Author: DW

Billions from the Arab world? investors from the Premier League? Argentine President Javier Milei wants to privatize the country’s club football. The right-wing populist and conservative politician sees this as a major opportunity to increase competitiveness on the international stage. What he may be overlooking though, is that unlike the crisis-ridden country’s economy, which is very much in need of reform and modernization, there is another aspect that plays a decisive role in football: emotion. Football supporters in Argentina tend to not just to be fans but also members of their clubs — complete with a vote when it comes to…

A proposal to allow foreign citizens to serve in the German army, known as the Bundeswehr, could be extended to Europeans in countries outside of the EU. German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius had initially put forward the idea of welcoming non-Germans to enlist in order to combat a drastic shortage of personnel. In addition to Pistorius from the Social Democrats, the idea has also received support from lawmakers belonging to one of its two coalition partners, the FDP, plus the opposition Christian Democratic Union (CDU). However, questions remain about how such a plan would be implemented. Free Democratic Party (FDP) member Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, who chairs the…

In an effort to get pharmaceuticals giant Bayer back on track, company CEO Bill Anderson, who has been in office for nine months, wants to restructure the group’s organization. For many employees, this will mean looking for new jobs. Bayer employs more than 100,000 people worldwide, including around 22,000 in Germany. The company announced job cuts on Wednesday without giving further details, although as things stand, there will be no compulsory redundancies until the end of 2026. However, according to the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper, employees whose positions have been eliminated and have not left the company, could be dismissed after…

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier touched down in Vietnam on Tuesday as Germany looks to push   its China de-risking strategy. He was joined in the capital, Hanoi, by Labor Minister Hubertus Heil and a delegation of business leaders from top German industrial firms who will join him on a four-day tour of Southeast Asia. The visit “underlines Germany’s interest in looking beyond China and diversifying its economic relations,” said Florian Feyerabend, the representative in Vietnam for German think tank, the Konrad Adenauer Foundation. What’s on the agenda for Steinmeier in Vietnam? Steinmeier was welcomed with military honors by Vietnam’s President Vo Van Tthuong.…

One of the world’s most popular YouTubers has revealed that he made over £200,000 in ad revenue by posting a video on X.MrBeast is renowned for creating expensive videos, including competitions where contestants battle it out to win huge cash prizes. While he has more than 233 million subscribers on YouTube, the influencer said he was curious to see how profitable it would be to post on Elon Musk’s platform.The 25-year-old uploaded an old video called “$1 Car vs $100,000,000 Car” – comparing luxury motors at different price points.Over three days, it generated 124 million views – generating $263,355 (£207,214)…

More than 2 billion voters in 50 countries are set to go to the polls in 2024 — a record-breaking year for elections. But 2024 is also the year when artificial intelligence (AI) could flood our screens with fake news like never before. Some experts have voiced concern that new generative AI tools and a lack of regulation around the quickly-evolving technology may make it easier than ever to produce deepfake content and potentially influence the outcomes of elections around the world.  And a study has now found that people’s ability to determine what is true and what is fake news is linked to…

Alexander Zverev’s upcoming assault trial has brought the ATP Tour’s lack of a domestic abuse policy back into the spotlight, with top female players asking why the German tennis star is still allowed to play despite the allegations against him. Zverev, the reigning Olympic champion, denies physically abusing an ex-girlfriend. Until his public hearing takes place at the end of May, he maintains the presumption of innocence. The Professional Tennis Players Association (PTPA), an independent group that men’s world No. 1 Novak Djokovic co-founded as an alternative voice to the ATP and women’s WTA Tour, told DW it would back creating a…

Avera Mengistu and Hisham al-Sayed have been held as hostages in Gaza since 2014 and 2015, respectively. Unlike the roughly 240 people kidnapped in the Hamas October 7 terrorist attacks, the campaign for the release of Mengistu and al-Sayed has received little publicity. The two cases, and the similarities between them, tell a bigger story about how Israel views its hostages. ‘It’s very hard,’ say relatives Hisham al-Sayed is an Israeli citizen, a Bedouin from the southern town of Hura. In 2015, he crossed the Gaza border and has been held there by Hamas ever since.  It wasn’t the first time al-Sayed crossed the…

Germany’s GDL trade union, whose members are mostly train drivers but also include other rail network employees, announced a six-day strike in the early hours of Monday morning.  The planned industrial action will start at 2 a.m. on Wednesday morning — and a few hours earlier for freight services — and continue until 6 p.m. the following Monday.  Although it’s the latest in a series of GDL strikes, the threatened six-day action is set to last longer than those that have come before.  German rail operator Deutsche Bahn (DB) had tried to tempt the union back to the negotiating table with…

Global cooperation needs to be ramped up in order to combat drug trafficking, Germany’s Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said in comments published on Monday. “The harbors in the Netherlands, Belgium and France are becoming even more strained by international drug smuggling,” Faeser told Germany’s Funke media group of newspapers.  Drug traffickers were also targeting Germany’s main port in Hamburg, she added. Faeser said drug cartels were responsible for “an unbelieve spiral of violence” that included journalists and prosecutors being threatened or even murdered, and torture chambers being set up in Europe. “Therefore, I want tougher and more internationally coordinated actions against…