Manchester Terror Attack: France's Interior Minister Delivers Statement

Egypt: Feared Former Interior Minister El-Adly On Trial
BBC: Egypt's feared former Interior Minister, Habib el-Adly, has denied charges of corruption at the opening of his trial in Cairo.

"It didn't happen," he said to allegations of laundering money and unlawfully acquiring public money.

He was arrested in mid-February, days after President Hosni Mubarak resigned in the face of popular protest.

The hearing was adjourned to 2 April as the defence argued for more time to study court papers.

Mr Adly appeared in the dock dressed in white prison clothes, and delivered his answers in a calm voice, an AFP news agency correspondent reports. >>> | Saturday, March 05, 2011

German Interior Minister Reopens Bitter Row Over Muslim Integration
THE GUARDIAN: Hans-Peter Friedrich under fire after claiming Islam 'does not belong' in Germany

Germany's new interior minister has said Islam does not "belong" in the country, reopening a bitter debate over the integration of Germany's 4 million Muslims.

Hans-Peter Friedrich, who took office on Wednesday, was being asked by reporters about a gun attack at Frankfurt airport in which two US servicemen were killed and another two injured. Investigators suspect the attack, carried out by a 21-year-old Muslim immigrant from Kosovo, was an act of Islamist terrorism. A federal judge in Karlsruhe on Thursday ordered the suspect be remanded to jail on two counts of murder and three of attempted murder, pending further investigation.

In his first press conference as minister, Friedrich said on Friday that Muslims should be allowed live in modern Germany, but he added: "To say that Islam belongs in Germany is not a fact supported by history." >>> Helen Pidd in Berlin | Friday, March 04, 2011

French Terror Suspect 'Was Prepared to Die'
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Five terror suspects arrested in Paris this week are suspected of conspiring to launch an attack in France and one of them was prepared to die, according to Brice Hortefeux, the interior minister.

France is on heightened alert for a terror attack after Osama bin Laden targeted the country for the first time in a recent speech and endorsed the capture of five French nationals by the group's North African wing.

Mr Hortefeux said the terror threat remained "real" and "elevated" following the arrest on Monday and Tuesday of five suspects, all of whom were French including one woman, at Charles de Gaulle airport and in the greater Paris region.

"What we can say is that, over the last few days with these arrests ... there was what we call a conspiracy (to) prepare a terror attack," he told reporters at a Paris train station.

"Some of them were ready to die in their fanatical act," he said, later clarifying only one appeared willing to die. >>> | Wednesday, November 10, 2010

French Interior Minister Fined for Racist Remarks
THE TELEGRAPH: Brice Hortefeux, France’s interior minister, has been fined €750 (£620) after being found guilty of making a racist remark to a young man of Arab origin during an informal political gathering last year.

Mr Hortefeux, appointed immigration minister when Nicolas Sarkozy took office in 2007 and promoted to the powerful Interior Ministry in a cabinet reshuffle last year, was captured on video joking with party activists while having his photograph taken alongside another party member of Arab origins.

In the video, taken last September, a woman says: “Amine is a Catholic. He eats pork and drinks alcohol.”

“Ah, well that won’t do at all. He doesn’t fit the prototype at all,” Mr Hortefeux is then heard saying to much laughter.

Another voice in the crowd says, “He is one of us ... he is our little Arab.”

Mr Hortefeux then replies, “We always need one. It’s when there are lots of them that there are problems.” >>> | Friday, June 04, 2010

Pakistan Warns Taliban to Quit Buner or Face Action
REUTERS: ISLAMABAD - Pakistan warned the Taliban on Tuesday it would expand a military offensive to Buner, a district around 100 km (60 miles) northwest of Islamabad, if the guerrillas did not withdraw from the area.

Interior Minister Rehman Malik said around 450 Taliban were reported to have sneaked into Buner on Monday.

"I warn them to vacate the area. We are not going to spare them," he told reporters.

"Action will be taken if anyone tries to block our efforts to re-establish writ of the government in Buner and other areas," he said. >>> Reporting by Zeeshan Haider; Editing by David Fox | Tuesday, April 28, 2009