Author: DW

Around midday on April 8, 2024, the sky over parts of North America will suddenly go dark for a few minutes. The reason is a total solar eclipse that will begin over the continent from near Mazaltan, Mexico and go beyond Montreal, Canada, passing through nearly a dozen states in the US. The path along which the total solar eclipse can be seen is approximately 115 miles (about 185 kilometers) wide, according to NASA. For the millions of people in the path of the eclipse, sunshine will be blocked momentarily, causing a momentary dark dusk-like state during the prime of the…

The trial of 27 people connected with thePanama Papers tax evasion scandal began in a Panamanian criminal court on Monday, some eight years after the revelations first emerged. Among the defendants are German-born Jürgen Mossack, and Ramon Fonseca, the co-founders of a Panama-based law firm that was at the center of the document leak in 2016.  Mossack, Fonseca and other former employees of the law firm are facing money laundering charges based on allegations the law firm set up shell companies in tax havens.  Fonseca has previously said the firm, which closed in 2018, had no control over how its clients might use…

“Sexual harassment leaves a mark” — large white placards with this slogan were placed in three German cities behind three bronze statues of nude women with breasts that have become visibly lighter from frequent touching. The action is part of a campaign called “unsilence the violence,” launched by the German women’s rights organization Terre des Femmes. According to the group, two out of three women experience sexual harassment at some point in their lives. “Sexual harassment is a problem that is far too often trivialized or ignored,” Sina Tonk of Terre des Femmes said in a press release. “We must work together to ensure that the…

Billie Eilish has said she is “nervous and excited” as she announced her third album will be released next month.The US singer-songwriter said Hit Me Hard And Soft will be out on 17 May and appeared to suggest new tracks will not be released before the record. The previous album by Eilish, who collaborates with her brother Finneas O’Connell, was 2021’s Happier Than Ever.She wrote on Instagram: “So crazy to be writing this right now I’m nervy & excited not doing singles I wanna give it to you all at once.”Finneas and I truly could not be more proud of…

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz became the latest head of state to join TikTok on Monday. A video uploaded to his account offers a glimpse of his office with glass windows. The camera then pans to show the chancellor sitting at his desk. Scholz also broke the news on X, formerly Twitter, writing: “I won’t dance. Promise.” The spokesperson for the chancellor, Steffen Hebestreit, said in a statement that the TikTok channel would seek to offer more information to citizens who are “increasingly using TikTok to find out about and discuss politics.” The account will also offer a “look behind the scenes of everyday government life,”…

Discussions about transgender rights and sports have been ongoing among athletes and sports federations for years. In a recent development, an upcoming World Aquatics Swimming World Cup event in Berlin will introduce a new, open category specifically for transgender athletes. The move comes after transgender swimmer Lia Thomas made a splash in the sport when she won the US collegiate 500-yard freestyle title in 2022. She aims to make it to the 2024 Paris Olympics. “I’m a woman, just like anybody else on the team,” she told Sports Illustrated, an American sports magazine. “I don’t know exactly what the future of my swimming…

This week, Rwandans are marking the 30th anniversary of the Hutu genocide against the Tutsis. In a three-month killing spree that began on April 7, 1994, extremist Hutus murdered more than a million members of the Tutsi minority, as well as Hutus who refused to participate in the slaughter or tried to protect their Tutsi neighbors. This week, survivors and perpetrators of the genocide are coming together to commemorate and reflect on a crime against humanity that rocked a nation, and indeed the world.How the Rwandan genocide unfoldedTo view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video When making…

France’s fast-fashion bill was recently voted through unanimously in the lower house of Parliament, creating a rare consensus in the National Assembly, where the government lacks an absolute majority and often faces stiff opposition. But that unanimity doesn’t mean everybody in France has welcomed the government’s method. The new rules will affect companies that roll out a certain minimum number of products per day — a threshold to be defined later on by decree. The government is targeting fast-fashion giants like manufacturer Shein and online platform Temu, both based in China. Ultra-fast fashion firms like Shein are putting around 7,200 new items on the market…

This week, Rwandans are marking the 30th anniversary of the genocide against the Tutsi in which Hutu militias killed more than a million people in 1994. Beginning on April 7, 1994, extremist Hutus murdered more than a million Tutsi minorities as well as fellow Hutus, who refused to participate in the slaughter or who chose to protect their Tutsi neighbors. Now, survivors and perpetrators of the genocide are coming together to commemorate and reflect on a crime against humanity that rocked a nation, and indeed the world.How the Rwandan genocide unfoldedTo view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web…

“The Hardest Geezer” has revealed the scariest moment from his gruelling 352-day run across the whole length of Africa.In a news conference, Russ Cook said that – out of the 16 countries he visited during his 9,941-mile journey – he was most afraid “in the Congo on the back of a motorbike, thinking I was about to die”. He had gone missing and was separated from his supporters for days in the jungle, but was eventually freed after villagers armed with machetes were paid off.Meanwhile, in Angola, he and his team were robbed at gunpoint – with cameras, phones and…