Human Rights

16 Mar 2019; DW: Munich police announced Friday they are investigating 13 officers for internal and legal violations, including the sharing of objectionable content over social messaging services.

The Munich investigation follows prior revelations of right-wing extremist activity among German police forces and members of the military.

A chance discovery

16 Mar 2019; DW: Australia's government plans to censure a far-right senator who claimed Muslim immigration was to blame for the New Zealand mosque attacks. The Islamophobic comments also caught the attention of a teenager with an egg.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced Saturday that the government would censure Senator Fraser Anning over his "appalling" comments about the mosque shootings in southern New Zealand.

New Delhi, Mar 15 (PTI) AAP workers led by Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, sat on a protest outside the Election Commission on Friday, alleging "politically motivated and illegal" raids were being conducted on a call centre hired by the party to make people aware that their names had been deleted from voters' lists.

After sitting for over three hours outside the Election Commission in protest, Sisodia and Lok Sabha candidates Atishi and Raghav Chadha were called by the Election Commission to hold a joint meeting with police officials.

The unprecedented terrorist attacks on two mosques in Christchurch, a coastal city of around 400,000 people on New Zealand's South Island, in which at least 49 people died, have left a peaceful nation reeling.

New Zealanders have been leaving tributes to the victims of Friday's terrorist attacks near the Christchurch Botanical gardens, close to the Al Noor mosque.

Some have left flowers, while other have written on the pavement in colored chalk.

Senator Fraser Anning from Queensland, Australia, has caused widespread outrage after releasing a statement on the New Zealand Mosques killings that resulted 49 deaths so far.

Anning’s statement has been slammed as “disgusting”, “reprehensible”, and an attempt at “blaming the victims”. Another Australian politician, Martin Pakula, slammed Fraser Anning as “human garbage”.

14 Mar 2019; DW: International donors are on track to raise close to €6.2 billion ($7 billion) in aid for Syria and those fleeing the eight-year conflict in 2019, exceeding expectations, according to the United Nations.

More than half of that money is earmarked for refugees languishing in neighboring countries while the conflict continues and Europe remains divided on contributing to reconstruction.

Pledges beat expectations

14 Mar 2019; DW: The human rights situation in China has "never been better," China's Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang told reporters in Beijing on Thursday, a day after the US issued a report criticizing human rights violations in the Asian country.

"We hope the US will remove the colored lenses and discard the Cold War mentality," Lu said, adding that he hoped Washington would "stop interfering in China's internal affairs with human rights as a pretext."

Caracas, Mar 15; AFP: Venezuelans resumed work after a week-long hiatus forced by an unprecedented nationwide blackout, but President Nicolas Maduro's government faced fresh problems including a "terrorist attack" on an oil facility.

Three storage tanks at the Petro San Felix heavy oil processing plant in eastern Venezuela caught fire late Wednesday, Oil Minister Manuel Quevedo told state television. There were no reports of casualties.

Two mosques have been attacked by terrorists in Christchurch during Friday prayers, at around 1.40 p.m. local time, causing multiple fatalities.

Witnesses said one gunman was "white, aged in his 30s or 40s and wearing a uniform.

"I saw people jumping over the back fence of the mosque into Oakward Close. I heard at least 20 (gunshots)." Said another witness.

BEIJING, March 14 (Xinhua) -- China on Thursday published a report on human rights situation in the United States.

The report, titled "Human Rights Record of the United States in 2018," was released by the Information Office of the State Council in response to the 2018 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices issued by the U.S. State Department on March 13, local time.