Author: DW

Hundreds of protesters have been arrested in India after mass demonstrations over the rape and murder of a doctor.More than 1,500 people have been detained in the state of West Bengal, where the crime took place, during the days-long protests by doctors and women’s groups who have been calling for better protection.Richa Garg, a doctor who was part of the protests in New Delhi, said she no longer felt safe at her workplace.”As a woman, it boils my blood,” she said.”The culprits of this crime should be found immediately – and our workplaces should be made safer.”The protests were sparked…

German media have reported on the shift in the political mood in the US over the past two weeks since President Joe Biden bowed out of the race. The new candidate, Kamala Harris, is seen to be scoring points against the Republican challenger, former President Donald Trump. Respondents to Germany’s monthly Deutschlandtrend survey by pollster infratest dimap have a clear preference: of the 1,300 eligible voters surveyed between August 5 and 7, a whopping 77% said they believe Vice President Kamala Harris is more suitable for the presidency, while only 10% favor Donald Trump. In July, when Biden was still the…

A new version of the mpox virus has emerged in Central Africa, spreading among children and adults in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and neighboring countries.  Infection with mpox causes a pus-filled skin rash lasting up to four weeks, which can be very painful. But what symptoms should we look out for and what can we do to reduce the risk of infection? What is mpox?  You might have heard of mpox with its former name — monkeypox. Mpox is an infectious disease caused by the monkeypox virus. The virus was first discovered in 1958 in Denmark, when an outbreak that resembled…

You don’t have to have been an Olympic athlete to experience something like the post-Olympic blues. “It can happen to anyone who does something emotionally important,” Jens Kleinert of the Psychological Institute at the German Sport University Cologne told DW. “For example, say I spend a year or two building my house and put an incredible amount of energy into it – including emotional energy, because it means so much to me. Then the house is suddenly finished. And everyone is surprised that I don’t seem really happy about it, but instead say: Somehow I feel totally broken and empty…

Taylor Swift performed at London’s Wembley Stadium on Thursday, a little over a week after police in Vienna foiled a terror attack plot that led to the cancellation of three of her Eras Tour concerts in the Austrian capital. In addition to events in Vienna, the shows come two weeks after three girls were killed in a mass stabbing at a dance class themed around her music in northwest England. The US singer-songwriter appeared on the Wembley stage for her hit song “22,” wearing a T-shirt bearing the words “a lot going on at the moment” — interpreted as a…

Thai lawmakers will vote on whether to appoint heiress Paetongtarn Shinawatra as the country’s new prime minister on Friday. Shinawatra is the 37-year-old daughter of billionaire former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and the niece of another former prime minister, Yingluck Shinawatra, but she has never held elected office herself. The Pheu Thai party selected her as its candidate after a court sacked Premier Srettha Thavisin on Wednesday for appointing a cabinet member with a criminal conviction. “We are confident that the party and coalition parties will lead our country,” she said her candidacy was announced. Pheu Thai’s coalition controls 314 out…

Europe’s demographic time bomb has been ticking for decades, with societies of European Union countries growing older and people living longer. More than a fifth of the European Union’s population is now aged 65 or older. That figure is expected to reach a third by 2050. The World Health Organization warned last year that 2024 would mark the first time that over-65s would outnumber Europe’s under-15 population. Despite large increases in immigration over the past two decades, the continent still needs to attract enough workers whose taxes can help cover the growing cost of public pensions. Economists predict that by 2050, there will…

A round of talks aimed to restore peace in Gaza have begun in Qatar – with a deal the likeliest way of preventing a wider conflict from breaking out in the Middle East.Officials from the US, Qatar and Egypt are meeting an Israeli delegation in Doha in the latest efforts by international mediators to strike a peace deal between Israel and Hamas, who have been at war for the past 10 months. The White House says the talks are likely to run into Friday. Hamas representative have previously told Sky News they will not be taking part in the talks.According…

Donald Trump couldn’t resist the temptation of bringing up Kamala Harris’ laugh last month, shortly after the vice president stepped up to be the likely Democratic presidential nominee.  “I call her laughing Kamala,” Trump said at a recent rally in Michigan. “You ever watch her laugh? She’s crazy. You can tell a lot by a laugh. No, she’s crazy, she’s nuts.” Harris’ rival for the US presidency never tires of denigrating the incumbent US vice president. He makes fun of her both as a woman and as a person of color. His online followers join in, spreading insulting memes and fake videos. But Harris and…

The UN’s health agency reports concerns about more severe variants of SARS-CoV-2 evolving globally. The latest figures from the WHO show that between 24 June and 21 July 2024, new hospitalizations increased by 11% and ICU admissions by 3% compared to the previous month. “Data from our sentinel-based surveillance system across 84 countries reports that the percent of positive tests for SARS-CoV-2 has been rising over several weeks,” said the WHO’s Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove. Deaths due to COVID were also up 26% in recent weeks. However, the WHO urges caution when interpreting reported data, as testing and sequencing for COVID has decreased,…