Berlin culture official quits after funding cut backlash
Berlin's top culture official resigned Friday amid controversy over arts funding cuts that critics had warned would do massive damage to the capital city's famed clubs, theatres and orchestras.
Joe Chialo, from the conservative CDU party, had initially sought to defend the cost-saving measures last year but became a lightning rod for anger during protests over the cuts.
However, he said Friday that extra measures now being planned went too far and could "lead to the imminent closure of nationally known cultural institutions".
Chialo also said discussions about the cuts had become difficult as criticism was increasingly focused on him personally.
"When central political and professional goals can no longer be implemented... it is, in my view, consistent to step aside and place the office in new hands," he said in a statement.
The 54-year-old had been seen as a contender for culture minister at the national level in the incoming CDU-led government of Friedrich Merz.
But on Monday the party announced that Wolfram Weimer, a prominent conservative publisher and journalist, would take up the post.
Chialo was booed when he addressed a rally of hundreds of creative sector workers at Berlin's Brandenburg Gate in November, with techno clubs, classic music venues and theatres all warning the cuts would be devastating.
He was also in the headlines again in February when a report claimed that outgoing Chancellor Olaf Scholz had referred to him as a "fig leaf" figure in the CDU and a "court jester".
Scholz fiercely denied any suggestion that the comments were linked to the ethnic background of Chialo, who has Tanzanian family roots.
Some of Chialo's public events have also been disrupted by pro-Palestinian activists after he repeatedly condemned rising anti-Semitism in Germany amid the Gaza war that was sparked by Hamas's deadly October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
sr/fz/jm
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Hill
an hour ago
- The Hill
The Latest: Death toll grows as Israel and Iran trade attacks for third day
The death toll is growing as Israel and Iran exchanged missile attacks for a third consecutive day on Sunday, and Israel is warning that worse is to come. Israel targeted Iran's Defense Ministry headquarters in Tehran and sites it alleged were associated with Iran's nuclear program, while Iranian missiles evaded Israeli air defenses and slammed into buildings deep inside Israel. The region braced for a drawn-out conflict after Israel's strikes hit nuclear and military facilities, killing several senior generals and top nuclear scientists. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump also had a warning for Tehran, saying it can expect 'the full strength and might of the U.S. Armed Forces' if it retaliates against the United States. Trump insisted that Washington had nothing to do with Israel's attack on Iran. Israel launched its attacks after weeks of escalating tensions between Israel and Iran over Iran's nuclear program. Iran announced Thursday that it planned to activate a third nuclear enrichment facility shortly after the U.N. nuclear watchdog censured Iran for failing to comply with nonproliferation obligations. ___ Here's the latest: The Israeli military warned Iranians on Sunday to immediately evacuate 'military weapons production factories,' likely signaling that new strikes are planned. Col. Avichay Adraee, a military spokesperson, posted the warning on the social platform X in Iran's Farsi language. Adraee in the past has signaled other strikes in the Gaza Strip, Lebanon and Yemen amid the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip. His warning came just after Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi signaled Tehran would stop its attacks on Israel if Israel stopped its strikes. A bulldozer dug through debris Sunday near a home in the Arab Israeli city of Tamra. The home's third floor was pancaked and nearby buildings were also damaged. Four people, including a 13-year-old, were killed in the strike. Wahid Yassin, a neighbor, told Israeli Army Radio the blast was so powerful it nearly ripped off the door of his bomb shelter. When he emerged, he said he saw the neighbors' daughter standing on the roof of her damaged home, shaking. 'Her two sisters and her mother were killed in this incident. And suddenly she's there on the roof, alone, shaking.' The Israel Airports Authority said Israel's airspace remained closed on Sunday and the country's Ben Gurion International Airport was still closed to landings and takeoffs, for the third day. The authority said it was working with Israeli airlines toward returning Israelis stranded abroad to the country: 'All air crews and aircraft are ready for action as soon as this becomes possible, but this may take a long time, depending on the security situation.' It said Israel's land border crossings to Jordan and Egypt remain open. At least 10 people in Israel were killed in Iranian strikes overnight and into Sunday, according to Israel's Magen David Adom rescue service, bringing the country's total death toll to 13. At least six people, including two children, were killed when a missile hit an apartment building in Bat Yam, near Tel Aviv. Daniel Hadad, a local police commander, said 180 people were wounded and seven are still missing. An Associated Press reporter saw streets lined with damaged and destroyed buildings, bombed out cars and shards of glass. Responders used a drone at points to look for survivors. Some people could be seen leaving the area with suitcases. Four people were killed when a missile struck a building in the northern Israeli town of Tamra, and another 24 were wounded. A strike on the central city of Rehovot wounded 42 people. New explosions echoed across Tehran and were reported elsewhere in the country early Sunday, but there was no update to a death toll put out the day before by Iran's U.N. ambassador, who said 78 people had been killed and more than 320 wounded. Semiofficial Iranian news agencies reported that an Israeli drone strike had caused a 'strong explosion' at an Iranian natural-gas processing plant, in what could be the first Israeli attack on Iran's oil and natural gas industry. Israel's military did not immediately comment. World leaders are issuing urgent calls to deescalate. But Israeli's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel's strikes so far are 'nothing compared to what they will feel under the sway of our forces in the coming days.' President Donald Trump said the U.S. had 'nothing to do with the attack on Iran' and warned Tehran against targeting U.S. interests in retaliation. 'If we are attacked in any way, shape or form by Iran, the full strength and might of the U.S. Armed Forces will come down on you at levels never seen before. However, we can easily get a deal done between Iran and Israel, and end this bloody conflict!!!' Trump wrote on Truth Social late Saturday. Planned talks on Iran's nuclear program, which could provide an off-ramp, have been called off. The Arab Gulf country of Oman, which has been mediating indirect talks between the U.S. and Iran over Tehran's nuclear program, said a sixth round planned for Sunday would not take place. Iran's top diplomat, Abbas Araghchi, said Saturday that the nuclear talks were 'unjustifiable' after Israel's strikes, which he said were the 'result of the direct support by Washington.' Iran has always said its nuclear program was peaceful, and the U.S. and others have assessed it has not pursued a weapon since 2003. But it has enriched ever larger stockpiles of uranium to near weapons-grade levels in recent years and was believed to have been able to develop multiple weapons within months if it chose to do so.
New York Post
3 hours ago
- New York Post
Yemen's Houthis target Israel with ballistic missiles in coordination with Iran
Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthis said on Sunday that they targeted Israel in coordination with Iran, the first time an Iran-aligned group has publicly announced joint cooperation on attacks with Tehran. The Yemeni group targeted central Israel's Jaffa with several ballistic missiles in the last 24 hours, military spokesperson Yehya Sarea said in a televised address. 'Triumphing for the oppressed Palestinian and Iranian peoples…This operation was coordinated with the operations carried out by the Iranian army against the criminal Israeli enemy,' he added. 3 A view of a residential building struck by an Iranian ballistic missile in Bat Yam, near Tel Aviv, Israel on June 15, 2025. ATEF SAFADI/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock The Israeli military earlier said sirens were activated in several areas in the country following missile launches from Iran and Yemen. Israel and Iran continued to exchange missile attacks since Israel launched its biggest-ever military strike against its longstanding enemy on Friday. On the same day Israel launched its attack on Iran, Israel said a missile that was launched from Yemen towards Israel fell in Hebron in the occupied West Bank. The Yemeni group however did not claim responsibility for the missile launch. The Houthis have been launching attacks against Israel, most of which have been intercepted, in what they say is support for Palestinians in Gaza during the Israel-Hamas war there since Hamas's October 7 2023 attack on Israel. 3 Israeli air defense system fires to intercept missiles over Tel Aviv, Israel, early on June 15, 2025. AP 3 Emergency and rescue soldiers search for trapped people around heavily damaged buildings after an overnight missile strike from Iran on June 15, 2025 in Bat Yam Israel. Getty Images Israel has carried out a series of retaliatory strikes. The US also launched intensified strikes against the Houthis this year, before President Donald Trump halted the offensive after the Houthis agreed to stop attacks on American ships.
Miami Herald
8 hours ago
- Miami Herald
‘Oh my God, what's going on?' Miami visitors stranded as missiles target Israel
Dahlia Bendavid is no stranger to the sound of sirens. The Aventura woman has spent the last three years raising millions in emergency funding for Israel and visiting several times after the Hamas terrorist attack as director of the Greater Miami Jewish Federation's overseas department. Still, the shrill alarm that echoed on Friday morning as Israel announced airstrikes on neighboring Iran gave her that familiar feeling. 'I'm telling you, like, jumping out of bed, 'Oh my God, what's going on?' because you're all discombobulated,' she said, describing the moments before she and and a friend ran into a bomb shelter to wait out the expected barrage signaled by the sirens. Bendavid is one of several Miamians caught in the conflict that started Friday following Israel's targeted attack on Iran's nuclear facilities and military chain of command. Paul Kruss, an Aventura city commissioner visiting family in Israel, also took cover in a bomb shelter as sirens went off. Friday night saw counter strikes from Iran, with missiles hitting at least seven sites near Tel Aviv, and Saturday saw Israeli missiles flying over Tehran in the morning with a retaliatory attack by Iran in the evening. The death toll is estimated to be 78 in Iran, including four top security chiefs, according to the country's U.N. ambassador, while three casualties have been confirmed in Israel as reported by the Associated Press. The attacks, launched over Israel's concerns about Iran's growing nuclear program, happened days shy of a U.S.-Iran meeting where both countries planned to discuss curbing the program in exchange for the U.S. lifting its sanctions. Bendavid, 58, arrived in Israel on May 30, two weeks before the missiles started flying, for a routine visit to Israeli organizations that her nonprofit funds. On Thursday, the day before the first strike by Israel, she attended a computer coding hackathon for Orthodox Jewish women studying technology. Though the attacks marked a stark escalation in a decades-long conflict, Bendavid says daily life in Israel is not much different than 'preparing for a hurricane' in South Florida. She describes the same unease and uncertainty about where a storm might land to where a missile might hit in Modi'in-Maccabim-Re'ut, the central-Israel city she's staying in halfway between metropolises Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Schools and workplaces are closed and national events like the week-long Tel Aviv Pride parade have been canceled. Grocery shelves are wiped clean of essentials like milk and eggs as residents stock up their 'safe rooms,' small-scale shelters set up in homes or apartment complexes. Alerts from the Home Front Command app wake locals from restless sleeps, often giving a three-minute window to enter the nearest 'protected space' before the next attack is expected. The sirens, she says, go off 'in the middle of the night. The other day it was at 3 in the morning. Last night it was at 1 in the morning. You're not sleeping because of the stress and the anxiety.' For others, safety has proven even harder to come by, Bendavid said. Her 29-year-old son Ariel, who moved to Tel Aviv a year and a half ago, is one of many Israeli residents who live in outdated buildings with no bomb shelters. He sleeps in his clothes because when alarms sound, he has about a minute to bolt across the street to an underground parking garage. Neighbors of Bendavid's have woken up to shrapnel in their backyards and have been urged by locals to not post photos of the debris on social media or share them via messaging apps for fear that the Iranian government will have more information on its targets. Vacationers from South Florida and study-abroad students from schools including the University of Miami and Florida International University found themselves stranded in highly targeted cities Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Israeli media predicted airport shutdowns for the next three to four days and some U.S. airlines have halted flights through the summer. Benadvid isn't sure if her flight back home, scheduled for Tuesday morning, will take off. Israel is in a state of trauma and shock, she said, even though morale remains high. 'I've been getting a lot of texts asking 'Are you OK?' ... Like, how would you be in the middle of a war?' she said. 'But at the same time, I trust the army to defend us. They're doing an amazing job, the people are optimistic. We have hope.'
