Author: DW

It is quiet when we arrive in the French town of Henin-Beaumont.A rain cloud sits above our heads while a solitary young man is strolling towards us, purposefully. The cloud looks menacing; the man looks very friendly. “You are a journalist?” he asks, beaming. He’s dressed in a smart shirt and tie, I guess that he must surely be linked to politics and, almost certainly, to the National Rally (Rassemblement National – RN) party.He is. Like so many in this area, Yanis Gaudillat backs the RN to the hilt. He’s an activist with the far-right party and believes its moment…

Dramatic gains for far-right parties in France and Germany failed to overturn the centrist working majority in the European Parliament, the EU’s lower house, as results poured in on Sunday night, putting Ursula von der Leyen on track to stay president of the European Commission until 2029. “We won the European elections. We are by far the strongest party. We are the anchor of stability,” the German conservative declared to journalists assembled in the European Parliament in Brussels as projections rolled in. “The center is holding.” According to provisional projections from all 27 EU countries, her center-right European People’s Party (EPP)…

The war in Kosovo ended on June 10, 1999, when the UN Security Council in New York adopted Resolution 1244, which formally ended hostilities that had ceased the previous day. Two-and-a-half months earlier, on the evening of March 24, 1999, NATO began bombing targets in Yugoslavia, a federation made up of the republics of Serbia and Montenegro. It was the first intervention by the NATO alliance without a UN mandate and the first to involve German military personnel. It was both a precedent and the breaking of a taboo: for NATO, because it lacked a UN mandate, and for Germany, because…

The UN Security Council has voted in favour of a US-drafted resolution in support of a ceasefire proposal between Hamas and Israel.The resolution lays out a three-phase ceasefire plan, which US President Joe Biden described as an Israeli initiative – though how effective it will be remains in question. Reacting to the resolution, Hamas said it is ready to cooperate with mediators over implementing the principles of the plan.Israel-Hamas war latestIsraeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said before the vote Mr Biden presented only parts of the proposal and insisted any talk of a permanent ceasefire before dismantling Hamas’s military capabilities…

Abstain from sex. That’s “the only way to completely avoid STIs,” is what we hear from public health bodies. Do not have any vaginal, anal or oral sex. It makes for sobering advice. But it also makes perfect sense when you read the latest data from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) on the spread of gonorrhea, a bacterial sexually transmitted infection (STI), and antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Antibiotics, such as azithromycin, ceftriaxone and cefixime, are common medical treatments to cure gonorrhea, but they are growing increasingly ineffective. And that may be contributing to a European, if not global, increase in…

Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said Germany is “very well prepared” to confront any security risks during the upcoming UEFA European football championship. “We have a very high risk in abstract terms, but we have nothing concrete,” she said, adding that there was no such thing as 100% safety. The monthlong football championship, also called the Euro 2024, kicks off on Friday. “Security is the highest priority for us,” Faeser said, while visiting an international police center set up for the tournament outside the western city of Düsseldorf. “We are very, very well prepared and I therefore hope that it will be…

Lala grew up in Senegal and Mauritania, where she has long dreamed of a better life. She had saved enough money to pay for a pirogue — a traditional fishing boat that human traffickers use for their businesses. The small fishing boat was to take her from the capital, Nouakchott, to Spain’s Canary Islands. She was looking forward to a future in the EU. But the journey was treacherous, she told DW, as she struggled to recount her ordeal. “There were all sorts of nationalities. Malians, Cameroonians, Nigerians, Mauritanians, Senegalese. The police themselves came to take us to the beach,” Lala said. According to her, the small boats…

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier joined his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, in Oradour-sur-Glane on Monday to remember the hundreds of victims killed in a Nazi massacre there during World War II. The village, northeast of Bordeaux, was almost entirely destroyed on June 10, 1944, when occupying German troops razed buildings to the ground and murdered 643 civilians. At a ceremony marking 80 years since the massacre, Steinmeier expressed his “grief” and called for freedom in Europe to be protected, “so that people can live in peace.” The event came a day after the EU parliamentary polls, in which far-right parties in several countries, including France and Germany, made strong gains. “Let us never…

An aircraft carrying Malawi’s vice president and nine others has gone missing.Malawi’s presidency has said Saulos Klaus Chilima was on board the flight and rescue operations are ongoing. “All efforts by aviation authorities to make contact with the aircraft since it went off the radar have failed thus far,” Malawi’s Office of the President and Cabinet said.Mr Chilima, 51, was on a Malawi Defence Force plane that left the capital Lilongwe at 9.17am (8.17am UK time), it said.The aircraft had been scheduled to land at Mzuzu International Airport at 10.02am, a trip covering a distance of about 370km. Malawian President Lazarus…

Eighty-eight people move on a large stage to the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. Some sing and reproduce the lyrics in sign language. The others perform a choreography of steps and gestures. They can barely hear the music, if at all, but what they pick up from the singers they translate into a visible art form for other hearing-impaired people. This performance of Bach’s St. John Passion, the Passion of Christ according to the Biblical evangelist John, is an atmospheric experience for hearing and non-hearing people on Leipzig’s main square. Soprano Susanne Haupt founded the inclusive singing ensemble Sing&Sign in 2017 for…