Author: DW

A German citizen has been arrested in Russia on Wednesday on charges of sabotage, according to Russian state news agencies. State media reported that the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) detained a German citizen who had been allegedly involved in an explosion at a gas distribution station in Kaliningrad in March 2024 The 57-year-old German was also accused of organizing “acts of sabotage on local energy infrastructure,” Russian news agencies cited the FSB statement as saying. More to follow… mk/sms (Reuters, AFP)

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) on Tuesday said that it was suspending operations in the Haitian capital amid “violence and threats” towards its staff from members of the police force. In a statement, MSF said that the police had repeatedly stopped its vehicles and directly threatened staff with death and rape threats. “We are used to working in conditions of extreme insecurity  in Haiti and elsewhere, but when even law enforcement becomes a direct threat, we have no choice but to suspend our projects,” MSF’s Haiti mission chief Christophe Garnier said. MSF said that operations in Port-au-Prince and the adjoining metropolitan area…

A man has died after being attacked by a shark off the coast of a remote island to the east of New Zealand.Jade Kahukore-Dixon had been diving off a boat in the Bay of Waitangi, near Chatham Island, when he was injured by the shark, local media reports said. He was rushed to Chatham Island Hospital but died on Tuesday.Mr Kahukore-Dixon was a commercial diver who lived on the Chatham Islands and harvested paua, a type of sea slug with a colourful shell, and kina, a type of edible sea urchin, Stuff reported.His father Jacky Dixon told the New Zealand…

The European Union’s latest gas dispute with Russia blew up over the weekend after bubbling beneath the surface for months. On Saturday, Russian state-owned energy giant Gazprom cut deliveries to Austria after the Alpine nation threatened to impound some of the gas as compensation for a contractual dispute it had won. The Austrian utility OMV said in a statement that no gas delivery was made from 6 a.m. local time (0500 UTC/GMT) on Saturday. Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg accused Moscow of “once again using energy as a weapon.”  Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, said…

Russian ballet star Vladimir Shklyarov, who died in Saint Petersburg on Saturday, will be given a public funeral at the city’s revered Mariinsky Theater this Thursday. Shklyarov’s partner, Irina Bartnovskaya, said the event would allow admirers to say goodbye and “For Volodya to leave the theater for the last time to the applause of all those who love him.” The dancer will be laid to rest at Saint Petersburg’s Smolensky Cemetery after a service at Saint Nicholas Cathedral, according to the theater. A statement from the Mariinsky press office called Shklyarov’s “tragic death, a huge loss not only for the…

Millions of people die as a direct result of bacterial infections — especially when the bacteria have developed a resistance to the antibiotics we use to treat them. It’s this drug resistance that makes them particularly deadly.  And the latest data is not encouraging. The emergence of several drug-resistant bacteria species is proving a serious problem for health systems around the world, especially for low-and-middle income countries. It’s estimated that bacterial antimicrobial resistance was directly responsible for 1.27 million global deaths in 2019, and could be associated with as many as 4.95 million deaths, according to the the World Health Organization (WHO). Priority…

Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. After the army’s initial rapid advances, Ukrainian troops were able to fend off the attackers, particularly in the northern border regions. In the south, Ukraine was also able to push the Russian army back behind the Dnipro, the country’s largest river. By the summer of 2024, troops were even able to launch an incursion into Russian territory in the Kursk region. Ukraine’s army has received support from paramilitary groups. Large parts of eastern Ukraine — particularly in the regions of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson — remain under Russia’s control,…

In the days after the riots following the soccer match between Ajax Amsterdam and Maccabi Tel Aviv, international media coverage of the event has been heavily criticized. A video published by a Dutch photographer on the X platform was rebroadcast by many media outlets — and misrepresented in the process. On the night from Thursday to Friday in Amsterdam, Israeli fans clashed with locals and pro-Palestinian supporters during the Europa League match between Dutch first-division team Ajax Amsterdam and Maccabi Tel Aviv. According to police, riots broke out in several places in the city center, 62 people were arrested and five people were taken…

Hong Kong’s High Court on Tuesday sentenced 45 pro-democracy activists to jail terms of up to 10 years in a landmark national security trial that has drawn international condemnation. Legal scholar Benny Tai. considered the mastermind behind the plan, was given the longest sentence. This was Hong Kong’s biggest national security case under a sweeping law imposed by China that crushed a once-thriving pro-democracy movement. The activists were prosecuted in 2021 for their roles in an unofficial primary election under the 2020 national security law.  They were accused of attempting to paralyze Hong Kong’s government and force the city’s leader to resign.…

The Kremlin’s reaction to reports that Washington has lifted restrictions on how Ukraine uses its weapons was nothing we haven’t heard before.It follows a well-worn theme of anger, warnings and accusations. If confirmed, the decision will spark a “new round of tension”, we were told. The Biden administration wants to “throw oil on the fire”. They are the ones guilty of escalation, not Russia.There was no mention of the thousands of North Korean troops Moscow has reportedly deployed to the frontline in Russia’s Kursk region to repel the Ukrainian incursion. But that’s to be expected.Follow latest: Moscow warns US over…