Free Republic

The governor of California, Jerry Brown, announced Saturday that his state would join the southwestern German state of Baden-Württemberg in a sister-state relationship with the goal of strengthening climate protection and economic ties between the two. The sister-state agreement comes at the tail end of a global climate summit, organized by Brown, which attracted thousands of politicians, activists, business leaders and others from around the world. The premier of Baden-Württemberg, Winfried Kretschmann, joined Brown at the summit in San Francisco for the signing of the agreement. […] “The German connection is alive and well in California,” Brown said. “The fact...

Police arrested seven asylum seekers in raids on refugee shelters on Thursday on suspicion the men repeatedly raped an Iranian teenager and filmed the sexual assault. More than 30 police joined the raids on ten rooms in several accommodation facilities in the towns of Nagold and Wildberg in the southwestern state of Baden-Württemberg, said police. “The Afghan asylum seekers are suspected of having raped a 17-year-old Iranian asylum seeker several times and of having filmed the acts,” police and prosecutors said in a brief joint statement. …

A Muslim woman will sit in the speaker’s chair at sessions of the Baden-Württemberg state parliament from now on — a first for any German state. “We wrote history today,” Green Party politician Muhterem Aras said after being elected with a large majority as president (speaker) of the state legislature. The southwestern state had sent “a message of openness, tolerance, and successful integration,” by electing her, she went on, promising to ensure a lively but fair debating culture in the chamber. …

More than 65,000 parents and teachers in southern Germany have signed an online petition against plans to teach children about homosexuality in school. The petition, which by Thursday had collected over 65,700 signatures, wants to lobby parliament to sink plans in the state of Baden-Württemberg to make teachers talk to pupils more frankly about homosexuality. The initiative, by Baden-Württemberg’s ruling regional Green/SPD coalition, wants to include the aim “acceptance of sexual diversity” in the curriculum so that children are told about different lifestyles and relationships at a young age. But it has met strong resistance from teachers and parents. …

BERLIN, Germany (Reuters) -- A senior member of Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative party sparked outrage among German Jews and politicians by saying a former colleague and Third Reich military judge was not a Nazi, according to a Reuters report. Guenther Oettinger, the regional governor of Baden-Wuerttemberg, defended Hans Filbinger, who became a symbol of post-war Germany's failure to face up to the legacy of Hitler's Third Reich, at a memorial service for the politician who died earlier this month. Filbinger had been head of Baden-Wuerttemburg in the 1960s and 1970s until revelations about sentences he passed as a naval judge...

German police raid mosques STUTTGART: Police raided mosques and Muslim community centres in two southern German states Friday in what authorities said was an attempt to learn more about extremist networks. Some 400 police officers searched 18 buildings in Baden-Wuerttemberg, checking occupants’ papers as part of attempts to track Islamic extremists, the state Interior Ministry said in a statement. “The goal is to continue an intensive fight against criminal Islamists and to uncover the networked structures of Islamic extremists and terrorists,” the statement said. Authorities announced no arrests. In parallel raids in neighboring Rhineland-Palatinate, some 230 police officers questioned 235...