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COLOGNE, Germany — With its wood-paneled piano bar and luxurious spa, the four-star Bonotel assures visitors paying up to $300 per night that it meets the "international standard of a first-class hotel." But starting next year, the hotel's marble-and-mirrored lobby and "quiet, peaceful ambience" will play host not to indulgent travelers but desperate asylum seekers. Germany's fourth-largest city spent almost $7 million to buy the Bonotel this summer. Its doors will soon be shut and its 93 opulent rooms filled with asylum seekers, a move underscoring how Europe's economic powerhouse has been overwhelmed by an influx of people seeking a...

A plaque marking the 1918 birthplace of former Israeli President Chaim Herzog in Belfast was removed earlier this week, out of fears of further anti-Semitic violence in the Northern Ireland city. The blue plaque honoring Herzog, who was President of Israel from 1983 to 1993, was first erected on a property at Cliftonpark Avenue in 1998. The 16-year landmark was torn down, however, due to concern for Jews living in the area. Democratic Unionist Party Councillor Brian Kingston explained the decision to the Belfast Telegraph. "Attacks have included the scrawling of anti-Israeli graffiti on the building and items being thrown...

Egypt has told the United States that Palestinian guerrilla leader Abu Abbas is not in the country, contrary to some media reports, U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said on Thursday. Boucher said: "This is a dangerous man. I don't know the exact legal status, but certainly he's not a person that we believe should be allowed safe harbor or easy passage." Abu Abbas, also known as Mohammed Abbas, is the leader of the Palestine Liberation Front, which hijacked the cruise ship Achille Lauro in the eastern Mediterranean in 1985. A disabled elderly American, Leon Klinghoffer, was killed during the...

Mohammed Abbas, the mastermind of the 1985 hijacking of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro, has arrived in Cairo for talks with Egyptian officials on proposals to stop terrorist attacks against civilians in Israel. Abbas was invited to Cairo by Gen. Omar Sulieman, the head of Egyptian intelligence, to convince various Palestinian groups to work out a joint strategy regarding the future of the uprising. Sulieman has met over the past few weeks with representatives of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Peoples [Communist] Party, in addition...

The Palestinian Authority has launched a campaign for the release of a Palestinian terrorist captured in Iraq. PA Local Authorities Minister Saeb Erekat said the arrest of Abul Abbas, head of the Palestine Liberation Front, violates the 1995 accord with Israel that granted amnesty for all Palestinian insurgents. Erekat said the agreement was also signed by then-President Bill Clinton. "The Palestinian-Israeli interim agreement signed on September 28, 1995 stated that members of the Palestine Liberation Organization must not be detained or tried for matters they committed before the Oslo peace accord of September 13, 1993," Erekat said. "This interim agreement...

ROME — A Palestinian man who helped plan the 1985 hijacking of the Achille Lauro cruise ship during which an American passenger was killed has died in an Italian jail. Lawyer Sandro Clementi said Khaled Hussein died of a heart attack early Monday in a jail in Benevento, near Naples. He was 73.

One of the Palestinians who hijacked the Achille Lauro cruise ship and killed an American Jewish passenger in 1985 has been released after more than 23 years in jail, officials said Thursday. Youssef Magied al-Molqui left prison in Palermo, Sicily, on Wednesday and was transferred to a holding center for immigrants in nearby Trapani while officials work to expel him, police in the Sicilian capital said.

(CNSNews.com) – Turkey’s president on Sunday rejected U.S. proposals to arm Syrian Kurds fighting against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS/ISIL) near the Turkish border, shortly after the White House said he and President Obama had pledged to “strengthen cooperation” against the jihadists. “It would be wrong for the United States, with whom we are friends and allies in NATO, to talk openly and to expect us to say ‘yes’ to such a support to a terrorist organization,” said President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. His comments were the latest sign that Turkey and the U.S. are far from being...

The announcement by Sweden’s new prime minister that his government plans to extend recognition to a “Palestinian” state raises major questions in both international and United Nations law. Israelis are frequently asked: “Why is Israel opposed to recognizing a Palestinian state? Detach yourselves from the Palestinians like the French detached themselves from Algeria and the two states will live in peace with each other as was originally envisaged under the 1947 Partition Resolution...”

The city in the pictures is Marseille, France's second largest city, for many years considered as one of the cleanest, most beautiful cities in the world. See what it looks like now. In her best-selling book The Force of Reason, the great, pioneer counterjihad writer Oriana Fallaci talked about Marseille as a symbol par excellence of the devastation, ugliness and filth brought by the Muslim invasion of Europe. Europe, she wrote, is becoming unrecognisable. Marseille is "no longer a French city, it is a Maghrebin city". Arabic ​is the first language spoken in Marseille, and French only the second. 95%...

For more than a decade, Berlin has been governed by an openly homosexual mayor. But is the city, renowned for its tolerance, ready for a leader from a Palestinian background? It may have to be. […] … Berlin SPD parliamentary leader Raed Saleh only needs to open his mouth to stand out from the crowd. Saleh came to Berlin at the age of five with his Palestinian parents, and although his German is beyond reproach, he speaks the language with a distinct Arabic twang. “Berlin is a city of diversity; a city of 100 different accents,” Saleh told DW. “People...

International donors this week praised the leaders of the Palestinian Authority as moderate peace-seekers who can be trusted with billions of dollars in aid for Gaza—at the very same time the PA was being named “second worst offender” for distributing anti-Semitic publications at Europe's largest book fair. The European branch of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, headed by Dr. Shimon Samuels, this week released its list of those who circulated anti-Semitic books and magazines at the Frankfurt Book Fair, the largest annual gathering of publishers in Europe. Qatar was cited as the “Worst Offender of 2014.” But the Qataris had stiff...

Sweden's new Social Democrat prime minister Stefan Loefven unveiled what he called a "feminist" government including Green Party ministers for the first time in the Nordic country. ... Sweden is in a serious situation -- unemployment has become entrenched at high levels, school results have collapsed and the welfare system has major shortcomings ...

Sweden’s new prime minister said Friday that his government will recognize a Palestinian state, a move that drew praise from Palestinian officials. In a declaration listing his government’s priorities, Social Democratic leader Stefan Lofven told lawmakers that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can only be resolved through a two-state solution requiring “mutual recognition” and a will from both sides to co-exist peacefully. “Therefore Sweden will recognize the state of Palestine,” Lofven said. …

American secessionists and states' rights advocates are rightly disappointed by the outcome of the September 18 Scottish Independence Referendum.  Given the decisiveness of the outcome, the result was probably never in doubt. The Queen didn't even have to break a sweat, in keeping with her lifelong abstinence from productive labor.  I'll bet she's never even broken a fingernail polishing the royal silverware.  But I digress. Americans of every political persuasion have every reason to be troubled by the Scottish plebiscite. Not because of the outcome, but because we do not have the same right to secede from our Union by...

In a curious coincidence, 2014 Scotland and 1994 Quebec have nearly the same population: about 5–6 million. About the same as Denmark or Norway, and half-a-million more than Ireland. Even on physical area Scotland’s no slouch: about the size of Holland or Ireland, and three times the size of Jamaica. The fact that Ireland, Norway, and Jamaica are all considered sustainably-sized countries argues for the separatists here. So small is possible. But is it a good idea? The answer, perhaps surprisingly, is resoundingly “Yes!” Statistically speaking, at least. Why? Because according to numbers from the World Bank Development Indicators, among...

With its slogan “Out with the racists, in with the feminists,” the party has broadened traditional feminist values to also fight discrimination on the basis of race, sexual identity and physical disabilities.

Conservative members of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s coalition put forward a united front at the weekend against recent developments in the city of Wuppertal. Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière said civilians wearing uniforms bearing the logo “Shariah police” could not simply start patrolling German streets. The groups reportedly hovered around sites like discotheques and gambling houses, telling passers-by to refrain from gambling and alcohol. Wuppertal’s police have begun pressing charges. “Sharia law is not tolerated on German soil,” de Maizière told mass-circulation daily Bild on Saturday. “Nobody can take it upon themselves to abuse the good name of the German police.”...

A British woman who converted to Islam has joined ISIS forces in Syria and called for the beheading of Christians on Twitter. Sally Jones, 40, who left Britain for Syria last year, is thought to be using the name Umm Hussain or Sakinah Hussain, and uses the name Umm Hussain al-Britani on Twitter, the Sunday Times reported. In a recent tweet that has since been deleted she said: "You Christians all need beheading with a nice blunt knife and stuck on the railings at Raqqa... Come here I'll do it for you!" Her Twitter bio features a quote from Osama...

TEHRAN (FNA)- Dutch Foreign Minister Evo Opstelten announced that his country plans to withdraw the nationality from the "jihadist" fighters who have joined terrorist groups, even without prior judiciary condemnation. The local authorities announced that around 130 Dutch Salafi Takfiri militants have joined the terrorist groups in Syria as well as Iraq and that 30 of them returned home, while 14 others were killed, Al-Manar reported. According to the Dutch intelligence services, at least two Dutch Salafi Takfiri militants carried out suicide bombings in Syria and Iraq.