Author: DW

Gambian lawmakers voted on Monday to advance to the next parliamentary stage a bill reverse the ban on female genital mutilation (FGM), which has been in place since 2015. Lawmakers voted 42 in favor and four against to send the bill to a parliamentary committee for at least three months for further scrutiny before it returns for a third reading. What are the arguments for and against the ban?   Lawmaker Almameh Gibba, who presented the repeal bill earlier this month, said during Monday’s debate: “The bill seeks to uphold religious loyalty and safeguard cultural norms and values.”   But activists and human rights organizations say the suggested…

At least 12 people have been killed in the latest wave of violence in Haiti after armed gangs went on the rampage in two affluent areas of the capital, as chaos grips the poverty-stricken Caribbean country.Gunmen looted homes in Laboule and Thomassin early on Monday, with desperate residents fleeing and calling radio stations, pleading for help from police. Up until now, the two neighbourhoods had been mostly peaceful despite an escalation in gang violence across the capital Port-au-Prince, which started on 29 February. Image: Police take cover during an anti-gang operation in the Portail neighborhood of Port-au-Prince. Pic: AP The…

A new artwork by British street artist Banksy appeared in London and was confirmed by the anonymous artist on his social media account Monday.   The work, which appeared in the Finsbury Park area of northern London, uses green paint sprayed across the side of a four-story building to imitate the missing leaves of a heavily pruned tree that stands a few meters in front of it. It also shows a small figure holding a pressure hose next to the leaves. When viewed from certain angles, the green paint lines up with the tree’s branches. Corbyn hails ‘environmental’ message of Banksy piece Independent…

The next frontier in the future of golf could be determined this week at Ponte Vedra Beach in Florida with power brokers from LIV Golf and the PGA Tour reportedly set to meet as early as Monday. US PGA Tour policymaker Peter Malnati, one of six players on the PGA Tour Policy Board, admitted during the Players Championship in the southern US state that the best players in the world being divided between the established PGA tour and upstart LIV Golf, funded by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), was not a sustainable future for the sport. “It would be even better…

03/18/2024March 18, 2024Amnesty says Moscow suppressing Ukraine identity in CrimeaUK-based human rights watchdog Amnesty International lambasted Moscow’s policies in the Crimean Peninsula on Monday, which marks the 10-year anniversary of the Russian annexation of the peninsula. In a 19-page report, Amnesty said Russia has been seeking to suppress the Ukrainian identity in Crimea, as well as the identity of other minorities, including the Crimean Tatars. “In 10 years of occupation, Russia has done everything in its power to delegitimize Ukraine’s sovereignty over Crimea,” Amnesty said, describing policies Moscow has used “to alter the ethnic makeup” of the peninsula. It warned…

A Polish police spokeperson said farmers in Poland blocked two crossings on the German border in protest Monday. The farmers parked their tractors on the A2 highway, blocking traffic in both directions at the Swiecko and Gubinek crossings, both western towns in Poland. The demo first began on Sunday. Marcin Maludy, a spokesperson for the police in Gorzow Wielkopolski said: “Traffic in Swiecko and Gubinek is blocked, you cannot travel in either direction,” and the protest “will continue until Wednesday evening.” Why are Polish farmers demonstrating? Polish farmers staged the protest against farm imports from outside the  European Union  and the bloc’s environmental red tape.The current demo is expected to continue through Wednesday, but it…

Now the three-day electoral spectacle is done – a shiny semblance of democracy, unfree, unfair and underpinned by Soviet-style repressions – what is next for Vladimir Putin and for the country he leads?Expect the state to clamp down still further on what remains of Russia’s enfeebled civil society. Putin’s authoritarian course was set way ahead of his invasion of Ukraine, but over the last two years there has been a galloping momentum to the erosion of civil liberties and to the numbers jailed for minor infractions suddenly deemed subversive.Russia-Ukraine war latest: Election most corrupt ‘in Russia’s history’ Image: Pic: Reuters…

It is 6am and lights in small bungalows are starting to turn on in the small Kenyan town of Iten. Here, around 2,400 meters above sea level and 350 kilometers northwest of the capital Nairobi,  athletes are getting ready to start their day at the place called “Home of Champions.” The high altitude training camp is where hundreds of running elite prepare for marathons and the Olympic Games. German marathon runner Fabienne Königstein is one of them. Together with her husband and young daughter, Skadi, the 31-year-old has taken up residence in Iten for four weeks to get herself in shape for…

When it finally came down to it, everything went very quickly. After a brief yet heated debate, the Croatian parliament last week passed a highly controversial amendment to the criminal code during the last session of the legislative period. The bill was passed with the votes of the ruling coalition. According to the new law, the forwarding of information from police investigations to journalists is now a criminal offense in Croatia. If caught, whistleblowers face several years in jail. The government has faced intense criticism from journalists and the opposition in the six months since Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic announced the…

Russia’s election commission on Monday hailed what it called Vladimir Putin’s “record” victory in the presidential election, claiming that he had won 87,28% of the vote. It claimed that turnout was also a record high of 77%. Putin’s three rivals each received between 3.2% and 4.3% of the vote, according to the commission. The results came amid Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and the country’s crackdown on opposition and free speech. Only three candidates were allowed to run against Putin, and none of them opposed his war in Ukraine.Putin’s post-election speech touches on Ukraine war, NavalnyTo view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider…