Author: DW

Iran will be capable of producing the necessary material for use in a nuclear weapon within “one or two weeks,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Friday. Blinken made the statements at a security forum in the US state of Colorado. National security adviser Jake Sullivan, meanwhile, said the United States has noted “an uptick of public commentary from Iranian officials musing about that possibility” since the April attacks and counterattacks between Israel and Iran and its allies. Iran launched in April an unprecedented barrage of missiles and drones targeting Israel after what Iran said was an Israeli strike on…

The establishment of the “axis powers” in the 1930s paved the way for the Second World War.Agreements signed between Germany, Italy, and Japan in 1936 united them in their expansionist interests and hatred of Western allies. Amid Russia’s war in Ukraine, the Israel-Hamas conflict, and China’s repeated threats of invading Taiwan – some security and military analysts say we are on a similar path again and that Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea are the “new axis powers”.The last time a similar term was used was in 2002 by former US President George W Bush, describing Iran, Iraq, and North…

For 50 years, Cyprus has been split in two by a military border, the constant reminder of a deadly conflict that has never been resolved.The island, visited by more than a million Brits each year, is famed for its crystal clear waters, pristine beaches and rich culture, but the tiny country in the Mediterranean has a bloody history which provokes strong emotion to this day. “We are lost souls,” Greek Cypriot Mario Pischiris says. He was just a boy when war broke out in Cyprus on 20 July, 1974 – exactly 50 years ago.He was forced to flee with his…

Companies and other organizations were dealing with a backlog of orders, canceled appointments and delayed travel plans on Saturday, a day after a technology crash disrupted computer systems globally for several hours. Tens of millions of people from Brazil to Japan were hit by Friday’s massive outage affecting devices running Microsoft Windows, which caused thousands of flights to be canceled, bank services to go offline and several TV channels to fall silent.  CrowdStrike, the cybersecurity firm that caused the outage, blamed the roll-out of a fix for a problem with its software. CEO George Kurtz told the US news channel CNBC he wanted to “personally apologize to every organization, every group and…

Bella Hadid’s new Adidas campaign has been pulled after being called “sick” and an “egregious error”.The US supermodel had been the face of the campaign for a relaunched shoe from the 1972 Munich Olympics. At those Olympic games, Palestinian terrorists from the group Black September killed 11 Israeli athletes and a German police officer.The criticism comes with Hadid – whose father is Palestinian – being a vocal critic of Israel and frequently speaking out against the Israel-Hamas War on social media.She and her sister Gigi Hadid donated $1m to Palestinian relief efforts last month. Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs heavily…

The economy in Ivory Coast has long been under pressure from regional security threats and predatory markets. Now, an acute heat wave is driving the prices for basic goods up even further. Source link

When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last spoke before the US Congress, he railed against the then-Obama administration’s signature diplomatic project – the Iran Nuclear Deal, straining his ties with the White House. Nine years later, Netanyahu is due back at the Capitol. And this time, the circumstances are even more tense. Barbara Slavin, a distinguished fellow for the Middle East and North Africa at the Washington-based think tank Stimson Center, said the timing of the visit cannot be worse.Israel presses offensive across entire Gaza StripTo view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that…

Venice officials have indicated they plan to double a daily tourist tax after a successful summer trial.Over 29 days during the summer, the city said the €5 (£4.20) tax was paid 485,062 times, generating around €2.4m (£2m). The trial ran from 25 April to 14 July and applied to day-trippers. Image: Tourists show QR codes on their smartphones to city officials to prove payment of the tax. Pic: Reuters Final numbers included paper access tickets as well – which accounted for around 1,000 entrances each day.Italians accounted for 60% of visitors to Venice during the trial period, followed by US,…

The US has been Israel’s foremost arms supplier for decades. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) 99% of arms imports for Israel between 2019 and 2023 came from the US (69%) and Germany (30%). Before Hamas-led attack in Israel on October 7, 2023, Washington was exporting arms worth an average of $3 billion (€2.76 billion) per year to Israel. In absolute terms, however, Israel imports fewer arms from the US than other countries in the region. Over the past five years, Israel has received 3.6% of US arms exports, while15% have gone to Saudi Arabia, 8.2% to Qatar and…

The European Union (EU) is looking for lithium to power its transition away from fossil fuels and help it compete in the global race for clean technology. Over the past three yearsm the bloc has been on a self-styled “raw material diplomacy” mission, inking resource deals with 13 countries including Canada, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Rwanda, Argentina and Namibia. Now, the EU has a new name to add to the list: Serbia.  The Balkan country is more often at odds with the EU than on the same page. It’s kept close ties with Russia and China, and resisted Brussels’ longstanding expectation that aspirant EU…