Author: DW

The European Central Bank held interest rates at a record high but signaled Thursday it could cut interest rates at its next meeting in June. The announcement is the fifth consecutive pause since October and was widely expected. The interest rate on the main refinancing operations will remain unchanged at 4.50%. The interest rates on the marginal lending facility and the deposit facility will remain unchanged at 4.75% and 4.00% respectively. The bank’s rate-setting council said it would wait for confirmation that rapidly receding inflation is firmly under control before deciding to cut interest rates. “Most measures of underlying inflation are…

US President Joe Biden, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. are meeting on Thursday in Washington for their first-ever trilateral defense summit. The meeting comes as Chinese and Philippines coast guard vessels in the disputed South China Sea regularly become involved in skirmishes, with China increasingly asserting its territorial claims in the region. Kishida, for his part, addressed Congress on Thursday as part of a Washington visit, becoming the second Japanese premier to do so since Shinzo Abe in 2015. His address, which comes after a Wednesday summit with Biden, focused on the importance of a strong US-Japanese partnership amid growing skepticism in Congress,…

Three sailors were saved from a tiny uninhabited Pacific island after forming a giant “HELP” sign using palm tree leaves.The three men were found on Tuesday evening after being stranded for more than a week on the minute Pikelot Atoll, part of the Federated States of Micronesia. The trio, who have not been identified but are all in their 40s and related to one another, survived on coconuts. Image: The crew of USCGC Oliver Henry making contact with three sailors stranded on Pikelot Atoll. Pic: US Coast Guard They had travelled to a different atoll – Polowat – on Easter…

Rocks, soils and minerals — the elements that make up the land we live upon — have no protection from the weather. They are struck by lightning, flooded by rains and baked by blistering sunlight. This natural process, which represents the gradual chipping away of the surface of our Earth, is called weathering. Over the past two decades, and particularly in the past few years, public health researchers have been using this term in a different context: to describe a process they say occurs in the bodies of Black people who grow up in white American society. The theory is…

Marte van der Graaf does not hold back when it comes to criticizing airlines’ efforts to protect the environment. “It’s difficult to take the aviation industry’s net-zero targets seriously,” she says. Graf is Germany Aviation Policy Officer at the NGO Transport & Environment, which focuses on promoting sustainable transportation. “The aviation sector must significantly reduce its consumption of fossil fuels in the next decades. But things are going in the opposite direction at the moment,” she says. More and more people flying As climate change threatens the planet, the industry’s CO2 emissions continue to rise. And according to future projections, more and…

Akebono, the first non-Japanese grand champion or “yokozuna” of sumo wrestling, died of heart failure this month at age 54, said his family in a statement received by the office of Hawaiian Governor Josh Green. “It is with sadness that we announce Akebono Taro died of heart failure earlier this month while receiving care at a hospital in the Tokyo area,” the statement said. He is survived by his wife, two sons and a daughter. At a height of 2.03 meters (six feet, eight inches) and weight of 233 kilograms (513 pounds), he was known for using his body to thrust…

Germany’s Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development has produced a 15-point paper aimed at what it calls “the mobilization of the private sector for the reconstruction of Ukraine.” Meetings have been held in the German and Ukrainian capitals for weeks to prepare for Berlin’s Ukraine Recovery Conference on June 11 and 12. Similar events have been held in Locarno, Switzerland, and most recently, London, which largely focused on financial aid for the Ukrainian economy. However, those close to the German government say the Berlin conference will highlight “four dimensions of reconstruction.” In addition to training workers, the issue of EU accession will also be…

US President Joe Biden, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. are set to meet on Thursday in Washington for their first-ever trilateral defense summit. The meeting, to be held after a bilateral meeting between Biden and Marcos, comes as Chinese and Philippines coast guard vessels in the disputed South China Sea regularly become involved in skirmishes, with China increasingly asserting its territorial claims in the region. Kishida, for his part, is to address Congress on Thursday as part of a Washington visit, becoming the second Japanese premier to do so since Shinzo Abe in 2015. His address, which comes after a Wednesday…

The risks of the Gaza war expanding into a much bigger regional conflict had seemed to have subsided. Not any longer.Comments from Iranian and American leaders in the last 24 hours may be entirely predictable but they raise the prospects of escalation.Iran knows it’s been directly attacked in the airstrike on its embassy in Damascus and unless it retaliates it is weakened.And in this region that is dangerous.So on Wednesday, celebrating the end of Ramadan, Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei issued a stern warning that Israel must be punished and will be.Middle East latest:Iran attack on Israel could be imminent…

Marte van der Graaf does not hold back when it comes to criticizing airlines’ efforts to protect the environment. “It’s difficult to take the aviation industry’s net-zero targets seriously,” she says. Graf is Germany Aviation Policy Officer at the NGO Transport & Environment, which focuses on promoting sustainable transportation. “The aviation sector must significantly reduce its consumption of fossil fuels in the next decades. But things are going in the opposite direction at the moment.” More and more people flying As climate change threatens the planet, the industry’s CO2 emissions continue to rise. And according to future projections, more and more people…