Germany’s Interior Ministry has ordered consulates to withhold citizenship certificates under a postwar restitution law after investigators found that dozens of applicants, most of them Chinese nationals, allegedly posed as descendants of people persecuted by the Nazis.
The Federal Office of Administration and the Interior Ministry instructed German missions abroad last week not to hand over naturalization documents “until further notice” and to postpone ceremonies, according to emails reported by Der Spiegel and confirmed in subsequent accounts. A ministry spokesperson said the procedures for so-called restitution naturalizations are under review “to further secure the procedure against corresponding criminal activities.”
The pause follows a Der Spiegel investigation published in early September that detailed an alleged scheme exploiting Article 116, Paragraph 2 of the Basic Law. That provision states that former German nationals whose citizenship was revoked between Jan. 30, 1933, and May 8, 1945, “for political, racial or religious reasons, and their descendants, shall be renaturalized on application.”
Prosecutors in Düsseldorf and the Federal Criminal Police Office are investigating 32 suspects on suspicion of document forgery and violations of the nationality law, authorities have confirmed. At least 28 of those under investigation are Chinese nationals, according to the Düsseldorf prosecutor’s office. German citizenship had already been granted in roughly half the cases. The suspects are said to live in Cyprus, Israel, Britain, and the United States.
Investigators allege the applicants submitted forged or notarized copies of documents and invented genealogical links to real Jewish families who fled or were stripped of citizenship under Nazi rule. In one example cited by Der Spiegel and other outlets, applicants claimed descent from Karl Siegfried Süßkind and Gertraud Süßkind, a couple who left Germany for British Palestine.
The Chinese applicants, including one identified as Liu H. who obtained citizenship in 2024 under the name Derrick Wong, were not actual descendants. Another person, identified as Tian C. and living in London, is accused of using the same fabricated lineage.
Some of those under investigation were already sought internationally on suspicion of serious crimes, including kidnapping and murder, Der Spiegel reported. Prosecutors have said they could not confirm details of foreign cases because they fall outside the German inquiry. The scheme was reportedly advertised on a Chinese social-media platform for more than half a million euros.
An Interior Ministry spokesperson, responding after the initial Spiegel report, said the ministry regretted the “identity thefts” in which “applicants misused biographies of those affected by National Socialism.” The spokesperson added that once sufficient information is available, the Federal Office of Administration will “immediately initiate withdrawal proceedings” in cases of fraudulently obtained citizenship. Unlawful naturalizations can generally be revoked within 10 years.
The Cologne-based office received 14,148 applications for restitution citizenship in 2025, Der Spiegel reported. Officials have noted that the special procedure differs from ordinary naturalization: staff often help applicants assemble proof rather than requiring them to produce every original document, a practice rooted in the law’s reparative purpose. Legitimate descendants may now face delays while certificates already prepared are held and files are rechecked.
The Interior Ministry, led by Alexander Dobrindt of the Christian Social Union, has described the suspension as a temporary measure to protect the integrity of the process, not a repeal of the constitutional right.
A Slovak member of the European Parliament said Wednesday that street violence, sexual attacks and Islamist agitation seen in parts of Western Europe have not occurred in Poland or Slovakia because those countries rejected the same migration policies as countries like France, Germany, and Belgium.
Milan Mazurek of the Europe of Sovereign Nations group spoke during a debate on Islamist entryism and Muslim Brotherhood networks. “Why we don’t have it in Slovakia? Why we don’t have it in Poland? What is the difference? We did not follow your insane migration policies,” he said.
As non-stop videos of riots in France in Belgium flood social media — including burning schools, teachers doused in gasoline, and police officers beaten unconscious — the contrast between countries like Poland and Slovakia with Western Europe has never been more clear.
BREAKING: Schools are burning across France as violent student blockades grow. The mayhem shows no sign of slowing down despite 625 arrests.
Oct. 1
Nelson-Mandela high school in Nantes burned, façade and hall destroyed. The school is expected to be closed for several days.
A fire at the Talensac private high school destroyed the entrance and doors.
Fires reported outside the Berthollet, Baudelaire and Sommeiller high schools; firefighters said they were working to stop the flames from reaching the buildings.
At the Lumière High School in Lyon, the facade was damaged by a fire. Police are investigating the case as arson.
At Haubourdin, near Lille, heavy damage was reported, and municipal buildings were ransacked; Beaupré High School will remain closed due to ongoing student blockades.
Sept. 30
A flaming car was rammed into Émile-Zola high school n Wattrelos. The school has been closed and a police investigation has been launched.
At the Paul-Éluard high school in the multicultural Paris suburb Saint-Denis, the gate was set on fire. The Paris region president said gate replacement, security and cleaning would cost €100,000. The total damage across regional high schools is now nearing €1 million, including roughly ten gates out of service.
At the Gustave-Eiffel high school, bin fires spread to the facades of two houses opposite the school. Firework mortars were reportedly fired at the school building.
In the Bordeaux area, clashes and fires were reported at Montesquieu, Les Iris and Élie-Faure, as well as Gustave-Eiffel. Ten arrests were reported for arson, damage and projectiles. A firefighter was injured near Montaigne the day before.
Sept. 29
At Jean-Mermoz high school in Montpellier, fires destroyed the caretaker’s lodge at a side entrance. Students were evacuated.
Mass arrests
As of Sept. 30, 356 high schools were disrupted, 625 people arrested, and 83 police officers and gendarmes injured, according to Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez.
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Mazurek opened by addressing what he called progressive liberals, telling them: “Send them back! That’s for you, progressive liberals, because it was you who destroyed Western Europe.”
He said Western European cities “are in flames” and “controlled by violent criminals, rapists, murderers, and radical Islamists like Muslim Brotherhood.”
Certainly, the riots in France have shown a state increasingly losing control to a multicultural student body, many who reject not only France, but also the French people.
BREAKING: Migrant student youths have set fire to multiple buses and even fire trucks in the French city of Marseille as chaos spreads.
The Marseille transport authority, RTM, said several of its buses "were targeted near high schools in the north and east of Marseille," that "drivers had to leave their vehicles in a hurry and one of them was assaulted."
The regional Marseille government said an "unacceptable line" had been crossed at Victor Hugo High School, where "the principal, the deputy principal, the general secretary and the team leader were assaulted and doused with gasoline," according to the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region, cited by BFMTV.
France is descending into chaos as student blockades grip the country. Over 650 arrests have been made.
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Mazurek referred to video from France of “young people of migration descent calling for killing of police in the name of Allah.”
He warned that the same open borders approach was being forced on Central and Eastern Europe “into acceptance of the same people that destroyed the West. The same people who are raping women and children in the streets of Western European cities.” He concluded, “We need to defeat you and start with mass deportations from Europe.”
A White female supervisor at Baudelaire High School is beaten by a mob of multicultural students during a blockade in Seynod.
The woman is completely surrounded when a Black male punches her in the face multiple times.
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https://t.co/GGrDgjV4YL
Muslim population estimates place France at roughly 8 percent to 10 percent and Germany at 6 percent to 7 percent, with Sweden higher. Poland’s share is estimated at 0.1 percent to 0.2 percent, and Slovakia’s at about 0.1%, according to census figures and researcher estimates.
Overall foreign-born people accounted for 2.6 percent of Poland’s resident population and 4 percent of Slovakia’s. Those were among the lowest shares in the EU; the bloc average for people born outside their country of residence is far higher, and several Western European countries exceed 20 percent. Many of these foreign populations in Slovakia and Poland are also not from the Third World, but instead from neighboring Ukraine and other Eastern European nations.
BREAKING: Another major school arson attack at Blaise Pascal High School in the French city of Rouen.
The entire entrance is currently in flames.
School staff can only stand and watch it burn.
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Police-recorded sexual violence rates in 2023 stood at about 192 incidents per 100,000 inhabitants in Sweden, 131 in France and 63 in Germany, according to Statista.
Poland and Slovakia rank at the bottom of European figures. Rape counts compiled through the European Institute for Gender Equality run roughly 500 to 600 cases a year in Poland, or about 1.3 per 100,000 people, and about 100 cases in Slovakia, or about 1.8 per 100,000.
Meanwhile, Sweden recorded nearly 9,000 rape cases in the same period, France more than 40,000 and Germany more than 13,000.
Sweden’s National Council for Crime Prevention has found foreign-born suspects several times more likely to be registered for rape and lethal violence after controls for age and sex, with higher ratios for some Middle Eastern, North African and sub-Saharan African origin groups. French Interior Ministry data for 2023 show foreign nationals, particularly from African countries, overrepresented among suspects in sexual violence and attacks on officials. German police statistics show elevated non-citizen shares among suspects in violent and sexual offenses.
Furthermore, large riots with arson and attacks on police in high-immigration districts, including France’s ongoing 2026 school unrest that led to thousands of arrests, have no equivalent scale in Polish or Slovak cities.
Islamist attacks and fatalities since the mid-2010s have been concentrated in France, with smaller totals in Germany, Belgium and the United Kingdom. Poland and Slovakia have recorded no serious Islamic terror attacks. Notably, both Eastern European countries feature safe and secure Christmas markets, unlike Germany.
The European Parliament adopted a related resolution the following day by a vote of 381-167 calling for scrutiny of Muslim Brotherhood-linked networks and limits on certain EU funding.
More than 148,000 people remain subject to outstanding arrest warrants in Germany, and only 11.2 percent of them hold exclusively German citizenship, and overall, 87 percent of arrest warrant suspects are foreigners, according to figures the Federal Ministry of the Interior provided in response to a parliamentary inquiry.
Welt newspaper obtained the ministry’s reply to a question from Alternative for Germany (AfD) lawmaker Sebastian Münzenmaier.
Münzenmaier told Welt am Sonntag: “The figures speak for themselves: The overwhelming majority of criminals wanted on arrest warrants do not have a German passport.” He called for a “rigorous change of course” that would include permanent and complete border controls, the immediate termination of the stay of foreign criminals, and the enforcement of prison sentences in the country of origin.
While German citizens form the single largest group, at 16,671, Germany also features a population where 81 percent of people hold exclusively German citizenship. Romanian nationals follow closely with 16,123, then Polish nationals with 12,721, Georgian nationals with 6,869 and Turkish nationals with 6,696.
Alexander Throm, the domestic-policy spokesman for the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) parliamentary group, said: “Every open arrest warrant poses a security risk.”
He added that “the high proportion of foreign offenders, including many from other EU countries, shows that action must be taken.”
Throm also noted that border controls introduced in September 2024 have done more than limit illegal migration: “They have not only curbed illegal migration. Since their start in September 2024, over 17,500 people have also been apprehended at our borders with outstanding arrest warrants.”
Heiko Teggatz, chairman of the German Police Union, called the total worrying and said it “of course, represents a security policy problem.” State police forces, he told the paper, rarely have the staffing to mount dedicated searches; most arrests occur as a “chance hit or bycatch.” The union has long cited personnel shortages as a central obstacle to improved public safety.
Marcel Emmerich, the Greens’ domestic-policy spokesman, agreed that the volume of open warrants constitutes a serious problem, “especially when it comes to dangerous persons, extremists, violent or sex offenders.”
However, Emmerich rejected broader border checks, noting: “Instead of hoping for random hits at border controls, targeted searches are needed, especially for dangerous perpetrators of violence, threats and people from the field of politically motivated crime.”
Sebastian Fiedler, the Social Democratic Party’s domestic-policy spokesman in the Bundestag, cautioned against reading the aggregate figure as evidence of 148,000 undetected dangerous offenders still inside the country. “A significant portion of this is due to substitute prison sentences for unpaid fines. In North Rhine-Westphalia, more than half of all outstanding arrest warrants in total were such cases, he said. Warrants can also remain active against people who have already left Germany or been deported, so that any remaining sentence can be enforced if they return.
“For example, they will continue to be put out to tender for a search so that if they re-enter the country, a remaining prison sentence can be enforced,” Fiedler said.
While the crimes may include many petty offenses, the totals are stark. German nationals represent a minuscule share of the open arrest warrants in a country where 81 percent of the country is made up of German nationals.
A French member of the European Parliament and former police commissioner called for attempted-murder charges Thursday after masked protesters set fire to the entrance of a Bordeaux police station, blocking officers inside as smoke filled the building.
Matthieu Valet, now affiliated with the National Rally, said the attackers blocked the main door of the Capucins station and ignited trash bins piled against it while officers were still inside.
“It’s a criminal act of extreme gravity; we could have had a massacre,” MEP Valet wrote on X. “The perpetrators must be found and prosecuted for attempted murder. Ten years after the Viry-Châtillon attack, where police officers were burned alive while trapped in their patrol car, nothing has changed.”
BREAKING: Rioters attempted to murder police officers in Bordeaux, says French MEP.
Criminal rioters blocked the entrance to the Capucins police station and then set the station on fire.
They were actively trying to prevent the police from exiting the building, reported French MEP @mvalet_officiel.
Smoke filled the entire police station while the crowd cheered from outside. Officers tried to put out the flames but suffered from smoke inhalation and needed to evacuate.
French MEP Valet: “It’s a criminal act of extreme gravity; we could have had a massacre! The perpetrators must be found and prosecuted for attempted murder. Ten years after the Viry-Châtillon attack, where police officers were burned alive while trapped in their patrol car, nothing has changed!”
Bordeaux prosecutor Renaud Gaudeul said a group of about 10 hooded individuals deliberately stacked bins at the station’s entrance around 4 p.m. and set them alight during a high-school demonstration. The fire spread quickly along part of the facade. Three national police officers inside escaped through a rear emergency exit. No injuries were reported but the officers reportedly suffered from smoke inhalation.
Prosecutors opened an investigation for destruction of property by a means dangerous to people, committed because of the victims’ status as public officials, and for joining a group formed to prepare violence or property damage during a public demonstration. Those offenses can carry up to 20 years in prison. Authorities have not so far filed attempted-murder charges.
This is not the first time that protesters have been accused of setting buildings on fire and blocking exits. Earlier this week, rioters set fire to the entrance of Vauquelin High School in Paris and blocked the exit with 100 students and staff inside. A harrowing video from BFMTV captured the moment.
BREAKING: Rioters set fire to the entrance of Vauquelin High School in Paris and blocked the exits when staff tried to put the fire out.
A film crew recorded the terrifying attempted murder.
“The school staff was unable to put out the fire. The rioters blocked them just as the extinguisher nozzle came out; they blocked the exit.”
“The fire continues. You see all the silhouettes moving behind it; they continue to feed this fire, making it stronger and stronger. The school staff is not even going to try to put it out anymore; they can’t manage it. We can hear the principal here asking the hundred confined students to step back and move up to the first floor.”
The building was full of staff, students, and journalists, but these rioters appear ready to kill anyone still inside the vocational chemistry school.
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Graffiti reading “Vengeance for Eden” was sprayed on the station wall, referring to a student seriously injured by a police grenade launcher earlier in the protests in the Paris region.
The attack came on the margins of nationwide student blockades and marches over teacher shortages and school conditions, now in their third week. A high school in nearby Lormont was vandalized the same morning. Across France, the protests have produced thousands of arrests since late September, along with repeated use of fireworks mortars, stones and burning barricades.
BREAKING: France in a state of chaos.
Police charge protesters on Place de la Bastille in Paris after students slam them with projectiles.
After the charge, students continue to hurl paving stones.
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The 2016 Viry-Châtillon case, in which officers were burned to death inside their vehicle during unrest outside Paris, remains a frequent reference point in French debates over attacks on police. Interior Ministry officials have defended recent tactics while announcing a temporary suspension of certain stun grenades after some minors picked them up and blew off their hands.
"It’s no longer a firework. It’s a homemade bomb."
Protesting "students" in France, some draped in Algerian flags, craft firework mortars into weapons to target police in Aix-en-Provence.
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In nearly every video, racial and ethnic minorities, mostly Blacks and Arabs, are seen driving much of the unrest and physical violence.
The latest figures from the interior ministry indicate that 761 police officers have been injured in the ongoing unrest, according to Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez in an Oct. 7 hearing before the National Assembly’s law committee.
The count covers injuries since Sept. 28.
On Thursday, Oct. 8 alone, the Interior Ministry reported 48 additional officers and gendarmes injured. Nuñez said arrests and detentions stood at 6,629 as of the evening of Oct. 6.
According to Education Minister Édouard Geffray, about 65 teachers and education staff have been injured in the riots.
In a video posted to the social media platform X, a young woman was filmed screaming at a man whom she said she had seen expose his penis and begin masturbating on the bus, despite children being present. The man, who appears to have a migration background, speaks German with a clear accent.
“You can’t just sit there and start masturbating with your penis. There are children here! It’s broad daylight!” she asked him.
A third party filmed the encounter and blurred out the woman’s face. However, the man is clearly visible in the video. The Remix News translation of this video has been censored on X, which means it cannot be embedded, but readers can view it here. Below is the original German video.
It remains unclear whether the woman or anyone else on the bus filed a police report. However, Berlin police are permitted to investigate this incident even without a formal complaint. To make an arrest, they will first need to obtain a warrant.
"Please stop touching me… You’re touching me and I don’t want that."
A migrant male sexually assaults a young woman on a German train, while criticizing her piercing, saying it is for prostitutes who "do everything. Sucking, swallowing."
German public transport in 2026. https://t.co/NUjcBhtuMS
A statue of Donald Trump, naked from head to toe and covered in 23-karat gold leaf, has appeared in one of the busiest corridors of the European Parliament building in Strasbourg. The work, created by a Danish artist, does not pull any punches. It depicts the American president naked, with a sizable belly, sitting on the neck of a much smaller, tormented figure.
As left-wing members of Parliament call it “brilliant” satire, the right decries it as tasteless political provocation.
Anyone recently walking the corridors of the European Parliament in Strasbourg stands a good chance of stumbling upon one of the strangest artistic creations of recent years. The bizarre work of art stands at the busy junction connecting members’ offices and the plenary chamber: a 2.5-meter-tall (8 feet tall), glittering golden statue depicting President Donald Trump completely naked.
TRUMP NU, AU PARLEMENT EUROPÉEN.
À Strasbourg, une statue de Donald Trump entièrement nu trône dans l’un des lieux les plus fréquentés du Parlement européen.
Son nom ? « La peste orange ».
23 carats d’or
Un immense club de golf
2,5 mètres de haut
Signée par l’artiste danois Jens Galschiøt, l’œuvre restera exposée jusqu’à jeudi.
Le message envoyé à Washington est difficile à rater.
The work is titled “The Orange Plague,” and its creator is Danish artist Jens Galschiot, known for his provocative public sculptures. The statue, a reference to Trump’s alleged adoration of luxury and the style of his properties, was fully coated with real 23-karat gold leaf.
“Trump loves gold. In some ways, I think he would even like this statue,” the creator told the press.
The composition of the statue carries sharp political criticism. The full-bodied figure of the naked president sprawls over the shoulders of a tiny, bone-thin and visibly suffering man. Trump holds a scale in one hand — a symbol mocking justice — and clutches a golf club like a scepter in the other, while a golf ball patterned after a globe lies at his feet.
According to the Danish sculptor, Trump’s policies and his sabotage of the green transition against climate change put all of humanity at risk.
To complete the statute, the statue’s pedestal bears a cynical inscription addressed to the “King of Injustice”:
“I’m sitting on a person’s back. It collapses under my load. I would do anything to help him. Except get off his back.”
How was this allowed into the European Parliament?
Many immediately wondered how the strict Brussels bureaucracy could allow such a crude and provocative naked political statue through the gates of the institution. The answer lies in the European Parliament’s rules: Each elected member has the right to sponsor two cultural or artistic events per parliamentary term in designated areas of the building, subject to formal approval by the College of Quaestors, which handles administrative matters.
The naked president was brought into the building by Danish left-wing member Per Clausen, who said Europe should finally launch an open debate on how to protect itself from Trump and build a policy independent of him. Clausen also lashed out at outraged deputies:
“If one has skin so thin that one cannot stand the sight of such a statue in the European Parliament, one has no place on the stage of world politics!”
The statue immediately drew sharp criticism from the parliamentary right. According to Patriots for Europe and other right-wing factions, it is outrageous, tasteless and unworthy of the European Parliament to mock the democratically elected president of an allied superpower in this form in the official corridors.
The gilded exhibition in the corridors of the Parliament will not last long; it will be removed on Thursday. The naked Trump statue is then expected to travel to Turkey, where it will appear at the next U.N. climate summit (COP31). Donald Trump — from whom a quick and angry online reaction is seldom far away — has not yet commented on the Strasbourg surprise.
German police are seeking two Persian-speaking men after a 25-year-old woman reported she was raped early Friday in the city center next to a statue of Karl Marx, known as the “Father of Communism.”
“The woman was in the city center with a friend on the night from last Thursday to Friday. On their way to the parked car, they reportedly encountered two men who had stopped them,” the police described the case.
Investigators said one man started distracting her friend while the other pulled the 25-year-old into bushes behind a building at the Karl Marx Monument on Brückenstrasse, and raped her.
“When the perpetrator heard the voice of an unknown passerby passing nearby, he let go of her and fled,” stated the police.
The woman contacted police the next day. Officers opened an investigation and issued a public appeal for witnesses, particularly anyone who was between the Karl Marx Monument and Käthe-Kollwitz-Strasse late Friday or early Saturday, and the unidentified passerby whose voice apparently interrupted the attack.
The woman describes the alleged rapist as being about 1.75 meters tall and thin. He had black, wavy, short hair, a three-day beard, and wore a dark down jacket.
Police said he spoke some German. The second man was described as about 1.90 meters tall, strongly built and dark-skinned.
“According to the victims, the men, who were about 30 years old, spoke Persian among themselves,” read the police report. Although Persian is predominately spoken in Iran, other countries like Afghanistan and Tajikistan also feature significant Persian-speaking populations.
No arrests have been announced. The Chemnitz criminal police are seeking witnesses and information about the case.
Grzegorz Braun, leader of the Confederation of the Polish Crown, spoke in favor of restarting the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines during a meeting Wednesday with politicians from the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party in Lubmin. He said Poland should be a shareholder in the German-Russian project.
“Nord Stream 1, and probably Nord Stream 2 as well, will be relaunched. Russian gas will flow to the West,” Braun said. He said Europe needs Russian raw materials and that their absence could have serious consequences for the economy.
Braun argued that Poland should not be excluded from future energy projects concerning Russian gas supplies. “Poland should participate, not boycott. Poland should be the initiator,” he said. He also proposed that Warsaw become a shareholder in Nord Stream.
Podczas roboczej wizyty w #Lubmin w Niemczech poseł do Parlamentu Europejskiego @GrzegorzBraun_, poseł na Sejm RP @Roman_Korona i dr @Slawomir_Ozdyk (Konfederacja @KoronyPolskiej) spotkali się z posłem do Bundestagu @SteffenKotre (AfD) oraz posłami do Landtagu Meklemburgii-Pomorza Przedniego z ramienia @AfD – Stephanem Reukenem i @Kevin_Kurtze.
— Konfederacja Korony Polskiej (@KoronyPolskiej) October 7, 2026
He also said that if Russian gas returns to Europe, Poland could lose economically if the supplies bypass its territory. In his view, Warsaw should seek participation in such energy projects rather than remain outside them.
Braun also spoke of the need to “normalize” and “de-escalate” relations and economic cooperation among Poland, Germany and Russia. He advocated a return to wider use of coal and the ability to buy oil and gas from suppliers offering favorable terms.
The speech took place in Lubmin, the site of the German terminal and infrastructure linked to the Nord Stream pipelines.
Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 were damaged in September 2022 by explosions on the Baltic Sea floor. Nord Stream 1 had been the main route for Russian gas to Germany. Nord Stream 2, though completed, was never launched because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly urged the German government to start supplies through the sole Nord Stream 2 line that survived the blasts. He has said that if the line operates, 27.5 billion cubic meters of gas “will immediately reach Europe.”
“Why don’t they do it? I just can’t understand it. They can receive gas through Ukrainian territory, through TurkStream, but they cannot through the pipeline running along the bottom of the Baltic Sea,” Putin said.
“In my opinion, it’s crazy, just nonsense. Why? But if they don’t want to, fine,” Putin said in 2024 at the Vladivostok Economic Forum.
According to U.S. media reports, a group of Ukrainian officers conceived the operation to blow up Nord Stream in May 2022. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky initially approved the plan before he allegedly unsuccessfully tried to cancel it at the CIA’s request. Polish connections also appear in press accounts of the Baltic Sea sabotage.
U.S. President Donald Trump said last May that “many people know” who blew up Nord Stream. He added that he was the first to thwart the project.
Trump imposed sanctions on Nord Stream 2 in his first term, significantly slowing construction. President Joe Biden repealed them in 2021 and reimposed them after Russia invaded Ukraine. Germany withheld permission to start the pipeline because of the war.
It has been revealed that police in the northern German city of Bremen have for more than a decade advised participants in workplace safety seminars that deliberately inducing vomiting can be one way to interrupt an attempted sexual assault or rape.
Franka Haedke, a spokeswoman for the Bremen police, said the guidance is part of broader self-defense instruction offered by the department’s Central Police Prevention unit.
“In an emergency, such as attempted rape, defend yourself with all available means,” Haedke told the Kreiszeitung newspaper. “Vomiting can also be an effective way to ward off a sexual offense.”
Seminar instructors tell participants they can trigger a gag reflex by placing a finger down the throat. The resulting disgust, police say, is intended to disrupt an attacker’s actions. Haedke described the suggestion as one option among others rather than a prescribed response.
The sessions, which have run for more than 10 years, are held at companies, government offices and medical facilities. Employees of public transit agencies, the fire department, job centers, and social-service organizations are also eligible to attend. Topics include recognizing and avoiding danger, de-escalation, bystander intervention, and specific conduct during a sexual assault. Participants are invited to describe their own experiences so that advice can be tailored to situations they have encountered.
Haedke said the courses help people “recognize dangers early, manage conflicts, and act thoughtfully.” She added that the seminars “contribute to the prevention of crime and should be actively promoted and conducted on a recurring basis from the police’s point of view.”
Notably, the police appear powerless to address one of the key issues driving the increase in rapes and sexual assaults in Germany, and that is the incredible increase in foreigners. Since 2018, there has been a 72 percent increase in rapes in the country. In Bremen itself, where the police are advising women to vomit to stave off a rape, the city has been labeled the “most dangerous city in Germany.” It also happens to have the highest share of migrants of any German city. It is also a place where 49 percent of all rapes were committed by foreigners, even though the official foreign population is 23 percent.
The Bremen guidance is not the first unconventional self-protection tip from German police to draw public scrutiny. Remix News previously reported that in Berlin, officers previously listed singing as a way to irritate an attacker, advice that remained visible on the police force’s website even after internal materials had been revised. A screenshot of the recommendation went viral on social media in 2024 and was widely mocked.
Berlin police later said the tip had been drawn from professional associations for psychiatry and did not match operational experience.
“A screenshot of our homepage has been circulating for a few days, according to which we recommend that in the event of an attack, you irritate the perpetrator through unexpected behavior, such as singing,” the Berlin police stated. “This is recommended by the professional associations for psychiatry, among others. However, this advice does not correspond to our police experience and has therefore no longer been part of our recommendations since 2023. The flyer was already updated, now our website is too.”
The police stated that the suggestion was not meant for terrorist attacks, rampages or armed assaults, including those involving knives, where protecting life is the priority.
After the mass sexual assaults in Cologne on New Year’s Eve 2015–16, Mayor Henriette Reker — although not a police official — also gave advice that was widely condemned. Reker said women should keep “a certain distance of more than an arm’s length” from unknown men and avoid behavior that could be “misunderstood.” After thousands of German women were sexually assaulted and even some raped by North African migrants, the remarks were widely criticized, including by Germany’s justice minister.
Swedish police have also previously advised women to stop going out alone. Before mass immigration, Sweden was once one of the safest countries in the world for women. However, right around the same time as the mass sexual assaults in Colgone, Swedish police issued similar advice. In Östersund in 2016, after a series of assaults and an attempted rape, police chief Stephen Jerand advised women who wanted to move around at night to arrange a ride or walk in groups. He called the warning factual rather than a ban on going out alone.
German police have given similar pairing advice after attacks on joggers. Leipzig officers in 2017, after a woman was raped in Rosental park, said it would be better to run in pairs or make sure someone else was nearby, and to look back when passing people. The city’s mayor criticized the police for restricting women’s freedom.
After an attack in the English Garden in Munich in 2016, police in the city told runners to choose busy, lit routes after dark, jog at least in pairs at dusk, skip headphones, and carry a whistle or personal alarm. Although it was less controversial advice that what other authorities provided, critics note that women are increasingly unsafe in Europe while out exercising or enjoying public spaces.
After yesterday’s vote in the Saxony-Anhalt Landtag, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) now holds the office of state parliament president for the first time in any German state. After winning the role, which is similar to a speaker position, 35-year-old Tobias Rausch sent shockwaves through the German political establishment when he confirmed he won with the support of Christian Democratic Union (CDU) votes. The backing of four CDU lawmakers could be one of the most concrete signs that the political firewall against the AfD is crumbling.
The newly elected president of Saxony-Anhalt’s state parliament said Wednesday that members of the conservative CDU voted for him. Perhaps even more importantly, he said that four CDU lawmakers have agreed to back the AfD’s candidate for state premier in December, which means Ulrich Siegmund could soon be the first AfD politician leading a state government.
Rausch gave a direct “yes” when Nius editor-in-chief Julian Reichelt asked on “Nius Live” whether CDU deputies had helped elect him. Asked whether Tuesday’s result signaled that AfD candidate Ulrich Siegmund would safely take office as minister-president in December, Rausch replied, “That is to be assumed.”
BREAKING NIUS: Bei NIUS Live bestätigt AfD-Landtagspräsident Tobias Rausch, dass er von CDU-Abgeordneten ins Amt gewählt wurde. Es habe dazu klare Absprachen zwischen AfD und CDU gegeben, und die vier CDU-Abgeordneten werden im Dezember auch für Ulrich Siegmund als Ministerpräsident stimmen und ihm damit die notwendige Mehrheit sichern.
He told the German press agency dpa that there were agreements with four CDU members of parliament for Siegmund’s election.
He added that more might become clear at a CDU state party conference on Dec. 5, but declined to elaborate. Acting state premier and CDU floor leader Sven Schulze did not comment on the claims when asked by dpa.
Rausch was elected Tuesday in the constitutive session of the 83-seat Landtag in Magdeburg with 48 votes, 29 against and five abstentions. It was the first time the AfD, parts of which are classified as extremist by German domestic intelligence, has held the presidency of a state parliament since the party was founded in 2013.
The AfD holds 39 seats after winning 43.8% of the vote in the Sept. 6 state election, three short of a majority. The five lawmakers of the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance had said in advance they would support Rausch, accounting for 44 votes. The additional four came in a secret ballot. SPD, Green and Left lawmakers had said they would vote no. The CDU leadership had recommended that its members abstain; 14 of the party’s 15 deputies were present, but only five abstentions were recorded in the chamber.
The speaker chairs sessions, oversees the parliamentary administration and represents the Landtag externally, including at ceremonial events.
However, the far more consequential vote is expected in December, when lawmakers choose a minister-president. Siegmund needs at least 42 votes, and so far, the BSW has not committed to supporting him for that post.
Meanwhile, Schulze of the CDU remains acting premier until a successor is chosen.
Later Tuesday, AfD lawmaker Hans-Thomas Tillschneider was elected a vice president with 44 votes to 38, even though the BSW said its members would not support him because of statements he had made on armaments policy.
CDU lawmaker Carsten Borchert was chosen as another deputy president with 64 votes in favor and 17 against. SPD candidate Armin Willingmann received 33 votes and failed.
AfD national co-leaders Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla congratulated the party and described the result as an end to the “firewall” that mainstream parties have maintained against cooperation with the AfD.
However, the national CDU is not happy about the outcome in Saxony-Anhalt. CDU/CSU parliamentary group chairman Thorsten Frei said, “The fact that this is the case is, in my view, extremely concerning and worrying.”
Austrian police are searching for a suspect who is accused of raping an 85-year-old woman who was walking home from Vienna’s main train station, with authorities releasing a photo of the suspect to aid in their search.
The assault occurred around 1:30 to 1:35 a.m. Tuesday on Arsenalstrasse in Vienna’s Favoriten district, police said. The elderly woman was on her way home from Vienna Central Station when an unknown man pulled her into the courtyard of a residential building and raped her, according to the Vienna State Criminal Police Office.
Passersby heard her cries for help and saw a man flee on foot, a Vienna police spokesperson told t-online.
“Passersby were able to hear the victim’s cries for help and observed a male person fleeing the scene on foot,” the spokesperson said.
The injured woman was taken to a hospital by Vienna emergency services. Investigators secured evidence at the scene. An immediate police search did not locate the suspect.
Police published a photo of the man hours after the attack on the order of the Vienna public prosecutor’s office. A police spokesperson told t-online that the early release followed consultation between the state criminal office and prosecutors “in order to achieve the arrest of the fugitive suspect as quickly as possible as an additional investigative measure.”
By Wednesday morning, “several quite concrete tips” had already reached investigators, police spokesman Philipp Haßlinger told Die Presse and ORF. “The investigations are fully underway,” he said. The tips are being handled by the Vienna State Criminal Police Office’s southern branch.
Police continue to seek witnesses. No name, age or other identifying details of the suspect have been released.
There have been a number of horrifying rapes of elderly women by foreigners in recent years, including a case from last year where an 82-year-old Viennese woman was allegedly raped by her own care nurse, an Afghan national. She has since lost her will to live after the traumatizing experience, according to a lawyer representing the woman in court. The son in the case had to endure watching his mother being raped in realtime on his cellphone after he placed cameras in her apartment.
Three foreigners were placed under arrest for killing a goat in the Polish city of Wałbrzych. However, Polish prosecutors now want to drop the case.
The incident occurred in late 2025 outside a restaurant in Wałbrzych that was closed for renovation and not operating, authorities said. A witness called police, who arrived and detained the men, two citizens of Bangladesh and one of India, at the scene.
Chief Inspector Marcin Świeży of the District Police Headquarters in Wałbrzych said the men told officers that such behavior is normal in their countries and they did not know it is prohibited in Poland.
The goat was intended as a meal for two of the men, according to Do Rzeczy. The Indian citizen said he is a vegetarian and pleaded not guilty.
In Poland, goats and other livestock may be killed for food only under rules that implement EU animal-welfare law, chiefly Council Regulation No. 1099/2009 on the protection of animals at the time of killing. The core requirement is that the animal be spared avoidable pain, distress, or suffering.
Unlike in many Third World countries where animals are slaughtered on the streets, often in extreme pain and fear, in the EU, the animal must remain unconscious until death. Bleeding must then be performed promptly and effectively. Slaughter outside a registered slaughterhouse is tightly restricted, and home or backyard killing for personal consumption is generally not permitted except in narrow, authorized circumstances, for example, certain emergency or remote situations under veterinary supervision.
Despite the clear violation of law, the District Prosecutor’s Office in Wałbrzych filed a motion seeking conditional discontinuance of the proceedings against all three foreigners. Prosecutor Mariusz Pindera said the outcome depends in part on the court’s assessment of the degree of “social harmfulness” of the act.
“If the court finds that it was not significant, it may grant the prosecutor’s request,” he said.
The court confirmed it received the application but has not yet considered it, in part because of a judge’s illness. No hearing date has been set, and no substantive decision has been issued regarding the men.
A one-year-old baby was hospitalized with tinnitus on Tuesday morning after a firework mortar exploded at stroller height next to the baby’s ear during a high-school blockade in Saint-Cyr-l’École, west of Paris.
The heinous attack unfolded around 9 a.m. near the Lycée Mansart. According to RMC which cited police sources, the infant suffered acoustic damage after the mortar blast and was taken to hospital with a non-life-threatening prognosis.
According to Le Figaro, a couple was leaving home with their infant in a stroller when a mortar was fired low to the ground toward them. The father shouted at the youths facing him, “You’re crazy, there’s a one-year-old baby!”
BREAKING: A French physics teacher was doused with gasoline today (Oct. 2) while trying to put out a fire students had lit near a tree in La Ciotat.
The teacher was reportedly temporarily blinded, according to French news reports, when the gasoline was thrown into his eyes.
Youths then began kicking the physics teacher.
The main suspect was reportedly arrested.
Yesterday in Marseille, youths are being investigated for attempted murder after dousing a principal and a vice-principal with gasoline during an attempted arson outside a high school administrative office.
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Police sources told the paper the group numbered about ten, all masked, and included two girls – one wearing a white scarf and another in a green top. The girl in green is believed to have lit the device; she fled in the opposite direction while the mortar was still active on the ground. The infant suffered tinnitus from the blast noise and, on initial assessment, no other injuries. Firefighters took the child to hospital; the life-threatening prognosis was not engaged.
Witnesses described a chaotic scene. One resident, having breakfast on her balcony, heard loud bangs, went down, and saw the mother caught between the fireworks with the baby crying heavily.
BREAKING: Rioters set fire to the entrance of Vauquelin High School in Paris and blocked the exits when staff tried to put the fire out.
A film crew recorded the terrifying attempted murder.
“The school staff was unable to put out the fire. The rioters blocked them just as the extinguisher nozzle came out; they blocked the exit.”
“The fire continues. You see all the silhouettes moving behind it; they continue to feed this fire, making it stronger and stronger. The school staff is not even going to try to put it out anymore; they can’t manage it. We can hear the principal here asking the hundred confined students to step back and move up to the first floor.”
The building was full of staff, students, and journalists, but these rioters appear ready to kill anyone still inside the vocational chemistry school.
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The suspect was identified from video filmed by another youth at the scene, pursued into a crowd, and arrested, according to reports. French media puts her age at 16 and says she is in custody for “violence with use or threat of a weapon resulting in incapacity not exceeding eight days.” Versailles prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation into the incident.
Officers found a balaclava and physiological saline among the suspect’s belongings.
Sonia Brau, the UDI mayor of Saint-Cyr-l’École, told Le Parisien the trajectory of the firework made the danger unmistakable: “This mortar was aimed right at ground level. So at stroller height! Can you imagine? Someone could also have taken it in the ankles.”
She added that the city faces what she called repeated riots and that officers regularly seize mortars and other explosive devices around schools.
BREAKING: Nelson Mandela High School is currently on fire in the French city of Nantes.
Schools across France are being set on fire as student protests and blockades rage on.
This story is developing.
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The incident occurred in the context of massive riots, largely driven by multicultural Arab and Black youths along with far-left agitators, that started in late September over staffing, class sizes, and building conditions and has repeatedly turned violent.
JUST IN: A school principal was struck directly in the face by a firework mortar during ongoing violent student blockades in France.
The incident happened at Blaise Pascal High School in Rouen.
Later, the entire entrance of the school was set on fire.
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An Indian man who described himself as “masculinist,” “neo-Nazi” and “excited by blood and violence,” went on trial Monday behind closed doors at the Paris Assize Court, accused of leading a Discord group that blackmailed dozens of teenage girls into filming their own sexual abuse and self-mutilation, including carving swastikas into their skin.
Rohan Rane, 29, originally from Pune, arrived in France in 2017 on a residence permit to study at SKEMA Business School in Antibes. Investigators say he later cut off ordinary social ties and described himself as “a psychopath devoid of all emotion,” the newspaper reported.
Rane faces life imprisonment if convicted of sexual extortion, torture and acts of barbarity, corruption of minors and related offenses committed as part of an organized group. The trial is scheduled to run through Friday. Prosecutors say the acts occurred between 2019 and 2021.
Investigators identified 13 victims in the United States, England and the Netherlands, aged 12 to 18 at the time, according to news outlet franceinfo. Le Monde reported that the case against Rane alone involved about 20 victims, mostly American or British. Some were 12, 14 or 15.
Videos recovered by investigators show girls scarring themselves live on camera under orders from Rane and other men in an online community on Discord, the messaging platform. From his room in Antibes, he pressed them to engrave his first name and swastikas on their skin with razor blades. Some went further and penetrated themselves with knives.
Rane administered a Discord server called CVLT, “cult” in English, whose members, drawn from several countries, promoted neo-Nazi and nihilist ideas and referred to victims as “slaves,” Le Monde reported that U.S. authorities have said the network treated neo-Nazism, nihilism and child sexual abuse as core principles. The investigation began after the FBI was alerted to images of a 12-year-old girl whose torso bore the name “Rohan.”
“My goal is to create an inexhaustible reserve of slaves to satisfy my sadism,” he wrote in an August 2020 post. He has also said he has been fascinated since adolescence by “the Aryan brotherhood and fascism,” that he is “excited by blood and violence,” and that “Western feminists all have a rape fantasy.”
Prosecutors allege he forced girls under his influence to cut themselves, insert blunt objects into their genitals, eat their own feces, and attempt suicide, and that he used threats to enforce the orders.
Hippolyte Marquetty, a lawyer for six American victims and for the child-protection group Ecpat, which has joined the case as a civil party, said: “For some, it starts with a meeting, then they talk, and little by little they may be led to take photos of themselves, sometimes naked, to give information about their family, where they live.”
She further stated: “With this data, the relationship transformed, and he threatened to broadcast images of them to their entire community. There is such psychological pressure that they cannot get out of this system. If the FBI had not heard of this affair, some might have been pushed to commit suicide.”
At a hearing in March 2025, Rane said he was “guilty” and declared, “I take responsibility for everything.”
He has also acknowledged his masculinist and fascist ideology. Investigators found a written guide explaining how to manipulate young girls into slaves. He initially described some of the exchanges as consensual role-play before expressing regret, RFI reported. His lawyer, Irina Kratz, has contested the addition of a charge that exposes him to a life sentence.
The victims, now in their twenties, have experienced different levels of recovery.
Marquetty said. “We still have to imagine that some people don’t even know the face of their attacker, they have never seen him.”
Several are expected to testify by videoconference. One plans to appear in person because she needs “to come and express the suffering she suffered, and to “look straight in the eye and say, ‘this is what you did to me, I want you to realize it,’” the lawyer told franceinfo.
The women also hope their testimony will warn others about online violence of this nature.
Lawyers for several victims had asked that the hearing be public. The Paris Assize Court ordered a closed session Monday after a request from American authorities. Beyond the planned broadcast of scenes of torture and humiliation that often involved girls under 15, the court said in its ruling that “the criminal group” of which Rane is suspected of having been the leader “has previously sought to intimidate victims and witnesses” and threatened American prosecutors.
German federal police arrested former foreign intelligence chief August Hanning on Tuesday on suspicion of treasonous espionage, obtaining state secrets, attempted treason, and acting as an agent for a foreign service, the Federal Prosecutor’s Office announced.
Officers of the Federal Criminal Police Office took the 80-year-old Hanning and a former aide identified as Manfred D. into custody in the Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen district of Bavaria and the Steinfurt district of North Rhine-Westphalia. Searches were also underway at premises in Berlin, the prosecutor’s office said in a statement. A judge at the Federal Court of Justice was to review the arrest warrants and decide on pretrial detention.
“The accused Hanning is under strong suspicion of espionage constituting treason,” prosecutors said. They allege that in the spring of 2010, about five years after Hanning left the Federal Intelligence Service, or BND, he and Manfred D. agreed that D. would keep supplying him with valuable intelligence “in exchange for remuneration” for use in Hanning’s private consulting work.
Notably, Hanning was not in the pro-Ukraine political establishment within Germany. In 2024, Remix News reported that Hanning accused Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky of being behind the Nord Stream 2 sabotage attack. Ukrainian suspects have since been arrested and extradited for the attack on critical energy infrastructure.
Manfred D. had been Hanning’s bureau chief and later served as chief of staff to several BND presidents from March 2012 until March 2026, giving him access to sensitive material, the office said. Investigators say that through June 2022 he passed Hanning about 2,000 documents, many classified and intended only for internal BND use, including briefings for the regular intelligence meeting of senior security officials at the Chancellery.
“On one occasion, Hanning used classified intelligence… to draft an analysis for an officer of a foreign intelligence service,” prosecutors said. They added that it was not clear whether “the material reached the intended recipient.”
Hanning is also accused of years of close contact with a representative of a second foreign intelligence service, to whom he passed political information partly drawn from the documents. Prosecutors have not named either service.
Manfred D. is suspected of aiding and abetting attempted treason and treasonous espionage. A government spokesman said the government would not comment because the investigation is ongoing, according to Welt newspaper.
The case grew out of a separate Hamburg investigation. In September 2025, state police searched Hanning’s home and offices for evidence tied to businesswoman Christina Block, who is accused of ordering the kidnapping of her two youngest children in a custody dispute in late 2023. Investigators have alleged Hanning was involved in an earlier kidnapping attempt; he has denied wrongdoing in that case. While reviewing seized material, officers found an electronic storage device holding secret BND documents and referred the find to federal prosecutors in May 2026.
Hanning led the BND from December 1998 to November 2005, then served as a state secretary in the Interior Ministry until 2009. He later worked as an entrepreneur and security consultant. The documents now at issue date from long after he left the service. German media, including WDR, reported that the foreign services involved are not believed to be Russian; prosecutors have not confirmed that account.
Italian prosecutors have asked a court to sentence a 19-year-old man of Moroccan origin who holds Italian citizenship to 14 years and eight months in prison, calling him a “sexual predator” in a case involving the rape, beating and robbery of a 54-year-old woman and two earlier attempted sexual assaults.
The request came Monday in an abbreviated trial before a Modena court, according to Il Resto del Carlino. Prosecutor Ilaria Corbelli sought the term due to aggravated sexual violence, injuries and robbery.
The main attack occurred Aug. 19, 2025, on the Vivi Natura path in San Damaso, a district of Modena. Investigators say the defendant, who had no prior record, approached the woman while his face was covered, dragged her into some bushes, bound her, and sexually assaulted her. He also stole her electric bicycle.
After the assault he placed a cord around her neck, she told authorities.
“Now that you’ve seen me, I’ll kill you,” the defendant threatened, according to the victim’s lawyer, Peter Martinelli, who has asked the judge to return the case file so prosecutors can add an attempted murder charge.
Martinelli cited the cord, the pressure on her neck and the injuries.
The same defendant is accused of attempted sexual assaults on Feb. 12 in Castelfranco Emilia and on May 23 near the Sant’Anna lakes, close to the site of the August attack. Police identified him in part through the 54-year-old woman’s description and an identikit she helped produce shortly after the assault.
A court-appointed psychiatric expert, Matilde Forghieri, concluded he was fully capable of understanding and willing his actions at the time. The report also noted a significant cognitive deficit. The defendant has confessed to the offenses, defense lawyer Enrico Fontana said.
“For us this is an excessive and disproportionate sentence,” Fontana said. “We do not dispute our client’s responsibility, which he has confessed. We will ask that he be sentenced to a just penalty provided by law for these facts.”
Fontana said the defendant, who was 19 at the time, attempted suicide in jail and handed over a handwritten letter of apology to the victims and his family.
The 54-year-old woman attended the hearing.
“It is hard to relive that day. I have confidence in the judge’s decision,” she said. She also thanked the mobile police squad led by Mario Paternoster for the investigation that led to the arrest. In comments reported by Gazzetta di Modena, she said, “That man should stay in prison. To women, I say report it; trust the institutions.”
A Spanish court has sentenced a 61-year-old Sudanese man to 14 years in prison for raping a woman with whom he shared a home, after he threatened her with a machete and struck her with an electrical cable.
The third section of the Provincial Court of Valencia ruled that the May 29, 2024, attack was a sexual assault involving penetration, aggravated by the degrading and humiliating nature of the violence used. The court also ordered fines totaling €1,200 for two minor offenses of injury and threats, and it applied a simple mitigating factor of alcohol intoxication because the man’s volitional capacity was slightly impaired.
The assault occurred about 5 p.m. in a Valencia residence while the other two occupants were out, according to the ruling as reported by Las Provincias. The man ordered the woman into his room and forced her to drink several beers while brandishing a machete with a 57-centimeter blade.
“Come drink with me; if you don’t come, look what’s waiting for you,” he told her, the newspaper reported, citing the established facts.
When she tried to leave, he seized her by the hair and placed the blade against her neck, saying, “Now, the jokes are over.”
He tore off her shirt, lowered her pants, failed in an attempt at anal penetration, then raped her vaginally and ejaculated. He then whipped her back and legs with an electrical cable, covered her mouth and nose so her cries would not be heard, and told her he would keep going until he was “in prison or in the grave.”
She fled when he stood to retrieve tobacco, ran down the hallway and called for help. Neighbors who could not understand her language but recognized she was in distress then dialed for police. When National Police officers arrived, they found her half-naked and frantic. She immediately sought their protection.
In the man’s bedroom they recovered the machete, the cable and the woman’s passport, which he had burned.
The court rejected his trial claim that his own calls had brought police to the scene.
The judges found the woman’s account coherent from her first statement and supported by neighbors, officers and medical reports that documented injuries and an acute stress disorder. A forensic doctor testified that the absence of genital wounds did not exclude the reported assault.
Analysis of vaginal samples detected the defendant’s semen, and experts dismissed as implausible his assertion of consensual sex 16 days earlier. The panel also noted irregularities in the collection of the defendant’s DNA after he refused to provide samples following his arrest.
“The complainant’s statement meets the criteria to be considered sufficient incriminating evidence to overcome the presumption of innocence of the accused,” the court said. The judges added that “no relevant contradictions or inconsistencies were noted in her statement that could affect its reliability.”
The woman had been in Spain only a short time, did not speak the language, had little money, and had no family or support network. The court rejected the defense argument that she had reported the crime to obtain a residence permit, citing the objective evidence.
Japan has raised the fee for permanent residency applications twentyfold and imposed stricter income, pension and language requirements on foreigners seeking to settle long-term, as Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s government moves to curb growth in the foreign resident population.
The move is being presented as a tool to protect public finances and social cohesion.
The fee for permanent residency rose from 10,000 yen to 200,000 yen (about $1,270) on Oct. 1, the Immigration Services Agency reported. Charges to change or extend other residence statuses, long fixed at 6,000 yen, now scale with the length of stay and reach 75,000 yen for permits of five years or more. Reduced rates remain available for applicants facing severe hardship who also qualify for humanitarian consideration.
The adjustments arrive after the foreign resident population reached a record 4.12 million at the end of 2025, up 9.5% in a single year. Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has framed the tighter rules as a way to keep acceptance orderly.
“The government acknowledges that some citizens feel anxious or a sense of unfairness due to the rising number of foreign residents,” Takaichi wrote on X. The changes, she said, are meant to “ensure order” and allow “both citizens and foreign nationals to live safely and securely.”
Under the revised guidelines, permanent-residency applicants must show continuous household income at or above the average for Japanese households of similar size — 5.75 million yen (about $36,500) in 2024 official data.
They must also demonstrate projected pension benefits comparable to 30 years of contributions to the employees’ pension system, a shortfall that can be covered by assets. From April 2027, applicants will need Japanese proficiency at the level of an independent user and a working grasp of local social rules.
The standard residence period remains 10 years; marriage-based pathways were lengthened as well.
The approach is straightforward. Settlement becomes available to people who can support themselves, contribute to the pension system, and function in Japanese society, rather than to anyone who simply accumulates years of temporary status.
Extra fee revenue is earmarked in part for language education and for removing people who overstay or break the rules. A related fivefold rise in visa fees took effect in July, the first adjustment since 1978, which Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi described as a correction “to reflect inflation and exchange rate fluctuations.”
Meanwhile, European states face larger and faster inflows of migrants, strained housing and welfare systems, and repeated public backlash over irregular migration and failed integration. Japan’s harder line comes at a time when the country already has far fewer foreigners to deal with, especially from troubled Third World countries.
The radically different approaches to immigration are made clear through sheer numbers. In Germany, the former government cut the standard residency wait from eight years to five on June 27, 2024. The largest practical change is dual citizenship: applicants no longer have to renounce their existing nationality. Since the changes, Germany granted about 292,000 citizenships in 2024 and about 333,000 in 2025.
In Japan, authorities generally approve citizenship after ten years in most cases. On top of more rigorous standards, Japan does not recognize dual nationality for people who naturalize. Approvals are modest — about 11,500 in 2025, and roughly 7,000 to 10,000 a year before that — against a foreign resident population of 4.12 million. Formal applications that are filed are approved more than 90 percent of the time, but many people are screened out before they apply.
European countries that already struggle to enforce returns or to require newcomers to reach median earnings could adopt similar thresholds to dramatically reduce immigration.
Austrian remigration activist and CEO of the Institute for Remigration Martin Sellner stated on Sunday that a rap video circulating on Instagram calls for him to be hunted. He contrasted the clip’s availability online with restrictions he says platforms have placed on the accounts of those on the anti-immigration right.
Sellner posted the roughly 26-second clip on X. In the video, several migrant men stand in a graffiti-marked underpass under colored lights and make a number of threats and statements opposed to Germany
Mystery meat migrant rappers are calling to hunt me.
This song is not censored, while we are deplatformed everywhere.
The only thing more embarrassing than their "rap" is, that their corny radical chic is platformed by all media and indirectly funded by state money.
English text overlaid on the rap video includes, “Martin Sellner is in danger from today,” “We are shootin’ with AKs” and “I am hunting Martin Sellner.”
In addition, the rappers claim that “Germany has no right to exist,”
Other on-screen text refers to streets burning and to bombs “like in Dresden ’45.” Dresden was firebombed by the Allies at the end of the Second World War, resulting in at least 25,000 German civilians losing their lives.
In response to the video, Sellner wrote: “Mystery meat migrant rappers are calling to hunt me. This song is not censored, while we are deplatformed everywhere. The only thing more embarrassing than their ‘rap’ is that their corny radical chic is platformed by all media and indirectly funded by state money.”
German criminal law treats certain public threats as offenses independent of whether they are carried out. Artistic freedom may not serve as a defense in this case when the threats are specific, directed at an individual, and describe violent acts.
Section 241 of the German criminal code related to threats penalizes threatening a person with a crime against sexual self-determination, bodily integrity, personal freedom or property of significant value. The penalty rises if the threatened act is a felony or if the threat is made publicly or by distributing content, with maximum terms reaching three years in the aggravated public cases.
Section 126 penalizes threatening specified serious crimes, including murder, aggravated assault or certain explosives offenses, in a manner capable of disturbing the public peace, with a maximum of three years’ imprisonment.
Austrian law contains a parallel offense of dangerous threat under Section 107 of the Austrian Criminal Code when a person is menaced with death, serious injury or other grave harm in a way that is capable of causing reasonable fear.
In recent years, German public figures and politicians have brought thousands of Germans into court for various statements online that were not direct threats, but instead mere insults. In some cases, these social media users only sharply criticized these politicians.
Sellner, 37, led the Identitarian Movement of Austria for years and has promoted large-scale returns of migrants. Most recently, he founded the Institute for Remigration. Germany and Switzerland have at times imposed entry bans on him tied to public-order concerns. Some of those measures were later limited or overturned by courts.
Masked attackers set fires at the doors of a Paris vocational high school Monday, confining about 100 students and staff inside, as nationwide student protests over school conditions entered another week with thousands already arrested and hundreds reported injured.
At the Nicolas-Louis Vauquelin High School in the 13th arrondissement, Principal Carole Zerbib said a group of about 10 people in hoods, masks and black clothing arrived around 7:50 a.m. as students were arriving. She told BFMTV they looked “very determined, very fast,” and that staff “immediately understood that we were not going to be able to talk with them.”
Zerbib said the group threw full trash bins and other flammable material in front of the entrance, brought a sofa and bicycles to barricade the door, smashed glass with a pair of crutches, and set fires outside using a flammable liquid. A staff member was struck in the face by a shard of glass, BFMTV reported. Firefighters and police were met with mortar fire. Courses were canceled for the day.
A video team from BFMTV recorded flames at the entrance and described staff being blocked as they tried to use an extinguisher, with the principal heard telling confined students to move up to the first floor.
BREAKING: Rioters set fire to the entrance of Vauquelin High School in Paris and blocked the exits when staff tried to put the fire out.
A film crew recorded the terrifying attempted murder.
“The school staff was unable to put out the fire. The rioters blocked them just as the extinguisher nozzle came out; they blocked the exit.”
“The fire continues. You see all the silhouettes moving behind it; they continue to feed this fire, making it stronger and stronger. The school staff is not even going to try to put it out anymore; they can’t manage it. We can hear the principal here asking the hundred confined students to step back and move up to the first floor.”
The building was full of staff, students, and journalists, but these rioters appear ready to kill anyone still inside the vocational chemistry school.
In the video sequence, a BFMTV host stated: “The school staff was unable to put out the fire. The rioters blocked them just as the extinguisher nozzle came out; they blocked the exit.” The staff speaking from inside the building confirmed they were “under siege.”
Principal Carole Zerbib said, “It was terrible for the students and the staff, who witnessed an outburst of violence…I think we had rarely seen violence this strong in front of us.”
She said the attackers “were quite organized and had prepared their move,” and that she had been warned by students and teachers of calls on social media to burn the school. “These aren’t my students. These are groups.”
Junior Interior Minister Jean-Didier Berger, speaking on BFMTV after the fires were put out and the school evacuated, called the images “particularly shocking” and said, “These are criminal acts that fall under the law and must be repressed in the harshest way.”
“Which outlet is that?” she asked. When she was told it was CNews, she said, “Oh no, I had said no.” When the journalist replied that it was the press, she said: “I don’t agree. Because I don’t agree with CNews’s editorial line. I think you don’t do any good. You don’t do any good for young people.”
BREAKING: Another major school arson attack at Blaise Pascal High School in the French city of Rouen.
The entire entrance is currently in flames.
School staff can only stand and watch it burn.
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She had earlier told other reporters that as long as police remained outside, “I tell myself it will be all right,” while adding it was “not impossible that they come back, since they want to strike at the symbols of the state.”
The clash came as Education Minister Édouard Geffray said classes would be fully or partly suspended Monday at 400 to 500 of France’s roughly 3,700 high schools because safety conditions were not met. He said 24 schools had been burned or ransacked since the protests spread from the Paris region in mid-September. Organizers have called a further day of action Tuesday, which student unions have labeled “act III.”
Geffray said Sunday that 78 education staff members had been injured since the unrest began, including “some of them by high schoolers.” In addition, 170 students had been hurt. He said far-left activists had “hijacked” the movement. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez has said more than 5,000 people have been arrested since last Monday, about 85 percent of them minors, and that more than 300 officers and gendarmes have been injured. Police recorded 1,747 arrests on Friday alone, he told TF1.
In Tours, prosecutors said a young protester lost sight in one eye while battling with police.
Students and the Union syndicale lycéenne say they are protesting against reduced teaching staff, overcrowded classes, long schedules, the Parcoursup admissions system and buildings in disrepair. The government has called some of those complaints legitimate while condemning what Nuñez has described as a slide into “riot and urban violence.”
BREAKING: A French physics teacher was doused with gasoline today (Oct. 2) while trying to put out a fire students had lit near a tree in La Ciotat.
The teacher was reportedly temporarily blinded, according to French news reports, when the gasoline was thrown into his eyes.
Youths then began kicking the physics teacher.
The main suspect was reportedly arrested.
Yesterday in Marseille, youths are being investigated for attempted murder after dousing a principal and a vice-principal with gasoline during an attempted arson outside a high school administrative office.
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