Author: DW

Thailand’s lower house of parliament passed on Wednesday a bill that would legalize same-sex unions in the country. The text still needs the Senate’s approval and the king’s endorsement to become law. Thailand one of the most open LGBTQ communities in Asia, but activists have said Thai conservative laws do not represent the community despite the changing social attitudes in the country. What happened in parliament? The bill was passed by an overwhelming majority of the 415 lawmakers present, with 10 votes against. “We did this for all Thai people to reduce disparity in society and start creating equality,” Danuphorn Punnakanta,…

Audio has emerged of a first responder call as officials halted traffic on both sides of the Francis Scott Key Bridge moments before it collapsed.The cargo ship had issued a mayday call to alert authorities it had lost power before it collided with the Baltimore bridge on Tuesday morning. Following the call, Maryland Transportation Authority Police Dispatch and Response officials acted swiftly, shutting down the north and south sides of the bridge.Read more:Everything we know about the disasterFirst missing worker named – as rescue mission becomes a recovery operationOne official instructs: “Hold all traffic on the Key Bridge… There’s a…

Throughout his life, Richard Serra created works that interacted with their surroundings, becoming complete only through the viewer’s presence. One has to walk on or around one of Serra’s gigantic sculptures to fully understand the extent of these works. His sculptures seem to rise into the sky. They are extremely heavy and either block people’s paths or merge with nature. In Qatar, Serra created sculptures in the desert ahead of the 2022 World CupImage: MUSTAFA ABUMUNES/AFP Richard Serra: half-sculptor, half-master builder Serra, who died on March 26, 2024, saw himself not as a sculptor, but as a master builder — creating numerous sculptures for public…

Germany and Real Madrid defender Antonio Rüdiger and the German Football Association (DFB) have launched legal proceedings against a former newspaper editor who accused the player of making a gesture of support for Islamic extremism in a Ramadan-related social media post. On March 11, at the start of the Muslim month for fasting, prayer, community and reflection, Rüdiger posted an image of himself kneeling on a prayer map in a white robe with his right index finger pointing upwards, along with the caption: “Ramadan Mubarak to all Muslims around the world. May the almighty accept our fasting and prayers.” Two…

Thailand’s lower house of parliament passed on Wednesday a bill that would legalize same-sex unions in the country. The text still needs the Senate’s approval and the king’s endorsement to become law. Thailand has one of the most open LGBTQ communities in Asia, but activists have said Thai conservative laws do not represent the community despite the changing social attitudes in the country. What happened in parliament? The bill was passed by an overwhelming majority of the 415 lawmakers present, with 10 votes against. “We did this for all Thai people to reduce disparity in society and start creating equality,” Danuphorn Punnakanta,…

A group of leading economic think tanks released their six-monthly “collective diagnosis” of the German economy for early 2024 on Wednesday.  Titled “German economy ailing — reforming the debt brake is no cure-all,” the report revised 2024 growth forecast down from 1.2% to near-stagnation, at 0.1% for the year.  “Germany’s economy is struggling. A phase of economic weakness that has persisted until recently is accompanied by dwindling growth forces. Both economic and structural factors are therefore overlapping in the sluggish overall economic development,” the report’s summary said. It predicted that the situation would start to improve soon, but also warned that…

Intelligence agencies are secretive, gathering information to bolster national security or help their governments make political decisions. To do so, they sometimes even spy on allies. The National Security Agency (NSA) in the United States, for example, spied on German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s phone for several years — a fact the US would have preferred had never come to light. In other situations, intelligence agencies are more open to sharing what they know. On February 23, 2022, for example — the eve of the war in Ukraine — the United States informed Germany and other European allies of intelligence it had about Russia’s imminent invasion. A few…

“They are not our nation, these are not our people. If I was the state of Russia, I would kill them with an axe.”That’s what Firdavs, a migrant worker from Tajikistan who we met outside the Tajik consulate in Moscow, had to say about the four suspects behind the Moscow terror attack, all of them Tajik citizens. Image: The actions of the terrorists on Friday have done little to make the lives of migrant workers such as Firdavs any easier, Pic: Diana Magnay Others joined in, offering their condolences to the people of Russia, saying they are mourning too.Russia is…

Brazilian football has seen better days. The country’s Olympic team failed to qualify for Paris 2024, while Brazil’s full men’s national team, the “Selecao,” are languishing in sixth place in the South American World Cup qualifying standings. Utterly unacceptable for a team who have won a record five World Cups. On Saturday, Dorival Junior became the fifth man in the past two years to take his place in the Selecao’s coaching zone — for their friendly against England at Wembley. It seems as if the record-breaking world champions have lost their footballing identity. Former Brazilian stiker Grafite, who led Wolfsburg to…

The threat of Russia using cyberattacks, propaganda and other tactics to influence public opinion in Germany is real and growing, according to the country’s interior minister.  “The dangers have reached a new level,” Nancy Faeser of the center-left Social Democrats told the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper. Her warning comes as Germany prepares for the European Parliament elections in June and three regional elections in September. There are growing concerns that Russia will try to rally support for pro-Kremlin parties such as the far-right populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) ahead of the votes. The country has long been a target of Russian influence operations.…