BERLIN (AP) — Germany's government ordered temporary controls at all land borders Monday, expanding checks it already has in place at some borders, saying that it was responding to irregular migration and to protect the country from extremist threats.
“We are strengthening our internal security through concrete action and we are continuing our tough stance against irregular migration,” Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said at a news conference.
The ministry said that it notified the European Union on Monday of the order to set up border controls at the land borders with France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Belgium and Denmark for a period of six months. They will begin next week on Sept. 16.
This adds to restrictions already in place on the land borders with Poland, the Czech Republic, Austria and Switzerland.
“Until we achieve strong protection of the EU’s external borders with the new Common European Asylum System, we must increase controls at our national borders even more,” Faeser said.
She noted that Germany already has had more than 30,000 rejections of people seeking to cross its borders since last October.
“This served to further limit irregular migration and to protect against the acute dangers posed by Islamist terrorism and serious crime. We are doing everything we can to better protect people in our country against this,” she said.
The order comes as coalition government of Chancellor Olaf Scholz is facing pressure to take a tougher stance on irregular migration.
Last month, a deadly knife attack in Soligen killed three people. The perpetrator was a Syrian asylum-seeker who claimed to be inspired by the Islamic State group.
Even more recently, police in Munich exchanged fire with a gunman near the Israeli Consulate last week, fatally wounding him. Authorities said they believe he was planning to attack the consulate on the 52nd anniversary of the attack on the 1972 Munich Olympics.
Germany has accepted large numbers of refugees from the Middle East over the past decade, but now a political backlash is building, with support growing for a far-right party. That party, Alternative for Germany, won its first state election earlier this month in Thuringia and had a strong showing in another state, Saxony.
In June, Scholz vowed that the country would start deporting criminals from Afghanistan and Syria again after a knife attack by an Afghan immigrant left one police officer dead and four other people wounded.
Germany deported Afghan nationals to their homeland on Aug. 30, the first time it did so since since August 2021, when the Taliban returned to power. The government described the 28 Afghan nationals as convicted criminals, but didn't clarify what their offenses were.
The number of people applying for asylum in Germany last year rose to more than 350,000, an increase of just over 50% compared with the year before. The largest number of asylum-seekers came from Syria, followed by Turks and Afghans.
FILE - A German federal police officer stops cars and trucks at a border crossing point between Germany and Czech Republic in Furth am Wald, Germany, Tuesday, Oct. 10, 2023. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader, File)
German Interior Nancy Faeser speaks during a press conference in Berlin, Germany, Monday, Sept. 9, 2024. (Michael Kappeler/dpa via AP)
NEW YORK (AP) — This week's frigid weather has many New York City residents shivering, scurrying into cozy spots and feeling sapped. Including the rats.
The United States' most populous city has been spared the Upper Midwest's extreme wind chills, not to mention the shock of record-breaking snow in the deep South, in this week's Arctic blast. But temperatures peaked Monday around 26 degrees Fahrenheit (-3 Celsius) and roughly 20 degrees (-7 Celsius) Tuesday and Wednesday, well below average.
Such cold has, yes, a chilling effect on the Big Apple's notorious rodents. But it boosts efforts to get rid of them, says city “rat czar” Kathleen Corradi.
“It's stressing out rats. It’s putting them in their burrows,” she says. “So we kind of get to double down now while the rats are ‘feeling the heat’ from this cold snap.”
New York City's wild rat species — Rattus norvegicus, also called the Norway rat or brown rat — doesn't hibernate in winter but does become less active when the weather is freezing for prolonged periods. At the same time, the rodent's food source tends to shrivel because people are out less and therefore discarding few food wrappers and other rat snacks on the streets, Corradi said.
All that makes for stressed rats and suppresses breeding, which “is really their superpower,” Corradi said. Norway rats can reproduce many times a year, essentially any time conditions are suitable, though they tend to be most prolific from spring through fall.
Jason Munshi-South, a Drexel University ecology professor who has researched New York City's rats, said those that are already holed up in subway tunnels, sewers, crawlspaces or other nooks can weather the cold fairly well.
Rats that haven't secured a hideaway might venture to unusual places, such as car engine blocks. Or a tempting basement? Perhaps, if building owners haven't diligently blocked them out.
But Munshi-South said some of the animals likely will freeze to death, especially if they're already sick, malnourished or otherwise weakened.
“Harsh winters like we are having so far will keep the rat population at a lower level if we have sustained cold, freezing periods,” he said in an email.
All of that, Corradi said, allows the city's rat-fighters to make headway ahead of the warmer months.
There's no official count of New York City's rats, but no one disputes that they have long been legion. Successive city administrations have tried various approaches to eliminating or at least reducing them.
Current Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat who has battled the critters at his own Brooklyn home, created Corradi's position — officially, the director of rodent mitigation — about two years ago. Adams' administration also has focused on requiring trash “containerization,” otherwise known as putting household and business garbage into enclosed bins instead of piling refuse-filled plastic bags on the curb.
FILE - A rat is seen in Central Park in New York, Sunday, March 19, 2017. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)