Author: DW

The German lower house of parliament, or Bundestag, approved the controversial rolling back of tax relief for diesel use by the German agricultural industry on Friday as part of the government’s spending plans.  Later on Friday, the Bundestag also voted in favor of a 2024 budget after much delay.  The budget of around €477 billion ($519 billion) will include €39 billion in new borrowing. What’s the significance of rolling back the diesel subsidies?  This proposal has angered German farmers, leading to nationwide protests in recent weeks. In Berlin, for example, some 10,000 farmers recently clogged the streets with their tractors, urging the…

Greta Thunberg was acquitted at the Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Friday of a single charge under the UK’s Public Order Act.  The case was tied to a protest outside an oil and gas conference last year by the 21-year-old Thunberg, who has become internationally recognizable in the years since she began protesting outside Sweden’s parliament on Fridays as a schoolgirl.  Thunberg and four others, aged between 19 and 59, were accused of failing to comply with a police order to move their protest to a designated area near the conference.  Why the case was thrown out The viewing gallery erupted in clapping…

Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff has said the timing of Lewis Hamilton’s decision to leave for Ferrari “bit us a bit” – but insists there is “no grudge” between them.Wolff said he had heard rumours that Hamilton might quit the team but didn’t know for sure until the F1 great confirmed it in a meeting over breakfast on Wednesday at Wolff’s home in Oxford. The British driver is leaving Mercedes at the end of the upcoming season to join Ferrari for 2025 in a move announced on Thursday.The Austrian told reporters that Hamilton’s decision had come too late for them…

A United Nations expert has called for abolishing an anti-communism task force in the Philippines, following a nearly two-week visit in the country to assess the state of free speech and media rights. Irene Khan, the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of expression and opinion also urged Manila to do more to curb the killing of journalists, describing the practice as the “most egregious form of censorship.” Calls to abolish anti-communism task force Khan recommended disbanding the multi-agency National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC). Set up in 2018, the task force was created by former President…

For more than five months, workers at the agricultural firm Agrobay at Izmir in western Turkey have been taking to the streets. Many complain of inhumane working conditions — including imposed unpaid leave, bullying and even being denied the right to go to the toilet. Some say they were unfairly dismissed without receiving any compensation. The company has a direct link to Germany as it is one of the largest suppliers to the supermarket chain Lidl. With almost 12,000 branches in 30 countries and sales of around €115 billion ($125 billion) last year, Lidl is the largest discount grocer in the world. Agrobay, which…

Sweden on Friday said it has launched a terrorism investigation into an object found at the Israeli Embassy in Stockholm earlier this week. “The preliminary investigation launched by the Swedish Police Authority on January 31, following the discovery of a dangerous object at the Israeli Embassy in Stockholm, has been taken over by the Swedish Security Service,” the Swedish Security Service, also known as SAPO, announced. “In connection with this, the criminal classification has been changed to a terrorist crime,” SAPO added.  What do we know about the incident?  The object was found at the embassy grounds on Wednesday. Swedish authorities said it was…

Footage has emerged of a cruise ship being flooded during a storm in the Gulf of Mexico – causing water to flow into people’s cabins.Travis Hair, a passenger on the Royal Caribbean vessel, filmed as the balcony of his room on the Voyager Of The Seas was swamped. Mr Hair said he captured the video while the vessel was “sailing through a thunderstorm” on 26 January.He added there were “high winds on the deck… platters of food crashing to the floor in the buffet, liquor and other glass breaking, water coming in through the balconies and flooding.”The footage also shows…

Kozatske, Kostya’s village in the Kherson region, was occupied at the very beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. But things were to get even worse for the 14-year-old, who at the time was living with his older sisters and a sick father in need of care. One day, when Kostya went off to get help, the rest of his family was evacuated to Nova Kakhovka, a territory Russia occupied but where no fighting was going on.  “When I came back, they were gone. There was probably no more room on the bus,” he said. “I don’t…

Four people have been executed in Iran in recent days. The UN Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights is flying to Tehran to investigate. Activists are calling for her to postpone her visit. Source link

Thousands of sheep and cattle are stuck on board a ship after it abandoned its journey from Australia to Israel due to attacks on vessels in the Red Sea.The MV Bahijah docked in Western Australia on Thursday after it was ordered home by the country’s government. There are around 14,000 live sheep and 2,000 cattle on board worth about AUS$2m (£1.03m) – and officials are yet to decide whether to let them disembark or send them back to sea.The livestock have been on the ship since 5 January, which is now under the sweltering Australian summer heat.The country’s government said…