Author: DW

Visitors to Venice are being charged to enter the Italian city from today, under a controversial scheme. Authorities say the pilot programme is designed to discourage tourists and thin the crowds that throng the canals during peak holiday season, making the city more liveable for residents. Signs advising arriving visitors of the new €5 fee (£4.28) during a test phase of 29 days through July have been put up outside the main train station and other points of entry.Around 200 stewards have been trained to politely walk anyone unaware of the charge through the process of downloading a QR code…

A New York appeals court on Thursday overturned 2020 sex crime charges against former Hollywood film producer Harvey Weinstein and ordered a new trial. The court said in a 4-3 decision that it found errors in the landmark trial that helped drive the #MeToo movement.  Why did was the New York Weinstein ruling overturned? New York’s Court of Appeals argued that the previous ruling had committed serious errors by admitting invalid testimony. “We conclude that the trial court erroneously admitted testimony of uncharged, alleged prior sexual acts against persons other than the complainants of the underlying crimes,” the court’s majority opinion said. “The remedy for these egregious…

There is a reason mountaineers on Everest call the passage through the Khumbu Icefall from the western slope the “ballroom of death.” A mighty hanging glacier that threatens the route hangs like a sword of Damocles and makes for tricky climbing. Ten years ago, on 18 April 2014, an ice avalanche broke loose there. Sixteen Nepalese mountaineers, who were carrying equipment for commercial expeditions to the high camps, died in the accident. Since then, the “Icefall Doctors” — a group of Sherpas who specialize in icefall — have been trying to place the ascent route as far away from the western slope as possible.…

Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry resigned on Thursday, paving the way for the establishment of a new government. It comes after months of gang violence that has gripped the country, including parts of the capital, Port-au-Prince. Also on Thursday, a new transitional council was sworn in to appoint a new interim government to pave the way for the first elections since 2016. Finance Minister Patrick Boisvert is to serve as provisional prime minister after being appointed by Henry’s remaining cabinet.  It was not immediately clear when the transitional council would select its own interim prime minister. What do we know about Henry’s…

Cars are special products: They’re easier to ship than, say, oil rigs, but they’re also so large that you can’t just put them on a shelf. Each car occupies about ten square meters (107 square feet) of space, even when not in use. This poses problems for ports where cars are loaded and unloaded ― in Germany, there are two really big ones in Bremen and Bremerhaven. The car terminal at the Port of Bremerhaven is one of the largest auto ports in the world with a turnover of more than 1.7 million vehicles per year. BLG Logistics Group, an international seaport and logistics…

Flooding from torrential rain in Tanzania has killed at least 155 people, Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa said on Thursday. In an address to parliament, the East African leader added that around 200,000 people are impacted by flooding and that there was significant damage to homes, infrastructure and crops in a number of parts of the country. “The heavy El Nino rains, accompanied by strong winds, floods, and landslides in various parts of the country, have caused significant damage,” Majaliwa told parliament, according to AFP news agency. “As a result …  more than 51,000 households and 200,000 people were affected, with 155…

Dozens of whales have died after several pods washed up on the shore of a beach on the Western Australian coast.Marine wildlife experts including wildlife officers, marine scientists and veterinarians tried frantically to save the pilot whales stranded on Thursday in shallow waters at Toby Inlet in Geographe Bay. Image: The pilot whales became stranded on a beach n Western Australia. Pic: Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions via AP Four pods of up to 160 pilot whales in total spread across about 500m along the beach, near the town of Dunsborough, in a region popular with tourists.More than 100…

This year, the Italian city of Venice will begin charging a €5 ($5.30) fee for day-trippers who are not staying overnight. The trial scheme starts on April 25 and will require tourists to pay a visitor’s fee on numerous different days between the end of April and mid-July. The scheme’s launch was repeatedly postponed in recent years. “It’s a great idea,” says Susanne Kunz-Saponaro, who lives in Venice and works as a local tour guide. “But it doesn’t seem really well thought-out.” She doubts the city’s efforts to curb mass tourism will have much effect. The problem is that a…

French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday called for the establishment of a “more united, sovereign and democratic” Europe in the face of numerous geopolitical and economic challenges. He made the comments during a speech at Paris’ Sorbonne University. What did Macron say during his speech on the EU? “We need to be clear on the fact that our Europe is mortal — it can die,” Macron said. He said the bloc’s survival “depends only on our choices.” He warned that “the rules of the game” had changed and the EU was not “armed against the risks we face.” “We are still…

German consumer confidence rose for the month of May, according to a market research survey released on Thursday. The survey was published jointly by the GfK market research company and the Nuremberg Institute for Market Decisions (NIM). What did the survey find? According to the survey, consumer confidence rose by 3.1 points to -24.2 heading into May. The increase was higher than expected, with experts interviewed by the Reuters news agency foreseeing a rate of -26. This was the third monthly increase in a row, with GfK saying that its barometer hit a “two-year high.” The increase was driven by…