Author: DW

03/24/2026March 24, 2026Clothes discounter KiK plans wave of store closures after excessive expansionClothes discounter Kik is planning to reduce its total number of stores across Europe by around 225 all told, closing roughly 300 and opening 75Image: ABBfoto/picture allianceKiK’s Chief Financial Officer Christian Kümmel has told the dpa news agency that the German textile discounter plans to close around 300 stores across Europe this year. This follows an aggressive expansion strategy that Kümmel said had proven inefficient. “We are trimming our portfolio to improve profitability,” he said. “The formula of, ‘We’ll open five stores and have five times as many…

Australia and the European Union agreed on a new trade deal after eight years of negotiations. EU chief Ursula von der Leyen and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced the agreement at a ceremony in the Australian capital, Canberra. It is the latest trade accord signed by the EU in a push to diversify trade as Europe faces challenges from the United States and China. Albanese and von der Leyen also agreed on a security and defense partnership. “The EU and Australia may be geographically far apart but we couldn’t ​closer in terms of how we see the world,” European…

It makes sense to squeeze every last drop of milk into our coffee and drizzle the remains of our expensive olive oil over our salad — so we stand in our kitchens, holding bottles or cartons at awkward angles, waiting and watching with varying degrees of patience. How long do we have to wait? That’s what two physicists at Brown University in Providence, in the US state of Rhode Island, wanted to find out. Their findings were published in the journal Physics of Fluids. Thomas Dutta, a PhD candidate, recalled how his grandmother struggled with getting the last few drops out. And his physics…

There is not much Alexandra Popp hasn’t achieved in her career. Three Champions League titles, one Olympic gold medal, seven Bundesliga titles, 13 German Cup titles and an incredible 145 caps for Germany makes for quite the resume. Now though, the 34-year-old will join the club her “heart beats for” after agreeing to leave Wolfsburg for Borussia Dortmund in the summer on a three-year deal. Popp grew up in the region, but for one of Germany’s most decorated footballers, this is more than a homecoming. Popp is once again playing her part in developing the game in Germany, moving to a lower-league club…

The current US-Israel war with Iran follows decades of political tensions that have shaped perceptions of the relationship between Israel and Iran. Despite the historical hostility, Berlin-based musicians from both countries are determined to demonstrate that cultural dialogue is still possible. The musical ensemble Sistanagila was initiated by Babak Shafieian, an Iranian who moved to Germany as a young adult to study. He began the project about 15 years ago when he decided to take a position against the antisemitic rhetoric promoted by Iran’s then-president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — who was making international headlines by denying the Holocaust and threatening the destruction of the state of Israel. “That didn’t reflect…

Stock markets dipped across the board early on Monday, with traders nervous after another weekend yielded no real signs of deescalation in Iran or the wider Gulf region or a reduction in the rising energy prices the conflict is causing. Several of the major Asian markets dipped by 3% or more, while Europe’s main indices all shed in the region of 2% in morning trading, government bond yields were up and even the traditional safe havens gold and silver shed more than 6% and 7% of their values. At its lowest ebb, Japan’s Nikkei was down nearly 5% in a single…

Across history, European depictions of the Amazon have typically presented the South American region as a vast, untouched expanse. Over time, a set of tropes took hold: the rainforest as a “virgin” wilderness; Indigenous life cast as belonging to an earlier era; the whole region suspended outside of time. As a result, a complex, culturally diverse territory has been flattened into an exotic backdrop. Yet this framing of “the Amazon” as a single, timeless wilderness bears little resemblance to the culturally and historically diverse region of “Amazonia,” the titular focus of a new exhibition in Bonn. A shift in perspective Co‑curated by anthropologist Leandro Varison and Brazilian Indigenous…

A well-known stock market proverb says: “Buy when the cannons are firing.” In other words, in times of war and uncertainty, people should invest. Those looking to protect their wealth and assets often turn to gold — even though gold is rarely cheap in turbulent times. In times of crises, such as a pandemic or a war, demand for gold typically rises. This stronger demand tends to push prices higher, as it did in the first weeks of this year. If prices continue to rise, investments in gold not only preserve wealth but also potentially increase it. So is the…

It makes sense to squeeze every last drop of milk into our coffee and drizzle the remains of our expensive olive oil over our salad — so we stand our kitchens, holding bottles or cartons at awkward angles, waiting and watching with varying degrees of patience. How long do we have to wait? That’s what two physicists at Brown University in Providence, in the US state of Rhode Island, wanted to find out. Their findings were published in the journal Physics of Fluids. Thomas Dutta, a PhD candidate, recalled how his grandmother struggled with getting the last few drops out. And his physics professor,…

The German Football Association (DFB) has broken its silence on the matter of a potential boycott of the World Cup, to be hosted by the United States this summer, with a few games also to be played in Mexico and Canada. Speaking at a German Football League (DFL) meeting on Monday, DFB President Bernd Neuendorf said: “I don’t think this is a big debate at all, because I believe we at the DFB are very unanimous in our view that this debate is completely misguided at this point in time.”  DFL President Hans-Joachim Watzke, also present at the event, said now was…