Lawmakers file new injunctions against €500bn German spending package
Several German members of parliament are launching a further attempt at the Federal Constitutional Court to prevent a vote planned for Tuesday on a multibillion-euro financial package for defence, infrastructure and climate neutrality.
The independent member of parliament Joana Cotar said she had filed suit for the second time at the court in Karlsruhe, requesting that the vote in the Bundestag, the lower house of Germany's parliament, be postponed. The Constitutional Court confirmed receipt on Sunday.
With the same goal in mind, three members of parliament from the liberal Free Democrats (FDP) also plan to file an urgent application in Karlsruhe.
They argue that the time for deliberation on the debt-backed package, which weighs in at €500 billion ($545 billion), is insufficient.
"The federal government has so far been unable to answer very simple and fundamental questions about it," FDP finance expert Florian Toncar told dpa.
He argued that, above all, it is unconstitutional that only three days before the final vote, further serious amendments were submitted, such as a regulation on climate neutrality by 2045.
"This cannot be seriously discussed and weighed up in the short time available," Toncar asserted. He charged that the parliamentary debate is in danger of becoming a mere formality.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
UPI
an hour ago
- UPI
Thunberg, activists in Israeli custody after delivery attempt to Gaza
Swedish activist Greta Thunberg is pictured purportedly receiving food and water from a member of the the Israeli Defense Forces Monday after the boat she was aboard was intercepted attempting to reach Gaza. Photo via Israel Foreign Ministry/UPI | License Photo June 9 (UPI) -- The Israeli government announced Monday that the boat crew of civilians that included Swedish activist Greta Thunberg it intercepted attempting to transport humanitarian supplies to Gaza will be returned to their home countries upon arrival in Israel. The Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, or MFA, reported across its social media platform that the vessel, identified as the "Madleen" by the nonprofit Freedom Flotilla Coalition organization, or FFC, that launched it, is being brought to an Israel port. The MFA refers to the craft as a "selfie yacht," and has confirmed that Thunberg is aboard, in addition to other "celebrities," but did not name them. The FFC listed all their names last week after the announcement that the boat was already on its way "with life-saving aid, to break Israel's illegal siege of Gaza and establish a people's sea corridor." The MFA also stated that the passengers aboard the Madleen have been supplied with sandwiches and water, and that the "tiny amount of aid that wasn't consumed by the 'celebrities' will be transferred to Gaza through real humanitarian channels." It also posted a photo of Thunberg Monday, apparently about to receive food and bottled water from someone dressed in military apparel. "Greta Thunberg is currently on her way to Israel, safe and in good spirits," the image was captioned. Another person who was aboard the Madleen European Parliament member Rima Hassan of France, who posted to X late Monday morning that "the crew of the Freedom Flotilla has been unlawfully detained by Israel for more than 14 hours" since Israel commandeered the vessel. Thunberg had released a video via her social media pages late Sunday that alleged "If you see this video, it means we have been intercepted and kidnapped in international waters by the Israeli occupational forces or forces that support Israel." German citizen Yasemin Acar, also aboard the Madleen, posted a video of herself Sunday night to Instagram in an unspecified situation, but was wearing a life jacket and apparently had at least one arm raised behind her head as sirens wailed in the background and an amplified voice that seemingly said "Don't be afraid" and "Stay where you are" in English could also be heard." The FFC posted a separate message to Instagram Sunday which purported that "drones dropped unidentified chemicals on the Madleen. Immediately after, our peaceful volunteers were rammed and intercepted before Israeli forces boarded the vessel. We lost all contact with them seconds later." An updated post from the FFC Monday called out what it has described as an "illegal attack" by Israel on the Madleen. It has been widely reported that the Madleen has been brought to Israel's Port of Ashdod, and that Sweden's foreign ministry has confirmed it is in touch with Israel over Thunberg, and will stand by should the need for consular assistance be required.
Yahoo
2 hours 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
5 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.
