Author: DW

German singer Isaak Guderian will represent the country at the Eurovision Song Contest 2024. The annual cultural extravaganza, watched by millions of people, will be held inMalmö, Sweden, this year, after Swedish singer Loreen won the contest last year. Isaak beat eight others Isaak beat out eight others at the pre-selection event held in Berlin on Friday. The singer, born in the small northwestern town of Espelkamp, performed “Always On The Run.” An international jury and the German public watching the televised show voted to put Isaac’s song at top. Isaak, who is 28 years old, has had prior experience at The X Factor…

Skip next section Ukrainian withdraw forces from Avdiivka02/17/2024February 17, 2024Ukrainian withdraw forces from AvdiivkaUkraine’s military says it was withdrawing its troops from Avdiivka after months of fierce Russian attacks. The chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, Oleksandr Syrskyi, said he ordered the withdrawal to avoid encirclement. “In a situation where the enemy is advancing over the corpses of their own soldiers with a ten-to-one shelling advantage, under constant bombardment, this is the only right decision,” he said. “Encirclement was prevented, personnel were withdrawn, and our soldiers took up defense at the designated lines.” Syrskyi added. It marks the most significant change…

Tens of thousands of people in Hungary protested in the capital, Budapest on Friday amid a continuing fallout from a scandal that has rocked Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government. President Katalin Novak and former Justice Minister Judit Varga both resigned last weekend for supporting a decision to grant a pardon to a man implicated in a child sex abuse scandal in April 2023. The deputy director of a state-run orphanage who had been imprisoned for covering up a string of child sexual abuses was pardoned last year, but it only became known early this month.  Both ministers were close allies of Orban, whose party…

Chelsea player Melanie Leupolz is a one-off in her team and a rarity in women’s professional sport. She’s a mum.A mum who came back to her sport at an elite level after giving birth. But the 29-year-old German international and Olympic gold medallist had to answer plenty of questions about her decision to take time out and start a family.”At the beginning, I got some comments like how can you start a family at your prime time of being a footballer, why did you not wait until you retired?”I didn’t listen, I knew what I wanted – a child and…

Japan successfully launched its next-generation H3 rocket Saturday, almost one year after the first failed due to engine ignition trouble. The country’s space agency, JAXA, said the rocket’s initial flight has been smooth as planned. The announcement of rocket’s making orbit was met with cheers across the space agency’s control center. The H3 rocket launched from Tanegashima Space Center’s launch pad, two days later than planned due to weather-related delays. An eye on North Korea Jointly built by JAXA and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI), the rocket is designed to carry supplies to the International Space Station. The H3 had failed its…

Tens of thousands of people in Hungary protested in the capital, Budapest on Friday amid a continuing fallout from a scandal that has rocked Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government. President Katalin Novak and former Justice Minister Judit Varga both resigned last weekend for supporting a decision to grant a pardon to a man implicated in a child sex abuse scandal in April 2023. The deputy director of a state-run orphanage who had been imprisoned for covering up a string of child sexual abuses was pardoned last year, but it only became known early this month.  Both ministers were close allies of Orban, whose party…

For the self-styled “King of New York”, the crown has slipped – and how.Donald Trump made his money and reputation in the New York real estate business, propelling him to celebrity and to the White House in 2016. As his property portfolio towered high, so did Donald Trump – the brand.It, and he, look more than a tad tawdry today.This civil fraud trial exposed a scam in which Trump exaggerated his wealth by more than $3bn (£2.38bn). The Trump organisation displayed a routine disregard for the law as it sought to build the empire and it continues beyond this judgment.To…

OpenAI, the US company behind the ChatGPT chatbot and Dall-e image generator, on Thursday unveiled an AI application that can produce short realistic videos. The application, called Sora, can create high-quality videos of up to a minute in length using a short text command called a prompt, OpenAI said. The application can also turn a photo into a video or extend a short video. The tool isn’t yet publicly available. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on X, formerly known as Twitter, said the company was “offering access to a limited number of creators” in a testing phase. He also invited users…

Members of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) are apparently not taking a vacation to mark the Chinese New Year, which began on February 10. Taiwan’s Ministry of Defense has counted at least 43 Chinese fighter jets and 29 warships maneuvering near the island in the first six days of the new Year of the Dragon. Beijing considers Taiwan, which has been self-governing since 1949, to be Chinese territory that one day will be “reunited” with the mainland. China has carried out more and more regular “combat readiness patrols” in recent years, with fighter jets flying over the center line of the Taiwan Strait, an unofficial…

Lord Cameron has reacted after a US congresswoman’s outburst, in which she said the foreign secretary should “kiss my ass”.He laughed off the comments by prominent right-wing Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene, which came following his call for US legislators to pass a bill committing more funding for Ukraine. Lord Cameron addressed the comments – made to Sky News – during a speech at the Munich Security Conference on Friday.”We met,” he told the audience in Germany.”I went to the Republican study group lunch, talking about exactly this issue.” “We didn’t get anatomical at that stage, it was very early in…