Author: DW

The halls and corridors of the European Parliament were a hive of activity this week. Hundreds of elected lawmakers bustled between votes, racing to wrap up a record number of laws before bloc-wide elections in June. Outside the chamber of the European Union’s only directly elected body, journalists jostled for space and final interviews before politicians enter campaign mode in earnest. It’s easy to forget just how many political twists and turns those lawmakers have navigated since the last elections in 2019, with Europe bouncing from one crisis to the next — first Brexit, then the COVID-19 pandemic, then Russia’s…

Elaine Custodio arrived in Bonn, Germany, in March 2018 with six years of nursing experience under her belt and a B1 intermediate German language certificate in her backpack. Before leaving her native Philippines to start a nursing job at the University Hospital Bonn (UKB), Custodio studied German full- time to obtain the language skills necessary for working there. But despite her best efforts, she struggled to speak and understand German — something that proved to be a big hurdle in the workplace. How difficult is learning German? German is one of the 10 most difficult languages in the world, according to…

Two courts aren’t enough – not for Donald Trump, not on a Thursday.His hush money criminal trial and Supreme Court hearing, legal events one and two, were already under way when he scored the hat-trick. A New York judge announced he was upholding the verdict and the $83m damages award against Trump for defaming writer E Jean Carroll.There’s a lot going on, legally, and there’s a lot riding on all of it for Trump.Catch up: how the day unfolded in court The hearing at the Supreme Court concerned the 6 January riots, election subversion and Trump’s alleged involvement. It is…

Earlier this month, Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, the Vatican’s secretary for relations with states and international organizations, wrapped up a six-day working trip to Vietnam in anticipation of a rumored visit by Pope Francis later in the year. Gallagher, the papacy’s top diplomat, met with Vietnam’s prime minister and foreign minister and expressed the Vatican’s “gratitude” for the progress made to improve the relationship between the two states, including Hanoi’s decision last year to allow the Vatican to send its first resident papal representative to Vietnam in decades. A joint working group was established in 2009 to repair relations that were severed in…

The announcement by the US on Wednesday that it had already provided Ukraine with long-range missiles reopened an ongoing debate in Germany over the delivery of Taurus cruise missiles to Ukrainian forces.  The US weapons system, called Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS), has a range of up to 300 kilometers (180 miles). German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, along with the majority of German lawmakers, have repeatedly refused to send Ukraine long-range Taurus weapons system, arguing that doing so would bring Germany into direct conflict with Russia.  On Wednesday at a press conference alongside UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, Scholz reiterated his opposition to providing Taurus missiles.  “My decision will not change,”…

Donald Trump managed a partial victory in the Supreme Court today, as justices delayed any potential decision on his immunity case over election riots.Trump argued on Thursday he has total immunity over the 2020 riots and while justices in the Supreme Court were not convinced by his arguments, some raised the point he may have some level of immunity – and delayed any potential decision on that until June. If they then rule the former president does have a level of immunity, it could kick the issue back into lower courts to decide what that level is, and knock back…

When The New York Times published an article headlined “Harvey Weinstein Paid Off Sexual Harassment Accusers for Decades” on October 5, 2017, it could not have imagined that it would trigger a global media phenomenon. In the article, journalists Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey laid out how studio mogul Harvey Weinstein, producer of numerous Oscar and Hollywood hits, had sexually abused and harassed women for decades. This directly resulted in the #MeToo movement: Following a call by US actor Alyssa Milano, women shared their experiences of sexualized violence on social networks under the hashtag “me too.” On the very first day, the…

“Good thing that I got my passport last year in Cologne and don’t have to go back to the consulate,” says Oleg from Kyiv, who today lives with his wife and three children in Germany. That was his reaction to a statement from Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba announcing that male citizens of military age who currently live outside Ukraine will no longer have access to full consular services. The measure is primarily aimed at individuals who have not registered with the military. “Living abroad does not relieve a citizen of his or her duties to their homeland,” Kuleba wrote Tuesday on the social media…

The US economy grew less than anticipated in the first quarter of 2024, the Commerce Department said on Thursday. The US’ economic performance is likely to be a major campaign issue as President Joe Biden seeks re-election in November in a rematch against his presumptive Republican challenger, former President Donald Trump. What do we know about the US growth rate? The US registered 1.6% GDP growth in the first three months of the year, according to the data. This was substantially lower than the rate of 2.4% predicted by analysts. The growth rate for the previous quarter was 3.4%. The…

The symbol of his policies is a chainsaw: President Javier Milei wants to slash the Argentine state and its expenditures down to a minimum. This was the campaign promise that carried him to election victory in November 2023, and it’s now the basis for how he’s running the government. Following 15 years of deficit-based fiscal policy and three sovereign debt defaults since 2001, the majority of voters backed his proposed drastic program. But that support now appears to be crumbling. On April 23, hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets throughout the country to protest his radical austerity measures.…