Author: DW

German boxer Julia Igel has insisted she is not frightend of Olympic champion Imane Khelif, despite telling DW that she considers her Algerian opponent to be “male” amid questions over Khelif’s eligibility for the female category. “Someone that might have something to do with the male gender shouldn’t be in women’s boxing,” Igel said ahead of the fight in Paris on April 23. “You can’t say you’re a woman and you feel like a woman. Just the punching power and the danger that you face when you have a male in front of you, it is different.” Khelif is not transgender…

It all started in 1993 when the rock band Pearl Jam were looking for an alternative venue that was not controlled by Ticketmaster, which it was boycotting at the time.  The Empire Polo Club, a desert oasis in the Coachella Valley in California, hosted some 25,000 people for their gig, giving the promoters the inspiration for an outdoor festival at the same site.   In October 1999, the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival was born as an alternative to the unruly and chaotic Woodstock festival from a few months earlier. Global acts from Rage Against the Machine to the Chemical Brothers and Morrissey performed at the event. Despite its success, the promoters lost money.  …

Telenor is facing a class action lawsuit in Norway over the actions of its subsidiary in Myanmar.  The case alleges that Telenor Myanmar passed phone data of more than 1,200 people to the country’s military junta following the 2021 coup. The company, which is 54% owned by Norway’s government, has since withdrawn from Myanmar as internal conflict intensified in the aftermath of the removal of a more civilian-led government under Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi that temporarily ruled the troubled the country. In 2014, amid hopes for a new system of governance in the Myanmar, Telenor set up a subsidiary in…

The four astronauts aboard theArtemis II mission’s Orion spacecraft spoke to the press from space for the first time since completing a lunar flyby that took them a record distance from earth. After becoming the first humans to directly observe the far-side of the moon, emotions are running high as the crew prepares to reenter the earth’s atmosphere and splash down on Friday in the Pacific Ocean off the California coast. “Human minds should not go through what these just went through,” said NASA’s Artemis II mission commander Reid Wiseman. A crescent earth seen rising from the moonImage: NASA/Handout/REUTERS “We have…

The latest strike to hit Germany’s flagship carrier hails from the cabin crew union UFO. Meanwhile, Berlin is walking back a contentious plan about young men seeking permission to go abroad for long periods. DW has more.

The commercial real estate sector has been reshaped in multiple ways in recent years, from the boom in e-commerce to the rise in remote working. Now a new force is making arguably the biggest impact of all — artificial intelligence. AI’s impact is being felt in multiple sectors, but commercial real estate might not immediately come to mind as an industry primed for disruption. After all, what’s more “real” than the bricks and mortar of real estate. Yet increasingly, commercial real estate services firms face a battle in convincing their clients they need as many humans to do the work…

The UK has denied US entertainer Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, entry into the country over his repeated antisemitic antics. The disgraced rapper had been scheduled to perform at the “Wireless Festival” in July. “As a result of the Home Office banning Ye from entering the United Kingdom, Wireless Festival has been forced to cancel,” the event’s organizers announced Tuesday on Instagram. Organizers said refunds would be sent to ticket holders for what was to be a three-day, open-air event in London’s Finsbury Park. The BBC on Tuesday quoted the UK Home Office as saying that the US performer’s presence…

Energy security has once again taken on urgent priority in the European Union, as the Iran war reveals how exposed many member states still are to abrupt oil and gas supply shocks — despite the lessons of Russia’s full‑scale invasion of Ukraine four years ago.   The crisis has prompted member states to reexamine their efforts to diversify and cut their reliance on external energy sources. It has also sparked a fresh push for nuclear power. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said last month that Europe’s turn away from nuclear energy had been a “strategic mistake.” Brussels is now…

First it was cars and electronics, then pop music and films, and now the beauty industry: skincare and cosmetics “made in Korea” are in demand all over the world. More and more Westerners are raving about South Korean beauty products. This success is no coincidence, nor is it a purely aesthetic phenomenon. The East Asian country has made its cultural exports an important source of soft power. What’s known as “K-beauty” relies on a combination of cultural dynamics, economic strategy and geopolitical positioning.  “Soft power means using attractiveness, not force, to influence others,” said Hannes Mosler, a political scientist and Korea expert at the University of Duisburg-Essen. This…

Gold, cocoa and oil are goods that are sought-after globally. And they can all be found in abundance in Ghana. This explains why the West African country earns more from exports than it has to pay for imports. To receive beneficial export conditions, Ghana granted market access to trading partners for suboptimal returns. Here’s an example that shows how complex the effects of such trade agreements can be — and why export surpluses can belie a situation where some people will lose out. For example, 80% of chickens in Ghana do not come from local producers but are instead flown in frozen from Europe,…