Author: DW

On Monday, one day ahead of the latest inauguration of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Russia’s Defense Ministry announced plans for tactical nuclear weapons maneuvers close to the Ukrainian border in “the near future.” It would be the first time such exercises were held since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The ministry said the drills will be carried out by missile units from the aerial defense’s Southern Military District, with the participation of air and naval forces and aim to ” increase the readiness of nonstrategic nuclear forces.” That area spans not just accepted Russian territory but also Crimea, which was annexed in…

Independent US presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr has revealed that a worm ate part of his brain. It has emerged the 70-year-old made the claim during a 2012 interview, known as a deposition, in his divorce proceedings from his second wife Mary Richardson Kennedy. At the time, he said his earning power had been diminished by cognitive issues.He said he had been having memory loss and mental fogginess in 2010 and so contacted neurologists who spotted a dark spot on his brain scans. Image: Robert F Kennedy Jr with his second wife Mary Richardson Kennedy in February 2009. Pic:…

North Korea’s former propaganda chief, Kim Ki Nam, who is credited for his role in building personality cults around the country’s dynastic rulers, has died at the age of 94, according to state media reports. Kim Ki Nam had been receiving treatment since 2022 and died on Tuesday due to age-related illnesses and “multiple organ dysfunction,” the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visited the body of Kim Ki Nam at a funeral hall in the capital, Pyongyang, paid his condolences to his family, and looked at the bier with “bitter grief over the loss of a veteran…

Berlin’s state minister for economy, energy and enterprise, Franziska Giffey of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democratic Party (SPD), was injured in an attack at a library in the Rudow district of the German capital on Tuesday. Giffey, a former mayor of Berlin and an ex-federal minister, “briefly went to hospital for outpatient treatment for head and neck pain,” police and the Berlin prosecutor’s office said in a statement.  What we know about the incident The attacker suddenly attacked Giffey “from behind with a bag filled with hard contents and hit her on the head and neck” in a library on Tuesday afternoon, police said.Giffey was attacked…

Andrew Tate has been served with civil proceedings papers in Romania on behalf of four British women, their lawyers have said.Lawyers on behalf of the four alleged victims have said they are bringing a case against the social media influencer at the High Court in the UK after the Crown Prosecution Service decided not to prosecute in 2019. The four women allege Tate raped and assaulted them and are seeking “damages for injuries they suffered as a result”.Tate, 37, is accused alongside his brother Tristan Tate.A representative for the Tate brothers said they “unequivocally deny all allegations”, and are “fully…

In April, Vuong Dinh Hue, a high-ranking member of Vietnam’s Communist Party, stepped down from his role as National Assembly chairman over unspecified “violations” of party regulations. Without including specifics, the party’s Central Committee cited “shortcomings” in announcing that Hue had resigned from Vietnam’s fourth-highest political office.  According to reports in the state media outlet VN Express, the party’s Central Inspection Committee said the “violations … affected the reputation” of the party. Hue, a 67-year-old lawmaker and a veteran of Vietnamese politics, had served as assembly chairman since 2021. He also served as Vietnam’s deputy prime minister from 2016 to…

Greta Thunberg, the Swedish climate activist who inspired the “Fridays for Future” movement, was ordered to pay 6,000 Swedish crowns ($550, €512) by a Stockholm court on  Wednesday. Thunberg was accused of ignoring police orders to leave two protests in front of Sweden’s Parliament in March calling for action to be taken against climate change. What did Thunberg say in court? The activist was being charged with two counts of civil disobedience. She has denied the charges in court. She told the judge she refused to move because “there was a (climate) emergency and there still is. And in an emergency, we all…

A napkin that helped launch the career of football superstar Lionel Messi, is being put up for auction.The napkin, itself something of a legend in the world of football, served as an unusual contract to secure the Argentine prodigy’s move to Barcelona in 2000. Potential bidders will face a starting price of £300,000 for the piece of football history and have until 17 May to make an online offer with auctioneers Bonhams. Image: The napkin that detailed Messi’s first Barcelona contract is up for sale. Pic: PA Messi, then 13, had been on trial with Barcelona in September of that…

The “Beethoven Frieze” by artist Gustav Klimt is one Austria’s most valuable cultural treasures. Every year, thousands of visitors from around the globe enter Vienna’s Secession building to contemplate the work. In 2004, it was chosen as the main motif for Austria’s 100-euro gold and silver commemorative coins. In 2013, the heirs of the Lederer family, who had owned the frieze before it was looted by the Nazis, demanded its restitution, adding an unexpected chapter to the work’s contentious past. “It was inconceivable for people that there could be a claim for the frieze,” says Austrian provenance researcher Sophie Lillie. Read more:Vienna marks…

Perhaps it’s a coincidence that China’s head of state, Xi Jinping, arrived in Belgrade on May 7. Or perhaps the date was chosen deliberately. May 7 is the day NATO bombs hit the city’s Chinese Embassy in 1999, killing three Chinese journalists and injuring more than 20 others. The strike took place during the war in Kosovo, after the Western military alliance intervened — without a UN mandate — to stop crimes against ethnic Albanians. At the time, NATO said the embassy had been hit by mistake. China, however, has always doubted this explanation. In an op-ed for a Serbian newspaper on Tuesday, Xi wrote: “We must…