Author: DW

Adidas has said it will “block” Germany’s football kits featuring the number 44 over concerns it resembles the Nazi ‘SS’ symbol.The new kits were launched last month as Germany beat France 2-0 in a friendly and will be worn at Euro 2024, taking place in Germany this summer. However, similarities were flagged with the font of the number four, specifically when the figures are side by side where they resemble the lightning bolt style rune designed for the Schutzstaffel (SS) by Walter Heck in the 1930s.The SS was responsible for numerous crimes against humanity under Hitler’s Nazi regime, including the…

A Russian court extended the pre-trial detention of US-Russian journalist Alsu Kurmasheva for a second time on Monday. Her lawyers had previously asked for her to be put under house arrest until she faces trial, but she will now be held until at least June 5. Kurmasheva smiled in court in Kazan on Monday but complained about the poor state of the cell where she was being kept, according to an AFP reporter at the hearing. What was Alsu Kurmasheva charged with? Kurmasheva lived in Prague and worked as a journalist for the US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. In 2022, Kurmasheva also edited a book called…

Turkey’s long-standing President Recep Tayyip Erdogan actually set himself a different goal in the local elections that took place over the weekend. He wanted his party, the conservative, Islamic-oriented Justice and Development Party, or AKP,  to win back the capital cities that they had lost to opposition politicians back in 2019. But things did not work out according to that plan. In fact, the AKP did not win back the majority in Istanbul’s major cities and it also lost support in smaller provincial capitals, mostly to its main opposition, the center-left Republican People’s Party, or CHP. According to preliminary figures,…

An Iranian television journalist who was stabbed outside his London home on Friday has been discharged from hospital. Pouria Zeraati, a 36-year-old presenter at London-based broadcaster Iran International, was stabbed in the leg outside his home in Wimbledon, south London, on 29 March. Police have said the motivation for the attack is not yet clear, but his occupation – coupled with recent threats towards UK-based Iranian journalists – meant the probe was being led by specialist counter-terrorism officers.There have been no arrests, the Met said. Follow Sky News on WhatsApp Keep up with all the latest news from the UK…

The company that owns Formula 1 swooped in to buy the MotoGP motorcycle championship on Monday in a deal worth €4.2 billion ($4.5 billion). US-based Liberty Media will acquire “approximately” 86% of MotoGP’s current owner, Dorna, the company said. “We are thrilled to expand our portfolio of leading live sports and entertainment assets with the acquisition of MotoGP,” Liberty Media president and CEO Greg Maffei said. What’s next for MotoGP? Dorna management will retain around 14% of its equity in the business, and its longtime CEO Carmelo Ezpeleta will remain in his post. “This is the perfect next step in…

Syria and Iran said Monday that a building adjacent to the Iranian Embassy in Damascus was hit by an Israeli airstrike that killed a top commander in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps. “At least five people were killed in the attack which was carried out by F-35 fighter jets,” Hossein Akbari, Iran’s ambassador to Damascus, said in an interview broadcast on state TV.  Iran vows ‘harsh’ response Iranian and Syrian officials strongly condemned the strike on Iran’s embassy in Damascus. Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad, in comments carried by the official SANA news agency, strongly condemned “this heinous terrorist attack”…

The “Havana Syndrome” experienced by US diplomats may have been related to a Russian intelligence unit, according to a media investigation released on Monday. The syndrome was first reported in 2016 when US diplomats in Havana reported falling ill and hearing piercing sounds at night. Other symptoms have included bloody noses, headaches, memory lapses, dizziness and vision problems. What did the report on the ‘Havana Syndrome’ say? Diplomats may have been targeted by sonic weaponry, according to a joint report by the German news magazine Der Spiegel, the Latvia-based independent Russian news portal The Insider and the US broadcaster CBS. They…

A senior commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has been killed in an airstrike on the country’s consulate in Syria, according to Iranian state TV.Mohammad Reza Zahedi was reportedly killed in the explosion, which destroyed the Iranian consulate building in the Syrian capital, Damascus. Image: Emergency services work at a destroyed building hit by an air strike in Damascus, Syria. Pic: AP Tehran’s ambassador to Damascus, Hossein Akbari, claimed between five and seven people had been killed in the strike.Syrian foreign minister Faisal Mekdad also told media after meeting Iran’s ambassador that “several” people were killed, without offering further…

German athletic apparel giant Adidas said Monday that it would stop the online sales of the number 44 German national team jersey due to its likeliness to a Nazi symbol forbidden in Germany.  The font design for the 44 jersey, as social media users have noticed, bears a resemblance to the “lightning bolts” insignia of the Nazi Schutzstaffel (SS).  The SS was a paramilitary organization that assisted Nazi leader Adolf Hitler’s rise to power. The SS helped carry out the deliberate murder of Jewish people during the Holocaust. The public display and dissemination of the SS symbol is banned in Germany and can be…

A car bomb has killed a Moscow-installed official in Ukraine’s eastern Luhansk region, local authorities said on Monday. The local branch of Russia’s Investigative Committee said the deputy head of a state-run education agency was killed when “an unidentified device detonated in a car.” Municipal head Vladimir Chernev named the victim as Valery Chaika. “Our comrade is dead,” Chernev said in a Telegram post. Russia claimed to have annexed the Luhansk region in September 2022, alongside neighboring Donetsk and the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions in southern Ukraine. What else did Russian authorities say about the attack? The Investigative Committee posted…