Author: DW

The United States on Thursday doubled the reward for the arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to $50 million (€43 million). The Trump administration has accused Maduro of being the world’s biggest drug trafficker and working with cartels to smuggle fentanyl-laced cocaine into the US. In January, the announced bounty was fixed at $25 million. The Department of Justice and State Department on Thursday announced a historic $50 million reward for information leading to the arrest of Nicolas Maduro, Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a video on social media. “He is one of the largest narco-traffickers in the world and…

Why did Switzerland get hit with a 39% tariff? US President Donald Trump’s argument is straightforward. He believes trade partners of the United States benefit from broad access to the US market, while often restricting access to their own, creating persistent trade imbalances. In Switzerland’s case, Trump balked at the Alpine nation’s $48 billion (€41.2 billion) trade deficit, which he said showed Swiss firms were “taking advantage” of the US. For that and the country’s apparent unwillingness to address the imbalance, he put a much higher tariff on Swiss imports than the European Union’s 15%. At 39%, the tariff rate is the highest among developed countries and may…

A new Taiwanese series about a fictional Chinese invasion has sparked heated debate after its Saturday premiere topped drama rankings on public TV and multiple streaming platforms. The ten-episode drama titled “Zero Day Attack” is set in 2028, imagining China using a missing warplane as a pretext to launch a blockade when a newly elected Taiwanese president is about to take office. Some viewers praised the show for helping “every Taiwanese understand how the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] infiltrates us,” while others accused it of “selling a sense of national doom.” Taiwan is a self-governing democracy that Beijing claims is…

A new study has discovered that trees contain a rich and diverse microbiome inside their tree trunks, much like humans do in our bodies. An average tree contains approximately 1 trillion microbe cells, according to data acquired from sampling the DNA of 150 trees which waspublished in the journal Nature. It found that healthy trees contain distinct microbiomes specialized to different parts of the tree and are rich in fungi, bacteria, and viruses. The authors believe these could play a vital role in tree health. “Our study shows that each tree species hosts its own distinct microbial community that has…

When Thomas Müller announced recently in an Instagram post that his next career move would be “across the big pond,” it was quickly reported that the bright lights of Los Angeles would be his destination. However, the soon to be 36-year-old, who has made a career of surprising opponents on the pitch, caught nobody off guard by announcing on Wednesday that he was indeed moving to the Pacific west coast — but north of the 49th parallel to Vancouver. The move had been Major League Soccer’s worst-kept secret for days. ‘A statement signing’ “Thomas is a world-class player – the ultimate “Raumdeuter” (Interpreter…

For weeks, police in the Republic of Moldova have been posting alarming notices on their Telegram messaging channel. Authorities have repeatedly warned of “fake news” on social media sites, called on citizens not to take “election bribes” and released reports on the arrest of paid demonstrators. Most recently, Moldova’s police posted a video explaining to voters how Russia is currently buying masses of votes through an app named “Taito.” Moldovan President Maia Sandu described what is going on in her tiny country, sandwiched between southwestern Ukraine and northeastern Romania, after attending a Supreme Security Council meeting last week by pointing to the “unprecedented”…

What is the current fire situation in France? More than 2,100 firefighters are still battling an intense wildfire in the Corbieres hills in a Mediterraneanregion of France near the border to Spain.  They are supported by some 90 firefighting planes, including water bombers, and 40 helicopters, according to the latest update by the Aude prefecture, which leads the affected local government department.  From Thursday, several dozen soldiers and three army helicopters will help battle the fire, which broke out Tuesday afternoon in the village of Ribaute in the Aude region, a rural, wooded area home to wineries. The blaze has…

India and China have pushed back firmly against US President Donald Trump’s threats of secondary sanctions — penalties for doing business with a sanctioned country — over their continued purchases of Russia’s oil, which is a key revenue stream for Moscow’s war in Ukraine.  Both nations vowed to protect their energy security and economic sovereignty against what Beijing firmly called “coercion and pressure” from the United States. China became the biggest importer of Russian oil in 2022. India, meanwhile, accused the West of hypocrisy, pointing out that the European Union continues to import Russian energy, despite having massively reduced its reliance on it since the war began.. New Delhi further noted…

German historian Karl Schlögel, an expert on Russia and Ukraine, is the winner of the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade for 2025. On Tuesday, it was announced that one of Germany’s most prestigious literary prizes, bestowed annually by the German Publishers and Booksellers Association at the Frankfurt Book Fair, would go to Schlögel for his work that has recently concentrated on the historical context of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.  “His was one of the first voices to warn of Vladimir Putin’s aggressive expansionist policies and authoritarian-nationalist claims to power,” read the jury’s statement. “Today, Schlögel continues to affirm Ukraine’s…

Fraudulent scientific research is on the rise and it is jeopardizing medical research, experts have warned. A new study has found that networks of bad actors work together to publish bogus research. The findings, published in the journal PNAS, came from analyzing more than 5 million scientific articles published across 70,000 journals. “There are groups of editors conspiring to publish low quality articles, at scale, escaping traditional peer review processes,” said the study’s lead author Reece Richardson, a social scientist at Northwestern University, US. The research uncovered evidence of networks of scientific journal editors who frequently publish research that is flagged…