Author: DW

Depending on who you speak to, EU leaders either just took a cautious step toward using frozen Russian assets to fund Ukraine  — or kicked the can down the road and left their summit mired in even more legal and financial questions than when they walked in. There was no endorsement of a massive €140 billion ($163 billion) loan for Ukraine that some states had been pushing for. Instead, leaders issued a much vaguer commitment to “addressing Ukraine’s pressing financial needs” for the next two years, and vowed to revisit the issue of Russian assets in December. “We agreed on the ‘what’ …

Noted human rights advocate and philanthropist George Soros has received the European Civil Rights Prize of the Sinti and Roma for his many years of work supporting Roma communities across Europe. The prize, awarded at a ceremony in Berlin where former Chancellor Angela Merkel was a speaker, was accepted on his behalf by George Soros’ son, Alex, who is the chair of the board of directors of the Open Society Foundations founded by his father. The prize comes with an endowment of €15,000 (around $17,400).George Soros is the founder and chairman of the Open Society FoundationsImage: Ronald Zak/AP/picture alliance What did Soros’ Open Society say…

As if European carmakers needed more reminders of their dependency on China, new ones keep popping up. The industry is bracing for production stops after chip supplier Nexperia warned that a spat between the Netherlands, where the firm is located, and the firm’s Chinese owners could hit supply.  They’re also preparing for a squeeze on raw materials key for electric motors after new figures from China’s customs office released last week showed China’s rare-earth exports fell 31% in September from August. On Wednesday, German car giant Volkswagen warned that the latest supply chain issues could lead to production stoppages. Production…

The decision to allow two European league games to be played abroad caused widespread consternation earlier this month. While European football’s governors, UEFA, said it took the decision “reluctantly” on the basis they had no legal framework to stop it, there was a feeling among most fans, pundits and players that this would undermine the fabric of football still further. “There has been absolutely universal opposition,” Martin Endemann, head of policy at Football Supporters Europe, who advocate for fans on the continent, told DW. “We had a statement out, which was signed by 600 fan groups from 29 countries across Europe against this.…

Andrzej Poczobut, a Belarusian with Polish roots, is a correspondent for Poland’s left-liberal newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza. For many years he has been an outspoken critic of the Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko and his regime.  Poczobut was arrested twice in 2010 and 2011 after reporting on protest rallies. In 2020, during the mass protests that followed a fraudulent election, the Belarusian regime’s hostility towards the journalist intensified. Members of the Belarusian intelligence service, the KGB, raided his apartment in Grodno on March 25, 2021. They arrested Poczobut and confiscated his computer, documents and Polish books. Lukashenko himself commented publicly on the arrest. “An…

Two new US strikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats in the eastern Pacific have killed five people in total, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has said. Both vessels were “known by our intelligence to be involved in illicit narcotics smuggling,” were “transiting along a known narco-trafficking route” and were “carrying narcotics,” Hegseth said of the strikes in two separate posts on X on Wednesday. They were both in international waters, according to Hegseth.  Three people were killed in the attack announced late Wednesday, while two died in the previous strike, which apparently took place on Tuesday. Hegseth referred to those killed as…

Most of the Louvre Museum in Paris reopened to visitors on Wednesday morning, after several days closed following the daring jewel heist on the building early on Sunday. Only the Apollo Gallery, location of the theft and subject of ongoing police investigations, remained shut. The reopening came just hours before the museum’s director was set to face questions from French senators on how thieves made off with jewels of considerable historical signifiance and an estimated value of €88 million ($102 million).  The robbery renewed scrutiny of security measures at French museums, after two similar thefts in September at other sites,…

A major new study by 22 public service media organizations, including DW, has found that four of the most commonly used AI assistants misrepresent news content 45% of the time — regardless of language or territory. Journalists from a range of public service broadcasters, including the BBC (UK) and NPR (US), evaluated the responses of four AI assistants, or chatbots — ChatGPT, Microsoft’s Copilot, Google’s Gemini and Perplexity AI. Measuring criteria such as accuracy, sourcing, providing context, the ability to editorialize appropriately and the ability to distinguish fact from opinion, the study found that almost half of all answers had at least…

Restoring vision — or at least improving it — for those with macular degeneration may soon be possible with a tiny chip and special glasses. Together, the chip and eyeglasses have been shown to restore central vision for a type of eye disease, known as Age-related macular degeneration (AMD). More than 80% of patients at trial sites across the United States, Germany, UK, Netherlands and Italy showed significant improvement in central vision following a year of monitoring. With the implant, the patients were able to read numbers and words at home and could improve their reading ability by 25 letters — or five…

Lena Oberdorf posted a black-and-white picture of herself on Instagram on Monday with the words “Until we meet again…” and an emoji of a broken heart. Last weekend, the 23-year-old FC Bayern Munich midfielder suffered a serious knee injury during a Bundesliga match in Cologne. The diagnosis: a torn cruciate ligament. It’s Oberdorf’s second within the span of just 15 months, again in her right knee. The cruciate ligament tear she suffered in a friendly against Austria in July 2024 kept her out of action for more than a year, missing both the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris and the Women’s Euros…