Author: DW

Skip next section Zelenskyy asks for more air defense systems, amunition at European leaders’ summit03/21/2024March 21, 2024Zelenskyy asks for more air defense systems, amunition at European leaders’ summitWhile speaking at a summit of European Union leaders in Brussels, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged European allies to provide Ukraine with additional air defense systems so it can protect its entire territory. Ukraine was high on the agenda at the summit, with leaders discussing a proposal to use seized Russian assets to supply Ukraine with weapons, a plan towards which Zelenskyy voiced his support, as well as mulling “radical” steps toward a…

Tin (name changed), 27, hails from a neighborhood in the northern part of Metropolitan Manila, the national capital region of the Philippines. Her locality was not spared from the spate of killings that resulted after Rodrigo Duterte, Philippine president from 2016 to 2022, unleashed an all-out war against illegal drugs.   But it never crossed her mind that she would experience a drug-related death in her own family. After all, her husband was not involved with illegal drugs at the time. Still, a year after Duterte stepped down and Ferdinand Marcos Jr. took over as president, on October 3 last year,…

Simon Harris has said being a dad is “the most important job I have, and ever will have”.In which case, the father-of-two is about to start the second most important job in his life. In little more than 24 hours, the field of contenders to become Fine Gael leader – and then Taoiseach, or prime minister – has thinned completely.The path to power is now clear for Mr Harris, a softly-spoken rising star equipped with a relentless political hunger. Image: Mr Harris pictured with Leo Varadkar. Pic: PA The 37-year-old minister for further and higher education will snatch the title…

Just when communities were starting to understand the lethal effects of fentanyl and oxycodone abuse, yet another painkiller opioid has emerged from the pharmaceutical archives as a deadly street drug. Commonly known as nitazenes, 2-Benzyl Benzimidazole opioids are said to be up to 500 times more potent than heroin, making people more prone to addiction. Drug and health agencies in the UK, elsewhere in Europe, and the US are reporting a rise in the number of overdoses and fatalities linked to nitazenes. There are indications that while authorities clamp down on fentanyl, and heroin cultivation in Afghanistan slows under the Taliban, nitazenes…

Voters in Slovakia head to the polls to vote in the first round of the presidential election on March 23. Should none of the 11 candidates — all of whom are men — win 50% of the vote, then the two leading contenders will face off two weeks later. The eventual winner will replace Zuzana Caputova. The former civil activist was heralded as a great liberal hope when elected president in 2019 but she has declined to run for a second term. In Solvakia the presidency is mostly ceremonial but the country’s president can play a significant role if, as has been…

Three years ago, Chinese tech giant Xiaomi announced it was getting into the electric vehicle (EV) business, following in the footsteps of US rival Apple which spent the best part of a decade researching and developing its own EV. Fast forward to 2024 and while Apple has given up on its plans to build a self-driving car, Xiaomi is just days away from the launch of its SU7, a four-door sedan produced by the state-owned car manufacturer BAIC at a factory in Beijing. Xiaomi is not alone. Rival Chinese smartphone maker Huawei is also developing technologies for the auto industry, from smart…

Vietnam’s one-party, Communist system was once known for its predictability. But President Vo Van Thuong’s abrupt resignation on Wednesday — after just a year in the post, making him the shortest-serving president of the communist state — points to increasingly chaotic politics in Hanoi.  The Vietnamese Communist Party’s Central Committee met on Wednesday to accept Thuong’s resignation due to “violations” and “shortcomings,” the Communist Party has officially said. The resignation was also approved by the country’s parliament on Thursday. Many Vietnam-watchers had been predicting his downfall for weeks. Thuong is now the second president to resign in as many years amid a…

Delhi has been named 2023’s the most polluted capital city in the world, as India – and the whole of South Asia – continues to grapple with smog and toxic air.A report into the most polluted cities around the world by IQAir, a Swiss-based air-quality monitoring group, found nine of the top 10 were in India. Delhi was ranked as the third most polluted city overall and the most polluted capital, with an annual average concentration of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) at 102.1 micrograms per cubic metre (μg/m³).The World Health Organization (WHO) says countries should aim for an average PM2.5…

The European Space Agency (ESA) has gathered unprecedented insights into the history of our galaxy, the Milky Way. ESA’s space telescope Gaia revealed two ancient streams of stars that wove together and merged with the Milky Way early in its existence. Researchers were examining data collected by Gaia when they came upon the streams, which they named Shakti and Shiva — a divine couple from Hindu philosophy who Hindus believe united to create the universe. “Revealing more about our galaxy’s infancy is one of Gaia’s goals, and it’s certainly achieving it,” Timo Prusti, project scientist for Gaia at ESA, said. “We…

Major League Baseball (MLB) team the Los Angeles Dodgers has fired Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter after the Japanese baseball star’s representatives said he had been the victim of “a massive theft” reported to involve millions of dollars. “The team can confirm that interpreter Ippei Mizuhara has been terminated,” a Dodgers spokesperson wrote in an email to the AFP news agency on Thursday from Seoul, South Korea, where team are currently playing. Earlier, following reports from the Los Angeles Times and ESPN about Mizuhara’s alleged ties to an illegal bookmaker, law firm Berk Brettler LLP had said in a statement: “In the…