Following a threat from Donald Trump, UN agency helping Palestinian refuges is denied US funding

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US ends funding to UN Palestinian refugee aid agency, following up on Trump threat

Updated earlier today at 6:57am

PHOTO: The UNRWA helps those who fled since the 1948 war that led to creation of the state of Israel. (Reuters: Mohammed Salem)

RELATED STORY: US withholds $82 million in Palestinian aid after Trump threat

RELATED STORY: Australia ends direct aid to Palestinian Authority

RELATED STORY: Israel passes controversial 'Jewish nation-state law'

The United States has halted all funding to a UN agency that helps Palestinian refugees, in a move likely to further heighten tensions between the Palestinians and the Trump administration.

Key points:

• UNRWA says it helps around 5 million Palestinian refugees across the Middle East
• The US had withheld $82m of funding in January, pending a review
• The UN has called for other countries to fill funding gap, with Germany already offering to help

US State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said the business model and fiscal practices of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) were an "irredeemably flawed operation."

"The administration has carefully reviewed the issue and determined that the United States will not make additional contributions to UNRWA," she said in a statement.

Ms Nauert said the agency's, "endlessly and exponentially expanding community of entitled beneficiaries is simply unsustainable and has been in crisis mode for many years."

UNRWA rejected the criticisms, with spokesman Chris Gunness describing it as "a force for regional stability".

Speaking in Jordan, where more than 2 million registered Palestinian refugees live, including 370,000 in 10 refugee camps, Mr Gunness said: "It is a deeply regrettable decision … some of the most disadvantaged, marginalised and vulnerable people on this planet are likely to suffer."

PHOTO: The UNRWA supports thousands of Palestinian refugees including those who have fled to war torn Syria. (AP: UNRWA)

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German politics and the Christian cross

Crosses on chains are offered in a devotional objects shop 

in Munich, southern Germany, on June 1, 2018. (AFP)

The government of Bavaria has decided to instruct 

all state administrative buildings in the German state 

to display a cross in their public entrances by June 1.

A controversial decree requiring Christian crucifixes to be installed at entrances of most public buildings in Bavaria came into force on Friday, sparking accusations of identity politics ahead of elections in the southern German state.

Markus Soeder, Bavaria's conservative state premier, had initiated the measure in April, saying "the cross is a fundamental symbol of our Bavarian identity and way of life."

But the order sparked an outcry, with critics accusing Soeder of politicising a religious symbol as his CSU party battles to claw back voters who have turned to the far-right and Islamophobic AfD ahead of state election in October.

"Soeder has misused the cross for an election manoeuvre," the region's Social Democrat chief Natascha Kohnen told the Augsburger Allgemeine daily.

Soeder was also widely mocked, including by the state premier of neighbouring Baden-Wuerttemburg, Winfried Kretschmann, who said a photo of his Bavarian colleague holding the cross made him "think of a vampire film."

But among the harshest condemnations was that from Cardinal Reinhard Marx, the president of the German Bishops' Conference, who warned Soeder that "if the cross is viewed only as a cultural symbol, then it has not been understood."

"Then the cross is being expropriated by the state," said Marx in an interview with Sueddeutsche daily, adding that it must not be used as a tool to exclude.

Amid the push-back, Soeder's office had sought to tone down the decree, saying that while it was compulsory for buildings like police stations, courts or ministry offices, it was merely recommended for higher educational institutions, museums and theatres.

From here.

Are the lights going in Europe once more?

Cologne cathedral to switch off lights in protest at anti-Muslim march

March by Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West is latest in a series of anti-Muslim protests in Germany

Cologne Cathedral at night. Photograph: Corbis

Reuters in Cologne

Friday 2 January 201523.24 AEST

Cologne Cathedral, one of Germany’s most famous landmarks, will be plunged into darkness on Monday evening in protest at a march by a grassroots anti-Muslim movement through the western German city.

The rise of Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West (Pegida) has shaken the political establishment, prompting the chancellor, Angela Merkel, to warn in her new year address that its leaders were racists full of hatred and citizens should beware being used.

The group’s last weekly rally in the eastern city of Dresden attracted an estimated 17,000 people. It plans to hold further marches in other cities.

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