Author: DW

The cultural heritage stolen from Paris’ Louvre Museum on October 19 is priceless: the tiaras, brooches and necklaces from the time of Napoleon III are pieces of French history. The trail of the thieves who boldly robbed these French crown jewels remains cold. Investigators are examining links to Eastern European stolen goods networks that procure art objects on behalf of wealthy collectors — or use them as currency in illegal trade. Art hard to sell, unlike precious metals and gems Tim Carpenter, head of the art protection organization, Argus Cultural Property Consultancy, was the long-time head of the FBI’s art crimes division. He told…

Amazon’s cloud services unit, AWS, which provides computing power, data storage and other digital services to companies, governments and individuals, experienced an outage Monday. The disruption caused widespread connectivity issues for major online companies around the world. According to the internet services monitoring platform Downdetector, Amazon’s own shopping website, Prime Video and Alexa all faced problems. AWS identified the issue as a problem with a regional gateway on the US East Coast. Hours later, it said “underlying DNS issue has been fully mitigated,” and added most service operations were “succeeding normally now.” Disruption hits internet services The AWS outage was the most…

Four years since they last played an official match ahead of the devastation, destruction and displacement caused by the return of the Taliban, Afghanistan’s women are ready to play for their country once again. The FIFA Unites: Women’s Series will see the newly formed Afghanistan women’s refugee football team play against Chad, Libya and hosts the United Arab Emirates from October 23 to 29. While the games do matter, sending a message to the oppressive rulers of their homeland matters even more. “There are a lot of emotions coming up, a mix of excitement and looking forward to the tournament, but also,…

A break-in at the Louvre in the French capital Paris on Sunday saw suspected criminals make off with “priceless” jewelry, according to France’s culture minister. Rachida Dati said the incident occurred as the museum, one of the world’s most famous, opened its doors Sunday morning. “A robbery took place this morning at the opening of the Louvre Museum,” she wrote on X. The museum confirmed it would be closed for the day “for exceptional reasons.” On Sunday evening, the culture ministry said nine objects had been stolen from the Paris museum. One of the items was recovered nearby, most likely after being dropped…

A cargo aircraft flying from Dubai skidded off the runway into the sea while landing at Hong Kong International Airport, the city’s airport operator said Monday, killing two people on the ground. The aircraft taxied about halfway down the runway before skidding off it to the left and hitting a patrol car, said Steven Yiu, the airport authority’s executive director in airport operations. He added authorities were investigating the exact cause of the crash, with weather, runway conditions, the aircraft and aircrew part of the investigation. What do we know about the Hong Kong flight incident? The Emirates flight EK9788, owned by Turkish cargo…

A man in a long coat with a full head of hair and sunken cheeks kneels at the edge of a mass grave, resigned to his fate.  The dozens of corpses below him and the gunman pointing a pistol to the back of his head leave no room for doubt — he knows his life is about to end. The victim’s identity remains a mystery, but a match has been found for the perpetrator with 99% certainty. The gunman in the photo, striking a “casual pose,” while showing “performative indifference” and “procedural matter-of-factness,” is most likely Nazi war criminal Jakobus Onnen,…

On July 21, 1959, former US first lady Mamie Eisenhower smashed a champagne bottle against the towering hull of the NS Savannah before the newly built ship slid into the Delaware River, carrying with it the lofty promise that shipping would be changing forever. Rather than having a conventional diesel engine in its machine room, the Savannah was powered by a nuclear reactor. Between 1962 and 1970, at a time when nuclear power was considered the future of energy, the merchant vessel shipped goods and people around the world to showcase the peaceful use of splitting atoms. The NS Savannah was meant to be a symbol of modern…

Sleep is often seen as a universal human need. But research suggests that women not only sleep differently from men but also need more of it. DW spoke with women in various regions of the world, who all shared stories of needing more rest than they were getting and told us of the toll of what’s known as “sleep debt.” Take Sana Akhand, for example: Akhand headed a human resources department in New York’s tech industry when she hit a wall of exhaustion, realized it was affecting her mental health and felt forced to leave the job. “I used to pour…

Malaysia’s 4-0 win over Vietnam in June looked impressive from afar. But, according to football’s world governing body, FIFA, it was achieved with seven overseas-born players using false birth certificates to claim their grandparents had been born in the country. In September, FIFA fined the Football Association of Malaysia (FAM) $438,000 (€377,000) and suspended the players.The FAM said in a statement earlier this month that it would appeal the decision, adding that they believe “there is no evidence to support these allegations presented by FIFA.” The scandal has put the issue of naturalization on the front and back pages of newspapers all around a region that has…

At least 17 people were killed in northeastern Brazil after a passenger bus collided into a sand embankment when the driver of the bus lost control, local authorities said Saturday. The crash happened in Saloa, a city in the northeastern Brazilian state of Pernambuco, according to the Federal Highway Police. The vehicle departed from the neighboring state of Bahia, with state Governor Jeronimo Teixeira writing on X that his administration was supporting rescue efforts and the identification of victims. “I am following the situation with my team and deeply mourn the loss of lives, the injuries and the suffering of all the families” he said. What do…