Author: DW

First came the sound of a police siren, then a megaphone announcement: “Dear lecturers, we hereby inform you that the blockade of the Faculty of Philosophy is about to begin.” This is how the wave of student blockades at the University of Novi Sad in Serbia began on November 2. Olga Pantic, a first-year communications student, was on shift at the university cafeteria at the time. She left work and joined her fellow students when she heard the announcement. Since then, the faculty has become her home: she eats, sleeps and lives there. “I’ve got so used to it that…

Argentina’s President Javier Milei faced criticism and threats of impeachment on Saturday after he made a post on social media promoting a cryptocurrency that quickly tanked in value. Milei promoted a new cryptocurrency on social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter) which increased in value to $5 (€4.75) before quickly tanking to below $1. Argentina’s fintech chamber acknowledged that the case could potentially be a “rug pull” — a scheme where a cryptocurrency’s creators quickly generate real investment to pump up the value before dumping their own stake. “This scandal, which embarrasses us on an international scale, requires us…

It is time for an armed forces of Europe.This was the key message from Ukraine’s president at a major security conference in Munich that has brutally exposed European irrelevance when the US is not onside. Volodymyr Zelenskyy said such a force would not replace the transatlantic NATO alliance, but it would instead ensure that Europe is as strong as Washington – and taken seriously by friends and foes once again.”We must build the armed forces of Europe so that Europe’s future depends only on Europeans and decisions about Europe are made in Europe,” he said, speaking on the main stage…

Germany’s Commerzbank on Thursday said it was preparing staff cuts in its efforts to fend off tie-up advances by Italian banking group, UniCredit. Commerzbank has been advocating its case to stand alone as an independent company, with the bank warning that a merger could lead to significant job losses.  What are the plans? The financial institution said the cuts would be implemented by 2028, with a reduction of about 10% of its workforce — some 3,900 — by that time. The new strategy was announced on Thursday after a meeting of the bank’s supervisory board. Commerzbank said the cuts, which would mainly affect sites in Germany,…

The case is due to be heard in court on March 1, according to a recent post by the filmmakers on Instagram: the Iranian judiciary is accusing them of violating “morality and ethics” through their film “Keyke mahboobe man” (or “My Favorite Cake”). They had also failed to obtain a screening permit and distribution license. Behtash Sanaeeha and Maryam Moghaddam also published a letter from the Tehran public prosecutor’s office, which had questioned the director duo several times. As Deutsche Welle has learned, the film’s lead actress, Lily Farhadpour, has now also been summoned to appear before the Revolutionary Court.…

What you need to know. Tectonic changes are forcing the Zagros Mountains region in Iraq to sink.  These processes take tens of millions of years to occur.  Studies into the transformation of the region could help predict future earthquakes.   Iraq is sinking. Or to be exact, the region surrounding the Zagros Mountains in the country’s north is. A team of researchers has found a sinking oceanic “slab” below the Earth’s surface is pulling the northern region of Iraq down with it. But we are not talking about a sinkhole where you can watch hills, trees and entire sections of land disappear before your eyes: The…

“With this, believe it or not, we are done,” judge Jose Manuel Fernandez-Prieto told the National Court in San Fernando de Henares near Madrid on Friday, February 14, 2025, marking the end of the trial of Former Spanish football federation (RFEF) President Luis Rubiales. Neither Rubiales nor the other three others accused in the case exercised their right to make a final statement to the court. The former Spanish FA boss had testified on Tuesday, telling the court that he was “totally sure” that national team forward Jenni Hermoso had consented to the kiss seen by millions after Spain had just won the…

A United Nations peacekeeping vehicle was torched in Lebanon on Friday amid a second day of protests by Hezbollah supporters in Beirut. The outgoing force commander of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) was injured after a convoy taking peacekeepers to the airport was “violently attacked” on Friday, the mission said. “Attacks on peacekeepers are flagrant violations of international law and may amount to war crimes,” UNIFIL said in a statement. “We demand a full and immediate investigation by Lebanese authorities and for all perpetrators to be brought to justice,” the statement added. The Lebanese army vowed to…

A woman who had accused rap superstars Sean “Diddy” Combs and Jay-Z of raping her when she was 13 dropped her civil lawsuit on Friday, according to court records. The anonymous woman from the southern US state of Alabama had in December added Jay-Z — whose real name is Shawn Carter —  to the lawsuit filed against Combs in a federal court in Manhattan in which she had alleged that she was attacked by the hip-hop artists in 2000 after Combs’ driver offered her a ride to an MTV Video Music Awards after-party. A filing in the federal court showed…

JD Vance has taken aim at the UK and Europe over what he claimed was “backsliding” free speech and democracy.The US vice president held no punches when addressing European leaders at the Munich Security Conference in Germany on Friday. “When I look at Europe today, it’s sometimes not so clear what happened to some of the Cold War’s winners,” he said, during a speech that roamed across Europe targeting perceived infringes on free speech.Speaking with unusual directness to some of the US’ closest allies, he added: “And perhaps most concerningly, I look to our very dear friends, the United Kingdom,…