Author: DW

An online predator who led an American girl and her father to take their own lives has been jailed for at least 20 years after the UK’s largest “catfishing” case.Warning: This article contains references to suicide and child sex abuse which readers may find distressing.Alexander McCartney, 26, previously admitted 185 charges, including the manslaughter of a girl who took her own life.Police called him a “dangerous, relentless, cruel paedophile” who “may as well have pulled the trigger himself” and said there were about 3,500 victims.Devices seized from his bedroom contained hundreds of thousands of indecent photographs and videos of underage…

Top German business leaders and politicians are flying to India this week for a major gathering where they will seek ways to further strengthen economic ties between Germany and the Asia-Pacific region.  “The region is becoming increasingly important for Germany and the EU due to geopolitical shifts and increasing desire to diversify,” Friedolin Strack, head of International Markets at the Federation of German Industries (BDI), told DW. “The increasing importance is evident in the value of exports from Germany to the Asia-Pacific, which totaled €214.6 billion ($231.9 billion) in 2023,” he said. The Asia-Pacific Conference of German Business opens in…

In a mountain-top marketplace in Uzbekistan, a trader sells Chinese silks, pots of gunpowder and jade dragon amulets, teeth-bared and grinning. Imams and Buddhist monks saunter past. The air is filled with the fine fragrance of teas, peppers and nutmeg, while breezes waft away acrid black smoke from smithies smelting steel. A thousand years ago, inhabitants of two mountain-top cities in modern-day Uzbekistan experienced these and other impressions in their daily lives A new study published October 23 in the journal Nature has revealed that the two cities — Tugunbulak and Tashbulak — were major urban centers that lay on medieval…

Longtime Germany captain Alexandra Popp is set to make her last appearance for Germany in a friendly against Australia in Duisburg on Monday, October 28.  “Being a football romantic, there’s nothing better than finishing where it all began. It’s great luck for me to be able to take to the pitch there again,” Popp said, referring to the fact that it was in Duisburg that she made her Germany debut in a 3-0 win over North Korea in 2010. “There will be lots of family, friends and companions from the past. It’s really nice to see and makes me very proud.”…

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi are set to co-chair the 7th edition of Intergovernmental Consultations (IGC) between India and Germany on Friday. Scholz met Modi on Friday morning at the Indian Prime Minister’s official residence. The German leader arrived in New Delhi on Thursday just before midnight with several senior ministers of his cabinet for the high-level talks — a framework established by the two countries in 2011. He was received by India’s Minister of State for Home Affairs, Nityanand Rai. “Herzlich willkommen in Neu Delhi! (Welcome to New Delhi),” the spokesperson for the Indian…

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi are set to co-chair the 7th edition of Intergovernmental Consultations (IGC) between India and Germany on Friday. Scholz arrived in New Delhi on Thursday just before midnight with several senior ministers of his cabinet for the high-level talks — a framework established by the two countries in 2011. Scholz was received by India’s Minister of State for Home Affairs, Nityanand Rai. “Herzlich willkommen in Neu Delhi! (Welcome to New Delhi),” the spokesperson for the Indian Ministry of External Affairs, Randhir Jaiswal, wrote in German on social media platform X as…

An archaeological site has yielded further evidence that a matriarch once commanded the ancient Moche civilization on Peru’s northwest coast. The pillared room unearthed at the Panamarca archaeological site contains a worn stone throne and elaborate wall murals portraying a powerful woman with a crown receiving visitors. The figure is further interlaced with a crescent moon and sea creatures.  Dating back more than 1,300 years, the discovery might indicate that a woman who was “possibly a ruler” dwelled in the space, said Jessica Ortiz Zevallos, research director for the archaeological project. “A throne room for a queen has never been seen before…

Ireland’s police chief has said the suspected murder of an eight-year-old boy is an “extraordinary” case unlike any he’s seen in his 40-year career.A murder investigation began last week after Kyran Durnin and his mother were reported missing on 30 August. His mother has been found, but the whereabouts of Kyran is unknown and police presume he is dead. They suspect he may have died in 2022, aged six.Officers were searching a former family property and land in Dundalk, County Louth, for a third day on Thursday, with a digger seen in wasteland behind the terraced house.Police said the family…

Israel’s military campaign against Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah honed in on a new target this week: its financial infrastructure. On Sunday, Israel carried out air strikes in Beirut and elsewhere in Lebanon, targeting branches of Al-Qard Al-Hassan Association (AQAH), a financial institution and de facto bank linked to Hezbollah. On Monday, Israel Defences Forces spokesman Daniel Hagari made a number of claims regarding the financing of Hezbollah and the reason for the strikes in a video message posted online.  He claimed Hezbollah had exploited Lebanon’s “deep financial crisis” of recent years for its own gain and that its own financial network was…

Storytelling is about changing minds, and film is no different. Since the first moving pictures in the 1890s, filmmakers have used the tricks of cinema to shift people’s perceptions and moral compasses. Now, scientists in the United States have measured how watching a film changes people’s ability to understand emotions and their moral positions on the criminal justice system. The new study, published October 21 in the journal PNAS, found that watching a docudrama about efforts to free a wrongly convicted man on death row increased empathy towards incarcerated people and support for reforms to the US criminal justice system. “[Our study] suggests the film made…