Author: DW

People in the Ukrainian frontline city of Kharkiv are still searching for the dead, identifying corpses. On Saturday, Russian forces fired two guided bombs at a home improvement store, killing at least 18 people and injuring over 40 more — seven are still unaccounted for. A DW reporter was in Kharkiv last week as air-raid sirens blared for 16 hours straight. It was impossible to sleep because the city was under constant missile and drone attacks. Still, the next morning, nine-year-old Sashko got up, combed his hair, ate his breakfast and went to school for the first time in the two…

It would be nice if innovation could happen “just by dreaming,” says Viktor Mayer-Schönberger, who stresses that imagining things is “crucial for being innovative.” That is why the professor of information science at Oxford University believes artificial intelligence (AI) won’t be able to compete with human creativity for the time being. “Humans can imagine things that don’t exist yet,” he told DW, because despite being trained on massive datasets AI is working with data from the past. So, the datasets used for machine learning reflect what we can learn from the past for the present, he added, enabling AI to make insights from…

Last week, several media reports suggested that Saudi Arabia was on the verge of a “mega deal” with the United States. Bombastic phrases like a “mega deal” or a “grand bargain” are being used because the agreement would bring the US and the Saudis closer in significant ways, including in a mutual defense pact and through cooperation on emerging technologies like artificial intelligence and a civilian nuclear program. Such a deal was originally supposed to be closely tied to the normalization of Saudi Arabia’s relations with Israel. However, with the Saudis insistent that any normalization include Israeli recognition of a path…

A Japanese town that put up a huge black screen to try to stop tourists taking photos of Mount Fuji has found holes in the material – with the openings said to be just the right size to fit a camera lens through.Officials in Fujikawaguchiko, a popular spot for those hoping to photograph the mountain on the island of Honshu, installed the black mesh net last week in a bid to prevent overcrowding caused by tourism. The town spent 1.3 million yen (£6,485) on the screen which is 8.2ft high (2.5 metres) and 66ft (20 metres) long.However, a hole was…

Landslides are the most common geological event. That’s a fact. They affect millions of people and cause many thousands of deaths. They often occur in countries with poor or inadequate infrastructure — such as Papua New Guinea, where a reported 2,000 people were buried alive following a landslide on May 24 — but are also reported in high-income areas, like the United States. Thousands of landslides per year globally In 2020, the World Bank estimated the average annual number of significant rainfall-triggered landslides between 1980 and 2018, by country: United States of America: 36,150 China: 35,280 India: 31,430 Philippines: 23,110 Indonesia: 22,220 Russian Federation: 18,340…

“Who said that the flag doesn’t belong to us?” Abacaxi wrote in one of his Instagram posts. The photo shows models sporting the fashion designer’s Brazilian collection: Clad in flag-inspired yellow and green shirts, skirts and bikinis, they wave the Brazilian flag. The Rio de Janeiro-born designer released the clothing line in the middle of Jair Bolsonaro’s presidency, between 2019 and 2023. At the time, the Brazilian flag was seen as a political symbol of the populist right-wing politician and his followers. “He ripped the flag away from us,” Abacaxi told DW in Rio. “The Brazilian aesthetic disappeared from the favelas, Brazil’s…

Skip next section Netherlands to help source Patriot missile systems for Ukraine 05/28/2024May 28, 2024Netherlands to help source Patriot missile systems for Ukraine The Netherlands has said it will lead an initiative among some European countries to supply Patriot missile systems to Ukraine. “Ukraine, of course, is still under attack. Airstrikes continue,” Dutch Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongren said at an EU defense ministers meeting in Brussels. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has insisted Ukraine urgently needs seven more Patriot air defense systems to stop Russia from hitting more civilian targets. “Patriot systems are scarce in Europe and NATO, but we are now taking a step…

Pope Francis allegedly used a highly offensive term to refer to LGBTQ+ people during a closed-door meeting with Italian bishops, Italian media reported on Tuesday. The major Italian daily newspapers La Repubblica and Corriere della Sera both cited anonymous sources as saying that the pope had made the remark while reiterating his position against gay people becoming priests. The 87-year-old pontiff was reported as saying that the Catholic seminaries were already too full of “frociaggine” — a highly derogatory term in Italian. What is the Pope’s stance on LGBTQ+ people? The incident was first reported by political gossip site Dagospia,…

Thousands more could be evacuated from a Papua New Guinea village over fears of a second fatal landslide, a UN official has warned.The UN’s International Organisation for Migration (IOM) estimates that 670 villagers died from Friday’s landslide in Yambali, in the country’s highlands. More than 2,000 people were believed to be buried alive, according to the country’s disaster agency, with five bodies already retrieved from the rubble.Serhan Aktoprak, chief of the IOM’s mission in Papua New Guinea, said on Tuesday his agency is hearing “that another landslide can happen and maybe 8,000 people need to be evacuated”.”This is a major…

Thousands of residents in Papua New Guinea have been ordered to evacuate the path of what authorities say is a still-active landslide on Tuesday, after parts of a mountain collapsed last week, burying over 2,000 people. Enga province disaster committee chairperson Sandis Tsaka told the Reuters news agency that a state of emergency has been declared across the disaster zone and a neighboring area, with a combined population of between 4,500 to 8,000. He said that the number of people asked to evacuate was around 7,900. Aid agencies estimate more than 1,000 people have already been displaced by the catastrophe. Meanwhile, military personnel have set…