Attack-plot tip leads to German arrests
BERLIN — A 16-year-old boy and three other people were detained Thursday over a suspected plan for an Islamic extremist attack on a synagogue in the German city of Hagen, authorities said.
The detentions took place on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in Judaism, and two years after a deadly attack in another German city on the Yom Kippur holiday.
Police cordoned off the synagogue on Wednesday and a worship service planned for the evening was called off.
Officials had received “very serious and concrete information” that there could be an attack on the synagogue during Yom Kippur, said Herbert Reul, the interior minister of North Rhine-Westphalia state, where Hagen is. The tip pointed to “an Islamist-motivated threat situation,” and named the possible timing and suspect, he added.
Police using sniffer dogs found no dangerous objects in or around the synagogue, Reul said. On Thursday morning, the 16-year-old, a Syrian who lives in Hagen, was detained. Three other people were detained in a raid on an apartment, and authorities are investigating whether they were involved in the purported plan, the minister said.
Reul said searches were ongoing in Hagen, but gave no details and took no questions. He didn’t say where the tip originated.
U.K. shuffle moves women up ladder
LONDON — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was finishing a major shake-up of his government on Thursday, shuffling his team of middle-ranking and junior ministers after making big changes at the top.
Johnson appointed a number of women to ministerial jobs, a day after appointing Foreign Secretary Liz Truss — only the second time a woman has served as Britain’s top diplomat. Lawmakers Amanda Milling and Kemi Badenoch were named as junior ministers in Truss’ Foreign Office, while Penny Mordaunt got a job at the trade department.
The shuffle shows a Conservative Party government eager to move on from 18 months of pandemic disruption — and with an eye on an early election. Britain is not scheduled to hold a general election until 2024, but the government changes suggest Johnson wants to go to voters at least a year sooner.
“This looks like the team that he wants to take into an election,” said Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary, University of London.
On Wednesday Johnson fired several underperforming Cabinet ministers, including Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab — moved to the justice department — and Education Secretary Gavin Williamson, relegated to the back benches.
Defense Secretary Ben Wallace denied Johnson had sacked ministers “because they’re incompetent,” but simply wanted to “refresh his team.”
Canadian pal again gets Obama backing
TORONTO — Barack Obama endorsed Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Thursday in the election, calling him an effective leader in a rare endorsement of a candidate in a Canadian election by a former American president.
It is the second time Obama has done it. Obama also urged Canadians to reelect the Liberal party leader in Canada’s last election in 2019.
Obama tweeted Thursday that he was proud to work with Trudeau and described him as an effective leader who has strong democratic values.
Trudeau is in a tough reelection fight with his Conservative party rival ahead of Monday’s parliamentary elections. Obama’s endorsement helped Trudeau with progressives in 2019.
Obama also endorsed Emmanuel Macron for president in France’s 2017 election, and he warned British voters against leaving the European Union.
Trudeau formed a close relationship with Obama when he was president.
Islands’ dolphin slaughter draws scrutiny
COPENHAGEN, Denmark — The Faeroese government said Thursday that it will review the way hunts of Atlantic white-sided dolphins are carried out after the release of video footage showing the mass killing on Sunday of nearly 1,500 sea mammals.
The extent of the slaughter was so large — much higher than in previous years — that it appears participants may not have been able to follow regulations to minimize the suffering of the animals.
“We take this matter very seriously. Although these hunts are considered sustainable, we will be looking closely at the dolphin hunts, and what part they should play in Faeroese society,” Premier Bardur a Steig Nielsen said in a statement.
The decision by the government of the 18 rocky islands that sit halfway between Scotland and Iceland was made after Sunday’s catch. That day, islanders slaughtered 1,428 white-sided dolphins on the central Faeroese island of Eysturoy in the North Atlantic archipelago. The sea mammals are killed for their meat and blubber.
White-side dolphins and pilot whales — which also are killed on the islands — are not endangered species.
An activist from the international animal-welfare group Sea Shepherd filmed the Sunday episode, and on Wednesday the group said that it hopes that pressure will build from within the Faeroe Islands to end its traditional drive of sea mammals.