Political attack? German Mayor Hollstein stabbed for sheltering refugees

A German Mayor known for his welcoming stance towards refugees has been seriously injured in a knife attack which authorities said was likely politically motivated.

Andreas Hollstein, the 54-year-old conservative Mayor of west German town of Altena, was stabbed in the neck at a kebab shop on Monday evening, the Independent reported.

The attacker, identified as a 56-year-old German man and described by local media as drunk, approached Hollstein and asked whether he was the town's Mayor before loudly criticizing his migrant policies and slicing his neck with a 30-centimetre blade.

The assailant was overpowered by people at the scene.

Hollstein was taken to the hospital but discharged the same day. "I was very lucky. I had some hands-on people by my side and am happy that I'm still alive," the Mayor told reporters on Tuesday.

Hollstein, a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union, gained national renown and won an award for his open migrant policies in Altena, often pushing to take in more people than required by official quotas.

According to the Mayor, before launching the attack his assailant said: "You're letting me die of thirst, but you bring 200 refugees to Altena."
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Trump travel ban: Refugees from 11 countries face additional US barriers

The Trump administration will temporarily delay processing of most refugees from 11 countries identified as high-risk, while resuming refugee admissions for other countries, government officials said on Tuesday. Most of the affected countries are in the West Asia and Africa, according to documents seen by Reuters.

The administration also will place on hold a program that allows for family reunification for some refugees resettled in the United States, according to a Trump administration memo seen by Reuters and sent to Congress on Tuesday. The resettling of so-called following-to-join refugees will resume, according to the memo, once screening “enhancements have been implemented.”

US officials said the changes were aimed at protecting US national security, but refugee advocates said they amounted to a de facto ban on refugees from the 11 countries and were unnecessary, since refugees are already heavily vetted.

The changes come at the close of a 120-day ban on most refugees ordered by President Donald Trump to allow a review of vetting processes. The 120 days ended on Tuesday, and Trump issued an executive order allowing the general resumption of the US refugee program.
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More than 500,000 Rohingya refugees have fled to Bangladesh: UN

The number of Rohingya refugees who have fled to Bangladesh since violence broke out in Myanmar's Rakhine state on August 25 has exceeded half a million, the United Nations said on Thursday.

The new figure of 501,800 -- up from around 480,000 -- was due mainly to the counting of refugees not previously included in the tally rather than a dramatic increase in arrivals.
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Refugees and border wall: Details of Trump's calls to Mexico prez, Aus PM

A leading American daily on Thursday posted highly classified transcripts of Donald Trump's conversations with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto and Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, in yet another embarrassing leak for the US President.

In his conversation with Nieto, according to the transcripts, Trump is heard pleading that the latter should stop saying that Mexico would not pay for the wall.

In his conversation with the Australian Prime Minister, Trump is heard getting agitated on the refugee issue and eventually telling him that the call was the most irksome of the day.

Transcripts of both the conversations that happened on January 27 and 28 respectively were posted by The Washington Post.

The top American daily is now owned by Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos. Notably, in the last few days, Amazon has succumbed to the Chinese demands on restricted internet freedom.
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UN urges Australia to stop detaining refugees, shut detention centres

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) on Monday urged Australia to stop detaining refugees and close down its offshore detention centres in Papua New Guinea and Nauru.

"Four years on, more than 2,000 people are still languishing in unacceptable circumstances. Families have been separated and many have suffered physical and psychological harm," UNHCR chief Filippo Grandi said in a statement.

According to the statement, around 2,500 refugees and asylum-seekers have been forcibly transferred by Australia for offshore processing of their applications in Papua New Guinea and Nauru since the introduction of the current policy in 2013.

Of these, some 1,100 remain in Nauru and 900 in Papua New Guinea, added the statement.

The statement adds that the Australian government informed the UNHCR it will not accept refugees on its territory and offered the options of either letting them be where they are, or transferring them to Cambodia, with whom it signed an agreement in 2014, or the US, with whom it signed an agreement in 2016, to transfer some of the refugees detained in Papua New Guinea and Nauru.

"To avoid prolonging their ordeal, UNHCR has no other choice but to endorse the relocation of all refugees on Papua New Guinea and Nauru to the US, even those with close family members in Australia," the UN High Commissioner said in his statement.

Many of the refugees in these offshore centres have fled strife-torn countries such as Afghanistan, Darfur, Pakistan, Somalia and Syria, and others have escaped discrimination or status as stateless persons such as the Rohingya minorities from Myanmar.
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US top court okays Trump travel ban enforcement, rejects block on relatives

The US Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday that while President Donald Trump's administration can continue to bar refugees from entering the country, officials will have to show greater flexibility in enforcing the accompanying ban on travellers from six Muslim-majority countries.

The Justice Department had asked the high court to stay an order issued last week by a federal district judge in Hawaii who found the administration's definition of close family in allowing exemptions to the travel ban was too narrow, Efe reported.

US District Judge Derrick Watson also said that the government could not prohibit entry by refugees assured of placement in the US by recognized refugee agencies.

The Supreme Court sided with the Justice Department on the refugee question, staying that portion of Watson's decision, but they supported the district judge's finding on the government's exemption criteria.

More broadly, the nine justices declined to rule definitively on the Trump administration's appeal of Watson's ruling, insisting that the case would have to follow the usual course through the federal appellate courts.

Last month, the Supreme Court set aside injunctions issued by federal appellate courts and said that portions of Trump's March 6 executive order could take effect.

That document barred citizens of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen from entering the US for 90 days and excluded all refugees for 120 days.
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Donald Trump, Angela Merkel to meet ahead of G20 talks

US President Donald Trump and German Chancellor Angela Merkel plan to meet Thursday for what are expected to be tricky talks on the eve of a Group of 20 summit in Hamburg.

Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert said the meeting would come before the summit, "most probably in the early evening of Thursday".

The pair are also scheduled to talk by telephone today, Trump said in a tweet.

Transatlantic differences on climate change, trade, defence spending and refugees hang over the July 7-8 meeting of the world's major industrialised and emerging economies.

Last week Merkel met with key European leaders and vowed to make a stand for climate protection and open markets at the meeting with Trump, who has said he will take the US out of the Paris climate deal and pursue a protectionist "America First" policy.

Merkel said that "the differences are obvious and it would be dishonest to try to cover that up. That I won't do."

She also said the US exit from the 2015 Paris climate pact had made Europe "more determined than ever" to make the accord a success.

Today, presenting her party's election platform, she predicted "a whole series of thorny issues" at the G20.

"We know the positions of the US government and I do not expect them to disappear on a two-day trip to Hamburg," the chancellor said.

She warned against high expectations, noting that the summit's final communique has to be "approved unanimously".
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