Author: DW

Former Prime Minister Alexander Stubb won the first round of Finland’s presidential election on Sunday, official data showed as 99.0% of votes were counted. Stubb will face runner-up Pekka Haavisto in a runoff next month. According to election officials, Stubb won 27.1% of votes, while Haavisto secured 25.8%. None of the nine candidates who participated in the election, the first since Finland joined NATO, managed to secure more than 50% of the votes in the first round held on Sunday, leading to a runoff election.  Polls across the country closed at 8 p.m. (1800 GMT). Initial voter turnout was 74.9%. Speaking to supporters, Stubb…

The killing of three US soldiers and the injuring of dozens more in a drone attack creates one near-certainty – the United States will retaliate with military force.The harder question is whether this response will be contained to the “radical Iran-backed militant groups operating in Syria and Iraq” that the White House has accused of carrying out the carnage, or widened to include the regime in Tehran that supports them – or both. Joe Biden must respond forcefully to deter future threats against the large numbers of US forces operating across the region.But this foreign crisis is playing into domestic…

Who makes the decision in tennis? The International Tennis Federation (ITF) is the world governing body responsible for the rules of the game. The ITF is made up of 213 national federations. It also organizes the Olympic tennis tournaments, the Davis Cup for men and the Fed Cup for women, as well as the four most important tennis tournaments of the year, the Grand Slams: Australian Open in Melbourne, French Open in Paris, the Wimbledon Championships in London and the US Open in New York. There is also the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) for men and the Women’s Tennis…

Many African smallholder coffee farmers, who primarily sell their harvest to European markets, now find their main source of income in jeopardy. In 2023, the European Union (EU) established mandatory rules for companies dealing in commodities such as coffee, palm oil, and cocoa. The rules are designed to ensure that products imported to Europe do not originate from deforested land, land acquired forcibly from local and/or indigenous communities, or whose cultivation involves labor and/or human rights abuses. To avoid heavy fines, companies must prove compliance by the end of 2024. “We’re not seeing many buyers this year,” Tsegaye Anebo, general manager of…

When Carolina Shiino was recently adorned with  the crown and sash denoting her as “Miss Japan 2024” in a Tokyo hotel, the 26-year-old burst into tears. After all, she was the first woman born outside of Japan to non-Japanese parents to win the title. After her coronation, Shiino, who was granted Japanese citizenship as recently as 2022, said it had all been “like a dream.” “I have often had to fight against obstacles that prevented me from being accepted as Japanese, which is why I am extremely grateful to be recognized as Japanese in this competition,” she said. Despite her words,…

A British base jumper has died after his parachute failed to open during a stunt in Thailand, according to reports.The man has been named by a number of news outlets as Nathy Odinson. The 33-year-old from Cambridgeshire is said to have jumped from a 29-storey building in the coastal resort of Pattaya on Saturday night.According to the Daily Mirror, police lieutenant Kamolporn Nadee, deputy inspector of Investigations at the Bang Lamung district police station, said: “The parachute that the deceased used to jump malfunctioned and was not centred as expected.”Forensics officers are investigating the case further. They are examining the…

“We just have to forget it,” said Jürgen Klopp in the moments following his first match since announcing Friday he’d leave Liverpool. But for the fans who sang his name in the opening minute of a 5-2 FA Cup win over Norwich, despite his request not to, he’ll be impossible to forget, let alone replace. “I just can’t believe it. I think the whole city’s in shock, everyone around the world is in shock. Even now, it’s not sinking in,” Beryl Mealand, a Liverpool local who has been going to Anfield for over 50 years, told DW ahead of the game. “I watched his interview and all I did was sob. I just cried the whole way. But I believe everything he said. He’s done everything for the club, what more can we ask for?…

The French capital Paris is set to be the site of a showdown on Monday between the government and angry farmers determined to indefinitely “besiege” the city in protest to agricultural policy. President Emmanuel Macron’s administration, however, has vowed to keep farmers from shutting down the city. On Sunday, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin ordered a massive police deployment to “prevent any blockade” by breaking up convoys of trucks and tractors headed for the city, its airports or its central market. Unionized farmers from Lot-et-Garon region previously announced their intention of cutting off Rungis International Market, which supplies Paris and the surrounding…

Tens of thousands of people protested in Madrid on Sunday to reject a government plan to provide amnesty for Catalan separatists over their failed 2007 secession bid. Madrid has been rocked by a number of protests over the proposed amnesty, and Sunday’s rally was organized by the conservative opposition party Partido Popular (PP).  PP leader Alberto Nunez Feijoo and former prime minister Mariano Rajoy, as well as president of the Madrid region Isabel Diaz Ayuso attended the demonstration. The amnesty bill will be considered in Spain’s lower house of Parliament on TuesdayImage: Oscar Gonzalez/Sipa USA/picture alliance Police estimates put the crowd attendance…

Three American troops have been killed and 34 injured in a drone attack in Jordan.Those killed in the attack were sleeping in a tent at a place called Tower 22 in northeast Jordan, near the Syria border, and some of those injured are being evacuated from the country. US President Joe Biden said the attack was carried out by “radical Iran-backed militant groups” in Syria and Iraq on Saturday night.Middle East latest as Joe Biden blames ‘radical Iran-backed militant groups’ for drone attack”While we are still gathering the facts of this attack, we know it was carried out by radical…