Author: DW

The skin beneath Guo’s pant leg is rubbed raw and, despite the bitter cold, he’s only wearing dusty plastic sandals. The 24-year-old said he bought them in Colombia, on a migration route to the United States favored by people from Latin America and the Caribbean. Now, like Guo, ever more migrants from China are joining them. Guo’s journey began in Shenzhen, in southeastern China. From there, he flew to Ecuador. “We all go to Ecuador … because Ecuador is visa-free country for China passport,” Guo said. The remainder of his trek was via land, taking him through the Darien Gap, a densely overgrown…

Western leaders “shouldn’t be afraid” to stand up to Russia and “shouldn’t be afraid of own power,” Estonia’s prime minister has told Sky News.Kaja Kallas, whose country borders northwestern Russia, said everything should be considered when it comes to how the West supports Ukraine’s war effort. She said: “Russia is saying this or that step is escalation, but defence is not escalation. I’m saying we should have all options on the table. What more can we do to help Ukraine win?”Ukraine-Russia war latest: Navalny’s body ‘abused’ after death Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player 4:21 Estonia’s…

The postcard widely believed to be the first to ever be sent on its way in Germany is a card with a small picture of a soldier. August Schwartz, a bookseller in the northern German city of Oldenburg, sent it to a relative in Magdeburg on July 16, 1870, shortly before the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War. However, it is not entirely certain whether Schwartz’ card was really the very first, according to Veit Didczuneit, head of collections at the Berlin Museum for Communication. “No one has seen this postcard for a long time, it needs to be examined more…

More than 1.14 million people applied for asylum in the EU in 2023, according to annual figures released by the European Union Agency for Asylum (EUAA). It is the largest number of applications in the European Union and the closely aligned EU+ countries Norway and Switzerland since displaced people arrived in the bloc en masse from 2015 through 2016. Germany received 29% of the asylum applications, with more than 334,000 people seeking protection in 2023. The nationalist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has used the topic of migration to surge to 19% support in the country. France (167,000), Spain (162,000)…

Ghana’s parliament passed a bill on Wednesday that further clamps down on the rights of LGBTQ people in the West African country. The “Human Sexual Rights and Family Values” bill enjoys support from a majority of lawmakers in Accra and has been sponsored by a coalition of Christian, Muslim, and Ghanaian traditional leaders. Same-sex intercourse in Ghana was already punishable by up to three years in prison, but while discrimination against LGBTQ people is common, no one has ever been prosecuted under the colonial-era law. The new bill, commonly referred to as the anti-gay bill, now also imposes a prison sentence of…

One person has died and two people are missing after a small boat incident in the Channel, the French coastguard has confirmed. A statement from the organisation said the French navy had carried out four rescue operations on Wednesday, using boats and a helicopter, assisting around 180 people. But one person rescued was unable to be resuscitated and two people have yet to be found in the water.Politics live: Farage hits out at Starmer attackA spokesperson for the UK Home Office earlier confirmed an incident had taken place, adding: “French authorities are leading the response and investigation. “We will not…

Andrea, a woman living in Berlin, was dating a supportive, kind and creative guy named Ben. She felt they were intellectually compatible and communicated well. But there was a problem from the very start: he wanted less sex than she did. At first, she thought this just meant he wasn’t interested in her. But he insisted he was — sex was just lower on his list of priorities. “In terms of our connection as humans, there was not much to work on,” she said. But she still felt lonely in the relationship, like something was missing. DW has changed their names to…

Pro-Russian officials in the Moldovan region of Transnistria on Thursday called for help from Moscow “in the face of increased pressure.” The call follows fears that tensions over the territory could open a new flashpoint in Moscow’s conflict with neighboring Ukraine. Why was the appeal made? A special congress of the region is understood to have passed a resolution on the issue on Wednesday. Officials are set to ask Russia’s Federation Council and the State Duma “to implement measures to protect Transnistria in the face of increased pressure from Moldova,” local media reported the resolution as saying.  Transnistria had been secretive about the…

The streets of Nigeria’s capital Lagos are packed with angry demonstrators calling to “end hardship now!” amid the West African country’s worst economic crisis in more than two decades. The protests kicked off on Tuesday after one of the country’s main unions, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), called for Nigerians to come out to the streets. ‘’There is suffering in the land, there is suffering for the workers, no worker can live on 30,000 naira minimum wage and over 150 million Nigerians are living below the poverty line,” NLC president Joe Ajaero told demonstrators.Tinubu has called for patience to allow his reforms to take effect, but the…

Bhupa Raj Khadka, a journalist with three decades of experience in media, recently opened a retail shop in Bhaktapur, a suburb of Kathmandu, the Nepalese capital. He had been running a current affairs news portal for six years. But now, he is struggling to pay his two remaining reporters due to dwindling advertisement revenue. “I saw no future in journalism, so I started a retail shop to make ends meet,” he told DW. Journalism no longer a viable career path Khadka’s situation reflects a broader trend in Nepali journalism. The Federation of Nepali Journalists (FNJ) — an umbrella trade union…