Author: DW

At least 19 people have been injured, including three children, after a car struck a crowd of people waiting at a tram stop in Poland.The car then collided with three other vehicles as the driver tried to flee, according to police. Two people were reportedly critically injured in the incident in the northwest city of Szczecin, near the German border.The crash occurred at a busy crossroads around 4pm local time, at the start of the rush hour.On social media, video purported to be the aftermath of the incident showed people lying in a road. In other footage, emergency crews were…

A massive blaze that engulfed a six-story building in the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka, has claimed the lives of at least 46 people and left dozens wounded. The deadly fire, which started at the Green Cozy Cottage Shopping Mall on Bailey Road late on Thursday, is the latest in a long list of fire catastrophes in cities across the Southeast Asian country in recent decades. These fires often occur in densely populated workplaces such as busy markets or overcrowded factories. According to data published by the Bangladeshi government in November, Dhaka, one of the world’s most densely populated urban areas, sees about five fire incidents every…

Why is the Caprivi Strip symbolic of colonial era mapmaking? It’s one of the weirdest looking territories on a map, and forms part of Namibia. It looks like a pan handle, has parallel straight lines 30km (19 miles) apart, and traverses savannah and river systems – including the mighty Zambezi. It was created by European diplomats desperate to gain territory for their respective nations without causing conflict with competing European neighbors. Very few had actually visited the territory they were carving up, but they wanted to avoid other colonial powers from forming continuous, land axes going in East-West or North-South directions. Namibia’s strange shape…

It is exactly what the Kremlin did not want – for tens of thousands of people to gather in Moscow to pay their respects to Alexei Navalny.But thanks to the resilience and determination of his family not to allow the authorities to take, at the very least, this final goodbye from them, the ceremony has been allowed to take place. As his body was carried into the church, people clapped and chanted “Navalny” and “Alexei”. Some were in tears.Ukraine-Russia war latest updatesPeople crowded onto the steps of nearby supermarkets and shopping complexes. They knew they would not make it into…

The leaders of Ukraine and the Netherlands signed a security guarantee deal in the northeastern Ukrainian frontline city of Kharkiv. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a social media post on X, formerly Twitter, that the document includes €2 billion ($2.16 billion) in military aid from the Netherlands this year, as well as further defense assistance over the next ten years. “I am grateful to Prime Minister Rutte for this agreement, which will strengthen the protection of Ukraine, including the city of Kharkiv, where we met today,” Zelenskyy said. “According to the document, the Netherlands also supports Ukraine’s future membership in the EU and NATO,” he added. Now, Ukraine has…

“In 1994, I was 51 years old, and I voted for the first time,” said John Kani, a prominent South African actor, as he told DW about his experience voting in the country’s first post-apartheid election. “I was angry because it had taken so long to do something so simple as to put an X against the name of the party that I thought would deliver my freedom.” Thirty years later, ahead of elections scheduled for May 29, the South African theater pioneer is angry again. While he applauds certain things that have been achieved by the ruling African National…

Chinese Prime Minister Li Qiang is an unshakable optimist. When he talks about the economy, he often uses weather metaphors as a signal that — eventually — everything will be alright. Addressing German businesspeople last summer in Berlin, he promised them “a rainbow” amid global economic downturn. “When it rains hard, it gets muddy. But we must not bow our heads,” Li said. “Keep your chin up! When the time comes, we will surely see a rainbow. The economy has a natural cycle, in China as well.” And Li seems determined to reboot the world’s second-largest economy and make it fair,…

Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991, Russia has almost continually been waging — or at least provoking — wars against its neighbors. The first of these conflicts came just over two months after the collapse of the Soviet empire, namely in early March 1992 in the small former Soviet republic of Moldova. Two years previously, pro-Moscow separatists in Transnistria, a thin strip of land on the eastern bank of the Dniester River in eastern Moldova, proclaimed a republic under the pretext of protecting Russians and the Russian language. To this day, it hasn’t been recognized by…

Faltering Bayern Munich have confirmed in a statement that former Borussia Mönchengladbach and RB Leipzig sporting director Max Eberl will take over as the board member for sport in a boardroom shakeup. He has signed on until June 2027. Media reports say Bayern are set to pay a compensation fee of €4.5 million to Leipzig, where he remained under contract despite being relieved of his duties last September. In hindsight, it’s a move that seems to have been coming for quite some time. “I spent my entire childhood and youth at FC Bayern and in Munich, so it’s something special for me to return in…

China may face a more challenging task in achieving its economic growth target this year as the country’s annual meetings in Beijing get underway on Monday. The “two sessions” include the gathering of China’s legislative body — the National People’s Congress (NPC) — and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), which is an advisory body. The events led by Chinese President Xi Jinping usually deliver major policy announcements including the gross domestic growth (GDP) target for the year. Leading up to this year’s two sessions, many analysts have expected the world’s second largest economy to set the goal at 5%…