Author: DW

Franz Reindl came from behind to narrowly beat Petr Briza of the Czech Republic in a run-off vote to become the International Ice Hockey Federation’s new president on Friday. Reindl had trailed Briza 48-36 in the first round of voting but picked up crucial votes after Aivaz Omorkanov of Kyrgyzstan was eliminated. He then beat Briza 60-57 in the runoff held on the Spanish island of Tenerife. Six of a total of nine candidates had withdrawn prior to the election. The 71-year-old German, who had been a member of the IIHF Council since 2016, succeeds Canadian-born Frenchman Luc Tardif, who had…

When it premiered at the Venice International Film Festival in mid-September, “NAZA” received a 25-minute-long standing ovation and the Special Jury Prize. But in Israel, the documentary has fueled heated debate. Israeli Culture Minister Miki Zohar described the work of filmmakers Rachel Szor and Yuval Abraham “treason against the state” and urged that their citizenship be revoked. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has also sharply criticized the documentary. Now the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has also rejected the film’s allegations about its conduct during the war in Gaza. In a multi-page document, the military accuses the filmmakers of presenting a “distorted, misleading…

Investors in Turkey want one thing above all else: for their money to retain its value. Given inflation of around 30%, that is not exactly easy. As a result, many people are buying gold, foreign currency or stocks and increasingly, mutual fund shares that promise high returns. But the stock market has become a trap for around half a million Turkish investors. In mid-September, the benchmark BIST 100 index plummeted by 6% in a single day and lost about 12% within just a few trading days. This sharp drop in stock prices was triggered by a major market manipulation scandal. Approximately 455,000 investors…

After 47 days, three matches and 44 squad players, Jürgen Klopp has a first win as coach of Germany’s men’s fotball team. A straightforward 2-0 victory over Serbia in the Nations League on Thursday meant the former Liverpool and Borussia Dortmund coach avoided becoming the first Germany boss to win any of his first three games. “I’m really happy today,” Klopp told German public broadcaster ZDF. “We were outstanding when defending and when we had the ball. We simply played wonderful football.” Klopp had raised a few eyebrows by naming two squads for the four fixtures in this extended international window. But after a…

“Bringing the world together through music has always been an incredibly powerful idea and has stood the test of time for 70 years,” Eurovision Song Contest director Martin Green told DW on the sidelines of the event’s annual European Broadcasting Union (EBU) workshop held in mid-September. “And I think the more difficult the world gets around us, the more important these shows of unity, these shows of togetherness become.” While Green is intent on promoting the unity of the international music contest that celebrated its 70th anniversary in May, the 2026 event was also infamously marked by unprecedented backlash. Political boycotts over…

As part of its “Freedom Means More Affordable Cars” initiative, the US Department of Transportation this week rolled back fuel efficiency rules under the guise of lowering vehicle prices.  The Trump administration’s transport agency says US taxpayers will save $138 billion (€122 billion) over the next five years — new vehicles will be $1,300 cheaper on average — since automakers will no longer have to invest in more fuel-efficient fleets.  But this does not account for soaring gas prices as Middle East conflicts choke global supply.  “Any savings on the front end get eaten up and spat out by excess costs of fuel… Fuel economy…

Manchester City have won the Premier League eight times over the last 14 years. But whether those titles will remain is one of a plethora of issues at stake after England’s top division charged one of its most high profile clubs with more than 100 breaches of its financial regulations. On Tuesday, the Premier League announced that an independent commission had found City had drawn up “sham contracts” as well as “relying on sham agreements to artificially inflate the club’s revenues and reduce its costs”. These contracts, dubious sponsorships and a number of other methods were, according to the commission’s report,…

“The first week went by peacefully,” Oktoberfest Director Christian Scharpf said at the festival’s half-way point. Munich’s Deputy Mayor Verena Dietl praised the “good, harmonious atmosphere.”  The city’s police force also delivered a positive report half-way through the event in Munich. But if you take a closer look, all is not peachy at the Wiesn. Service personnel are among those painting a very different picture. And they’re the ones at the heart of the action. The situations they encounter often go unreported and don’t appear in the statistics, but sometimes, a line is crossed, with racist, discriminatory comments, for example. In response, a…

What’s with Donald Trump and renaming things? First, the Gulf of Mexico became the Gulf of America — in US federal documents, if not globally. Then Lake Ontario became Lake America. Now he wants to rebrand the defining technology of our time: artificial intelligence (AI). Earlier this month, the US president claimed on his Truth Social platform that the term artificial intelligence is “inaccurate” and “ineloquent.” He said “superior,” “extreme,” or “supreme” intelligence were better alternatives. In a three-day social media poll, Trump fans chose “Super Intelligence” (SI) by about 65% to 35% (for Superior Intelligence), allowing him to announce at the United…

Peruvian fishermen gave El Nino its name — “the little boy” or Christ Child — after noticing unusually warm Pacific waters around Christmas that caused the fish they depended on to suddenly become scarce. But what those fishermen observed locally can have consequences thousands of kilometers away. El Nino can shift temperature and rainfall patterns around the world, bringing extreme heat and drought to some regions and heavy rain and flooding to others. Researchers now estimate that the unusually high temperatures linked to the current El Nino could cause around 451,000 excess deaths worldwide from June 2026 to February 2027. The event is…