Author: DW

An inconspicuous mountain road in the north of Spain. The ribbon of asphalt winds its way from the Alto de Olaeta down into the valley. The road descends at a gradient of up to 14% — steep, but nothing out of the ordinary for professional cyclists. And yet the small mountain road in the Basque Country could be a deciding factor in this year’s Tour de France. Not because a mountain stage ends there, but because it was the scene of a distressing incident during one of the preparatory races. In April, three of the four favorites for the Tour de France raced…

A week may be a long time in politics — for some, a day is quite enough — but in rocket science, not even a single year would get you passed the first post. It took Ariane 6 — Europe’s flagship heavy-lift rocket — two full years just to get a green-light to be developed. And another eight years being built before its inaugural flight in 2024. Building a whole new rocket system takes more than just creating a new rocket that shoots satellites into space. A rocket system not only includes the rocket, often in various constellations, but also its engines, the…

Manchester United are once again in the spotlight over their treatment of their women’s team after reports emerged that the women’s set-up is to be temporarily moved into portable facilities in order to accommodate the men’s team while facilities at the club’s training ground are renovated. The news, first reported earlier this week by British daily The Guardian, came a week after the club’s new minority owner, British billionaire Sir Jim Ratcliffe, admitted to Bloomberg that his focus so far had been solely on the men’s team, and coincided with an exodus of key players for the second summer in…

The Italian aircraft carrier Cavour is to make a port call in Japan in August and take part in military exercises with units of Japan’s Self-Defense Forces, with Rome becoming the latest European nation to step up its political and defense ties with Tokyo. The deployment of the 27,100-ton flagship of the Italian Navy was announced this week in Rome by Defense Minister Guido Crosetto. He also confirmed that the carrier’s complement of up to 10 advanced F-35B stealth fighters will take place in the drills “to ensure stability in the Indo-Pacific,” Kyodo News reported. Detachments of the German, French…

Police in Tenerife have called for volunteers to take part in a large-scale search for missing British teenager Jay Slater.Officials said it would take place on the Spanish island on Saturday in the village of Masca. In a statement, police said: “The Guardia Civil prepares and coordinates a large search to find the young British man missing in the village of Masca.”The collaboration of all those Volunteer Associations is requested: Civil Protection, Firefighters, etc., and even private volunteers who are experts in the abrupt search terrain.”The massive search will be carried out on Saturday, 29 June from 9am.” “Bearing in…

Skip next section EU chief: European defense needs €500 billion shot in arm06/28/2024June 28, 2024EU chief: European defense needs €500 billion shot in armEuropean Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the European Union needs to invest €500 billion ($535 billion) over the next decade to bolster its defenses. “We estimate that additional defense investments of around €500 billion are needed over the next decade,” von der Leyen, who is chief of the bloc’s executive arm said at a summit of EU leaders in Brussels on Thursday. She said while China and Russia’s military spending had skyrocketed by almost 600% and 300% respectively since the…

It was the first debate between a current and a former US president, and it was a doozy. Democratic President Joe Biden and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump met in Atlanta Thursday night local time, more than four months ahead of the 2024 US presidential election, and discussed immigration, the economy and a host of other issues. One of the biggest takeaways: The Democrats are in trouble. From the very start, Biden’s voice sounded brittle, which several campaign sources after the debate attributed to a cold. This would normally not be a huge deal, normally, it made 81-year-old Biden, whose…

Joe Biden and Donald Trump have held the first presidential debate, where the president struggled to speak and the Republican was dogged by his criminal trials.Held in Atlanta, Georgia, the CNN-hosted debate marked a rematch four years in the making. With one candidate’s microphone turned off while the other was speaking, Mr Trump and Mr Biden slugged at each other’s record in office for 90 minutes.Read the Trump v Biden debate as it happened live hereThe mediators divided the debate in to subjects, but both candidates evaded questions and stuck to their favoured topics. Here’s the key topics Mr Biden…

One person has been killed and six more have been injured in India after part of the roof at an airport collapsed in heavy rain.The incident at the domestic departure terminal of New Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport happened at around 5am local time on Friday as heavy pre-monsoon rains lashed the capital. Image: A crew removes water outside the airport on Friday. Pic: AP All flight departures from Terminal 1 were temporarily suspended as rescuers cleared the debris to save anyone trapped, the airport authority said. Image: The collapsed roof at the domestic departure terminal. Pic: AP Image: Pic:…

A section of the canopy at New Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport collapsed early Friday during heavy pre-monsoon rains, killing one person and injuring eight others, officials said. “Eight people have been injured, one person is dead,” Atul Gard, director of Delhi Fire Services told AFP news agency. Flights disrupted All flight departures from Terminal 1 in India’s capital city were temporarily suspended until 2 p.m. (0830 GMT/UTC), as rescuers cleared debris and searched for anyone trapped, the airport authority said. An airport authority statement said the canopy and some support beams fell in the domestic departure area of Terminal…