Author: DW

In their meeting in Alaska on Monday,Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart, Donald Trump, are reported to have agreed that Ukraine should cede Donetsk and Luhansk. Putin wants Ukraine’s armed forces to withdraw completely from the areas. In exchange, he would freeze the fighting along the rest of the front line — particularly in the southern Ukrainian regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, which are currently largely occupied by Russian forces. In recent years, Putin has repeatedly emphasized the importance of  Donetsk and Luhansk, which together make up the Donbas. He says the region is historically linked to Russia and…

Two narrow straps that sit just above the hipbone, their edges cutting into sun-tanned flesh: the thong.  These days, thanks to the revival of fashion from the 2000s, it seems to be everywhere: sticking out of low-rise jeans, shimmering underneath transparent beach dresses or revealing derrieres on the beach.  But what many people might not know about the thong bathing suit is that its creation was political — and its creator a gay man.  July 1974: Los Angeles’ last summer of nude bathing  “Everyone was nude,” a lifeguard recalls in the newspaper LA Times. In the summer of 1974, Venice Beach became a sea of bare bottoms.…

When athletes started to return their 2024 Paris Olympic medals after they began to corrode, it was an omen of things to come. The medals were designed by French jeweler Chaumet, which LVMH, a luxury goods giant, owns. Though the French mint produced the medals, LVMH suffered bad publicity after it made a spectacle of its corporate sponsorship of the games. A luxury pioneer in downturns, too? Paris-based LVMH is not corroding, but it is not doing great either. In late 2022, the company’s market value soared high enough to make Bernard Arnault, its founder and chairman, who controls about half of the company’s shares, the…

Zero. That is the number of people killed in traffic accidents in Helsinki, Finland, during the last year. Other cities have achieved this feat, such as the Norwegian capital, Oslo, in 2019. However, Helsinki, which has almost 690,000 people, is among the largest cities to do so. Its most recent traffic fatality was in July 2024.  The Finnish capital’s road toll has been substantially lower than that of other European capitals, both in absolute terms and per capita.  It recorded four traffic fatalities in 2024, 0.59 per 100,000 inhabitants, until early July. By comparison, Berlin recorded 1.45 per 100,000 and London 110. Oslo, which is only…

There is no denying that the Bundesliga has experienced a significant loss of talent over the summer.  Florian Wirtz has moved from Bayer Leverkusen to Liverpool; Bayern Munich legend Thomas Müller chose to wind down his career at the Vancouver Whitecaps, and Kingsley Coman, who  scored the winner in the final the last time Bayern won the Champions League in 2020, has moved on to Al-Nassr of the Saudi Pro League. Each move had its own logic: The 22-year-old Wirtz was looking to take the next step in his career, while the now-35-year-old Müller chose Vancouver, a city regularly ranked…

Air Canada and the union representing 10,000 striking flight attendants resumed talks late Monday in Toronto, their first meeting since crews walked off the job over the weekend in a dispute over pay and unpaid work. The strike has entered its fourth day, forcing the cancellation of 700 daily flights and leaving about 130,000 travelers a day stranded at the peak of the summer season. Airline staff demand pay for ground work The Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) said discussions began with mediator William Kaplan but vowed flight attendants would not return to work until Air Canada addresses wages…

After nine months of relatively peaceful protests, Serbia’s streets are beginning to resemble a state of war, with the offices of the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) vandalized. Clashes between demonstrators and police with batons, tear gas, smoke bombs and flares, repeat night after night across the country. Neda Vrebac, from the citizens’ assemblies in Novi Sad, has been on the streets for months. She says people are furious and that the violence on the streets is merely a reaction to the regime’s violence. “We went unarmed against bayonets,” Vrebac told DW. “I feel, personally, as do other citizens who regularly attend protests, very…

The words “skibidi,” “delulu”, and “tradwife” are coming to a dictionary near you. These are among the latest Cambridge Dictionary additions of more than 6,000 new words and phrases over the past year, the publisher of the world’s largest online dictionary said on Monday. These new inductions into the dictionary reflect how shifting online culture impacts everyday speech. ‘Internet culture changing English language’ Among the new entries are Gen Z and Gen Alpha terms such as “skibidi,” a nonsense word popularized by the viral YouTube series Skibidi Toilet, “delulu,” short for delusional, and “tradwife,” which describes women who embrace traditional gender…

Israel’s government has remained notably silent over Norway’s decision on August 11 to partially divest investments in several Israeli companies, triggered by ethical concerns over the war in Gaza. Norway’s $2 trillion (€1.71 trillion) sovereign wealth fund said it would withdraw investments from 11 firms linked to Israel and terminate contracts with asset managers operating in the country. The fund launched an urgent review after media reports that it had invested in a firm that makes parts for Israeli military fighter jets. While Israel’s media labeled Norway’s move “deeply troubling” and “politically motivated,” some analysts think Israeli officials are deliberately keeping a low profile for fear of emboldening the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions…

Zero. That is the number of people killed in traffic accidents in Helsinki, Finland, during the last year. Other cities have achieved this feat, such as the Norwegian capital, Oslo, in 2019. However, Helsinki, which has almost 690,000 people, is among the largest cities to do so. Its most recent traffic fatality was in July 2024.  The Finnish capital’s road toll has been substantially lower than that of other European capitals, both in absolute terms and per capita.  It recorded four traffic fatalities in 2024, 0.59 per 100,000 inhabitants, until early July. By comparison, Berlin recorded 1.45 per 100,000 and London 110. Oslo, which is only…