German and Austrian ministers break off a planned Syria trip because of a possible threat
BERLIN — The German and Austrian interior ministers broke off a planned trip to Syria on Thursday because of a possible threat to their delegation, German authorities said.
Germany's Nancy Faeser had planned to visit Damascus with her Austrian counterpart Gerhard Karner, and a German military plane was supposed to fly Faeser's delegation into Syria from Jordan on Thursday morning.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
13 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Frederick Forsyth: Life as a thriller writer, fighter pilot, journalist and spy
Frederick Forsyth, who has died at the age of 86, wrote meticulously researched thrillers which sold in their millions. A former fighter pilot, journalist and spy, many of his books were based on his own experience. He wove intricate technical details into his stories, without detracting from the lightning pace of his plots. His research often embarrassed the authorities, who were forced to admit that some of the shady tactics he revealed were used in real-life espionage. Frederick McCarthy Forsyth was born on 25 August 1938 in Ashford, Kent. The only child of a furrier, he dealt with loneliness by immersing himself in adventure stories. Among his favourites were the works John Buchan and H Rider Haggard, but Forsyth adored Ernest Hemingway's book on bullfighters, Death in the Afternoon. He was so captivated that - at the age of 17 - he went to Spain and started practising with a cape. He never actually fought a bull. Instead, he spent five months at the University of Granada before returning to do his national service with the RAF. Having spent years dreaming of becoming a pilot, Forsyth lied about his age so he could fly de Havilland Vampire jets. In 1958, he joined the Eastern Daily Press as a local journalist. Three years later, he moved to the Reuters news agency. At Tonbridge School, Forsyth had excelled in foreign languages but little else. Fluent in French, German, Spanish, and Russian, he was a born foreign correspondent. Posted to Paris, he covered a number of stories relating to assassination attempts on the life of France's President Charles de Gaulle, by members of the Organisation de l'Armee Secrete (OAS). The group of ex-army personnel were angered at de Gaulle's decision to give independence to Algeria after many of their comrades had died fighting Algerian nationalists. Forsyth called the OAS "white colonialists and neo-fascists". And he decided that, if they really wanted to kill de Gaulle, they would have to hire a professional assassin. Forsyth joined the BBC in 1965. Two years later, he was sent to Nigeria to cover the civil war that followed the secession of the south-eastern region of Biafra. When the fighting dragged on far longer than had been expected, Forsyth asked permission to stay and cover it. According to his autobiography, the BBC told him "it is not our policy to cover this war". "I smelt news management," he said. "I don't like news management." He quit his job and continued to cover the war as a freelance reporter for the next two years. He chronicled his experiences in The Biafra Story, which was published in 1969. He later claimed that, while in Nigeria, he began working for MI6, a relationship that continued for two decades. He also become friendly with a number of mercenaries, who taught him how to get a false passport, obtain a gun and break an enemy's neck. All these tricks of the trade would be incorporated in a tale of an attempted assassination of President de Gaulle, The Day of the Jackal, which he pounded out in his bedsit on an old typewriter in just 35 days. He spent months trying to get it published but faced a string of rejections. "For starters, de Gaulle was still alive," he said, "so readers already knew a fictional assassination plot set in 1963 couldn't succeed." Eventually, a publisher risked a short print run and sales of the book, described once as "an assassin's manual", took off, first in the UK and then in the US. The Day of the Jackal showcased what would become the traditional hallmarks of a Forsyth thriller. It wove together fact and fiction, often using the names of real individuals and events. The Jackal's forgery of a British passport, using the name of a dead child taken from a churchyard, was perfectly feasible in the days before electronic databases and cross-checking. The tale was made into an award-winning film in 1973, staring Edward Fox as the anonymous gunman. Forsyth followed up his success with The Odessa File, the story of a German reporter attempting to track down Eduard Roschmann - a notorious Nazi nicknamed the "Butcher of Riga" - who is protected by a secret society of former SS men known as Odessa. As part of his research, Forsyth travelled to Hamburg posing as a South African arms dealer. "I managed to penetrate their world and was feeling rather proud of myself," he later said. "What I didn't know was that the (contact) had passed a bookshop shortly after our meeting. And there, in the window, was The Day of the Jackal, with a great big picture of me on the back cover." The film of the book led to the identification of the real "Butcher of Riga", who was living in Argentina - after one of his neighbours went to see it at the local cinema. He was arrested by the Argentinian authorities, but skipped bail and fled to Paraguay. The book also mentioned a hoard of Nazi gold that was exported to Switzerland in 1944. Twenty-five years after publication, the Jewish World Congress discovered this passage and, eventually, located gold valued at £1bn. According to the Sunday Times, Forsyth's third novel, The Dogs of War, drew on his experience of organising a coup in Africa. The newspaper reported that Forsyth had once spent $200,000 hiring a boat and recruiting European and African soldiers of fortune for a raid designed to oust the President of Equatorial Guinea in 1972. The plan was said to have failed when the arrangements broke down and the soldiers were intercepted by the Spanish police in the Canary Islands, 3,000 miles from their objective. Then came Devil's Alternative, in which Britain's first female prime minister, Joan Carpenter, was firmly based on Margaret Thatcher, a politician Forsyth greatly admired. She later appeared, under her real name, in four Forsyth novels. There was a move into biography in 1982 with Emeka, the life story of Forsyth's friend Col Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, the head of state of Biafra during that country's brief independence. In 1984, he returned to the novel with The Fourth Protocol: a complex tale of a Soviet plot to influence the British general election and install a hard-left Labour government. The book so impressed Sir Michael Caine that he persuaded Forsyth to allow a film version, in which the veteran actor starred alongside Pierce Brosnan. In the late 1980s, Forsyth separated from his first wife, the former model Carole Cunningham and was photographed alongside the actress Faye Dunaway. The Negotiator, published in 1991, continued the successful run while The Deceiver, the tale of a maverick but brilliant MI6 agent, was made into a BBC mini-series. After two more thrillers, The Fist of God and Icon, Forsyth took an abrupt detour with The Phantom of Manhattan: a sequel to the Phantom of the Opera, which had been a successful musical. It was not a great success but, in 2010, Andrew Lloyd Webber took elements of it for his musical follow-up to Phantom, Love Never Dies. A second set of short stories, The Veteran, also had mixed reviews but Forsyth bounced back in his usual style with Avenger, a 2003 political thriller and, three years later, The Afghan, which had links with the earlier Fist of God. By now, Forsyth had established a reputation as a broadcaster and political pundit. He was a frequent guest on the BBC's topical debate programme Question Time, as someone who held views on the right of the political spectrum. A committed Eurosceptic, he once derailed former Prime Minister Ted Heath on the programme - after proving that he had indeed, despite his denials, once signed a document agreeing to transfer UK gold reserves to Frankfurt. On turning 70, the pace of his writing began to slow. The Cobra, published in 2010, saw the return of some of the characters from Avenger. In 2013, Forsyth published The Kill List, a fast-moving tale built round a Muslim fanatic called The Preacher, whose online videos encouraged young Muslims to carry out a series of killings. He wrote all his books on a typewriter and refused to use the internet for his research. Ironically, his 18th novel, The Fox - published in 2018 - was a spy thriller about a gifted computer hacker. Forsyth announced it was to be his final book, but he later came out of self-imposed retirement after the death of his second wife, Sandy, in 2024. He said he was writing another adventure, and even suggested a raffle might give someone the chance to name a character after themselves. Having sold the film rights for £20,000 in the 1970s, Forsyth received no payment for Eddie Redmayne's version of The Day of the Jackal when it was re-imagined for television last year on Sky. Well into his 80s, he had long since agreed to stop research trips to far-flung parts of the world - when a trip to Guinea-Bissau left him with an infection that nearly cost him a leg. "It is a bit drug-like, journalism," he admitted. "I don't think that instinct ever dies." It was an instinct that made his life as full and exciting as his thrillers. The Day Of The Jackal author Frederick Forsyth dies Lee Child: Why Forsyth's Jackal changed thriller writing Frederick Forsyth reveals spy past
Business Insider
3 hours ago
- Business Insider
Russia, Ghana, 32 other embassies at risk of closure in Nigeria over unpaid ground rent
The Nigerian government, through the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA), has issued a stern warning to 34 foreign embassies in Abuja, threatening possible closure over their failure to settle ground rent arrears dating back 11 years. The Nigerian government has threatened to close 34 foreign embassies in Abuja over 11 years of unpaid ground rent. The embassies collectively owe over ₦3.6 million in arrears since 2014, violating land lease agreements. Some of the embassies, including those of Russia and Turkey, have denied owing any debts. According to a report by The PUNCH, these embassies in Nigeria have collectively accumulated over ₦3.6 million in unpaid ground rent since 2014, violating land lease agreements with the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA). Ground rent is a statutory obligation for all landholders within the Federal Capital Territory, including diplomatic missions, and is crucial for funding infrastructure and administrative services. The FCTA publication listing the defaulting embassies disclosed the specific countries involved, revealing that out of the 34 missions cited, the Indonesia Defence Attaché (₦1,718,211), Zambia High Commission (₦1,189,990), Government of Equatorial Guinea (₦1,137,240), and the Embassy of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela (₦459,055) owe the highest amounts in outstanding ground rent. Others include Ghana High Commission Defence Section (N5,950); Embassy of Thailand (N5,350), Embassy of Côte d'Ivoire (N5,500); Embassy of the Russian Federation (N1,100); Embassy of the Philippines (N5,950); Royal Netherlands Embassy (N5,950); Embassy of Turkey (N3,350), and the Embassy of the Republic of Guinea (N5,950). Embassies react Some embassies have rejected claims by the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) that they owe ground rent in Nigeria's capital, Abuja. The Embassy of the Russian Federation firmly denied any debt, stating: ' The Embassy pays all rent bills in good faith and on time. We have all necessary documents confirming payment. ' Similarly, the Embassy of Turkiye questioned its inclusion on the list, suggesting a possible bureaucratic error. A Turkish official said, 'We make our payments regularly and have not received any formal notice. We'll investigate and resolve any misunderstanding.' The German Embassy clarified that no official notice had been received from the FCTA and insisted all obligations had been fully settled by the end of 2024. It reaffirmed its commitment to transparency and cooperation with Nigerian authorities. The Ghana High Commission also said it had not been officially notified but would engage the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to address the issue.
San Francisco Chronicle
3 hours ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
‘Who controls the present controls the past': What Orwell's ‘1984' explains about the twisting of history to control the public
(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.) Laura Beers, American University (THE CONVERSATION) When people use the term ' Orwellian,' it's not a good sign. It usually characterizes an action, an individual or a society that is suppressing freedom, particularly the freedom of expression. It can also describe something perverted by tyrannical power. It's a term used primarily to describe the present, but whose implications inevitably connect to both the future and the past. In his second term, President Donald Trump has revealed his ambitions to rewrite America's official history to, in the words of the Organization of American Historians, ' reflect a glorified narrative … while suppressing the voices of historically excluded groups.' Such ambitions are deeply Orwellian. Here's how. Author George Orwell believed in objective, historical truth. Writing in 1946, he attributed his youthful desire to become an author in part to a ' historical impulse,' or ' the desire to see things as they are, to find out true facts and store them up for the use of posterity.' But while Orwell believed in the existence of an objective truth about history, he did not necessarily believe that truth would prevail. Winners write the history During World War II, the Nazis broadcast reports on German radio describing nonexistent air raids over Britain. Orwell knew about those reports and wrote: 'Now, we are aware that those raids did not happen. But what use would our knowledge be if the Germans conquered Britain? For the purposes of a future historian, did those raids happen, or didn't they?' The answer, Orwell wrote, was, 'If Hitler survives, they happened, and if he falls, they didn't happen. So with innumerable other events of the past ten or twenty years. … In no case do you get one answer which is universally accepted because it is true: in each case you get a number of totally incompatible answers, one of which is finally adopted as the result of a physical struggle. History is written by the winners.' As Orwell wrote in ' 1984,' his final, dystopian novel, 'Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.' Power, Orwell appreciated, allowed those who possessed it to create their own historical narrative. It also allowed those in power to silence or censor opposing narratives, quashing the possibility of productive dialogue about history that could ultimately allow truth to come out. The Ministry of Truth The desire to eradicate counternarratives drives Winston Smith's job at the ironically named Ministry of Truth in '1984.' The novel is set in Oceania, a geographical entity covering North America and the British Isles and which governs much of the Global South. Oceania is an absolute tyranny governed by Big Brother, the leader of a political party whose only goal is the perpetuation of its own power. In this society, truth is what Big Brother and the party say it is. The regime imposes near total censorship so that not only dissident speech but subversive private reflection, or 'thought crime,' is viciously prosecuted. In this way, it controls the present. But it also controls the past. As the party's protean policy evolves, Smith and his colleagues are tasked with systematically destroying any historical records that conflict with the current version of history. Smith literally disposes of artifacts of inexpedient history by throwing them down 'memory holes,' where they are 'wiped … out of existence and out of memory.' At a key point in the novel, Smith recalls briefly holding on to a newspaper clipping that proved that an enemy of the regime had not actually committed the crime he had been accused of. Smith recognizes the power over the regime that this clipping gives him, but he simultaneously fears that power will make him a target. In the end, fear of retaliation leads him to drop the slip of newsprint down a memory hole. The contemporary U.S. is a far cry from Orwell's Oceania. Yet the Trump administration is doing its best to exert control over the present and the past. The Trump administration has taken unprecedented steps to rewrite the nation's official history, attempting to purge parts of the historical narrative down Orwellian memory holes. Comically, those efforts included the temporary removal from government websites of information about the Enola Gay, the plane that dropped the atomic bomb over Hiroshima. The plane was unwittingly caught up in a mass purge of references to 'gay' and LGBTQ+ content on government websites. Other erasures have included the deletion of content on government sites related to the life of Harriet Tubman, the Maryland woman who escaped slavery and then played a pioneering role as a conductor of the Underground Railroad, helping enslaved people escape to freedom. The administration also directed the removal of content concerning the Tuskegee Airmen, the group of African American pilots who flew missions in World War II. In these cases, public outcry led to the restoration of the deleted content, but other less high-profile deletions have been allowed to stand. Over the past several months, many of Trump's opponents have bemoaned the fecklessness of the Democratic Party in mounting an effective opposition to the president's agenda. Critics on the right and even some on the left denounced as little more than a stunt New Jersey Sen. Corey Booker's marathon 25-hour speech on the U.S. Senate floor detailing the constitutional abuses of Trump's first few months. But while words are no substitute for action, in the face of a regime that is intent on stifling voices of dissent, from media outlets to law firms, to university campuses, through a combination of formal censorship and informal coercion and bullying, the act of speaking out matters. Booker's protest will be written into the Congressional Record and remain a part of the nation's contested history. So too will the meticulous recounting of the administration's constitutional abuses in publications such as The Atlantic and The New York Times. The existence of such a record allows the potential for a critical historical narrative to be written in the future. But the administration is also looking ahead. Repressing thought Current proponents of the 'anti-woke' agenda at both the federal and state level are focused on reshaping educational curricula in a way that will make it inconceivable for future generations to question their historical claims. Orwell's '1984' ends with an appendix on the history of 'Newspeak,' Oceania's official language, which, while it had not yet superseded 'Oldspeak' or standard English, was rapidly gaining ground as both a written and spoken dialect. According to the appendix, 'The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for the worldview and mental habits proper to the devotees of [the Party], but to make all other modes of thought impossible.' Orwell, as so often in his writing, makes the abstract theory concrete: 'The word free still existed in Newspeak, but it could only be used in such statements as 'This dog is free from lice' or 'This field is free from weeds.' … political and intellectual freedom no longer existed even as concepts.' The goal of this language streamlining was total control over past, present and future. If it is illegal to even speak of systemic racism, for example, let alone discuss its causes and possible remedies, it constrains the potential for, even prohibits, social change. It has become a cliché that those who do not understand history are bound to repeat it. As George Orwell appreciated, the correlate is that social and historical progress require an awareness of, and receptivity to, both historical fact and competing historical narratives.
