Author: DW

Two police officers in the US are under investigation after they were filmed beating a man on the ground with their batons at a bus stop.Footage posted online showed the officers repeatedly hitting the man with truncheons in Seattle last Friday. During the 40-second clip, one of the officers appeared to grab the man’s hair before he puts a knee on the back of his head to pin him down.The video does not show what happened before the officers started beating the man.Seattle’s Office of Police Accountability, a city watchdog, is investigating the incident. The city’s interim police chief Sue…

06/07/2024June 7, 2024Von der Leyen warned against relying on Meloni’s Italian populistsLars Klingbeil, a co-leader of Germany’s center-left Social Democrats, has warned EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen not to rely on votes from the right-wing populist party of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni to be re-elected as the leader of the 27-member bloc’s executive. “If Mrs von der Leyen ends up seeking her majority in parliament with the right-wing extremists, then we cannot elect her,” said Klingbeil in a Reuters TV interview published on Friday. When asked whether he also considered Meloni’s party, Fratelli d’Italia (Brothers of Italy),…

Opinion polls and studies suggest that EU voters will shift to the right in the elections for the European Parliament. The European Conservatives and Reformists Group (ECR) and Identity and Democracy Group (ID), which comprise parties whose views range from right-wing populist to far-right nationalist, could combine to garner 21-24% of the 720 seats in European Parliament, the lower chamber of the EU’s legislature — up from 18%. The two largest parliamentary groups, the European People’s Party (EPP), to which Germany’s Christian Democrats belong, and the Socialists and Democrats (S&D), are polling roughly at their current levels, while the Liberals and Democrats for Europe…

Spanish race walker Laura Garcia-Caro stuck her tongue out and punched a fist in the air thinking she had won a bronze medal at the European Athletics Championship – only to realise seconds later that she had been overtaken.The 29-year-old athlete was beaming and convinced she had secured third place in the last five metres of the women’s 20km race walk at the Stadio Olimpico in Rome on Friday. But Garcia-Caro’s joy at winning a medal turned to horror when she looked to her right and saw Ukraine’s Lyudmila Olyanovska bridging the gap between them.The Ukrainian overtook Garcia-Caro with only…

Recent floods in southern Germany are expected to cost insurers €2 billion ($2.2 billion) in damages, insurers said on Friday. The German Insurance Association (GDV) said this was an initial assessment after heavy rains battered the states of Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg. “Because the floods on the Danube in particular have not yet subsided, this estimate is still subject to a certain degree of uncertainty,” said GDV managing director Jörg Asmussen. The GDV estimate did not include damage to uninsured property. The total damage is far higher because many people are not insured against floods. Parts of southern Germany experienced a quantity…

Police in Denmark said Saturday an assault on the country’s prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, was likely not “politically motivated.” Details of the incident remain unclear but local media said the man forcefully walked toward Frederiksen and pushed her hard while she was passing Kultorvet Square, one of the main piazzas, in the capital Copenhagen on Friday. “It is currently not our guiding hypothesis that the incident was politically motivated,” police said in a statement posted to X, formerly Twitter. The statement added that the 39-year-old suspect appeared in court Saturday and was remanded in custody until June 20. Frederiksen suffered a “minor whiplash injury” in…

Denmark’s prime minister is suffering from whiplash after a man assaulted her in Copenhagen on Friday.Mette Frederiksen’s office said in a statement on Saturday the prime minister had been rushed to a hospital for a check-up soon after the attack. She is otherwise fine apart from whiplash but had been left “shaken” by the assault, her office added.Police said a 39-year-old has been arrested. Image: Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen was left ‘shaken’. Pic: AP Details of what happened remain unclear but local media reported a man walked towards Ms Frederiksen and pushed her hard while she was passing Kultorvet…

The Israeli military said on Saturday that four hostages were rescued during an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) operation in Gaza’s Nuseirat, in the largest hostage rescue since the Gaza war began on October 7. The hostages, three males and one female, were identified as 25-year-old Noa Argamani, 21-year-old Almog Meir Jan, 27-year-old Andrey Kozlov and 40-year-old Shlomi Ziv. They were kidnapped by the Palestinian militant group Hamas from the Nova music festival in southern Israel on October 7, the IDF said. Israel lists Hamas as a terrorist organization, alongside other countries including the US and Germany. The Hamas attacks killed some 1,200 people, according to Israeli authorities. Israel’s…

Chinese air force jets circled a Dutch frigate and approached a Dutch helicopter in the East China Sea in a way that created a “potentially unsafe situation,” the Dutch Defense Ministry has said. In a statement on Friday, the ministry said the HNLMS Tromp was circled several times by two Chinese fighter jets as it patrolled Friday in support of the multinational UN coalition overseeing the enforcement of maritime sanctions against North Korea. In addition, the ship’s NH90 maritime attack helicopter was approached by two Chinese fighter jets and a Chinese helicopter during a patrol. The ministry posted the photos of…

The wife of missing TV doctor Michael Mosley has vowed her family “will not lose hope” as she described the days since his disappearance as “the longest and most unbearable”.The statement by Dr Clare Bailey Mosley came as the couple’s four children arrived on the Greek island of Symi and the focus of the extensive search for the broadcaster shifted to a snake-infested mountainous area after CCTV footage emerged of his last known movements.As the rescue effort continued amid soaring temperatures, one emergency worker said it was “a race against time”. Image: This image of Mosley on the island was…