Author: DW

Even at this relatively early stage, the Women’s Bundesliga once again looks a two-horse race, with Bayern Munich and Wolfsburg reaffirming themselves as a notch above the rest. But the reportedly imminent record-breaking transfer of one of Germany’s most sought-after players suggests a significant power shift towards champions Bayern. Lena Oberdorf, the smart, tough-tackling, driving heart of Wolfsburg and Germany’s midfield for the last few years is reportedly set to move to Munich for a German record fee of €400,000 (€429,000) at the end of this season. With her contract running out at the end of next season, this was Wolfsburg’s…

For many Egyptians, the timing is just too suspicious. Last week, the Israeli military said it would launch an assault on Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, near the Egyptian border, where more than 1 million displaced Palestinians are sheltering. There are concerns that, as more and more people are pushed up against the border, plans formulated by Israeli think tanks and leaked to media earlier in the current conflict are closer to becoming a reality. The Misgav Institute for National Security and Zionist Strategy, released a paper saying the conflict  was  a “unique and rare opportunity to evacuate the whole Gaza…

Senegal had planned presidential elections to take place on February 25. However, the parliament has since voted to push back the vote until December 15. Senegalese President Macky Sall announced the delay on February 3, just one day before the election campaign was scheduled to get underway across the West African nation. Sall said he postponed the vote because of a dispute between parliament and the Constitutional Court over the rejection of some candidates.The UN called for prompt and independent investigations into the killings of protestersImage: GUY PETERSON/AFP Deaths: ‘It’s sickening’ Protesters took to the streets in response to Sall’s decision to delay the…

Chaos broke out on a flight after maggots began raining on to plane passengers from an overhead compartment.The “absolutely gross” situation saw the Delta flight forced to make a U-turn about an hour into the nine-hour trip from Amsterdam to Detroit. Passengers reported the back of the plane was left teeming with the larvae that it later emerged were emanating from a rotten fish.”My family and I were in the row directly in front of the maggots,” said one passenger, who goes by Nisha_16 on the forum Reddit. Image: The flight returned to Amsterdam after only around an hour into…

Firefighters battled the blaze at Sweden’s largest amusement park in the western city of Gothenburg for the third day in a row on Wednesday. Firefighting efforts were complicated by the risk of building collapse, emergency services said. “The construction is burning and we can’t enter some parts of the building to fight the fire because the risk of collapse is too great,” Gothenburg emergency services said in a statement. “We are making sure the fire doesn’t spread to adjacent buildings.” Firefighters had said the blaze was under control on Tuesday, but there was a flare-up in the evening. They could not…

Exhausted after months on the move, Palestinians in Rafah face impossible decisions once again. More and more people have crammed into Gaza’s southernmost city, which itself is squeezed against the heavily fortified border with Egypt, and wonder where they can go as the threat of an Israeli ground offensive in the city weighs on their minds. “We are afraid for our lives,” Iman Abu Musa told DW in a WhatsApp message. The 22-year-old recently fled to Rafah from neighboring Khan Yunis, where heavy ground fighting between Israeli troops and Hamas militants has sent thousands of people south and west in search…

A woman and two children are reported to be among four people killed in a wave of Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon.Security sources told the Reuters news agency the deaths came during Israeli strikes on a village.Eleven people were wounded across southern areas and the level of damage was “vast”, the sources said.Lebanon’s powerful armed group Hezbollah said a strike on a separate town killed one of its fighters.Middle East latest – ‘millions in cash’ found in tunnelMedia reports in Lebanon said buildings were on fire after the attacks by Israel.The strikes come after reports a woman had died and…

Alaskapox is an orthopoxvirus related to smallpox, cowpox and mpox (initially known as “monkeypox”). Infections have so far only occurred in the US state of Alaska. There have only been seven recorded cases in humans since the first one was reported in 2015. Patients infected with Alaskapox report one or more skin lesions similar to spider or insect bites. Other symptoms include swollen lymph nodes and joint or muscle pain that usually clears up in a few weeks.   Before the patient who died in January, all other cases of Alaskapox were mild and did not require hospitalization.  How is the…

Indonesian Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto on Wednesday claimed victory in the presidential election as unofficial tallies indicated that he and his running mate, Gibran Rakabuming Raka, were poised to win in a single round.  “All counts, all pollsters… showed figures that Prabowo-Gibran won in one round. This victory should be a victory for all Indonesians,” he told a crowd at an arena in central Jakarta. Independent pollster Litbang Kompas said that Subianto was leading with nearly 60% of the vote, based on over half of the votes counted at a sample of polling stations across the country. Two other pollsters, Poltracking…

Germany will meet NATO’s defense spending target of 2% of its gross domestic product (GDP) for the first time since the early 1990s, according to a Defense Ministry spokesman and NATO forecast released Wednesday. German news agency DPA put the figure of the German government’s reported allocation for defense spending at $73.41 billion (€ 68.58 billion) in the current year which it said would be 2.01% of Germany’s GDP. In 2023, Germany spent 1.57% of GDP on defense, well short of the 2% target. This Monday, however, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz pledged to meet the 2% spending commitment while on a visit to Rheinmetall’s…