World
Uncertainty grows among refugees and migrants as Germany heads to the polls
Berlin/Cottbus, Germany – Germany is preparing for high-stakes elections, amid fears that far-right sentiment rising while migration policies sit at the centre of political debate.
In Cottbus, a city in eastern Brandenburg, the mood is tense as voters prepare to head to the polls with the rest of Germany on February 23 after Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s three-party coalition government led by his Social Democratic Party (SPD) collapsed last November.
Outside the city centre, Jana Zistel, a German resident in Cottbus, is not sure which party to support, but is certain of her stance against the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which has skyrocketed in popularity among eastern cities.
“Yes, I know many people are big supporters of the AfD here, but I just don’t understand it. Germans, too, are foreigners in other places,” she told Al Jazeera.
Known for its anti-migration views, the group’s success marks the first time in decades that a far-right party in Germany has gained such popularity.
According to the latest polls, the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) is leading the polls, followed by AfD. Scholz’s centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) is in third place.
“The overall atmosphere is rather tense in Germany at the moment, and refugees do feel the changing attitude towards them,” said Judith Wiebke, a spokesperson for PRO ASYL, a German pro-immigration group.
Wiebke told Al Jazeera that fear in immigrant communities has been rising as the election nears.
“We get the feedback that in the Syrian community, there is new fear for their future in Germany, and the Afghan community [too,] is worried with regards to calls for regular deportation flights to Afghanistan,“ she said.
The firewall crumbles?
Migration is a contentious topic in the European Union, with leaders of the 27-member bloc often squabbling over how to implement a unified migration and asylum policy.
Germany has, however, maintained a relatively open-door policy for migrants. Former Chancellor Angela Merkel of the CDU/CSU party declared in 2015: “Wir schaffen das!” or “We can do it!” and welcomed hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers. But the CDU/CSU has since soured on immigration.
Chancellor Scholz’s government has, since 2022, eased the process of acquiring German residency and citizenship, easing the path for migrants and refugees and prompting criticism from political opponents.
CDU/CSU party leader Friedrich Merz called the policies “misguided”.
On the campaign trail, he blamed those policies for a recent spate of deadly attacks that has rocked the country and killed many people. In the latest case last week, a two-year-old girl and her mother were killed in Munich when a car rammed into a crowd. Nationals from Afghanistan, Syria and Saudi Arabia have been arrested for the killings.
In January, following one such attack, Merz proposed a non-binding resolution in the German Parliament to turn back more asylum seekers at the borders. It passed, but with the backing of the AfD. That shattered a seemingly impenetrable “firewall” policy that had seen parties refuse to work with the far right for decades.
Parliament narrowly rejected Merz’s binding version of the migration bill but shocked opposition leaders accused him in impassioned speeches of breaking the firewall. Even Merkel, the former chancellor who had otherwise been absent from politics, condemned her fellow CDU colleague. Thousands of people across Germany took to the streets in protest, calling for an AfD ban.
Scholz’s government, too, has begun stiffening asylum regulations. In August, 28 Afghans were deported. His government has also introduced land border checks, unusual in the EU.
The effects of these measures are already being felt.
Carolina Rehrmann, a parliamentary candidate of MERA25, an independent German political party, told Al Jazeera that there is a general climate of insecurity for immigrants in Germany that makes people not voice their opinions openly.
“They are being stigmatised and labelled as a collective threat, particularly by the far right,” she added.
Anything but the current government
Founded in 2013, the AfD first became popular with eurosceptics as it initially campaigned against the EU member states’ decision to bail out debt-ridden Greece – including Germany.
Then, in 2015, as waves of asylum seekers moved into Europe, AfD rhetoric swung to immigration, and the perceived dangers of Muslim migrants.
“Remigration” – a policy that would see mass deportations of immigrants and naturalised citizens; scrapping of the euro; and military conscription are some of the party’s major promises.
Led by Alice Weidel, the AfD’s stronghold is in eastern cities like Cottbus because of perceived economic inequalities between east and west Germany following reunification, which has left popular anger. The party also managed to tap into a young audience by maintaining a strong TikTok presence.
“It’s a protest vote because people are frustrated,” said Ines Heider, parliamentary candidate for the Revolutionary International Organisation (RIO), an independent group promising open borders and an end to weapons for Israel. German media calls the group “left extremist”.
“Zero percent of Germans want this present government to run again, and so they search for an alternative. The other day, I went to a strike of bus drivers, and one of them said to me, ‘I don’t really like the AfD, but I don’t really know who else to vote for,’” she said.
In January, AfD shocked the country when its regional branch in southwestern Karlsruhe city mailed more than 30,000 fake deportation tickets to migrants. The tickets, dated February 23, said a passenger by the name of “illegal immigrant” was booked on a one-way flight from Germany to a “safe country of origin.”
Marcel Bauer, The Left party’s parliamentary candidate in Karlsruhe, told Al Jazeera that people who received the tickets, ranging from Cameroonian to Syrian nationals, were devastated.
“There were grown men crying to me because they fear for their families after receiving these tickets,” Bauer, who has filed a lawsuit against AfD’s spokesperson in Karlsruhe, said. “For the far right, every migrant is a bad person,” he added.
The National Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nazi Party) sent deportation train tickets to Jews before the second world war, Bauer said. Now, the AfD is using similar “fascist” methods, he added.
AfD did not respond to a request for comment. MP Marc Bernhard, the party’s Karlsruhe candidate, told German public broadcaster SWR that the distribution of the tickets was an election advertising stunt for everyone and was not specifically sent to people with “foreign-sounding names”.
Rarely do any of the parties, even the outgoing SPD-led coalition, highlight contributions of migrants to the German economy, allowing the AfD’s rhetoric to hold ground, said Marc Helbling, professor of political sociology at the University of Mannheim.
If foreigners were to all leave, Germany’s building and health sectors, among others, would simply stop working, Helbling said.
“From a purely economic perspective, it is clear that Germany, like any other Western countries, are very much dependent on migration,” he added.
Israel’s war on Gaza
Although thousands of kilometres away, the genocide in Gaza has cast a long shadow on the political discourse in Germany since the start of the war.
Berlin firmly stands by its ally Israel, justifying its solidarity based on historical feelings of guilt for the Holocaust. Germany has also been one of Israel’s most prolific weapon suppliers.
Rehrmann, the MERA25 candidate, said Germany’s current anti-immigration rhetoric is also tied to Israel’s war on Gaza.
“We have seen people coming from the Middle East [to Germany], being considered not only as a threat, but also the main source of anti-Semitism in Germany,” she said. “This is something that Merz and the far-right AfD have said.”
Some 100,000 people of Palestinian descent live in Germany, a quarter of them in Berlin’s Neukoelln district.
German police actively crack down on the weekly pro-Palestinian protests in Berlin and other cities while local media often tag the protests – as well as Arab or Muslim gatherings – as fertile grounds for anti-Semitism, a crime punishable by a two-year term or a fine.
Last November, in the wake of huge protests against Israel, the Bundestag adopted stricter definitions of anti-Semitism even as rights groups like Amnesty International, and a handful of MPs warned that could violate international law.
Police, in January, also banned all languages except German and English at pro-Palestine demonstrations. Officials cited increased crimes and anti-Semitism during the protests, but critics say it’s an attempt to target Arabic speakers.
Since the Gaza war started, Islamophobia in Germany has skyrocketed, according to rights monitoring group, Claim. Incidents, such as verbal attacks on Muslims or attacks on mosques, went up by 114 percent between 2022 and 2023, the organisation reported.
Hugh Williamson, a Human Rights Watch director based in Berlin, said the negative rhetoric, including blaming violence by individuals on entire groups, is concerning. He also warned that the adoption of more far-right policies by the mainstream parties is not the answer.
“While this may be intended to draw away support, we’ve seen time and time again in Europe that it has the opposite effect, normalising anti-rights politics and parties in ways that make it easier for voters to support them.”
World
With US unleashing attacks, Iranian official threatens that the Islamic Republic will deliver a ‘hard slap’
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An Iranian official warned that the Islamic Republic will deliver a “hard slap” while another blatantly threatened the U.S. that “if you strike, you’ll get hit,” according to automatic translations from the two men’s Persian-language posts on X.
Ebrahim Rezaei, whose profile on the social media platform indicates that he is a representative in Iran’s Parliament and the spokesperson for the National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, wrote in a post on X, “The martyred Khamenei taught us not to fear America and showed that ‘falsehood will perish.’ Await the hard slap from the Iranians.”
The speaker of Iran’s Parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, warned, “America still hasn’t learned that bullying and breaking promises are no longer cost-free. Let me put it plainly: if you strike, you’ll get hit. Don’t flail around pointlessly, or you’ll sink even deeper: the Strait of Hormuz will only open with ‘Iranian arrangements,’ not American threats.”
Both of the men issued their posts on Wednesday after U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) announced more strikes against Iran.
“At the direction of the Commander in Chief, U.S. Central Command forces have started conducting additional strikes against Iran to further degrade their ability to threaten freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz. The United States is holding Iran accountable for recent unjustified aggression against commercial shipping and civilian crews freely navigating a vital international waterway,” CENTCOM had noted in a post on X.
TRUMP SAYS IRAN CEASEFIRE DEAL IS ‘OVER’ AFTER NEW ROUND OF STRIKES
People gather at the Imam Khomeini Grand Mosalla for a farewell ceremony for Iran’s late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on July 4, 2026, in Tehran, Iran. (Majid Saeedi/Getty Images)
The U.S. military later provided more information about the attacks.
“U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) forces completed an additional round of strikes against Iran, July 8, to further degrade Iran’s ability to attack commercial shipping and innocent civilian mariners in the Strait of Hormuz,” CENTCOM noted on Wednesday night.
“U.S. forces struck approximately 90 Iranian military targets including air defense systems, coastal surveillance assets, missile and drone storage sites, naval capabilities, and military logistics infrastructure along Iran’s coastline. The latest strikes follow successful execution of offensive strikes in Iran the night before,” the announcement noted. “CENTCOM forces hit approximately 80 Iranian military targets July 7, including more than 60 Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps small boats, to impose heavy costs for Iran violating the ceasefire by attacking three commercial vessels navigating the Strait of Hormuz.”
TRUMP DEMANDS END TO TRADE WITH KEY US ALLY, CALLS IT A ‘WASTED CAUSE’
President Donald Trump indicated on Wednesday that, as far as he was concerned, the U.S.-Iran Memorandum of Understanding ceasefire was “over.”
Kuwait and Bahrain have both reported coming under attack.
The Kuwait Army noted in a Thursday post on X, which was written in Arabic, “The Official Spokesman for the Ministry of Defense, Major General Saud Abdulaziz Al-Otaibi, stated that the armed forces detected, at dawn today, (3) ballistic missiles, (1) cruise missile, and (10) hostile drones within Kuwaiti airspace, which were successfully intercepted and dealt with.”
TRUMP SAYS ‘IRAN LIES AND CHEATS’ AS IRGC EMERGES AS DOMINANT FORCE IN NEGOTIATIONS WITH US
President Donald Trump speaks as he meets with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Ankara, on July 8, 2026. (SAUL LOEB / AFP via Getty Images)
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The Bahrain Defense Force noted in a post that was in Arabic, “The General Command clarifies that, with firm resolve and high combat readiness, the Bahrain Defense Force’s air defense systems confronted, intercepted, and destroyed several treacherous Iranian aerial attacks this morning, Thursday, July 9, 2026 CE.”
Three wins to go. How can your team reach the final and win the World Cup 2026? Click here to find out.
Who: Norway vs England list of 3 itemsend of list
What: FIFA World Cup 2026 – Quarterfinals
Where: Miami Stadium, Miami Gardens, Florida, the United States
When: Saturday, July 11, at 5pm (21:00 GMT)
How to follow: We will have all the build-up on Al Jazeera Sport from 18:00 GMT before our live text commentary stream.
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Four weeks ago, if you told Norwegians their team would be in the World Cup quarterfinals, they might have laughed it off. But this weekend, the Scandinavian country is set to break new ground.
Norway’s dream run in North America enters a new chapter when the tournament’s dark horses take on title contenders England for a place in the semifinals.
It took Norway a whopping 28 years to return to the sport’s biggest stage, and they have made their mark in style – from their traditional Viking row celebrations capturing global attention to striker Erling Haaland becoming the internet’s darling.
A lethal presence in the box and a goofy, no-nonsense personality off the pitch, Haaland has become somewhat of an all-round entertainer for viewers. His exemplary goal-scoring figures make you almost forget he’s playing in his debut World Cup – and next up, the towering striker will go toe-to-toe with England’s Harry Kane, another number nine who delivers when it matters most.
How did Norway and England reach the round of 16?
Norway finished second in Group I with six points, beating Senegal and Iraq and losing to France. They started their knockout phase with a late 2-1 win over the Ivory Coast before stunning Brazil by the same scoreline to reach the quarterfinals for the first time.
England topped Group L with seven points, beating Croatia and Panama and drawing with Ghana. They needed a second-half comeback to beat the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the round of 32 and knocked out cohosts Mexico 3-2 in a scintillating last-16 contest at the iconic Azteca Stadium.
Pressure firmly on England
The chants of “It’s Coming Home” were louder than ever when England’s fighting spirit – against the background of high altitude, history and a red card – steered them to victory against the home side Mexico.
Sharing 10 of the team’s 11 goals between them, the dynamic duo of Kane and Jude Bellingham has kept England alive in the title race, especially at a time when there are defensive deficiencies in the squad.
The in-form side, which also boasts more World Cup experience than Norway, are deemed favourites to reach the semifinals for the first time since 2018.
“We’ve been here a few times,” said England winger Bukayo Saka. “But the best team on the day is going to be the team that wins, so we’re aware of that and that’s where our focus is.”
England’s leaky defence – which has kept only two clean sheets in five games – will face its toughest test yet against Haaland, whose seven goals rank him third in the Golden Boot race, only behind Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappe.
Haaland: The most recognisable face at the World Cup
In their first World Cup since 1998, Norway, a nation of just more than five million people, has exceeded expectations.
After stunning the record five-time world champions Brazil to reach their first-ever quarterfinal, Norway will be eager to take down another giant and extend their fairytale run.
As much as their success has been a team effort, the spotlight has centred on their poster boy, Haaland – the blond, pony-tailed, 1.95-metre- (6ft4-) tall striker and a new social media sensation.
With his nonchalant replies in news conferences, awkward post-match selfies on Snapchat and a glittering collection of luxury handbags, the striker has drawn attention for more than just his goal-scoring prowess. In fact, “Haaland mania” has reached a fever pitch during the course of the World Cup.
Instagram is flooded with AI-generated and animated videos of him, stitched with his now-famous song “Ha-ha-ha-Haaland”.
“It’s important to joke around … I like to joke a little bit, and I like to have fun,” Haaland said. “That’s a key for my daily life – to joke around and, of course, train well and prepare well.”
Haaland’s top-notch preparation has delivered outcomes that even the 25-year-old did not expect.
“To be in the quarterfinals with Norway in the World Cup is quite surprising, even for me,” he said.
“Just to be able to play in the World Cup is, for me, a huge honour, and it was a huge goal for me in my career. To be able to be here and play on the biggest stage with my Norwegian friends against the best teams in the world, it’s really special.”
Norway vs England predictions
The Opta supercomputer gives England a 50.4 percent likelihood of winning in regulation time, while Norway’s chances of winning are 25.1 percent.
The model estimates a 24.6 percent probability of the game going to extra time.
What time is Norway vs England?
- Norway: NRK1, NRK2, TV 2 (11pm, Central European Summer Time)
- United Kingdom: STV, STV Player, ITV1, ITVX (10pm, British Summer Time)
- USA: Peacock, Fox, Fox One, Telemundo App, Telemundo Network (5pm, Eastern Daylight Time)
To check the TV listings for your country, head to FIFA’s TV listing schedule here.
Who will the winner face in the semifinals?
The winner of the Norway vs England match will play Argentina or Switzerland in the semifinals in Atlanta on Wednesday.
Norway vs England: Head-to-head
Norway and England have never met at the World Cup, but have previously faced each other 12 times. England have won seven times, Norway twice, while three matches ended in a draw.
Their most recent encounter came in a 2014 international friendly, which England won 1-0 at Wembley.
Norway vs England: Team news
England will be without defender Jarell Quansah after he was handed a two-match ban for picking up a red card in the game against Mexico. He will miss the quarterfinal and a potential semifinal should England advance.
Centre-back Marc Guehi has a slight hamstring strain and will be assessed later on Friday to see if he is fit to play, while Reece James remains doubtful with a hamstring injury.
Defensive midfielder Jordan Henderson has been ruled out of the rest of the tournament with a broken wrist.
No issues have been reported in the Norway camp.
Norway’s predicted lineup
(4-3-3): Nyland (goalkeeper); Ryerson, Ajer, Heggem, Moller Wolfe; Berg, Berge, Odegaard; Sorloth, Haaland, Nusa
England’s predicted lineup
(4-2-3-1): Pickford (goalkeeper); Konsa, Stones, Guehi, O’Reilly; Rice, Anderson; Saka, Bellingham, Gordon; Kane
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