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An Iraq court on Sunday sentenced a French woman to life in jail for membership of the Islamic State group as her lawyers accused authorities in Paris of “interference” to prevent her return to France. Melina Boughedir, a mother of four, was sentenced last February to seven months in prison for “illegal” entry into the country and was set to be deported back to France. But another court ordered the re-trial of the 27-year-old French citizen under Iraq’s anti-terrorist law and on Sunday she was found guilty of belonging to IS. “I am innocent,” Boughedir told the judge in French....

Israel has lodged an official protest to Ireland over the invitation of Leila Khaled, a convicted Palestinian plane hijacker who has continued to advocate violence against Israelis, to speak at a teachers’ club in Dublin belonging to the Irish National Teachers’ Organization. Strategic Affairs Minister Gilad Erdan sent the protest letter to Dublin’s education minister, Richard Bruton, demanding that he cancel Khaled’s appearance, Hadashot TV reported Thursday. Khaled is scheduled to speak via video link in a public talk hosted at the club by the socialist groups Anti-Imperialist Action Ireland and Lasair Dhearg. “It is hard to understand why Ireland,...

The threat of terrorist attacks in France has put paid to fans’ hopes of watching the World Cup on big screens in public spaces, France’s ministry for the interior announced. “I remind all publicly-elected officials of the fact that ‘big screen’ zones are completely forbidden in public spaces,” said a statement from the ministry. France has been subject to several terrorist attacks in recent years, leading to an increased security presence all round.“In the current climate of terrorist threats, the security procedures used at the last European Championship must be deployed again, with the same degree of efficiency.” …

Chancellor Angela Merkel said Germany “urgently needed” extra affordable housing and used her weekly video podcast Saturday to reel off a series of steps — outlined last February as her coalition took shape — to get them built before the next federal elections in 2021. Simultaneously Saturday, the board chairman of Germany’s BA Labor Agency, Detlef Scheele, told Stuttgart-based SWR public broadcasting that affordable housing had become the “burning topic of our times.” More and more people were seeking second jobs to supplement their incomes, especially in Germany’s urban hubs, said Scheele Last year alone, Berlin property prices soared 20.5...

The Sweden Democrats, a far-right and anti-immigration party, have gained momentum and are close behind the nation’s two other largest parties ahead of the September 9th general election, according to a survey on Wednesday. Published by the daily Dagens Nyheter (DN), the Ipsos poll confirmed the Sweden Democrats’ soaring popularity in recent months and the decline in support for the leading Social Democrats, which has lost one-fourth of its voters since the 2014 election. With 20 percent in support, according to Ipsos, the far-right group is gaining on the conservative Moderates (22 percent) and is now only four points behind...

Berlin is “determined to do everything necessary” to preserve the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran despite the US pullout, Germany’s Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said while meeting US lawmakers at the start of his visit to Washington. “We don’t want any proliferation of nuclear weapons in our extended neighborhood,” Maas stressed. Having a deal, according to Maas, is better than not having one, and fearing that Iran would restart its uranium enrichment program. […] Earlier this month, Maas sharply criticized the US stance on Iran, calling it a “disappointment.” He added that Berlin was willing to “fight for our interests...

The EU’s foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, responded on to U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s speech on Iran, in which he vowed that Washington would impose unprecedented sanctions against Tehran following its withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal. In a statement quoted by AFP, Mogherini warned that there is “no alternative” to the Iran nuclear deal. “Secretary Pompeo’s speech has not demonstrated how walking away from the JCPOA has made or will make the region safer from the threat of nuclear proliferation or how it puts us in a better position to influence Iran’s conduct in areas outside the...

Chancellor Angela Merkel visits China on Thursday, seeking to close ranks with the world’s biggest exporting nation as US President Donald Trump shakes up explosive issues from trade to Iran’s nuclear deal. Finding a common strategy to ward off a trade war and keep markets open will be Merkel’s priority when she meets with President Xi Jinping, as Washington brandishes the threat of imposing punitive tariffs on aluminium and steel imports. “Both countries are in agreement that open markets and rules-based world trade are necessary. That’s the main focus of this trip,” Merkel’s spokeswoman Martina Fietz said in Berlin on...

The Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) was informed about possible improprieties in the approval of asylum applications at its branch in the northern city of Bremen earlier than it admitted, German media reported on Monday. The news magazine Der Spiegel reported that emails it had seen suggested that BAMF head Jutta Cordt had received internal information regarding “massive irregularities” in Bremen as early as February 2017. Broadcaster NDR and the daily Süddeutsche Zeitung also reported on internal emails allegedly showing that BAMF headquarters knew about questionable procedures at that time, but were reluctant to look into the matter....

The Trump administration threatened Iran with “unprecedented financial pressure” on Monday, issuing a laundry list of harsh demands for Tehran to change its foreign and domestic policies. In a speech touted to outline the administration’s strategy toward Iran, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo promised “the strongest sanctions in history” should Tehran not buckle to US demands. […] Pompeo said the United States would not try to renegotiate the JCPOA. Instead, any new deal would require Iran to meet 12 demands, including halting its ballistic missile program and ending interventions in Syria and Yemen, as well as wide-ranging concessions on its...

Germany is leading the charge to rescue the Iran deal and the economic inroads German and European companies have made into the restricted economy since 2016. EU leaders are keen to salvage the deal shaped by Obama’s administration after President Trump on May 12th pulled the US out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). The deal, in which Iran committed to denuclearize in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions, was signed by Iran, the US and the international community in 2015. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron and a host of other EU leaders have...

European Union Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker announced Thursday that the bloc plans to reactivate a law that would seek to block European companies from complying with any sanctions the US would reintroduce against Iran. Juncker’s announcement came during the second day of an EU meeting in the Bulgarian capital, Sofia, which had already been marked by sharp criticism from European leaders over American President Donald Trump’s decision to pull the US out of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. […] German-headquartered insurance firm Allianz and Danish shopping company Maersk have already said they plan to close operations in Iran in order...

Danish shipping group Maersk Tankers on Thursday said it would cease its activities in Iran due to the US decision to leave a landmark nuclear deal and reimpose sanctions against Tehran. Maersk Tankers would honour customer agreements entered into before May 8th, but then wind them down by November 4th, "as required by the reimposed US sanctions," the company told AFP. The group said it "has been transporting cargoes for customers in and out of Iran on a limited basis," without providing precise figures for its activities.

Two European Parliament lawmakers from Ireland on Sunday expressed support for boycotting Israel following its winning the Eurovision song contest, JTA reported. Lynn Boylan of Ireland’s far-left Sinn Féin party wrote on Twitter following Saturday’s win, “Israel wins Eurovision so let’s make BDS more successful than ever in 2019.” Nessa Childers, another Irish lawmaker for the Party of European Socialists, retweeted Boylan’s message, adding the word: “This!” She later wrote: “Jerusalem? The mind boggles. I thought Tel Aviv.” Órla Nic Biorna, a regional lawmaker for Sinn Féin, an Irish nationalist movement that was affiliated with the now-defunct Provisional Irish Republican...

The United States on Monday blocked the adoption of a UN Security Council statement that would have called for an independent probe of deadly violence on the Israel-Gaza border, diplomats said, according to an AFP report. "The Security Council expresses its outrage and sorrow at the killing of Palestinian civilians exercising their right to peaceful protest," read a draft of the statement, a copy of which was seen by the news agency.

One in five Germans would like to see the monarchy restored, according to a survey released on Thursday. Young Germans were even keener on replacing the president with a new Kaiser. … Despite swelling support among the young, most Germans still oppose the idea. 51 percent of all respondents said that having a king or queen would cost too much money. Sixty nine percent said they were completely against the idea. …

Preparations are underway for the grand opening of the new United States embassy to Israel in Jerusalem. While the President won’t be able to attend as he prepares for his summit with North Korea, Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump have arrived to do the honors along with a number of other delegates. But not everyone is quite so thrilled with this development, particularly in some parts of the European Union. They were preparing to put forward a resolution condemning the embassy move, delivering a statement which was explicitly designed to “embarrass and isolate the Trump administration” ahead of the ceremony....

No-go zones are growing rapidly in the suburbs of all of France's main cities. Shanty towns built by illegal migrants from Africa and the Middle East have sprung up in parts of Marseilles and Paris in the last few years. Islamization is everywhere. In hundreds of mosques, imams deliver fiery anti-Western speeches. Churches are vandalized. The number of rapes is rapidly increasing. Groups of veiled women roam the streets and insult the "immodest", unveiled, women. Macron's most important project since he was elected has been the creation of new Islamic institutions destined to adapt France to Islam -- not to...

The man behind a deadly knife attack in central Paris was born in Chechnya and had been on police radar for radicalism, and his parents have been detained for questioning, French authorities said Sunday. Counterterrorism investigators are working to determine whether the man who stabbed five people in a busy neighborhood in the heart of the French capital Saturday night had any help. The attacker killed a 29-year-old man and wounded four others, before being shot by police. Among the injured was a 34-year-old man from Luxembourg, the foreign ministry of the small country north of France said in a...

The person who stabbed five people in Paris on Saturday night, killing one, yelled the Arabic phrase "Allahu Akbar," meaning "God is great," during the attack, city prosecutor François Molins told reporters at the scene. Four people were wounded during the Saturday night knife attack in the touristy 2nd arrondissement, or district, of Paris. Two of the victims were gravely wounded and two others were lightly injured, police said The attacker, who French President Emmanuel Macron called a terrorist, is dead, according to police. The media wing of ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement published online. The...