Author: DW

Skip next section Kyiv needs Patriots: Ukrainian Foreign Minister Kuleba04/04/2024April 4, 2024Kyiv needs Patriots: Ukrainian Foreign Minister KulebaUkrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba has told the NATO summit that his country needs more US-made Patriot surface-to-air missiles to ward off attacks by Russian ballistic missiles. “I don’t want to spoil the party,” Dmytro Kuleba said after congratulating NATO members on the alliance’s 75th anniversary. “But my main message today will be Patriots.” “Saving Ukrainian lives, saving the Ukrainian economy, saving Ukrainian cities, depends on the availability of Patriots and other air defense systems in Ukraine. We’re talking about Patriots because it’s the only system…

As night falls near the town of Tamale in northern Ghana, Rakiya Mumuni scrambles to find a candle. Once the single light is flickering in her small kitchen, Rakiya can begin cooking. “Sometimes we use our phones but because we were not aware [of a pending power outage], my phone is dead and I have to depend on this candle,” she told DW. There’s been an electricity outage in Mumuni’s Gumani neighborhood since morning, so she hasn’t been able to charge her cellphone.Even Ghana’s parliament had its lights turned off after the state electricity supplier said it was owed more than $1…

In hyperpartisan Washington, DC, there has long been one policy point that Democrats and Republicans could agree on: the sacrosanctity of the US-Israeli relationship. Power has oscillated between the two parties over the decades, but commitment to Israel has not. Leaders from both parties have stuck to the refrain that Israel has no closer ally than the United States and that  the country’s security is nonnegotiable. Since 1948, Israel has received nearly $300 billion (€280 billion) in assistance from the United States, most of that for military means, according to the Council on Foreign Relations. That’s about double the aid to…

Terrified passengers have leapt into the sea to escape a fire on a night ferry travelling to a popular tourist destination off the coast of Thailand.The vessel from Surat Thani province was about to arrive at Koh Tao when a passenger suddenly heard a crackling sound and smelt smoke. Maitree Promjampa said he saw billowing smoke and fire less than five minutes later, and that was when people started shouting and raised the alarm.”We could barely get the life vests in time,” he told the Associated Press news agency.”It was chaotic. People were weeping.” Image: The ferry was on its…

Banda Khel, Afghanistan, April 4, 2014. Anja Niedringhaus texts “I am happy” to her best friend, the photographer Muhammed Muheisen. That day, one of her photos appeared on the front page of the New York Times. Niedringhaus is traveling through the eastern Afghan province of Khost, along with a friend, the Canadian reporter Kathy Gannon. The two journalists are an experienced team, reporting on the presidential elections in Afghanistan for the US news agency Associated Press.Anja Niedringhaus (in a photo from 2005) focused on the people affected by warImage: Peter Dejong/AP Photo/picture alliance Their trip has been well-prepared and is…

Scores of young people in Sierra Leone have become addicted to kush, a drug that threatens the lives of its users and others in their communities. The local government in Sierra Leone’s capital, Freetown, said they buried 32 young people earlier this month, most of whom died from kush-related effects. The growing problem of kush — which is also known as K2 — has led the government of the West African nation to convene a national conference, despite citizens’ calls to go a step further and declare a public emergency. At the Sierra Leone Psychiatric Hospital, previously known as Kissy Hospital, many patients admitted to being kush…

Mauro Congedo has been finding and renovating small architectural treasures with his brother and father for 25 years in Salento — a peninsula in the southeast of Italy that makes up the “heel” of the country. The apartments and houses that Congedo restores in this rather remote region are now suddenly finding buyers from Germany and England. “Things are going well again,” said the 50-year-old architect. During the coronavirus pandemic, business almost came to a standstill. But what happened afterward in Italy in the industry was “crazy” he says, dragging out the “a” for a long time. But look deeper…

At least five Iranian security members were killed in clashes with militants at two separate points in southeastern Iran, state media reported on Thursday. The official IRNA news agency said another 10 other security force members were injured and at least eight gunmen were killed during the gunfights. It said the fighting erupted overnight in Sistan and Baluchistan province when gunmen opened fire on a Revolutionary Guard post in Rask town and a coastguard station in Chahbahar city, close to the border with Pakistan and some 1,400 kilometers (870 miles) southeast of the capital, Tehran. A ‘foiled terrorist attack’ The exact extent of the gunfire…

The first patient to receive a kidney transplanted from a genetically modified pig has been discharged from hospital.Richard “Rick” Slayman received the organ in March in a world first after undergoing a four-hour surgery at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) in Boston. The 62-year-old suffers from end-stage renal failure, a chronic disease where the kidneys can no longer function on their own.”This moment – leaving the hospital today with one of the cleanest bills of health I’ve had in a long time – is one I wished would come for many years,” he said in a statement on Wednesday.”Now, it’s…

The annual rate of inflation in countries using the euro currency fell faster than expected in March, official data showed on Wednesday. Consumer prices in the Eurozone rose by just 2.4%, down from 2.6% in February, the EU’s statistical office Eurostat said. For its part, Germany recorded an annual rate of inflation in March of 2.2%, dropping from 2.7% in February. Predictions by analysts for the eurozone had ranged from there being no drop at all, to a smaller dip to 2.5%. Inflation in the single currency zone has significantly fallen from the peak of 10.6% reached in October 2022 following Russia’s invasion…