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.
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Associated Press
27 minutes ago
- Associated Press
Why are some key Tehran allies staying out of the Israel-Iran conflict?
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The militant group helped push Israel out of Lebanon and built its arsenal over the ensuing decades, becoming a powerful regional force and the centerpiece of a cluster of Iranian-backed factions and governments known as the ' Axis of Resistance.' The allies also include Iraqi Shiite militias and Yemen's Houthi rebels, as well as the Palestinian militant group Hamas. At one point, Hezbollah was believed to have some 150,000 rockets and missiles, and the group's former leader, Hassan Nasrallah once boasted of having 100,000 fighters. Seeking to aid its ally Hamas in the aftermath of the Palestinian militants' Oct. 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel and Israel's offensive in Gaza, Hezbollah began launching rockets across the border. That drew Israeli airstrikes and shelling, and the exchanges escalated into full-scale war last September. Israel inflicted heavy damage on Hezbollah, killing Nasrallah and other top leaders and destroying much of its arsenal, before a U.S.-negotiated ceasefire halted that conflict last November. Israel continues to occupy parts of southern Lebanon and to carry out near-daily airstrikes. For their part, the Iraqi militias occasionally struck bases housing U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria, while Yemen's Houthis fired at vessels in the Red Sea, a crucial global trade route, and began targeting Israel. Condolences to Iran, condemnations of Israel Hezbollah and its leader Naim Kassem have condemned Israel's attacks and offered condolences for the senior Iranian officers who were killed. But Kassem did not suggest Hezbollah would take part in any retaliation against Israel. Iraq's Kataib Hezbollah militia — a separate group from Lebanon's Hezbollah — released a statement saying it was 'deeply regrettable' that Israel allegedly fired at Iran from Iraqi airspace, something that Baghdad complained to the U.N. Security Council over. The Iraqi militia called on the Baghdad government to 'urgently expel hostile forces from the country,' a reference to U.S. troops in Iraq as part of the fight against the militant Islamic State group, but made no threat of force. Hezbollah was weakened by last year's fighting and after losing a major supply route for Iranian weapons with the fall of Syrian President Bashar Assad, a key ally, in a lightning rebel offensive in December. 'Hezbollah has been degraded on the strategic level while cut off from supply chains in Syria,' said Andreas Krieg, a military analyst and associate professor at King's College London. A changing attitude to Iran Many Hezbollah members believe 'they were sacrificed for Iran's greater regional interests' since Hamas' attack on Israel triggered the latest Israel-Hamas war, and want to focus on 'Lebanon-centric' interests rather than defending Iran, Krieg said. Still, Qassem Qassir, a Lebanese analyst close to Hezbollah, said a role for the militant group in the Israel-Iran conflict should not be ruled out. 'This depends on political and field developments,' he said. 'Anything is possible.' Both the Houthis and the Iraqi militias 'lack the strategic deep strike capability against Israel that Hezbollah once had,' Krieg said. Renad Mansour, a senior research fellow at the Chatham House think tank in London, said Iraq's Iran-allied militias have all along tried to avoid pulling their country into a major conflict. Unlike Hezbollah, whose military wing has operated as a non-state actor in Lebanon - although its political wing is part of the government - the main Iraqi militias are members of a coalition of groups that are officially part of the state defense forces. 'Things in Iraq are good for them right now, they're connected to the state - they're benefitting politically, economically,' Mansour said. 'And also they've seen what's happened to Iran, to Hezbollah and they're concerned that Israel will turn on them as well.' That leaves the Houthis as the likely 'new hub in the Axis of Resistance,' Krieg said. But he said the group isn't strong enough — and too geographically removed — to strategically harm Israel beyond the rebels' sporadic missile attacks. Krieg said the perception that the 'axis' members were proxies fully controlled by Iran was always mistaken, but now the ties have loosened further. 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Yahoo
31 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Federal prosecutors now charging immigrants who don't submit fingerprints under dormant 1940s law
Federal officials have begun carrying out President Donald Trump's orders to enforce a World War II-era criminal law that requires virtually all non-citizens in the country to register with and submit fingerprints to the government. Since April, law enforcement in Louisiana, Arizona, Montana, Alabama, Texas and Washington, D.C., have charged people with willful 'failure to register' under the Alien Registration Act, an offense most career federal public defenders have never encountered before. Many of those charged were already in jail and in ongoing deportation proceedings when prosecutors presented judges with the new charges against them. The registration provision in the law, which was passed in 1940 amid widespread public fear about immigrants' loyalty to the U.S., had been dormant for 75 years, but it is still on the books. Failure to register is considered a 'petty offense' — a misdemeanor with maximum penalties of six months imprisonment or a $1,000 fine. In reviving the law, the Trump administration may put undocumented immigrants in a catch-22. If they register, they must hand over detailed, incriminating information to the federal government — including how and when they entered the country. But knowingly refusing to register is also a crime, punishable by arrest or prosecution, on top of the ever-present threat of deportation. 'The sort of obvious reason to bring back registration in the first place is the hope that people will register, and therefore give themselves up effectively to the government because they already confessed illegal entry,' said Jonathan Weinberg, a Wayne State University law professor who has studied the registration law. But the Trump administration also has another goal. It says one purpose of the registration regime is to provoke undocumented immigrants to choose a third option: leave the country voluntarily, or, in the words of the Department of Homeland Security, compulsory 'mass self-deportation.' 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The registration provision, though, remained largely dormant, and had not been enforced in 75 years. It applies to non-citizens, regardless of legal status, who are in the U.S. for 30 days or longer. Certain categories of legal immigrants have already met the requirement. Immigrants who have filed applications to become permanent residents are considered registered by DHS, for example. And even some undocumented U.S. residents are already registered: U.S. residents who have received 'parole' — a form of humanitarian protection from deportation — are also considered registered. Still, DHS estimates that up to 3.2 million immigrants are currently unregistered and are affected by the new enforcement regime. The administration has created a new seven-page form that non-citizens must use. The form requires people, under penalty of perjury, to provide biographical details, contact information, details about any criminal history and the circumstances of how they entered the U.S. After DHS issued regulations to enforce the registration requirement in April, the administration announced that 47,000 undocumented immigrants had registered using the new form. The Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights and other advocacy groups filed a lawsuit challenging Trump's move to revive the registration requirement in March. U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden, a Trump appointee, initially expressed skepticism toward the administration, saying in a recent hearing that officials had pulled a 'big switcheroo' on undocumented immigrants. But McFadden in April refused the plaintiffs' request to temporarily block the policy, saying the Coalition likely lacks the legal standing to sue because it has not shown that it would be harmed by the policy. The group has appealed McFadden's decision. 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And government attorneys have appealed the five dismissed cases. The Justice Department and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Louisiana declined to comment on recent charges filed under the law. A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia said the office 'is aggressively pursuing criminals in the district and will use all criminal justice resources available to make D.C. safe and to carry out President Trump's and Attorney General Bondi's direction to support immigration enforcement." The other federal district attorneys whose offices filed charges did not respond to a request for comment. Michelle LaPointe, legal director at the American Immigration Council, an immigrants' rights advocacy group, said these initial cases are the 'tip of the iceberg.' LaPointe is among the attorneys representing the Coalition in its lawsuit against the administration. 'I don't expect them to abate just because there were some dismissals,' LaPointe said, pointing to North's statements about future charges. 'They have already stated that they intend to make prosecution of the few immigration-related criminal statutes a priority for DOJ, and it's very easy for them to at least charge, even if they're not always gonna be able to sustain their burden to secure a conviction.' Weinberg, the Wayne State law professor, agreed that the administration will likely continue attempting broad enforcement. 'If they bring a whole lot of prosecutions and end up losing all, they may step back,' Weinberg said. 'If they bring a whole lot and win a few, they'll say, 'Well, that's the basis on which we can move further'' and appeal — potentially all the way to the Supreme Court, he noted.
Hamilton Spectator
an hour ago
- Hamilton Spectator
Anger and worry mix in Iran's capital after retaliatory strikes against Israel
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Anger mixed with worry as Iranians in the capital of Tehran woke up Saturday to images of their country's retaliatory attacks on Israel. Iranian state television, long controlled by hard-line supporters of the country's theocracy, repeatedly aired footage of missile strikes on Tel Aviv throughout the morning. The broadcaster also showed people cheering in front of a large screen set up in Tehran to follow the strikes as if they were watching a soccer match. Traffic was lighter than normal on the capital's streets. The change was due in part to the Shiite holiday of Eid al-Ghadir commemorating the Prophet Muhammad picking his successor, Ali, who is beloved as the first Shiite imam and whose assassination set in motion the splintering of Sunni and Shiite Islam. Even before the attacks began, many Iranians had traveled outside the city to enjoy days off in places along the nearby Caspian Sea. The holiday mood made news of the assaults that much more shocking, particularly when the strikes killed many ranking members of Iran's military and paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, something unseen since Iran's war with Iraq in the 1980s. It's a new experience for many of Iran's 80 million people who weren't alive for that devastating conflict, which included a period known as the 'War of the Cities,' in which Iraq rained ballistic missiles, artillery fire and airstrikes on Iranian cities. 'Israel killed our commanders and what they expect in return? A kiss?' said Mahmoud Dorri, a 29-year-old taxi driver. 'We will go after them to punish them: an eye for an eye.' In downtown Tehran, 31-year-old teacher and mother of two Pari Pourghazi expressed her joy over Iran's attack, linking it to Israel's devastating war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip . 'Someone should stop Israelis. They think they can do anything they want at any time,' she said. 'Iran showed Israelis are wrong though they could suppress people of Gaza or Lebanon by heavy bombing.' Auto mechanic Houshang Ebadi, 61, also backed the Iranian strike but said he opposed a full-fledged war between Iran and Israel. 'I support my country. The Israelis made mistake in launching attacks on Iran but I hope this comes to end,' Ebadi said. 'War will not bear fruit for any side.' Others expressed concerns, verbally or through their actions. At one Tehran gas station, some 300 vehicles waited to fill up, with drivers growing frustrated. 'Sometime there is a queue because people fear that the refineries may be targeted, sometimes there is a line because of a power outage,' said Nahid Rostami, a 43-year-old stylist. 'When is this emergency situation going to end?' Fruit seller Hamid Hasanlu, 41, said his twins couldn't sleep Friday night with the sounds of explosions and anti-aircraft batteries firing. 'Leaders of both countries should know that people are suffering,' he said. Bakeries also drew crowds as people sought to buy supplies including traditional Iranian bread, a staple of meals. 'I buy more bread since I think maybe there is no flour or electricity because of the war,' said Molouk Asghari, a 56-year-old homemaker. 'I have children and grandchildren. I cannot see them in a hard situation without food, water and electricity.' Across the country, people faced the continued strain of the conflict as Iran's airspace remained closed. 'Who knows what happens tonight?' said Rostami, the stylist. Error! Sorry, there was an error processing your request. There was a problem with the recaptcha. Please try again. You may unsubscribe at any time. By signing up, you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google privacy policy and terms of service apply. Want more of the latest from us? Sign up for more at our newsletter page .
