Author: DW

France celebrates its national holiday, Bastille Day, on Sunday as the country prepares to host the Olympic Games. President Emmanuel Macron opened the traditional military parade by reviewing the troops, followed by the Marseillaise, the national anthem. Preparations for the Games have blocked the military parade from its traditional route on the Champs Elysees, forcing a military contingent to march on the nearby Avenue Foch instead. Due to Olympic security measures, the number of troops were reduced compared to previous years. Some 4,000 people, down from 6,500 last year, and 162 horses marched in the tightly choreographed show. No tanks or…

Security experts familiar with the demands of keeping politicians safe have said “a fundamental security failure” occurred as a gunman was able to get close enough to Donald Trump to shoot him at a presidential campaign rally.Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, fired several rounds at the former president as he gave a speech to supporters in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday, before being shot and killed by secret service agents. Mr Trump was hit in the ear in the assassination attempt, but is “fine”, his campaign said, while one spectator was killed and two others were injured.Trump assassination latest: Gunman shot dead…

The first questions are all about the incident itself, of course – the perpetrator, the motivation and method. Not forgetting: how on earth could this have happened?It’s scarcely believable for anyone who has attended a Trump event and witnessed the security firewall that separates the man from the masses. The agents charged with Donald Trump’s protection, Secret Service or otherwise, face a grilling on a failure in the fundamentals of the job. Allowing a former and, possibly, future president to be caught in the cross-hairs of a sniper’s bullet puts them in the firing line and they will have to…

 “Here, in this area, there are many girls who were kidnapped and forced to marry terrorists,” said 17-year-old Telma from the Chiure district in the northern Mozambican province of Cabo Delgado. A brutal war between an “Islamic State”-affiliated extremist group and Mozambican security forces and their allies has been raging in her home region since October 2017. “In our neighborhood, there is a girl who managed to escape the terrorists after three years of captivity and return to her family,” Telma said. “But most never come back. The jihadis also abduct very young girls. They grow up with the terrorists until…

In the early hours of October 7, Hamas-led militants made their way through the high-tech security fence separating the Gaza Strip from Israel. In a surprise attack, the militants overran several communities and military bases. Some entered Kibbutz Be’eri, a rural community a few kilometers from the border. The community, badly damaged and destroyed, with over 100 of its 1,100 residents killed and 32 people kidnapped, became a symbol of the horrors of the Hamas attack. On Thursday, those who survived were presented with the first internal Israel Defense Forces (IDF) investigation into how the Kibbutz Be’eri attacks unfolded. Most…

Federal investigators have tentatively identified the man who shot at Donald Trump at a rally in Pennslyvania.He is male, around 20 years old, and from Pennsylvania, according to multiple US law enforcement officials.The Secret Service said he had been “neutralised” and was now dead.Video captured by a helicopter over the rally in Butler shows a man lying on a roof with what appears to be a rifle next to him.A second video, taken at ground level by a member of the public, shows a man wearing camouflage-style clothing lying on top of the roof.A person behind the camera says: “You…

People standing close to Donald Trump when he was apparently hit by gunshots have spoken about what they saw happened.One woman, named as Erin, told NBC News that she was stood in the front row and saw the “fresh blood” coming from the former president’s ear. And a man called Joseph said he counted seven shots and saw a man in the audience get hit.”The guns came up to start. Clear. Clear right, clear left. They said, ‘get him up’. So they lifted him up. Trump said, I gotta get my shoes on, first. His shoes must’ve come off. We…

Gunshots have reportedly been fired at Donald Trump’s rally in Pennsylvania, with the former president rushed off-stage by security staff.Trump appeared to fall to the ground as he was giving a speech. He was quickly surrounded by armed security and stayed down for around a minute.He then rose to his feet and pumped his fist in the air, before being escorted off stage and into a vehicle. He was then driven away from the scene. Image: Pic: AP Image: Pic: AP Video appeared to show blood on his ear as he was taken away. The former president appeared to be…

Several people were injured when a thunderstorm hit an open-air festival in western Slovakia, emergency services said on Saturday. The storm, which brought strong gusts of wind, struck the Pohoda (Comfort) festival in the city of Trencin, which lies near the border with the Czech Republic. Friday’s severe weather caused a stage and a large tent to collapse. Dozens of festivalgoers were inside the tent at the time, local media reported.  A severe thunderstorm hit the three-day Pohoda Festival in SlovakiaImage: Jaroslav Nov·k/TASR/dpa/picture alliance Several festivalgoers taken to hospital Officials said of at least 15 people hurt, 14 needed treatment in nearby hospitals. Organizers…

Maryam Maroof Arvin is the 30-year-old co-founder of the Purple Saturdays Movement. Every week, the women’s rights advocacy group organizes peaceful protests against the massive curtailment of women’s freedoms in Afghanistan. They are trying to raise awareness about civil rights and democracy in Afghan society. The organization was founded in the capital, Kabul, after the Taliban seized power in August 2021. “We can only rely on ourselves,” Arvin told DW. She is one of several women’s rights activists still in Afghanistan who refuse to give up. Arvin and the other women in her network don’t only organize protests. Girls are…