Author: DW

In recent weeks, European Parliament President Roberta Metsola has taken to the road across all 27 EU member states armed with a simple slogan: “Use your vote.” At countless debates in town halls, schools and universities, Metsola has attempted to rev up young voters for the European elections. “That picture that you have in front of you when you think about the European Parliament: over 700 blue seats. Whether you vote or don’t, these seats will be filled. Now, you have a choice,” Metsola told young voters in Denmark. “Either you affect, you influence who sits on these seats, or you don’t.”…

The King and Queen appeared to be moved to tears as they paid tribute to the “courage and service” of veterans at commemorations for the 80th anniversary of D-Day.At an event in Portsmouth, the King said it was “our duty” to ensure the “sacrifice” made by the wartime generation in “replacing tyranny with freedom” was never forgotten.Pictures showed the King appearing to wipe a tear from his eye at an event which saw him make his first public speech and his most high-profile appearance since his cancer diagnosis earlier this year.D-Day latest updatesThe Queen seemed to be emotional following words from…

The Lebanese army said it had shot and injured a Syrian man who attempted to attack the US Embassy in Beirut on Wednesday morning. Local media reported that the attempted attack and the ensuing gun battle with the army lasted nearly 30 minutes. The embassy released a statement on X, formerly Twitter, acknowledging the attack and that the situation had ended, noting that an investigation was underway. The Lebanese army said it had shot and wounded the gunman. “Army personnel deployed in the area responded to the sources of fire, wounding the shooter,” the statement said, adding that “he was arrested and transported…

A far-right politician has been injured in a knife attack in the same German city where a police officer was fatally stabbed just days ago.Heinrich Koch, who is a candidate for the Alternative for Germany party (AfD), was attacked in Mannheim on Wednesday.Police said there were “no concrete indications” the suspect knew he was attacking a politician, despite attempts by the AfD to portray it as part of a targeted campaign by left-wing extremists against its members.The incident happened when the candidate confronted the suspect, who was tearing down election posters near a town square, according to the AfD. Image:…

“I’m hurt. All the Saturday mothers are hurt. Every new day is worse than the last when you have no certainty, no gravestone to visit,” Emine Ocak says. At 88, the co-founder of a protest movement demanding answers about disappearances in state custody finds that her memory isn’t what it used to be. For her daughter, Aysel Ocak, things are a little different. “When it comes to my brother Hasan, the memory, the pain is still fresh,” she says. The last time they heard from Hasan was March 21, 1995. Over the phone, he promised to bring fish and cake that…

It was the largest such maneuver in history: Operation Overlord, the landing of Allied troops in German-occupied France, had been planned and practiced for months. Bad weather delayed the operation, but, on June 6, 1944, the time had come. Thousands of ships, supported from the air, took off from the southern coast of English and brought about 150,000 soldiers from the US, UK, Canada and other Allied countries to the beaches of Normandy. Their goal was to liberate France and then advance on Germany to put an end to Nazi rule throughout Europe. When Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler learned of…

The last 12 months have all been over the critical threshold of 1.5 degrees of global warming, according to a new analysis of temperature data.Global average temperatures from June 2023 to May 2024 were 1.63 degrees above the 1850-1900 “pre-industrial” baseline according to Copernicus, the EU’s climate monitoring service. A short-term annual breach isn’t the same as global warming remaining consistently above 1.5 degrees compared to the average for pre-industrial times that global climate negotiations are trying to avoid.But it is a reminder of how temperatures continue to rise in line with carbon emissions from human activities and the importance…

The fall-out from Nepalese mountaineering star Nirmal Purja being accused of sexual harassment and assault has seen brands and tour companies distance themselves from the 40-year-old. But members of the scene say it is not just isolated incidents. They believe the whole culture of mountaineering needs to change to make women feel safer. The storm blew up on May 31 when Lotta Hintsa, a mountaineer and model from Finland, accused Purja of serious offences in a hotel room in Kathmandu last year. He began undressing her against her will and then pleasured himself in her presence, Hintsa told the New York…

“I am so happy we have stopped the BJP from winning a majority,” Lata Kumar, a domestic worker in India’s capital, New Delhi, told DW, referring to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party.     The BJP failed to win a majority on its own in the country’s parliamentary elections, final official results showed after vote counting on June 4. The party secured just 240 of the 543 seats in the Lok Sabha, the lower house of India’s parliament, down from the 282 and 303 it won in the 2014 and 2019 general elections, respectively. The outcome means Modi will remain in…

It came as a small shock to Guatemalan exporters: According to local media reports, China recently banned the import of Guatemalan coffee and other goods. There was no official explanation. Guatemalan President Bernardo Arevalo, however, presumed that there was a connection to his country’s ties with Taiwan. “We will take care of it,” Arevalo said. Apart from Paraguay, Guatemala is now the only Latin American country with diplomatic ties to Taiwan. Beijing regards the island nation as part of China. In recent years, Honduras and Nicaragua changed sides, turning their backs on Taiwan and seeking rapprochement with China. Several small conflicts in Latin America The blockade of…