Author: DW

800 years ago, a mystery gripped a Chinese village when a body was discovered with multiple stab wounds. Upon inspection, local detective Song Ci determined the wounds had been wrought by a sickle. To locate the culprit, he gathered the villagers together on a hot afternoon and told them to lay down their sickles for inspection. Blowflies started swarming around. They eventually settled on a single sickle. Attracted by trace amounts of the victim’s blood, the flies had identified the offender, who was led away pleading for mercy. Case closed. This is the first known case of a detective identifying…

Bipin Das* had worked for the Indian National Congress party (INC) for over two decades before switching to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) two months ago. He told DW that he was left with no choice a recent redrawing of the borders of electoral constituencies in the northeast state of Assam. “The Congress is never going to come to power here, we are 100% sure,” Das said. The centrist and secular INC, often known simply as the Congress, is the primary opposition to Narendra Modi’s BJP. But with the  general election starting on Friday, the party is facing a…

Southeast Asian countries, including Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, and Indonesia, are facing an influx of illegal waste shipments from industrialized nations, with a considerable amount trafficked from Europe. According to a new UN reportmapping waste trafficking trends from Europe and Southeast Asia, criminal actors exploit loopholes and legitimate business structures, making waste trafficking one of the most significant crimes that can affect the environment. Despite existing regulations, traffickers are empowered by ineffective law enforcement and low penalties when caught, and tempted by opportunities for easy profit. The European Commission estimates that 15 to 30% of waste shipments from the EU are illegal,…

Record rainfalls in the United Arab Emirates and the wider Gulf region have flooded major roads and caused “carnage” at Dubai’s international airport.More than 14cm (5.6 inches) of rain soaked Dubai on Tuesday, around as much as normally falls in a year-and-a-half at Dubai International Airport, the world’s busiest for international travel. The heavy downpours were “a historic weather event” that surpassed anything seen since records began in 1949, the state-run WAM news agency said.Israel-Hamas war latest: Israel ‘planning’ limited Iran strike Image: Pic: Reuters Schools across the UAE, which largely shut ahead of the storm, remained closed on Wednesday…

Skip next section Zelenskyy to address EU leaders04/17/2024April 17, 2024Zelenskyy to address EU leadersUkrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been invited to address the assembled European Union leaders via video link on Wednesday. He is expected to urge Ukraine’s allies to provide his country with more air defense systems.  Earlier on Wednesday, the Ukrainian president called for sufficient resolve and support from Western partners after a Russian missile strike on the northern city of Chernihiv killed at least 14 people. He said his country lacked “sufficient” air defenses that could have stopped the strike.  “This would not have happened if Ukraine had…

India’s 2024 general election is poised to be one of the biggest and longest in the country’s history. However, little is expected to change politically with the ruling BJP leading the polls. Source link

China desperately needs its people to have more babies.The country is facing a demographic disaster and it’s a crisis for the economy. Put simply, there are not enough young people and too many elderly. Drastic times call for drastic measures. The latest one being employed by Chinese censors is to take down short online videos that portray unhappy Chinese families with stories about difficult and demanding mother-in-laws and lazy husbands.The government’s fear is that these popular videos will further discourage young Chinese from having families.So hundreds of videos from online platforms Douyin, which is the Chinese version of TikTok, and…

The jailing of 12 Shiite Muslim men in Saudi Arabia has highlighted the dangers for fans who want to travel for sporting events such as the World Cup, according to human rights campaigners and an exiled Saudi Shiite. The men were summoned, along with more than 100 other fans, for questioning after being filmed singing a religious song celebrating the birth of Imam Ali, an important figure in the Shiite Muslim faith at a match between their team, Al Safa, and Al Bukiryah in January. Those 12 jailed have received sentences of either six months or a year, though with little…

Russian peacekeepers will withdraw from Azerbaijan’s Nagorgno-Karabakh region, the Kremlin said on Wednesday. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed the move, responding to a question about reports in the Azerbaijani media about the withdrawal. “Yes, it really is the case,” Peskov told reporters. Azerbaijan retook the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh last September despite the presence of Russian peacekeepers there. The move triggered a mass exodus of ethnic Armenians. What did Russian peacekeepers do in the region? For nearly three decades, Nagorno-Karabakh, which is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, was controlled by pro-Yerevan separatists and had a majority Armenian population. In…

More than 1,000 people have succumbed to cholera, while tens of thousands across Africa have been infected in a series of deadly cholera outbreaks since the beginning of 2024. The hardest hit nations are the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mozambique, Zimbabwe , Zambia in southern Africa, and Ethiopia further north. Zambia is being battered by its worst outbreak ever, with more than 740 cholera deaths recorded since the onset of seasonal rains in October 2023. The highly contagious bacterial disease can cause severe diarrhea and dehydration within hours of infection. When people are quickly treated, less than 1% die. But the death…