Author: DW

On the evening of June 9, President Emmanuel Macron seemed adamant that dissolving France’s lower house of parliament, the National Assembly, was the right thing to do. His party had just suffered a crushing defeat in the European parliamentary elections with former presidential candidate Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally (RN) skyrocketing in the ballot. “[Today’s] challenges require clarity in our debates, ambitions for our country and respect for each of our citizens – that’s why I’ve decided […] to give you again the choice of our parliamentary future,” Macron announced from his office in the Elysée Palace. But France’s snap…

Mohammed is 27 years old and gay. However, he has yet to come out about his sexuality. Like many other LGBTQ+ Ghanaians, he fears going public. That’s because Ghana’s lawmakers passed a bill in February that gives a jail term of up to 3 years to anyone convicted of identifying as LGBTQ+, among other things.  Ghana’s President Nana Akufo-Addo is yet to sign the bill into law, as he awaits the outcome of two ongoing legal challenges to the proposed law at the country’s Supreme Court. But the proposed legislation is fueling homophobia and violence against those in the West African country’s LGBTQ+ community. “Life has actually…

What’s the oldest story ever recorded by humans? Scientists now think it’s a story as old as time — humanity’s place in nature — painted at the back of a cave in Indonesia. It’s a scene of humans interacting with a pig, painted on a wall in red and black pigments; the flickering of torchlight makes the figures dance and leap, animating the scene into a story. New analysis, published July 3 in the journal Nature, has found that this sophisticated scene of human-animal interactions is around 51,200 years old, making it tens of thousands of years older than other narrative cave art in places like…

Europe’s football governing body UEFA on Friday handed a two-match ban to Turkish player Merih Demiral for making a controversial political gesture. Demiral made the shape of a wolf’s head with his fingers after his second goal in a 2-1 victory over Austria on Tuesday. The gesture is associated with the Turkish far right. What else do we know about the incident? UEFA said that it sanctioned Demiral “for failing to comply with the general principles of conduct, for violating the basic rules of decent conduct, for using sports events for manifestations of a non-sporting nature and for bringing the…

Hong Kong activist Joshua Wong appeared in court on Friday in what is the largest trial of  democracy movement activists in the territory’s history, with his lawyer asking for leniency after his client’s guilty plea.  Wong, 27, was one of dozens of activists arrested in 2021 for participating in an unofficial poll to select candidates for a 2020 legislative council election. The activists were accused of attempting to paralyze Hong Kong’s government and topple the city’s leader by aiming to win a legislative majority and using it to block city budgets. The charges were made under a Beijing-imposed national security law introduced in Hong…

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Friday to discuss the war in Ukraine. Putin said he wanted to take the opportunity to “discuss the nuances that have developed” over the conflict with Orban, who visited Kyiv earlier in the week. Earlier Orban said his country would use its six-month term holding the rotating EU presidency to advance a negotiated peace in Ukraine. “You cannot make peace from a comfortable armchair in Brussels … we cannot sit back and wait for the war to miraculously end,” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter. NATO was…

Jude Bellingham will be allowed to play for England in its crucial match against Switzerland – and the rest of the Euro 2024 tournament – despite a controversial goal celebration. The England star was investigated by UEFA over a gesture he made during England’s game against Slovakia – after he scored an equaliser in injury time to keep the Three Lions’ hopes alive. He has been given a one-match ban – but that is “subject to a probationary period of one year, starting from the date of the present decision”.This means the ban will only apply if there is a…

Atlantic hurricane seasons have only been getting worse.  In late May 2024, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) predicted “an 85% chance of an above-normal” season.  When Hurricane Beryl formed as the first of a five-month season, the NOAA called it an “explosive start.” After Beryl had struck Jamaica, causing widespread destruction, it moved to Mexico’s Yucatán peninsula.  At the United Nations’ weather and climate agency (WMO), scientists said Beryl had set “an alarming precedent for what is expected to be a very active hurricane season.” The season officially runs from June 1 to November 30 — it’s a year-on-year threat in the Atlantic…

“We’ll need a bit more space, because I will be screaming soon,” said Pussy Riot creator Nadya Tolokonnikova, as she and her group of performers lined up in front of Berlin’s Neue Nationalgalerie, calling on the crowd massed in front of the museum to take a few steps back. “And you know why I will be screaming?” added Tolokonnikova before launching her performance. “Because we women and queer people are encouraged to be quiet, and that’s why we’re going to take up our space now.” Among the several hundreds of supporters of the Russian feminist protest art collective gathered to…

Ardiana Thaci, a prominent television journalist in Kosovo, had no idea what personal consequences her investigative research could have until she became the target of aggressive cyberbullies following the broadcast of her report on the self-proclaimed “Albkings.” The name applies to a group of men active on the social media platform Telegram. In the report, Thaci accused the men of posting intimate photos and videos of women without their permission to insult, intimidate and abuse them. Thaci’s report described how the group, at times swelling to as many as 100,000 members, operates. She explained how the men send one another photos of…