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The President of Germany Vielen Dank, Bundespräsident Frank-Walter Steinmeier has arrived Nigeria Wednesday for a one day working visit with the government.

Welcoming President Frank-Walter Steinmeier of Germany to the Presidential Villa on his State Visit to Nigeria, President Ahmed Bola Tinubu GCFR expressed honour to have the august visitor in the country.

The visit is targeted at engaging on bilateral discussions and solidification of business ties between the two countries as 9News Nigeria reports.

However, the business forum that took place during this visit offered a valuable opportunity to further strengthen and expand the critical partnership between Nigeria and Germany while looking towards establishing some future business expansion and development in Nigeria.

President Tinubu gave the German President assurance that Nigeria have a solid foundation based on a rich history of collaboration in important sectors such as energy, agriculture, education, development, technology, and renewables.

Bundespräsident Frank-Walter Steinmeier had a good stay at the state house in Abuja after technical engagement with the Nigerian experts in the bilateral policies of government aimed at giving Nigeria a free hub of economical advancement with the German government.

Recall that Renewed Hope administration under President Ahmed Bola Tinubu is keen on economic recovery and developmental advancement which has endeared him wide policy assimilation with business developed countries and the international organizations to preserve our green economy.

-Princely Onyenwe reporting

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9News Nigeria

The Head of Cooperation, Embassy of Federal Republic of Germany in Nigeria, Christopher Wenzel, has said the German government has identified the need to address growing skill gap in Nigeria, particularly by providing necessary skills to tackle youth unemployment and migration.
Speaking in Abuja at the Skills Development for Youth Employment (SKYE) Stakeholders’ meeting organised by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, Wanzel said the initiative aimed at providing demand-based skills to address youth unemployment and irregular migration crisis.
“We see the potential in Nigerian youth. What we try to do is to make use of that capacity. We want to bring together the demand for work, labour, for service together with supply. We don’t want to train people who don’t find jobs; we want to train them to find descent jobs. We want to meet the demand of the industries,” he said.
With unemployment rate hovering around 18.8 per cent, Wenzel disclosed that the initiative would primarily target the agricultural as well as the construction sector
Country Director, GIZ, Dr. Thomas Kirsch said over €20 million have been invested in the programme already, stressing that the buy-in of the private sector would be required to increase the level of impact that the initiative would create.
Kirsch, who said the growing mismatch between the supply and demand for skills in the labour market remained a key challenge in the country, said the group would train over 50, 000 youths through the programme in the next four years.
According to him, the SKYE project focuses on the acquisition of knowledge and skills for the labour market through Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET), to tackle unemployment and underemployment, root causes of irregular migration and socio-economic degradation in Nigeria.
Vice President, Abuja Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Prof. Adesoji Adesugba, said it is critical for Nigeria to address the skill gaps, adding that there was need to create opportunities for the youth to be engaged.
The Skills Development for Youth Employment (SKYE) project, a four-year project funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), and implemented by GIZ with focus on the acquisition of knowledge and skills for the labour market through TVET, to tackle unemployment and underemployment, root causes of irregular migration and socio-economic degradation in Nigeria.

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9News Nigeria

Nigeria and Germany on Friday in Abuja signed two Memoranda of Understanding (MOU) in agriculture and commerce.The first agreement was signed between the Nigerian Association of Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (NACCIMA) and the German-Africa Business Association.

The First Deputy National President of NACCIMA, Hajiya Saratu Iya-Abubakar, signed on behalf of Nigeria, while Dr Stefan Liebing of German Africa Business Association, signed on behalf of the German business delegation.

The second agreement was signed between the Nigeria Incentive-Based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL) and the PETKUS Technologie GmbH, a company that specialises in post-harvest agricultural value chain.

The Managing Director of NIRSAL, Mr Aliyu Abdulhameed, signed on behalf of Nigeria while the representative of PETKUS Technologie GmbH, Peter Huser, signed for the Germans.

Speaking after signing the MOUs, Nigeria’s Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Mr Okechukwu Enelamah, said the agreements would increase the collaboration between Nigeria and Germany in the two areas.

According to Enelamah, the agreements will also leverage small and medium enterprises in Nigeria.

“We want our SMEs to learn from the German experience.

“The other areas of German excellence is the technical area: technical education, technical training and technical development. It’s also an area of great interest to Nigeria.

“We are also working with Germany in the automobile sector because that is also an area where Germany is a leader and Nigeria clearly has a policy to be a leader in the auto sector in West Africa and Africa.”

The minister said that all these agreements would require high levels of engagement, collaboration and communication to be actualised.

Also speaking, Abdulhameed said the MOU signed between NIRSAL and PETKUS was borne out of the realisation of the available opportunities for investments in the Nigerian agricultural sector under the President Muhammadu Buhari administration.

“Under the current administration and the present agricultural promotion policy of this government, there are ample opportunities for investors in terms of technology and capital, to come to Nigeria and to invest in the agricultural sector.

According to Abdulhameed, NIRSAL provides for the risk environment and mechanisms to enable investors like PETKUS to come to Nigeria and do their business.

He noted that the agreement would go a long way in reducing the 51.3-tonne of aggregate food production, equivalent of about nine billion dollars which the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) report says Nigeria loses annually.”

He expressed his optimism that PETKUS, which specialises in post-harvest segment of the agricultural value chain, would bring its expertise to bear on post-harvest productions in Nigeria.

In his remarks, Huser said the interest of his company was to help small farmers boost their yield.

“We are not talking about big investments. We are talking about smallholder farmers, where we like to help them to boost their yield, to get better yield.
“We are talking about plant production. We are talking about fertilisation.”He expressed the hope that each machine supplied by PETKUS Technologie would provide employment and improve income for five people and their families.

NAN

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9News Nigeria

Turkey has told its citizens visiting or living in Germany to “be careful” and keep their composure against “racist and xenophobic slurs” ahead of the country’s upcoming federal elections.

“It is advised for our citizens in Germany or planning to visit this country to be even-tempered, keep themselves out of political discussions and absent themselves from rallies held by terrorist groups ahead of the elections,” said the Turkish foreign ministry in a statement published on its official website on Saturday.

It also said political leaders in Germany were using anti-Turkey rhetoric in their election campaigns and voiced the aim of blocking Turkey from becoming a member of the European Union.

“The political atmosphere in the aforementioned country is under the influence of far-right and racist propaganda,” said the ministry.

“It is worrying that a chancellor-candidate political leader in Germany has recently made statements including clear racist elements and German officials took no measure about it.”

Almost two weeks before the September 24 general elections, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her centre-left rival Martin Schulz clashed over Turkey policy in a TV debate on Sunday night.

During the televised event, Schulz made a proposal to halt Ankara’s EU membership talks and freeze €4bn ($4.68bn) in pre-accession funds.

Last month, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called on ethnic Turks living in Germany to vote for those who are “not hostile to Turkey” in the elections.

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BRUSSELS  – France and Germany are resisting a plan by U.S. officials for NATO to take a bigger role in the fight against Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, in line with calls from President Donald Trump for the alliance to do more to combat terrorism.

Many alliance members hope the plan will be announced in Brussels next Thursday, when Trump attends his first NATO summit. But France and Germany have misgivings, allies involved in the discussions said.

Among the concerns: NATO might be caught up in another costly, Afghan-style deployment, irk some Arab countries or risk confrontation with Russia in Syria.

“They are not buying it,” said a senior European NATO diplomat, who said some other nations including Greece and Italy were also wary of the plan.

“They want to know what difference would it make. All 28 NATO allies are already part of this effort,” the diplomat said, referring to a 68-nation U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State that includes all NATO members.

French and German officials declined to comment, but German Chancellor Angela Merkel left open the possibility of NATO as an institution joining the coalition when she met NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg last week. Both ruled out any combat role for NATO in Syria and Iraq.

France’s new President Emmanuel Macron will have lunch with Trump – who last month withdrew his earlier charge that NATO was ‘obsolete’ because it was not ‘taking care of terror’ – before the Brussels meeting next Thursday.

While Islamic State is on the verge of defeat in its Iraqi stronghold of Mosul, and bracing for an assault against its de facto capital in Raqqa, Syria, U.S. officials are concerned fleeing militants could leave a vacuum that could prompt Arab tribal fighters to turn on each other to gain control.

U.S. officials say the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation as an institution could contribute equipment, training and the expertise it gained leading a coalition against al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan. NATO military chiefs favour the move, said General Petr Pavel, chairman of the alliance’s military committee.

Diplomats said this could mean NATO using its surveillance planes over Syria, running command-and-control operations and providing air-to-air refuelling.

SYMBOLIC STEP

One compromise would be for NATO as an institution to formally join the coalition at the dinner with Trump next week, but leave the details of any involvement to a later stage.

“If allies can be convinced that it is only a symbolic step, a deal should be possible,” said a second NATO diplomat. “Trump goes home with a message that NATO is joining the coalition and NATO doesn’t have to do anything extra, at least for now.”

A broader hesitancy among European allies stems from the long mission that NATO has undertaken in Afghanistan, taking over the United States’ bid to defeat militants in 2003 after the attacks on New York and Washington two years earlier.

Given Russia’s concerns over NATO expansion in eastern Europe, and its role in Syria as the key military ally of President Bashar al-Assad, some allies also worry that deeper NATO involvement there could be taken by Moscow as a provocation.

But a stronger role in Iraq and Syria could also address concerns expressed by Mediterranean allies, such as Spain, Italy and Portugal, that NATO lacks a strategy for tackling the root causes of the migrant and refugee crisis.

Stoltenberg has talked about NATO’s “untapped potential” in building up armed forces. Options include more NATO training of Iraqi troops and police, as well as strengthening government departments in areas taken back from Islamic State.

“NATO is the only security organisation with the skills and breadth to take on this task,” wrote Hans Binnendijk and David Gompert in a paper for the U.S. think-tank RAND Corporation.

Source – Reuters

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German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said on Friday he would tell the U.S. Treasury Secretary that the world needs the United States’ leadership.

The new administration of President Donald Trump was the focus of comments by finance ministers entering a two-day meeting of the group of seven rich countries in Bari, Italy.

Schaeuble said his message to U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin would be that “we need a strong United States to lead the global economy and global politics on a sustainable way.”

Italian Economy Minister Pier Carlo Padoan said Trump’s plan to slash taxes on businesses was “ambitions” and he would be watching to see how it affected U.S. growth. He added that he was “not worried” about its broader affects on the economy.

Source – Reuters

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German authorities arrested a suspected Islamist on Wednesday in connection with what Chancellor Angela Merkel called a “despicable” attack on a bus carrying players of one of the country’s top soccer teams.

Merkel said she was appalled by Tuesday evening’s incident, in which three explosions went off as the Borussia Dortmund bus made its way to a match. Spanish defender Marc Bartra suffered injuries to his arm and wrist.

The attack forced a 24-hour postponement of the team’s high-profile clash with AS Monaco, which turned out to be a pulsating encounter that the visitors won 3-2.

“I encouraged everyone to take the game seriously but football is not the most important thing in the world,” Borussia Dortmund coach Thomas Tuchel said after the game.

Police stepped up security for the rescheduled match and for a second Champions League quarter-final on Wednesday between Bayern Munich and Real Madrid.

An exit from the Dortmund stadium was briefly closed as police examined suspicious packages, but quickly re-opened.

Ralf Jaeger, interior minister in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia which includes Dortmund, said the investigation was looking “in all directions”, and it was unclear if one or several attackers were involved.

A spokeswoman for the Federal Prosecutor’s Office, which handles probes into suspected terrorism, said the explosive devices had contained strips of metal.

The blasts smashed windows on the bus carrying the players to the stadium. Bartra was operated on for a broken bone in his right wrist and shrapnel in his arm, a team spokesman said.

“We all agree that we are dealing with a despicable act,” Merkel said at a business event in the western town of Allendorf.

“We were all appalled yesterday when we heard about the attack on the bus with the players of BVB in Dortmund,” she added, praising Dortmund fans for offering accommodation to AS Monaco fans after the postponement.

Bartra, 26, joined Dortmund for 8 million euros ($8.5 million) last year from Barcelona, after coming through the Catalan club’s youth system. He has made 12 appearances for the Spanish national team.

European soccer’s governing body, UEFA, said there had been no specific intelligence regarding any threat to any of Wednesday’s Champions League fixtures, which also include a match in Spain between Atletico Madrid and England’s Leicester City.

UEFA “is reviewing the security arrangements for tonight’s matches and security procedures will be enhanced accordingly wherever needed,” it said, asking supporters to allow extra time for the possibility of enhanced checks.

Police in Munich said they were deploying an additional 80 officers and strengthening security around hotels and key routes for the match there.

The blasts revived memories of Islamist militant attacks in Paris in November 2015 whose targets included a stadium where France were playing Germany in a soccer friendly.

Security is among the issues at the heart of Germany’s parliamentary election on Sept. 24, a tight battle in which Merkel is running for a fourth term. In December, a Tunisian man killed 12 people when he ploughed a truck through a Berlin Christmas market.

Source – Reuters

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Germany has deported to Nigeria,  an alleged Islamic extremist, an ISIS suspect,  deemed dangerous by authorities. He is a German citizen, not Nigerian.

The German news agency, dpa reports that the 22-year-old man, who was born in Germany and who hadn’t committed a crime, arrived in Lagos Thursday.

The unidentified  man was one of two detained in February in Goettingen during an investigation of suspected attack plans. His partner is a 27 year-old Algerian. Both of them lived with their parents in Göttingen.

When the two men were picked up, investigators found two weapons, at least one of them a firearm that had been altered to fire live ammunition.

Also found were ammunition, flags of the Islamic State group and a machete.

The man deported to Nigeria is banned from entering Germany for life.

Following attacks by Islamic extremists last year, German authorities vowed to step up deportations of foreigners deemed to be threats.

The two men, according to www.dw.com were arrested after being under  surveillance for some time.

After their arrest, the German  interior ministry  requested their expulsion after classifying them as a threat to national security.

Their deportation has no precedence in German history.

“We are sending a clear warning to all fanatics nationwide that we will not give them a centimeter of space to carry out their despicable plans,” said Lower Saxony’s Interior Minister Boris Pistorius (SPD) following the court ruling authorising the deportation

“They will face the full force of the law regardless of whether they were born here or not,” he added.

In the case of the Algerian, the court made his deportation conditional on assurances from the Algerian government that he would not be tortured or subjected to any inhuman treatment.

Source – DPA

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9News Nigeria

Germany is set to pass a law setting the minimum age for marriage at 18 years to effectively ban child marriages and annul such already contracted.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cabinet agreed on Wednesday to a new draft law to achieve the marriage age.

The law was drawn up by Justice Minister Heiko Maas.

About 1,500 minors with non-German backgrounds living in the country were registered as married at the end of July 2016, according to the Cologne-based Central Register of Foreign Nationals.

Under the new law all marriages of people under the age of 16 will be declared null and void.

The new rules also call on the courts to rescind any marriage when one of the couple was aged between 16 and 18 years at the time of the union.

The government plans to extend the new rules to marriages concluded outside of Germany.

However, the authorities will consider not applying the law in special cases of hardship, such as a severe and life-threatening illness.

9News Nigeria/DPA

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BERLIN  – Germany has no plans to introduce an ‘Islam law’ codifying the rights and obligations of Muslims, a government spokesman said on Monday, dismissing an idea floated by allies of Chancellor Angela Merkel ahead of federal elections in September.

Merkel, who will seek a fourth term in what is expected to be a close-fought ballot, has come under fire for opening Germany’s doors to refugees, more than one million of whom – mostly Muslims – have entered the country over the past two years.

Seeking to boost support for the chancellor’s conservatives, senior Merkel ally Julia Kloeckner stoked the integration debate at the weekend by calling for stricter rules for Islamic preachers and a ban on foreign funding of mosques.

Merkel’s spokesman Steffen Seibert dismissed the idea, which Kloeckner – who is deputy leader of the chancellor’s Christian Democrats (CDU) – and other senior party members want to enshrine in an Islam law.

“Such a law is now not an issue for government business,” Seibert told a news conference, stressing the high regard Merkel’s ruling coalition has for religious freedom in Germany.

While stopping short of calling for an Islam law, Merkel said in her weekly podcast on Saturday that refugees in Germany must respect tolerance, openness and freedom of religion.

The message backed up a less compromising tone on integrating migrants that Merkel set at a CDU party conference in December, when she called for a ban on full-face Muslim veils “wherever legally possible”.

By talking tougher on integration, Merkel is also seeking to reclaim support her party lost last year over her refugee policy to the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which punished the CDU in regional elections in 2016.

The AfD has lost voter support this year, hurt by infighting that has sent its ratings down to around 8 percent from a high of 15.5 percent at the end of 2016.

In the Netherlands, Prime Minister Mark Rutte used a similar tactic to win re-election this year, seizing back the initiative from anti-Islam populist rivals by matching some of their tough rhetoric on immigration.

He told the country’s half-million ethnic Turks that they should integrate and accept Dutch views on freedom of speech or “get lost” after some had been filmed behaving aggressively toward a reporter during a demonstration.

“Our norms and values are all or nothing: you can’t pick and choose,” he said in response to the footage in an interview last September.

Source – Reuters

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BERLIN  – Germany said on Wednesday it has no plans to introduce restrictions on carry-on electronic devices on planes coming from some Muslim-majority countries in the Middle East and North Africa, as the United States and Britain have announced.

A spokesman for the Interior Ministry said the government had been informed about the U.S. measures.

“German airports are not affected by the measures. Comparable rules are not planned in Germany at the moment,” said the spokesman.

Source – Reuters

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BERLIN – German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen on Sunday rejected U.S. President Donald Trump’s claim that Germany owes ATO and the United States “vast sums” of money for defence.

“There is no debt account at NATO,” von der Leyen said in a statement, adding that it was wrong to link the alliance’s target for members to spend 2 percent of their economic output on defence by 2024 solely to NATO.

“Defence spending also goes into UN peacekeeping missions, into our European missions and into our contribution to the fight against IS terrorism,” von der Leyen said.

She said everyone wanted the burden to be shared fairly and for that to happen it was necessary to have a “modern security concept” that included a modern NATO but also a European defence union and investment in the United Nations.

Trump said on Twitter on Saturday – a day after meeting German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Washington – that Germany “owes vast sums of money to NATO & the United States must be paid more for the powerful, and very expensive, defence it provides to Germany!”

Trump has urged Germany and other NATO members to accelerate efforts to meet NATO’s defence spending target.

German defence spending is set to rise by 1.4 billion euros to 38.5 billion euros in 2018 – a figure that is projected to represent 1.26 percent of economic output, Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble has said.

In 2016, Germany’s defence spending ratio stood at 1.18 percent.

During her trip to Washington, Merkel reiterated Germany’s commitment to the 2 percent military spending goal.

Source – Reuters

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9News Nigeria

The world’s most powerful man is about to meet one of its most influential women.

A snowstorm forced the cancellation of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s planned visit to Washington on Tuesday. The forecast for Friday’s meeting is much brighter – meteorologically, at least.

But with the exception of their ability to effect profound change upon the western world, President Donald Trump and Angela Merkel have little in common.

He is flamboyant, impetuous and prone to rhetoric which sets alarm bells ringing in Berlin. She is reserved, pragmatic and lingers over decisions.

He lambasted her open door refugee policy. She opposed his travel ban.

Image copyrightMICHAEL KAPPELER

But the relationship they strike is likely to have lasting consequences for the future of Europe – and beyond.

Down to business

Mrs Merkel, who is said to have been studying Mr Trump’s speeches and even an old interview with Playboy magazine, appears to have concluded that the way to the president’s heart is through business.

She is taking the chief executives of BMW and Siemens and the manufacturer Schaeffer along with her.

Together they are expected to reinforce the mutual benefits of the transatlantic economic relationship. They are expected to emphasise that 810,000 people are directly employed by German companies in the US.

The chancellor and chief executives will need to talk tough. President Trump has already hinted at higher import taxes for countries such as Germany that have a trade surplus over America.

What they said about each other:

• “I think she made one very catastrophic mistake and that was taking all of these illegals. Nobody even knows where they come from. So I think she made a catastrophic mistake, very bad mistake,” Donald Trump, 16 January 2017, The Times
• “I told you @Time Magazine would never pick me as person of the year despite being the big favourite. They picked person who is ruining Germany,” Donald Trump tweet, 9 December 2015
• “Germany and America are bound by their values: democracy, freedom, the respect for the law and the dignity of human beings, independent of their origin, skin colour, religion, gender, sexual orientation or political position. On the basis of these values I offer the future president of the United States, Donald Trump, close co-operation,” Angela Merkel, 9 November 2016

For talks that will last all of two hours there is a lot on the agenda.

Nato, the Middle East and international terror, for a start. Germany’s defence spending is currently 1.23% of GDP, but Mrs Merkel is expected to reassure President Trump of its existing commitment to increase that gradually to Nato’s 2% target.

And there’s a lot to disagree on.

On climate change, German will insist on the importance of cutting greenhouse gas emissions, while Mr Trump’s support for the Paris climate deal is unclear.

Germany is also seeking a unified response to Russia’s actions in eastern Ukraine and a commitment to sanctions if the terms of the Minsk ceasefire agreement are not met.

Image copyrightPA

Expectations in Berlin are not high.

It is unlikely that the Merkel-Trump pairing will replicate the warm and trusting political alliance between the chancellor and President Obama, which survived the revelation that the Americans had listened in to Mrs Merkel’s phone calls.

It is also election year for the chancellor.

Merkel’s ‘instruction mode’

Donald Trump is deeply unpopular among Germans. A recent poll for the national broadcaster found that trust in the US under his administration had fallen to a new low and was on a par with Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

Angela Merkel needs to walk a diplomatic tightrope. She has to build a working relationship with Mr Trump without appearing to sacrifice her own values or disappoint those keen to cast her as the West’s last defender of those democratic ideals.

She has already reminded Mr Trump of his obligation to common values and explained the Geneva Conventions to him.

Mrs Merkel has made it clear that she is still in instruction mode, stating her intention to explain to Mr Trump “that for us nationality and membership of the EU are two sides of the same coin”.

Theresa May aside, Mrs Merkel is the first EU leader to meet with America’s new president, who supports the UK’s decision to leave the union. She will be keen to emphasise the importance she attaches to holding the fragile European project together.

This may be billed as a getting-to-know-you visit, and as Angela Merkel put it: “It’s better to talk with than about someone.”

But governments around the world will be watching closely for clues as to how America’s relationship with Germany and with Europe is likely to evolve. And what that means for the wider world.

Source – BBC

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The expected meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and German Chancellor Angela Merkel scheduled for Tuesday has been cancelled due to the looming massive winter storm in parts of U.S.

The meeting between the two leaders have now been postponed to Friday, the White House said on Monday.

A late winter storm packing snow, ice and strong winds is expected to affect travel on Monday in the north-eastern U.S, according to National Weather Service.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said the planned Oval Office sit-down, scheduled for Tuesday, “was postponed until Friday due to a looming winter storm in Washington”.

The meeting was to be the first between the two leaders since Trump was elected in November.

Their itinerary was set to include discussions on NATO, ISIS, trade, the Ukraine conflict, a news conference, and a working lunch.

The same itinerary will occur on Friday, the rescheduled day, according to Spicer.

Trump’s meeting with Merkel is seen as the most important meeting with a foreign leader since he took office in January.

The storm in Washington is expected to begin on Monday night and continue into Tuesday, the first major snowfall of the year, according to forecasts.

The National Weather Service forecast a winter storm warning for all six states comprising New England, all of New York and New Jersey and parts of Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware.

Major U.S. cities including Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia and Boston were included in the warning.

“Cold air is pushing into the region from Canada, causing temperatures several degrees below normal for mid-March.

“The so-called nor’easter will bring very heavy snow, ice, strong winds and dangerous travel conditions to the area,” the weather service said.

It said between 30 centimetres and 45 centimetres of snow could fall in the most heavily affected area, which the weather service said stretched from south-eastern Pennsylvania into southern New England.

“Strong winds could down trees and cause power outages,” the weather service said.

About 4,000 flights scheduled for Tuesday have already had been cancelled by most airlines while passengers who preferred refunds were refunded.

Source – NAN

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9News Nigeria

BERLIN – She is controlled and cautious, a physicist from East Germany who takes her time making decisions and has never relished the attention that comes from being Europe’s most powerful leader.

He is a wealthy real estate magnate from New York who shoots from the hip and enjoys the spotlight.

It is hard to imagine two leaders more different, in style or substance, than Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, and Donald Trump, the new president of the United States.

For months, they have been engaged in an uneasy long-distance skirmish over policy and values.

On Tuesday, they meet for the first time – a high-stakes encounter that will be watched by governments around the world for clues about the future of the transatlantic alliance, a partnership that has helped shape the global order since World War Two but which Trump is threatening to upend.

“Do I think they are going to become good friends? Probably not. They are very different personalities,” said Charles Kupchan, who advised Trump’s predecessor Barack Obama on European policy as a member of the National Security Council.

“But I do think they have a strong interest, both politically and strategically, in learning how to work together. It is arguably the most important meeting with a foreign leader of Trump’s presidency.”

German officials say the detail-oriented Merkel, 62, has been preparing assiduously for her trip to Washington.   Continued…

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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has warned the Netherlands it will “pay the price” for harming ties after two of his ministers were barred.

Mr Erdogan said: “We will teach them international diplomacy.”

The two ministers were blocked from addressing Turkish expatriates in Rotterdam on Saturday, with one of them escorted to the German border.

The Dutch government said such rallies would stoke tensions days before the Netherlands’ general election.

The ministers were seeking support among expatriate voters for a referendum on expanding Turkish presidential powers.

Fatma Betul Sayan Kaya, Turkey’s family minister, had arrived by road on Saturday but was denied entry to the consulate in Rotterdam and was taken to the German border by Dutch police.

Image copyrightREUTERS

Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu tried to fly in but was refused entry.

Water cannon and riot police on horseback were deployed to disperse about 1,000 people protesting outside the Turkish consulate in Rotterdam overnight.

‘Capital of fascism’

Turkey’s relations with several EU countries are in the spotlight ahead of the referendum:

• Mr Cavusoglu called the Netherlands the “capital of fascism” after he was refused entry
• Mr Erdogan accused Germany of “Nazi practices” after similar rallies were cancelled – words Chancellor Angela Merkel described as “unacceptable”
• Denmark’s Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen has proposed postponing a planned meeting with Turkey’s prime minister, saying he is “very concerned at current developments in Turkey, where democratic principles are under great pressure”
• Local French officials have allowed a Turkish rally in Metz, saying it does not pose a public order threat – while France’s foreign ministry has urged Turkey to avoid provocations

Mr Erdogan focused his rhetoric on the Netherlands on Sunday, accusing the Dutch of “sacrificing Turkish-Dutch relations for the sake of the elections on Wednesday”.

Threatening to travel to rallies abroad himself, he added: “The West has clearly shown its true face in the last couple of days. What we have seen… is a clear manifestations of Islamophobia.

“I have said that I had thought that Nazism was over, but that I was wrong. Nazism is alive in the West,” he said.

But he thanked France for allowing Mr Cavusoglu to travel to the northern city of Metz to address the rally there on Sunday, saying: “France was not deceived by such games.

At a protest outside the Dutch consulate in Istanbul, the Dutch flag was briefly replaced with a Turkish one, which was later removed.

The Netherlands’ foreign ministry responded by saying that the Turkish authorities were responsible for the safety of Dutch diplomats in Turkey.

‘Unacceptable blackmail’

Dutch PM Mark Rutte said Mr Erdogan’s comment on Saturday that the Dutch were “Nazi remnants and fascists” was “unacceptable”.

The Dutch government is facing a severe electoral challenge from the anti-Islam party of Geert Wilders in its election on Wednesday.

Image copyrightEPA

Reports say the owner of a venue in the Swedish capital, Stockholm, has also cancelled a pro-Erdogan rally on Sunday that was to have been attended by Turkey’s agriculture minister.

Sweden’s foreign ministry said it was not involved in the decision and that the event could take place elsewhere.

What is the row about?

Turkey is holding a referendum on 16 April on whether to turn from a parliamentary to a presidential republic, more akin to the United States.

If successful, it would give sweeping new powers to the president, allowing him or her to appoint ministers, prepare the budget, choose the majority of senior judges and enact certain laws by decree.

Image copyrightAFP

What’s more, the president alone would be able to announce a state of emergency and dismiss parliament.

In order to get it passed, Mr Erdogan needs the votes of citizens living within Turkey and abroad.

There are 5.5 million Turks living outside the country, with 1.4 million eligible voters in Germany alone – and the Yes campaign is keen to get them on side.

So a number of rallies have been planned for countries with large numbers of expat voters, including Germany, Austria and the Netherlands.

However, Mr Erdogan’s supporters have found themselves blocked from holding these rallies.

Why are countries trying to prevent the rallies?

Many of the countries, including Germany, have cited security concerns as the official reason.

Image copyrightAFP

Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz said Mr Erdogan was not welcome to hold rallies as this could increase friction and hinder integration.

Many European nations have also expressed deep disquiet about Turkey’s response to the July coup attempt and the country’s perceived slide towards authoritarianism under President Erdogan.

Germany in particular has been critical of the mass arrests and purges that followed – with nearly 100,000 civil servants removed from their posts.

Source – Reuters

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Germany – German police sealed off and closed a shopping mall in the heart of the western city of Essen on Saturday after the security services warned of a possible terrorist attack.

Germany is on high alert following deadly militant Islamist attacks in France and Belgium and after a failed asylum seeker from Tunisia drove a truck into a Berlin Christmas market in December, killing 12 people.

“Yesterday, we received very serious indications from security sources that a possible attack was planned here for today and would be carried out,” a spokesman for Essen police told Reuters Television. “That is why we were forced to take these measures.”

Earlier, a police spokesman told a German broadcaster they believed the Limbecker Platz shopping centre was under threat of a possible terrorist attack.

Armed police and vans surrounded the shopping centre, one of the biggest in Germany with more than 200 retail outlets, but roads nearby were open to traffic.

In the afternoon, police said they had searched an apartment in the nearby town of Oberhausen and the owner was being questioned. Police later said they had detained another man in an internet cafe in the same town for questioning.

The police gave no further details apart from saying the investigations in Oberhausen were linked to the Essen operation.

Essen, in the industrial Ruhr region, has nearly 600,000 inhabitants.

Source – Reuters

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DUESSELDORF, Germany – German police said they had detained a man who attacked five people at Duesseldorf central train station with an axe on Thursday.

A police spokesman said the suspected assailant had been taken into custody. One of those attacked was seriously injured. The spokesman said police were investigating whether more attackers had been involved but had no indication of that.

“We are not using the words ‘rampage’ or ‘terror’,” the spokesman said. He added there was no serious threat of further attacks. The rail station remained shut down, he added.

Source – Reuters

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BERLIN – Bayern Munich midfielder Xabi Alonso announced on Thursday he would retire at the end of the season, putting an end to a long and trophy-laden career that includes every major title for club and country.

“It was no easy decision,” the 35-year-old, who also played at Liverpool and Real Madrid, told Bayern Munich television.

“But it was the right moment. I always wanted to end my career earlier rather than too late. I still feel good so I think this is the right time.”

The Spaniard started his career at Basque club Real Sociedad before moving to Liverpool in 2004 and establishing himself as a crowd favourite after scoring a 3-3 equaliser against AC Milan in the 2005 Champions League final.

Liverpool had battled back from 3-0 down and eventually won on penalties in one of the most spectacular comebacks in top-level football.

Alonso earned even more trophies at Real following a 2009 move, including another Champions League title to add to the Spanish League crown and two Spanish Cups.

Known for his passing game, vision and powerful shot as much as for his work ethic, Alonso became one of the most versatile midfielders of his generation, also winning the World Cup and two European Championships with the Spanish national side.

“I really lived it all. At Real Sociedad, Liverpool, Real Madrid or Bayern Munich,” said Alonso, who joined the German champions in 2014 and has added two Bundesliga titles and a German Cup to his collection.

“Then there is also the national team. I never thought I would have such a great career and I hope there are still some more things to be added to those.”   Continued…

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ISTANBUL/BERLIN – Tayyip Erdogan’s portrayal of a Germany mired in its Nazi past was calculated to infuriate Berlin while swaying Turks at home and abroad to vote “yes” to sweeping new presidential powers he seeks.

Erdogan certainly achieved the first aim, with one German politician dubbing him the “despot on the Bosphorus” and Chancellor Angela Merkel declaring that the remarks only trivialised Nazi crimes against humanity.

“With his foolish and absurd Nazi comparison, Erdogan has left the realm of rational discussion,” Juergen Hardt, a lawmaker from Merkel’s conservative CDU party, said of Erdogan.

“While Germany sticks to democratic standards…President Erdogan is trying to disempower the Turkish parliament through a constitutional change.”

Erdogan’s fury was triggered by decisions to cancel planned rallies in support of his referendum in several German towns.

Events have so far been cancelled in the cities of Gaggenau, Cologne and Frechen, with local authorities or venue operators citing concerns about safety or the size of the crowd. Turkish officials said a fourth event in the town of Kelsterbach was cancelled on Monday.

Merkel has said her federal government played no part in the decisions. Government spokesman Steffen Seibert said Germany would allow Turkish politicians to speak, as long as they were open about their intentions, announced them in a timely manner and did not import Turkish conflicts to Germany.

The faithful at Erdogan’s Istanbul rally registered their support for Erdogan’s blustering speech with familiar chants of “Stand up straight! Don’t bow down! The nation is with you!”   Continued…

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BERLIN (Reuters) – Chancellor Angela Merkel has invited executives from some of Germany’s biggest listed companies to attend a summit next month where she will urge them to hire more refugees, the newspaper Bild reported on Saturday.

More than one million migrants flooded into Germany last year, and the government wants to get as many as possible into the job market, which would reduce their dependence on the state and compensate for labour shortages as the workforce ages.

Merkel will push reluctant German companies to offer more traineeships and position to refugees, Bild reported. Large companies have been criticized for doing little to help integrate the refugees into the thriving job market.

Companies say most of the new arrivals lack the German language skills and the education required for a job.

Engineering giant Siemens (SIEGn.DE: Quote), chemicals group Evonik (EVKn.DE: Quote), carmakers Opel(GM.N: Quote) and VW(VOWG_p.DE:Quote) and utility RWE(RWEG.DE: Quote) will share with Merkel the results of pilot projects with refugees, Bild said.

Merkel’s office declined to confirm Bild’s report, which said the meeting at the chancellery will take place Sept. 14.

The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported a month ago that the 30 biggest DAX-listed companies had until June employed only 54 refugees, including 50 who were hired by logistics provider Deutsche Post DPWG.DE.

Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel last month urged large companies to do more for refugees, saying their efforts pale in comparison to the Mittelstand, the small and medium-size companies considered the backbone of Europe’s biggest economy.

More than 1.1 million migrants arrived in Germany last year, mostly refugees fleeing conflicts in Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq.

(Reporting by Holger Hansen; Writing by Joseph Nasr; Editing by Larry King)

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Germans with dual nationality will lose their German citizenship if they fight for militant Islamist groups abroad under new anti-terror proposals.

Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere also announced plans to speed up the deportation of foreign criminals.

He announced extra personnel, equipment and surveillance powers for the police.

But he rejected banning the public wearing of the burka (the Islamic full veil). And he resisted pressure to ease medical confidentiality.

Some of his conservative Christian Democrat (CDU) colleagues have urged a burka ban but Mr de Maiziere said it would be “problematic” and “you cannot ban everything that you reject”.

Mr de Maiziere was responding to recent attacks linked to militant Islamists. Two terror attacks by Islamist migrants shocked Germany last month – in Wuerzburg and Ansbach.

Citizenship debate

“I propose that German citizens who are fighting with terror militias in other countries, and take part in combat operations there, if they have a second nationality – and only then – they would lose German citizenship,” he told a news conference.

There was a move in France recently to deprive jihadists of their French citizenship, but it did not get through parliament.

German media report that the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) – the CDU’s coalition partners – strongly oppose any general ban on dual citizenship. The Greens are also against the idea.

Image copyrightREUTERS

“My proposals are limited to the points that can lead to more security rapidly,” Mr de Maiziere said.

One of the new measures is to make “promoting terrorism” a criminal offence.

On deportation, Mr de Maiziere said there would be no tolerance of foreign offenders who used false identities in order to stay in Germany.

Key election issue – the BBC’s Jenny Hill in Berlin writes:

Germany hasn’t experienced a major coordinated terror attack on the scale of Paris or Brussels – yet.

A senior intelligence source has told the BBC that his agents are investigating hundreds of reports that Islamic State (IS) has sent so-called hit squads into the country, disguised as refugees, and that the risk of such an attack is very high.

Political reaction to that threat will dominate campaigning ahead of next year’s general election. Already it has ignited a fierce debate, which extends well beyond domestic security.

Some of Mr de Maiziere’s fellow conservatives – who are losing votes to right-wing populists – want him to ban burkas and outlaw dual citizenship altogether.

Why is doctors’ confidentiality an issue?

The duty of doctors to respect patient confidentiality is enshrined in the German constitution. And German privacy laws are very strict.

But Mr de Maiziere said he would meet senior doctors to discuss how they could more easily tip off police when they suspected a patient was a terror risk.

In three major cases the perpetrators were found to have been mentally unstable:

• The Ansbach bomber who killed himself and wounded 15 others at a music festival last month
• The gunman who killed nine people in a Munich shopping mall – also last month
• The Germanwings pilot who deliberately crashed an airliner in the French Alps in 2015

German doctors who breach patient confidentiality can face up to a year in prison or be forced to pay a fine.

Frank Ulrich Montgomery, the head of the German Medical Association, said: “Patient confidentiality protects patients’ privacy and is a basic right under the constitution.”

Image copyrightREUTERS

What is going on in Germany?

German press concern at spate of violence

What drives individuals to commit mass killings?

How will surveillance be improved?

Image copyrightAFP

Mr de Maiziere is expected to attract broad support for creating 4,600 new national security jobs, including 3,250 more police, and for improving police equipment.

Germany is also likely to introduce more video surveillance in urban areas, a special police cyber defence unit and powers to investigate suspects as young as 14.

There will be a big push to intercept terror networks that use the “darknet” to plan attacks or obtain weapons, the minister said. It is an area of cyberspace invisible to ordinary internet users.

– BBC

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