Norbert Hofer, chief of the far-right Freedom Party (FPOe), said Monday that his party “will support” the motion, which is also backed by the main opposition Social Democrats (SPOe).

The move comes just after Kurz celebrated a big win for his conservative People’s Party (OeVP) in Sunday’s European elections, which is projected to gain 34.9 percent of the vote and two extra European parliament seats.

It comes in the wake of the so-called “Ibiza-gate” scandal, which saw FPOe leader and Vice-Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache resign from both posts after he was caught appearing to offer public contracts in return for campaign help from a fake Russian backer.

    That led to Kurz ending his coalition with the FPOe and calling early elections for the autumn, but the opposition say the 32-year-old leader must also take responsibility for the scandal.

The no-confidence vote against Kurz and his government is set to take place in a special sitting of parliament later Monday, making him the shortest-serving chancellor, as well as the first in post-war Austrian history to be removed in this fashion.

While the environmental Jetzt party is also expected to back the motion against the chancellor, the liberal NEOS party said it would be voting against it to avoid further instability.

Once Kurz’s government is removed, it would be up to President Alexander Van der Bellen to appoint experts to lead the government and all the ministries until the elections.

 – Far-right setback –

The far-right, meanwhile, seemed to have suffered a setback in Sunday’s vote over “Ibiza-gate”, falling from 19.7 percent to 17.2 percent and losing one of their four MEPs.

The scandal erupted following the publication on May 17 of hidden-camera recordings filmed in a luxury villa on the holiday island of Ibiza a few months before Austria’s last parliamentary elections in 2017.

Amid a welter of embarrassing comments, Strache appeared to allude to a scheme channelling political donations through FPOe-linked foundations in order to avoid legal scrutiny.

After Strache’s resignation, Kurz also sacked FPOe interior minister Herbert Kickl, arguing he could not oversee any possible investigation into his own party’s wrongdoing.

FPOe ministers responded by walking out of the government en masse, leading to Kurz appointing experts to take their place in an interim government.

– Paragon of stability –

When he first became chancellor in late 2017, Kurz was widely hailed on the European right as someone who could successfully tap into surging anti-immigration sentiment while projecting a polished demeanour.

Since the crisis broke, he has projected himself as a paragon of stability in a turbulent political climate, and analysts say this will be a key message for him to use.

But even before the current crisis, Kurz found himself constantly having to bat away criticism for alleged extremist sympathies among FPOe members.

The opposition has placed the blame for the current debacle squarely at the feet of Kurz himself for having invited the far-right into government in the first place, saying he had ample warning of the unsuitability of the FPOe for government.

Kurz has trod a fine line in his statements since the crisis broke, admitting he found the FPOe’s antics “hard to swallow” but insisting he had no other choice.

“There was no other party which was ready to form a coalition with us,” he told journalists on Thursday, when asked whether he regretted the coalition.

Tam, believed to be in his 30s, had been suffering from kidney and liver damage for quite some time.

Sabah Wildlife Department director Augustine Tuuga said he is getting information on the death and their next course of action.

Wildlife Department assistant director Dr Sen Nathan added that a post mortem will be conducted first after this.

Sabah Tourism, Culture and Environment minister Datuk Christina Liew is expected to issue a statement on the Tam’s death later Monday (May 27).

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/asean-plus/30370063?jwsource=cl

According to AFP, Tam’s death puts pressure on an ongoing effort for conservationists hoping to use in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) techniques to create offspring from Malaysia’s last female Sumatran rhino, Iman, and an Indonesian male.

Tuuga said there were problems with Iman’s uterus and that she was incapable of becoming pregnant, but was still able to produce eggs.

“We just have to look after the last remaining rhino. That’s all we can do, and try if possible to work with Indonesia,” he said.

    Over the weekend, Felix Klein, the German government’s commissioner on anti-Semitism, said he “cannot advise Jews to wear the kippa everywhere all the time in Germany”, in an interview given to the Funke regional press group.

Israeli President Reuven Rivlin voiced shock at Klein’s warning and said it was a “capitulation to anti-Semitism” and evidence that Jews are unsafe in Germany.

Bild, Germany’s top-selling daily newspaper, waded into the debate, calling on readers to “stand in solidarity with (their) Jewish neighbours” by making “their own kippa”, bearing the star of David, to “raise the flag against anti-Semitism”.

    Rejecting the warning to leave off the kippa “seven decades after the Holocaust”, Bild’s chief editor Julian Reichelt wrote: “There is only one answer to that: No, it cannot be the case!

“If that is so, then we have failed in the face of our history,” he said.

Urging readers to cut out the skullcap and wear it, Reichelt stressed that “the kippa belongs to Germany.”

Germany, like other western countries, has watched with alarm as anti-Semitic and other racist hate speech and violence have increased in recent years while the political climate has coarsened and grown more polarised.

Anti-Semitic crimes rose by 20 percent in Germany last year, according to interior ministry data which blamed nine out of 10 cases on the extreme right.

The arrival in parliament of the far-right AfD, whose leaders openly question Germany’s culture of atonement for World War II atrocities, has also contributed to the change in atmosphere.

Chancellor Angela Merkel has also deplored “another form of anti-Semitism” stemming from a major asylum-seeker influx, with many coming from Muslim countries like Syria, Afghanistan or Iraq.

The Central Council of Jews in Germany has already issued several warnings about wearing the kippa in public.

In one prominent case last year, a 19-year-old Syrian man was convicted for assault after lashing out with his belt at an Israeli man wearing a Jewish kippa skullcap while shouting “yahudi”, Jew in Arabic.