Author: DW

A 10ft-tall statue of the Greek god of the sea erected in Mexico has been “closed” and could be removed altogether because it offends the beliefs of local indigenous groups.The statue depicts a trident-wielding Poseidon appearing to rise from the sea metres from the beach near the town of Progreso, Yucatan. But Mexico’s environmental protection agency said the statue lacked permits and it was symbolically “closed” on Thursday after a group of activist lawyers filed a legal complaint saying the statue of the Greek god offended the beliefs of local Maya indigenous groups who have their own god of water,…

The European Union has come under criticism for continuing to engage in human rights dialogues with authoritarian governments in Southeast Asia.  Several campaign groups are calling on Brussels to stop the “box-ticking” talks with Vietnam’s Communist government, the latest round of which took place last week. Officials from the European Commission and European Parliament told DW that, though they are concerned about the deterioration of human rights in Vietnam, they believe the formal dialogues remain an important avenue for improving the situation. The European Union and Vietnam have engaged in human rights discussions since the 1990s and have held at…

Alec Baldwin’s involuntary manslaughter case has been dismissed by the judge.The actor cried as the judge made the shock ruling on day three in his trial over the fatal shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins. The dismissal was made following a motion submitted by his defence team accusing the prosecution of concealing ammunition evidence.Baldwin, 66, had denied the charge of involuntary manslaughter, maintaining he did not pull the gun’s trigger and that others on the set of the western film Rust, in New Mexico, were responsible for safety checks on the weapon.According to the prosecution, he had behaved recklessly while rehearsing,…

07/11/2024July 11, 2024NATO and Ukraine: ‘The stronger the signal these days, the better,” foreign relations expert tells DWGustav Gressel, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), told DW that Russia’s summer offensive in Ukraine was still in full swing and that Ukraine’s military ranks were stretched thin. “Ukraine has battled the Russian offensive quite well so far,” Gressel said. “By autumn, of course, the tide could stall, but Western assistance is good for the end of the year, or into the spring.” There was a question of where things could stand in terms of future international assistance…

Seventy-seven long-finned pilot whales washed ashore on Thursday on Sanday island, a part of the Orkney archipelago off Scotland.  Sixty-five of them were already dead, the British Divers Marine Life Rescue (BDMLR) service said, and the 12 still alive were in too poor a condition to recover.  “Sadly the remaining 12 pilot whales have been euthanized due to their condition deteriorating from the many hours they have spent stranded on the beach,” the BDMLR said in an update. It said lying on the beach for a long time likely led to “crush injury from their own weight and the high likelihood…

Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s son is set to marry on Friday, marking the culmination of a wedding extravaganza  that lasted nearly seven months and brought into focus the staggering wealth and influence of the richest man in Asia. Anant Ambani — the youngest son of the tycoon — got engaged to Radhika Merchant — the daughter of pharmaceutical magnate Viren Merchant — in December last year. The couple will wed in a Hindu ceremony at the Ambani-owned Jio World Convention Centre in the Indian financial capital of Mumbai. Among the invitees expected to attend the event are: Former British Prime Ministers Boris…

On Wednesday, the US news channel CNN reported that earlier this year Russia’s government had been planning to assassinate the business executive of a major German arms manufacturer — presumably to discourage the further production of weapons and military vehicles to be delivered to Ukraine. Since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, the German government has supplied €5.2 billion ($5.7 billion) worth of military equipment to Ukraine, according to an official statement. The target, Armin Papperger, 61, is the CEO of Rheinmetall, a publicly traded company specialized in automotive and arms manufacturing. Ranked as one of Europe’s largest arms manufacturers, the…

Alec Baldwin’s involuntary manslaughter trial has been put on hold following a motion by his legal team to dismiss the case over a claim that ammunition evidence was hidden.On day three of Baldwin’s trial, the actor’s lawyers said the Santa Fe sheriff’s office took possession of live rounds as evidence in the case but failed to list them in the Rust investigation file or disclose their existence to defence lawyers. “This was hidden from us,” the actor’s lawyer Alex Spiro told a sheriff’s office crime scene technician under cross-examination during a hearing on the motion, while jurors were not in…

Ten members of the Cambodian environmental activist group Mother Nature were sentenced to six to eight years in prison in July for conspiring against the state. Three of the members of the group were also convicted of insulting Cambodia’s king, Norodom Sihamoni. The young activists had long campaigned against the destruction of natural resources across the Southeast Asian country and had openly suggested links to corruption. The group was charged with “plotting” against the state after investigating waste pollution in Phnom Penh’s Tone Sap River in 2021. In addition, a group statement from an online meeting was found to be…

Finland’s Parliament on Friday voted in favor of legislation that would permit border guards to turn away asylum-seekers at its eastern border under certain circumstances. The new law comes following a dramatic increase in the number of asylum-seekers from countries such as Somalia and Syria arriving in Finland via its 1,340-kilometre (830-mile) border with Russia in the past year. Helsinki claims that the surge was orchestrated by Moscow, which it accuses of “weaponizing migration” as part of “hybrid attacks” in response to Finland’s accession to NATO. The Kremlin denies the suggestions. Finland to vote on turning back migrants coming from…