Author: DW

After months of silence amid growing criticism, Bayern Munich has announced that it will no longer promote Visit Rwanda, the tourism arm of the African country’s government. “The new arrangement transitions the relationship away from a commercial sponsorship to a dedicated partnership focusing on football development in Rwanda through the expansion of the FC Bayern Youth Academy in Kigali,” read a statement on the club website posted on Friday. Previously, the agreement had been that Bayern would also display Visit Rwanda advertising on pitchside hoardings and “promote tourism and investment opportunities in Rwanda.” In February, Bayern Munich fans held up a…

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart Donald Trump are scheduled to meet in person for bilateral talks on August 15 to discuss how to end the war in Ukraine. Before his election victory in November 2024, Trump announced he would end the war within the first 24 hours of his term. He is now about 200 days past his own deadline. Trump said the meeting with Putin will help accelerate the peace process. Here’s an overview of what’s known so far. When and where will the meeting take place? The two leaders will meet next Friday in Alaska, a state in the northwest of the…

The year began on a high note for the European Union and India. In February, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen visited New Delhi and, alongside Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, instructed officials to resolve remaining differences and move forward on a long-delayed free trade agreement.  But that momentum was disrupted in July, when India was drawn into the EU’s 18th sanctions package against Russia. The move targets New Delhi’s refining of discounted Russian crude and the export of those products, some of which are sold to Europe. Could this sanctions development derail a potential EU-India trade deal? Experts argue it won’t, saying the US threat of imposing…

In 2016, a Danish pension fund had a change of heart that is rare in the financial sector. At the time, AkademikerPension had $1 billion (then around €904 million) in investments in what were considered the safe financial havens of oil giants like ExxonMobil, Shell and BP. But as global temperatures continued to rise, that didn’t sit right with the company board. Members studied different climate scenarios available at the time and saw that continued investment in fossil energy was not going to make financial sense in the long term.  “That was really the main conclusion for us driving our decision…

For Wim Wenders, getting lost is not a failure but a form of bliss. “When you’re lost, you really abandon yourself and you are there,” he told DW. For over five decades, the German filmmaker has invited audiences to lose themselves in his films that drift through unfamiliar landscapes and quiet emotional spaces. Wenders, who’s also a keen photographer, believes that only when we are truly lost do we actually begin to seeImage: Wim Wenders, Courtesy of the Wim Wenders Foundation/Argos Films As Wenders turns 80 this August, the Bundeskunsthalle in the western German city of Bonn is presenting a…

When Thomas Müller announced recently in an Instagram post that his next career move would be “across the big pond,” it was quickly reported that the bright lights of Los Angeles would be his destination. However, the soon to be 36-year-old, who has made a career of surprising opponents on the pitch, caught nobody off guard by announcing on Wednesday that he was indeed moving to the Pacific west coast — but north of the 49th parallel to Vancouver. The move had been Major League Soccer’s worst-kept secret for days. ‘A statement signing’ “Thomas is a world-class player — the ultimate “Raumdeuter” (“space interpreter”] — known…

The United States is planning to build its largest ever migrant detention facility on a military base in Texas. The initial plan is to hold 1,000 migrants at the Fort Bliss base near the Mexican border starting this month, the Pentagon said on Thursday. The facility, named Camp East Montana, would then be expanded to provide 5,000 beds for migrants in “the weeks and months ahead,” according to the Department of Defense. Migrant detention in tents at US base When completed, it would be the largest federal detention center in the US, the Pentagon added. The Defense Department is funding…

The United States on Thursday doubled the reward for the arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to $50 million (€43 million). The Trump administration has accused Maduro of being the world’s biggest drug trafficker and working with cartels to smuggle fentanyl-laced cocaine into the US. In January, the announced bounty was fixed at $25 million. The Department of Justice and State Department on Thursday announced a historic $50 million reward for information leading to the arrest of Nicolas Maduro, Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a video on social media. “He is one of the largest narco-traffickers in the world and…

Why did Switzerland get hit with a 39% tariff? US President Donald Trump’s argument is straightforward. He believes trade partners of the United States benefit from broad access to the US market, while often restricting access to their own, creating persistent trade imbalances. In Switzerland’s case, Trump balked at the Alpine nation’s $48 billion (€41.2 billion) trade deficit, which he said showed Swiss firms were “taking advantage” of the US. For that and the country’s apparent unwillingness to address the imbalance, he put a much higher tariff on Swiss imports than the European Union’s 15%. At 39%, the tariff rate is the highest among developed countries and may…

A new Taiwanese series about a fictional Chinese invasion has sparked heated debate after its Saturday premiere topped drama rankings on public TV and multiple streaming platforms. The ten-episode drama titled “Zero Day Attack” is set in 2028, imagining China using a missing warplane as a pretext to launch a blockade when a newly elected Taiwanese president is about to take office. Some viewers praised the show for helping “every Taiwanese understand how the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] infiltrates us,” while others accused it of “selling a sense of national doom.” Taiwan is a self-governing democracy that Beijing claims is…