Author: DW

Polio is a very contagious viral disease caused by the poliovirus. It can cause permanent disability and even death, especially in children under the age of five. There are two types of polio present in the world today: Wild poliovirus and vaccine-derived poliovirus. The latter originates from an oral polio vaccine, known as the Sabin vaccine, or OPV.  Wild poliovirus has been eradicated in most countries, aside from Afghanistan and Pakistan. Vaccine-derived poliovirus has been found in Yemen and central Africa. Both the wild and the vaccine-derived forms have three types of viruses — types 1, 2 and 3. Although vaccine-derived polio…

It has become clear in the last few years that the old saying that “every man has his price” is just as applicable to sport as anything else. This has obviously not been lost on Saudi Arabia, which has been pumping huge sums of money into sport for years. Three examples are the LIV golf tournament series, Formula 1, and football — with the Gulf state expected to host the 2034 World Cup. According to the Saudi government, the investments are merely part of the “Vision 2030” development plan, with which Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed Bin Salman is…

Daniel Freund isn’t mincing words about why the decision to release €10.2 billion in frozen funds to Hungary should be investigated.  “We think that this decision was illegal and we want this checked now by the court,” the German Green member of the European Parliament said, explaining why his party and a majority of lawmakers want the European Court of Justice to investigate the European Commission’s December 13 decision to release the funds.  On Thursday, the court agreed to do so and the Commission has said it will defend itself. “The Commission considers that it acted in full compliance with EU law…

Spain’s lower house of parliament, the Congress of Deputies, approved on Thursday a bill granting amnesty to Catalans involved in a 2017 independence referendum. It must still clear the conservative-dominated Senate. Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez relied on the support of the Catalan separatist Junts party in order to form government. The bill passed with 178 votes in favor and 172 against. More to come…  sdi/wmr (AFP, Reuters) Source link

FC Barcelona have republished Dani Alves’ legends profile on their website after he was convicted of rape.Alves, 40, was found guilty of sexual assault in February and was sentenced to four-and-a-half years in prison. The Athletic reported that Barcelona removed a webpage about Alves in their “legendary players” section after his conviction, only to republish it days later.Barcelona told Sky News it had no comment on the reports. As of writing, the webpage is still on the club’s website. Image: A screenshot of FC Barcelona’s ‘Legendary Players’ webpage, which features Dani Alves. Pic: FC Barcelona Alves was ruled to have…

Fossil researchers led by Gabriel Ferreira from Germany’s University of Tübingen have identified one of the largest freshwater turtle species — with a shell about 1.8 meters (5.9 feet) long. The team named the species Peltocephalus maturin — after a recurring giant sea turtle in novels by best-selling horror author Stephen King. What’s important about the turtle? While such large animals were known to exist millions of years ago, Peltocephalus maturin is the youngest known occurrence of giant freshwater turtles. It lived much more recently, between 40,000 and 9,000 years ago in what is known as the late Pleistocene period.  The fossil remains…

A  Japan  high court ruled on Thursday  that denying marriage to same-sex couples was unconstitutional. “Enacting same-sex marriage does not seem to cause disadvantages or harmful effects,” the court said. The high court in Sapporo, a northern Japanese city, ruled that denying same-sex couples the same marriage benefits as heterosexual couples was a violation of citizens’ fundamental right to have a family.   “I thought the ruling might be a conservative one, but it ended up exceeding my expectations,” said one of the plaintiffs, who did not disclose his name to reporters. “I couldn’t help but cry.” The court called for urgent government action to…

There are minerals and metals like lithium and copper and then there are rare earths, including scandium, cerium, promethium, terbium and thulium. Rare earths are not that rare. The rarest — thulium — is more common than gold, but it is rarely found in quantities that make mining economically worthwhile. A study published last week by IW Consult at the German Economic Institute and Fraunhofer Systems and Innovation Research (ISI) shed light on Germany’s imports of these rare earths, along with copper and lithium, to assess their importance to the economy.Rare earths discovered in SwedenTo view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser…

Thousands of farmers gathered in India’s capital, New Delhi, on Thursday to demand higher prices for crops. The demonstrations came a month after farmers set up camp in northern India after riot police stopped them from reaching the capital. Protests come ahead of elections India’s government is expected in the coming days to call new elections, in which Prime Minister Narendra Modi is to seek a third term. Modi and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have said in the past that they are committed to the farmers’ welfare and prosperity. Farmers represent an important Indian voting bloc as nearly…

An enormous volcano has been “hiding in plain sight” on Mars for decades, according to scientists.The volcano, which is 280 miles wide, was found alongside a possible sheet of buried glacier ice in the eastern part of Mars’ Tharsis volcanic province, near the planet’s equator, scientists revealed at the 55th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference held in Texas on Wednesday. They said the volcano, which has been temporarily named the Noctis volcano in honour of its location at the edge of scenic Noctis Labyrinthus (Labyrinth of the Night), had been seen repeatedly by Nasa’s orbiting spacecraft since 1971, but was…