is expected to end where Noboa is summoned to participate.
After the debate, Noboa plans to travel to Washington to attend Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration, according to the Ecuadorian Presidency.
After the first assignment of the Presidency to Gellibert, Abad denounced a “coup d’état” and urged the Organization of American States (OAS) to apply the Democratic Charter, considering that the constitutional order had been broken because it had not received the presidential powers, as contemplated in the Ecuadorian Constitution.
In addition, he filed a protection action with which he seeks that the Justice annul the decrees in which Noboa appointed Gellibert as vice president in charge and delegated the Presidency to him. A court admitted the appeal on Friday, but did not accept some precautionary measures that Abad also asked for to suspend those effects immediately.
Controversies like this will be part of the analysis and evaluation of the electoral observation mission (EOM) of the European Union (EU) for the Ecuadorian elections, as anticipated on Wednesday by its leader, Spanish MEP Gabriel Mato.
The confrontation between Noboa and Abad began in the electoral campaign for the second round of elections for the extraordinary elections of 2023, and was reflected when he assumed the charges, when in one of his first decisions, the president sent the vice president to Israel as ambassador, with the mission of seeking peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
Abad has denounced Noboa for alleged political gender violence and has accused her of leading a harassment against her to force her to resign and thus avoid having to delegate the Presidency to her during the electoral campaign period, which runs from January 5 to February 6.
The titular vice president has also accused the Government of being behind the corruption investigation in the offices of the Vice Presidency that involves her son in a case where the Prosecutor’s Office also sought to indict Abad, but the National Assembly (Parliament) voted mostly against lifting the jurisdiction, although the ruling party voted in favor.
The general elections in Ecuador are called for Sunday, February 9 and, according to the polls published so far, Noboa and the candidate of the correismo Luisa González appear as prominent favorites to move on to the second round.
Trump appoints Stallone, Voight, and Gibson as special ambassadors to Hollywood
Latin American and Caribbean diplomats voice concern over U.S. mass deportation plan
Noboa once again entrusts the Vice President of Ecuador to the vice president he appointed by decree
Tec de Monterrey honors one of its students for his contribution to nanotechnology in medicine
Defense Minister commends salvadoran soldier for Central American Cross Country victory
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