In Germany, local politics holds up weapons for Ukraine

A German Army soldier prepares practice ammunition for a self-propelled howitzer 2000 tank during NATO artillery exercise in southern Germany on July 20, 2022. (AFP/File)
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Updated 28 December 2023
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In Germany, local politics holds up weapons for Ukraine

  • A dispute with a city council has hampered plans by arms giant Diehl Defense to expand production of munitions parts 
  • The EU has pledged to provide Ukraine with 1M artillery rounds by March 2024 to aid in the fight against Russia

FRANKFURT, Germany: Europe’s efforts to boost arms production and help Ukraine to fend off Russia’s invasion are facing an unexpected obstacle in a German local government.
The city council in Troisdorf, which has a population close to 80,000, has for the time being blocked plans put forward by a major arms company to expand production locally.
Citing development needs, the “no” by the western municipality near Cologne is calling into question the European Union’s ability to manufacture more weapons at a crucial time.
Earlier this year, the 27-member EU pledged to step up supplies of much-needed artillery shells to Ukraine as Kyiv’s forces faced shortfalls.
The mayor of Troisdorf rarely has a role to play in international politics, but the local official was called to account by German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius in parliament in early December for holding up the project.
Recognizing the risks, the popular minister urged local and regional authorities to work to speed up the rate of arms production.
“The pressure (...) is great because in Europe and in Germany there is a real bottleneck on ammunition,” Pistorius told MPs.
For weeks, Troisdorf has been at loggerheads with arms giant Diehl Defense, whose local factory produces the ignition devices needed for large quantities of explosives, such as rockets and missile charges.
These parts are used in the manufacture of the Iris-T air defense system, three of which have been delivered by the German government to Ukraine.

The Troisdorf site is an important link in Europe’s objectives to back Ukraine, as Kyiv urges its allies to supply it with more munitions at a time when it is struggling to repel the Russian offensive.
The EU has pledged to provide Ukraine with one million artillery rounds by March 2024 to aid in Kyiv’s fight against Russia.
To date, it has delivered about 300,000 rounds from its own stocks, now depleted.
German industry’s share of the EU plan should eventually reach 300,000 to 400,000 shells a year, more than three times the production at the time of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, industry sources told AFP.
But Diehl Defense now sees the future of its Troisdorf site in serious jeopardy after the city decided to claim part of the business park where the group’s subsidiary DynITEC is based.
The arms manufacturer wanted to buy the land, which had been put up for sale by the former Dynamit Nobel weapons company, so that it could expand its production capacity.
For its part, the local authority is planning to convert the site, which is the size of 50 football pitches and ideally located near the city center, into homes and offices.
“By calling the Troisdorf site into question, the Federal Republic of Germany’s defense capability is being undermined,” warned Thomas Bodenmueller, a member of the Diehl Defense board of directors, in response.

A broad spectrum of city councillors, from the conservative mayor Alexander Biber to the ecologist Greens and far-left Die Linke — roughly two-thirds of the council — refused to sacrifice such a large area in the city center.
This is because, according to the local authorities, the production of explosives and combat devices requires huge protective zones around the factory which cannot be built on for safety reasons.
For Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, chair of the Bundestag lower house’s defense committee and a staunch backer of Ukraine, the position of Troisdorf’s mayor “is quite simply irresponsible.”
“This is about Ukraine, but also and above all about Germany’s security,” she told AFP.
For the time being, Biber remains unmoved.
Despite mediation meetings in the run-up to the Christmas holidays, no compromise has yet been found and he is not alone in his resistance.
Earlier this year, the Rheinmetall group, another flagship of the German arms industry, said it would not build a new ammunition powder factory in the Saxony region of eastern Germany.
The project had caused concern among the local population and with public acceptance lacking, Rheinmetall moved the project to another location in Bavaria.
While experts say Kyiv needs three million rounds of ammunition a year, Pistorius warned last month that the EU would likely fail to reach its March target of delivering even one million desperately needed howitzer rounds.
 


Trump administration may rescind $4 billion for California High-Speed Rail project

Updated 58 min 9 sec ago
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Trump administration may rescind $4 billion for California High-Speed Rail project

  • One key issue cited is that California has not identified $7 billion in additional funding needed to build an initial 171-mile segment between Merced and Bakersfield, California

WASHINGTON: The Trump administration said Wednesday there is no viable path forward for California’s High-Speed Rail project and warned it may rescind $4 billion in government funding in the coming weeks.
The US Transportation Department released a 315-page report from the Federal Railroad Administration that cited missed deadlines, budget shortfalls and questionable ridership projections. One key issue cited is that California has not identified $7 billion in additional funding needed to build an initial 171-mile segment between Merced and Bakersfield, California.
USDOT gave California until mid-July to respond and then the administration could terminate the grants. Trump said last month the US government would not pay for the project.
The FRA report Wednesday said California had “conned the taxpayer out of its $4 billion investment, with no viable plan to deliver even that partial segment on time.”
The California High-Speed Rail System is a planned two-phase 800-mile system with speeds of up to 220 miles per hour that aims to connect San Francisco to Los Angeles/Anaheim and in the second phase extend north to Sacramento and south to San Diego.
The California High-Speed Rail Authority said it strongly disagrees with the administration’s conclusions “which are misguided and do not reflect the substantial progress made to deliver high-speed rail in California.”
It noted California, Governor Gavin Newsom’s budget proposal before the legislature extends at least $1 billion per year in funding for the next 20 years “providing the necessary resources to complete the project’s initial operating segment.”
The authority noted in May there is active civil construction along 119 miles in the state’s Central Valley.
Voters approved $10 billion for the project in 2008 but the costs have risen sharply. The Transportation Department under former President Joe Biden awarded the project about $4 billion.
The entire San Francisco-to-Los Angeles project was initially supposed to be completed by 2020 for $33 billion but has now jumped from $89 billion to $128 billion.
In 2021, Biden restored a $929 million grant for California’s high-speed rail that Trump had revoked in 2019 after the Republican president called the project a “disaster.”


Starmer condemns Israel’s ‘appalling’ actions in Gaza

Updated 05 June 2025
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Starmer condemns Israel’s ‘appalling’ actions in Gaza

  • UK prime minister refuses to be drawn on recognizing Palestinian state during questions from MPs
  • Says Britain and its allies are considering further sanctions against Israel

LONDON: Israel’s actions in Gaza are “appalling and intolerable,” the UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on Wednesday amid growing international pressure to stop the slaughter of Palestinians.

Aid agencies and governments around the world have all condemned the killing of dozens of Palestinians this week as they tried to access food distribution sites in the decimated territory.

It follows growing opposition in Europe to Israel’s military campaign, with the UK, France, Germany and Italy becoming increasingly critical of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.

“Israel's recent action is appalling, and in my view counterproductive and intolerable, and we have strongly opposed the expansion of military operations and settler violence and the blocking of humanitarian aid,” Starmer told MPs.

He said the UK and its allies were considering sanctions against Israel and that his government had already suspended talks on a free trade agreement.

That step was announced after the UK, France, and Canada issued a joint statement last month threatening "concrete actions” against Israel if it did not halt its military operation in Gaza and allow humanitarian aid into the territory.

France and Saudi Arabia are organizing a UN conference this month about a two-state solution for Palestine and Israel. France has already said it is considering recognizing the Palestinian state during the conference.

Starmer did not answer whether the UK would follow suit and recognize a Palestinian when asked in parliament Wednesday.

However, Foreign Office minister Hamish Falconer told MPs that the government was reconsidering its position on Palestinian statehood, The Guardian reported.

Falconer said he was "appalled" by the killings of Palestinians this week as they gathered to approach a new aid distribution hub.

"We call for an immediate and independent investigation into these events for the perpetrators to be held to account,” he said.

Dozens of MPs from both the main political parties have signed letters in recent months calling for Palestine to be recognized.

Starmer is facing fierce criticism from within his own Labour Party to take a tougher line on Israel.

Labour MP Paula Barker said history "will not be kind" to his government unless action is taken.

”What more evidence do we need to call this exactly what it is? A deliberate policy of annexation and genocide," she said.


Trump promised to welcome more foreign students. Now, they feel targeted on all fronts

Updated 05 June 2025
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Trump promised to welcome more foreign students. Now, they feel targeted on all fronts

  • That promise never came to pass. Trump’s stance on welcoming foreign students has shifted dramatically

To attract the brightest minds to America, President Donald Trump proposed a novel idea while campaigning: If elected, he would grant green cards to all foreign students who graduate from US colleges.
“It’s so sad when we lose people from Harvard, MIT, from the greatest schools,” Trump said during a podcast interview last June. “That is going to end on Day One.”
That promise never came to pass. Trump’s stance on welcoming foreign students has shifted dramatically. International students have found themselves at the center of an escalating campaign to kick them out or keep them from coming as his administration merges a crackdown on immigration with an effort to reshape higher education.
An avalanche of policies from the Trump administration — such as terminating students’ ability to study in the US, halting all new student visa interviews, moving to block foreign enrollment at Harvard — have triggered lawsuits, countersuits and confusion for international students who say they feel targeted on multiple fronts.
In interviews, students from around the world described how it feels to be an international student today in America. Their accounts highlight pervasive feelings of fear, anxiety and insecurity that have made them more cautious in their daily lives, distracted them from schoolwork and prompted many to cancel trips home because they fear not being allowed to return.
For many, the last few months have forced them to rethink their dreams of building a life in America.
A standout student from Latvia feels ‘expendable’
Markuss Saule, a freshman at Brigham Young University-Idaho, took a recent trip home to Latvia and spent the entire flight back to the US in a state of panic.
For hours, he scrubbed his phone, uninstalling all social media, deleting anything that touched on politics or could be construed as anti-Trump.
“That whole 10-hour flight, where I was debating, ‘Will they let me in?’ — it definitely killed me a little bit,” said Saule, a business analytics major. “It was terrifying.”
Saule is the type of international student the US has coveted. As a high schooler in Latvia, he qualified for a competitive, merit-based exchange program funded by the US State Department. He spent a year of high school in Minnesota, falling in love with America and a classmate who is now his fiancee. He just ended his freshman year in college with a 4.0 GPA.
But the alarm he felt on that flight crushed what was left of his American dream.
“If you had asked me at the end of 2024 what my plans were, it was to get married, find a great job here in the US and start a family,” said Saule, who hopes to work as a business data analyst. “Those plans are not applicable anymore. Ask me now, and the plan to leave this place as soon as possible.”
Saule and his fiancee plan to marry this summer, graduate a year early and move to Europe.
This spring the Trump administration abruptly revoked permission to study in the US for thousands of international students before reversing itself. A federal judge has blocked further status terminations, but for many, the damage is done. Saule has a constant fear he could be next.
As a student in Minnesota just three years ago, he felt like a proud ambassador for his country.
“Now I feel a sense of inferiority. I feel that I am expendable, that I am purely an appendage that is maybe getting cut off soon,” he said. Trump’s policies carry a clear subtext. “The policies, what they tell me is simple. It is one word: Leave.”
From dreaming of working at NASA to ‘doomscrolling’ job listings in India

A concern for attracting the world’s top students was raised in the interview Trump gave last June on the podcast “All-In.” Can you promise, Trump was asked, to give companies more ability “to import the best and brightest” students?
“I do promise,” Trump answered. Green cards, he said, would be handed out with diplomas to any foreign student who gets a college or graduate degree.
Trump said he knew stories of “brilliant” graduates who wanted to stay in the US to work but couldn’t. “They go back to India, they go back to China” and become multi-billionaires, employing thousands of people. “That is going to end on Day One.”
Had Trump followed through with that pledge, a 24-year-old Indian physics major named Avi would not be afraid of losing everything he has worked toward.
After six years in Arizona, where Avi attended college and is now working as an engineer, the US feels like a second home. He dreams of working at NASA or in a national lab and staying in America where he has several relatives.
But now he is too afraid to fly to Chicago to see them, rattled by news of foreigners being harassed at immigration centers and airports.
“Do I risk seeing my family or risk deportation?” said Avi, who asked to be identified by his first name, fearing retribution.
Avi is one of about 240,000 people on student visas in the US on Optional Practical Training — a postgraduation period where students are authorized to work in fields related to their degrees for up to three years. A key Trump nominee has said he would like to see an end to postgraduate work authorization for international students.
Avi’s visa is valid until next year but he feels “a massive amount of uncertainty.”
He wonders if he can sign a lease on a new apartment. Even his daily commute feels different.
“I drive to work every morning, 10 miles an hour under speed limit to avoid getting pulled over,” said Avi, who hopes to stay in the US but is casting a wider net. “I spend a lot of time doomscrolling job listings in India and other places.”
A Ukrainian chose college in America over joining the fight at home — for now
Vladyslav Plyaka came to the US from Ukraine as an exchange student in high school. As war broke out at home, he stayed to attend the University of Wisconsin.
He was planning to visit Poland to see his mother but if he leaves the US, he would need to reapply for a visa. He doesn’t know when that will be possible now that visa appointments are suspended, and he doesn’t feel safe leaving the country anyway.
He feels grateful for the education, but without renewing his visa, he’ll be stuck in the US at least two more years while he finishes his degree. He sometimes wonders if he would be willing to risk leaving his education in the United States — something he worked for years to achieve — if something happened to his family.
“It’s hard because every day I have to think about my family, if everything is going to be all right,” he said.
It took him three tries to win a scholarship to study in the US Having that cut short because of visa problems would undermine the sacrifice he made to be here. He sometimes feels guilty that he isn’t at home fighting for his country, but he knows there’s value in gaining an education in America.
“I decided to stay here just because of how good the college education is,” he said. “If it was not good, I probably would be on the front lines.”


What we know about the Colorado attack on demonstrators for the release of Israeli hostages

Updated 04 June 2025
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What we know about the Colorado attack on demonstrators for the release of Israeli hostages

  • Mohamed Sabry Soliman, 45, faces hate crime charges in federal court and multiple state charges including attempted murder
  • He threw two of 18 Molotov cocktails he was carrying Sunday, injuring more than half of the estimated 20 people demonstrating

BOULDER, Colorado: The man charged with injuring more than a dozen people in Boulder, Colorado, who were demonstrating for the release of Israeli hostages in Gaza, went disguised as a gardener and told police his initial plan was to kill them all.
Mohamed Sabry Soliman, 45, faces hate crime charges in federal court and multiple state charges, including attempted murder.
Soliman — whose first name also was spelled Mohammed in some court documents — yelled “Free Palestine” and threw two of 18 Molotov cocktails he was carrying Sunday, injuring more than half of the estimated 20 people demonstrating, police said. Authorities said Soliman shied away from his plan to kill the entire group but expressed no regrets about the attack.
Boulder County officials said Wednesday the number of victims climbed from 12 to 15, plus a dog. The Associated Press left an email message with prosecutors seeking more details on the newly identified victims and the dog.
Among those injured was a Holocaust survivor who did not want her name shared publicly, said Ginger Delgado of the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office, who is acting as a spokesperson for the family.
What’s next for the suspect?
Soliman was being held on a $10 million, cash-only bond. He is due back in a Boulder County courtroom Thursday. More charges are possible in federal court.
Public defender Kathryn Herold is representing Soliman. She declined to comment after Monday’s hearing, where he initially was charged, as is common with Colorado public defenders.
Soliman was living in the US illegally after entering the country in August 2022 on a visa that expired in February 2023, Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said. Soliman filed for asylum and was granted a work authorization in March 2023, but that also expired.
He was born in Egypt, spent 17 years living in Kuwait, and lived in Colorado Springs with his wife and five children, according to state court documents.
Soliman’s wife and children were taken into custody Tuesday by immigration authorities and were being processed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said a DHS official who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.
Federal officials are investigating whether Soliman’s family knew about his plan, US Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said. Soliman told authorities that no one, including his family, knew about his plan, according to court documents.
Noem said Wednesday that federal authorities will be cracking down on people who overstay their visas.
What was the motive behind the attack?
Soliman told police he was driven by a desire “to kill all Zionist people,” referring to the movement to establish and sustain a Jewish state in Israel.
Sunday’s attack at the popular Pearl Street pedestrian mall in downtown Boulder, 30 miles (48 kilometers) from Denver, had been planned for more than a year and targeted what Soliman described as a “Zionist group,” authorities said in court papers charging him with a federal hate crime.
That charge carries a sentence of life in prison when it includes attempted murder. Colorado state charges include 16 counts of attempted first-degree murder, two counts of using an incendiary device and 16 counts of attempted use of an incendiary device.
The attack came at the beginning of the Jewish holiday Shavuot, and as the Israel-Hamas war has contributed to a spike in antisemitism in the US. A week before the Boulder attack, a man who also yelled “Free Palestine” was charged with fatally shooting two Israeli embassy staffers outside a Jewish museum in Washington.
Who are the demonstrators?
The people hurt in the attack are demonstrators with Run for Their Lives, a global grassroots initiative that started in October 2023 after Hamas militants in Gaza stormed into Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking 250 others hostage. Israel responded with military attacks on the Gaza Strip, killing more than 52,000 Palestinians, the majority women and children, and arresting hundreds.
Through weekly walks, the Run for Their Lives group’s 230 chapters seek to raise awareness of the 58 people believed to still be in captivity in Gaza, said Shira Weiss, the organization’s global coordinator.
Police liaisons assigned to the victims said none were ready to speak with reporters. They include eight women and seven men, range in age from 25 to 88, and their injuries range from serious to minor.
No new details were released Wednesday about three victims receiving treatment at the UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital.
After the attack, FBI director Kash Patel said the agency was investigating a “targeted terror attack” in Boulder.
Boulder Police Chief Stephen Redfearn said Tuesday he initially suspected terrorism. “There was no intent to hide what happened,” Redfearn said. “There was no intent to minimize or lessen what we later, within a couple of hours at the press conference, confirmed was terrorism.”


Cuban students call boycott over mobile tariff hikes

Updated 04 June 2025
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Cuban students call boycott over mobile tariff hikes

  • Student leaders at the University of Havana’s mathematics and informatics faculty called for a boycott of classes in order to try to force state telecoms company to annul the tariff hikes
  • The average monthly salary on the communist island is 5,700 pesos, or $47. Topping up data would cost the individual 3,000 pesos, or $25

HAVANA: Cuban students called for a boycott of classes Wednesday over new mobile Internet tariffs that include steep fees for those who exceed their monthly data limits.
Cubans say the tariff hikes implemented by state telecoms company Etecsa on May 30 will leave them with only a few gigabytes of data per month as purchasing additional data will be prohibitively expensive.
Students have been particularly angered by the new pricing system, under which top-ups must be paid in hard-to-come-by-dollars or at a steep increment in Cuban pesos.
While acknowledging “progress” in negotiations with Etecsa, student union president Jose Almedia told AFP: “We want more.”
On Tuesday evening, student leaders at the University of Havana’s mathematics and informatics faculty called for a boycott of classes in order to try to force Etecsa to annul the tariff hikes.
Fellow leaders of the union chapter in the philosophy, history and sociology faculty backed the boycott, as did some students from the arts department.
It was not immediately clear how many students heeded the call for the protest.
But an arts student who attended classes on Wednesday told AFP there were “practically no students” in the faculty.
New pricing structure
Etecsa gave no forewarning of its new pricing structure, which it said was necessary to fund investment in infrastructure.
Rafael Gomez, an 18-year-old student at the University of Havana, said the new tariffs left mobile users with the bare minimum in terms of data.
“We were used to a certain system,” where customers can top up their credit as often as they like, he told AFP.
Now, they are limited to 6GB of data, which Gomez noted “is nothing and if you want to buy more, it costs over 3,000 pesos ($25), which you cannot afford on a regular Cuban salary,” Gomez said.
The average monthly salary on the communist island is 5,700 pesos, or $47.
Faced with the outcry from students, President Miguel Diaz-Canel said Sunday that the government was looking at “options” for “the most vulnerable sectors, including our dear students.”
After talks with student bodies Etecsa on Monday announced that students would be allowed two monthly top-ups at 360 pesos ($3), compared with one for the rest of the population.
Further top-ups have to be paid in dollars or at the eye-watering price of over 3,000 pesos.
The concessions failed to assuage the anger of many students.
Brian Gamez, a history student, told AFP he favored “peaceful protests” but was afraid that a mobilization could lead to vandalism.
The Cuban government has been wary of stoking popular discontent since July 2021 when thousands of people took to the streets in a rare show of defiance to demonstrate over shortages of fuel, food, medicine and electricity.
One person was killed and dozens injured in the protests, which Havana accused Washington of orchestrating.