Category World News

EXPLAINER

A car rammed into demonstrators in Munich on Thursday, injuring at least 28 people, in what a local official described as a suspected attack. The incident occurred hours before world leaders were set to arrive in the southern German city for the annual Munich Security Conference which is scheduled to open on Friday.

Here is what we know about the incident, the suspect – and how this might play out politically when Germany is preparing for closely contested federal elections on February 23.

What happened in Munich?

• A 24-year-old man drove a white Mini Cooper into a crowd of demonstrators near Munich’s central railway station, injuring at least 30 people, including children.
• The incident occurred at 10:30am (09:30 GMT) during a trade union protest, with about 1,500 participants in attendance.
• Employees from daycare centres, hospitals, sanitation services and public swimming pools were participating in the strike, demanding higher wages and extended holiday time.
• According to the police, the car passed a police cruiser monitoring the demonstration before ramming into the crowd.
• Authorities also said that the incident was likely an attack, adding that police fired at the suspect’s vehicle after it accelerated and hit people. It was unclear if the suspect was wounded.

Ein furchtbarer Anschlag in München erschüttert uns. Ein afghanischer Täter ist in eine Demonstration gerast. Es gibt viele Verletzte, einige sehr schwer verletzt. Unsere Gedanken sind bei den Opfern und ihren Angehörigen. Der Täter muss die volle Härte des Rechtsstaats spüren.

Translation: We are shaken by a terrible attack in Munich,” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said in a post on X. “Our thoughts are with the victims and their families. The perpetrator must feel the full force of the rule of law.”

Where did it happen?

• The incident occurred at the intersection of Karlstrasse and Seidlstrasse, near Munich Hauptbahnhof (the central train station) in the city.

What do we know about those injured?

• German police reported that at least 30 people were injured.
• The local fire department stated that some victims were in critical, life-threatening condition. Authorities confirmed that children were among the injured.

What do we know about the suspect?

The suspect has been identified as 24-year-old Farhad N, an Afghan asylum seeker who arrived in Germany in 2016 as an unaccompanied minor, at the age of 15. Al Jazeera is not fully naming the suspect because of German privacy laws.

• His asylum application had been rejected, according to authorities, but his deportation was suspended due to instability in Afghanistan.
• According to police, the suspect was previously known to authorities for theft and drug-related offences.
• The Bavarian central office for extremism and terrorism has taken over the investigation due to indications that the suspect has an “extremist background”.

What’s the political context?

The attack comes at a politically sensitive time, days before Germany’s federal elections, on February 23, and the Munich Security Conference.

Authorities do not believe this incident is related to the security conference.

The incident has reignited debates on immigration and public safety, central issues in campaigns for the upcoming election, with political parties reacting to it:

• Conservative party (CDU) – The Christian Democratic Union party leader Friedrich Merz demanded change. “We will consistently enforce law and order. Everyone must feel safe in our country again. Something must change in Germany,” he said on X.
• Merz has accused Social Democrat Chancellor Olaf Scholz of being soft on immigration. Merz and the CDU have recently broken with years of a taboo on working with the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) to ally with them on an anti-immigration bill that parliament ultimately rejected.
• The ruling coalition led by the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the Greens faces pressure to boost security and justify its immigration policies.
• The recent memory of a car-ramming attack in December lingers, when a Saudi Arabian man drove into a Christmas market in Magdeburg, central Germany, injuring up to 300 people and killing six.
• The far-right AfD, which has been gaining in the polls, is voicing its anti-immigration stance. “Is it going to continue like this forever? Migration change now!” Alice Weidel, the party’s candidate for chancellor, wrote on X.
• Anti-immigration rhetoric is at the heart of the AfD’s politics, and its concerns appear to be increasingly finding resonance with the broader German public.
• In a survey conducted in late January, 68 percent of respondents said they believe Germany should reduce the number of refugees it accepts. Similarly, in a December poll, 75 percent of respondents said they felt the government was insufficiently regulating migrant entry.

What happens next?

• Ongoing investigation: Authorities are examining the suspect’s background, online activity and potential “extremist” connections.
• Increased security: With the Munich Security Conference approaching, police have heightened security across the city, and according to reports, at least 5,000 police officers are on duty this weekend.
• Political effects: The incident could further sharpen anti-immigrant rhetoric ahead of the election, leaving the country’s current centrist leadership on the defensive.

Malaysia’s economy grew 5.1 percent in 2024, as strong domestic demand and investment offset a downturn in the commodities sector, according to the Southeast Asian country’s central bank.

Gross domestic product (GDP) expanded 5 percent in the October-December quarter, Bank Negara Malaysia said on Friday, down from 5.3 percent growth in the third quarter but ahead of an advance estimate of 4.8 percent.

The year on year performance marked a significant jump from GDP growth of 3.7 percent in 2023.

“Going forward, while the global environment could be challenging, growth of the Malaysian economy will be driven by robust expansion in investment activity, resilient household spending and expansion in exports supported by Malaysia’s strong economic fundamentals,” Bank Negara Malaysia Governor Abdul Rasheed Ghaffour said.

Bank Negara Malaysia said that inflation dropped to 1.8 percent in 2024, down from 2.5 percent the previous year.

The Malaysian ringgit appreciated 2.7 percent against the US dollar, the central bank said, and also gained against the Singapore dollar, South Korean won and Japanese yen.

Bank Negara Malaysia said that the economic outlook was subject to the risk of slowing growth in Malaysia’s trading partners amid a heightened threat of trade restrictions and weaker commodities production.

Attorneys general from 14 American states have filed a lawsuit to challenge the authority of billionaire Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), in the latest attempt to prevent it from putting hundreds of federal officials on leave and gaining access to sensitive federal payment systems.

The suit, filed in federal court in Washington, DC, on Thursday, says the newly formed government department is exercising “virtually unchecked power” and argues that the actions taken by Musk at the helm of DOGE can only be taken by a nominated and Senate-confirmed official.

“We are asking the court to invalidate his directives and actions and to issue a restraining order,” Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said during an online news conference alongside attorneys general from Arizona and New Mexico.

The attorneys general said the court should bar Musk from issuing orders to anyone in the executive branch outside DOGE and declare that his actions have no legal effect.

They also asked the court to order Musk to identify ways that “any data obtained through unlawful agency access was used”, destroy “such unauthorized access in his or DOGE’s possession” and bar Musk and DOGE from ordering changes in the disbursement of public funds.

“There is no greater threat to democracy than the accumulation of state power in the hands of a single, unelected individual,” the lawsuit said.

It argued DOGE’s actions threatened the financial livelihood of public servants working in sectors including law enforcement, healthcare and education.

The Donald Trump administration on Thursday intensified its sweeping efforts to shrink the size of the federal workforce – the nation’s largest employer – by ordering agencies to lay off nearly all probationary employees who had not yet gained civil service protection.

The move follows an executive order on Tuesday that told agency leaders to plan for “large-scale reductions in force”. On the same day, employees and various civil service unions filed a lawsuit demanding that DOGE be banned from accessing personnel records.

New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez, who took part in the latest lawsuit, called Musk a “threat to democracy”.

“Although our constitutional system was designed to prevent the abuses of an 18th-century monarch, the instruments of unchecked power are no less dangerous in the hands of a 21st-century tech baron,” he said.

Torrez added that Trump was demonstrating “weakness” in deploying Musk rather than advancing his agenda through a Republican-controlled Congress.

“Move fast and breaking things may work in Silicon Valley for a tech company,” Torrez said. “It’s not good governance and it’s unconstitutional.”

DOGE was established by the Trump administration by executive order on January 20, 2025.

Scores of children caught up in the conflict in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) have been subjected to sexual violence including rape by armed men, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund.

The targeting of children has soared to unprecedented levels in recent weeks, UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell warned on Thursday, making an urgent appeal for the violence to stop as Rwanda-backed M23 rebels expand their footprint, clashing with Congolese forces and their allied militias.

“In North and South Kivu provinces, we are receiving horrific reports of grave violations against children by parties to the conflict, including rape and other forms of sexual violence at levels surpassing anything we have seen in recent years,” Russell said in a statement.

Sharing the stories of some survivors, she said: “One mother recounted to our staff how her six daughters, the youngest just 12 years old, were systematically raped by armed men while searching for food.”

UNICEF’s accusation came as the conflict in the mineral-rich region shows no signs of abating, as M23, which captured North Kivu’s capital Goma last month, pushes further south. Thousands have been killed and tens of thousands more displaced, the UN has said.

The agency’s partners in the region reported that the number of rape cases treated across 42 health facilities jumped five-fold in one week from January 27 to February 2, Russell said.

“Of those treated, 30 percent were children. The true figures are likely much higher because so many survivors are reluctant to come forward.”

Russell added that she was “deeply alarmed by the intensifying violence”, particularly the effects on children and families.

‘All parties’ committed violence

Lianne Gutcher, UNICEF’s communication chief in DRC, told The Associated Press news agency that of the total 572 rape cases reported, 170 were children.

“It is suspected that all parties to the conflict committed sexual violence,” Gutcher said.

Partner agencies are now running out of the drugs used to reduce the risk of HIV infection after the sexual assaults, Russell said.

As fighting intensifies, hundreds of children have been separated from their fleeing families, exposing them to heightened risks of violence, she added.

In just the past two weeks, more than 1,100 unaccompanied children have been identified in the two Kivu provinces, according to UNICEF.

As the rebel offensive widens, recruitment of youth by all groups is likely to accelerate, with reports of children as young as 12 being enlisted or coerced to join the fighting.

“Parties to the conflict must immediately cease and prevent grave rights violations against children,” Russell said.

M23, which UN experts say is backed by Rwanda, in recent months has swiftly seized tracts of territory in eastern DRC after again taking up arms in late 2022, in a country plagued by numerous conflicts for decades.

At least six people have been killed in a fire at a hotel construction site in South Korea’s port city of Busan, where firefighters are still assessing damages.

The fire broke out around mid-morning on Friday and appears to have quickly escalated, South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency reports.

Busan city’s fire service deployed 90 firefighters to put out the blaze and used helicopters to rescue workers trapped inside the multistorey building – including 14 from the rooftop.

“We’re currently searching the interior of the building,” a firefighting official said, according to Yonhap. “Police and the local government are determining the exact number of workers [who were inside].”

Television footage of the fire showed smoke pouring from the modern glass-fronted high-rise building, according to The Associated Press news agency. More than 100 people were evacuated from the scene, but it was not immediately clear if all workers had been rescued.

At least seven people were injured in the fire, Yonhap reported, although injuries are still being counted.

https://t.co/F8PXFl6oiF

South Korea’s Acting President Choi Sang-mok said “all available personnel and equipment” were being deployed to the accident site.

While the origin of the fire is still unknown, it has been linked in the media to insulation material stored on the first floor of the construction site.

The hotel reportedly belongs to Banyan Tree, a luxury hotel and resort chain from Singapore, according to Yonhap.

The blaze is the second major fire incident in Busan in recent weeks.

On January 28, an Air Busan plane caught fire shortly after takeoff from Busan’s Gimhae International Airport, but all passengers and crew were safely evacuated.