Author: DW

For decades, Germany stood for quality, efficiency, and engineering excellence. But today, visitors to Europe’s economic powerhouse are often surprised to find a country where many things simply don’t work. Trains are late, roads and bridges are in bad shape, car sales are down, and public administration is entangled in a web of bureaucracy and weighed down by a sluggish digitalization process. Add to that a string of public planning fiascos — from the delayed central train station in Stuttgart to Berlin’s international airport — and it feels as though progress has slammed into a wall. To many, the country looks like it’s in a permanent state of delay and disrepair. Not country-bashing, more like…

A Russian Soyuz spacecraft carrying two cosmonauts and a NASA astronaut successfully docked with the International Space Station on Thursday, despite damage to the launch pad in Kazakhstan during liftoff. Russia’s space agency Roscosmos said “damage to a number of elements of the launch pad was detected” after the mission launched earlier in the day from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. It added that repairs would be made quickly, though some Russian space bloggers warned that the agency may be unable to conduct launches for some time at its only manned-mission site.Some Russian space bloggers suggest the site in Kazakhstan was seriously damagedImage:…

Since shortly after the start of Moscow’s full-scale war on Ukraine in February 2022, Russian judokas had only been allowed to compete internationally under a neutral banner, rather than their national flag. On Thursday, though, the executive committee of the International Judo Federation (IJF) voted to end the measure, meaning that effective immediately, Russian athletes will be allowed to compete under their flag at international events. ‘The last bridge’ “Sport is the last bridge that unites people and nations in very difficult conflict situations and environments. Athletes have no responsibility for the decisions of governments or other national institutions,” read a…

Long-term net migration into the United Kingdom for the 12 months up to June 2025 stood at 204,000, figures released on Thursday by the national statistics agency showed, the lowest level for the period in four years.  That equates to a 69% reduction compared to the same 12-month period a year ago, 649,000. However, that figure includes the second half of 2023 — an all-time record calendar year for net migration into the UK — when roughly 860,000 more people immigrated to the UK on a long-term basis than emigrated from it. Labour seeks to cut numbers amid pressure from Reform The Office for National…

US President Donald Trump said Thursday that operations to curb Venezuelan drug trafficking “by land” would begin “very soon.”  The warning comes amid escalating tensions with Caracas and with the military stepping up its activity in the Caribbean as part of what Washington says are efforts to stop transnational crime and drug smuggling. Venezuela, however, says the military buildup and the US anti-narcotics campaign is really a covert effort to remove leftist leader Nicolas Maduro. Washington views Maduro as an illegitimate ruler and accuses him of drug trafficking — allegations the Venezuelan president rejects.Maduro’s re-election last year was rejected by the international community as fraudulentImage: Cristian Hernandez/AP Photo/picture alliance What…

Can you trust your ears to tell man from machine when it comes to music? Most people can’t, it seems. In a recent study by the streaming platform Deezer and market research company Ipsos, 97% of respondents could not tell the difference between musical tracks made entirely by artificial intelligence (AI) and those made by humans. In other words, AI-generated audio is really convincing.  And it’s already everywhere, including on the billboard charts: “Walk my Walk,” from Breaking Rust — an entirely AI creation, from instrumentals to vocals to image — reached number one on the country digital song chart in mid-November.…

Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva insisted this week that there are no remaining obstacles to signing the EU-Mercosur trade agreement next month after more than two decades of negotiations. Speaking on the sidelines of the G20 summit in South Africa, Lula said the deal would represent “possibly the largest agreement” in global trade, citing both blocs’ nearly 722 million population and $22 trillion in gross domestic product (GDP). But while EU trade representatives consider the Mercosur pact to be a done deal, France and Hungary are calling for last-minute changes, citing risks to their agricultural sectors. And while the long-sought pact remains…

Casual sex isn’t inherently harmful but for some people, overlooking personal needs or emotional boundaries can take an emotional toll. Despite the promise of freedom and easy intimacy, hookups don’t always feel empowering and for some women, they can lead to unexpected feelings of depletion. DW spoke to several women from North America, Europe and parts of Asia who spoke of hookups that gave feelings of short-term confidence but also made deeper intimacy harder. Heather, a 40-year-old woman from the US, describes this tension as leaving her feeling “empty, sad, and temporarily empowered, but always craving more.” When engaging in…

Russian star gymnast Angelina Melnikova will no longer compete for TSV Tittmoning-Chemnitz, a gymnastics club in eastern Germany, at the season-ending Bundesliga finals as previously planned, the club’s coach told DW. Melnikova, 25, signed on with Chemnitz earlier this month, but her debut in the penultimate Bundesliga competition of the season on November 15 in the southwestern town of Esslingen, attracted controversy because of her links to Russian President Vladimir Putin and her support for the war in Ukraine. That appears to violate the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) neutrality rules. In his opening remarks at the Esslingen competition, the city’s…

Looking through the gallery of US secretaries of the Army from past decades, there are few names that would be familiar to a non-American audience. This is not surprising: the job description primarily involves equipment acquisition and financial issues relating to the United States Army. This could change with the current incumbent, Dan Driscoll. He was 38 years old when he took office, making him the youngest person to hold the position. But there’s more: As of a few days ago, he seems to be the one to have been tasked with the most delicate mission. Although the lawyer and former…