GERMANY – Cologne has beefed up security for the city’s annual carnival, after many women suffered sexual assaults and robberies there on New Year’s Eve. The city in western Germany is putting 2,500 police officers on the streets for the week-long event.

Germany was shocked by the New Year assaults, largely blamed on migrants. More than 100 women were victims, but the full scale only emerged later. Separately, police have arrested three suspected Islamist militants in raids. The two men and one woman detained are among four suspected of links to the so-called Islamic State group. One of those held was being sought by Algerian authorities, and they may have been planning an attack in Germany, police said. Two men – a Tunisian and a Moroccan – have been charged over the Cologne offences. But in total there were 945 complaints to Cologne police after the New Year trouble, 559 of them allegations of sexual assault. Thirty-five suspects are being investigated. German authorities spoke of a new type of crime, in which gangs of drunken men – described as North African – targeted women.(BBC)…[+]