Author: DW

What does the new format look like? A little more like a league than a cup, at least initially. The 36 qualifying teams will be divided in to four groups of nine within one big league table. Those groups will be seeded. So the winners of this season’s competition and the teams with the eight best coefficient rankings (based on previous European performance) will be in Group 1, the teams with the next nine best coefficient rankings will form Group 2, and so on. The winners of the Europa League and domestic champions will not be favored in the draws. Each…

Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry alluded to recent reports and rumors, both from the Russian side and in Western media, of possible negotiations about trying to halt the conflict with Russia when condemning the large airstrikes overnight.  It said in an English-language post that the strikes demonstrated that such negotiations were not a realistic option.  “No talks about ‘cease-fires,’ ‘temporary territorial concessions,’ ‘fatigue,’ ‘negotiations’ or other ‘gestures’ will halt Russian aggression,” the ministry wrote.  “Arm Ukraine now. It is the only way to defend people,” it said. Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba also referred to the recent media reports, and seemingly to US difficulties…

Slick ads like to portray the future of transportation as clean and quiet. They show cars that gently purr, without emitting harmful emissions, along almost empty roads through unspoiled nature, with their occupants on their way to work or to shop in clean cities without traffic jams. The reality, of course, is somewhat different, as traffic jams, noise and the stench of exhaust fumes are, in fact, ubiquitous in Germany. According to Germany’s Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA), the market share of electric cars in the country has grown, but it is still comparatively small. Ten years ago, they accounted for 0.02% of the total…

The latest attack in the Plateau State reads like a nightmare: 17 communities were targeted, numerous houses burned down, scores of people killed. “In Mangu local governorate alone, we buried 15 people … in Bokkos, we are counting not less than 100 corpses,” said Plateau Governor Caleb Mutfwang. But this is only the latest of many cases of such mass killings in Nigeria’s Plateau State this year, which have widely been attributed to the persisting farmer-herder crisis in the West African nation. While authorities are yet to establish the exact number of casualties from the Christmas attack, Amnesty International has confirmed at least 140 deaths in…

Two British skiers have been killed by an avalanche on Mont Blanc in France.Mountain rescuers found a 54-year-old mother and her 22-year-old son dead under snow that hit a narrow gulley around Saint-Gervais, a resort near Chamonix, on Thursday afternoon. Officials believe it may have been triggered by two ski tourers who were uphill of the British family, skiing in the Pirolettes couloir.The mother and son had been skiing with three other family members and a freelance ski instructor, whom they had known for several years, the Bonneville Public Prosecutor’s Office said on Friday.No one in the family was wearing…

The statistics are truly shocking: About 17% of the total amount of food produced in the world is wasted — that’s more than 930 million tons of food according to a UN Environment Programme Food Waste Index report from 2021 — and 61% of that waste happens in our homes. At the same time, 3.1 billion people on the planet cannot afford to buy or cook food for a healthy diet for themselves and their families. Wasted food is also a matter of wasting global resources — water, land and electricity, for instance — used in the production of food. Holidays are notorious…

The dual Hollywood strikes — writers’ and actors’ — threw a wrench into 2023’s movie schedule. Many of the biggest and most-anticipated films were delayed, postponed, or had their releases pushed to 2024. But the wait is nearly over. The film famine of 2023 is set to give way to a feast for cinema fans, with a year jam-packed with blockbusters and hotly-anticipated arthouse dramas. Here are some of the biggest, and best, films to watch out for in the coming year.  ‘Dune: Part 2’ The second half of Denis Villeneuve’s ambitious adaptation of the Frank Herbert sci-fi classic was one…

Robin Smiciklas is about to tee off. With his spikes dug into the fairway, he takes aim at the green. A brief moment of calm to collect himself. Then his left arm twitches. Once. Twice. Then even more violently a third time. Smiciklas just lets it happen. His concentration seems unbroken. Moments later, he sends the ball on its way down the fairway with a textbook drive. “It’s often the case that a few more tics just have to come out,” he tells DW. “It took me a few years to get to the point where neither that nor what…

A man has been discovered hidden in the landing gear compartment of a commercial aircraft that flew into Paris from Algeria. The man was found alive in the undercarriage bay during technical checks after the Air Algerie flight from Oran, Algeria, landed at Paris Orly airport on Thursday. An airport source told French news agency AFP that the man “was alive but in a life-threatening condition because of severe hypothermia” after the two-and-a-half-hour flight. He is believed to be in his 20s but had no ID on him, and was taken to a nearby hospital in a serious condition, the…

Signa Prime Selection AG, a key subsidiary of the now insolvent Austrian Signa Holding that owns prestigious real estate in Germany, filed for bankruptcy on Thursday. The company announced that it had filed for debtor-in-possession reorganization proceedings with the Vienna Commercial Court. It said the Signa Development Selection AG would follow suit on Friday. “The aim is the organized continuation of business operations within the framework of self-administration and the sustainable restructuring of the company,” the company said in a press release. The online sporting goods division Signa Sports United had already filed for insolvency in October, while Signa Holding itself and several smaller subsidiaries announced…