Author: DW

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…

For the first time in the 30 years of Albania’s post-communist political transition, a once all-powerful leader stands accused of “passive corruption” over decisions made during his time in office. Sali Berisha, a former president and prime minister and current leader of the Democratic Party, Albania’s largest opposition party, was placed under house arrest on December 30. Prosecutors accuse him of abusing the power of his office during his first term as prime minister, between 2005 and 2009. The case centers on the privatization of a sports center in Tirana, from which his son-in-law is alleged to have profited.On December…

Cuban Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz had only just presented his government’s macroeconomic stabilization plan when President Miguel Diaz-Canel had to calm things down again. The measures are not the implementation of a “neoliberal package against the people,” he assured lawmakers in the last parliamentary session of the year, but they do contain “complex decisions, as complex as the situation” in which Cuba finds itself. The Caribbean island has been in the midst of a severe economic and supply crisis for the last three years, with rampant inflation, fuel and medicine shortages. Frequent power cuts have dominated daily life, sparking an unprecedented wave of emigration. In response,…

Rescue teams in Japan face a “race against time” to find survivors after at least 73 people were killed following a 7.6-magnitude earthquake in the region.Dozens of people are believed to still be trapped under collapsed buildings after Monday’s quake, which was followed by a 4.9 magnitude aftershock early on Wednesday. According to Japanese authorities, 39 deaths were reported in Wajima city, 23 in Suzu, the other deaths were reported in five neighbouring towns.More than 300 people have been injured, at least 25 of them seriously.The precise number of those trapped remains unknown, with military personnel, firefighters and canine units…

Berlin police said on Monday that they detained around 390 people overnight on New Year’s Eve in the German capital and have so far tallied just over 700 potential criminal investigations.  Police spokeswoman Anja Dierschke said that 54 officers were injured, 30 of them by fireworks, after 4,500 police from the capital and other states deployed in a major operation launched because of more widespread unrest than usual last year. Only eight of them were unable to finish their shifts though, she said. Despite the high number of arrests and injured officers, officials nevertheless described the operation as a success and the night as a…

Prince Andrew, Bill Clinton, Donald Trump and Stephen Hawking are among those named in court documents relating to Ghislaine Maxwell, her relationship with Jeffrey Epstein and alleged victims of sexual abuse. A US judge, Loretta Preska, ruled in December that documents that were part of a 2015 defamation case by Virginia Giuffre against Ghislaine Maxwell should be made public.Judge Preska ordered that some individuals should be named because they had already given interviews to the media.Live updates: Hundreds of Epstein and Maxwell documents released Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player 6:11 Who is Ghislaine Maxwell? In…

The heart is actually a fairly simple organ. It’s a pump, composed of four chambers, with a few valves, tubes and clever wiring. But when the pump no longer works as it should, things start looking grim. In people with severe heart failure, the pump is so weak that it no longer moves blood through the body effectively. Those affected are extremely short of breath, even at rest. Their organs are no longer supplied with blood sufficiently, so have a lack of oxygen and nutrients. The only way out is a new heart. However, donor hearts are in short supply. In Germany,…

Asked what makes Belgium especially suited to take over the presidency of the EU Council in January, a smiling Foreign Minster Hadja Lahbib recently said “compromis a la belge [Belgian compromise], that is our secret.” At the December presentation of Belgium’s presidency agenda, she added that “we are better in finding solutions than creating problems.” Lahbib, who is from the French-speaking region of Wallonia, only entered politics a year-and-a-half ago after a career as a television journalist. She describes Belgium as a “multilingual, multiethnic country with many ideas” that is used to discussions and seeking out compromise. Lahbib herself was born…

A 10-year-old boy was shot dead by another boy of the same age after losing a bicycle race, the victim’s mother has claimed.Keith “KJ” Frierson was found bleeding from the head and neck at about 4.30pm in a Californian suburb on Saturday, with police arresting a boy, 10, and his father. The boy suspect was being a “sore loser” after the race in Foothill Farms – about 16 miles northeast of Sacramento – and took aim at KJ, according to his mother Brittani Frierson.She had given KJ permission to ride the bike – which she says he “begged” to get…