Author: DW

Toyota Motor Corporation on Monday admitted to cheating on various certification and safety tests for seven models of car sold in Japan, three of which are still in production.  Chairman Akio Toyoda apologized at a press conference in Tokyo, offering a customary low bow as he did so.  HIs comments were based on the findings of an internal Toyota review, launched as the Japanese government announced its own investigation at the beginning of the year. That probe is ongoing and affects multiple car manufacturers. “We are not a perfect company. But if we see anything wrong, we will take a…

British-Israeli hostage Nadav Popplewell was among four people who died while in Hamas captivity, the Israeli military has said.The 51-year-old’s body remains in Gaza, it is understood.He was taken hostage along with his mother from their home in Nirim during the 7 October Hamas attack.On Monday, Israel confirmed the deaths of the four hostages, including three elderly men seen in a Hamas video begging for their release.The three, Amiram Cooper, Yoram Metzger and Haim Peri, were all aged 80 or older.Israel’s military spokesman, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, said the four men had died together in the southern Gaza city of…

“People were there on the beach. It was really very exciting to see the launch, and to see the expectation from everybody for this mission. That was really something wonderful for a scientist to see,” said Olivier Gasnault.   He was referring to the launch of China’s Chang’e-6 lunar probe on May 3 from the southern Chinese island province of Hainan. Its mission was to land on the moon’s far side and collect samples that scientists expect will help answer key questions about the early evolution of the solar system. Gasnault, together with his colleagues at the French Institute of Astrophysics and…

Flooded streets, landslides, evacuated houses submerged deep in water — that’s the scene in large parts of southern Germany. Where the water has flowed, buildings, cars, furniture and household goods have all been swallowed by mud and destroyed.  This is not the first extreme weather to cause damage this year: heavy rainfall, hailstorms and severe thunderstorms have already ravaged parts of Germany. Regions in the west of the country along the Rhine, in the north along the Elbe, and in the south at the foothills of the Alps have all been hard hit.  As a result of climate change, extreme…

Two of Nigeria’s largest trade unions called an indefinite strike starting on Monday, with the walkout already crippling the national electricity grid and air travel.  Talks with the government on a new minimum wage, meant to cushion the impact of inflation of more than 30%, recently broke down.  The ongoing protest is the fourth large strike staged by the Nigerian Labor Congress (NLC) and Trade Union Congress (TUC) since President Bola Tinubu took office last year and launched a far-reaching set of economic reforms. Power grid goes offline overnight Electricity and aviation unions had directed their workers to withdraw their services and comply with…

South Africa’s African National Congress (ANC) emerged from the country’s May 29 election with just 40.2% of the vote — down from 57.5% five years ago. The ANC, who liberated South Africa from apartheid in 1994, scored the largest share of any party, but without the comfortable majority it has enjoyed for the last 30 years. It now needs to choose a partner with whom to govern, plunging South Africa into unknown political waters. As political party leaders embark on coaliation talks, ordinary South Africans are debating the best potential partners for the ANC, with the center-right Democratic Alliance (DA), former ANC president Jacob Zuma’s uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK), the…

After China’s Defense Minister Dong Jun met his US counterpart Lloyd Austin on the sidelines of the Shangri-La security summit in Singapore, the Pentagon welcomed plans for a US-China “crisis communication group,” while Beijing called the talks “positive, practical and constructive.” The Shangri-La Dialogue, organized by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), has become a barometer for US-China tensions in recent years. The hour-long sitdown on Friday was the first high-level US-China military meeting after US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed to reopen military-to-military contacts in November 2023. China had severed contact after then-US House…

Stormy Daniels has urged Melania Trump to leave her husband because he is now a convicted criminal.Trump became the first former US president to be criminally convicted after he was found unanimously guilty on 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up “hush money” payments to porn star Ms Daniels on Thursday. Ms Daniels, with whom Trump allegedly cheated on his wife, has now urged the former first lady to leave him.”I don’t know what their agreement may or may not be, but Melania needs to leave him,” she said in an interview with The Daily Mirror. “Not because…

The US Treasury’s regulatory amendment to the so-called Cuban Assets Control Regulations, announced on May 28, has caused quite a stir in Washington and beyond. For the first time since the revolution in the 1950s, Cuban entrepreneurs can open a bank account in the United States and access it from Cuba. The changes are intended “to promote internet freedom in Cuba, support independent Cuban entrepreneurs in the private sector, and expand access to certain financial services for the Cuban population,” the Treasury Department said in a statement. Cuba’s private sector has grown significantly since the government in Havana established a legal…

A Pakistani high court on Monday overturned a conviction of treason against jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan, his lawyer and party said.  The former leader and his former foreign secretary, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, were convicted in 2022 of making public a classified cable sent to Islamabad by Pakistan’s ambassador in Washington. “This is the first big case which was part of the political victimization against Imran Khan and Shah Mahmood Qureshi which has been dashed to the ground,” Salman Safdar, a lawyer for Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, told the AFP news agency outside of court. Khan blames US Khan had alleged…