Author: DW

It remains unclear whether the peace plan unveiled in Washington by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump will mark a turning point in the war in Gaza. Filmmakers from the region will likely, however, continue to struggle to get their stories seen. For both Palestinian and Israeli directors, the barriers to international release have rarely been high. Films that win major prizes at top festivals or even take home Oscars are still struggling to find companies to put them in theaters, particularly in countries — like the US and Germany — where the debate over Gaza is especially…

Late Sunday, a judge issued an order blocking the deployment of troops to the US city of Portland, Oregon.  US President Donald Trump has ordered the deployment of about 200 members of the California National Guard from Los Angeles to Portland, the Pentagon announced Sunday. In a statement, the Department of Defense claimed that the troops would be sent to Oregon’s largest city “to support US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other federal personnel performing official duties, including the enforcement of federal law, and to protect federal property.” The federal ICE building in Portland has recently been the site of nightly protests that city and state…

Japanese stocks surged over 4% on Monday and the yen fell after Sanae Takaichi was elected to lead the country’s ruling party. The Nikkei 225 Index was up 4.6%, soaring to 47,852.29, after earlier passing the 46,000 mark for the first time ever. The yen fell, reaching 149.76 yen against the dollar and hitting a record low against the euro. Who is Sanae Takaichi and why did her election affect the stocks? Fiscal dove Takaichi is on course to become Japan’s first female Prime Minister this month. An ally of the late Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, she is expected to continue his…

Halfway through Oktoberfest, which runs this year from September 20 to October 5 in Munich, questions on crowd control are now arising following the closure of the festival grounds’ entrances for around 30 minutes on Saturday. A loudspeaker announcement in German urged visitors to leave the festival without any explanation, leading to additional confusion. Some visitors later complained on social media about how they felt trapped in the crowd. “It was close to mass panic,” one woman wrote on Instagram, saying she feared being “trampled to death and knocked over.” Another described the situation as “extremely dangerous,” with people screaming and crying.  Many Oktoberfest…

The outsized role Saudi Arabia now has in global sport was on display last week in a major row involving Lionel Messi, the world’s most distinguished footballer. Messi was suspended by his club, Qatari-owned French side Paris Saint-Germain (PSG), for making an unauthorized trip to Saudi Arabia as part of his ambassadorial role for the Saudi Tourism Authority. The Argentinian is now expected to leave PSG, with the Saudi league as a possible destination. Messi earns tens of millions of euros for that Saudi role, part of a huge outlay the Kingdom is currently making on professional sports. A 2021…

Thousands of people took part in a banned Pride march on Saturday in the university city of Pecs in southwest Hungary. Several thousand people attended in defiance of a police ban on LGBTQ+ rallies. Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who has been in power since 2010, has restricted the rights of the LGBTQ+ community in recent years. His ruling ultra-conservative Fidesz party passed a law in March allowing Pride marches to be banned, claiming the move was needed to “protect children.”The protesters waved rainbow and EU flags and held signs condemning Orban and his governmentImage: Attila Kisbenedek/AFP What else do we know about the…

US President Donald Trump has authorized the deployment of 300 National Guard troops to “protect federal officers and assets” in Chicago, the White House said Saturday. Trump has been threatening to make the move for weeks as part of his militarized crackdown on immigration, which has triggered protests and accusations from critics that the president is using authoritarian tactics to seize power. The decision was announced shortly after a judge temporarily suspended a similar deployment to Portland, Oregon. Trump, a Republican, has already sent National Guard troops to Washington DC, Los Angeles and Memphis to clamp down on what he has called “rampant”…

The growing number of foreign visitors has been big news in Japan this year, along with headlines picking out the small minority who attract locals’ fury for misbehaving. But even well-behaved tourists from North America and Europe are a source of irritation or confusion for many locals in Japan — due to the very un-Japanese habit of tipping. More than 21.5 million foreigners visited Japan in the first half of 2025, a record high and on track to surpass the 40-million arrival mark for the entire year. Many first-time visitors are befuddled by Japanese customs and norms; everything from taking one’s…

1. The Nobel Prize and the Curie dynasty Marie Curie is unique as the only person to have received Nobel Prizes in two different natural sciences — Physics in 1903 and Chemistry in 1911. Her husband, Pierre, was a co-winner on her first Nobel Prize. Marie Curie won the prizes for her groundbreaking work on radioactivity, and for the discovery of new elements. Her daughter, Irene Joliot-Curie, continued the tradition when she received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1935, together with her husband, Frederic, for the discovery of artificial radioactivity — the production of artificial radioactive isotopes in the…

Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) are on the verge of taking another major step in their acquisition of sport, but this time in the virtual world. The PIF, an arm of the Saudi royal family, has joined forces with US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and US investment firm Silver Lake to buy video game company Electronic Arts (EA) for $55 billion (€47 billion), subject to final approval. This will make it the largest private equity-funded buyout in history and a significant amount of the purchase price is made up of borrowed money. The PIF had previously owned about 10%…