German police launch manhunt after 2 people shot dead

Armed police stand guard at the compound of the court builing in Celle, northern Germany. (AFP)
Short Url
Updated 20 April 2025
Follow

German police launch manhunt after 2 people shot dead

  • There was no information yet about the "circumstances, or the motive of the perpetrators", they said.

BERLIN: A large police operation was under way in Germany on Sunday to find one or more shooters who killed two men the day before in the center of the country, police said.
The bodies of the two victims, both with gunshot wounds, were found in front of a residential address in Bad Nauheim, a town north of Frankfurt, on Saturday afternoon, Giessen city police said.
“A big force deployment” of police from uniformed, plain clothes and special forces branches have fanned out, backed by a helicopter, to find the perpetrator or perpetrators, it said.
“The current understanding is that there is no danger for inhabitants or other people,” police said.
There was no information yet about the “circumstances, or the motive of the perpetrators,” they said.
Police and prosecutors have opened an investigation.
Bad Nauheim is 25 kilometers (15 miles) north of Frankfurt and has a population of around 33,000. It was famous for being where Elvis Presley did US military service between 1958 and 1960 and where he met his future wife, Priscilla Presley.


China is the real threat, Taiwan says in rebuff to Munich speech

Updated 10 sec ago
Follow

China is the real threat, Taiwan says in rebuff to Munich speech

  • China views democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory, a view the government in Taipei rejects
TAIPEI: China is the real ‌threat to security and is hypocritically claiming to uphold UN principles of peace, Taiwan Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung said on Sunday in a rebuff to comments by China’s top diplomat at the Munich Security Conference.
China views democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory, a view the government in Taipei rejects, saying only Taiwan’s people can decide their future.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, addressing the annual security conference on Saturday, warned that some countries were “trying to split Taiwan ‌from China,” ‌blamed Japan for tensions over the island ‌and ⁠underscored the importance ⁠of upholding the United Nations Charter.
Taiwan’s Lin said in a statement that whether viewed from historical facts, objective reality or under international law, Taiwan’s sovereignty has never belonged to the People’s Republic of China.
Lin said that Wang had “boasted” of upholding the purposes of the UN Charter and had blamed ⁠other countries for regional tensions.
“In fact, China has ‌recently engaged in military provocations ‌in surrounding areas and has repeatedly and openly violated UN Charter ‌principles on refraining from the use of force or ‌the threat of force,” Lin said. This “once again exposes a hegemonic mindset that does not match its words with its actions.”
China’s military, which operates daily around Taiwan, staged its latest round of ‌mass war games near Taiwan in December.
Senior Taiwanese officials like Lin are not invited ⁠to attend ⁠the Munich conference.
China says Taiwan was “returned” to Chinese rule by Japan at the end of World War Two in 1945 and that to challenge that is to challenge the postwar international order and Chinese sovereignty.
The government in Taipei says the island was handed over to the Republic of China, not the People’s Republic, which did not yet exist, and hence Beijing has no right to claim sovereignty.
The republican government fled to Taiwan in 1949 after losing a civil war with Mao Zedong’s communists, and the Republic of China remains the island’s formal name.