Author: DW

Voting began in Sri Lanka’s snap parliamentary election on Thursday, where voters will decide whether newly elected President Anura Kumara Dissanayake will win  enough seats to push his anti-poverty and economic recovery policies. More than 17 million eligible voters will elect lawmakers to parliament for a five-year term. There are 8,821 candidates vying for the 196 seats. “All arrangements are in place, and we appeal to the public to work with us to ensure a free and fair election,” Election Commission Chairman RML Rathnayake said on Tuesday. Election results are expected on Friday. Economy woes and change of government The leftist…

An Israeli hostage said “I miss my freedom” in a video released by the terror group Palestinian Islamic Jihad.Alexander Troufanov was among the dozens of people taken prisoner by militants during the 7 October attacks last year. And while many hostages have since been released or liberated – or found dead – Mr Troufanov’s family are still hoping for his safe return.”I miss my family, I miss my friends, I miss my life, I miss my freedom,” he says in the video, released by the militant group on Wednesday. His family have authorised its use by media organisations.”I miss so many…

The missionary position is a strange name for a face-to-face, horizontal, often heterosexual bedroom maneuver with the man on top. But the story behind the naming of this routine sexual position has more plot twists than one might expect. Did missionaries spread the idea of the missionary position? Since medieval times, Catholic popes, bishops and priests were meant to refrain from having sex, an indulgence that would distract from their devotion to God. But that does not mean they think other people should not be doing it. “The church of course needs people to go to the church, to keep the church alive. So, the more you have children, the more you are a…

Venezuela is football-mad South America’s only country never to have made it to a World Cup. Not only that, but football is not even regarded as the No. 1 sport in the country. “For a long time, Venezuela was all baseball and beauty contests but a few things have changed,” South American football expert Tim Vickery told DW.  This will be apparent when an expected crowd of more than 50,000 turn out to watch Venezuela host Brazil in a 2026 World Cup qualifying match in Maturin this week. After 10 of 18 games played, the home team are in in…

11/12/2024November 12, 2024Rutte says NATO ‘must do more than just keep Ukraine in fight’NATO chief Mark Rutte called on Western countries to step up support for Ukraine in its fight against full-scale Russia’s invasion. “We must do more than just keep Ukraine in the fight,” Rutte told reporters ahead of talks in Paris with French President Emmanuel Macron. “We need to raise the cost for [Russian President Vladimir] Putin and his enabling and authoritarian friends by providing Ukraine with the support it needs to change the trajectory of the conflict,” he added. Rutte encouraged Europe, North America and their global partners…

US President-elect Donald Trump continued to fill key positions in his second administration on Tuesday. The new appointments include the US ambassador to Israel and a special envoy for the Middle East. The Republican leader has put an emphasis on close aides and allies who were his strongest backers during the 2024 campaign. Musk, Ramaswamy to oversee government efficiency Trump on Tuesday announced that billionaire Elon Musk will lead a new US “Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)” tasked with cutting federal waste, alongside former GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy. The acronym “DOGE” is a reference to the cryptocurrency Dogecoin, a…

Donald Trump loves tariffs. In his first term in office as US president, he introduced a slew on washing machines, solar panels, steel and aluminum imports that hit countries around the world — political ally or not.  During the most recent presidential campaign, he promised even more. Now, in just over two months, the self-declared “tariff man” will be sworn in as the 47th president. In a bid to bring manufacturing jobs back to America, Trump had considered adding a 10% tariff on all imports into the US, then upped that to 20%. Anything from China would be hit with a devastating…

The two men billed as Donald Trump’s likely picks for secretary of state and national security advisor signal a much harder line on China and Iran under the new administration as well as a shift away from US troops, weapons and cash underpinning European security.Marco Rubio, the senator of Florida, is widely tipped in US media reports as the president-elect’s choice for his top diplomat, though this is not yet confirmed. It is also being reported that Michael Waltz, a Republican congressman and former special forces soldier, will be Mr Trump’s new top security adviser.Both men are seen as foreign…

Police in Italy have seized more than 2,100 forged artworks that were attributed to dozens of greats like Pablo Picasso, Vincent Van Gogh, Andy Warhol and Banksy. Investigators said on Monday that the artworks had a potential market value of €200 million ($215 million). The chief prosecutor of Pisa, Teresa Angela Camelio, said experts from the Banksy archive assisted with the investigation and considered it to be “the biggest act of protection of Banksy’s work.” Other artists whose works were allegedly forged include Salvador Dali, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, Claude Monet, Marc Chagall, Jackson Pollock, Piet Mondrian, Gustav Klimt, Wassily…

India and China’s relationship has repeatedly been tested by one central question: Where does our land begin and yours end? The border disagreement between the two nuclear powers has led to weaponized standoffs for decades. Now, a video has stirred up passions in India again: In a report for NDTV, the Indian news broadcaster’s Science Editor Pallava Bagla explains in his words how India is losing land to China . The reporter blames the laws of nature, plate tectonics to be precise.  What are plate tectonics? The Earth’s crust is like a puzzle, constructed out of many pieces: There are a few gigantic oceanic…