Author: DW

The praise is effusive from a man who signs his reviews as “Dan”: “The rooms are an absolute dream: spacious, stylishly furnished and well-conceived down to the last detail,” he writes in a Google review of The Flamingo hotel at Timmendorfer Strand on Germany’s Baltic Sea coast. “We would particularly like to emphasize the cleanliness and the wonderful view — simply wonderful!” he writes. “Anja,” on the other hand, was not impressed: “If you want cleanliness and quality, then this is not the right place,” she writes. Hair in the drain, dust, dirty towels, mold, fingerprints — the list of shortcomings is long. The hotel…

Germany’s shift to the right has left its mark on the country’s national game, causing all kinds of ructions. Many German football clubs and fan groups have held demonstrations against the far right over the past year, both in the stadiums on match days and in the streets of their cities. Several major clubs from Germany’s top two leagues, including Werder Bremen, VfL Bochum, FSV Mainz 05, 1. FC Köln, and Hannover 96, have called on their supporters to oppose right-wing extremism. The sustained success of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) appears to have sharpened attention leading up to the federal…

Skip next section Macron speaks with Trump and Zelenskyy after European meeting02/18/2025February 18, 2025Macron speaks with Trump and Zelenskyy after European meetingFrench President Emmanuel Macron said he spoke with US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy after Monday’s meeting of European leaders. Macron stressed that a peace agreement could only be sustainable if Russia ends its aggression and there are credible security guarantees for Ukraine. “We will work on this together with all Europeans, Americans, and Ukrainians. This is the key,” he wrote on social media. European leaders met in Paris on Monday for an emergency summit to…

A Delta regional jet overturned in Canada while landing Monday at Toronto Pearson Airport after a blizzard, injuring 18 of the 80 people aboard, according to authorities. Three people on the flight, which came from Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport in the US, were seriously injured, including one child, officials said. What happened to the plane? According to the US carrier Delta, a 16-year-old CRJ900 aircraft operated by its Endeavor Air subsidiary was involved in an accident with 76 passengers and four crew members on board.  “Initial reports indicate there are no fatalities and 18 customers with injuries have been transported…

Rwandan-backed rebels have occupied a second major city in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).The Congo River Alliance, a group of rebel outfits including M23, said in a statement its fighters “decided to assist the population of Bukavu” in addressing its security challenges under the “old regime”. Alliance spokesperson Lawrence Kanyuka, who previously ruled out a takeover of the city in eastern DRC, added: “Our forces have been working to restore the security for the people and their property, much to the satisfaction of the entire population.”M23 official Bernard Maheshe Byamungu – who has been sanctioned by the UN…

As part of the European Union’s efforts to keep up in the race of developing artificial intelligence (AI), the bloc recently announced a €200-billion ($208-billion) funding program for the breakthrough technology. It comes as US President Donald Trump launched multibillion-dollar AI projects in January and China made headlines with its own large language model (LLM) called DeepSeek. China’s DeepSeek is one of the few foundation models with a potential of breaking the US dominance in the AI fieldImage: Frank Rumpenhorst/dpa/picture alliance Björn Ommer, a professor of artificial intelligence at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (LMU), told DW that AI is driving the rapid emergence of…

In 2019, South Korean filmmaker Bong Joon-ho made history by becoming the first director to ever win best film at the Oscars with a movie that was not in English, “Parasite.” But before this Palme d’Or-winning work, the director had also made other films that were predominantly in English, such as “Snowpiercer” (2013) and “Okja” (2017). He now returns with another English-language feature, titled “Mickey 17.” The sci-fi comedy, starring Robert Pattinson, Steven Yeun, Toni Collette and Mark Ruffalo, celebrated its world premiere at the 2025 Berlin International Film Festival. Robert Pattinson was in Berlin for the premiere of the filmImage: Liesa…

Sports are a focus in the election manifestos of several Germany’s political parties despite the other pressing issues facing the country in the lead up to elections on February 23. While the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), the center-right Christian Democrats (CDU), Greens, the neoliberal Free Democratic Party (FDP) and left-wing Left Party address sports in relative detail, the Sarah Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) is largely reticent. And sports do not even appear in the election manifesto of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD). Many of the parties’ statements on the topic are rather generic, few are specific. But here is what we know. Olympic and Paralympic Games The CDU, SPD,…

“We have much more confidence, we are not alone,” explained Ukraine Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha to the astonishment of high-ranking officials gathered for the DW Conflict Zone discussion, “Peace Through Strength: A Plan for Ukraine,” near the close of this year’s Munich Security Conference (MSC). The statement seemed like a contradiction considering the week’s revelations. Just days before, US President Donald Trump announced that he had spoken with Russian President Vladimir Putin then proceeded to reject NATO membership for Ukraine and said Kyiv would have to cede territory to Russia if it wanted peace. And just one day prior, US Vice…

“Why did we Koreans come to Ukraine? To work in the countryside! The conditions here are good for growing vegetables,” said Olena Pak, a resident of the rural Shevchenkove settlement in southern Ukraine. Her parents, like those of her husband Oleh, also an ethnic Korean, came to Ukraine from Uzbekistan in the 1970s, when both countries were part of the Soviet Union. “They leased land from the state, which they worked on, while making plans. There were many Korean farm workers,” recalled Oleh Pak. The Mykolaiv region, in southern Ukrainey, has been home to one of the largest settlements of ethnic…