Author: DW

Films in Pakistan need to be cleared by provincial boards that censor anything deemed a violation of the country’s social and cultural values. And, since 2019, movies produced by India’s Hindi film industry, based out of the country’s financial capital, Mumbai, and more popularly known as Bollywood, have not been allowed at cinemas in Pakistan. When the blockbuster “Pathaan” with actor Shah Rukh Khan was publicly screened in Karachi’s affluent DHA neighborhood in January 2023, the censor board in Pakistan’s southern province of Sindh, where Karachi is located, stopped the screening. Relations between Pakistan and neighboring India have seldom been cordial, particularly because of the disputed Kashmir…

European Parliament elections will be held in early June, triggering possible changes at the top of the European Commission and the European Council. At present, it remains unclear whether European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will run for reelection. Continuity within the EU’s executive would augur continuity in its engagement with Southeast Asian countries, which has been on an upward trajectory in recent years. However, a surge by the far right in the elections or a hung parliament, sparking post-election politicking, could disrupt the EU’s foreign policy agenda, analysts have said.  EU supply chain law applies to raw resources, manufacturersTo view…

Authorities in the German city of Cologne have increased security measures around its Cathedral ahead of New Year’s Eve. Police officers armed with submachine guns were being deployed to protect people planning to ring in the new year near the famous landmark.   “That may be unsettling, I know,” Martin Lotz, the officer in charge of the area, said on Friday.  Authorities alerted to terror threat  Security was ramped up outside Cologne’s Cathedral since before Christmas when police received information pointing to threats over a possible New Year’s Eve attack.  Lotz said Friday the deployment of extra armed police was aimed at preventing any…

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy started 2023 full of optimism.In Kharkiv, Ukrainian forces had demonstrated they could push Russian invaders back, and Western confidence in Ukraine’s ability to prevail was growing. Despite the risks to domestic national security, Western nations donated huge quantities of weapons, ammunition and high-tech capability from national stockpiles to support Ukraine’s proposed counteroffensive.However, as 2023 ends and despite huge casualties, the Ukrainian offensive has done little to move the frontlines, and Russia appears on the front foot in the eastern Donbas region.What went wrong? The Ukrainian armed forces have proven amazingly resilient, courageous and determined in combating the…

Leaving behind a legacy of 700 constructions in 30 countries, visionary French engineer Gustave Eiffel died 100 years ago, on December 27, 1923 in Paris, at the age of 91. His name is of course most directly associated with the Eiffel Tower, built for the 1889 Universal Exposition in Paris. The landmark structure has since become the symbol of the French capital and one of the world’s most-visited attractions. It is only through a quirk of history, however, that the striking tower bears the name of Gustave Eiffel, or that it is even standing today. Tower designed by Eiffel’s team The engineer was initially…

2024 heralds a good chapter for war-torn Yemen, hopes Hans Grundberg, the United Nations special envoy for the  country. “Thirty million Yemenis are watching and waiting for this new opportunity to provide for tangible results and progress towards lasting peace,” he said in a statement this week.  Yemen has been at war since 2014, when Iran-backed Houthi rebels ousted the Yemeni government. In 2015, the situation escalated when a Saudi-led coalition of nine countries intervened in an effort to restore the internationally recognized government, which has meanwhile turned into the Presidential Leadership Council. The conflict is widely seen as proxy war between…

Continued heavy rainfall is expected in some areas of Germany already affected by flooding, the national weather service DWD said. Much of the country has been hit by severe rain since Christmas Day, causing some rivers to burst their banks, while others are close to their breach point. DWD said that up to 40 millimeters of rain could fall within 24 hours in some areas of the western state of North-Rhine Westphalia and in the Harz Mountains in central Germany.Germany grappling with flooding amid heavy rainsTo view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that…

A Russian celebrity who sparked outrage by hosting a nightclub party with an “almost naked” dress code has been fined.Anastasia Ivleeva, a TV presenter and influencer, put on the Christmastime do at the Mutabor venue in Moscow.Given the country is on a war footing, the lavish event did not go down well with the public or authorities, with Vladimir Putin himself reportedly unamused.Ivleeva was handed a 100,000-rouble (£870) fine during a court appearance in the Russian capital on Friday.She had released two videos apologising for the party, one in which she tearfully pleaded for a “second chance”. Image: Ivleeva released…

When Stefan Ambrosius from the Munich State Opera practices the tuba, he is deeply relaxed. If you want to play this large brass instrument, you have to breathe in very deeply in order to obtain proper sounds from the instrument when you breathe out. “There’s almost something meditative about it,” the musician explained. The tuba was chosen by Germany’s state music councils as the Instrument of the Year 2024, following the mandolin, which was in the spotlight in 2023 “It’s fantastic that the music councils in Germany crown an instrument every year and then make it known in schools or through social…

It’s finally clear that NATO will get a new secretary-general. Jens Stoltenberg will soon be stepping down after nearly a decade of service in which he was asked to stay on four times — once even after he’d accepted a new job as head of the Norwegian central bank. Over those years, given the ruptured relationship with Russia and true trans-Atlantic tension with former US President Donald Trump, it wasn’t surprising no one wanted to risk replacing the stoic Stoltenberg, who earned the nickname the “Trump whisperer” for his ability to placate the acerbic American leader. But the baton is now expected…