Author: DW

Houthi attacks on international ships in the Red Sea have hit Egypt especially hard. As vessels have begun to avoid sailing the strait between the Arabian Peninsula and northeastern Africa, and thus the passage through the Suez Canal, the government has seen considerable income disappear. In fiscal year 2022-23, the Suez Canal brought Egypt $9.4 billion (€8.6 billion) in transit fees. Events suggest that this year will not be nearly as lucrative. Osama Rabie, chairman of the Suez Canal Authority, said on Egyptian television that income is down 40% compared to last year. He added that ship traffic between January 1 and 11 was…

Beijing has sent 33 fighter jets and a group of six naval vessels toward Taiwan, the island’s Defense Ministry said on Saturday, adding that Taiwan responded by deploying its own forces. The number of daily warplane deployments marked a new high since Taiwan held its democratic presidential and legislative elections on January 13. The increased military pressure from Beijing came as two US Congressmen wrapped up a three-day visit to Taiwan on Friday. Ami Bera and Mario Diaz-Balart had come as the first official US delegation since the election of  William Lai Ching-te as Taiwan’s new president. 13 of the 33 Chinese…

Antisemitic incidents referencing the Holocaust have increased by 104% across the UK in 2023, new figures obtained by Sky News show.The Community Security Trust (CST), a charity that protects British Jews from antisemitism, last year received 955 reports of Holocaust-related antisemitism, defined as incidents containing some kind of reference to the Holocaust, Nazis, Hitler or swastikas.That number is more than double the 469 incidents reported in 2022.Of these instances, more than half occurred after the 7 October attacks, when Hamas killed around 1,200 Israelis and abducted more than 200 others.More than 26,000 people in Gaza have been killed in Israel’s…

Premier League club Liverpool has announced that Jürgen Klopp will step down as head coach at the end of the current season after eight-and-a-half years in charge. The German has been in charge of the “Reds” since 2015, winning six major trophies including the Champions League in 2019 and the club’s first Premier League title in 30 years one year later. Klopp: ‘running out of energy’ “I love absolutely everything about this club, I love everything about the city, I love everything about our supporters, I love the team, I love the staff. I love everything. But that I still take this…

For 10 years now, an empty streetcar has rolled silently through the streets of Warsaw on January 27. Instead of a route number, it has a large Star of David on the roof. Its route takes it through the part of the city that Poland’s Nazi occupiers turned into Europe’s largest Jewish ghetto in 1940. The journey of this empty streetcar is a reminder of the Warsaw Jews murdered during World War II. Before Nazi Germany’s persecution and killing of Jewish citizens, there were 330,000 Jews in Warsaw — a third of the capital’s population. After New York, Warsaw was home…

A subsidiary of German pharmaceutical giant Bayer was ordered to pay $2.25 billion (€2.07 billion) to a Pennsylvania man who said he developed cancer from exposure to the company’s Roundup weedkiller. A jury found that John McKivision developed non-Hodgkins lymphoma as a result of using Roundup for yard work over several years. The verdict includes $2 billion in punitive damages and $250 million in compensation. “The jury’s punitive damages award sends a clear message that this multi-national corporation needs top to bottom change,” Tom Kline and Jason Itkin, McKivision’s attorneys, said in a joint statement. Bayer said in a statement…

Donald Trump has been ordered to pay $83.3m (£65.5m) in a defamation case against a woman he was found liable for sexually assaulting – with the former US president branding it all a “witch hunt”.The court said Trump should pay $18.3m (£14.4m) in compensation and $65m (£51m) in punitive damages to E Jean Carroll. Ms Carroll smiled as the verdict was read. Trump had already left the building in his motorcade.Trump posted from his Truth Social account after the jury’s decision: “Absolutely ridiculous! I fully disagree with both verdicts, and will be appealing this whole Biden Directed Witch Hunt focused…

In 2012, Koiwah Koi-Larbi was 25 weeks into her first pregnancy and all blown up. She and her family were excited about the swelling of her legs, feet and hands. In Ghana, she told DW, getting really big during a pregnancy is a clear sign a boy is on the way. But Koi-Larbi noticed other symptoms alongside the swelling. She was getting headaches and something called epigastric pain, an ache in the upper right part of the stomach. She had heartburn and was seeing “all sorts of spots.” When she communicated her symptoms to her nurse, she was told “that’s…

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…

Human rights sources reported on January 22 that Ghazaleh Zare, who lives in Khorramabad, Lorestan province, Iran, has been sentenced to three years in prison by the city’s Revolutionary Court. Zare received a one-year prison term for “propaganda against the regime” and a two-year sentence for both “forming groups and factions to threaten the security of the country” and “collaborating with individuals from opposition groups abroad.” Farhad Payar, Zare’s uncle, is a longstanding colleague with DW’s Persian desk and is editor-in-chief of Iran Journal, a German-language website that covers developments in Iran. Zeroing in on the women’s activist Zare, 47 years old, is a…