Author: DW

India and the four members states of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) on Sunday signed an economic pact worth over $100 billion (€91.4 billion). The EFTA’s members are Switzerland, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein, none of which are in the European Union. The agreement must be ratified by all five signatories before it can come into effect. Switzerland plans to do so by 2025. What do we know about the India-EFTA deal? Under the deal, India will lift most import tariffs on industrial products from the EFTA in exchange for investment of $100 billion over 15 years, Indian Trade Minister Piyush…

Israeli President Isaac Herzog is set to attend the opening of the National Holocaust Museum in Amsterdam on Sunday. The museum tells the stories of some of the 102,000 Jews who were deported from the Netherlands and murdered in Nazi camps during the Holocaust in World War II. Among the exhibits are a prominent photo of a boy walking past bodies at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp after it was liberated, dress buttons excavated from the grounds of the Sobibor extermination camp, and walls covered with the texts of hundreds of laws discriminating against Jews enacted by the German occupiers of the Netherlands.…

Pope Francis has called on Ukraine to have “the courage of the white flag” and negotiate an end to the war against Russia.The head of the Catholic Church said: “I think that the strongest one is the one who looks at the situation, thinks about the people, has the courage of the white flag, and negotiates.” And Kyiv, he said, shouldn’t be ashamed to talk to Vladimir Putin’s regime, “before things get worse”, as “the word negotiate is a courageous word”.”When you see that you are defeated, that things are not going well, you have to have the courage to…

Voters headed to the polls on Sunday in Portugal’s parliamentary election, which is expected to be a showdown between two moderate parties, even as the far-right look to grow their influence. Although opinion polls suggest a narrow victory for the center-right Democratic Alliance (AD) coalition over the ruling Socialist Party (PS), neither key party is expected to secure a majority. Meanwhile, the far-right party Chega (Enough) is predicted to make sizeable gains, with surveys showing support increasing from just over 7% to around 15-20%. Polls opened at 8 a.m. local time (0800 GMT) on the mainland and an hour later on the Azores archipelago. Around 10.8 million…

Harry and Meghan have paid a surprise visit to the family of a teacher who was killed in a Texas mass school shooting.Irma Garcia sacrificed her life as she tried to protect her pupils in a classroom at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, where she had taught for 23 years. Mrs Garcia’s nephew, 22-year-old John Martinez, has a picture of his “tia” (aunt in Spanish) pinned at the top of his X feed, where he said she “died a hero” and “will truly be missed”.The teacher’s husband, Joe, died of a heart attack on 27 May 2022, three days after…

Some frog species are being threatened by Europe’s, and especially France’s, appetite for frogs’ legs, hundreds of experts have warned.In a letter to French President Emmanuel Macron, more than 550 vets, researchers and conservationists have called for the EU to stop allowing the “overexploitation” of frogs in Asia and southeast Europe for the EU’s hunger for frogs’ legs. “We see France as having a particular responsibility to take the lead on this issue,” it added.The letter points out that frog populations native to France and the EU are protected against commercial exploitation.Nonetheless, the EU imports more than 4,000 tonnes of…

There’s a renewed urgency to the delivery of food to Gaza but it’s still struggling to keep pace with the escalating humanitarian catastrophe inside the besieged enclave.We joined the small kingdom of Jordan’s air force crew coordinating the multi-nation coalition to get aid to the thousands of Gazans cut off in the north of the Strip. Around 10 planes – all variations of C-130s – spent the day delivering several tonnes of food which were dropped from the air at more than a dozen different locations in north Gaza.The fleet of planes, led by Jordan, included those from Egypt, Belgium…

Private company Stratolaunch said late on Saturday that it tested its Talon-A hypersonic vehicle successfully, publishing a short video of its release and the start of its flight.  “Today was a great day for the Stratolaunch team. I am extremely proud of their perserverance to reach this point,” company President Zachary Krevor said in the statement.  The company said the primary targets of Saturday’s flight had been “accomplishing safe air-launch release of the TA-1 vehicle, engine ignition, acceleration, sustained climb in altitude, and a controlled water landing.”  It released a video showing the first few seconds of the test off…

Gunmen swept through an Islamic school in northwestern Nigeria on Saturday, kidnapping 15 students. The gunmen raided the school premises in the Sokoto village of Gidan Bakuso. They sporadically fired shots, snatching the children while they were sleeping outside.Nigerians on brink of hopelessness as mass abductions recurTo view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video What do we know about the latest kidnapping? Sokoto police spokesman Ahmad Rufa’i told the Associated Press news agency the incident happened before police arrived. School owner Liman Abubakar Bakuso told the French AFP news agency…

Fifteen children were kidnapped from a school in Nigeria, almost two days after around 300 students were taken hostage.Gunmen invaded the Gidan Bakuso village in Sokoto state at about 1am (12am UK time) on Saturday, police spokesman Ahmad Rufa’i said. The gang seized the children from their hostel before security forces could arrive, and also abducted one woman from the village.Mr Rufa’i said that a police tactical squad was deployed to search for the students, but added that inaccessible roads in the area have hindered the rescue mission.”It is a remote village (and) vehicles cannot go there,” he said. “They…