Author: DW

Britain could strike Houthi targets in Yemen again if the rebel group continues to attack ships in the Red Sea, the foreign secretary has suggested.Lord Cameron warned the Iran-linked fighters could force up prices in Britain if they are allowed to block the passage of container ships in the busy trade route. The US struck another site in Yemen early on Saturday after the Houthis vowed revenge for the bombing raid carried out by the Americans and the RAF a day earlier.Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, Lord Cameron said the joint action “will have gone some way to degrade Houthi…

Until very recently, Mariusz Kaminski and Maciej Wasik were two of the most powerful men in Poland. As interior minister in Mateusz Morawiecki’s national-conservative cabinet from 2019 to 2023, Kaminski was in charge of the national police and intelligence services. Wasik, his deputy, was his right-hand man in the ministry. Since the change of government in Poland in December, both politicians have been lawmakers for the former ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, which is now the largest opposition party in the Sejm, Poland’s lower house of parliament. But on Tuesday evening, Warsaw police officers entered the presidential palace and arrested…

More than 40 of the prison officials being held hostage in Ecuador by inmates were freed, the prisons authority said on Saturday, amid a deteriorating security situation in the South American country. According to the SNAI prisons authority, 41 guards and administrative staff “were released,” while one managed to escape at a prison in Loja, with reports of violence in several prisons. Currently, more than 130 prison officials continue to be held hostage since Monday in at least seven prisons. Within the last 24 hours, one guard was killed and another injured, SNAI said in a statement. While the army…

Zambia is dealing with one of its worst cholera outbreaks in recent years as nearly 10,000 active cases have been registered.Climate change has fuelled heavy rains which have contaminated drinking water in overpopulated and impoverished urban areas, mostly in the capital Lusaka. Health workers are scrambling to contain a crisis that has the potential to be the worst the country has seen since the first outbreak in 1977.The sound of crying cuts through the humid air as soil is hastily dug out by a uniformed worker and flung to the side. Among the clutches of tall grass is a burial…

Poland’s President Andrzej Duda said Thursday that he planned to pardon Mariusz Kaminski and Maciej Wasik, two former members of the ousted nationalist conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party sentenced to two years in prison for corruption. PiS and their main political rivals, led by new Prime Minister Donald Tusk, have been fighting over whether Kaminski and Wasik should be in custody or not for years now.  PiS’ October election defeat that brought a broad coalition headed by Tusk back into power swung the scales back against the two politicians, who were originally convicted in 2015. In December, they lost an…

John Kerry, the US special envoy on climate, is stepping down from his post in the coming weeks, US media reported on Saturday. The 80-year-old politician has played a key role in the Biden administration’s efforts to fight climate change over the past three years. The decision to step down comes a month after Kerry played an important part in helping broker an international deal in Doha for countries worldwide to transition away from fossil fuels. It wasn’t immediately clear who would succeed him. Kerry, however, wants to help Joe Biden’s presidential reelection campaign by publicizing the president’s work in…

US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin is still in hospital and is in a good condition, the Pentagon has said.The 70-year-old was admitted to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Maryland on 22 December with prostate cancer. He returned to the hospital on 1 January due to complications including a urinary tract infection and has remained there ever since.Pentagon press secretary Major General Pat Ryder said in a statement: “He’s in contact with his senior staff and has full access to required secure communications capabilities and continues to monitor DOD’s day-to-day operations worldwide.”More US news:Hunter Biden to face trial after…

Electric car maker Tesla will suspend most car production at its factory near the German capital of Berlin for two weeks, the company said on Thursday. “Due to a lack of components, we are forced to suspend vehicle production at the Gigafactory Berlin-Brandenburg between January 29 and February 11, with the exception of a few sub-areas,” Tesla said in a statement. The company blamed the component shortage on shifts in shipping routes caused by the crisis in the Red Sea, where Iranian-backed Houthi militants have been attacking ships in solidarity with the Palestinian militant-Islamist group Hamas, which is fighting Israel…

The Supreme Court of Pakistan on Saturday upheld a ruling stripping former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party of its cricket bat symbol.  Pakistan’s Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa announced the ruling on live television, saying the PTI had not held intraparty elections. Political parties in Pakistan must hold these elections in order to take part in the national election. In December, the Election Commission of Pakistan first announced the ban on PTI for using the symbol for the same reason. The PTI then challenged that decision in the nation’s top court.  PTI on ruling: A ‘sad day for democracy’ “This,…

Despite an international coalition providing a protective umbrella over the Red Sea – Op Prosperity Guardian – the Houthi attacks against merchant shipping continued.Shortly before midnight on Thursday, the US and UK launched a wave of attacks on 60 Houthi military targets using over 100 guided munitions, predominantly Tomahawk cruise missiles. The UK contribution to the strike package was four Typhoon fighter jets.Although cruise missiles can be launched from hundreds of miles away from their targets, once launched they can take some time to reach them and, while en route, the ground situation can change.Fighter missions place the pilots in…