Author: DW

Since early August, meteorologists in Greece have been warning residents about the risk of mega-fires in the Attica region — mostly in vain, it would appear. A massive blaze has torn through the north of Athens since Sunday, torching forests, vacation homes, residential homes, schools, stadiums and factories. Two hospitals have been evacuated. An increasing number of small towns are also being evacuated, including the historic town of Marathon. Mayor Stergios Tsirkas said the town was facing a “biblical catastrophe.” “Right now, it’s difficult to estimate the expanse of the area affected,” he told local media. “But initial calculations estimate that about 30% of…

Socialist Teresa Ribera is Spain’s top pick to get a key job at the European Commission.  Ribera, however, has set her sights on a different portfolio than that of her predecessor, Josep Borrell, who has headed the bloc’s foreign policy office — a portfolio that is even more important and controversial in EU politics. Reportedly, Ribera is keen on leading the 27-member bloc into a greener future as EU vice president in charge of the so-called European Green Deal — a set of policy initiatives initiated by the European Commission with the aim of making the EU climate neutral by 2050. As Spain’s minister for ecological transition since…

A man who died when the helicopter he was flying crashed into a hotel roof in Australia had been at his own party beforehand.The pilot was flying alone when he crashed and the helicopter burst into flames, Queensland Police said. Nautilus Aviation said in a statement that the man flying the helicopter, who has not been publicly named, was an employee of the company, and had been for four months.However, he was not a pilot, had not flown in Australia before and wasn’t authorised to fly the company’s helicopters – despite holding a pilot’s licence in New Zealand. Image: Broken…

The aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars, failed harvests and oppressive tax burdens made life difficult for people in Germany at the beginning of the 19th century. Then came a tempting offer from the other side of the world — 77 hectares of land for every family willing to settle in Brazil. Plus livestock, seeds and agricultural equipment, as well as financial assistance for the first two years. It’s more than many German farmers, craftsmen and day laborers ever dared to hope for at home. Soon the first of them responded to the call to say goodbye to their old home. Wanted: Workers in former…

A vast reservoir of water may be hiding beneath the surface of Mars, within the crevices of igneous rocks, enough to form a global ocean, a new study has revealed. Scientists have based these findings on seismic data gathered by NASA’s InSight lander which helped decode the interior of Mars with a seismometer from 2018 to 2022. The water is believed to be located 7.2 to 12.4 miles (11.5 to 20 km) below the Red Planet’s dusty surface, according to the research published on Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. What have scientists found? The water…

After 18 days, 329 gold, silver and bronze medals and countless storylines, the 2024 Olympics drew to a close on Sunday with a high-budget closing ceremony.  The occasion began in earnest when Leon Marchand, the French swimmer who was the most-decorated athlete of the Games with four gold medals and a bronze, picked up the Olympic flame from the Cauldron in the Tuileries Gardens, as a choir sang an Edith Piaf number.  Leon Marchand has become a firm favorite in France over the past couple of weeksImage: Benoit Tessier/REUTERS The crowd in the Stade de France showed their appreciation as Marchand appeared on the…

Ukraine may have taken a “first step” toward a strategy change in its defense against the Russian invasion. That’s how Jen Spindel, assistant professor at the University of New Hampshire in the US, described the recent developments in western Russia’s Kursk region. “Ukraine cannot continue to fight this war in the same way it has been for the past two years. It just simply doesn’t have the manpower or weapon stores to do so,” said Spindel, a foreign policy and security expert. “Russia is much bigger, and has a larger military, and Ukraine can’t continue fighting Russia on equal footing,”…

Socialist Teresa Ribera is Spain’s top pick to get a key job at the European Commission.  Ribera, however, has set her sights on a different portfolio than that of her predecessor, Josep Borrell, who has headed the bloc’s foreign policy office — a portfolio that is even more important and controversial in EU politics. Reportedly, Ribera is keen on leading the 27-member bloc into a greener future as EU vice president in charge of the so-called European Green Deal — a set of policy initiatives initiated by the European Commission with the aim of making the EU climate neutral by 2050. As Spain’s minister for ecological transition since…

An airstrike on a school-turned-shelter in Gaza was carried out with “precise munitions” and there were no civilians in the area, an Israeli government spokesman has claimed.At least 80 people were killed and nearly 50 others were wounded in the strike on the school compound in Gaza City on Saturday, Palestinian health authorities said.Gaza’s Civil Emergency Service said around 100 Palestinians were killed, while charity Save The Children, which operates on the ground, said more than 100 people were killed – including children.In an interview with Sky News, Israeli government spokesman David Mencer claimed Israeli footage showed there were no…

Anyone aiming to do serious research into Germany’s pre-WWII archives needs a particular skill: They should be able to read forms of handwriting that have meanwhile completely disappeared from everyday use in the German language. There is Kurrent, a form of cursive writing that developed in the late medieval era, as well as different variant forms, most notably the short-lived Sütterlin. This cursive script was developed in 1911 and taught in German schools from 1915 to 1941, until it was banned by the Nazis. Afterwards, schoolchildren rather learned a handwriting similar to present-day English cursive. Even though German speakers who…