Author: DW

On a typical day in December, visitors arrive at Smartel, one of the bigger hotels in Ahaus, a town of 40,000 inhabitants in the western German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Pulling their rolling suitcases and with mobile phones in hand, guests are ready to scan a QR code on a terminal screen at the entrance. Rather than being greeted by a receptionist, arriving guests must use their smartphones to navigate the hotel. These devices not only open doors but also control room heating and lighting as there are no switches. In the hallway and lobby, cleaning robots are quietly humming. The only humans you may occasionally encounter are the…

Donald Trump will want to strike a deal on Russia’s war in Ukraine that brings him a “win” for ending the fighting but without also gifting a victory to Vladimir Putin.Crucially, any settlement must be acceptable to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who has spent the past few months working hard to impress the value of Kyiv as an ally upon the incoming US leader – and the global menace posed by an emboldened Moscow. Such a tricky balancing act – after almost three years of all-out war, hundreds of thousands of casualties and millions of Ukrainians displaced from their homes…

Germany holds snap federal elections on February 23, 2025. For tech billionaire and Trump associate Elon Musk, it is clear who should win the election: the Alternative for Germany (AfD)— a party that is partially classified as right-wing extremist by the German Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution. Musk wrote on X, the social media platform formerly called Twitter, that only the AfD can save Germany. He has also offered the AfD’s leader, Alice Weidel, a joint conversation on X, which he owns. On German social media, the AfD is considered the most agile party, especially on TikTok, where their videos…

The decision handed down by the Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe on Tuesday means that German authorities may require Bundesliga football clubs to foot part of the bill for games designated as being at a high risk of violence. In doing so, the court rejected an appeal by the German Football League (DFL), which operates Germany’s top two football leagues, against a 2014 decision by the city-state of Bremen. Since then, Bremen’s Fees and Contributions Act has stipulated that the authorities may bill organizers of for-profit events of more than 5,000 people, which could be reasonably expected to be associated with violence.…

Spain’s real estate market is experiencing a major boom. In the first nine months of the year, property prices rose by an average of 9%, according to the House Price Index from the INE statistics agency. Average prices have doubled over the past decade, marking a much-welcome recovery following the banking and real estate collapse during the 2008/9 financial crisis. That downturn was fueled by years of overbuilding and property speculation, ultimately forcing Spain to seek a €100 billion ($103 billion) bailout from the European Union to stabilize its banking sector. The current surge in home prices and rents has reignited concerns over housing…

Cuba freed opposition leader Jose Daniel Ferrer and some other prisoners on Thursday as part of a deal with outgoing US President Joe Biden. Biden agreed to remove Cuba from Washington’s list of terrorism sponsors, after which Cuba on Wednesday started freeing about 553 prisoners. The Biden administration said many of these were political prisoners. “I am fine, surrounded by family and friends,” Ferrer said. “I had been arbitrarily imprisoned for the third time, and a false judicial process had been set up,” he told the AP news agency. Who is Jose Daniel Ferrer? Ferrer, who has been in and…

During the 2016, 2020 and 2024 US presidential election campaigns, the list of musicians who voiced their opposition to their songs being used by Donald Trump was long, ranging from ABBA to the White Stripes, and — at some point — the Village People. In June 2020, the band’s frontman, Victor Willis, publically objected to the Trump campaign’s use of Village People songs at his rallies. Criticising Trump’s threat to use military force against Black Lives Matter protesters, Willis then wrote on Facebook, “Sorry, but I can no longer look the other way.” Money talks But Willis later had a change of…

The clock is ticking for TikTok. The popular video app faces a ban in the US unless its parent company, ByteDance, sells its domestic operations to an American buyer by January 19, 2025. The deadline comes after months of mounting pressure from lawmakers, who argue that ByteDance’s Chinese ownership poses a national security risk, with the Chinese government potentially accessing user data or influencing content on the platform. ByteDance has denied the allegations. As President-elect Donald Trump reportedly weighs a plan to delay the ban, US creators are scrambling to find alternatives to replace the platform. At the same time,…

A suspected outbreak of the Marburg virus has been detected in northern Tanzania. Marburg is in the same family as Ebola and can cause death in up to 88% of cases. The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday eight people have been killed from the virus in a remote part of the country.The WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that he expects “further cases in coming days as disease surveillance improves”.Here’s everything you need to know about the deadly virus. What are the symptoms?Illness caused by Marburg virus begins abruptly, with high fever, severe headache and severe malaise, according…

Germany’s highest court has drawn a line under a dispute between the city-state of Bremen and the German Football League (DFL), which operates the Bundesliga. On Tuesday, the Constitutional Court ruled that it is lawful for football clubs to be required to contribute to policing costs for “high-risk” matches. What is a high-risk match? According to the DFL, “high-risk matches are matches in which, based on general experience or current knowledge, there is sufficient probability that a particularly dangerous situation will occur.” The primary responsibility for deciding whether any given match should be designated as high risk lies with the home club. However, the German FA (DFB)…