German Holocaust survivor to return national award after AfD vote
Albrecht Weinberg, who survived the Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen concentration camps, said the award had been a great honour but he was outraged by the vote.
"It has become too heavy to bear when you have news like this. Terrible," Weinberg told dpa.
The centre-right CDU/CSU bloc relied on support from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) to push through the non-binding measure on Wednesday, the first time that the party has been involved in a majority vote in the Bundestag, Germany's lower house of parliament.
Weinberg lost most of his family to the Nazis and survived several death marches.
Along with his sister, Weinberg moved back to Germany from the United States in 2012 and has since regularly spoken with German schoolchildren about his experiences.
"I've been going to schools for the last 10 years and talking to pupils about what could and would happen if they were to take power again," said Weinberg, referring to the far right. "They have no idea what it was like in 1945 Germany."
The Mannheim photographer Luigi Toscano, a friend of Weinberg who has devoted his work to commemorating victims of the Nazis, said he also wants to return his Order of Merit.
The pair plan to give the awards back to German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier as soon as possible.
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Epoch Times
an hour ago
- Epoch Times
Ukrainian Arrested in Italy Over Nord Stream Pipelines Attack
The man, named only as Serhii K. due to German privacy laws, is accused of coordinating the September 2022 attack. Gas bubbles from the Nord Stream 2 pipeline on the Baltic Sea, near Bornholm, Denmark, on Sept. 27, 2022. Gas bubbles from the Nord Stream 2 pipeline on the Baltic Sea, near Bornholm, Denmark, on Sept. 27, 2022. Danish Defence Command/Handout via Reuters A Ukrainian suspected of coordinating the September 2022 attacks on the Nord Stream pipelines has been arrested in Italy, the German prosecutor general said on Thursday. The suspect, named only as Serhii K. due to German privacy laws, is set to be transferred to Germany from Italy, and will then be brought before the investigating judge of the Federal Court of Justice, Germany's highest criminal and civil court. Serhii K. was arrested pursuant to a European arrest warrant issued in Germany on Aug. 18 and has been held by police in Misano Adriatico, Rimini, in the region of Emilia-Romagna, around 75 miles southeast of Bologna. Story continues below advertisement According to prosecutors, he was part of a group of individuals who placed explosives on the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines near the Danish island of Bornholm in September 2022. Described as 'allegedly one of the coordinators of the operation,' prosecutors say Serhii K. and his accomplices used a yacht, which departed from Rostock on Germany's Baltic Sea coast, as transport for the bombing attack. 'The yacht had previously been rented from a German company through intermediaries using forged identification documents,' prosecutors said. 'The explosives detonated on September 26, 2022. The explosions severely damaged both pipelines.' The Italian Carabinieri also confirmed the arrest in a statement, describing the suspect as a 49-year-old Ukrainian citizen. German Justice Minister Stefanie Hubig praised the investigating authorities for the arrest. Story continues below advertisement 'The Federal Prosecutor's Office has achieved a very impressive investigative success,' she said in Berlin on Thursday, according to a report 'The blowing up of the pipelines must be investigated, including through criminal prosecution.' The Ukrainian government has not yet commented on the arrest. Last year , German newspapers SZ and Die Zeit, along with the ARD broadcasting network, citing unnamed sources, reported that Germany issued an European arrest warrant for a Ukrainian diving instructor, named only as Volodymyr Z., who was allegedly part of a team that blew up the Nord Stream gas pipelines. Story continues below advertisement As yet, Volodymyr Z. has not been detained. Ukraine, Russia, and the United States have all previously denied responsibility for the explosion. Along with Germany, both Sweden and Denmark also conducted investigations into the incident, but both Scandinavian nations closed their probes in February 2024. Copenhagen concluded there was 'deliberate sabotage of the gas pipelines,' but found 'insufficient grounds to pursue a criminal case', while Stockholm closed its investigation, citing a lack of jurisdiction. Story continues below advertisement The multibillion-dollar Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines, transporting gas under the Baltic Sea, were ruptured by a series of blasts in the Swedish and Danish economic zones in September 2022 that released vast amounts of methane into the air seven months after the Russia–Ukraine conflict began. The Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines, a subsidiary of the Russian state-controlled company Gazprom, had a joint annual capacity of 110 billion cubic meters—more than half of Russia's normal gas export volumes. The Nord Stream 1 pipeline, which connected Russia and Germany directly under the Baltic Sea, became operational in 2011 and was a key component of Europe's energy supply. Nord Stream 2, built to run parallel to Nord Stream 1, was intended to double the capacity of gas delivered to Germany, but it never came into operation amid global political tensions. Story continues below advertisement According to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the explosions resulted in a 'record-shattering amount of methane' being released into the atmosphere. study published by UNEP in January found that up to 485,000 tonnes of methane leaked out of the pipelines in the wake of the blasts. 'Over the short-term, the Nord Stream leak contributed as much to global warming as would have 8 million cars driven for a year,' the study said. The Epoch Times has contacted the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Italian Carabinieri for comment. Owen Evans contributed to this report.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Opinion - Putin has a Melania Trump problem, and the DC media is too slanted to see it
Of all the people in the White House not to end up on the wrong side of, outside of President Trump, I would put Melania Trump at the top of the list. Very private and not at all liking politics (although far too classy to constantly whine about it, unlike a certain former first lady), Melania Trump has taken a very low profile. But that doesn't mean she is uninvolved. Too bad for Vladimir Putin that he didn't get the memo. Now the Russian president is paying the price. In fact, Trump himself revealed the first lady is not buying Putin's soft-soap routine. USA Today reported that when the president told Melania about Putin's desire for peace, she quickly noted that Russia had just bombed another city, killing more civilians. In response, Russia's ham-handed propaganda machine went on the attack, peddling nasty gossip and calling her a 'danger to Russia.' But the first lady was not about to engage. To all appearances, she had a far more shrewd and effective response in mind. Her letter to Putin was a clear shot at the Russians. In the letter, she essentially says that Putin and the Russians abducted Ukrainian children, and she wants them released. Melania did not call Putin a war criminal, but that conclusion is just a step away. Has Putin figured out his attack dogs blundered? There is evidence to suggest just that. Putin compounded the Russian propaganda mistake with an even more serious blunder, possibly to make up for insulting the first lady. At the Anchorage summit — which was a success for Trump, since he didn't give anything away and forced Putin to confer on a U.S. Air Force Base on American soil — Putin was an obsequious as he could be. But in doing so he went a step too far, agreeing with Trump that he would not have invaded Ukraine if Trump had been president. For over three years Putin has claimed to the Russian people and the world that he is in a civilizational fight and battling Nazis in Ukraine. And that is a lie. Putin's invasion was opportunistic. He started the war because he thought he would win easily. Of course, it's one thing for a national leader to lie (happens all the time), and another thing to admit it — and make your loyalists look like fools. Even more problematic for Putin are his inner circle and the security state that surrounds him. Tied to Putin, his sheepish sycophancy to Trump is a humiliation for them as well. Instead of a proud, patriotic Russia fighting for its survival, Putin has portrayed himself and Russia as supplicants to Trump. Pretty humiliating, if you ask me. Putin is the main power in Russia, but he is not a dictator in the style of Kim Jong Un. There are other power centers in the country, and his personal control still relies on the support of Russia's security state. Expect Putin to pivot to a more aggressive posture in order to regain some semblance of pride and control — which will undermine his position with Trump. Of course, these complexities are utterly beyond the understanding and interest of a Western media that is obsessed with loathing Trump — and by proxy anyone associated with him, including the first lady. Instead of recognizing the subtle and substantive moves of Melania Trump, the progressive left immediately sought to demean her letter. Salon's pages snarked like an overqualified freshman English teacher. Others claimed it was an AI paste-up job. But even if the letter wasn't everyone's cup of tea or not quite the Gettysburg Address, that's beside the point. The significant revelation is that Putin and his thugs may well have created an implacable foe in the White House who cannot be displaced. Too focused on their mission to throw mud at anything and everything Trump, the establishment media and leftist echo chamber are unwilling (or unable) to amplify Putin's humiliation and fuel discontent within Russia. It all makes their support for Ukraine ring hollow, to say the least. When push comes to shove, there is no principle that supersedes hatred for Trump. Time will tell on this latest burst of diplomacy. It is more likely than not that Putin is in too deep to offer any compromise that could be remotely acceptable. His own propaganda and ultra-nationalist allies may well have put him in a box he cannot get out of. Not that this circumstance should surprise anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of Russian history. There is a reason Russian autocrats almost never survive losing a war. This war will most likely not end until Putin is removed from power and a new Russian leadership can start over, blaming the dead man for all of the mistakes — another classic Russian trope. If and when that happens, Melania Trump will deserve some credit. Keith Naughton, a longtime Republican political consultant, is co-founder of Silent Majority Strategies, a public and regulatory affairs consulting firm, and a former Pennsylvania political campaign consultant. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
Ukrainian man arrested over Nord Stream pipeline attacks
By Rachel More and Matthias Williams BERLIN (Reuters) -A Ukrainian man has been arrested in Italy on suspicion of coordinating the 2022 attacks on the Nord Stream gas pipelines, German prosecutors said on Thursday, marking a breakthrough in an episode that sharpened tensions between Russia and the West. Seen by both Moscow and the West as an act of sabotage, the explosions severely damaged three pipelines carrying gas from Russia to Europe, prompting a major escalation in the Ukraine conflict and squeezing energy supplies on the continent. No one has ever taken responsibility for the blasts. The arrest comes just as Kyiv is engaged in fraught diplomatic discussions with the United States over how to end the war in Ukraine without giving away major concessions and swathes of its own territory to Russia. Successive Ukrainian governments had seen the pipelines as a symbol of, and vehicle for, Russia's hold over European energy supplies that Kyiv argued made it hard to act against Moscow ever since Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014. Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, triggering Europe's deadliest conflict in 80 years, in which analysts say more than 1 million people have been killed or injured. "The bombing of the pipelines must be investigated, including through criminal prosecution. Therefore, it is good that we are making progress in this regard," said German Justice Minister Stefanie Hubig in a statement. An official in the Ukrainian president's office said he could not comment as it was not clear who had been arrested. The official reiterated Ukraine's denial of any role in the blasts. The suspect, identified only as Serhii K. under German privacy laws, was part of a group of people who planted devices on the pipelines near the Danish island of Bornholm in the Baltic Sea, a statement from the prosecutor's office said. He and his accomplices had set off from Rostock on Germany's northeastern coast in a sailing yacht to carry out the attack, it said. The vessel had been rented from a German company with the help of forged identity documents via middlemen, it added. Authorities acted on a European arrest warrant for the suspect, who faces charges of collusion to cause an explosion, anti-constitutional sabotage and destruction of important structures. Carabinieri officers arrested him overnight in the province of Rimini on Italy's Adriatic coast, the German prosecutors' statement said. The Italian Carabinieri confirmed the arrest and said the suspect was aged 49 but gave no further details. MYSTERIOUS BLASTS In September 2022, one of the two lines of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline was damaged by mysterious blasts, along with both lines of Nord Stream 1 that carried Russian gas to Europe. Both the U.S. and Ukraine have denied having anything to do with the attacks, as has Russia. Moscow, without providing evidence, blamed Western sabotage for the blasts, which largely severed Russian gas supplies to the lucrative European market. Denmark and Sweden closed their investigations in February 2024, leaving Germany as the only country continuing to pursue the case. Danish authorities concluded there was "deliberate sabotage of the gas pipelines" but found "insufficient grounds to pursue a criminal case", while Sweden closed its investigation citing a lack of jurisdiction. The Washington Post and Germany's Der Spiegel magazine have previously said the team that carried out the attack was put together by a former Ukrainian intelligence officer, who has denied involvement. In January 2023, Germany raided a ship that it said may have been used to transport explosives and told the United Nations it believed trained divers could have attached devices to the pipelines at about 70 to 80 metres deep. The boat, leased in Germany via a Poland-registered company, contained traces of octogen, the same explosive that was found at the underwater blast sites, according to the investigations by Germany, Denmark and Sweden. German media reported last year that Germany had issued a European arrest warrant against a Ukrainian diving instructor who allegedly was part of the team that blew up the pipelines. Citing unnamed sources, several outlets reported that German investigators believed the man, last known to have lived in Poland, was one of the divers who planted explosive devices on the pipelines.
