Author: DW

As Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi heads to Italy as a guest at the G7 leaders’ summit kicking off today, support for Ukraine is high on the agenda for leaders of the world’s most advanced economies. The war has drawn scrutiny to Moscow’s close ties with India, as Kyiv’s Western partners urge New Delhi to condemn the invasion and put pressure on Russia. While in Italy, Modi is also expected to discuss the issue with US President Joe Biden, although the meeting at the sidelines of the G7 summit has yet to be confirmed. Modi is also facing a changed political…

BTS star Jin, who has been discharged from his mandatory service in the South Korean military, is celebrating his freedom by hugging 1,000 fans.The 31-year-old K-pop star, who is the eldest member of the seven-piece band, is the first to complete his service. Image: Pic: Yonhap /Reuters He left the 5th Army Infantry Division in Yeoncheon, Gyeonggi Province, on Wednesday and was greeted by fellow BTS members J-Hope, RM, Jimin, V and Jungkook.They had applied for special leave to attend, according to South Korean media. BTS member Suga was absent from the occasion according to the Associated Press.The singers hugged…

Travel-related cases of dengue, like travel-related cases of malaria, are not uncommon in Europe. People get home from a trip to a hotspot, they come down with dengue, rest for a few days and then get back to their normal lives. Problems arise when dengue-infected individuals find themselves in a statistically unlikely situation: the weather in their home country is warm, they live in an urban area, or they get bitten — at home — by an Aedes mosquito, which then carries the dengue virus to another person. The chance of all these circumstances coming together in Europe is very low. Cases of locally transmitted…

A Dutch court on Wednesday handed down sentences over the 2021 assassination of crime journalist Peter R. de Vries. De Vries was gunned down in broad daylight on a busy Amsterdam street on July 6, 2021. De Vries died nine days later. He was 64. Three main suspects were convicted, with two of them sentenced to 28 years in prison and one to 26 years. Prosecutors had sought life sentences for the man charged with shooting De Vries, the alleged getaway driver and a man suspected of organizing the assassination. However, the court said life sentences could not be handed down “because it concerns a single murder…

A development in the world of football ruffled a few feathers here in Germany recently. For more than 70 years, the national football team had played in Adidas jerseys.  But, on March 22, the German Football Association (DFB) announced that the US sports manufacturer Nike is to equip all German national teams for at least seven years as of 2027. According to some reports, the DFB will earn at least twice as much money as it would have in the partnership with Adidas, which was reportedly worth €50 million ($54 million) a year. With the introduction of football boots with…

Although quick to forgive the man who pulled the trigger, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico is seeking to lay the blame for May’s attempt on his life on what he perceives as his political opposition — including critical media. The nationalist populist Fico has never hidden his contempt for journalists, famously branding them “dirty, anti-Slovak prostitutes” in 2016. However, since his return to power in October, his bid to “reform” the country’s public media has raised concern both at home and abroad. Fico now appears keen to use the shocking attempt on his life by 71-year-old Juraj Cintula on May…

Greece has shuttered tourist hotspots and schools across Athens as the first heatwave of the summer strikes.Temperatures were tipped to hit highs up 43C (109F) on Wednesday and Thursday in parts of the Mediterranean country. Meteorologists say the high temperatures is being driven by southerly winds bringing hot air and dust from North Africa.As a result, the Acropolis, the archaeological site which saw four million visitors last year, was closed between 9am and 2pm (GMT) on Wednesday over the life-threatening temperatures. Image: A view of the Parthenon temple as the Acropolis archaeological site is closed to visitors due to a…

Germany’s men flopped at the last two World Cups, going out in the group stages, and they only managed the round of 16 at the last European Championship. Now they are hosting Euro 2024 and wins over France, the Netherlands and Greece in three of their last four friendlies have boosted confidence around Julian Nagelsmann’s team. But are the defense, midfield and attack good enough to lift the trophy on July 14 in Berlin? How stable is the German defense? In the last three games of last year, Germany conceded seven goals. The leaky defense had  already been a recurring problem under…

Border tensions are a fact of life on the Korean Peninsula, but analysts warn that the current spike in incidents — gunfire in the Demilitarized Zone, balloons carrying propaganda to both the North and South and ramped-up rhetoric from Pyongyang — seems “different” and more alarming than usual. Some are interpreting it as North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un giving up all pretense of wanting to cooperate with the South. Others say he is banging on the war drum to distract his hungry and disaffected people. But there is another, far more worrying explanation. Some analysts see the latest escalation…

European policymakers warned a few months ago that the continent was being flooded with cheap Chinese electric vehicles . They accused Beijing of backing major production overcapacity to allow China’s automakers to grow their share of the global EV market. The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, launched an anti-subsidy probe into the oversupply issue late last year and warned China’s EV makers that they could face a new import tariff to offset what Brussels said was unfair competition for European carmakers. On Wednesday, the Commission said it was planning to impose tariffs of up to 38% on Chinese electric vehicles from July 4 and those tariffs…