Author: DW

A heat wave in Vietnam in May and June of last year led to major power shortages across the north of the country. Factories owned by some of the world’s largest tech firms, including South Korean tech giant Samsung, experienced weeks of blackouts that the Vietnamese government says caused $1.4 billion (€1.29 billion) in economic losses, roughly 0.3% of GDP. But the bigger casualty was Vietnam’s reputation. Vietnam was arguably the biggest winner of the global offshoring of supply chains away from China that began in 2018 with then-US President Donald Trump’s trade war with Beijing. This allowed Vietnam to attract some of…

More than 2,000 people have been buried by a massive landslide in northern Papua New Guinea, the country’s disaster agency has said.The landslide levelled the mountainous Kaokalam village in Enga Province – about 370 miles (600km) northwest of the capital Port Moresby. It hit the Pacific nation at around 3am local time on Friday (6pm on Thursday UK time), and the United Nations had earlier said it estimated 670 people had been killed. Local officials had initially put the number of dead at 100 or more. The Papua New Guinea national disaster centre said the landslide had buried more than…

There were audible gasps in the room when Alexander Zverev, a pre-tournament contender for the French Open title, was drawn against Rafael Nadal, the 14-time champion in Paris and one of the sport’s greatest ever players. With Nadal in the twilight of his career and struggling with injuries, the intriguing first-round matchup on Monday is likely to symbolize a changing of the guard in men’s tennis. But looming large for Zverev, the reigning Olympic champion, is a very different court battle, one whose outcome could have major implications for his own career, as well as the way tennis handles domestic…

NATO member Poland on Monday elaborated on a plan to reinforce anti-drone surveillance and construct fortifications along some 700 kilometers (430 miles) of its border with Russian exclave Kaliningrad, and Russian ally Belarus. The system, called Shield-East, is to be completed in 2028 and aims to protect Poland from hostile actions across the border, which up to now have included pushing migrants illegally into the country, an EU member. The presentation of the plan comes as many countries from the former “Eastern Bloc” increasingly fear Russian aggression in view of Moscow’s unprovoked full-scale invasion of Ukraine. What has Poland said about the plan? The…

Despite mass pro-EU rallies and pressure from the West, Georgia’s ruling Georgian Dream party has shown no sign of repealing the “foreign influence” bill. Critics of the bill, who have dubbed it the “Russian law,” have said the Georgian government intends to implement similar tactics used by the Kremlin to crack down on opposition, civil society and independent media. If signed into law, it would require nongovernmental organizations and individuals receiving more than 20% of their funding from abroad to register as entities “bearing the interests of a foreign power.” The government has claimed the bill is aimed at transparency. But opponents have said its goal is…

Doug Ingle, the last surviving member of the original line-up of heavy rock band Iron Butterfly, has died aged 78.Ingle was the lead vocalist and organist in the band he co-founded in 1966 – singing their 17-minute long signature hit In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, which featured in a 1995 episode of The Simpsons. The musician’s son announced his father’s passing on social media but did not give a cause of death.In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida featured on Iron Butterfly’s 1968 album of the same name, which spent 81 weeks in the top 10 in the US.The record was eventually certified quadruple-platinum, meaning it sold at least 400,000…

Coastal regions of India and Bangladesh were battered by strong winds and heavy rain from cyclone Remal as the storm made landfall late Sunday night.  The storm crossed the coastal regions of Bangladesh’s Mongla port, and the adjoining Sagar Islands in India’s West Bengal state, around midnight, with wind speeds measuring up to 135 kilometers per hour (about 84 miles per hour), the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said. Strong winds, rain and flooding is expected throughout Monday as the storm moves inland and weakens.  “The system is likely to move north-northeastwards and gradually weaken into a Cyclonic Storm,” the IMD…

Russia is producing artillery shells around three times faster than Ukraine’s Western allies and for about a quarter of the cost, according to an analysis shared with Sky News.The figures, produced by the management consulting firm Bain & Company, underline a major challenge faced by the Ukrainian armed forces as they rely on supplies of ammunition from the United States and Europe to battle Russia’s full-scale invasion. The war has been described from the start as a “battle of fires” because of the volume of artillery rounds used.It prompted the US, the UK and other European allies to seek to…

Leaders from China, Japan, and South Korea said Monday they want to speed up negotiations to reach a free trade deal.  Chinese Premier Li Qiang, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol met in Seoul for the first three-way talks in more than four years. “We will keep discussions for speeding up negotiations for a trilateral free trade agreement,” they said after the rare trilateral summit, adding that they wanted the deal to be “free, fair, comprehensive, high-quality, and mutually beneficial.” US ties complicate economic talks Negotiations between East Asia’s economic powerhouses on a three-party trade agreement stalled in 2019, but Li said Monday’s trilateral summit was “both…

The European Union is expected to publish a provisional list of planned import duties on Chinese electric vehicles in June, following an investigation launched last October into whether Chinese carmakers have received market-distorting subsidies to the detriment of EU carmakers. The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, says it has found “sufficient evidence” that the imports of new battery electric vehicles from China had increased sharply by 14% since it launched its investigation and that many of those imports had received government subsidies in the form of tax breaks or direct transfer of funds. If the EU goes ahead with imposing tariffs, how high would…