Author: DW

Donald Trump’s campaign has criticised Joe Biden for declaring Transgender Day of Visibility (TDOV) would be recognised on Easter Sunday.The US president made the announcement on Friday, saying the day was to “honour the extraordinary courage and contributions of transgender Americans and reaffirm our nation’s commitment to forming a more perfect union”. He urged Americans “to join us in lifting up the lives and voices of transgender people throughout our nation and to work toward eliminating violence and discrimination based on gender identity”.TDOV, which celebrates the transgender community, has fallen on 31 March annually since 2009.But critics of Democrat Mr…

France’s Interior Ministry said Friday that 45 countries have been asked to provide police officers and civilian personnel to help safeguard the Paris Olympics this summer. Separately, the French Defense Ministry has asked for “small numbers” of foreign military personnel for “very specific” tasks during the Games. France made the requests in January before last week’s terror attack claimed by ISIS-K on a Moscow concert hall in which at least 143 people were killed. “The security context, particularly in recent weeks, means that there is extreme vigilance regarding the security of these Olympic Games,” a French military official said.Who are…

Polish President Andrzej Duda vetoed a law on Friday that would have allowed over-the-counter access to the contraceptive pill for women and girls aged 15 and up Duda “could not accept” the bill because it enabled access to the contraceptive pill “without medical supervision and bypassing the role and responsibility of parents,” his office said. He claimed there were no convincing arguments to provide the contraceptive pill to girls under the age of 18. Catholic-majority Poland saw a rollback of women’s reproductive rights under the previous Law and Justice (PiS) government, which Duda was allied with. The current government led by former…

US-funded news outlet Radio Free Asia said Friday it had closed its Hong Kong bureau following the passing of new national security legislation. The city, which is part of China, last week enacted a law known locally as Article 23, which has widened the Hong Kong government’s power to stamp out challenges to its rule. Hong Kong was once seen as a bastion of media freedom in Asia but independent media have been targeted for closure following pro-democracy protests in 2019. Hong Kong is technically a special administrative region of China with legislative, executive, and judicial organs separate from the mainland. The new law, however,…

President Joe Biden has said the US is “working every day” to secure the release of a US journalist, detained in Russia for a year.Evan Gershkovich, 32, was arrested on suspicion of spying while reporting in the Ural Mountains city of Yekaterinburg on 29 March 2023. The Wall Street Journal reporter was accused of stealing state secrets by Russian intelligence officials, who provided no evidence to support the charge. Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player 0:39 Russian jet crashes into sea Russia-Ukraine latest: Poland scrambles fighter jetsMr Gershkovich and his newspaper deny the accusation, as does…

“Competitive and amateur sports are equally affected. It’s about relative overload,” Karsten Hollander explains to DW. “For example, you sign up for a spring marathon on New Year’s Eve and go from doing nothing to training 20, 40 or 60 kilometres per week — these are high-risk moments. The same thing can happen to a competitive runner after a four-week break — for example, a college runner who gets back into high intensity training very quickly after the semester break.” Hollander is a professor of sports medicine at the Medical School Hamburg and since January 2024, has also been the…

Skip next section Zelenskyy says 2 Ukrainian hydropower plants attacked03/29/2024March 29, 2024Zelenskyy says 2 Ukrainian hydropower plants attackedUkrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed that the Kaniv and Dnister hydropower plants in Ukraine were attacked in Russian strikes overnight. “The terrorist country wants to repeat the environmental disaster in the Kherson region. But now not only Ukraine but also Moldova is under threat,” Zelenskyy said on the Telegram messaging app. The Dnister plant is on Ukraine’s border with Moldova. Zelensky had previously described Russia’s attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure as “energy terrorism.” Meanwhile, Ukraine has announced emergency blackouts in three regions and…

India’s potential role as a mediator with Moscow, and its position as a vanguard of the Global South, is coming into focus for Ukraine as it seeks to expand international support for a peace plan more than two years after the Russian invasion. After arriving in India Thursday for a two-day visit, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told Indian media that New Delhi “is a very important player in the world and we need India to restore just and lasting peace in Ukraine.” Kuleba’s agenda includes a meeting Friday with his Indian counterpart, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, and the deputy national security adviser.…

Researchers have used DNA to reconstruct the face of a Chinese emperor and shed light on what might have caused his death.Emperor Wu was a ruler of the Northern Zhou dynasty in ancient China, reigning from 560 AD until 578, defeating the Northern Qi dynasty and unifying the northern part of the country. The emperor belonged to a rarely-studied nomadic group called the Xianbei that lived in modern-day Mongolia and northern and northeastern China.Almost 30 years after his tomb was discovered in northwestern China, researchers at Shanghai’s Fudan University used DNA and his nearly-complete skull to reconstruct his face in…

“Oppenheimer,” the winner of the Oscars Best Picture award, was finally shown in Japanese cinemas on Friday, where the subject of the creation of the atomic bomb remains a highly charged and emotional subject. Director Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster hit the big screens in the United States and other countries in July at the same time as “Barbie” — prompting a viral phenomenon dubbed “Barbenheimer” by movie buffs. But while the famous doll’s movie premiered in Japan in August, “Oppenheimer” has been conspicuously absent from the country’s cinemas for months. Why was the release date so late? No official explanation was…