China Condemns German Navy's Transit of Taiwan Strait

FILED - 06 September 2024, South Korea, Incheon: The German frigate "Baden-Wuerttemberg" is moored in the port of Incheon. Photo: Fabian Kretschmer/dpa
FILED - 06 September 2024, South Korea, Incheon: The German frigate "Baden-Wuerttemberg" is moored in the port of Incheon. Photo: Fabian Kretschmer/dpa
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China Condemns German Navy's Transit of Taiwan Strait

FILED - 06 September 2024, South Korea, Incheon: The German frigate "Baden-Wuerttemberg" is moored in the port of Incheon. Photo: Fabian Kretschmer/dpa
FILED - 06 September 2024, South Korea, Incheon: The German frigate "Baden-Wuerttemberg" is moored in the port of Incheon. Photo: Fabian Kretschmer/dpa

China's military on Saturday condemned the transit of two German navy ships through the Taiwan Strait saying it increased security risks and sent the "wrong" signal, adding that Chinese forces monitored and warned the vessels.
China, which claims democratically governed Taiwan as its own, says it alone exercises sovereignty and jurisdiction over the strait. Both the United States and Taiwan say the strait - a major trade route through which about half of global container ships pass - is an international waterway.
The People's Liberation Army's Eastern Theater Command said the passage of the two ships - a frigate and a supply vessel - was "public hyping,” and that its navy and air forces monitored and warned them throughout.
"The German side's behavior increases security risks and sends the wrong signal. Troops in the theatre are on high alert at all times and will resolutely counter all threats and provocations," Reuters quoted it as saying in a statement.
China's embassy in Germany said in a separate statement it had lodged "representations" with Berlin, saying Taiwan belonged to China, a position the democratically elected government in Taipei strongly rejects.
"The question of Taiwan is not a matter of 'freedom of navigation,’ but of China's sovereignty and territorial integrity," it said.
The Taiwan Strait is Chinese waters "and there are no so-called 'international waters' at all,” the embassy added.
China urges Germany to avoid any "interference" that would jeopardize the healthy and stable development of bilateral relations, it added.
Taiwan's government says only the island's people can decide their future.
US warships sail through the strait around once every two months, drawing the ire of Beijing, and some US allies like Canada and Britain have also made occasional transits.
China, which has never renounced the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control, has over the past five years stepped up military activities around the island, including staging war games.
On Saturday, Taiwan's coast guard said it had again sent ships to monitor and warn away four Chinese maritime police vessels sailing in restricted waters near the Taiwan-controlled Kinmen islands, which sit right next to China's coast.
The Chinese ships have continued to provoke and damage peace in the strait, and the coast guard is determined to defend Taiwan's sovereignty upholding the principles of no provocation, no conflict and no show of weakness, it said.



German Police Say 4 Women and a Boy Were Killed in the Christmas Market Attack

Tributes to the victims are seen outside the Johanniskirche (Johannes Church), a makeshift memorial near the site of a car-ramming attack on a Christmas market in Magdeburg, eastern Germany, on December 22, 2024. (AFP)
Tributes to the victims are seen outside the Johanniskirche (Johannes Church), a makeshift memorial near the site of a car-ramming attack on a Christmas market in Magdeburg, eastern Germany, on December 22, 2024. (AFP)
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German Police Say 4 Women and a Boy Were Killed in the Christmas Market Attack

Tributes to the victims are seen outside the Johanniskirche (Johannes Church), a makeshift memorial near the site of a car-ramming attack on a Christmas market in Magdeburg, eastern Germany, on December 22, 2024. (AFP)
Tributes to the victims are seen outside the Johanniskirche (Johannes Church), a makeshift memorial near the site of a car-ramming attack on a Christmas market in Magdeburg, eastern Germany, on December 22, 2024. (AFP)

More details emerged Sunday about those killed when a man drove a car at speed through a Christmas market in Germany, while mourners continued to place flowers and other tributes at the site of the attack.

Police in Magdeburg, the central city where the attack took place on Friday evening, said that the victims were four women ranging in age from 45 to 75, as well as a 9-year-old boy they had spoken of a day earlier.

Authorities said 200 people were injured, including 41 in serious condition. They were being treated in multiple hospitals in Magdeburg, which is about 130 kilometers (80 miles) west of Berlin, and beyond.

Authorities have identified the suspect in the Magdeburg attack as a Saudi doctor who arrived in Germany in 2006 and had received permanent residency.

The suspect was on Saturday evening brought before a judge, who behind closed doors ordered that he be kept in custody pending a possible indictment.

Police haven’t publicly named the suspect, but several German news outlets identified him as Taleb A., withholding his last name in line with privacy laws, and reported that he was a specialist in psychiatry and psychotherapy.

Describing himself as a former Muslim, the suspect appears to have been an active user of the social media platform X, accusing German authorities of failing to do enough to combat what he referred to as the “Islamification of Europe.”

The horror triggered by yet another act of mass violence in Germany make it likely that migration will remain a key issue as German heads toward an early election on Feb. 23.

The far-right Alternative for Germany party had already been polling strongly amid a societal backlash against the large numbers of refugees and migrants who have arrived in Germany over the past decade.

Right-wing figures from across Europe have criticized German authorities for having allowed high levels of migration in the past and for what they see as security failures now.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who is known for a strong anti-migration position going back years, used the attack in Germany to lash out at the European Union’s migration policies.

At an annual press conference in Budapest on Saturday, Orban insisted that “there is no doubt that there is a link between the changed world in Western Europe, the migration that flows there, especially illegal migration and terrorist acts.”

Orban vowed to “fight back” against the EU migration policies “because Brussels wants Magdeburg to happen to Hungary, too.”