Author: DW

It takes money to make money. There is hardly a better example of this than the French billionaire Francoise Bettencourt Meyers. In late December, she broke through the $100-billion threshold and became the first woman to ever amass so much wealth, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. In 2023, she added $28.6 billion (€26.1 billion) on top of the billions she already had. Though she was down to $96.2 billion on January 4, 2024, Bettencourt Meyers is still by far the richest woman in the world and the 13th richest person overall, according to Bloomberg calculations. Forbes, which also compiles a list of…

Mahima Begum moved to the port town of Mongla in southwestern Bangladesh after a natural disaster struck her village and destroyed the home her father had built. The 32-year-old is one of the millions of people in the South Asian country who have been forced to relocate due to climate-related disasters. Historically, migrants have made their way to the country’s capital, Dhaka. But the city is already one of the most overcrowded places on Earth and it’s poorly equipped to accommodate the waves of people moving from climate-impacted areas of the country into urban centers, seeking residence and employment. Mongla, located around…

In the city of Wajima, there is barely a building untouched.Home after home lies crumbled as rubble, their traditional Japanese roofs smashed down to ground level.Even those that are still standing are visibly not structurally sound, almost all sit at a precarious angles without windows, doors or walls.Wajima is at the very heart of the devastation, for a corner of Japan that is currently littered with it.Down one street an entire five-storey building lies flat on its side. A solitary man combs through the rubble beneath it with nothing more than a garden rake, before sitting across from the wreckage…

Last week, Albert Yaloke Mokpeme, spokesman for the Central African presidency, mentioned the country’s efforts to diversify its relations, seeking assistance from countries like the United States and Russia to train its soldiers. “The United States is also offering the Central African Republic to train its soldiers, both on Central African soil and on American soil,” Mokpeme said. While details of the discussions were not made public, Bancroft’s potential involvement suggests a US interest in challenging Russia’s dominance in the Central African Republic (CAR). US sets foot in Wagner-dominated landscape This comes as the Wagner Group, a private Russian military group,…

It takes money to make money. There is hardly a better example of this than the French billionaire Francoise Bettencourt Meyers. In late December, she broke through the $100-billion threshold and became the first woman to ever amass so much wealth, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. In 2023, she added $28.6 billion (€26.1 billion) on top of the billions she already had. Though she was down to $96.2 billion on January 4, 2024, Bettencourt Meyers is still by far the richest woman in the world and the 13th richest person overall, according to Bloomberg calculations. Forbes, which also compiles a list of…

Two bombs exploded in the Iranian city of Kerman on Wednesday and killed scores of people gathered to commemorate Qassem Soleimani, a prominent Iranian general slain by the US in a 2020 strike.  The blast was the deadliest attack on Iranian soil in the 45-year history of the Islamic Republic. Iranian officials initially said at least 103 people had been killed, but later twice revised the figure lower. It currently stands at 84. However, hundreds were wounded and many of them are in critical condition, authorities said, indicating the death toll could still rise. Iranian leader vows ‘harsh response’ after twin blastsTo view this…

Some 40 of 250 previously sealed documents relating to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein have been released by a US court.After Judge Loretta Preska ruled they could be unsealed in December and no objections were made, the first set of court papers were published on 3 January.They largely consist of legal arguments and interviews carried out for Virginia Guiffre’s 2015 civil lawsuit against Epstein’s former lover Ghislaine Maxwell, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison for recruiting and grooming girls for him.Epstein offered reward to disprove orgy claim – follow latestMs Guiffre has been the most vocal of…

Three weeks after the change of power in Poland, the public media remains the most prominent political dispute between the center-left government of Donald Tusk and Jaroslaw Kaczynski’s outgoing national conservative Law and Justice party (PiS). President Andrzej Duda, an independent close to the PiS, placed this topic at the center of his New Year’s address. “For the first time in free Poland since 1989, there was an attempt to take over the public media by force. The broadcasting signal of some TV channels was turned off and informational programs were no longer broadcast,” Duda said. Poland’s President Andrzej Duda…

Japanese rescuers raced against time on Thursday to search for survivors of a devastating New Year’s Day earthquake as the crucial three-day window since the disaster closed. Survival rates significantly drop once 72 hours have passed, emergency responders say. Disaster relief pledges The 7.6 magnitude quake hit the Noto peninsula on Japan’s western coast on Monday. At least 81 people have thus far been killed and at least 79 others are still unaccounted for. More than 150 have been rescued. “There are many people left behind in the collapsed buildings, waiting to be rescued,” Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said at a press…

A man who spent nearly 24 hours at sea in New Zealand alerted his rescuers by using his watch to reflect the sun.Police said it was an “absolute miracle” the man – who has not been named – is alive after he fell overboard from his 40-foot (12-metre) boat while on a solo fishing trip on Tuesday. He said the boat overturned after he hooked a suspected marlin fish.The man endured a cold night in the ocean, and even came face to face with a shark who had come to “have a sniff”, police said. He had attempted to swim…