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Initial figures released by Germany's Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) on Tuesday showed that the country had seen no increase in population for the first time since 2011. The extrapolated numbers showed 83.2 million people were living in Germany at the end of 2020. Destatis attributed the population plateau to lower immigration because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and an increase in the number of deaths. In the three decades since German reunification, the population has — with only a few exceptions — tended to increase. However, this population growth has resulted exclusively from positive net immigration. Without more people immigrating than emigrating, the population would have been shrinking since 1972 with more deaths than births in every year since then. Germany's birth or fertility rates have been well below global and even European averages ever since the Second World War. The number of births looks to have fallen slightly in 2020 compared with the previous year, according to the preliminary figures, while the number of deaths appears to have risen noticeably. The estimate for 2020 is 755,000 to 775,000 births compared with at least 980,000 deaths. Destatis estimated net migration into Germany of between 180,000 and 240,000 for the year. That would be the fifth successive year in which the number sank following the peak during the migration crisis of 2015. Travel restrictions caused by the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, and economic consequences, are believed to have had a curbing effect on migration. By September 2020 alone, the number of immigrants fell by 25% and emigrants by 22% compared to the same period in 2019. The fall is thought to have been even more pronounced toward the end of the year, with overall migration for 2020 predicted to be between 25% and 45% lower than in 2019.

8Society

EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen met leaders of Croatia and Slovenia on Sunday at a border crossing between the two countries. With Croatia  joining both the eurozone and the Schengen areaon January 1, this border can now be traversed without passports. Von der Leyen lauded Zagreb's "immense achievements" at the Bregana border crossing. "There is no place in Europe where there it is more true today that it is the season of new beginnings and new chapters than here at the border between Croatia and Slovenia.''   "Indeed, this is a day for history books,'' she added. Croatia is the youngest EU member state, having joined the bloc in 2013. Slovenia, which has been in the EU since 2004, became part of the Schengen Area in 2007 and adopted the euro the same year. Croatia, which has a population of 3.9 million, is now the 20th member of the zone that uses the euro currency and the 27th in the Schengen Area. This also means that the country is leaving behind its national currency, kuna. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Speaking at a ceremony at the border, Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said, "If there are historical moments, special moments which should provide us with great honor and when we witness the achievement of strategic goals of a state — this is such a day." He later treated von der Leyen to a coffee in the Zagreb's main square, paying for it in Croatia's new currency, the euro, as a symbolic gesture. He later touched on Croatia's new responsibility, taken over from Slovenia, of safeguarding what is now the EU's longest external land border, at 1,350 kilometers (840 miles). He said his country would never put up physical borders between it and its three non-EU neighbors, but rather help those three countries — Bosnia, Serbia and Montenegro — to draw closer to the bloc. All three nations are nominally striving to join the EU but have reached different stages on the path to membership. Bosnia, Serbia and Montenegro, just like Croatia and Slovenia, were part of the Yugoslavian Federation until the 1990s. Slovenian President Natasa Pirz Musar backed this project, saying she hope that her country and Croatia would both "assist the states in our neighborhood to join the EU."  Since Russia began its attack on Ukraine last February, the EU is looking to engage more with Western Balkan nations with a view to maintaining Europe's security. tj/dj (AFP, Reuters, AP)

7Politics

Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said Tuesday that the Gulf states had signed an agreement on regional "solidarity and stability" at a summit aimed at resolving a three-year embargo against Qatar. "These efforts helped us reach the agreement of the Al-Ula statement ... where we affirm our Gulf, Arab and Islamic solidarity and stability," he said, thanking the United States and Kuwait for mediating. The US has been pressuring Doha and Riyadh to reconcile, fearing that Iran might take advantage of the feud. The de-facto leader of Saudi Arabia also pointed to Iran in his Tuesday speech. "There is a desperate need today to unite our efforts to promote our region and to confront challenges that surround us, especially the threats posed by the Iranian regime's nuclear and ballistic missile program and its plans for sabotage and destruction," said Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Qatar's ruler, Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, also attended the Gulf leaders' summit in the Saudi desert city of Al-Ula on Tuesday. The emir and the Saudi crown prince publicly embraced before signing off on a rapprochement deal. The remaining members of the Gulf Cooperation Council — Kuwait, Bahrein, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates — also signed the document. The details of the deal were not immediately released to the public. Later in the day, Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan described it as "the turning of the page on all points of difference and a full return of diplomatic relations" indicating that ties would be restored to the pre-embargo levels. Tensions between the two neighbors spilt into the open in mid-2017, when Saudi Arabia cut diplomatic, trade, and travel ties with Qatar. The United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt also joined the blockade. The four countries accused Doha of backing radical Islamist movements and cozying up to Saudi Arabia's arch-rival Iran. The bloc also set out 13 demands for Qatar, including closing the Al Jazeera news network and downgrading links with Iran. Another request was that Qatar close a Turkish military base on its territory. Doha has flatly denied the requests, triggering the standoff. Qatar's leaders had said the boycott aimed to undermine the country's national sovereignty. Qatar is a small but strategically crucial country located on a peninsula bordering the Persian Gulf. It is the home to the largest US military base in the region. The rich nation has some 2.3 million inhabitants, the overwhelming majority of whom are expats, and shares its only land border with the much larger Saudi Arabia. Kuwait has been acting as a mediator between the two sides. In December 2020, Foreign Minister Al Sabah signaled progress by saying that "all sides expressed their keenness for Gulf and Arab unity and stability" while discussing the issue. At the time, Qatar said that any solution should be based on mutual respect. "No country is in a position to impose any demands on another country ... Each country should decide its foreign policy," said Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani. It was not immediately clear if Qatar accepted any of the demands previously listed by Riyadh and its backers in order to achieve the compromise announced on Monday. So far, Qatar did not publicly move on any of the issues. However, a senior White House official told the Reuters news agency on Monday that Qatar will suspend lawsuits related to blockade under the new deal. Some analysts believe the boycott actually pushed Qatar closer to Iran and Turkey, as the small country was forced to import goods from other neighbors and pay Iran for flyover rights. White House adviser Jared Kushner was also at the summit at Al-Ula, after reportedly helping to negotiate the accord.  On Monday, the White House official said Kushner, who is the son-in-law of the outgoing US President Donald Trump, was allegedly flying to Saudi Arabia to attend the signing ceremony. "It's just a massive breakthrough," the official told Reuters. "It will lead to more stability in the region." Kushner is also said to have played an important  key role in a series of normalization deals between Israel and several Arab states in 2020. The Middle East diplomatic offensive could be seen as Washington's push to form a united front against Iran in the Gulf region. Additionally, Saudi Arabia might be pressured to act constructively as US President-elect Joe Biden is set to take power and reassess the US foreign policy later this month. "Biden views Mohammed bin Salman as a destabilizing force in the region and Saudi Arabia is desperate to shed this negative image," Middle East expert Samuel Ramani told the DPA news agency. "Ending the blockade against Qatar suggests that Saudi Arabia is interested in contributing to regional stability." To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video dj/nm (AP, Reuters, AFP, dpa)

2Conflicts

"I will never forget the day someone believed me," says Angela Marquardt. She is a member of thevictims' council at Germany's independent commissioner for child sexual abuse issues. More than half of the victims who have come forward have experienced sexual abuse in their own families, including Marquardt. For a long time, there was hardly any research on this. Marquardt emphasizes that children and young people are rarely believed and hardly ever helped when they experience sexual violence from their (step-)father, uncle, grandfather, brother, their (step-)mother, or other relatives. "A child cannot free itself from its family on his or her own," says Sabine Andresen, chairwoman of the Independent Commission for Coming to Terms with Sexual Child Abuse, which presented a new study in Berlin. The protective space of the family becomes a trap for generations, she said. "Many victims report that their family had contact with youth welfare offices," says Andresen. Nevertheless, the children did not receive help as the adults' interests often came first.  Andresen is one of the authors of the study "Sexual Violence in the Family. Social reappraisal of sexual violence against children and adolescents from 1945 to the present." It deals with sexual abuse, from verbal attacks to rape. Over five years, researchers anonymously analyzed the confidential hearings and written statements of 870 victims. Nearly 90% were girls, and some were abused by multiple perpetrators. Nearly half of them were younger than six when the abuse began. The youngest were infants. Many did not understand what was happening to them at first. "I was sexually abused by my grandfather at an age when I could not speak. Consequently, it was a very long journey to discover this and develop a language for it," said one quote in the report. "At the time I often ran away, but never got far. I didn't know where to go as a seven-year-old," said another survivor. Andresen emphasizes the importance of the testimonies of those affected — who often did not talk about their experiences until many years later — in showing the hopeless situation children can find themselves in. "I suffered excruciating pain and deep grief every time it happened. It removed my ability to be a child. I no longer played or laughed. I started crying a lot, especially in public, which earned me scorn and ridicule and made me more and more of an outsider," reads another quote.  Often children are silenced with threats, testimonies show. "What happens in the family is nobody's business. I still feel that deep in me: I'm not allowed to say anything to anyone. And always with this threat that if something is exposed it could be your father who goes to jail." The majority of perpetrators — 87% — were men, nearly half of them biological fathers, stepfathers or foster fathers. Many children sought help from family members, usually their mothers, often in vain. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Those who suffered sexual violence in the family as a child often report feeling alone in the world, say the study's authors. Unlike victims from a school, sports club or church, it is much more difficult for those affected to find contacts or join forces with others, even later when coming to terms with the situation. Within families, says Marquardt, people often show solidarity with the perpetrators and exclude those affected. It is important to her that the study presents those affected as experts in coming to terms with the past and sees them as equals, and not just as victims. "Society does not have the right to leave children alone in their families," she says. They don't have any institution they can turn to. "This crime in the family is not a private matter," she warns. She believes there should be a broad social debate, and not just when shocking cases like the one in Münster—where a child sex abuse ring was uncovered—cause a short-term stir. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Andresen emphasizes that you have to look at who could see the child's need and help. That means looking inside and outside the family and "at the neighbors, at the daycare center, at school and all the way to the youth welfare office." There is "a great reluctance to intervene in families. But sexual violence is not a private matter." The reports of those affected showed how non-intervention led to children and young people not getting the help they needed. "We need a further reappraisal of youth welfare offices and their actions over the past decades," she says, adding that the Clarification Commission is working on this. It is essential to ensure that the rights of children and young people are heard, she said. Over decades, there has been "a continuity of disrespect, of contempt for children and young people," she said. To improve, she says, counseling centers and youth welfare offices also need to be better equipped. "You have to ask yourself, why is it so tremendously difficult to believe children and young people?" Many of those who reported their experiences want today's children to be spared what they suffered through for so long. "It helps a lot if you act right away and don't leave the child alone for 15 years to decide if he or she is going to stay. There can be no more closing your eyes," said one survivor in the report. This article was translated from German. While you're here: Every Tuesday, DW editors round up what is happening in German politics and society, with an eye toward understanding this year's elections and beyond. You can sign up here for the weekly email newsletter Berlin Briefing, to stay on top of developments as Germany enters the post-Merkel era.

8Society

The F-35 Lightning II is considered the most modern fighter jet in the world. The jet, made by US manufacturer Lockheed Martin, is considered more than just a fighter aircraft. It is essentially an armed computer with a jet engine that can network with other aircraft in the air as well as ground forces, processing thousands of pieces of information every second. But is it the right jet for the Bundeswehr? Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht (SPD) announced on Monday that Germany wants to buy 35 such jets to replace the Tornado fighter jets put into service more than 40 years ago, which, like the F-35, can carry American atomic bombs to their target. "There are military reasons in favor of the F-35," said Rafael Loss, a security expert at the think tank European Council on Foreign Relations. "If you have to deliver the nuclear bomb, you better do it with a stealth aircraft than with an aircraft that doesn't have that capability," he told DW. "We need that lower radar signature and the ability to detect and engage targets at long range. And the F-35 can do that better than any other air combat system on the market right now." To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video But those capabilities come at a cost. Loss expects the 35 fighter jets to cost about €4 billion ($4.4 billion). "On top of that, of course, there would be the operating costs, which are substantial," he says. Moreover, several hundred million euros would probably have to be budgeted for the necessary conversion of German military airports. Without Russia's war against Ukraine, such an investment would hardly have been conceivable. But now the German government wants to upgrade the Bundeswehr with a special fund of €100 billion. And political resistance to a new nuclear bomber is also low. Even the Greens have offered little criticism. Though once founded by pacifists, they are now in Germany's governing coalition. Only the opposition Left Party is unequivocally against the planned acquisition of the F-35. "We reject the arming of the Bundeswehr with new fighter jets capable of carrying nuclear weapons," said Ali Al-Dailami, defense policy spokesman for the Left faction in the Bundestag, the German parliament. "Nuclear sharing, according to which US nuclear weapons would have to be dropped by Bundeswehr pilots, does not create security but fuels the danger of nuclear war in Europe. The horrors of the Ukraine war must not be misused as a pretext for an arms race." The German air force, it seems, is relieved to be able to put a successor to the obsolete Tornado aircraft into service before the end of the decade. Lieutenant General Ingo Gerhartz, the air force's highest-ranking soldier, pointed out that many other European armies had also opted for the US fighter. "It strengthens our ability to join them in securing NATO airspace and defending the alliance," he said. The UK, Italy, the Netherlands, and, most recently, Finland and Switzerland have opted for the F-35. For them, air defense cooperation with Germany could become easier. "In France, on the other hand, the decision has been met with frustration," says Paul Maurice, a researcher at the French Institute of International Relations in Paris. "The F-35 is understood here as a symbol of US power within NATO. After all the speeches about European autonomy and sovereignty, one had expected Germany to be more aligned with a European arms policy." After all, he said, what would happen if the US withdrew forces from Europe, as happened under President Donald Trump? "That could happen with the next president, but also already after the midterm elections," Maurice says. Europe needed to be prepared for such a development and become more autonomous in security matters, he adds. "That takes ten, fifteen years of preparation, so it needs to start now." In France, there are fears that the purchase of the F-35 could jeopardize the Franco-German-Spanish FCAS, short for Future Combat Air System. The billion-dollar project is meant to develop a state-of-the-art European fighter by 2040 to replace the French Rafale and the German Eurofighter. According to Maurice, the defense community in Paris is currently asking themselves: "Will Germany still need FCAS at all? Or are the F-35s perhaps not a transitional solution, but a long-term solution?" Berlin has emphasized that it is acquiring the F-35s only as a replacement for the Tornados and not for other tasks. Alternatives discussed in recent years, such as the older American F-18 or the Eurofighter, would first have had to go through a lengthy procedure to be considered capable of carrying nuclear bombs. And, the defense minister announced, 15 more European-made Eurofighters would be purchased for electronic warfare, i.e., radar countermeasures. In addition, Lambrecht has offered assurances that there was still enough money left to push FCAS further. Just like the F-35, this future is likely to be very sophisticated — and very expensive. While you're here: Every Tuesday, DW editors round up what is happening in German politics and society. You can sign up here for the weekly email newsletter Berlin Briefing.

2Conflicts

The Chinese Foreign Ministry on Wednesday responded to a massive industrial policy bill approved by the United States Senate aimed at boosting competitiveness with Chinese technology.  On Tuesday, the US Senate overwhelmingly approved the United States Innovation and Competition Act, which aims to boost US semiconductor production,  artificial intelligence development, and other technology. Wang Wenbin, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, said Wednesday the US should not treat China as an "imaginary enemy." China's National People's Congress foreign affairs committee said in a statement that the bill "smears China's development"  and "interferes in China's internal affairs under the banner of innovation and competition." "The bill shows that the paranoid delusion of egoism has distorted the original intention of innovation and competition," the committee said, according to a report by the official Xinhua news agency. "We are in a competition to win the 21st century, and the starting gun has gone off," US President Joe Biden said Tuesday after the bill was passed.  The centerpiece of the bill is a $50 billion (€41 billion) emergency allotment to the Commerce Department to support semiconductor development and manufacturing. The funds will be handed out through research and incentive programs previously authorized by Congress. The bill's overall cost would increase spending by about $250 billion, with most of the spending occurring in the first five years. It comes as the US share of global semiconductor manufacturing globally has steadily eroded, from 37% in 1990 to about 12% currently, and as a chip shortage has exposed vulnerabilities in the US supply chain. The bill enjoys bipartisan support, with supporters viewing it as crucial for the US to avoid being beaten by global competitors — most notably China — in the race for technological innovation. US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said: "This funding isn't just about addressing the current semiconductor chip shortage, it is about long-term investments." Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called the measure "one of the most important things this chamber has done in a very long time, a statement of faith in America's ability to seize the opportunities of the 21st century." Other lawmakers explicitly mentioned the US' main technological rival. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said that while he supported the bill, the "final passage of this legislation cannot be the Senate's final word on our competition with China." The lead Republican on the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, Roger Wick, said the legislation was "an opportunity to strike a blow on behalf of answering the unfair competition" that he termed as coming from "communist China." However, a core group of Republican senators have reservations about the cost of the legislation. Rand Paul said the bill "will make our country weaker, not stronger." The House of Representatives must now pass the bill for it to be sent to the White House for Biden's signature. However, it is unclear if the legislation will be amended before it is signed into law.  kmm/wmr (AFP, Reuters, AP) 

7Politics

"I was also always told in the past: 'pensils run in front, not erasers,'" Sabrina Mockenhaupt tells DW. "That sounds casual, but it can quickly get stuck in your head." Mockenhaupt, 40,  is a former distance runner that won 40 German championship titles over long distances in her career. "I was never too thin. Maybe that's why my career was so long," she surmises. "I don't think many of the thin 20-year-olds currently competing will still be racing at 35." Norwegian ski jumping star Maren Lundby has recently rekindled the discussion about the danger of slipping into serious eating disorders through starvation in top-level sport. The Olympic and world champion surprisingly decided at the beginning of October to forgo the entire season culminating in the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing. "I'm a few kilos too heavy for the highest level. And I'm not willing to do crazy things to change that," the 27-year-old said in a television interview, during which she repeatedly burst into tears. Lundby said she also wanted to send a message to young athletes: "Uncompromising weight control shouldn't be an issue. You can destroy everything with that." "I think she's doing exactly the right thing," Katrin Giel tells DW. "She's behaving in a very caring and healthy way. That should have a radiance." Giel is a professor at Tübingen University Hospital and an expert in eating and weight disorders — including in sports. "Top-level sports are about peak performance," Giel explains. "Competitive athletes are good at failing to do things, torturing themselves to some extent and enduring pain. Maybe even going beyond their limits at times. That favors being strict in eating behavior as well." There is a fine line, she says. "Then you might slip into an eating disorder. And it's very difficult to get out of it." At the Tübingen clinic, there is a RED-S consultation for elite athletes, where RED-S stands for "Relative Energy Deficit in Sports." Those who put a lot of strain on their bodies but don't feed them enough calories risk serious health problems. "If, for example, female athletes in their 20s have never had a menstrual period, the alarm bells must be ringing," says sports medicine specialist Christine Kopp, who heads the consultation. "Also if they have hypothyroidism, have clustered fatigue fractures, depression and, of course, if they're underweight." In addition to ski jumping, high-risk sports for eating disorders include gymnastics, rhythmic gymnastics, diving and endurance sports such as triathlon, long-distance running, biathlon and cross-country skiing. Just like during the interview with ski jumping star Lundby, tears are often shed during consultations in Tübingen — from the people concerned themselves and, if they are present, from the parents as well. "They were happy to have a daughter or son who was successful in sports in a great club. But suddenly every meal at home becomes a problem," Kopp explains to DW. "The sport threatens to kill their child in extreme cases. At the same time, the daughter or son can't live without sports. It almost has the character of addiction. That's why therapy belongs in the hands of professionals." Of those seeking advice at Kopp's RED-S consultation, there is an average of one man for every 10 women. That roughly corresponds to the gender ratio in clinical eating disorders. "Anorexia is a classic female disorder," says psychologist Giel, explaining that social reasons play a role in addition to the patient's own attitudes and behaviors. "There are slimness ideals that can exert pressure on women and girls in particular. This is becoming more and more extreme in our Western world, also through social media." Kopp, a sports physician, has also had this experience. She places blame on a "stupid image of beauty" that is fueled on social networks. "There are young female athletes sitting in front of me whose role models are certain influencers who proclaim on YouTube: 'You must be thin and wiry, must have no body fat, must eat in a special way!' The girls look in the mirror and say, for example, 'I want to look like (successful German influencer) Pamela Reif!' And then they work toward that." This process is often reinforced from the outside, according to Giel. "Experimenting with diets can initially provide a sense of achievement, such as when performance improves or when the coach or teammate says, 'Great, you've lost weight!'" The environment can also provide additional pressure, as former long-distance runner Mockenhaupt describes: "When I once had trouble getting up a mountain in training camp, a coach told me, 'Look at yourself!' Depending on your psychological makeup, it's already hard when someone tells you something like that." It becomes even harder when you then compare yourself with competitors, says Mockenhaupt, mentioning a training colleague of hers leading up to the 2012 London Olympics as a personal example. "I really envied her. She was rail thin, but she could perform at her best and was faster than me. I wondered how she could do it. And she just complained, 'I'm still too fat.' That got me down and out. I thought I was fat, and it made me feel uncomfortable." That runner did well in London, Mockenhaupt said. "But a year later, it was over for her." Mockenhaupt herself had "also tried once in her career to train even more and eat less, but it backfired and my performance plummeted." Awareness among sports federations of the risk of eating disorders has increased in recent years, reaching as high as the International Olympic Committee. "However, many athletes deal with eating disorders with themselves and don't externalize their problem. That also makes it difficult for those around them to even notice," says psychologist Gies. "And so it remains a bit of a taboo." Her colleague from Tübingen, Kopp, agrees: "Nobody likes to go in front of the press and say, 'By the way, I have an eating disorder and can only do sports if I go to the bathroom and spit three times beforehand.' Nobody does that. Nobody wants to be stigmatized!" That makes performances like that of Norwegian ski jumping star Maren Lundby all the more important, says former long-distance runner Sabrina Mockenhaupt. "This is perhaps also a cry for help about the state of the sport." This article was originally published on October 18.

9Sports

Arie Pinsker has told his story dozens of times in his 92 years. But tears still well in his eyes when he looks at the huge pile of shoes left behind by those whose last steps were into the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp in Nazi-occupied southern Poland. Pinsker's own parents were among the more than one million people murdered there. Of those, some 230,000 were children, including his six younger siblings. His family, which also included two older brothers, arrived at the camp from their village in Transylvania, after traveling crammed into crude train carriages with no food or water for five days. Gesturing tearfully to the shoes piled up behind glass, Pinsker wonders aloud, "perhaps here are their shoes; perhaps here are the shoes of my mother, of my sisters." He was saved from the same fate after losing track of his parents when Nazi guards separated new arrivals and told some to prepare for "showers." He ran after his older brothers, whom he caught sight of headed in a different direction. Pinsker's voice cracks when he recalls that afternoon. He tells DW he asked another youth who'd been there longer where he could expect to rejoin his family when they came out of the "showers." "You don't know?" the other boy asked him. He pointed at the smoke pouring from nearby chimneys. "That's where they come out." Pinsker never saw his parents or younger family members again. He was 13 years old. He would survive being one of the children who suffered cruel Nazi "experiments" at Auschwitz, then being sent to a work camp in Dachau in Bavaria, and even — though just barely — a death march from there, wearing wooden shoes with, he emphasizes, socks strictly forbidden. So now, as he holds a child's shoe tenderly, wearing plastic gloves so as not to contribute to its degradation, Pinsker emphasizes how important it is to preserve these last links to Holocaust victims. "This is all that remains of these children," he says sadly. Flanking Pinsker at the launch event were fellow survivor Bogdan Barnikowski, along with representatives from the International March of the Living, an educational foundation which honors those killed at Auschwitz-Birkenau, the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation, the Auschwitz Memorial  and the Neishlos Foundation, a charitable organization. Together they aim to restore 8,000 shoes from children killed at Auschwitz. The project is called "Soul to Sole" and is seeking funding from the public as well, with donations large and small. A special conservation lab is already operational at the Auschwitz Memorial. Eitan Neishlos, whose foundation is one of those funding the project, says these remnants of lives lost are an "incredible archive of information." He hopes with the shoe restoration, "I really hope that we will do an exceptional job to draw those stories out and most importantly, to share them with the entire world." Neishlos' grandmother survived the Holocaust and he inherited a shoebox of her memories. Now he considers it his duty to help other families recover as much of their own history as possible. "I saw one shoe that had the word 'Cinderella' on the bottom and I thought, who was the Cinderella in that shoe and who were the princes in those shoes?" Neishlos told DW. "It's the duty of my generation and on behalf of the children and grandchildren and even great grandchildren of the survivors, to hold the torch of memory high." "If we didn't display what happened, if we didn't preserve the testimony of what happened, it could happen again," Arie Pinsker says. But as he walks through the barracks that still remain, he fears that memories of the horrors humans inflicted on one another there have not served as a deterrent.  "Human hatred is still everywhere," Pinsker laments. "You only have to see what is happening in Ukraine with Putin to understand that when there is a dictator who can decide anything, anything can happen." He has been back to Auschwitz now more than 70 times — and says it would have been more without COVID-19 — and says he won't stop trying to make sure future world leaders take the right steps. Edited by: Rob Mudge To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video

8Society

EU and Western Balkan leaders have wrapped up a one-day summit in Brdo Castle in Slovenia with promises for greater integration but didn't commit to a solid timeline for the six countries to join the 27-member bloc.  "The Western Balkans are part of the same Europe as the European Union. The EU is not complete without them," EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said. "My commission will do its utmost to advance the accession process." But the EU's executive arm, her Commission, is paralyzed by leaders of the EU's national governments, all of whom possess a veto option on opening negotiations.  "In all frankness, there is discussion among the 27 about our capacity to take in new members," said EU Council President Charles Michel, who chairs the meetings of EU leaders.  The EU did agree to create a new €9 billion economic and investment plan for the six Western Balkan countries. A joint declaration after the summit saw the EU "reaffirm its unequivocal support for the European perspective of the Western Balkans and welcome the commitment of the Western Balkans partners to the European perspective."  Recent focus remains on Albania and North Macedonia which have met reform demands from the EU and are expecting to be invited to a formal conference to launch their accession negotiations.  The process for the two is what the bloc calls "coupled."  Bulgaria is exercising its veto over a longstanding dispute with North Macedonia about culture and language. After the summit, North Macedonia's prime minister, Zoran Zaev, said that if EU promises don't materialize, "people in the Western Balkans will feel big disappointment that will create huge damage to the European idea of unity and cooperation.'' His position has support within the EU.  Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said, "I pleaded with the Bulgarian president to deblock the situation with North Macedonia."  The dispute with North Macedonia is unlikely to be resolved until a government can be formed in Sofia.  It remains a crucial election issue with Bulgarians, who are soon heading back to vote for the third time this year after two prior attempts failed to produce a clear winner.  The presidents and prime ministers of Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina were also all present for the summit – the countries are all at different stages of EU accession.  German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she doesn't support creating a firm timeline to open talks.  "When the conditions are met, accession can take place," said the outgoing chancellor. "But so far, no accession could take place because the conditions haven't yet been met by any of the countries.''  The EU demands stringent reforms on justice, press freedom and the fights against corruption and organized crime.  France is also reluctant for the EU to grow in number, with Brussels already accusing member states like Poland and Hungary of breaching democratic values.  Ahead of the meeting, Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama blamed the EU's internal fights for the holdup in talks.  "We have learned the hard way not to expect anything" Rama told Albanian press. "Europe is not in a very good moment, with many internal problems, enlargement is not received with enthusiasm."  One breakthrough at the summit in Slovenia was the fact that Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez was present.  He is the first to sit at the table of an EU-Western Balkan summit since Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008.  EU member states Slovakia, Romania, Greece, Cyprus and Spain do not recognize Kosovo as an independent country. Spain doesn't want to legitimize separatist movements as it battles with a breakaway attempt of its own, in Catalonia. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Heightened tensions on the Serbia-Kosovo border over a fight about car license plates were cooled following EU-mediated discussion. But experts warn the EU still has a huge credibility issues in the Western Balkans on this issue.  Majda Ruge, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) told DW that the EU's reluctance to criticize Serbia is becoming a big problem.  "The EU is simply not using its leverage in Belgrade properly," she said. "Serbia is flexing its military muscle in the region and implicitly threatening its neighbors. For Kosovo, strong statements against this would be much more important even than recognition from the five countries in the EU.”  European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen was also forced to defend her staff at the summit. A report from news and current affairs portal Politico claims EU Enlargement Commissioner Oliver Varhelyi from Hungary has been watering down judicial and democratic demands on Serbia during its accession process.  But von der Leyen insisted that "all commissioners have my full confidence." 

7Politics

Spain's Supreme Court has dropped sedition charges against Catalan secessionist leader Carles Puigdemont. This lowers the maximum sentence that he could receive from 15 years to 4. Puigdemont still faces charges of embezzlement and disobedience. The European Parliament lawmaker, who served as Catalonia's president when the region organized an independence referendum from Spain, is living in exile in Belgium. On Thursday, a Spanish Supreme Court judge dropped the charge of rebellion in connection with Catalonia's referendum on secession in 2017. The court upheld charges of embezzlement and disobedience and the European arrest warrant for Puigdemont's capture. It also upheld embezzlement and disobedience charges for former Catalan cabinet members Antoni Comin, Lluis Puig and Clara Ponsati. The change to Puigdemont's sentence comes after the offense of rebellion was abolished by Spain's parliament in a bid to calm the political crisis and citing a need to bring the country's laws on sedition in line with those of other EU countries. President Pedro Sanchez's coalition minority government requires the support of the pro-independence Catalan Republican Left and a number of other regionalist and secessionist parties in order to pass legislation. In the Supreme Court statement, judge Pablo Llarena said that he considered that the previous criminal code was "fully comparable to that of neighboring countries." He argued that the criminal reform from Spain's legislature brought the country to a "context close to the decriminalization" of sedition. The independence referendum held in 2017 was declared illegal by the Supreme Court. After Catalonia's autonomous parliament ran the vote anyway and then declared independence, Puigdemont went into exile and Spain temporarily suspended the region's autonomy. More than 90% voted in favor of secession, but turnout was low, at 43.3%. Opponents of secession had told their supporters to ignore the vote. Other leaders besides Puigdemont were sentenced to up to 13 years in prison, but have since been pardoned. Puigdemont was arrested while passing through Germany. He was not extradited to Spain as sedition is not a punishable offense in Germany. The lawmaker has immunity as a member of the EU's parliament, to which he was elected in 2019. His immunity was provisionally reinstated by the EU's judiciary after the parliament had lifted it. sdi/msh (dpa, AFP, Reuters)

7Politics

"Today is a special day," said Alma Barragan with excitement in a video she shared with her supporters. The video extended an invitation to a campaign event in the city of Moroleon in central Mexico on Tuesday. It was to be the 61-year-old mayoral candidate's last video. She was shot dead the same day, in broad daylight.  Legislative, gubernatorial and local elections are all taking place on June 6 in one of the biggest elections Mexico has witnessed. According to the consulting firm Etellekt, Barragan was the 88th candidate to have been murdered this electoral season. On Wednesday, Mexican President Manuel Lopez Obrador expressed his condolences and blamed organized crime groups for her death, saying it was a tactic to frighten voters. Analysts agreed that organized crime had a history of getting involved in election campaigns in Mexico but pointed out that the situation had gotten worse. "It shows that this government is not managing to master the violence," security expert Alejandro Hope told DW. University professor and political consultant Ruben Aguilar agreed: "Violence against electoral candidates has increased, as has violence throughout the country. It has reached a new high, with 85,000 deaths in the past three years. This shows that the security strategy has failed." Barragan had not been considered a favorite at the beginning of her campaign but she had gained in popularity with her fresh, unconventional style. Though there were no known threats against her, the city whose mayor she had hoped to become is located in the state of Guanajuato, which is the site of a violent turf war between rival organized crime groups. On the same day, Jose Alberto Alonso, the mayoral candidate for the beach resort town of Acapulco in the state of Guerrero on the Pacific Coast, survived a gunshot attack on his car and Pedro Kumamoto, the mayoral candidate for Jalisco, was sent a severed pig's head as a threat. Alejandro Hope explained that organized crime groups were more likely to target mayoral candidates than other politicians because mayors played a crucial role: "First, control of the municipal police is strategically important. Then, mayor's offices are sources of information about the economic situation of local residents, which in turn is important for protection rackets. Third, there's the issue of extorting money from the municipality or getting public contracts." According to Etellekt, this is the second-most violent election campaign in Mexico since 2000. The 2018 campaign, when Lopez Obrador and his leftist National Regeneration Movement (MORENA) and its allies came to power in Mexico City, was even more brutal. In a report published earlier this month, Etellekt warned that political violence was an attack on democracy and compromised the integrity, independence and autonomy of the future authorities. Hope, who worked with CISEN, Mexico's top intelligence agency between 2008 and 2011, had a different view. "The vast majority of districts are peaceful," he said. "The violence is focused and often it does not originate from organized crime but from political opponents. Or it is rooted in social conflict." Aguilar was also not so pessimistic: "There are 22,000 offices at stake, 88 deaths is a relatively small percentage, but it is nonetheless a tragedy for Mexican democracy." He said that rival candidates and even rivals within the same party who felt threatened were driving forces of the violence as well as organized crime groups. Hope said that the government had acknowledged the problem but had not found an effective strategy to put an end to the violence: "The protective mechanisms that politicians — like journalists and human rights activists who are threatened — can request are purely reactive rather than preventive." He said that the murders were only the tip of the iceberg and that organized crime groups also had a less visible method in election campaign funding: "The electoral authorities have come up with control mechanisms, but in my opinion, they are not adequate. An ocean of dirty money continues to flow into the campaigns." "There is a 98% impunity rate for murders," he added. "Any perpetrator can therefore assume that he will not be prosecuted." He said that the incompetence of law enforcement agencies was one reason for this, but also the lack of political will. Election observers from the North American Delian Project were able to see how little importance seemed to be attached to the issue of political violence during their weeks-long mission to Mexico. Jean-Pierre Kingsley, the former chief of Elections Canada, said that he was concerned about the increased attempts on the part of criminal groups to "buy" candidates and votes, the growing involvement of cartels in the electoral process, the absence of government control in certain regions and the tensions between the government and the election authority. Though the participants in the mission spoke with the representatives of several institutions and parties, they were not received by anybody from MORENA nor by Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard. The ruling party has not set a good example generally. In 2015, the current president's brother Pio Lopez Obrador was filmed accepting an envelope with large amounts of cash, suspected of being contributions for the movement. So far, the investigation has run cold. Various MORENA candidates are wanted in the US. Rogelio Portillo Jaramillo, who is running for mayor in Huetamo in the state of Michoacan, is on the US Drug Enforcement Administration's most-wanted fugitive list. The father-in-law of Evelyn Salgado, who is running for governor in Guerrero, has been arrested and accused of being involved in organized crime. Her husband and father were also investigated but without results. This article was translated from German.

8Society

Bangladesh has been witnessing an alarming rise in coronavirus cases over the past several days, prompting the government to deploy the military to the nation's streets to ensure that people stay indoors and don't violate lockdown restrictions.    The surge in the South Asian country's COVID infections is blamed largely on the highly infectious delta variant first detected in India. Hospitals are struggling to cope with the growing number of patients, particularly in areas bordering India. Some rural towns have recorded infection rates of about 70%, underlining the magnitude of the problem facing the health system. Bangladesh has so far reported nearly 950,000 infections and more than 15,000 related deaths. But observers say that's a huge undercount and stress that the real caseload could be three to four times higher. On Monday, the country reported 164 new COVID-19 deaths, its biggest daily rise since the pandemic began. It also registered the highest-ever number of new daily infections at 9,964. As per the government's lockdown rules imposed at the start of the month, and now extended until July 14, Bangladeshis can only leave home in case of emergencies and to buy essentials. The army and police have been patrolling mostly empty streets in the capital, Dhaka, and other major cities. Authorities have also shut down public transport and most shops. Stores that sell essential items can open for a few hours a day. Furthermore, large social gatherings have been banned in a bid to restrict people's movement. "We have called upon the people to stay indoors to help improve the situation. Those who go out of their homes without a valid reason will face legal action," Mahtab Uddin, a police officer in Dhaka, told the AFP news agency. "The prime target is to ensure social distancing, not to punish or fine anyone," he said. Nevertheless, over 2,000 people have been detained over the past few days on charges of violating the lockdown rules, according to local media reports. Despite the curbs on public transport, there was an exodus of migrant workers, with tens of thousands of them leaving the capital Dhaka and other large cities and moving to their home villages. The southwestern city of Khulna has emerged as a major virus hotspot over the past few days.  Many of the affected families in the region report of a shortage of oxygen cylinders and hospital beds. And the death toll continues to rise, with reports suggesting that graveyards could not cope with the huge number of dead. Officials blame the surge on people's refusal to wear masks or maintain physical distance. On Thursday, Khulna city recorded 46 virus deaths, according to an official count, while in earlier waves the daily death toll never went into double figures. Most people in the city believe the real toll could be much higher. Mohammad Siddik, a 42-year-old businessman who admitted his brother to a hospital in the district, said his brother had died because of a shortage of medical oxygen. "He passed away gasping for air in the hospital corridor. They didn't give him any oxygen until the end," he told AFP. Rumeen Farhana, an opposition parliamentarian, slammed the government for its pandemic response. "The government has delayed imposing a lockdown, and, when it's imposed one, a lack of coordination has become clear," she told DW, adding: "Offices and factories have remained open, while public transport has been stopped, so it's causing huge sufferings for officegoers and garment workers." She also noted that many daily wage laborers and low-income people have become jobless due to the lockdown, and the government hasn't provided enough support for them. "Many of the people who needed government help to survive during the pandemic last year got on average 14 grams of rice and 11 cents per day. How could you expect someone to stay at home with such little help?" she said. "The situation is no better this year," she added. But Enamur Rahman, state minister for disaster management and relief, said the government had provided food support to more than 1.4 million people since the beginning of the lockdown. "Ordinary citizens who feel shy to seek support from anyone are getting help now by calling the [333 hotline] number. We provide support based on the needs of the people and it includes lentils, rice and baby food," he told DW. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Meanwhile, authorities have been struggling to accelerate the Bangladesh's vaccination drive. Only 3% the population of about 170 million people have so far received the required two doses. The inoculation program took a hit after New Delhi stopped exporting AstraZeneca shots made in India earlier this year as infections skyrocketed there. Over the weekend, Bangladesh received the first shipment of 2.5 million Moderna vaccines promised by the United States. The Chinese embassy has said Beijing is sending about 2 million Sinopharm doses ordered by Dhaka, adding to 1.1 million shots already donated by China. Despite these supplies, the demand for the vaccines in the country far outstrips the supply and it seems unlikely that there will be enough shots available to immunize the country's population anytime soon.

5Health

India recently invited an international group of 24 envoys to Jammu and Kashmir as part of efforts to showcase "normalcy" more than a year after the region was stripped of its special semiautonomous status. Armed guards and officials from the Foreign Ministry accompanied diplomats from Europe, Africa, and Central and South Asian nations this week on a tour of Srinagar, Kashmir's largest city. The envoys were then escorted to the western town of Magam, where they met several officials, including recently elected local body representatives. "A curated tour of foreign dignitaries to showcase normalcy in the valley to the outside world is misleading," Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, a Kashmir separatist leader, told media. Pramit Pal Chaudhuri, head of strategic affairs at the Ananta Aspen Center think tank, said India simply "wants to show the envoys the progress made in the region." "It is now up to the envoys to independently assess the situation," he told DW. Muslim-majority Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan since they became independent countries in 1947. Both countries claim the region in its entirety. Insurgents in Kashmir have been fighting Indian rule since 1989. Some estimates suggest more than 70,000 people have been killed in the armed conflict. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Prior to the 2019 amendment, Indian-controlled Kashmir enjoyed semiautonomous status that gave locals special rights in land ownership and employment. In August 2019, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government enforced a harsh lockdown in the region, imposing monthlong restrictions on movement and suspending internet and telephone services. Additional troops were deployed, and all major Kashmiri politicians were placed under house arrest. Thousands of civil society members and activists were detained. Though internet services have been restored, outside access to the region remains limited. Foreign journalists are not allowed in except ones approved by the government with a guided visit. Reports of torture, disappearances and human rights violations in Kashmir have raised concerns across the European Union. In the months that ensued after the territory was stripped of its status in 2019, the bloc urged India and Pakistan to resolve the conflict through dialogue and come to a peaceful bilateral resolution. The European Union emphasized a solution that respects the interests of the Kashmiri population on both sides of the India-Pakistan border, also called the Line of Control. Analyst Chaudhuri said that, though the European Union has shown solidarity with Kashmiris regarding human rights, it regards India-administered Kashmir as "India's sovereign matter" and has failed to make the armed conflict a priority in recent years. The European Union's statement at the UN Human Rights Council in September 2019 did not mention Kashmir on its list of pressing human rights situations. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Mahum Shabir, a legal researcher on Kashmir at City University New York, believes that the recent Kashmir visit by some EU diplomats won't make a big difference. "There is little that would signal an actual policy shift," she told DW, adding that the EU has a "legal obligation" to slap sanctions on India. Shabir also criticized the EU for failing to address "the larger question of the military occupation of Kashmir and the aftermath of the abrogation of the region's special status" in its 2019 parliamentary debates. "Kashmir is inaccurately and exclusively viewed from a so-called national security lens This perspective will not help advance the security situation in the Indian subcontinent," Shabir said, adding that EU-India relations seem to have remained "unaffected" despite the ongoing conflict in Kashmir. Following a visit to India in November 2019, German Chancellor Angela Merkel told journalists that the situation in Kashmir was "not good and not sustainable." She, however, focused on matters concerning bilateral cooperation in her official statements. In late October 2019, members of the the European Parliament from largely far-right parties visited Indian-administered Kashmir. Among them were two MEPs from the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party and six members from Marine Le Pen's National Rally in France. The delegates, known for their anti-Muslim rhetoric, triggered outrage from opposition parties and civil society groups throughout India.  Chaudhuri thinks the move was a "public relations stunt" by the Indian government. "It was completely unnecessary. This need for recognition showed insecurity. Modi's government needs to restart the democratic process in Kashmir so that there is no need for a PR stunt like that," he said.

7Politics

The United Nations Security Council on Wednesday voted to renew the mandate of the European Union's military mission to Bosnia-Herzegovina. The vote took place amid concerns that the leader of the country's Bosnian Serbs has been ramping up separatist threats and putting peace in jeopardy. The decision to renew the EU mandate was reached unanimously, despite disagreements over a report into danger of secession in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Russia had blocked members from hearing a warning from the UN's top official in Bosnia, Christian Schmidt of Germany. He was set to present a report warning that the Balkan nation faces an "existential threat" from the separatist actions of Bosnia Serbs. Moscow not only objects to the report, which it said was an "extreme biased and anti-Serb document," but also the very existence of the post of an international high representative to Bosnia. The Kremlin says the position is inherently biased and refuses to recognize Schmidt, who has just taken office, as the incumbent. "The post remains vacant. There is no high representative or candidate to be a high representative today," Vassily Nebenzia, Russia's ambassador to the UN, said on Wednesday. In what diplomats described as a move to placate Russia and China — and ensure their support to renew the EU peacekeeping operation — Schmidt did not brief the council on Wednesday. However, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres circulated the contents of Schmidt's reports to the 15 Council members. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video After the vote on the EU force, warnings were raised by the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland and other nations giving their strong backing to the importance of maintaining the high representative. France's UN ambassador Nicolas de Riviere said the high representative's post was an "essential role in support of Bosnia and Herzegovina." De Riviere also condemned "all forms of questioning of the territorial integrity and the existence of Bosnia and Herzegovina as a state." Russia's Nebenzia said he objected to the report from what he called "a private person" being circulated. Bosnia has been split down ethnic lines since the war in the 1990s. It is made up of two autonomous entities — the Serbs' Republika Srpska and the Muslim-Croat Federation — which are only linked by weak central institutions. Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik has promised the formation of a Serbian army and is seeking to abolish the mandate for federal institutions inside the Bosnian Serb republic. The EU Force in Bosnia took over from a NATO peacekeeping mission in 2004. rc/fb (AP, Reuters, AFP, dpa)

7Politics

World Cup-winning German football legend Gerd Müller, widely regarded as one of the game's greatest goalscorers, has died at the age of 75, his former club Bayern Munich said on Sunday. Müller struck 68 times in 62 internationals for West Germany and is third in the all-time list of World Cup goalscorers, with 14, behind Brazil's Ronaldo (15) and Germany's Miroslav Klose (16). He won the 1972 European Championships with West Germany and enjoyed 15 trophy-laden years at Bayern. But it's his role in his national team's 1974 success, for which Müller will be most remembered. His international career started in 1966 and ended eight years later, in Munich, when, in his last ever match for West Germany, he scored the winning goal against Johan Cruyff's the Netherlands, to seal World Cup glory.  In May this year, Müller relinquished the record number of goals scored in a Bundesliga season, when Robert Lewandowski notched up his 41st of the 2020-21 campaign. With it, the Polish striker surpassed Müller's tally of 40 — a record that had stood for almost half a century. The German Football Association (DFB) said it "is mourning the passing of one of the greatest German footballers of all time. Rest in peace, Gerd Müller. Our thoughts are with his wife and family at this time." Former Bayern Munich coach Pep Guardiola offered his "condolences" and said football had lost a "true legend. The best striker in history." The German club's President Herbert Hainer said: "Today is a sad, dark day for FC Bayern and all its fans. Gerd Müller was the greatest striker there's ever been, and a fine person and character of world football. FC Bayern wouldn't be the club we all love today without Gerd Müller. His name and memory will live on forever." Former German national team goalkeeper Oliver Kahn added to the tributes, as he said Müller's "achievements are unrivaled to this day and will forever be a part of the great history of FC Bayern and all of German football. As a player and a person, Gerd Müller stands for FC Bayern and its development into one of the biggest clubs in the world like no other." He added: "Gerd will forever be in our hearts." Born on November 3, 1945, in Nördlingen, Bavaria, Müller had been suffering from dementia in recent years. He leaves behind his wife Uschi and a daughter.

9Sports

A 34-year old United States citizen who had been in Russia studying has been found dead after she went missing on Tuesday, local investigators said Saturday.  Russia's state Investigative Committee said it had opened a criminal probe into the disappearance of "a foreign citizen," adding that authorities had arrested a man in his early 40s over her death. Catherine Serou had been studying law at a university in the Nizhny Novgorod region, 420 kilometers (260 miles) east of Moscow, according to Russia's RIA news agency. She arrived in Russia from California three years ago, RIA reported. According to an Investigative Committee statement, the woman's whereabouts had been unknown since she left home on June 15 and got into a vehicle. "Today, as a result of a large-scale search operation, the girl's body was discovered," the Investigative Committee said in a statement, without naming her. Her last communication before going missing was with her mother just after 6:30 p.m. local time (1530 UTC) on Tuesday, telling her that she was traveling in a car with unknown people, investigators said. Serou's Mississippi-based mother told US public radio station NPR that her daughter had sent her a final text on Tuesday evening saying: "In a car with a stranger. I hope I'm not being abducted."  Beccy Serou said her daughter had been in a rush to return to a clinic where a payment had not gone through and so may have hitched a ride with a passing car. Catherine Serou was a former US Marine who had done a tour in Afghanistan. She had planned on returning to the US after her studies to pursue a career as an immigration lawyer, according to her mother and media reports. fb/jlw (AFP, Reuters) 

3Crime

At least six rangers were ambushed and killed by armed men in Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo on Sunday. Famous for its mountain gorillas, the UNESCO World Heritage site has been the site of persistent unrest as a wide variety of armed groups battle for control of oil and other rich mineral deposits. "Mai-Mai carried out an ambush at Nyamitwitwi in the far end of the park. The provisional toll is six park rangers killed along with two Mai-Mai," local government delegate Alphonse Kambale told AFP. Another park warden from the Congolese Institute for the Conservation of Nature (ICCN) was also seriously injured. Mai-Mai is an umbrella term for community-based militias. With a multi-ethnic population of over 100 million, the Democratic Republic of Congo is Africa's second-largest territorial state after Algeria and is almost seven times the size of Germany. It is also home to the largest remaining rainforest areas in Africa. Virunga park itself was created in 1925 and covers some 7,800 square kilometres (3,000 square miles). It is home to about a quarter of the world's critically endangered population of mountain gorillas, many of whom live within a protected area at the foot of the Nyiragongo volcano. The park is guarded by 689 armed rangers, at least 200 of whom have been killed in the line of duty over the past decade. In April 2020, a dozen rangers and 4 civilians were killed by a still unidentified group.   mb/aw (AFP, AP)

2Conflicts

As of Friday, all pandemic-related curbs in Denmark have been lifted. Mask mandates for inside public spaces and transport and limits on audience numbers for sporting events and concerts had already been nixed on September 1. Now, the last remaining restriction, the need to present a vaccine certificate to enter nightclubs or major social events like football matches, is no more. Denmark has a vaccination rate of 74.3% and a virus reproduction rate of only 0.7.  On Saturday, Copenhagen will host a sold-out concert for 50,000 people, a first in Europe since the pandemic began, and stadiums will be back to full capacity as the soccer season begins. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video A World Health Organization commission led by former Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti called for wide-ranging reforms to European health systems due to the global pandemic. It said the world was unprepared despite repeated warnings. The commission, operating from the WHO’s European regional bureau, which encompasses 53 countries including the EU’s 27-nation bloc as well as Russia and Turkey, recommended comprehensive reforms based on the "One Health" concept, or the idea of the interconnected nature of the health of humans, animals, plants and the environment. Additionally, the WHO said inequities must be confronted and greater investment was needed in health systems. In Germany, the CEO of the Mainz-based BioNTech, Özlem Türeci, told Der Spiegel magazine in an article published Friday that the company, which jointly developed a COVID-19 vaccine with US-based Pfizer, will apply for the vaccine's authorization from "authorities worldwide" for use in children aged 5-11 following the results of a study. The western German state of North Rhine-Westphalia will no longer pay compensation to unvaccinated people who are required to quarantine. Exceptions can be made for dose unable to be vaccinated due to health reasons.       According to North Rhine-Westphalia's regional health ministry, around  €120 million (nearly $142 million) has been paid out so far to people who have been forced to quarantine. In the UK, the fifth and final test match of a cricket series between England and India was called off Friday just two hours before it was set to begin in Manchester. India was unable to field a team owing to a COVID-19 outbreak among its support staff. Players were forced to isolate at their Manchester hotel after assistant physiotherapist Yogesh Parmar tested positive for COVID-19. Four other members of the coaching staff previously tested positive. In announcing the cancellation, the England and Wales cricket board said India was "regrettably unable to field a team." At first, it said India had therefore forfeited the game and the series score would be 2-2. But later it backtracked and said the final result was unclear; India held a 2-1 lead going into the last match. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video In Italy, a new "green pass" system has gone into effect, requiring inhabitants to show proof of vaccination in order to access most entertainment and cultural venues, as well as schools and universities for those who are old enough to get the vaccine. Opponents of the measure are planning to protest in Rome this weekend. A number of protest organizers had their homes searched on Thursday over suspicions they were planning violent attacks on the government and police. A day after it announced it would soon be relaxing its strict lockdown in Sydney, the government of New South Wales in Australia confirmed the state's highest caseload of COVID-19 infections since the pandemic began. Australia's "zero COVID" policy imposed a number of the strictest curbs on freedom of movement but kept infection rates relatively low in the country, at least until the delta variant emerged. On Friday, New South Wales said it had registered 1,542 locally transmitted cases the previous day, slightly exceeding the previous record. Vietnam approved the Chinese manufactured and UAE-packaged Hayat-Vax COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use, the seventh vaccine to be approved by the Southeast Asian nation. es/msh (AP, AFP, dpa, Reuters)

5Health

Germany's conservative opposition on Monday condemned plans for an EU "coalition of the willing" on asylum applicants. Members of the center-right bloc of the Christian Democrats and Christian Social Union (CSU) said the idea of a few member states acting alone was unworkable, and was a threat to the integrity of the EU. Countries such as Hungary and Poland categorically reject a system to distribute refugees among all EU member states. To end a stalemate that has lasted in EU asylum policy for years, German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser seeks to join with other countries to forge a common EU asylum system for member states that are willing. After a meeting with EU Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson in Berlin on Friday, Faeser said progress on such a coalition looked possible. She said and her first talks with France and Italy on the issues had been promising. A member of the center-left Social Democrats, Faeser said the situation at the border with Belarus, for example, showed that the European Union needed "an efficient and crisis-proof asylum system." Alexander Dobrindt, the CSU's deputy leader in the Bundestag, said he opposed the plan, as it would show "a lack of respect for the attitude of our neighboring countries." "Germany's responsibility is to bring Europe together on the big issues instead of dividing it," he said. Dobrindt told the DPA news agency it posed a risk to a Europe without internal border checks. "Anyone who unilaterally sets new incentives for more migration will jeopardize unity in Europe and the open borders in the EU." He said Faeser had failed to understand that the European Union means "rallying everyone behind one idea instead of pushing one's own ideology against others." Christoph de Vries, a CDU deputy and member of the Bundestag's Home Affairs Committee, told the mass-circulation Bild newspaper on Monday that Germany had "borne the biggest humanitarian burden in Europe for many years." "The top priority for a German interior minister now must be to send clear stop signals and not hand out new invitations," he said. The CDU was the senior coalition party when, as chancellor in 2015, Angela Merkel kept Germany borders open to more than a million asylum-seekers. Many came from Syria, but also from other parts of the Middle East and Africa. The CSU's Markus Ferber said migration "cannot be solved by a few states acting alone." Faeser should "spend more energy on working together in Europe than on splitting Europe," he told Bild. There was support for the plan from the Greens, who are part of the ruling coalition. "A coalition of the willing is the only way out," Anton Hofreiter, the chair of the European Affairs Committee in the Bundestag, told the AFP news agency. He said he did not see "at the moment that we can come to a common conclusion on this issue with member states like Hungary or Poland." Hofreiter also said "quite a number of cities and municipalities" were ready to take in refugees. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video rc/wmr (dpa, AFP)

7Politics

The European Parliament on Thursday adopted a resolution calling for strengthening the EU's ties with Taiwan, the bloc's legislature said in a statement.  The move comes amid heightened tensions between Beijing and Taipei.  Taiwan split from mainland China in 1949 and views itself as an independent state. Beijing considers the self-run island part of its territory and opposes Taiwan having any official diplomatic exchanges.  The non-binding resolution, adopted with a majority of 580 to 26 votes, urged a new investment deal between the EU and Taiwan.  Amid a global chip shortage, MEPs highlighted areas of cooperation with Taiwan, including "essential cooperation on critical supplies like semiconductors."  Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) said there was an urgent need to begin "an impact assessment, public consultation and scoping exercise on a bilateral investment agreement." China and the EU had struck a similar deal last year. But its ratification has been delayed by the European Parliament since China imposed sanctions on European lawmakers earlier this year.  Thursday's resolution demanded that the bloc's trade office in Taipei be renamed the "European Union office in Taiwan," effectively upgrading the mission.  The European Parliament also expressed "grave concern" over Beijing's increased "military belligerence, pressure, assault exercises, airspace violations and disinformation campaigns against Taiwan." Taipei has said there have been more than 150 incursions on its airspace by Chinese jets in recent weeks. "The European Parliament's first report on EU-Taiwan relations demonstrates that the EU is ready to upgrade its relationship with our key partner Taiwan," rapporteur Charlie Weimers said in a statement.  Weimers said the European Commission, the bloc's executive body, "must now intensify EU-Taiwan relations" and prepare for trade talks with Taiwanese officials.  Negotiations with Taipei to strengthen economic ties with the EU "must begin before the end of this year," Weimers said.   Taiwan's Foreign Ministry said the resolution would "set a new milestone" for its ties with the EU. Meanwhile, China's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin offered "strong condemnation."  "The EU parliament should immediately stop words and actions that undermine China's sovereignty and territorial integrity," he told reporters in Beijing, according to Reuters news agency. Wang also expressed "strong dissatisfaction" over Slovakia and the Czech Republic hosting a visit by Taiwan's Foreign Minister Joseph Wu next week. Beijing urged the two European countries not to "undermine the political foundation of bilateral relations." Earlier this month, China also reacted angrily after French lawmakers visited Taiwan and referred to the island as a country. fb/sms (AFP, Reuters)

7Politics

Switzerland has announced plans to build a nuclear waste storage facility on the border with Germany, leaving communities concerned about the issues of safety and clean drinking water supply.   The National Cooperative for the Disposal of Radioactive Waste (Nagra) is behind the proposal. It suggested the region of Nördlich Lägern, north of Zurich and close to the border with Germany, the Swiss Federal Office of Energy said.  Nagra was set up by power plant operators alongside the Swiss government to deal with the controversial question of how to dispose of radioactive waste.  The waste would be embedded in opalinus clay several hundred meters underground according to Patrick Studer, an official at Nagra.  "The required confinement time is around 200,000 years for high-level waste and around 30,000 years for low-level and intermediate-level waste," Nagra's website stated. The waste will be sourced from five Swiss nuclear power plants. Medical and industrial sectors will also be allowed to contribute their waste.  At the moment, four nuclear power plants are active in Switzerland. They may continue their operation as long as their safety is guaranteed. This would mean into the 2040s.  However, the so-called deep geological repository for spent nuclear fuel and other radioactive waste needs to be approved by both the Swiss government and parliament. This process is expected to take several years.  To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Concerns among German communities along the border are running high. Their concerns are primarily about the issues of safety and drinking water supply.  "The question of drinking water protection is a major concern to the population," said Martin Steinebrunner from the German coordination office for the planned waste facility. The German Federal Ministry for the Environment has criticized Switzerland's decision to build a nuclear waste repository right on the border to Germany.  The proximity of the planned site near the Baden-Württemberg village of Hohentengen "poses a problem both during the construction phase and during the operation of the repository," said Christian Kühn, Parliamentary State Secretary in the Environment Ministry and and a member of the German parliament (Bundestag) from Baden-Württemberg. At the same time Kühn stressed that it was "right and important" that geology be the decisive criterion for the site of a repository.  There were two other sites to choose from, which are also very close to the German border. In Germany, the decision for a dedicated repository site for highly radioactive nuclear waste will not be discussed until 2031 at the earliest. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video It is still unclear where the nuclear waste will be prepared and packaged for final storage should the waste storage facility be approved.  Nagra has said it will submit a planning application by 2024. The Swiss government then makes a decision on the application, and parliament must consent afterwards.  Taking this process into consideration, it is unlikely for the start of the storage facility to be anytime before around 2050.  los/wd (dpa, Reuters, AFP)

7Politics

The Russian Federation's exit from Europe's top human rights watchdog, the Council of Europe, has been condemned by human rights groups concerned about the impact on victims of the Kremlin's rights abuses. "Russia leaving the Council of Europe sends the message that its leadership disregards human rights," Philippe Dam, acting EU Director of Human Rights Watch, told DW. "The Kremlin is clearly trying to step away from any scrutiny over its actions against the rights of its people," he added. Russia's withdrawal announcement came during an emergency session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe to formally expel Moscow from the council over its invasion of Ukraine. In a statement released on its Telegram account, the Russian Foreign Ministry said it decided to "part with such a Council of Europe without regret." The Council of Europe was formed in 1949 and seeks to uphold human rights, democracy and the rule of law across Europe. Russia's withdrawal heralds the end of its 26-year membership in the body and also signals that Moscow is no longer required to abide by the laws of the council's international court — the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). The ECHR released a statement after Russia's withdrawal, saying the court had "decided to suspend the examination of all applications against the Russian Federation," until the legal implications of Russia leaving had been considered.  Natalia Prilutskaya, a researcher at Amnesty International focusing on Russia, told DW this was a devastating blow to the human rights of those whose cases against the Kremlin remain held up at the court and also for those who wish to file new claims. "Russia's withdrawal from the Council of Europe means even foreigners whose rights have been violated by the Kremlin, can't submit a case against Russia," she added. "They can apply to UN bodies but the process will be different." After Russia joined the Council of Europe in 1996, it was required to abide by the principles of the 47-member institution, which also prohibits the use of the death penalty. While some fear this could lead to a return of the death penalty in Russia, Prilutskaya cautioned that this was still unclear. "There is a ruling by the Russian Constitutional Court that forbids the use of death penalty. However, with increasingly more and more repressive legislation being passed in Russia, we have to wait and see what happens," she told DW. Yet, she noted how Russia's Council of Europe membership had resulted in marginally improving prisoners' rights. "In Russia, historically, a lot of the prison colonies are situated in remote areas of Siberia or the far north. Often prisoners are transported to these regions, far away from their families, and the transportation takes place in inhuman conditions," she told DW. "But following the ECHR judgments and through Russia's engagement with the Council of Europe, there have been certain changes in the legislation and marginal improvements." Despite being a member of the Council of Europe, a 2020 report by Human Rights Watch noted how Russian authorities continued to abuse human rights and restrict people's freedoms. Several cases filed by Russian citizens against the government also piled up at the ECHR, including the case of the poisoning of prominent Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. In 2021 alone, the court dealt with more than 6,000 applications concerning Russia. While how the court will address pending cases remains under consideration, Kanstantsin Dzehtsiarou, a professor in human rights law at the University of Liverpool and editor-in-chief of the European Convention on Human Rights Law Review, explained that there was a possibility of these pending cases remaining frozen. "Victims whose cases are piled up at the ECHR will be impacted because, even if the court makes a judgment on their cases, it is unclear whether Russia will pay the compensation fees," he told DW. In 2018, Moscow declined to pay its dues to the Council of Europe after being denied voting rights following its annexation of Crimea. Dzehtsiarou added that a similar situation could follow under current circumstances. He also highlighted other legal implications related to Russia's withdrawal from the ECHR. "There will be no Russian judge present in the council anymore, which is a technical consequence and can limit the cases. We have to wait and see how the ECHR will decide the legal implications of this withdrawal," he said. According to a Council of Europe spokesperson, "The legal and financial consequences of Russia's exclusion are due to be considered by the Council of Europe's Committee of Ministers next week." To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch's Dam stressed that international bodies like the UN Human Rights Council should now set up specific mechanisms to strengthen scrutiny over Russia's human rights actions. He said he also hopes that Russia would eventually consider re-engaging with the Council of Europe so the victims of the Kremlin's human rights abuses could get justice.  Amnesty's Prilutskaya stressed that a first step forward to continue helping victims of rights abuses in Russia would be to support organizations and independent media both inside and outside the country that focus on highlighting human rights violations in Russia.  "It is important to continue direct communication with Russia to get back on the path of observing human rights," she explained. "Having a totally isolated and self-isolating country on the European continent would be very counterproductive."   Edited by: Andreas Illmer

7Politics

When Antonina Samoilova reached the top of Mount Everest with more than a dozen other climbers from commercial teams, she did so with a Ukrainian flag flying on her backpack. Before climbing to the summit of the highest mountain in the world at 8,849 meters, the 33-year old posted on Instagram, it was "one more reminder to the world that Ukraine is still fighting and we will fight until we win." Of 317 foreign climbers, Samoilova was the only Ukrainian permitted by the Nepalese government to take on Everest. Most Ukrainian climbers have abandoned their plans for the climbing season in the Himalayas because of the Russian invasion of their homeland. The number of summit-reaching hopefuls from Russia was however, in the same region as 2021 when, despite the rampant spread of COVID-19, the government handed out a record 408 climbing permits. Ahead of this climbing season in Nepal, voices grew louder about banning Russian climbers, as other sports have done. The government in Kathmandu had not responded to this demand. Nepal, unlike its neighbours India and Pakistan, voted in favor of a UN resolution strongly condemning the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Everest climbs being used to deliver political or social messages is not uncommon. The highest mountain in the world is probably the only one lodged in people's minds and guarantees attention. Successfully climbing the mountain hasn't been an exclusive pursuit for a long time. Since New Zealander Edmund Hillary and Nepalese Sherpa Tenzing Norgay first climbed the mountain in 1953, there have been around 10,000 ascents. Only 2% of these were achieved without using bottled oxygen. Without the support of Sherpas, almost everyone trying to climb the mountain would never have made it past the 5,300 meter-high base camp. But such details hardly play a role in public perception. Those who make it on to Everest usually enjoy a certain visibility. This is true not only for Samoilova, but also for the eleven members of the "Full Circle Everest" team, the first Everest expedition made up entirely of Black climbers. Eight of them reportedly reached the summit on May 12 (with bottled oxygen). The project generated plenty of advance media interest thanks to the team's political message. "This expedition will showcase the tenacity and strength of these climbers, and highlight the barriers that continue to exist for Black communities in accessing the outdoors," is how the group described their ascent. "This historic attempt will inspire the next generation of outdoor enthusiasts, educators, leaders, and mountaineers of colour to continue chasing their personal summits." Previously, only nine Black people had climbed Everest. The first was the American Sophia Danenberg in 2006, a feat that largely failed to draw any significant attention. Today, the 50-year-old analyzes environmental policy for US aviation company Boeing. Danenberg expects that the next ten to 15 years will bring real change. "I believe there will be a lot more Black climbers in the next 10, 15 years," she said in an interview with the award-winning climbing blog "Adventure Mountain". "As more Black people do it and introduce it to their children and communities, I believe the number of Black climbers will grow exponentially." This article was originally written in German.

9Sports

As President Xi Jinping embarks upon a third term, there is little sign of a thawing in relations between Beijing and Washington. Indeed, the relationship between the global powers has been particularly strained in recent years, but it took another turn for the worse when US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan in August. Last week, Xi said Beijing and Washington needed to find ways to "get along," adding that it's important for China and the US to strengthen cooperation and communication for global stability and certainty. "China is willing to work with the US to give mutual respect, coexist peacefully ... [and] find ways to get along in the new era," Xi wrote in a letter to the National Committee on US-China Relations. Additionally, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi held talks last month with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and US Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns. He warned the United States not to contain China's development and reiterated that Beijing and Washington wouldn't be able to "change each other." "China-US relations are at a critical juncture. The international community, in general, expects to see a stable development of this relationship," Wang said, according to a readout issued by the Chinese government. "The US should not attempt to communicate with China from a position of strength or to attempt to suppress and contain China's development." The latest statements followed the conclusion of the Chinese Communist Party's 20th Party Congress, during which Xi highlighted external attempts to "blackmail, contain, blockade, and exert maximum pressure" on China and warned of the "choppy waters and dangerous storms" ahead. Some analysts say there is no evidence that Xi is ready to soften his approach towards the US or that he believes doing so would help improve bilateral relations. "To the contrary, the message emanating from the Party Congress was that China faces an increasingly hostile external environment and that it must persevere with international pressure to grow its strength until such a point that the rest of the world is forced to accommodate itself to China's power," Ryan Hass, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute, told DW. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Others think Xi's speech and the work report show that China may be aware of the growing challenges it faces at home and abroad over the next five years. "These challenges stem in large part from its intensifying strategic competition with the US, which Beijing sees as both opportunities — as the balance of power shifted and US power declines relatively — and risks, as China is not yet strong enough to be the US's peer," Ivy Kwek, a fellow for China at the International Crisis Group (ICG), told DW.  "There is also an elevated sense of threat on China's part, with heavy mentions of foreign interference in the report. Nevertheless, China's characterization of its standing in the world is still confident, even though it is more subdued compared to the 19th Party Congress," Kwek said. Though White House officials say both sides are "working out the modalities" for a possible meeting between Xi and Biden, some experts say the olive branch would be meaningless if it doesn't come with assurances. "The statement about improving relations was conditional on China's counterpart acceding to whatever China's demands and threats are without any indication that there would be a change in China's behavior or a reciprocal measure that would recognize that other countries have interests," Drew Thompson, a visiting senior research fellow at the National University of Singapore and a former US defense official, told DW. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video "I didn't see any indication that there was accommodation occurring in Beijing or reassurances being offered. It's very performative. Every time there is a discussion about that, Chinese official statements are very clear that China will not compromise one inch in any of its disputes, which really disincentivizes dialogue," he said. Thompson said China's relationship with the United States and other countries had now entered a period of "consequence management." "The era of competition is pretty clear in the minds of China's major trading partners, and the question is: How are those countries going to compete?" he said. "I think it's going to continue to be the combination of self-investment. And that's been the Biden administration's approach." An area where experts foresee competition between China and the US to intensify is technology as Washington introduced a series of export control measures to prevent Chinese companies from acquiring advanced semiconductor chips and relevant equipment without licenses. In response to the Biden administration's moves, during the Party Congress Xi urged China to increase self-reliance on technology and supply chains. He highlighted the importance of Beijing's focusing on basic research and innovation in key areas. "Xi Jinping is pretty convinced that they are going to have to decisively try to go alone, and the old model, where they would learn from the West and technological cooperation would eventually benefit China, is not going to work for them anymore," Dexter Roberts, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, told DW. "He is convinced that China must become far more self-reliant in technology, but I think that's going to be very difficult if not impossible. I think it will accelerate the process of decoupling. We are already seeing big multinationals that are telling their suppliers that they need to diversify out of China," he said. Roberts said the decoupling and sanctions were happening because of the hostility between China and the United States. "The more that Xi Jinping says we are going to fight and there is a struggle ahead, the more politicians will react and say this is a person we can't trust," he said. "He wants to fight, and it's self-reinforcing. I think the hostility will get worse with decoupling." To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Apart from competition in the core technology sector, Kwek, from ICG, said China would also try to gain control over the global narrative by promoting what it calls "major-country diplomacy with Chinese characteristics." "Beijing is attempting to distinguish itself from, and to delegitimize, what it sees as Washington's approach to international affairs," she said. "It insists that it practices 'true multilateralism' — noninterfering and never seeking hegemony — as opposed to what it called 'unilateral, hegemonic and exclusive' US behaviors." During his speech at the Party Congress, Xi said China would "remain firm in pursuing an independent foreign policy of peace" and "never seek hegemony or engage in expansion." Kwek said this was part of a trend. "China is increasingly investing more into projecting a more positive image for itself to increase its global influence and win friends," she said. "The recently launched Global Development Initiative and Global Security Initiative being the case in point." Dali Yang, a political scientist at the University of Chicago, told DW that, as the Party Congress reflects rthe current state of US-China relations. "Part of the recognition, as the relationship between China and the US has been reset, is that both sides are on the same wavelength as they say this is a more competitive relationship," Yang said. But, with national security being the dominant theme throughout the 20th Party Congress, Yang said the bilateral relationship would be largely viewed through this perspective. "Everything now is being reflected through the national security lens," he said. Edited by: John Silk

7Politics

German Transport Minister Volker Wissing has said Berlin will not set an upper limit for the number of refugees it accepts fleeing Ukraine.  Wissing said Germany still needed to be prepared for the unexpected, with more than 5 million people already having already fled Ukraine since Russia started its war on February 24. Wissing, from the neoliberal Free Democrats, the told Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland media group there was no possibility of Germany setting a limit on refugee numbers. "This question does not arise. Germany cannot and will not turn back any refugees from Ukraine," said Wissing. The minister said his department had done its utmost to bring refugees in from Poland, which has taken the largest share of Ukrainian refugees of any country. "We have very quickly ensured that fleeing people from Ukraine can be transported to Germany from Poland. There are hubs in Hanover, Cottbus and Berlin for distribution."  To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Wissing said the number of people fleeing to Germany by train has since dropped significantly, compared to the peak period at the beginning of the war. "From 8,200 to currently around 2,500 people per day," Wissing said. However, he added that there could still be an upsurge in the numbers arriving. If there is a threat of congestion in neighboring Ukrainian countries, he said, Germany must again push for EU-wide distribution. "We are maintaining the logistics and transport structures because we cannot predict the course of the war and can experience an increase in refugee numbers at any time," he stressed. "We have to expect further escalation and be prepared. People in need in Ukraine should be able to find refuge in Germany." Wissing said the pressure on Poland had been enormous, with some 120,000 Ukrainians fleeing there every day at one point. Warsaw alone has more than 300,000 refugees, he said. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video A survey for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung showed that two-thirds of Germans have either been involved in refugee aid themselves or know someone who has helped Ukrainian refugees. Some 44% of respondents had themselves become personally involved, for example, by donating money or goods or by taking people in. Meanwhile, 49% said they knew someone who has been involved. Just over 30% said they had neither been active and did not know anyone who had already helped. The pollsters reportedly interviewed around 1,000 people aged 16 and over. According to figures released by German police last week, Germany has taken in some 320,000 refugees from the Ukraine war, although the real number is likely to be higher. rc/fb (AFP, KNA)

7Politics

When she was a child, Karyna Kazlouskaya never imagined she would get to compete at the Olympics. Archery was just a hobby for her, one of many sports she practised with her friends.  The more she trained, however, the more she found she was good at it, and the hobby became her profession. A fourth-place finish in the team event at the Tokyo Games in 2021 was the culmination of years of effort and improvement. But what should have been the fulfillment of a dream turned out to be a nightmare for Kazlouskaya. She was riddled with anxiety throughout the competition, because she had dared speak out against the leader of her country, Alexander Lukashenko. "There was a lot of stress," Kazlouskaya told DW. "I really wanted to show what I could do because you only have that kind of big competition maybe once in a lifetime. But I wasn't able to relax." "I was under the control of the Belarusian Olympic Committee, and there were a lot of things I wasn't allowed to do. They even put someone with us, probably from the KGB [the Belarusian secret service], who observed us when we were shooting." At a time when the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is pushing for a reintegration of Russian and Belarusian athletes, despite Russia's war in Ukraine, government critics like Kazlouskaya have been left in limbo. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video She is among more than one hundred Belarusian sportspeople who have fallen foul of Lukashenko's regime. Since his controversial August 2020 re-election, which led to months of mass protests, openly dissenting athletes have been detained, lost their government-sponsored jobs and — as was the case for Kazlouskaya — been forced off national teams. For the purposes of international competition, they are effectively stateless, ostracized for their political views. Even if other athletes from Belarus are eventually allowed to compete in Paris, Kazlouskaya won't be among them as things currently stand. On Friday, Poland's sports minister mooted the idea of creating a refugee team made up of Russian and Belarusian dissident athletes. However, it is unclear how this would work in the context of the current Olympic refugee team, and given the fact that some dissident athletes are in the process of changing, or have changed, nationality. Asked if she felt abandoned by the IOC, Kazlouskaya said: "Yes, there is that sense," adding that two letters she sent to the organization about her plight went unanswered. "They just left us, the people who suffered under the regime. They didn't do anything," she said. Ever since signing an open letter in 2020 demanding new elections, Kazlouskaya, 22, says she has endured threats and intimidation. Fearing for her safety, she decided to flee Belarus last April and continue her archery career in neighboring Poland. "The head of the Belarusian federation put a lot of pressure on me," Kazlouskaya said. "He said that I should stop my political activity and stay quiet. I had those sorts of conversations a lot." "Everything got worse after the war started. We started getting checked by the sports ministry for everything. And I realized that either it would be my last year as an athlete or I would have to leave the country." The IOC's Olympic Charter requires National Olympic Committees (NOCs) to "take action against any form of discrimination and violence in sport." Failure to do so can result in a NOC being suspended and its athletes barred from Olympic events. Earlier this month, the Belarusian Sport Solidarity Foundation (BSSF), an opposition athlete-led movement, called on the IOC to defend Belarusian athletes punished by the authorities, declaring that they "should be granted the right to participate in sports competitions and saved from persecution by the Lukashenko regime for their civic position." The IOC was approached for comment on the BSSF's declaration and how it is protecting dissident athletes, but it didn't respond before the publication deadline. It also failed to answer why it hadn't suspended the Belarusian NOC — which is headed by Alexander Lukashenko's son, Viktor — for appearing to breach the Olympic Charter. The BSSF was set up to provide financial and legal assistance to opposition athletes. They include Kazlouskaya and sprinter Krystsina Tsimanouskaya, who made headlines at the Tokyo Games when she refused to get on a flight back to Belarus, following public criticism of her coaches and an ensuing backlash at home. Like Kazlouskaya, Tsimanouskaya now lives and trains in Poland. She has joined an athletics club in Warsaw and takes part in local competitions with other international athletes. Even though the 26-year-old has obtained Polish citizenship, Olympic rules mean she must wait three years before she can represent her adopted country. Unless the Belarusian NOC waives this 'cooling off' period, she also has little chance of making it to Paris. "The athletes and coaches that currently represent the Belarusian team were chosen according to political principles and not athletic ones," Tsimanouskaya told DW. "Only people loyal to the regime are in the team at the moment, people who were approved by the KGB. That violates the principles of Olympism and the rights of athletes like me. It looks like we don't have any rights." Tsimanouskaya says she too has received "zero" support from the IOC. She claims officials haven't contacted her since the day she landed in Poland from Tokyo, and that she never heard back from them after applying for a financial grant through the Olympic solidarity fund. The IOC was offered the chance to respond to Tsimanouskaya's claims. It didn't reply. As far as BSSF director Alexander Opeikin is concerned, it is a classic example of the organization's hypocrisy. "If they speak about 'human rights' regarding official Belarusian and Russian athletes, why don't they care about the rights of other Belarusian athletes who were repressed?" Opeikin said in a phone message. Tsimanouskaya says she is looking forward to running for Poland one day, a sign of her gratitude to the country for accepting her. But she knows that several of her former teammates aren't in such a position. "It's clear that I won't be representing Belarus again," Tsimanouskaya said. "But at the very least I want my country to be free and for the war to stop." "I would just like the International Olympic Committee to hear our voices, the voices of the athletes who have faced repression. For them to hear our voices and to exercise our rights in some way." To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video

9Sports

Short of armed intervention, sanctions are one of the United States' most aggressive weapons against what it sees as bad behavior and for advancing its interests abroad. In Germany, nonprofit organizations are a common way to advance projects without the tax or regulatory requirements of private corporations. The two countries' finance-political tools are coming head-to-head in the northern German state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, where a high-stakes showdown is simmering over global energy and climate security. Since 2019, the threat of US sanctions has left the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline about 94% complete. If finished, the 1,230-kilometer (764-mile) pipeline will terminate in Lubmin, a coastal village in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, and more than double Germany's imports of Russian natural gas. On Friday, Germany's federal maritime authority again approved extending the project's operational time frame due to "unforeseen delays outside German waters." Sanctions would target private companies involved in the project. Earlier this month, the state government of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania established a public foundation that could take over potentially sanctionable activity because the foundation "does not have to fear sanctions," a spokesperson for the state's Energy Ministry told DW. "The foundation could offer the possibility of acquiring necessary parts and machinery for pipeline construction and, as necessary, make them available to the participating companies," the spokesperson, Renate Gundlach, said in a statement. "The goal is to secure these highly specialized items, which only a few companies in the world produce before they would be potentially no longer available to acquire because of sanctions." It is unclear if such a plan could avoid sanctions, which have bipartisan support in Washington. President-elect Joe Biden has also expressed his opposition to Nord Stream 2. A new round of sanctions could extend to public institutions, although that "would be a game changer," German MP Claudia Müller, whose constituency is from Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, told German newspaper Die Welt. About €250,000 ($303,000) for the foundation, named the Climate and Environmental Protection MV, comes from state coffers. The Nord Stream 2 building company has pledged an initial €20 million ($24 million). That gives the company's owner, Russia's partially state-run energy conglomerate, Gazprom, some say over the foundation's activities and leadership. The financing and organizational structure give critics — who span the United States, the European Union, and some German officials — more reason to oppose a project they have long warned gives Russia dangerous influence over Germany and Europe. "There are numerous reasons to be skeptical of this foundation as reported, particularly because of a lack of transparency and the fact it is almost wholly Russian-funded. This Russian funding is further proof that Nord Stream 2 is not just another commercial deal. Calling it an environmental protection measure also flies in the face of the numerous German and other environmental organizations opposed to Nord Stream 2," a US Embassy spokesperson in Berlin told DW. The US has expressed interest in selling its own natural gas to the EU. Several EU member states oppose the project for similar reasons. The European Parliament has said Nord Stream 2 "threatens Europe's security and efforts to diversify energy supplies," and wants the project abandoned. German government officials, including Chancellor Angela Merkel, have often tried to keep business relations with Russia separate from political and security conflicts. Proponents say the project is essential for Germany and the EU. A report from April 2020, commissioned by Nord Stream 2 and provided to DW by the Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania Energy Ministry, shows it would provide only a small bump in gas imports EU-wide between now and 2040. Additional sources would be necessary to cover the shortfall.   To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Deutsche Umwelthilfe, a German environmental group, has accused the state government of "abusing foundation law" and is preparing a lawsuit against it. In a joint statement on Thursday, some of Germany's largest environmental organizations rejected any cooperation with what they called a "sham." "Nonprofit foundations are a social achievement to serve the common good," said Michael Succow, a prominent German conservationist. "This foundation threatens the credibility of Germany's entire foundation system." Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania's Energy Ministry declined to respond to the accusations. The foundation's charter does lay out general support for tackling climate change and protecting the environment. It also specifically aims to hasten pipeline completion: "The state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania stands by the pipeline. Gas is the most climate-friendly transition technology to guarantee the necessary energy supply. A secure supply of gas is in the interest of the people of Germany, Europe, and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania." Those claims are disputed. Natural gas emits less carbon dioxide and is more efficient when burned than coal or oil, but energy experts say that overlooks the climate and environmental impacts of exploring, developing, and extracting natural gas at their sources, and then transporting it. Leaks and losses along the way may emit far more methane, another greenhouse gas, than previously thought. Proponents of Nord Stream 2, and natural gas more broadly, consider the fossil fuel a "bridge technology" to a carbon-neutral energy mix. That is especially the case in Germany, where a movement against nuclear power following the 2011 Fukushima disaster succeeded in accelerating the phase-out of Germany's nuclear power plants. The country's transition to renewable power sources (the "Energiewende") took hold around the same time, but they still do not meet demand. Environmental groups and many energy analysts consider natural gas a crutch, not a bridge. "Instead of fake environmental foundations that damage the climate, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania should focus its current policy on a dedicated expansion of renewable energy," Claudia Kemfert, a leading climate policy researcher at the German Institute for Economic Research, said in a tweet. "The fossil fuel of natural gas is a bridge to nowhere. We need future technologies, not bridge technologies."

7Politics

Bayern Munich 2-1 Lazio, Allianz Arena (Lewandowski pen 33', Choupo-Moting 73' – Parolo 82') Bayern won 6-2 on aggregate It would be fair to say that there have been simmering tensions between Hansi Flick, Bayern Munich's coach, and Hasan Salihamidzic, the club's sporting director. The build-up to Lazio's visit to Munich on Wednesday night saw Flick having to defend his position as chief decision-maker, specifically around the number of minutes being given to Alexander Nübel, the goalkeeper signed from Schalke last year as Manuel Neuer's understudy. Nübel has reportedly been promised 10 games a season, but has so far played just twice. This appears to have caused friction between Flick and his sporting director, who Flick says does not have any say in team selections — nor does Flick know anything about agreements made to individual players. With Bayern comfortably 4-1 ahead from the first leg in Rome, Nübel lined up in goal on Tuesday in Munich, delivering a competent performance on a night when he was rarely tested, despite conceding to a late Marco Parolo header. After the game, Flick confirmed that a conversation had taken place between himself and Salihamidzic earlier in the day. "We have both approached each other and sorted it out, in the best interests of the club. It was a short conversation. Both of us are very optimistic for the rest of the season, for our future," Flick told Sky television. "It was important for both of us, for the team and the club." Bayern's Joshua Kimmich also spoke about the issue after the game: "You get to hear what is what is written outside, what is discussed. At the end of the day, it would be better for our success if there was peace and quiet, especially internally. If we give fuel to the outside world, I think it doesn't help us as a team," he told Sky. "As far as I know, our coach still has a contract for a while. From that point of view, I'm quite relaxed about it." Lazio put up a decent fight on the night, but the 6-2 aggregate scoreline says it all. Over the two legs Bayern were smarter, shrewder and more measured in front of goal than their Italian opponents, who gave away a needless penalty in the first half. The moment Robert Lewandowski sent Pepe Reina the wrong way from 12 yards, the game's intensity had gone and Bayern knew the rest was just a formality. Bayern didn't need to be at their best to get through and Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting added the gloss with a neatly-taken second. It was all too easy, and for the ninth time in 10 seasons, Bayern are into the final eight of the Champions League. And once more, they have all the tools to go all the way – with only Manchester City currently looking capable of challenging Bayern's status as continental champions. "There are eight teams left, the best of the best will play each other. That's exactly where we want to be and where we feel comfortable," said Flick. "Now it's important that we get a good opponent and then deliver two top games. We want to finish the season as successfully as possible."

9Sports

Two men have been arrested in Estonia for allegedly defrauding hundreds of thousands of investors to the tune of $575 million (€562 million) through a bogus cryptocurrency scheme. The suspects were arrested on Sunday as part of a joint operation between Estonian police and the FBI in the US that involved more than 100 officers. "This is one of the largest fraud cases we've ever had in Estonia," said Oskar Gross, head of the Estonian police force's cybercrime bureau. Washington has requested extradition of the two men, the police said in a statement. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Police allege that the men tricked hundreds of thousands of people to invest in a cryptocurrency bank called Polybius Bank and buy contracts for a mining service called HashFlare between 2015 and 2019. However, prosecutors said these businesses operated as pyramid schemes. "These defendants capitalized on both the allure of cryptocurrency, and the mystery surrounding cryptocurrency mining, to commit an enormous Ponzi scheme," Seattle US Attorney Nick Brown said. Police added that "fraud proceeds were allegedly laundered through real estate purchases and shell companies." Four other people living in Estonia, Belarus and Switzerland were also charged, but their identities were not released. zc/wmr (AP, AFP)

3Crime

Ukraine's Klitschko brothers, former heavyweight boxing champions of the world and pro-democracy activists, have joined the front lines of the battle to save Kyiv from Russian occupation.  "Klitschko," an award-winning documentary about boxing brothers Wladimir and Vitali Klitschko — the current mayor of Kyiv — men who have become symbols of resistance against Russia's military invasion of Ukraine, will now be screened around Germany to raise funds for victims of the war. The proceeds from the screenings in over 450 cinemas on March 20 will go to the "A Heart for Children" campaign for aid projects in Ukraine. "The response of German cinemas to our initiative has been overwhelming," Cineplex Group CEO Kim Ludolf Koch told German press agency, dpa. "All the major chains and also many independent houses immediately agreed to participate." To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video The 2011 film by German documentary-maker Sebastian Dehnhardt tells the story of the lives of the two legendary Ukrainian boxing world champions: From their childhood in Ukraine and their beginnings as kickboxers to their move to Germany as young boxing hopefuls and their great successes — and defeats — as international champions. Mother Nadesha and father Vladimir, who has since passed away, also have their say. A diverse mix of interviews combined with very private archive material — and intense, up-close fight sequences — show why the brothers stick together, and the source of their will to persevere. As the Los Angeles Times wrote: "Though this artful film … does not stint on inside-the-ring footage, its main attraction is the intense interpersonal dynamic between the brothers." The two fighters had to promise their mother Nadesha very early on that they would never box against each other. "The same blood flows in your veins, after all," she says in the film. Although Sebastian Dehnhardt's documentary also deals in detail with the sporting merits of the fraternal fighters, he also aims in creating an intimate portrait of two brothers and their parents and confidants. In the boxing ring, the Klitschkos were considered heroes, and they became figures of identification for young and old alike in Ukraine. This was not least because of their discipline, their pronounced sense of family, and strong sense of social responsibility. Vitali, the 50-year-old older brother, has been mayor of Kyiv since 2014. Since Putin's attack on their homeland, his brother Wladimir, five years younger, has also been with him, working together to organize Ukrainian resistance against Russian troops. Former world-class athletes Vitali and Wladimir Klitschko are now fighting their toughest battle in the defense of their homeland. sb/eg (with dpa)

4Culture

One wonders if International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach feels sorry for himself — having to pose for photographers alongside Chinese President Xi Jinping as the strongman showers him with praise and accolades. Xi Jinping is responsible for grave human rights abuses — for the repression, internment and torture of hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs; for putting Hong Kong's democracy in a stranglehold; and for blocking his own people's access to a free press and internet to ensure they never learn the truth. Still, there is nothing Thomas Bach can do other than repeat his mantra that the IOC is politically neutral. That the IOC has no mandate to criticize the human rights situation beyond the games. But can such arguments offer him comfort when he has to look himself in the mirror each night at his luxury Beijing hotel? Xi Jinping, on the other hand, has made no attempt to curb his enthusiasm when it comes to drawing the connection between sports and politics. As always, the Olympics are a wonderful opportunity to stage a propaganda show. And in the face of growing international criticism, it would seem they are Xi's last "soft power" tool. Thus, he gave no heed to the financial or environmental cost, creating a winter sports region from scratch where none had been prior to the games and none will be thereafter — because China simply isn't a winter sports nation. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video At least it isn't yet. In its bid to host the games, Beijing boasted that 300 million Chinese would become winter sports enthusiasts by the time they started — a massive market. In mid-January, Xi proudly announced that things had gone even better than planned and that China now has 349 million winter sports enthusiasts. If those numbers are really true — it is impossible to check this supposed fact in China — it would be a boon to the flagging international ski industry, which is currently suffering the affects of climate change, like the fact that less snow is falling and that Western skiers and snowboarders are growing more concerned with sustainability.  But it would be too shortsighted to think the financial boost a Winter Olympics might give the global ski industry would be reason to award the games to Beijing. Nor were the roughly $1.5 billion (€1.3 billion) the games created for the IOC's coffers the reason Beijing got the nod. Sponsoring funds and TV broadcast rights can be had in other countries — democratic countries that respect human rights.  The problem is, no such countries placed bids to host the games. Of the nine sites originally in the running to host the games this year, seven withdrew their bids — all seven were democratic, winter sports countries. Citizens there were given a say, and most found the price for hosting the games — which, unlike profits, is foisted on the community's taxpayers — too high. After that, only two hopeful autocracies remained: With Almaty, Kazakhstan and Beijing vying for the honors. So, if we wish to keep criticism of Beijing from becoming so much elevated small talk, we must ask ourselves a few fundamental questions. Do we — as nations, as fans, as winter sports enthusiasts and as active participants — still even want Winter Olympic Games? Do we still believe in the Olympic idea? In the idea of peaceful athletic competition among equals, with no discrimination? Also, couldn't the games be staged in less bombastic terms — for instance, by using existing winter sports infrastructure and venues instead of further destroying nature to build new ones? Can we skip the megalomaniacal show that the IOC seems to hold so dearly? Shouldn't the way revenue and expenses are distributed be revamped? Does the IOC need to be completely overhauled? If the answer is yes to any of these questions, then Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo have a chance to make things better in four years' time. Then we could celebrate the accomplishments of winter athletes and criticize China at the same time. And that would leave only one last question: Where is Peng Shuai?   This article was translated from German by Jon Shelton. The figure on IOC's profits was corrected down in this translation on February 3.

9Sports

A stark picture of an unfolding climate crisis that is especially impacting vulnerable communities fills the latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the United Nations body for assessing the science related to climate change. "The most striking thing about this report is the reality that climate impacts are already unfolding in really ghastly, deadly ways around the world [and] already having profound impacts on food systems. So this is not about some future that's yet to come, it's already here in many places," said Rachel Cleetus, policy director and lead economist for the Climate and Energy Program at the Washington, D.C.-based Union of Concerned Scientists. "Today's IPCC report is an atlas of human suffering and a damning indictment of failed climate leadership," said UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres. Themed on climate impacts, adaptation and vulnerability, the second installment of the IPCC's sixth assessment report builds on a first edition focused on the physical science of climate systems and intensifying climate change. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Authored by 270 scientists who assessed over 34,000 studies, the report singles out Africa, Asia, Central and South America, small island nations and the Arctic as areas that are especially being impacted by heatwaves, droughts, floods and rising seas — weather extremes that are also driving biodiversity loss and mass mortalities in species such as trees and corals. In Africa, for example, climate change has caused a 34% reduction in agricultural productivity since 1961, which is more than any other region, according to the report. Future warming is expected to shorten growing seasons and worsen water stress.  "Somalia has been the hardest hit by climate change in the globe," said Walter Mawere, the advocacy and communications coordinator for humanitarian NGO Care International in Somalia. He describes over 2,400 camps for the internally displaced in the country that are filling with families fleeing an ongoing drought, and previous extreme flooding. "The flooding has left 70% of the population without access to clean water," he explained during a briefing preceding the report's release. The IPCC report is also "a dire warning about the consequences of inaction," said Hoesung Lee, Chair of the IPCC. "Our actions today will shape how people adapt and nature responds to increasing climate risks." In response to worsening global climate impacts, the report specifically refers to "equity and justice" for impacted communities — and especially vulnerable communities in less economically countries. "The recognition of justice is integral to the way we address the climate crisis," said Rachel Cleetus. The report therefore looks at socioeconomic and structural factors that cause some populations "to be disproportionately impacted by climate change," she added. After the perceived failure of COP26 to commit funds to address adaptation, and rising climate-driven loss and damage, the report details the need for greater climate financing. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Currently, however, more than 90% of climate funds go to mitigation rather than adaptation — which is "way below most estimates of the cost of adaptation needed today to manage the risks of climate change over the next ten to 20 years," said IPCC report lead author Mark New, who is director of the African Climate and Development Initiative at the University of Cape Town. Meanwhile, only about 10 to 15% of available adaptation finance is made available to climate vulnerable local communities, according to New. The report calls for a balance of climate finance to be invested in adaptation. "Adaptation and mitigation must be pursued with equal force and urgency," said Antonio Guterres. Building on the renewed focus on adaptation at COP26, the IPCC reconfirms the need for richer nations to "provide higher levels of financial support for adapting to climate shocks … and addressing the costs of loss and damage experienced by poorer countries," said Camilla Toulmin, Senior Fellow, International Institute for Environment & Development. The world's poorest people "contribute least to the problem of climate change" yet suffer the most devastating impacts, she added. In Sub-Saharan Africa, for example, the average per capita carbon footprint in 2020 is around 0.1 tons per year compared to up to 15 tons in Australia, Canada and the US.   The report also focuses on the importance of reversing the threat to biodiversity as part of adaptation. "Protecting and restoring nature will help store more of the carbon we emit, and make our landscapes more resilient to the growing extremes that climate change inflicts on every species on our planet," said Kate Jones, chair of ecology & biodiversity, University College London. "This report recognizes the interdependence of climate, biodiversity and people," said Hoesung Lee.   Promoting "healthy ecosystems" is another important adaptation measure aimed at fostering climate resilience by ensuring reliable access to food and clean water.  To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video "By restoring degraded ecosystems and effectively and equitably conserving 30 to 50 per cent of Earth's land, freshwater and ocean habitats, society can benefit from nature's capacity to absorb and store carbon," said IPCC Working Group II Co-Chair Hans-Otto Pörtner of the ecosystems-based approach. He added, however, that "adequate finance and political support are essential." Looking ahead to November's COP27, the first climate conference to be hosted in Africa, Toulmin was encouraged by the fact that the Africa chapter in the report was, for the first time, authored exclusively by regional experts who can provide "African negotiators with a much stronger case." Meanwhile, Russia's invasion of Ukraine inevitably influenced the final review of the IPCC report, with Ukraine's delegation of authors having to withdraw from the process to hide in bunkers. "There's this connection," said Svitlana Krakovska, a climate scientist heading the Ukrainian delegation, of the role of oil and gas in simultaneously unfolding war and climate crises. "All the money for this aggression comes from oil, from fossil fuels. The more we use this, the more we sponsor this aggression," she said.  Edited by: Tamsin Walker

6Nature and Environment

Danish artist Jens Galschiot has hired a lawyer to secure a sculpture installed at the University of Hong Kong's campus after HKU ordered its removal last week. Authorities said it must be removed by 5 p.m. (local time) on Wednesday. The sculpture, named Pillar of Shame, was installed in Hong Kong in 1997, the year the territory was returned to China. The 8-meter (26-foot) piece of art mourns the people killed by Chinese troops around Beijing's Tiananmen Square in 1989. According to the university, the removal of the sculpture, which shows 50 bodies of democracy protesters, was ordered on "legal advice" as Beijing cracks down on dissent in the former British colony. "I hope that my ownership of the sculpture will be respected and that I will be able to transport the sculpture out of Hong Kong under orderly conditions and without it having suffered from any damage," Galshiot told the AFP news agency, adding that he had engaged a local lawyer and requested a hearing with HKU. Earlier, Galschiot had threatened to seek redress from Hong Kong's oldest university should his sculpture be damaged when removed from campus. The university engaged the services of Mayer Brown, a Chicago-founded global law firm, according to The Washington Post. The firm is known for its work on police accountability and civil rights issues in the United States.  Several nonprofit groups urged Mayer Brown to stop representing HKU, as the act stood against the firm's mission to make a "positive difference in the lives of others." As the deadline approaches, students and residents flocked to the sculpture to take close-up pictures of the faces, some mid-scream, as efforts were underway to create 3-D models of the memorial. The artist, who has given his consent for making smaller models, said he would have preferred the statue remained in Hong Kong, even if it was destroyed by authorities.  "These pieces may be used to make some symbolic manifestation that 'Empires pass away — but art persists,'" the artist said, referring to small pieces of the original work.

4Culture

The US on Thursday announced a $10 million (€8.6 million) reward for information to help find leaders of the high-profile ransomware group DarkSide. It's the latest effort at stopping cyber-extortion attacks by the group, which Washington blames for a major oil pipeline shutdown in May. In addition to the bounty on the leaders, the State Department is also offering up to $5 million for information that arrests or convicts anyone, in any country, attempting to participate in a DarkSide ransomware incident. "In offering this reward, the United States demonstrates its commitment to protecting ransomware victims around the world from exploitation by cybercriminals," the State Department said in a statement The FBI has said DarkSide is based in Russia and that it is responsible for a cyberattack in May that targeted the Colonial Pipeline. The closure caused causing a days-long shutdown that caused a rise in gas prices and fuel shortages in parts of the southeastern US. Colonial Pipeline said it paid nearly $5 million in Bitcoin to the hackers to regain access to its systems. In June, the US Justice Department was able to recover some $2.3 million of that ransom. The world's largest meat processor JBS said in June that it had paid $11 million after a hack by a Russian group known as REvil. New data this month shows that US authorities received reports of some $590 million in ransomware-related payments in the first half of 2021 alone. The figure is also 42% percent higher than the amount divulged for all of 2020, the US Treasury report said. It is believed that the true cost could run into billions. Ransomware cyber-extortion works by hackers involved breaking into a company or institution's network often via phishing or other scams. The criminals then encrypt vital company data and demand ramsons via cryptocurrency in exchange for a digital key to unlock it. rc/rt (AFP, Reuters)

3Crime

When the doors of Hamburg's Star Club opened 60 years ago, probably very few suspected the pivotal role the rock venue would go on to play in music history. Over the years, Little Richard, Ray Charles, Jerry Lee Lewis, Jimi Hendrix and many others performed at Germany's famous rock 'n' roll club, which only existed for seven years. It was open every night, all night, with tickets at affordable prices. The club's owner, Manfred Weissleder, wanted to encourage newcomer bands and give them an audience. Fifteen months after opening the venue, he had "established the club as a well-known institution, a rock center with an international reputation," wrote photographer Günter Zint, according to German news agency dpa, in his book chronicling the Star Club. "Weissleder brought the rock music and the stars to Hamburg that other venues in Germany could only dream of." The Star Club ushered in a unique period in Hamburg and "wrote music history in the seven years of its existence that continues to have an impact today," Hamburg's Senator for Culture, Carsten Brosda, told dpa. When the doors opened for the first time on April 13, 1962, a comparatively unknown band was on stage: The Beatles. The band had been to the northern German city before. On August 17, 1960, what were then five unknown musicians from Liverpool performed at the notorious Indra club, right by the city's Reeperbahn red-light district. Pete Best, George Harrison, John Lennon, Paul McCartney and Stuart Sutcliffe used the stage name "Silver Beatles." There were few gigs for them in their hometown, Liverpool, so the official engagement from a club in the German port city was more than welcome. After their residency at the Indra, the musicians rocked the stage at other Hamburg clubs, including Kaiserkeller, Top Ten and Star Club. It's where the Beatles celebrated their first successes — and removed the word "silver" from the band's name. Their signature mop-top haircuts were also devised in Hamburg. "It was one of the best places, one of the wildest," recalled Pete Best, adding that Hamburg was where the musicians developed their talent. However, the drummer who had been invited to join the band just days before their first series of concerts in the German city was infamously replaced by the more talented Ringo Starrin 1962. The band had sparse lodgings right on the Reeperbahn. They were in debt in the bars; the police detained them for causing a public nuisance. Fame and wealth were still a long way off, according to Paul McCartney: "We lived backstage in the Bambi movie theater, right next to the toilets. That's true!" They each made 30 Deutsche Marks per night for a 7-hour gig that would last until the early morning hours; at the weekend they would play an extra hour. They lived on meatballs, beer and amphetamines. Their repertoire grew with every set. "Eight hundred hours in the rehearsal room," Paul McCartney once jokingly called the Hamburg years. It was a time that welded the band together, and that allowed the legendary Beatles sound to develop. In many ways, the band that went across to Hamburg was raw and unformed, according to Martin King, director of The Beatles Story museum in Liverpool, the world's largest permanent exhibition devoted to the lives and times of The Beatles. "The Hamburg years are as an important part of the story of the Beatles as any other part of their story," he told DW. For the older generation, the music their children were listening to was nothing but noise and racket. But for the youngsters, the beat was a rebellion against what was portrayed as an ideal world, even in pop music. The Beatles' loud rock 'n' roll, stomping rhythms and guitar riffs were especially popular. They played whatever they could think of, John Lennon later said. "We were performers in Hamburg's dance halls. And what we generated was fantastic, when we played straight rock!" A final polish They did it so well that music promoter Horst Fascher booked them for the Star Club, where, he said, they learned from watching other stars' stage shows. The Beatles became increasingly famous. And they recorded their first record with popular British singer-songwriter Tony Sheridan, a folk song with added rock 'n' roll elements. "My Bonnie" became an evergreen and even made it to number five on the German charts. On New Year's Eve 1962, they played at the Star Club for the last time. The Beatles had become musicians with a mega career ahead of them — a career that began in Hamburg. There are many myths about the Beatles residency at the Indra Club. One of the more likely tales has it that Paul McCartney used part of the club's address — Grosse Freiheit 64 — in "When I'm Sixty-Four." True or not, the Hamburg music club today advertises the venue with the slogan "Indra — where the Beatles played first." The Star Club closed in 1969, and the building on Grosse Freiheit 39 burned down in 1983; it was demolished in 1986. Only a plaque with the names of the most famous guests reminds passersby that this is where international music history was written. This is an updated version of the article that was previously published on August 16, 2020.

4Culture

Germany's Federal Constitutional Court began evaluating the question of whether inmates should be paid more for their work while in prison. The hearing began on Wednesday, with court Vice President Doris König presenting the case. Two prisoners from the states of Bavaria and North Rhine-Westphalia sued, arguing that prisoners are paid too low, which makes it hard for them to pay their debts, support their families and hampers their ability to reintegrate successfully into society once they have served their sentences. The states defended the current prison wages by pointing to low productivity of prisoner labor, that many inmates have low educational qualifications, or are foreigners who cannot speak German well, as well as the number of inmates who have addiction or mental health problems. "The key question is: Is remuneration an appropriate recognition in the sense of the constitutional requirement of prisoner rehabilitation?" König said, describing how the case related to federal laws. The plaintiff from Bavaria said in his complaint that prisoners often face many debts, in addition to leftover court and legal fees from their trials. Many convicts also have to pay fines or pay victims compensation and damages.  Low prison wages do not make it possible to meet the various financial obligations, the plaintiffs argued. In particular, it makes it financially impossible to support a family. Prisoners are also excluded from the pension system. This all amounts to falling back into poverty and dependency on welfare upon reentry into society, the plaintiffs argued. Reforms in the system implemented in 2006 changed prison regulation from the federal level to the state level. Currently, most states require prisoners to work as part of their rehabilitation.  Depending on the state and on the particular prison, inmates will work either for the institution itself, for external companies or perform household duties within the prison complex, such as cleaning, laundry or helping in the kitchen.  According to the BAG-S, a German nonprofit that provides aid to convicts, the jobs often involve "very simple tasks with very low requirements." König said inmates' hourly wage hovers between €1.37 and €2.30 ($1.45 to $2.43), which would result in just under €11 to €18.40 per day.  The wages depend on performance and the type of work, with very few inmates receiving the highest rates, König added.  The state also pays into the inmate's unemployment insurance fund, while room and board, plus meals are also covered. Inmates are allowed to use three-sevenths as "household money" to purchase goods such as coffee, cigarettes or even sportswear. The plaintiff from Bavaria also accused the state of "profiting" from the prisoners' labor, something the Bavarian Ministry of Justice flatly rejected.  North Rhine-Westphalia's justice ministry echoed the rebuke, adding that either way prisoner labor was "objectively not economical — nor should it be." Instead, inmates' work was aimed at helping increase their chances of reintegration into society. For the next two days, the court will also hear from other experts on the matter, as well as prison managers and a representative of the prisoners' union. jcg/sms (AFP, dpa) To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video

3Crime

Iraq's Supreme Court ratified the results of October's parliamentary elections, it said in a statement on Monday. The ruling upholds the victory of the influential Sh'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. The ruling comes after the court rejected legal challenges brought by Iran-backed former paramilitary Shiite factions. The Hashed al-Shaabi alliance had contested its defeat in the polls, alleging fraud and demanding that the vote be corrected or canceled. The results of the election had been delayed for two months. The court's decision means that a new parliament can be formed and should be able to hold its inaugural session within two weeks. "The Federal Supreme Court has ratified the results of the legislative elections," the court's media officer announced in a brief statement. Al-Sadr is likely to form the next government, after his bloc secured 73 seats in the 329-seat parliament, well ahead of the second-placed Sunni progressive coalition, which won 37 seats. Al-Sadr opposes both Iranian and US influence in the country, and is expected to potentially favor Kurdish and Sunni parties when forming a coalition. aw/msh (Reuters, AP, AFP, dpa)

7Politics

A single word in the Australian national anthem changed on Friday as part of an attempt by the government to be more inclusive of the country's Indigenous population. On New Year's Eve, Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced that the second line of the song "Advance Australia Fair" will be changed from "For we are young and free" to "For we are one and free." "It is time to ensure this great unity is reflected more fully in our national anthem," Morrison said, adding the claim that Australia was "the most successful multicultural nation on Earth." Morrison hammered home the new line in a tweet that also wished his country a "Happy New Year." Explaining the reasoning behind the change, the prime minister said in a statement: "While Australia as a modern nation may be relatively young, our country's story is ancient, as are the stories of the many First Nations peoples whose stewardship we rightly acknowledge and respect." "In the spirit of unity, it is only right that we ensure our National Anthem reflects this truth and shared appreciation," he added. The new lyrics came into effect on Friday, less than two months after the state premier of New South Wales, Gladys Berejiklian, expressed her empathy with Indigenous Australians who had said that the anthem did not reflect the 60,000-year history of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Ken Wyatt, the minister for Indigenous Australians and the first Indigenous Australian elected to the parliament's lower house called the change "small in nature but significant in purpose." However, University of New South Wales law professor Megan Davis, a Cobble Cobble woman from the Barrungam nation in southwest Queensland state was critical of the lack of consultation with Indigenous people over the change. "This is a disappointing way to end 2020 and start 2021. Everything about us, without us,'' she wrote on social media. The song was first adopted as the country's national anthem in 1984. ab/mm (AP, dpa)

8Society

Just ahead of the winter holidays at the end of last year, Russian lawmakers rushed through a host of new laws, including an addendum to Russia's law on "foreign agents." Before, only registered organizations and media outlets could receive the label. Now, individuals and even unregistered public movements involved in politics and financed from abroad can be branded. The label "foreign agent" implies Cold War-style spying, and in practice it can mean discrimination, punishing bureaucratic hurdles, and fines. The two recent changes to the legislation seemed almost tailor-made for the well-known human rights activist Lev Ponomarev. In December, Ponomarev was one of the first five individuals to be declared a "foreign agent media outlet" in Russia — a label the activist calls absurd and "almost funny." He was on the list along with a feminist activist and three journalists. Ponomarev is one of the founding fathers of the Soviet, and later the Russian, human rights movement. Along with two Moscow-based NGOs, the 79-year-old activist runs the Russia-wide organization For Human Rights, which has operated for over 20 years. It fights for constitutional rights and freedoms — and against individual and systematic human rights abuses in the country. Ponomarev says the movement unites about 1,000 activists across Russia. Now he has been declared a "foreign agent," he says, those activists will no longer officially be united under the umbrella of his organization. "The brand For Human Rights and even my name as a fairly well-known figure used to help them. But now it will get in their way," he says. On Tuesday, Ponomarev announced that he is dissolving the movement to avoid its being labeled a foreign agent, which would lead to fines for the regional activists. "The authorities have not yet taken the decision that this national public organization is a foreign agent. But I don't want to wait for that. To me it is obvious that that will happen," he tells DW. "They are doomed because I am the chairman of this movement and I have the stigma of being an individual foreign agent." Ponomarev insists his activists across Russia will continue their work and that he will support them. "I am liquidating the organization in order to keep working effectively," he explains, laughing at the absurdity of the situation. Ponomarev has been playing a cat-and-mouse game with authorities over "For Human Rights" for years. The organization in 2013 was forcibly evicted from its Moscow offices. In 2014, it was first labeled a "foreign agent." The Supreme Court dissolved the organization in 2019 for "violations" — without giving details. Ponomarev resurrected "For Human Rights" by creating a loose movement that he didn't register as a legal entity. But the newest rules are vague enough to be applied even to organizations that are not registered. "They picked me out and they are honing their techniques on me," he tells DW, explaining that he and his organization have often been among the first to be hit with new laws. According to Jens Siegert, an independent political analyst based in Moscow, it is unclear why Ponomarev in particular has become "one of the stand-out targets of the state," wagering it could be because of the activist's "reputation and his many connections." Alexander Cherkasov, board president of the human rights organization Memorial, argues that Ponomarev is a target because "he has always been someone who doesn't think about his image, who is on the forefront, who is always the most uncomfortable figure for the authorities." "Almost all human rights organizations in Russians are 'foreign agents' now," says Cherkasov — whose organization was also declared a "foreign agent" several years ago. Political analyst Siegert agrees. "These attacks are all-encompassing. All organizations that deal with the topic [of human rights] have received fines and have been declared 'foreign agents.' They just deal with the label in different ways," he tells DW. Siegert used to head the Moscow office of the Heinrich Böll Foundation, one of several political foundations run by Germany's main political parties. He says foreign political foundations have been treading carefully in Russia, in order to protect their local partners. Siegert warns that foreign political foundations could soon be branded foreign agents, too. In the past few years, Russian authorities and state TV have been painting a picture of Russia as a nation under siege. Western sanctions over the war in Ukraine, accusations of state-sponsored doping, and the apparent use of chemical weapons against opponents like the former spy Sergei Skripal or the opposition politician Alexei Navalny — all of these cases are portrayed in Russia as groundless "Russophobia." And critics of the authorities within Russia — including human rights organizations — are regularly presented as agents of the West. The Speaker of Russia's lower house of parliament, Vyacheslav Volodin, said in December that the tightening of "foreign agent" laws is necessary to protect "Russia's interests."  Analyst Jens Siegert thinks the pressure on human rights organizations could rise even further in the run-up to parliamentary elections. President Vladimir Putin's party, United Russia, is pushing to get a strong majority in the Duma. "They might tighten the screws a bit more […] because the Kremlin is concerned the results could end up not being quite what they want." Lev Ponomarev is defiant in the face of the growing pressure against him and his organizations — and has vowed to keep working. He thinks authorities are trying to "scare young people off, to stop them from working with or for human rights organizations. "They will lose," he says.  But Ponomarev tells DW the actions of the authorities make him concerned for Russia more broadly. "Essentially the human rights movement in Russia is being destroyed. It's clear that "foreign agent" means enemies. All human rights activists have been declared enemies and they're being destroyed." Ponomarev insists that adherence to human rights is the basis of a peaceful post-war world order. "The path that Russia has chosen — one of total self-isolation and an essential refusal to protect human rights — that is a dangerous path. And it's a path that leads directly to war." To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video

7Politics

Tunisian President Kais Saied on Wednesday announced that he was dissolving the suspended parliament. The decision came after 124 of 217 members of parliament held an online meeting despite the suspension. Some 116 lawmakers in the session voted against the "exceptional measures" Saied has used since July to tighten his grip on power, deputy speaker Tarek Ftiti said. Following a meeting with national security chiefs, Saied said his decision was to "protect the state and the people of Tunisia" from an "unprecedented failed coup attempt."  Tunisia's justice minister asked the country's attorney general to open a judicial investigation against members of the now-dissolved parliament for "conspiring against state security." The president said the parliament has "lost its legitimacy" after convening, accusing lawmakers of "conspiring" against Tunisian institutions. "We must protect the state from division ... We will not allow the abusers to continue their aggression against the state," he said. Saied, a former law professor, cited Article 72 of the Tunisian constitution in announcing his decision. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Tunisia became a democracy in 2011 after the ousting of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. Since then, the conservative Ennahdha party has been the largest party in parliament, but its support has waned in recent years. Saied, a political independent, was elected president in 2019 after a campaign where he promised to tackle corruption and clean up Tunisian politics. Last year, Saied dismissed then-Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi and suspended the legislature. He later also granted himself new judicial powers.  Mechichi's government was the third Cabinet to come to power in less than a year, as Tunisia's divided parliament struggled to form governments. The coronavirus pandemic and economic downturn have led to one of Tunisia's deepest recessions since 1956, as the country wrangles with a high unemployment rate and sovereign debt of more than 100% of GDP. In November 2021, Tunisia officially renewed a request for a loan from the International Monetary Fund. Tunisia's economic woes have been intensified by the war in wheat-exporting Ukraine, which has caused food prices to soar. sdi, fb/sms (AFP, Reuters) To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video

7Politics

German Environment Minister Steffi Lemke has sounded a warning that the next global challenge will be what she calls the "species crisis." Speaking to German publication Süddeutsche Zeitung, Lemke said: "The species crisis will be the next big battle," and added: "It directly threatens our livelihoods." Lemke is a member of the environmentalist Green Party, part of Germany's coalition government alongside the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) and the Free Democrats (FDP). Climate change is one of the key challenges the new government wants to tackle. Lemke stressed that protecting biodiversity and the climate were not mutually exclusive and were issues that needed to be tackled in tandem. "This is not a matter of working against each other, but of working together. And as with climate protection, biodiversity has a lot to do with our production methods, lifestyles and consumption patterns. Which brings us back to the consumer," Lemke pointed out. The minister said that protection of climate and nature could happen by storing carbon in ecosystems. "We will renaturalize peatlands, create more natural forests, store more water — as a precaution against droughts — and thus protect and strengthen biodiversity," she told the German publication. Lemke said that a key consideration was not letting one issue trump the other. According to global conservation NGO the World Wildlife Fund, only 23% of species and 16% of habitats under the EU Nature Directives are in good health. These directives are biodiversity policies designed to protect or restore certain species and habitats. The WWF says habitat loss and fragmentation, unsustainable agriculture and climate change are leading drivers of biodiversity loss in the EU. According to EU figures more than 1600 species out of over 15,000 are threatened with extinction. Most of the endangered species are are marine creatures. Half of Europe's trees are deemed to be at risk, and a fifth of amphibians and reptiles are endangered.  Renewable energy, specifically wind farms are seen as being critical features of the new government's plans. Currently wind power accounts for nearly a third of the country's power generation, but there have been concerns raised about its impact on the environment, in particular, bird species, although this pales in significance to traffic and farming. Glass-covered buildings for instance, kill about 1,000 times more birds (108 million) each year than wind farms. Around 700 times more (70 million) die in collisions with cars, trucks and trains. The minister pointed out that one issue shouldn't take precedence or cancel another one out, and proposed a solution driven approach. "We also know that industrial agriculture is the greatest threat to biodiversity. But no one would say: Then we won't do any more agriculture. That's how it has to be with the expansion of renewables. We are obliged to find solutions." Lemke acknowledged that conflict could occur in some instances, but in her opinion it was not something to be fearful of. "Of course there can be conflicts. At the same time, we have long since reached the point where the very foundations of economic activity are threatened by ecological crises. The task of a federal government is to protect the natural foundations of life and people. Balancing this is the core essence of politics. That doesn't scare me." kb/aw (AFP, dpa)

6Nature and Environment

Phil Mickelson confirmed on Monday that he will play in the opening event of the controversial LIV Golf series, ending months of speculation. "I am ready to come back to play the game I love but after 32 years this new path is a fresh start, one that is exciting for me at this stage of my career and is clearly transformative, not just for myself, but ideally for the game and my peers." Mickelson wrote in a statement posted on Twitter." The new series is slated to open with a tournament north of London on Thursday, with the 51-year-old now confirmed among the 48 competitors. Earlier, the world's 13th-ranked player and two-time major winner Dustin Johnson surprised everybody by announcing that he would indeed be among the field in the new series' debut event. It was only back in February that Johnson had insisted that he was "fully committed" to the PGA Tour. Now the 37-year-old is set to be the headliner at the Centurion Club and wlil relinquish his membership of the PGA and probably his chance to play in the Ryder Cup.     Getting back to Mickelson, though, it was only a year ago at the PGA Championship that he was celebrated as the oldest pro to win one of the four majors. Since then, many have changed their view of him, including Tiger Woods.   "Phil has said some things that I think a lot of us who are committed to the Tour and committed to the legacy of the Tour have pushed back against," Woods said before last month's PGA Championship.   American author Alan Shipnuck, author of Mickelson's unauthorized biography, revealed in February that Mickelson had told him that the Saudi Arabian financiers of the new LIV-Golf series were "scary motherf****** to get involved with… We know they killed [Jamal] Khashoggi and have a horrible record on human rights. They execute people over there for being gay.   "Knowing all of this, why would I even consider it? Because this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reshape how the PGA Tour operates. They’ve been able to get by with manipulative, coercive, strong-arm tactics because we, the players, had no recourse."   Mickelson also said that "the Saudi money has finally given us that leverage."   Later he apologized via Instagram for his words and said he was taking a break from golf. But the damage had been done and sponsors distanced themselves from Mickelson, who has not played since.   Arguments about the new series are about politics, power and a lot of money. The organizers want to spend $200 million (€188 million) on eight events this year. The winner of a single event would earn $4 million. In comparison, the winner of this year's PGA Championship, American Justin Thomas, earned a check for $2.7 million. The overall winner of the new series would be looking at an income of $18 million, so long as they competed in at least four of the eight events. Even the last-placed finisher of the 48 competitors would earn $120,000, making the competition interesting for pro golfers in the middle of the pack. Players on the PGA Tour have to make the cut if they're to get part of the prize money. There will be no cut at the LIV Golf Invitational Series, meaning everyone goes home with something in their pocket. The compromise is that only three rounds (54 holes) rather than the usual four will be played. LIV is 54 in Roman numerals. The invitational series directly challenges the PGA Tour. Five of the eight locations (Portland, Bedminster, Boston, Chicago, Miami) are in the US, with the other three in the UK (London), Thailand (Bangkok) and Saudi Arabia (Jeddah). Ironically, two of the courses (Bedminster and Miami) on the new tour belong to former US President Donald Trump. The 2022 PGA Championship was to have been played at Bedminster, but because of the Trump-fuelled storm at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, the PGA moved the tournament to Tulsa. That the former US President is now involved in the LIV Golf Series is seen as provocation to the PGA. Trump's clan has long had ties to Saudi Arabia, in particular Jared Kushner, the former senior presidential advisor and son-in-law of Trump. Furthermore the chairman of the LIV Golf Investments former world number one Greg Norman is a friend of Trump.  "We have a long-term vision and we're here to stay," said the 67-year-old Australian. Norman announced that LIV Golf was aiming to invest a total of $2 billion into the sport between 2023 and 2025, with the number of events happening in this time to rise from eight to 14. LIV Golf are not short of money. The majority shareholder is the Saudi sovereign wealth fund PIF (Public Investment Fund), that administers a total wealth of around $500 billion. Last year, PIF took over 80 percent of Premier League club Newcastle United. Saudi crown prince Muhammad Bin Salman is chairman of the PIF. He wants to realize his "Vision 2030" plan of making the country more modern and less dependent on oil money. Investments in sport play a role in this plan, but human-rights organizations have accused Saudi Arabia of sportswashing. The powerful people in Riyadh want to use top-level sporting events to distract from the human-rights violations happening in the country. Crown Prince Bin Salman, for example, is suspected of being behind the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. "Look, we've all made mistakes and you just want to learn by those mistakes and how you can correct them going forward," LIV boss Norman said at a promotional event for the tournament in the UK when asked about Khashoggi. The oppression of women in Saudi Arabia, denounced by human rights organizations, was something else the former golf star didn't believe was an issue. "You walk into a restaurant and there are women. They're not wearing burqas. They're out playing golf," Norman said in an interview with American magazine 'Golf Digest'. Norman and Co. have tried hard to recruit players for the new series who were previously on the PGA Tour, with the promise of more prize money. According to Norman, six players inside the top 50 want to play in the new series and have applied for an exemption permit as a result. That is necessary if there is a PGA event on at the same time, and in the case of the opening tournament in London that would mean getting exemption from playing at the Canadian Open in Toronto. The pros who have applied for an exemption are Mickelson, Spaniard Sergio Garcia and Germany's most famous golfer Martin Kaymer. It seems unlikely to be granted. PGA President Tyler Dennis has declined their release. Anyone who disregards this must reckon with no longer being allowed to start on the PGA tour. "Sadly, the PGA Tour seems intent on denying professional golfers their right to play golf," said Norman. In an interview with ESPN, Norman said that Mickelson's comments in February damaged both the PGA Tour and the LIV Golf Series, but added that Mickelson was "always going to have an open door." It seems he has walked through that, and appeared to accept that the PGA door may shut as a result. "I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity for what this game and the PGA Tour has given me," Mickelson wrote. "I would like to think I have given back as well but now I am excited about this new opportunity." This article was translated from German.

9Sports

The most recent arrest of two terror suspects in Germany has raised the specter of Islamist terror in Germany — despite intensified efforts to prevent such an attack in recent years. Two men had intended to kill "an unspecified number of people" using ricin and cyanide, the Düsseldorf prosecutor general's office announced this week. The police did not find any bomb-making materials on the men arrested in Castrop-Rauxel, a small town in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia, on January 8. Nevertheless, the brothers from Iran, aged 32 and 25, remain in custody. Despite unsuccessful searches of apartments and garages, investigators believe that the terror suspects, who arrived in Germany in 2015, wanted to obtain cyanide and ricin, substances that are extremely toxic even in the smallest of quantities. In retrospect, what the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution's (BfV) President Thomas Haldenwang said in June 2022 when he presented his annual report sounds almost like a prophecy: "The overall picture is dominated in particular by small groups and individual perpetrators acting alone, who are recruited and radicalized through online propaganda." The two men arrested also seem to fit this profile. According to the public prosecutor's office, the tipoff about the brothers came from the US. The Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser said that 21 Islamist attacks have been prevented in Germany since 2000. However, this would hardly have been possible without the support of foreign intelligence services, especially in the US. This is the assessment of expert Guido Steinberg of the Berlin-based German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) in a study commissioned by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation. In 2021, Steinberg warned that it would be a risk to "outsource" large parts of German counterterrorism to the US. Germany has had great difficulties in the fight against Islamist terrorism since 2001, "primarily concerning the early detection of terrorist planning through human and technical resources." At first glance, this most recent case resembles the more advanced terror plot that was uncovered in Cologne in June 2018, where the man accused had stored large quantities of ricin in his apartment. Two years later, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison for preparing a serious act of violence endangering the state. The most serious Islamist attack in Germany occurred in December 2016, when Anis Amri drove a truck into a Christmas market in Berlin. Twelve people died in the attack. The number of terrorist attacks and plots dropped sharply after the attack on the Christmas market in Berlin. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video According to Steinberg, this is primarily a result of the decline of the extremist group knwon as Islamic State (IS) in the Middle East as well as improved technical reconnaissance by the United States. It is "less due to the effectiveness of Germany's counterterrorism efforts, which remain fragmented, patchy and error-prone," his analysis states. Due to Germany's federal structure, all 16 federal states have their own police and constitutional protection agencies, which for a long time exchanged little information with each other. But since 2004, they have been sitting at the same table with representatives of eight federal security agencies in the Joint Counter-Terrorism Center (GTAZ) in Berlin — this has helped eliminate many coordination problems. Nevertheless, the case of Anis Amri showed that the problems are of a more fundamental nature, Steinberg said. Amri was initially classified as dangerous and placed under surveillance, but after he moved from North Rhine-Westphalia to Berlin in 2016, the German capital's police force classified him as a petty criminal and therefore no longer dangerous. "His surveillance expired, paving the way for the Breitscheidplatz attack on December 19," Steinberg concluded. The findings of a special investigator from the Berlin Senate support this view. The fact that the threat of any new terrorist attack may still be underestimated could also be down to the sharp decline in the number of so-called "dangerous persons" the police believe are capable of carrying out such attacks. In 2018, the police registered more than 770 people as Islamist extremists; two years later, there were just under 630, and now only around 530. "The attacks that have occurred in Germany in recent years were all perpetrated by individuals from the spectrum of self-radicalized lone perpetrators," BfV President Thomas Haldenwang told German news agency DPA in an interview in December. The two terror suspects arrested now, just a few weeks later, may also belong on this spectrum. Even if no bomb-making chemicals are found, the brothers may still face charges. If it can be proven that the young men were indeed preparing for a serious act of violence, they would face prison sentences of anything between six months and 10 years. While you're here: Every Tuesday, DW editors round up what is happening in German politics and society. You can sign up here for the weekly email newsletter Berlin Briefing.

7Politics

For the first time ever, the acting US president spoke at the Munich Security Conference (MSC) to re-affirm the trans-Atlantic alliance, which many world leaders feared had been left in diplomatic disarray by his predecessor, Donald Trump. "I speak today as president of the United States and I'm sending a clear message to the world: America is back," President Joe Biden, beamed in from Washington DC, told the conference on Friday. "The trans-Atlantic alliance is back." The sense of relief was palpable on the stage of Munich's Bayerischer Hof hotel, where MSC head Wolfgang Ischinger, a seasoned German diplomat and former ambassador to the US, was visibly excited to be hosting a three-way video-link with Biden, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and French President Emmanuel Macron. But there were also hints that the alliance was not simply going to be a return to an old world order. Biden warned against re-establishing Cold War power blocs, while Macron spoke of a re-balancing of trans-Atlantic ties — especially when it came to defense.  Macron reiterated his vision of a stronger European Union that would "take much more of the burden of our own protection." The key issue here, as it had been under Trump, was defense spending and the contribution to NATO — but the tone was conciliatory. Biden has reversed Trump's decision to withdraw troops from the US bases in Germany, and both Merkel and Macron reiterated their commitment to increasing defense spending to meet NATO's target of 2% of GDP. "We have to increase our defense investment," Macron said. "This is a way to re-balance the trans-Atlantic relationship. Having an EU much more invested in defense makes us much more credible within NATO."  Macron said this was especially important because the US had shifted its focus to becoming a "Pacific" power. Nevertheless, in a series of 15-minute speeches, the three leaders reaffirmed their mutual commitment to an alliance that European Council President Charles Michel, speaking later, called "the backbone of the rules-based international order." "Let me erase any lingering doubt, the US will work closely with our EU partners," said Biden. The US president also warned of the encroaching threat to democracy in both the US and Europe. "We are in the midst of a fundamental debate about the future and direction of our world," he said. "We are at an inflection point between those who argue that given all the challenges we face, from the fourth industrial revolution to the global pandemic, that autocracy is the best way forward, and those who understand that democracy is essential to meeting these challenges." For Chancellor Angela Merkel, who spoke after Biden, the president's words provided a cue to invoke her favorite theme: The importance of multilateralism for facing humanity's various existential threats. And Biden's election, it seemed, had reinvigorated the notion: "This year the prospects for multilateralism are much better than they used to be and that has a lot to do with Joe Biden," she said. UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, speaking from London towards the end of the three-hour event, also found it in his heart to welcome Biden's election: "As you've seen and heard earlier, America is unreservedly back as the leader of the free world and that is a fantastic thing," Johnson said. "We're turning a corner and the countries we call the West are drawing together and combining their formidable strength and expertise once again." This year's MSC was a modest affair, where only the major Western powers and international organizations were represented. The "Special Edition" was conceived as a curtain-raiser ahead of a projected "full" MSC later in the year, when — if COVID restrictions allow — Ischinger hopes to welcome top officials from China and Russia, and many other countries for the usual round of panel discussions and impromptu side-line meetings in the warren of luxurious suites in the Bavarian hotel.  But on Friday, Biden was the main attraction, and he used the opportunity to address the rise of China's power. The US president called for Chinese companies to be held to the same standards as US companies. "We have to push back against the Chinese government's abuses and coercion that undercut the foundations of the international economic system," Biden said. He also warned of the threats posed by Russia and what he considered an attempt to weaken democratic systems. "The Kremlin attacks our democracies and weaponizes corruption to try to undermine our system of governance," he said. The German chancellor, meanwhile, stuck mainly to her main point: That only global alliances could tackle global problems like the coronavirus pandemic, the threats to the climate and biodiversity, and terrorism.  She celebrated the steps taken by the new US administration to rejoin the WHO and the Paris Agreement, the extension of the new START agreement, and the readiness to return to the Iran nuclear deal. She talked about the need for a united strategy regarding China and Russia, but also the need for dialogue with those countries. She brought up the importance of the COVAX program, especially in light of the distribution of Chinese and Russian vaccines in developing countries. While the four Western leaders reasserted their bonds, the heads of various international organizations appeared at the MSC to make their annual pleas on behalf of the global south. Secretary-General of the United Nations Antonio Guterres laid out all the problems facing the world: the coronavirus, climate catastrophe, inequality, a pushback against women's rights, and the erosion of the nuclear armaments agreement. "2021 must be the year to get back on track," he said. Like the Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) Tedros Ahanom Ghebreyesus, Guterres pointed out that vaccinating those in the world's rich countries first might well backfire: Left unchecked in the global south, COVID-19 could easily mutate and render the vaccines useless. As Ghebreyesus put it, "The longer it takes to suppress the virus everywhere, the more opportunity it has to change in ways that could make vaccines less effective… we could end up back at square one." The WHO chief gave three demands to realize the power of the global vaccination drive: Funding and donations of doses to COVAX, full vaccination information from the manufacturers, and for people to call for vaccine equity. Bill Gates also spoke at the MSC, a year after he had warned the conference of the threat of global pandemics. He called it a "tragedy" that the world had not prepared itself properly before the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic. He laid out a plan to invest in capacities for research and manufacture of vaccines and drugs to battle not only COVID-19 but other common infections. "We have to be thankful to Germany, who's led the calls for this COVAX," Gates said. He believed that with current production and investment, vaccinations in the developing world would be six to eight months behind the richer countries.

7Politics

A group of 14 international experts led by Rafael Grossi, chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), are en route to Zaporizhzhia in southern Ukraine. The team hopes to gain an accurate picture of the situation on the ground and possible damage at Europe's largest nuclear power plant, as well as the working conditions of its Ukrainian staff. Zaporizhzhia has been occupied by Russian forces since the first weeks of the country's invasion of Ukraine. Repeated shelling around the complex since July, for which both Kyiv and Moscow have traded blame, has raised fears of a nuclear disaster. Last week the plant was disconnected from the national power supply for the first time in its history, after an electricity line was cut. There is hope that the IAEA visit to the site will ease tensions, help scale back military action and afford more freedom of movement within the plant for Ukrainian personnel. This isn't clear, but experts assume the inspectors will at least gain insight into the plant's safety conditions. Putting an end to all military action on and around the plant, free access to all areas of the site for operating personnel and enabling appropriate maintenance and procurement of spare parts. This doesn't look likely so far. Russia has significant technological and operational expertise as it runs 38 nuclear power plants of its own. It has continued to occupy the site despite being aware of the high risk of a serious accident due to fighting. Numerous international appeals for Moscow to rethink its position have not been successful. This would minimize the dangers of a major accident but would have to be decided on the ground. And it can't be achieved immediately: even after a shutdown, the plant will still need a lot of power for some time to cool the total of six reactors in order to prevent a meltdown. After this has occurred, likely a few days after shutdown, the risk of an accident would be reduced. This article was originally published in German. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video

6Nature and Environment

UK says Russian pullout in north reveals attacks on civilians Further pro-Russia demonstrations in Germany Ukraine urges strong global response to Kramatorsk train station strike UN says Ukrainian refugee numbers reach 4.5 million We have closed these live updates. Please head to our new article for all the latest developments. Brussels may set more ambitious renewable energy targets as it tries to wean itself off Russian fossil fuel imports, EU climate policy chief Frans Timmermans said. EU member states have agreed to reduce their net greenhouse gas emissions by 55% from 1990 levels by 2030, a step towards "net zero" by 2050. Under current plans, the EU is set to grow the share of renewable energy to 40% by 2030. But Timmermans said the bloc could now push for a "higher percentage of renewable energy" by the same deadline. He thinks EU countries could boost imports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) in the short term but then quickly move towards more renewables. Ukraine's economic output will likely contract by a staggering 45.1% this year, the World Bank said in a new report. It said Russia's invasion has shut down businesses, slashed exports and rendered economic activity impossible in many parts of the country. In its "War in the Region" update, the bank estimated that over half of the country's firms are closed, while others are operating at well under normal capacity. The closure of Black Sea shipping from Ukraine has cut off some 90% of the country's grain exports and half of its total exports. The bank also forecast Russia's 2022 GDP output to fall 11.2% due to punishing financial sanctions imposed by the West. Economists said GDP in the Eastern Europe region, comprising Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova, is forecast to contract by 30.7% this year, due to shocks from the war and disruption of trade. Russia's military will return to the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko and his brother Wladimir have warned. And when they do, the pair said, Ukraine will need weapons to repel the advance. In an interview with ABC News, Wladimir Klitschko pleaded for the world to isolate Russia economically, saying "every cent that Russia is getting, they're using for weapons to kill us." Vitali Klitschko spoke of the shocking discovery of the bodies of hundreds of civilians after the Russians retreated from Kyiv. He called it genocide to kill women, children, old people and teenagers for no reason. To defend Ukraine now, the mayor said, is to defend democracy and peace in Europe. The death toll from a missile strike on the train station in Ukraine's Kramatorsk has risen to 57 people, Donetsk region governor Pavlo Kyrylenko has said. Kyrylenko said 109 people were wounded in the attack, which Ukraine has blamed on Russia. Moscow has denied responsibility, saying the missile was Ukrainian. Austria's Chancellor Karl Nehammer will on Monday become the first European leader to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin since Moscow's invasion of Ukraine. The Chancellery in Vienna confirmed the talks between the two leaders. "He is going there, having informed Berlin, Brussels and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy" to encourage dialogue, said a spokesman for Nehammer, who was in Kyiv on Saturday. Austria, which is not a member of NATO, has so far provided 10,000 helmets and 9,000 protective vests for Ukrainian civilian use, among other things. US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told ABC News that Washington will provide Ukraine with "the weapons it needs" to defend itself against Russia. Speaking later on NBC's "Meet the Press," Sullivan said the US was "working around the clock to deliver our own weapons . . . and organizing and coordinating the delivery of weapons from many other countries." The US has sent $1.7 billion (€1.57 billion) in military assistance to Ukraine, the White House said last week, but is under pressure from Kyiv to deliver more. US President Joe Biden and his Indian counterpart will discuss the Ukraine conflict during a virtual meeting on Monday, the White House has said. Biden will use the talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi to continue "close consultations" on the consequences of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, along with the impact on global food security, White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said. New Delhi has so far refused to condemn Moscow through the United Nations, although it has said it was deeply disturbed by the alleged killings of civilians by Russian troops in the town of Bucha. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who met with Modi in New Delhi in early April, has praised India for its approach to the conflict. Oleg Orlov, a leader of the now-banned human rights organization Memorial, Russia's oldest rights group, was arrested after staging a one-man protest of his country's invasion of Ukraine in Moscow's Red Square. Members of Memorial shared a video of Orlov with a sign that read, "Our willingness to know the truth and our silence, makes us conspirators in this crime," before he was taken away by police. It is Orlov's fourth such arrest. The protest monitoring group OVD-Info also said one other arrest occurred of a man wearing the blue and yellow of the Ukrainian flag in front of Moscow city hall. US national security advisor Jake Sullivan told CNN that Russia has appointed a new war commander, General Alexander Dvornikov. The 60-year-old general is among Russia's most experienced military officials, US officials say. They added he has a record of brutality in Syria and elsewhere. Sullivan said, "This general will just be another author of crimes and brutality against Ukrainian civilians." He added, "No appointment of any general can erase the fact that Russia has already faced a strategic failure in Ukraine." Dvornikov previously served in the second Chechen war and had several senior roles before he was placed in charge of Russian forces in Syria in 2015. The US national security advisor added Russia's decision to target civilians "lies at the feet of the Kremlin." Iryna Venediktova, Ukraine's prosecutor general, said that 1,222 bodies have been recovered in the region around Kyiv to date. Venediktova said, "We have actually now, only for this morning, 1,222 dead people only in Kyiv region." Russian forces recently retreated from the region. In the towns of Bucha and Borodyanka, civilians were found dead on the streets and in shallow graves following Russia's weeks-long occupation. Russia fired rockets that destroyed the Dnipro airport, Ukrainian officials said. On Telegram, the governor of Dnipropetrovsk, Valentyn Reznichenko, said, "The airport itself was destroyed, as well as nearby infrastructure. The attacks continue, Reznichenko added. Dnipro is a city of one million along the river of the same name. Iryna Venediktova, Ukraine's prosecutor general, said the country had identified 5,600 cases of alleged war crimes and had identified 500 suspects. Among those crimes is Friday's missile attack on the train station in Kramatorsk in the Donetsk region. Pascal Hundt, the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Ukraine, said, "The scale of the suffering we are seeing is simply immense, and I cannot remember seeing this in recent history." Germany's banking regulator said it stripped Russian bank VTB of control over its Germany-based subsidiary VTB Bank SE. In a statement, the financial authority said VTB "no longer has control" over the Europe-based firm. VTB will no longer be able to access its subsidiary's financial assets as the subsidiary has been "completely isolated" from Russian VTB. The European entity can continue to function, but its board is not permitted to take directives from Russian VTB following EU sanctions Friday on the bank. VTB's German subsidiary's operations were "unchanged" and clients could continue to access deposits, German regulators said. VTB was already hit by US sanctions and has been cut from the international SWIFT banking system. The German-registered subsidiary has been banned from transferring funds to "VTB group entities" already for "several weeks," Germany's financial regulator said. Ukraine's state agency for managing the Chernobyl exclusion zone said Russian forces that occupied the Chernobyl nuclear plant for five weeks stole radioactive substances from research laboratories. Ukraine said some of those substances were lethal. From February 24 until March 31 Russian forces occupied the plant, site of the devastating 1986 nuclear accident, the world's worst such incident. On Facebook, Ukraine said two research facilities in the area were pillaged. They said Russian forces stole 133 highly radioactive substances. Earlier in the week, Ukraine's energy minister German Gulashchenko said Russian forces that had occupied the site were exposed to "shocking" amounts of radiation, adding some may have less than one year to live as a result. However, experts told DW that the radiological dangers had been vastly overstated. Several hundred pro-war demonstrators gathered in support of Russia in its invasion of Ukraine front of the opera house in Frankfurt.  There they waved Russian flags and a row of police officers stood between them and counter-demonstrators, some of whom waved Ukrainian flags.  In Hannover, Sven Kindler, a member of the Bundestag with the Greens, tweeted about counter-demonstrations there. He wrote it was "very crowded," adding "much more than expected."  Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy tweeted that he spoke with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. The two leaders spoke about how "all perpetrators of war crimes must be identified and punished," as well as "anti-Russian sanctions, defense and financial support for Ukraine," Zelenskyy tweeted.  The German government spokesperson said, "The chancellor condemned the heinous war crimes committed by the Russian military in Bucha and in other places in Ukraine." The spokesperson added, "The Federal Chancellor and the Ukrainian president also exchanged views on ways of further possibilities of further support for Ukraine and agreed to remain in close contact." Pope Francis called for an Easter truce in Ukraine following his Palm Sunday Service for tens of thousands gathered in St. Peter's Square. Pope Francis said, " Let an Easter truce start, but not to rearm and resume combat but a truce to reach peace through real negotiations." The UN refugee agency said that there are now 4.5 million Ukrainian refugees following Russia's invasion. Roughly 2.6 million refugees fled to Poland initially and over 686,000 into Romania. The UNHCR notes that due to the Schengen visa-free rules of the EU, "a large number of people" have likely moved on from the first country they fled to. The regional governor of Kharkiv Oleh Synyehubov said in a Facebook post that two people were killed and several were wounded from Russian shelling in the town of Derhachy. The governor added Russian forces had carried out 66 artillery attacks in several parts of the region. Synyehubov wrote, "As you can see, the Russian army continues to 'fight' with the civilian population, because it has no victories at the front." The German government has confirmed a report in Welt am Sonntag that arms manufacturer Krauss-Maffei Wegmann offered Ukraine 100 howitzers, an artillery weapon. Welt am Sonntag reported that Krauss-Maffei Wegmann did not currently have the weaponry. In stock and had suggested Germany's army, known as the Bundeswehr, provide 100 howitzers from its arsenal to Kyiv and the company would deliver new weapons to the army, likely in late 2024. Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi criticized Russian leader Vladimir Putin for the first time since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24. In a speech in Rome to members of the Forza Italia party, Berlusconi said, "I will not hide the fact that I am deeply disappointed and saddened by the behavior of Vladimir Putin, who has assumed before the whole world a very serious responsibility." He added, "War crimes have been committed and Russia cannot deny its responsibility for this." Previously Berlusconi had avoided using Putin's name directly when criticizing the Russian leader. Iryna Vereshchuk, Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister, said Sunday Kyiv had agreed to nine humanitarian corridors to permit people to escape the heavy fighting in eastern Ukraine. On her Telegram channel, Vereshchuk wrote, "All the routes for the humanitarian corridors in the Luhansk region will work as long as there is a ceasefire by the occupying Russian troops." To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Tatiana Moskalova, the human rights commissioner in Russia, said that Russia and Ukraine had carried out a prisoner exchange on Saturday. Among the prisoners exchanged were four employees of Rosatom, the state atomic energy corporation. In a post online, Moskalova wrote, "Early this morning they landed on Russian soil." A grave with dozens of Ukrainian civilians is reported to have been found in the village of Buzova, close to Ukraine's capital, Kyiv.  Taras Didych, head of the Dmytrivka community that includes Buzova, told Ukrainian television that the bodies of the civilians were found in a ditch near a petrol station.  The death toll was yet to be confirmed. "Now we are returning to life but during the occupation we had our 'hotspots', many civilians died," Didych said on Saturday. With Russian troops retreating from their attack on the capital and focusing their offensive on Ukraine's east, the grave in Buzova is the latest reported mass grave to be discovered.  Luhansk regional Governor Serhiy Gaidai has said that trains will be available for evacuations from the beleaguered region in Ukraine’s east on Sunday. Residents will have a total of nine trains to use for evacuation, Gaidai wrote on Telegram. Earlier this week, Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk had called for the evacuation of residents in Luhansk and also other eastern regions of Donetsk and Kharkiv amid reports of  Russian forces repositioning for an assault. Ukraine announced it has banned all imported goods from Russia. "Today we officially announced a complete termination of trade in goods with the aggressor state," Economy Minister Yulia Svrydenko said on her Facebook page. "From now on, no Russian Federation's products will be able to be imported into the territory of our state." Trade between the two nations has largely been cut off since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24.  "The enemy's budget will not receive these funds, which will reduce its potential to finance the war," Svrydenko added. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Saturday that he was still pushing for peace despite Russian attacks on civilians. Zelenskyy was speaking in an interview with The Associated Press, a day after at least 52 people were killed in a rocket attack at the Kramatorsk train station. "No one wants to negotiate with a person or people who tortured this nation. It's all understandable. And as a man, as a father, I understand this very well," the president said. But "we don't want to lose opportunities, if we have them, for a diplomatic solution." Zelenskyy's comments come as Russia appears poised to begin ramping up attacks in the east of Ukraine. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy again called for a ban on oil imports from Russia in his Saturday evening video address. "When tyranny launches aggression against everything that keeps peace in Europe, action must be taken immediately," he said.  "The democratic world can definitely give up Russian oil and make it toxic to all other states," Zelenskyy asserted. Zelenskyy also thanked UK PM Boris Johnson and Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer for visiting Kyiv on Saturday. The German chemical industry association (VCI) said a boycott of gas imports from Russia could have "catastrophic consequences for industry in Germany and the people in our country." VCI Vice President Werner Baumann told the German Bild am Sonntag newspaper that Germany would see a "wave of unemployment" from such a move. The UK Ministry of Defense (MOD) said following Russia's pullout from parts of northern Ukraine, there was evidence that Russian troops engaged in "disproportionate" attacks on civilians.  "Russia's departure from northern Ukraine leaves evidence of the disproportionate targeting of non-combatants including the presence of mass graves, the fatal use of hostages as human shields, and mining of civilian infrastructure," the MOD said in its latest intelligence update.  British military intelligence also claimed Russian forces continue to use improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in Ukraine. According to the statement, IEDs were being used to "inflict casualties, lower morale, and restrict Ukrainian freedom of movement." “Russian forces also continue to attack infrastructure targets with a high risk of collateral harm to civilians, including a nitrate acid tank at Rubizhne,” the statement added. UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv on Saturday.  During the visit, Johnson walked with Zelenskyy through the capital. The UK leader pledged "unwavering" support for Ukraine, as Zelenskyy urged tougher sanctions on Moscow.  Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer also visited Ukraine on Saturday and met with Zelenskyy. The Austrian leader visited the Kyiv suburb of Bucha, where mass killings of civilians took place.   Meanwhile, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said a donor conference in Warsaw raised a total of €9.1 billion ($9.9 billion) for Ukrainian refugees. Von der Leyen attended the event in person, while Canadian PM Justin Trudeau took part via videolink. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Pro-Russian convoys were staged in cities across Germany, with participants denouncing "Russophobia." During a rally in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of carrying out "war crimes." In addition, he vowed to continue supplying Ukraine with weapons.  The comments contradicted German Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht, who told the Augsburger Allgemeine newspaper that German arms deliveries to Kyiv have reached a limit.  Ukraine said a third prisoner swap with Russia is underway.  The Pentagon said thousands of Russian soldiers are gathered near the northeastern city of Kharkiv.  mm, wd/kb (AP, AFP, Reuters, dpa)

2Conflicts

The Russian president headed to the country's far east on Tuesday to the Vostochny Cosmodrome space launch facility together with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. Putin's visit marked his first known trip outside Moscow since Russia launched its war in Ukraine on February 24. He insisted that Russia has no intention to isolate itself amid widespread outrage at Russia's invasion and sanctions imposed by the West. Putin used the visit to highlight the success of the Soviet Union's space program, citing it as evidence that Russia could achieve spectacular leaps without help from the West. However, the Russian leader said, Moscow was keen to work with other countries. "We don't intend to be isolated," Putin said. "It is impossible to severely isolate anyone in the modern world — especially such a vast country as Russia." "We will work with those of our partners who want to cooperate," Putin said. He also mentioned the war in Ukraine, referring to its as a "special military operation'' to "ensure Russia's own security." "Its goals are absolutely clear and noble," Putin said. "It's clear that we didn't have a choice. It was the right decision." To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Russia used a false pretext that Ukraine was responsible for genocide in eastern Ukraine in its justification for launching its war in Ukraine. The Kremlin claimed that it needed to "denazify" the country, without providing any credible evidence for its claims.    Ukrainian forces have confounded Russian expectations by mounting stiff resistance. Meanwhile, the West has imposed far-reaching sanctions on Russia to exert pressure on Moscow to end its war, which has killed thousands and displaced millions. Russia is presently facing soaring inflation and capital flight while also struggling with the prospect of a possible debt default. However, Putin dismissed the West's sanctions. "That Blitzkrieg on which our foes were counting did not work," Putin said. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko had arrived in the far eastern region ahead of Putin, Russian state news agency Ria Novosti reported. The pair's visit coincided with Russia's "Space Day." The two were expected to talk about closer integration between Russia and Belarus, as well as the war in Ukraine. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Sanctions have been placed on Belarus for allowing Russia to use his country as a staging point for attacks on Ukraine. Putin said this highlighted the need for a show of solidarity. "I am convinced that in the current situation, when Western countries have unleashed an all-out sanctions war against Russia and Belarus, it is important to strengthen our integration within the framework of the Union State," said Putin, referring to the Union State agreement that envisions a deepening of relations between the 2 countries.  “We will continue to jointly oppose any attempts to slow down the development of our countries or artificially isolate them from the global economy," Putin said.  Lukashenko appeared defiant when it came to sanctions imposed by the West. "Why an earth are we getting so worried about these sanctions?" he was reported as saying. Lukashenko has previously insisted that Belarus must be involved in negotiations to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. He also claims that Belarus had been unfairly labeled "an accomplice of the aggressor." rc/fb (dpa, Reuters, AP)

7Politics

Almost two weeks into the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the response from other parts of the world is being called into question. Last Wednesday, nine of the 11 Southeast Asian states voted for a UN General Assembly resolution reprimanding Moscow for its invasion and calling for peace. Vietnam and Laos, two historic partners of Russia, abstained.  Aside from the casting of diplomatic votes, however, the response from Southeast Asian governments has been diverse — and, some say, muted. Singapore made the rare decision to impose sanctions on Russia, and Indonesia quickly criticized the actions of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Philippines, a US treaty ally, flip-flopped and described itself as neutral. Meanwhile, Thailand and Malaysia have remained quiet. Many regional leaders have called for peace but have tried not to take sides in the conflict. Russia is the ninth largest trading partner of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which is a possible reason that some leaders have chosen not to criticize Moscow. More importantly, Russia is the region's biggest arms supplier, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. More than 80% of Vietnamese military equipment has been provided by Russia since 2000. Moscow has also sold weapons to Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines, while it is one of the main providers of munitions to the military junta that took power in Myanmar in February 2021. Last December, Jakarta hosted the first Russia-ASEAN joint maritime exercise. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Zachary Abuza, a professor at the National War College in the United States, said the military angle could be overstated. Most of Russia's arms exports are concentrated in Vietnam and Myanmar, he noted, and sales to other regional states have failed to expand as Moscow hoped. "There are a lot of one-off deals," Abuza said. Instead, he points to other explanations. Sections of the Southeast Asian political elite look up to Putin as a strong leader who has railed against a US-led world order, he said. The outgoing Philippine president, Rodrigo Duterte, has hailed Putin as his "favorite hero." Last year, Cambodia's prime minister, Hun Sen, awarded the Russian leader with an "Order of Friendship." According to some analysts, Southeast Asian governments don't want to frustrate China, which so far has offered a cryptic response to the Ukraine war. Several Southeast Asian states are in competition with Beijing over disputed territory in the South China Sea, and the region is not keen to escalate the US-China rivalry. But Shada Islam, a Brussels-based commentator on Asian international relations, reckons the response is less to do with China than with "the region's traditional wariness of meddling in other countries' affairs," especially over what appears to some to be a distant crisis in eastern Europe. Days after the invasion, the Philippines Defense Secretary, Delfin Lorenzana, said, "it's none of our business to meddle in whatever they're doing in Europe." The US and the European countries "are disappointed and a bit confused about this and are hoping they can convince [Southeast Asian governments] to change their minds," Islam said. For decades, Southeast Asian governments have taken a strict policy of non-interference in any other country's affairs — the so-called "ASEAN Way." Cracks appeared to be forming in this position, though, after several regional governments took a tough line by disinviting Myanmar's military junta from regional summits last year. Joel Ng, a research fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, called it "disappointing" that Southeast Asian states aren't defending the principle of non-interference "more vigorously." To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video According to Ng, most of the governments have gone as far as they want to in this crisis. They will have to comply with Western sanctions on Russia, but he reckons it's very unlikely others will join Singapore in imposing their own unilateral measures against Moscow. There also appears to be much debate about why the war in Ukraine started in the first place, with viewpoints often influenced by national sensitivities. According to the latest State of Southeast Asia survey, published last month by the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, opinions are split between the US and China, but the majority of Southeast Asians are determined not to be dragged into the orbit of either superpower. "While against Russia's use of military force toward civilians and the violation of Ukraine's sovereignty, the regional countries should also speak up on the root cause of the war: the extension of NATO to Eastern Europe that provokes Russian insecurity," argued Evi Fitriani, a professor of International Relations at Universitas Indonesia. Yet there is also recognition that not criticizing Putin's motives in Ukraine — where the war threatens to make a mockery of international law and is also testing Western resolve to defend the sovereignty of smaller states — could have a direct impact on Southeast Asian themselves. "Unless we, as a country, stand up for principles that are the very foundation for the independence and sovereignty of smaller nations, our own right to exist and prosper as a nation may similarly be called into question," Singapore's Foreign Minister, Vivian Balakrishnan, has said. This, indeed, appears to be the dividing issue. For some, the war in Ukraine is a distant issue which Southeast Asians can do little to influence, and any involvement in would only bring unwanted difficulties upon themselves. For others, the Ukraine war has very real implications for the region. With the exception of Singapore, it is striking that "most states are in utter denial that Russia's justification for and invasion of Ukraine undermine core principles of international law and create very dangerous precedents,” said Abuza.  "If Russia can make sweeping unilateral claims to the territory of a sovereign state based on cultural affinity and history, then what's to stop China from doing the same thing?" he added. Edited by: Leah Carter

2Conflicts

For seven weeks, Hansi Flick will sit with the sound of Harry Kane’s penalty hitting the top corner. It was the sound of the curtain being pulled back as the ugly truth of this Germany side was revealed. Thirteen games unbeaten is all well and good, but in the last two competitive games before the World Cup in Qatar Germany’s form has abandoned them. In the end, a draw flattered Germany and when Kane converted from the spot it marked an 11-minute spell in which Germany went from leading 2-0 to deservedly being 3-2 down. "We were 2-0 up, we gave it up but then to come back here at Wembley is a positive," Thomas Müller told reporters after the game. "The feeling we have today is not decisive for how we go into the first World Cup game." On the surface, this game delivered everything both sides needed ahead of a World Cup. Both scored lots of goals, both tested themselves against a top opponent and both were forced, after a tepid and conservative first half, to respond to a wild second 45. This was supposed to be the game that proved the loss in Leipzig was nothing more than a minor blip, a bad day at the office, and that aspirations to challenge for the World Cup in Qatar were not founded in blind faith. Instead, Germany looked like a vulnerable team that, once hurt, quickly bled out. When Mason Mount scored England’s second just three minutes after their first a third never felt far away. Hansi Flick called for his side to show they believed in their style of play and to have fun. Germany enjoyed 10 minutes of the 90 against Germany, spending far too much of it delivering exactly what Flick didn’t want to see, namely a side unsure what to do. That in the first half their best chance came from long-range said everything. That Ilkay Gündogan’s penalty came against the run of play and the equalizer as a result of a goalkeeper error equally said a lot about where Germany are at the moment. This did not look like a team with a clear plan, but rather one capable of little more than short bursts of transitional quality. Bayern Munich’s poor form in the Bundesliga has played a role in Germany’s slump, but that alone paints too simple a picture. The coronavirus cases, injuries and suspensions have hindered Flick’s ability to create continuity in the 11, but that too can’t hide the fact that going into the World Cup Germany’s best 11 remains a riddle. The wingback position is a major weakness, with both David Raum and Thilo Kehrer hardly making convincing cases for themselves against England. Kai Havertz might have answered the goalscoring bell twice, but the absence of a number nine for Germany was made all the more prominent by the way Harry Kane led England’s line. Too many positions in this side are filled with emergency solutions that are struggling to hide the squad’s shortcomings at the worst possible time. Much hope, perhaps too much, rests on the shoulders of Jamal Musiala. The 19-year-old knows how to find the half space, and might have been rewarded more in Germany’s 10-minute passage of positivity had Timo Werner not repeatedly fluffed his lines off the bench. As this game proved though, it doesn’t matter how good Musiala is at picking the lock if Germany don’t get near the proverbial door enough. Before the World Cup in Russia four years ago, Joachim Löw’s Germany delivered an extremely unconvincing performance in a win against Saudi Arabia. Löw and Thomas Müller passed it off, saying Germany were a tournament team. Everyone remembers how that ended. While Qatar is unlikely to end the same way for Germany, their preparations have begun in an equally disappointing and concerning manner. There is work to do, but before Hansi Flick can even begin he will have to wait and in the meantime, all he’ll have is the sound of Germany’s lead crumbling away.

9Sports

The husband of charity worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who has been detained for more than five years in Iran, has gone on hunger strike again, British media reported on Sunday. Richard Ratcliffe got his hunger strike underway on Sunday outside the Foreign Office in central London. "We are now giving the UK government the same treatment. In truth, I never expected to have to do a hunger strike twice. It is not a normal act," Ratcliffe said on his change.org petition website. He said Iran remains the "primary abuser" in Nazanin's case, then went on to add that the "UK is also letting us down." "It is increasingly clear that Nazanin's case could have been solved many months ago — but for other diplomatic agendas," he said. "The PM needs to take responsibility for that." Amnesty International said Ratcliffe wants to maintain a "constant vigil" by sleeping in a tent outside the Foreign Office. He is hoping his stance will place enough pressure on Prime Minister Boris Johnson to secure the release of his wife and other detained dual British-Iranian nationals, Amnesty added. Zaghari-Ratcliffe served five years in prison after being taken into custody at Tehran's airport in April 2016 and convicted of plotting to overthrow the Iranian government. Zaghari-Ratcliffe, her supporters and rights groups deny this and accusations, also made by the Iranian government, of spying. Earlier this year, she was sentenced to an extra 12 months in prison on charges of spreading "propaganda against the system" after she participated in a protest outside the Iranian Embassy in London in 2009. The decision was upheld this month by an appeals court. The verdict includes a one-year travel ban, meaning she wouldn't be able to leave Iran until 2023. Ratcliffe's 7-year-old daughter, Gabriella, lives with him in London, having returned from Tehran two years ago, where she had stayed with her grandmother while Nazanin was serving her jail sentence. The British foreign secretary, Liz Truss, has spoken to both Nazanin and Richard since her appointment. One of the key issues surrounding her potential release is the UK's refusal to pay a £400 million (€473 million) historical debt to Iran that the British government acknowledges it owes. The Foreign Office says sanctions prevent the payment from being made. Ratcliffe went on a 15-day hunger strike in 2019 outside the Iranian Embassy, a move he says was crucial in securing the release of his daughter Gabriella. The Associated Press contributed to this article.

7Politics

It doesn't happen very often that the twin town of Petershagen-Eggersdorf, located to the east of Berlin, gets to host executives from international corporations. It was somewhat surprising, then, that this week's visit by Liberty Global's director of connectivity investments, Robert Dunn, attracted so little media attention. London-based Liberty Global left the German market about two years ago after selling cable assets to Vodafone Group. Now, in a joint venture with InfraVia Capital Partners, subsidiary Liberty Networks Germany is active in Europe's powerhouse, focused on providing ultrafast fiber internet to underserved regions in Germany. The company is starting out in only a handful rural communities to get a better idea of the demand on the ground. While visiting Petershagen-Eggersdorf, Liberty's Robert Dunn told DW he believed in the eventual profitability of the Germany project, saying "the company wants to grow for 15 or 20 years — that's a long time horizon we're looking at here." To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Dunn said small towns with dynamic growth such as Petershagen-Eggersdorf would see the need for more bandwidth exploding in the years ahead, even if many locals might not yet appreciate its benefits. "As we've seen over the past 20 years, the need for speed continues to grow and grow, and we will build future-proof fiber networks that will meet our customers' requirements for many years to come," Dunn said. "The amount of connected devices will create a greater need for bandwidth as the infrastructure in families' homes changes," Dunn elaborated. "People have started talking about augmented reality and things like that — every year I've been in this game, the demand for bandwidth has gone up 30% to 40%." Dunn's company has signed a cooperation agreement with the mayor to bring fiber connectivity to over 7,000 homes in the twin village, provided the firm secures a pre-market quote of at least 35%. Liberty says the community itself doesn't have to contribute any financial resources. Liberty's plan dovetails with the European Commission's policy framework and its Digital Compass 2030 strategy. Among other things, it sets goals related to broadband coverage and encourages the full digitalization of Europe by 2030. The strategy includes providing all EU households with a Gigabit network, preferably fiber-based connectivity. According the industry association FTTH Council Europe, some 45% of European households (EU27 plus UK) were covered by FTTH/B networks by the end of 2020. FTTH/B stands for fiber to the home or building, meaning that the fiber optic cable path is terminated on or inside the given premise for the purpose of carrying communication services to a single or multiple subscribers. A closer look at the figures reveals, though, that only 22% of people in rural areas were able to enjoy the same full-fiber connectivity last year. The picture was even worse in Germany (see infographic). FTTH Council Europe figures indicate that at least 6 million homes were hooked up to high-speed fiber networks across Germany by the end of last year. But this only means that the technical infrastructure is in place — it doesn't mean that there are as many subscribers. In point of fact, the so-called take rate in Germany is put at roughly 33%, meaning there were only little over 2 million active fiber connectivity subscribers in the country last year. Nonetheless, the industry association has a rosy outlook in store for Germany. It predicts that there will be 25 million active fiber network users across the country by 2026, with 34 million homes connected by the same year. Deutsche Telekom alone is aiming to connect a total of 10 million homes by 2024, with a special focus on underserved rural areas. Meanwhile, in Petershagen-Eggersdorf, mayor Marco Rutter has his fingers crossed that Liberty's project will actually get off the ground. This will mean winning over enough locals, and soon. Rutter is convinced that faster internet connectivity is good news for local enterprises and public institutions such as schools. But above all, he argues, it's good news for private households. "I think private households are in the focus of this undertaking," Rutter told DW. "You can provide a school or so with fast internet through special initiatives if need be, but what's the use if the students don't have the same connectivity at home while engaged in remote learning? The same goes for adults working from home, which many of us had to do during the pandemic and will continue to do beyond it." To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video

0Business

It's all just so incredibly sleazy. Hundreds of thousands of euros in cash in bags and suitcases, jewelry, expensive watches, hints of luxury vacations sponsored by a Gulf state. Allegedly, the state behind all this is Qatar. The corruption affair in the European Parliament sounds like the plot of a second-rate mafia thriller. Even as police were executing search warrants on suspects' houses on the weekend, the father of the principal suspect, Eva Kaili, attempted to slip away with €600,000 ($638,364) in a suitcase. Quite apart from the sordid circumstances of this corruption affair, which involves not only the now deposed vice-president, but also a clique of ex-MPs and former parliamentary staff from Italy, the damage to the European Parliament appears to be immense. The vast majority of MEPs give the job their all, working through the night on complex EU environmental legislation, for example — only for a small group of unscrupulous colleagues to destroy their reputation in one fell swoop. The scandal is also one of shocking stupidity. MEPs earn five-figure salaries, and their expense allowances are more than generous. Why would someone destroy their career out of sheer greed, and then leave the cash lying around in bags and suitcases in hotel rooms and apartments? Did Eva Kaili and her friends assume that none of this would ever come out, that no one would tip off the police? The Belgian prosecutors had been tapping the suspects' phones for some time, so a lot of unpleasant details will come to light. Their constant propaganda on Qatar's behalf had already attracted attention in the parliament, as had the fact that a leading trade unionist, of all people, was praising the quality of the labor laws in the Gulf state. But it had never occurred to anyone that such blatant, shameless corruption might be involved. Every honest, well-meaning, hard-working parliamentarian feels betrayed, and fears that their reputation has been destroyed. On Twitter, Hungary's Viktor Orban immediately poured salt in the wound: The corrupt European Parliament, of all things, accuses Hungary of corruption? The EP has indeed been especially vocal in opposing Orban's autocratic government and dismantling of democracy, and has been urging the other European institutions finally to take a stand against him. Now it is itself compromised, and has lost credibility. This is a heavy blow for European citizens' only directly elected representative body. The worst of it is that the damage done is almost irreparable. The scandal will be remembered for a long time because of its scope and because of the international headlines. It also offers validation for all those, particularly on the right of the political spectrum, who are already agitating against the EU and casting doubt on its policies and institutions. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video The European Parliament's actual power is still limited. It has gained more co-determination rights in recent years but its influence still consists mainly of "soft power." However, anyone claiming the moral high ground and using the fight for European values and democracy as a political instrument must be untouchable. A clean record is fundamental to the European Parliament's influence. If autocrats and right-wing populists can point their fingers at MEPs and mock their scandals, it loses a great deal. Of course, the parliament needs new rules to strengthen the supervision of MPs' work and take action against corruption. Until now, this stable door was wide open, because the rules applied only to lobbying by companies, not third countries. There would also be all kinds of suspects requiring investigation: from Azerbaijan — which caused a scandal with a corruption affair in the Council of Europe — to Russia. However, the best resolutions like these can do is help prevent a repetition of such scandals. They cannot restore trust that has been destroyed; they cannot heal the wound. It's a painful realization for many members of the European Parliament. When the EP presents the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought to the Ukrainian people in an awards ceremony this week, both its reputation and the pride in its own institution will have suffered, giving an unusually bitter aftertaste to the celebratory speeches. This article has been translated from German.

7Politics

Anyone who saw the end of the first season of South Korean TV series "Squid Game"might have guessed that another season would follow. Now, Netflix has officially confirmed that the hit show will continue. On June 13, the streaming network published a short clip on Twitter that shows the killer eye of the murderous "Young-Hee" doll from season 1 along with the series' eerie children's music theme song, which in the context of the violent series is nothing short of terrifying. The tweet from the series' account appropriately reads, "On your marks. Get set. Green light. Squid Game continues, only on Netflix." Netflix also posted a statement from director and creator Hwang Dong-Hyuk, revealing the first details about the second season: "Gi-Hun returns. The Front Man returns. The man in the suit with ddakji may return. You will also meet Young-Hee's boyfriend, Cheol-Su," he writes. The provider has yet to announce the launch date. After it premiered last year, "Squid Game" became the most successful Netflix series ever. Approximately 142 million households tuned in during the first four weeks after its release in fall 2021. It had a significant global reach and was the most-viewed series on Netflix in over 90 countries. There are many reasons why the show captivated millions. Firstly, many viewers found it hard to look away from convergence of simple children's games with over-the-top gore. Then there were the heartfelt and tragic stories of the protagonists who get involved in the game out of necessity, despite knowing it might cost them their lives. The payoff for the winner of all six children's games is massive: 45.6 billion won, which is around €33 million ($38 million). But the losers are ruthlessly executed after each game. Despite the overt violence that "Squid Game" depicts, the series has been praised for showing a harsh yet accurate depiction of South Korean society, where socially and economic inequality is rife. The pandemic further widened the gap between rich and poor. Ultimately, the social challenges helped director and screenwriter Hwang Dong-hyuk finally get his script read — it had been in the pipeline for a whopping 12 years. He told the "Wall Street Journal" that the COVID-19 pandemic was the reason he finally got a chance to bring his idea to life: "The world has changed. All of these points make the story very realistic to people compared to a decade ago," he said. The hit South Korean film "Parasite" also put the spotlight on Korean cinema and television just prior to the release of "Squid Game.” It swept the 2020 Academy Awards and won the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 2019. Like "Squid Game," the film also focuses on South Korean society in a critical manner. Another season of "Squid Game" is likely to attract millions of viewers once again. But can the series, while working alongside the success of the new fourth season of "Stranger Things," make up for Netflix's recent dip in viewers? For the first time since 2011, Netflix lost 200,000 subscribers in the first quarter. The provider expects to lose another two million in the second quarter. The company cites inflation and slower growth in the area of smart TVs, among other reasons. In addition, the war in Ukraine caused the provider to lose 700,000 users in one fell swoop, as it stopped providing services to Russia. Competition has also grown in recent years, due to a number of new providers entering the streaming game, such as Disney, Amazon Prime and Apple. To once again walk the path of success, Netflix has various ideas it plans to try out, such as more extensive shared subscriptions. It is also developing a cheaper subscription option that would include more advertising. Last but not least the promise of sequels, like the second season of "Squid Game," could help turn the tide again. If not, Netflix might one day be eliminated.   This article was translated from German by Sarah Hucal.

4Culture

EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell warned of new punitive measures against Burkina Faso on Wednesday after a military junta took control of the West African country earlier this week. "If constitutional order is not restored, there will be immediate consequences for our partnership with the country," Borrell said in remarks aimed at "elements of the armed forces." The EU has called for the release of detained President Roch Kabore. The top EU diplomat suggested that the 27-member bloc could withdraw financial aid from Burkina Faso. Another option could be imposing new sanctions on coup leaders. Borrell was expected to meet diplomats from Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Burkina Faso in Brussels on Wednesday in a closed-door session, but the talks were postponed. Meanwhile, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) announced on Wednesday that it would hold an emergency virtual meeting on Friday to discuss the coup. ECOWAS, along with the African Union, has condemned the military takeover in Burkina Faso. Kabore was detained amid popular anger over the government's handling of Islamic extremists. Protesters have taken to the streets in recent months demanding Kabore step down from his role.  Attacks by groups linked to al-Qaeda and the so-called "Islamic State" (IS) have displaced over 1.5 million people within Burkina Faso by the end of 2021. Over 2,000 people in the West African country were killed by Islamist attacks last year.  The armed forces cited the deterioration of Burkina Faso's security situation as a reason behind the coup.  A source in Kabore's People's Movement for Progress (MPP) Party told French news agency AFP on Wednesday that the president was "physically well," saying he was in a "presidential villa under house arrest." The MPP earlier claimed there was an "aborted assassination attempt" against Kabore. Kabore, who is 64-years-old, took office in 2015 after an uprising against former leader Blaise Compaore. Two other countries in West Africa, Mali and Guinea, were also taken over by elements of the military within the last year and a half.  wd/msh (AP, AFP)

2Conflicts

Theodore McCarrick was charged on Thursday with the criminal sexual assault of a minor in the US city of Boston. The 91-year-old thus becomes the first Catholic cardinal in the US to be criminally charged for such crimes. The Boston Globe newspaper said it obtained court documents stating that McCarrick had been charged with three counts of indecent assault and battery on a person over 14. Defrocked by the Vatican after an investigation into the former priest found evidence that he had sexually molested adults and children, the criminal charges now being brought against McCarrick stem from the sexual assault of a teenage boy in 1974. Lawyer Mitchell Garabedian, who is representing the victim, lauded his client's bravery, saying: "It takes an enormous amount of courage for a sexual abuse victim to report having been sexually abused to investigators and proceed through the criminal process," adding, "Let the facts be presented, the law applied and a fair verdict rendered." McCarrick had been a friend of the victim's family according to court documents that claim the priest began abusing the victim when he was just a boy. They also cite a specific incident in which the victim says McCarrick molested him during his older brother's wedding reception in 1974, when the victim was 16 years old. The victim says McCarrick told him to say "one Our Father and three Hail Marys so God can redeem you of your sins," after having led him into a separate room and fondling him. McCarrick's power within the Catholic Church protected him from punishment for decades. Despite ample reports about the US cleric's disturbing behavior, it was not until 2019 that the Vatican finally acted. The Holy See had known about credible accusations of McCarrick's inappropriate sexual conduct dating back to at least 1999, nevertheless, neither Pope John Paul II nor Pope Benedict XVI took action. Despite his penchant for abusing his authority within the Church, McCarrick's status in the US Catholic Church and his ability to raise funds for Rome led the Vatican and the US Church to turn a blind eye. Pope Francis, facing a major crisis of confidence in the Catholic Church's honesty in confronting the problem of sexual abuse by priests, ordered an investigation that ultimately confirmed McCarrick was a sexual predator. He was officially defrocked in 2019.   To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video js/aw (AP, Reuters)

3Crime

A US judge in Washington, D.C. granted would-be Ronald Reagan assassin John Hinckley 'unconditional release' in court Monday. "If he hadn't tried to kill the president, he would have been unconditionally released a long, long, long time ago," US District Court Judge Paul Friedman said. During the 90-minute court hearing, Friedman said the 66-year-old's mental health issues were "in remission" and that he no longer poses a danger to public safety. Friedman said Hinckley had demonstrated no violent behavior in the 40 years since his attempt on Reagan's life and no interest in weapons since 1983. The 1981 assassination attempt punctured Reagan's lung, though he quickly recovered. It also left White House press secretary James Brady, who died in 2014, paralyzed and injured Secret Service agent Timothy McCarthy and Washington police officer Thomas Delahanty. Hinckley was 25 years old when he tried to kill Reagan, shooting at him as he exited a Washington hotel. At his 1982 trial, jurors found Hinckley not guilty for reasons of insanity. His excuse for attempting to kill the president had been one of psychosis: an ill-fated attempt to impress the actor Jodie Foster who he was obsessed with. Rather than life in prison, jurors believed Hinckley needed treatment. But the verdict left many uneasy and Congress and some US states passed legislation to limit use of an insanity defense at criminal trial. In 2016, he was granted release from the Washington hospital where he had resided while undergoing treatment. He moved in with his mother who died last month aged 95 in Williamsburg, Virginia. Court ordered restrictions however continued. Doctors and therapists were to oversee his medications and treatment. Hinckley was also barred from having a gun, contacting his victims or their children and restrictions were imposed on his internet usage. While the US government had previously opposed the lifting of restrictions on Hinckley, US federal prosecutor Kacie Weston said during the hearing Hinckley should be given unconditional release. Weston preferred restrictions not be lifted until next June so prosecutors could monitor Hinckley as he transitions to a life fully on his own since the death of his mother. The government also expressed concerns about the retirement of one of his therapists and the end of a group therapy arrangement that provided a social outlet for Hinckley. ar/rt (AP, Reuters)

3Crime

A Berlin court has sentenced a Russian national, Vadim Krasikov, to life in prison for the 2019 murder of an ethnic Chechen in a park in the German capital. Prosecutors said Krasikov was acting on the orders of Russia's state security agency, the FSB. They argued at length during the trial that Russian authorities had arranged an alias, Vadim Solokov, for the man, with him traveling across several European borders under that identity in the days leading up to the murder.  His victim, an ethnic Chechen of Georgian nationality, was shot dead at point-blank range in broad daylight on August 23, 2019. Krasikov was arrested later that day. The defendant's lawyer has pledged to appeal the verdict. Following the Wednesday verdict, Germany's new Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said her ministry had summoned Russian Ambassador Sergei Nechayev. "We told him that two members of the embassy staff would be declared persona non grata," Baerbock said. She described the killing as "murder by state contract" that severely violated German law and Germany's sovereignty. Baerbock also said she spoke with her Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, and stressed that Berlin "wants and needs" to have an open and honest dialogue with Moscow. "This needs to be based on the international law and mutual respect," she added. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Commenting on the Wednesday ruling, Moscow said it was a "political" decision against the backdrop of "general anti-Russian sentiment." "We consider this verdict to be a biased, politically motivated decision that seriously aggravates already difficult Russian-German relations," said Russia's Nechayev. He slammed the claims of Russian involvement "absurd." The ambassador also said that the court's decision was "an obviously unfriendly move" that will "not go without a  response." The victim was deemed a terrorist by Russian security services — he was accused of fighting as an insurgent against Russian forces in Chechnya, and later of being involved in a bombing attack on the Moscow metro. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video "In June 2019 at the latest, state organs of the central government of the Russian Federation took the decision to liquidate [the victim] in Berlin," Judge Olaf Arnoldi said.  The judge noted that the victim "had not held a weapon in his hands since 2008." "This was not an act of self-defense by Russia. This was and is nothing other than state terrorism," Arnoldi said. "It was meant to set an example." Krasikov was convicted of a murder in which prosecutors said he approached on a bicycle before pulling out a silenced Glock 26 pistol and firing two shots at his victim from behind. Once the victim was on the ground, prosecutors alleged Krasikov shot him in the head before riding away. The man died at the scene, but witnesses reported Krasikov and he was soon arrested. Later, police divers recovered the murder weapon, a wig and the bicycle Krasikov is said to have used to carry out the slaying from the Spree River at a location near the crime scene. The murder was carried out just minutes from the German Chancellery and the Bundestag parliament buildings. The case became known colloquially in German as the "Tiergarten murder," after the Kleiner Tiergarten park in Berlin where it took place. Berlin expelled two Russian diplomats soon afterward, citing Moscow's refusal to cooperate with investigations into the crime. Russia denied any responsibility and responded with a tit-for-tat move. On Wednesday, Germany said it was expelling two more people. Earlier in the case, Krasikov's attorney told the court his client should be identified as Vadim Sokolov, whom he described as "Russian, single and a construction engineer," and disavowed knowing anyone by the name Vadim Krasikov. But the judge said there was no doubt that the man who pulled the trigger was Vadim Krasikov. Ukrainian officials had provided photos of the defendant's wedding with his Ukrainian wife, which proved him to be an FSB agent. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Prior to the midday execution, Krasikov had posed as a tourist, traveling first to Paris before moving on to Warsaw, where pictures of him sightseeing were found on a cellphone after the murders. The judge issued the defendant a life sentence, also saying that the "particular severity of guilt" required under German law for potential lifetime imprisonment, rather than the typical maximum sentence of 15 years, had been fulfilled in this case. "Four children lost their father; two siblings, their brother," the judge also said. When Krasikov was charged last year, prosecutors said they believed the FSB ordered the assassination, and that Krasikov was the "commander of a special unit of Russian secret services FSB." Prosecutor Lars Malkies summed up the case against Krasikov in closing arguments last week: "He liquidated a political opponent as an act of retaliation." dj, ar/sms (AFP, Reuters)

3Crime

US President Joe Biden is scheduled to arrive in Seoul on Friday for talks with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, although administration officials admit they are concerned North Korea will attempt to overshadow the visit with the test launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile or even an underground nuclear test. Biden is expected to discuss the security situation in Northeast Asia during his three-day visit, as well as ways to potentially engage with North Korea, the growing challenges posed by an increasingly expansionist China and a new regional economic agreement. The US leader is due to travel on to Tokyo on Sunday for bilateral discussions with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and a summit of the leaders of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or Quad, which brings together Japan, the US, Australia and India. North Korea's continued pursuit of weapons of mass destruction will likely dominate discussions in both capitals. Addressing a press conference in Washington on Wednesday, US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said North Korea is likely to carry out a long-range missile test or what would be its seventh nuclear test at any time in the next few days. "We are preparing for all contingencies, including the possibility that such a provocation would occur while we are in Korea or Japan," Sullivan said. North Korea has already launched 16 missiles so far this year, many in the run-up to South Korea's general election in March. Analysts have said the regime of Kim Jong Un sought to intimidate the incoming South Korean president, and wants to remain at the forefront of the US president's thinking. "Regional security is going to be the main issue when Biden and Yoon meet," said Ahn Yinhay, a professor of international relations at Korea University in Seoul.  "There are concerns about the North's nuclear and missile capabilities and it would not surprise me at all if they did decide to carry out a test while Biden is in Japan, to act as a show of strength," she told DW. "Biden will be very keen to improve cooperation between the US, South Korea and Japan." Biden is also expected to seek dialogue with the North and he will meet former South Korean President Moon Jae-in. During the early stages of his five years in power, Moon built a reasonable working relationship with Kim in Pyongyang, including brokering two summits for the North Korean leader with then-President Donald Trump. That relationship chilled after the collapse of the February 2019 summit in Hanoi, but Biden apparently hopes that out of office, Moon may be able to resurrect some form of communication with Kim. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Another area of discussion between Yoon and Biden will be trade, with the Korean leader expected to announce that his nation will be a founder member of the US-proposed Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, an alliance of regional partners designed to strengthen supply chains, improve infrastructure and support efforts toward clean energy, decarbonization and fair trade. The pact is widely seen as a parallel effort to regional security alliances designed to limit China's aggressive expansionist moves in the region.  Japan is also expected to underline its support for the pact when Biden arrives in Tokyo on Sunday, although Prime Minister Kishida does have some concerns about overlap with the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, which Tokyo worked hard to develop after Trump withdrew the US from its predecessor, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, in 2017.  Yet Tokyo's primary concern is the same as that of Seoul: security. "The main reason for Biden's visit to the region is the Quad meeting in Tokyo and there have already been reports that the statement at the end of the talks will include a commitment to joint deterrence of China's expansion aims in the region," said James Brown, an associate professor of international relations at the Tokyo campus of Temple University. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video "Russia's war in Ukraine has really served to highlight nations' concerns about China and how authoritarian, revisionist powers can take reckless decisions," he said. The fear in Northeast Asia is that Beijing might make an equally reckless attempt to seize Taiwan by force, a conflict that would cause massive loss of life, huge amounts of material damage and further throw the global economy into turmoil. "I am also expecting the US to reaffirm its commitment to protect Japan under its nuclear umbrella and calls for ensuring stability in the Taiwan Strait," Brown added. Discussions in the Quad, however, will not be plain sailing. While the US, Japan and Australia are fully committed to providing assistance to Ukraine and have imposed wide-ranging sanctions on Russia, India has not followed suit. Instead, New Delhi has stepped up purchases of Russian energy. Although it is looking to diversify the sources of its weapons imports, India continues to be heavily reliant on Russian military equipment.  "It does appear that India is not on the same page as the others when it comes to Russia, but I expect the Quad members to paper over the cracks and emphasize their commitment to security in the Asia-Pacific region while avoiding specific comments on Russia," Brown said. Edited by: Srinivas Mazumdaru

7Politics

Germany's economy minister, Robert Habeck, told German public radio on Wednesday that his country can meet its energy needs without Russian gas. "Yes it can," Habeck said in response to Deutschlandfunk's question. He added consumers would receive assistance should energy prices skyrocket. Habeck, a member of the governing coalition partner Greens, acknowledged that if Germany were to cut off supplies of Russian gas, there would be a gap initially that would certainly "drive prices higher." Habeck added, "As far as the short-term price increases and the burden on consumers and businesses are concerned, we will provide relief elsewhere." Habeck said Germany could meet its energy needs and have the gap in supplies "compensated" with other energy sources and suppliers. He suggested the government could lower the so-called "green tax" placed on gas to help finance the transition to renewable energy, though he also said the government has outlined plans to accelerate the push towards renewable energy. That push could feel a budget squeeze if gas prices soar. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Chancellor Olaf Scholz halted the approval process for the Nord Stream 2 pipeline on Tuesday in response to Putin's decision to recognize the two eastern Ukrainian territories of Luhansk and Donetsk as "independent" the day before. He also ordered the Economy Ministry to reexamine Nord Stream 2 given the newly emerging security picture in Europe. The completed but never certified Nord Stream 2 pipeline would have increased Germany's dependency on Russian gas and was projected to account for nearly 70% of total deliveries of gas to Germany. Scholz, along with his predecessor, has consistently supported Nord Stream 2, arguing the pipeline project was not political in nature. ar/sms (AFP, dpa)

2Conflicts

Ice hockey players, even the sport's biggest stars, tend to display a self-deprecating sense of humor one doesn't see that often in the worlds of football, baseball or basketball. The reaction of Detroit Red Wings defenseman Moritz Seider to winning the Calder Memorial Trophy as the National Hockey League's (NHL) rookie of the year was no exception. "My parents couldn't make it. They just got back from Croatia and they thought it was more important to go on vacation," said the 21-year-old, drawing a few laughs at Tuesday night's NHL Awards ceremony in Tampa, Florida. On a night off for the Tampa Bay Lightning as they face Nico Sturm's Colorado Avalanche in the Stanley Cup Finals, Seider then dutifully went on to thank everyone who had helped him along the way to making it to the world's top hockey league. But later, speaking to NHL.com, the German stressed that despite scoring 50 points (seven goals, 43 assists) he still sees a long way to go not just for him but also the Detroit Red Wings, for whom his performance was a bright spot in a dismal season that again saw the 2008 Stanley Cup champions miss the playoffs entirely. "I'm just getting started. I'm looking forward to moving forward and not just for me, but for the entire Red Wings organization," he said. "We have a great future ahead of us and I'm excited about that." Listed at 6'4" and 197 pounds (193 centimeters, 89 kilograms), Seider is already a good size for a defenseman but, given his youth, he is bound to fill out even more over the next few seasons — and in his rookie campaign he already demonstrated the capability to physically dominate opposing forwards. His qualities weren't lost on German national team coach Toni Söderholm, who relied on Seider extensively at last month's World Championship, when Germany went undefeated in the group stage for the first time in their history. "He showed a remarkable presence in his first year [in the NHL] and played strong all year. I am of course very happy for Moritz, he has made the whole of hockey in Germany proud," said the coach, who also prophesized that, barring injury, Seider can only get better. "Moritz has shown tremendous development again this year. He is very ambitious as a person; he works very hard for what he wants to achieve and stays focused." Despite his youth, though, Seider is not exactly an overnight sensation. His success in his first NHL season is the product of a methodical progression. Like German superstar Leon Draisaitl, who won the Hart Trophy as the league's best player in 2020, Seider is a product of the Mannheim Eagles' development program, where he spent a season in Germany's topflight before the Detroit Red Wings made him the No. 6 pick in the 2019 NHL entry draft. Also, like Draisaitl, Seider failed to stick with the big club in his first season abroad — being sent down to the Red Wings' farm team, the Grand Rapids Griffins of the AHL. Seider looked destined to spend his second season in North America there as well but, with the COVID-19 pandemic putting the AHL's 2020-21 season in doubt, the German defenseman signed on with Rogle BK in Sweden. It was there that Seider really started to turn heads, helping the club to the playoff finals for the first time in their history — and topping things off by being named the Swedish topflight (SHL)'s top defenseman. From there, the NHL seemed to be the logical next step — a step he duly took in his stride. And while he admits feeling a certain pride at becoming the first German to be named the NHL's top rookie, he won't simply be basking in that glory back home over the summer. "Now I'm going to be training hard in Mannheim again," he said. Edited by: Matt Ford.

9Sports

Nicaragua on Friday started the process of withdrawing from the Organization of American States after its criticism of recent elections. Nicaraguan Foreign Minister Denis Moncada accused the regional bloc of "facilitating the hegemony of the United States with its interventionism over the countries of Latin America." Moncada told reporters he had sent an "official communication" to OAS General Secretary Luis Almagro signalling Nicaragua's departure from the 35-member organization. He branded the OAS as "a diplomatic political forum that was born under the influence of the United States as an instrument of interference and intervention." The Nicaraguan foreign minister said the OAS had been involved in "repeated acts of meddling" in his country. Moncada added that for Nicaragua this is "unacceptable, we reject and condemn it." Nicaragua's decision comes after the 51st OAS General Assembly, in a resolution approved last Friday, said elections held on November 7 "were not free, fair or transparent and do not have any democratic legitimacy." Security forces imprisoned seven potential opposition candidates and banned three political parties from the polls. It was part of a nationwide crackdown of dissidents to quell popular discontent. The campaign permitted Daniel Ortega to be re-elected for a fifth term along with his wife Rosario Murillo as vice-president. US President Joe Biden responded by banning Ortega and country officials entry to the United States, dubbing the election a "sham." The European Union also rejected the elections while Bolivia, North Korea, Iran, Palestine, Russia, Syria, Venezuela and Vietnam congratulated him for the win. jc/rs (EFE, Reuters, AFP, AP)

7Politics

North Korea has dramatically increased security on its northern border with China, constructing new fences, walls and guard towers under the pretext of stopping anyone with the coronavirus from entering the country.   A human rights group has documented the work and has concluded that the primary reason for the new fortifications is to stop North Koreans fleeing worsening hunger and political repression at home.   Published on November 19 by New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW), the report makes use of extensive satellite photography of around 300 kilometers (186.4 miles) of the border with China. North Korea's entire northern border stretches for more than 1,300 kilometers and also includes a short stretch with Russia. Analysts have examined the development of facilities on the frontier since the first cases of COVID began to be reported in China in late 2019. "Preliminary analysis indicates that, since early 2020, the authorities have constructed new primary fences in several areas, set up secondary layers of fencing, upgraded pre-existing primary fences, improved or widened patrol paths, and built new garrisons, watchtowers, and guard posts along the border," the report stated.   HRW carried out a particularly in-depth examination of a stretch of the border close to the city of Hoeryung, on the Tumen River and opposite Jilin province in China. This part of the border has long been used by smugglers and defectors as the river is broad and shallow, making crossings easier. In 2019, the 7.4-kilometer section was nearly fully fenced and had five watch towers. In April 2022, new satellite images show an additional 169 guard posts have been constructed, with 9.5 kilometers of improved primary fencing and a further 9.2 kilometers of new secondary fencing.  To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video In January 2020, North Korea became the first country in the world to completely seal its borders to the outside world, claiming it was acting to halt the spread of the virus. In August of the same year, Pyongyang also announced the creation of "buffer zones" in the border regions, with soldiers under orders to "unconditionally shoot" anyone found within the zones without permission. The directive is understood to still be in force.   "The North Korean government used purported COVID-19 measures to further repress and endanger the North Korean people," said Lina Yoon, a senior researcher at HRW. "The government should redirect its energies to improving access to food, vaccines, and medicine, and respecting freedom of movement and other rights." Do Kyung-ok, director of the peace research division at the Seoul-based Korea Institute of National Unification, said revisions to the Emergency Communicable Disease Control Act were passed in Pyongyang in October 2021. It states, for instance, "Citizens and foreigners must not come into contact with filth in the border area," while article 63 of the law says anyone who "comes into contact with unknown objects, such as balloons, that are suspected to have crossed the border" can be fined up to 50,000 North Korean won (€54, $56), he pointed out. "The addition of border-related regulations in the law shows that the North Korean authorities are very concerned about an influx of coronavirus through the border," Do told DW. "But I am not sure that the provisions sufficiently explain why the North Korean authorities are establishing additional barriers on the border.   "It is reasonable to assume that they have the purpose of both preventing the virus entering the country and also preventing defections," she said. The barricades have not stopped the virus getting into the North, but they are proving effective in reducing the number of people who defect. In 2019, government figures show that 1,047 defectors safely reached South Korea, but that figure had fallen to 229 in 2020, and to just 63 in 2021. The number for all of 2022 is expected to hit another record low. Just eight defectors completed the journey in the second quarter and groups that assist defectors estimate that the figure for the full year will be below 50. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video "These new walls and fences are there to keep people in," said Song Young-Chae, an academic and activist with the Worldwide Coalition to Stop Genocide in North Korea.  "The North has been building fences for years because they want to have complete control over all their people," he underlined. "The regime has learned that defectors speak out about their experiences in the North and those stories are never positive.   "They also do not want their people to get out and see how people in the rest of the world live — the plentiful food, the ability to say and think whatever they want, the chance to travel freely," he added. "They will do anything they can to maintain their control because if that begins to weaken, then that is a threat to the regime."  Pointing out that the cost of the fortifications "must have been considerable," Song said the resources should have instead been spent on ensuring food and medical assistance to the nation's impoverished citizens. "Whatever its cost, that money would have been better spent on the people who are struggling to survive because there is not enough food," he said. "And for the regime to claim that the border is being reinforced is simply a lie. It is to control their people even more." Edited by: Srinivas Mazumdaru

7Politics

US President Joe Biden wrote an opinion piece for the newspaper The Washington Post ahead of his visit to Saudi Arabia, saying he planned to "reorient" relations with the oil-rich kingdom. Biden is touring the Middle East from July 13 to 16, stopping off in Israel and the occupied Palestinian Territories before heading to Saudi Arabia. "I know that there are many who disagree with my decision to travel to Saudi Arabia," Biden wrote. "My views on human rights are clear and long-standing, and fundamental freedoms are always on the agenda when I travel abroad." Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the country's de facto leader, is believed to have been behind the 2018 murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Ankara. The US president argued that his foreign policy had made the Middle East more stable and secure in comparison with the situation under his predecessor Donald Trump. He also connected US security with countering Russian aggression and competing with China, for which, he argued, Saudi Arabia plays a pivotal role. "As president, it is my job to keep our country strong and secure," the US leader wrote. "We have to counter Russia's aggression, put ourselves in the best possible position to outcompete China, and work for greater stability in a consequential region of the world." "To do these things, we have to engage directly with countries that can impact those outcomes. Saudi Arabia is one of them, and when I meet with Saudi leaders on Friday, my aim will be to strengthen a strategic partnership going forward that's based on mutual interests and responsibilities, while also holding true to fundamental American values." To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Biden wrote that he aims to "reorient not rupture" relations with a country that has been a key strategic partner in the region for 80 years. The kingdom is a major exporter of oil and Biden is expected to push the Saudis to increase the number of barrels being produced per day to counter spiraling gas prices. During his presidential candidacy, Biden had pledged to make the kingdom a "pariah" following the murder of Khashoggi, but his recent focus has been on praising Riyadh for efforts to end the war in Yemen, where the Saudis recentlyextended a cease-fire. Saudi Arabia also serves Washington's interest in countering Iranian influence in the region as the two vie for influence in both Yemen and Iraq. ab/fb (Reuters, AP, AFP)

7Politics

Health officials in India are accelerating a COVID-19 vaccination drive that has greatly enhanced access to vaccines in cities and villages across the country. However, vaccination rates indicate more men than women have so far received a vaccine. A total of 1.63 billion vaccine doses have been administered in India, according to data on CoWIN, India's official vaccination website. Of these, 830 million were given to men, compared with 792 million to women — a difference of over 38 million doses. In Delhi, for instance, out of a total of 29.3 million doses given, 16.6 million doses were administered to men compared to 12.4 million to women. In the business metropolis Mumbai, 7.8 million women received a shot as opposed to 11.2 million men. This is despite the latest gender ratios released by India's National Family and Health Survey (NFHS) showing women slightly outnumber men in the country, with 1,020 women for every 1,000 men. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Civil society activists cite several reasons behind this apparent vaccination gender gap, pointing to geographical, social and gender disparities that continue to exist in India. "From our research, it's a mix of issues. Women have lower access to information and technology to know when and where to register and get vaccinated, lower access to transport or ability to leave their houses, as well as acceptance issues," Reuben Abraham of Artha Global, a political economy think tank, told DW. "Longstanding structural problems in healthcare and the gendered nature of healthcare access have resulted in families being less likely to prioritize the health and welfare of women over men," Aditi Madan of the Institute for Health Development told DW. Madan, who has worked closely on vaccine equity, said large disparities in coverage could especially be observed in tribal-dominated areas of rural Uttar Pradesh in India's north, compared to coverage in urban, non-tribal dominated areas. According to Madan, the government needs to do more in raising awareness on how to get vaccinated. Improving vaccination coverage includes increasing resources to strengthen healthcare systems and launching awareness campaigns in regions with dispersed populations and difficult terrain and communication channels. "The overall response of India has to be more motivating than threatening, especially at the community level," Madan added. Former Indian Health Secretary K. Sujatha Rao told DW that many women, alongside other vulnerable population groups, had likely been unaware of vaccination drives if local authorities were unable to make an extra effort to reach out to them. "Women are especially vulnerable due to a large number of factors, including lack of information, and the inability to access vaccination facilities due to lack of transport or escort," Rao told DW. A gender divide in accessing technology and digital literacy has exacerbated Indian women being unable to get information on coronavirus vaccines. According to the NFHS, more than 60% of women across 12 Indian states have never used the internet.   Geography, socio-economic class and religion also play a role in lagging vaccine coverage. "Some patterns are similar. For instance, we have observed in Mumbai a high distrust towards the vaccination drive in Muslim communities linked to the mistrust towards the government," Sophia Imad, of the Mumbai-based think tank IDFC Institute, told DW. "In West Bengal, we observed a lower willingness to be vaccinated among women. This can be explained by women-specific rumors, such as the impact of vaccination on menstruation or access hurdles to information or transport," Imad added. Edited by: Wesley Rahn

5Health

Becoming a great-grandmother is special for anyone, Londoner-by-choice Lily Ebert told the British news agency PA in view of her family's latest offspring. But for her, as a Holocaust survivor, it is all the more special, she said. "I never thought I would achieve this. I had to survive first of all and then to achieve this age… (the Nazis) wanted to kill us and we showed (them) that they could not," British media reported her as saying. "Babies are the best revenge against the Nazis," Ebert said in a statement posted on Twitter by her great-grandson, Dov Forman. The Holocaust survivor recently welcomed her 35th grandchild. Born in Hungary, Ebert is one of the few living eyewitnesses of the Holocaust and regularly recounts her experiences in talks and at events. "I promised myself: As long as I live, I will tell my story to future generations," she told PA news agency. To help spread her message wider, her great-grandson Dov Forman has been running an account on the social media platform TikTok for almost two years — and it's very popular with younger generations. Around 1.6 million people follow Lily Ebert and Dov Forman on their channel, which has garnered 23.1 million likes and counting. The family duo came up with the idea when Ebert was unable to give talks at schools during lockdowns in the UK due to the COVID-19 pandemic. On TikTok, Ebert shares short videos about her life and openly talks about the horrors of being in Auschwitz. "It was hell. They played music while they killed people" she has said. In videos on the platform, she asks how it is possible that Nazi women who worked as camp guards were willing to kill children, then go home to care for their own offspring as mothers. She also talks about how harshly prisoners were punished if they tried to help others who were too sick to work.  After Auschwitz, Ebert's life went on. Some aspects of her daily life are shown on the TikTok channel, such as her tradition of making challah bread each week. Her 18-year-old great-grandson posts videos of her making the Jewish bread, traditionally eaten on Shabbat, the seventh day of the week or Saturday, or on other holidays. The Nazis deported Lily Ebert from Hungary to Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1944, where her mother and two younger siblings were murdered. Ebert and her older siblings, meanwhile, were considered fit for work and managed to survive. She was a forced laborer at a munitions factory near Leipzig when U.S. soldiers arrived in April 1945, freeing her and her fellow prisoners. She had only narrowly escaped the SS death march. Only 20 years old at the time, she remembers when an American soldier, having nothing else to write on, scrawled words of encouragement on a banknote and gave it to her. "A start to a new life. Good luck and happiness," it read.  To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video This new life began in Switzerland. Eventually, she emigrated to Israel, where she met her husband. The family has lived in London since 1967. Ebert's greatest concern is keeping the memory of the Holocaust alive so that nothing like it happens again, she has said on TikTok. Together with her great-grandson, Ebert wrote her story in a book titled "Lily's Promise: How I survived Auschwitz and Found the Strength to Live." With a foreword written by Charles, the Prince of Wales, the book stormed the British bestseller list. For her 98th birthday on December 29, 2021, her great-grandson posted photos on Twitter of Ebert and her youngest grandchild surrounded by countless birthday cards. "I never expected to survive Auschwitz. Now, at 98, I celebrate surrounded by my family - the Nazis did not win," she said.   This article was translated from German by Sarah Hucal. 

4Culture

To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video "Look at what she can do with her eyes!" actress Helene Zengel remembers director Paul Greengrass saying when he cast her in his film News of the World, now released on Netflix. He was looking for a child actress with enough depth to play the role of a traumatized orphan. He found the talent he needed in Zengel, who had already seen success in her previous role in the German film System Crasher, which won more than 30 film awards. She was only 9 years-old at the time. Her character, Benni, is an aggressive child who experiences uncontrollable violent outbursts, exasperating her caregivers. The young actress's poignant performance can be painful to watch.  Off camera, Zengel comes across as cheerful and self-confident. She says acting comes easily to her. "I'm good at showing my emotions, I'm cheeky," she tells a television crew from German public broadcaster Bayerischer Rundfunk. On a promotional tour for her latest film, the Berlin native appears casual and articulate in numerous TV interviews and talk shows. At only 12 years old, she has already landed what many German actors can only dream of: a role in a Hollywood film. In the western film News of the World, she once again plays an abandoned child. Her character, Johanna, is an orphan of German immigrants who grows up with the Native American Kiowa tribe and is eventually taken under the wing of Captain Kidd, played by Tom Hanks. "I can't stress enough how much power little Helena has," Tom Hanks says of his film co-star. "This girl was always good for a surprise. Simply because she is who she is." For Helena, it's a dream role. Horseback riding — her favorite hobby — was part of the job description, and she enjoyed learning the Kiowa language, as well. Her mother, as always, accompanied her during the shoot in New Mexico.  She initially had no idea who Tom Hanks was. But after accepting the role, she watched a few of his films to get up to speed. Today, the Hollywood star has become her mentor. There's hardly an interview in which she doesn't rave about how well she gets along with Tom and that they continue to stay in touch. He also told her a few tricks of the trade, like how to cry on command. She takes no issue with playing abandoned, traumatized characters: "I feel comfortable with it," the 12-year-old told Berlin tabloid BZ. "Sure, I'd love to do a children's film someday, I'm sure that will happen. But I don't think it's bad to be pigeonholed in this way, because it suits me and I like it the most."  Born in Berlin in 2008, Helena was already in front of the camera acting in television films by the age of five. When she was eight years old, she appeared in the film The Daughter, which premiered at theBerlinale 2017. Here, too, she played a strong-willed girl who upsets her parents. Two years later, she once again walked the red carpet at the Berlin Film Festival for System Crasher, which screened in 2019. She was selected out of 150 girls vying for the role. For director Nora Fingscheidt, however, she was the only child who could play aggression along with adversity. "There was never anything purely spoiled or naughty about it, it was always linked to fragility and vulnerability," Fingscheidt said in the film's press materials. "I'm just a normal child," says Helena Zengel, emphasizing that she had a sheltered childhood. Even if it's hard to believe as a viewer, she is able to separate and distinguish very precisely between the roles she plays and her life — she is a professional, after all. But despite her mature attitude to her profession, Helena is still very much a child. You can hear this especially in her fresh and wonderfully childlike podcast "Big Z and Little Angel." In it, the seventh-grader talks about her new school and her family road trip to Bavaria. "Wow, the mountains are really impressive," she enthuses, while laughing about the Bavarian accent. "I've been to a lot of beautiful places through filming, but I've really never seen mountains like this before." Tom Hanks is also in the podcast. He politely greets listeners in German spoken with a strong American accent. Unfortunately, the two actors won't be meeting again any time soon. News of the World, was shot in 2019, and was initially scheduled to run in theaters. It was released on Christmas Day 2020 in US theaters, with Netflix then buying the rights for international distribution.  Zengel is still receiving acclaim. She was recently nominated for a Golden Globe award, a Screen Actors Guild Award as best supporting actress and also for Best Newcomer from the Critics Choice Association (CCA). Yet, there will be no red carpet to walk down this year. Fortunately, the Berlin actress already knows what a virtual award ceremony feels like. She found out she won the German Film Award for best leading actress for System Crasher online. This article was translated from German by Sarah Hucal.

4Culture

The congressional committee investigating the January 6 riots on Thursday presented more evidence accusing former US President Donald Trump of deliberately choosing not to act as his supporters ransacked the US Capitol and threatened lawmakers with violence.  In what is likely the final hearing until September, the committee documented the time frame from when Trump sent his supporters to the Capitol after a "stop the steal" rally, to when the president appeared in a video in front of the White House telling the mob to disperse, while praising them as "very special," some 187 minutes later.  For two months, a bipartisan panel has held several televised hearings including live testimony by key witnesses and pre-recorded depositions as well as documents and footage presenting evidence of Trump's role in the assault on the US Capitol.  The riot took place as lawmakers were certifying Joe Biden's victory in the 2020 presidential election, which Trump to this day has refused to concede. During Thursday's hearing, which was shown on prime-time television in the US, committee Chairman Bennie Thompson said Trump did "everything in his power to overturn the election" that he lost to Biden, including before and during the deadly Capitol attack. "He lied, he bullied, he betrayed his oath," said Thompson. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Representative Adam Kinzinger, one of two Republicans on the House's select committee said the mob "was accomplishing President Trump's purpose, so of course he didn't intervene." "President Trump did not fail to act during the 187 minutes between leaving the Ellipse [rally] and telling the mob to go home — he chose not to act," he added.  "The president didn't do very much but gleefully watch television during this time frame," Kinzinger said.  Video footage shown at the proceedings showed how former Vice President Mike Pence hid in his ceremonial office on the second floor of the Senate as rioters pushed through the halls of the Capitol building.  A previously unseen video was shown from the day after the riot, in which Trump appeared to resist saying the election was over. "I don't want to say the election is over," he said.  Former aides said Trump poured "gasoline on the fire" by condemning on Twitter about Pence's refusal to go along with his plan to stop the certification of Biden's victory.  Trump has denied the accusations and dismissed the testimony provided by witnesses. The panel has said it will provide additional evidence about Trump's confrontation with Secret Service agents who refused to drive him to the Capitol. The panel said Trump did nothing to stop the deadly riot, despite pleas from aides, allies and his family. High-ranking officials, including then-White House Counsel Pat Cipollone, testified on pre-recorded videotape that Trump watched television for hours during the Capitol riot in the White House dining room. The witnesses said they did not see Trump making phone calls to cabinet heads, who could have aided in stopping the violence. The panel is expected to resume hearings in September with more witnesses and information. The committee cannot make criminal charges, although the US Justice Department is monitoring its work. As of now, it is unclear whether Trump or his top aides will face serious charges. The Select Committee's widely televised hearings have presented evidence outlining what it contends was an intentional effort by Donald Trump and his closest allies to overturn the results of the 2020 US presidential election and halt the peaceful transfer of power.  There is much speculation as to whether the US Department of Justice (DOJ) will in fact bring criminal charges.  William Banks, a Professor of Constitutional Law at Syracuse University in New York, says two things will determine whether Attorney General Merrick Garland press charges — whether he finds it prudent given the current political climate, and whether he thinks the DOJ can prove Trump's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. "The attorney general is going to have to make a judgement call," Banks told DW. "I think the most likely charge, the one that's most straightforward and perhaps one that's easiest to prove, is that he [Trump] obstructed a congressional proceeding … That's a federal crime." Banks says the DOJ must nevertheless prove, "the former president intended to break the law, that he wasn't merely exercising his his First Amendment rights … that he knew there was a law about obstructing Congress and he intended to break it."  Constitutional scholar Banks also dismissed Trump and his GOP allies' attempts to delegitimize the Committee by deriding it as one-sided: "It's a bipartisan committee. There are seven Democrats and two Republicans. Republicans were invited to contribute an equal number of representatives or delegates to the Committee, and the leadership chose not to. There are two Republicans. It's certainly not a kangaroo court. The two Republicans have been very vocal in their participation." Speaking to the significance of the hearings, Banks told DW: "These hearings have created a narrative … video, documentary evidence … from witnesses that will stand as a historical record of how close the nation came to a democratic crisis on that day." To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video js,tg/wmr  (AP, Reuters)

7Politics

Lebanon embarked on an uncertain political future on Sunday after President Michel Aoun left office without a successor. During Aoun's term in office, Lebanon experienced several crises — from mass protests, to the deadly 2020 blast at a Beirut port, to the country's severe financial crisis. The Mediterranean country now only has a caretaker government with limited powers, raising concerns about further political turmoil. Due to deep divisions in Lebanon's political parties, no successor to the president has been named. Lawmakers have tried and failed four times in the past month to elect a new president. Aoun, whose six-year term officially ends at midnight, warned that weeks of "constitutional chaos" lay ahead for the country. Hundreds of supporters took to the streets to bid the president farewell. They waved flags and held large portraits of the outgoing head of state. Prior to leaving the presidential palace, Aoun sharply criticized the country's judiciary and central bank governor — saying they were to blame for the country's financial crisis. "The judiciary is not performing its role and the culprits are still outside court," the 87-year-old outgoing leader said, addressing his supporters. "Today a phase ends and another begins, which requires an effort and a lot of work so that we can end our crises," Aoun added.  He also signed a decree saying he accepted the resignation of Prime Minister Najib Mikati's caretaker government. Mikati released a statement shortly afterwards saying his caretaker Cabinet would continue to perform its duties in line with the constitution. Aoun's opponents have blamed the outgoing Christian president and his allies, the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement, for worsening the country's political and economic crises. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video While this is not the first time that a president has left office in Lebanon without a successor in place, it is the first time that the country only has a caretaker government and no head of state. Under Lebanon's constitution, the president's powers as head of state fall to the Council of Ministers if he leaves office without a successor. However, a caretaker cabinet is limited in its powers, and may not be able to make major decisions for the country. This has led to concerns that the power vacuum in the country could further delay talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that would see the crisis-hit country receive $3 billion (€3.01 billion) in financial assistance. Lebanon has been stuck in a financial crisis for the past three years that has seen prices soar for basic goods and has left a three fourths of the population in poverty. The World Bank described the financial meltdown in Lebanon as the world's most severe since the mid-1800s. rs/jcg (AP, dpa)

7Politics

Through the first four months of this year, Diep Nguyen was enjoying Vietnam's impressive containment of COVID-19. Her cafe in an upscale area of Ho Chi Minh City was becoming more popular, and she had begun experimenting with serving cocktails. On May 31, she stopped in-person service, as several of her employees lived in neighborhoods that were turning into infection hotspots. "We switched to delivery-only, and I moved operations to my home to limit my transportation, and it was easier to manage the limited delivery menu, which was just cold brew coffee," Diep told DW. On July 9, Ho Chi Minh City's government suspended all food and beverage deliveries as part of a hard lockdown amid an explosion of COVID-19 cases. Diep's cafe remains closed, along with most businesses. Up until this May, Vietnam was among the world's most successful countries when it came to managing the pandemic. From January 2020 through April 27 this year, the day a devastating outbreak fueled by the delta variant began, the Ministry of Health had recorded under 4,000 cases, a large proportion of which were imported, and just 35 COVID-related deaths. Since then, 559,347 domestic infections have been detected, with 14,125 people dying from COVID-19, stunning a country that had spent the previous 18 months in a state of relative normality that was to be found almost nowhere else. Ho Chi Minh City has accounted for nearly 80% of these deaths and roughly 275,000 cases. The delta variant has brought the health care system to the brink of collapse, wreaked economic havoc on what had been a dynamic powerhouse and largely shut down a city known for its hyperactive streets. Under lockdown restrictions that are due to expire September 15, residents can't leave home unless it's for an emergency, while orders for groceries are placed through a government system that is straining badly under the weight of the needs of 10 million people. Elsewhere in the country, though most of Vietnam's provinces have maintained low infection figures, just 3.9% of the nation's 97 million people have been fully vaccinated so far. The government has struggled to secure vaccine imports thanks to oversupply to wealthy countries and intense demand across the world. Domestic travel is shut down due to the risk of viral spread among the largely unvaccinated population. Most adults in Ho Chi Minh City have received at least one vaccine dose owing to a concerted government effort to funnel what supplies there are toward major population and economic centers. "I think the biggest challenge is how to find the balance between slowing down the increase in new infections and deaths, and maintaining core social economic activities in the context of lack of vaccines for the whole population," said Nguyen Thu Anh, a public health expert and country director of the Woolcock Institute of Medical Research in Hanoi. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video After long pursuing a zero-COVID approach, Vietnam's leaders recently shifted to discussing the reality of "living with the virus." "We cannot stay in isolation and lockdown forever because the difficulty it places on the society and economy is huge," Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh said at the start of this month. The outbreak and restrictions in response to it have put millions of people out of work or on reduced pay, while many businesses won't survive having to close for multiple months. While it is too early to determine what impact this outbreak will have on the overall economy, the World Bank has cut Vietnam's 2021 GDP growth projection by two percentage points, from 6.8% to 4.8%. Ho Chi Minh City and other hard-hit provinces are now scrambling to devise a new path moving forward, but daily life remains a challenge for many. "We haven't been able to go outside since August 22," said Nguyen Thi Ngan, who works for a furniture company and lives in Binh Duong Province, a major manufacturing hub neighboring Ho Chi Minh City. "I haven't gone to work since late July, and ordering groceries online is now more expensive and it takes a long time to get delivered." She received her first dose of the Moderna vaccine on August 19 and is waiting for her second, while the immediate future is unclear. "We don't have official information yet, but I think that all workers who have at least one shot will go back to work at the end of this month," Nguyen said. Diep, meanwhile, is struggling to keep her business afloat. "I applied for government support for small business owners to pay rent, but it was just a one-time $132 (€112) payment, and we haven't received it yet," she said. "Our landlord reduced rent by 50% starting the second month we were closed, which I was happy with, but if we have to keep paying that for another month or two, it will be a big burden. And I'm still supporting my staff even though they can't go to work." Earlier this week, the city government announced that food and beverage deliveries would be allowed again, but with strict rules in place: Businesses can only operate from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., deliveries can only be sent within the same area, staff must have at least one vaccine shot, and they must follow the "three on the spot" model implemented at many factories. This means that employees have to eat, sleep and work at the place of business. "The rules are so confusing, but you still have to make decisions based on that confusing information," Diep said. "That's probably the biggest challenge." One positive, however, is how her neighborhood has come together during the strict lockdown: "They've given out rice and vegetables for everyone a few times, and they have a group on Zalo [Vietnam's main domestic messaging app] for updates on vaccinations, support packages and how to buy groceries. Now I know everyone, and they all know me."  

5Health

Yamal-Europe, Europe's longest gas pipeline, usually transports Russian natural gas overland to — rather than from —  Germany. Now it has spent the last week sending mainly Russian gas from Germany back to Poland. The purpose? To meet a shortfall as temperatures drop to -10 degrees Celsius (14 F) and Russia cuts gas supplies. Observers have warned that Russian President Vladmir Putin could use energy as a weapon should the troubled gas pipeline Nord Stream 2 (NS2) go ahead. He is, in fact, already doing so. On December 21, Russia halted the supply of gas via Yamal-Europe, immediately spooking markets. The wholesale price in the benchmark Dutch TTF contract for January deliveries rocketed to €160 ($185)  from €100 on December 9. High gas demand in Asia is also fed the spike in prices. Consumers in Europe will feel some of the increases in 2022, adding to rapidly rising inflation there. According to the Germany Network Agency, two-thirds of the gas imported into Germany comes from Russia and former Soviet countries via the Yamal pipeline, which runs across Russia, Belarus, Poland and Germany. Its capacity is 32.9 billion cubic meters of gas per year. In 2020, 23% of Russian gas reached Germany via Belarus and Poland along its 4,107-km (2,552-mi) length. Worryingly, the gas price on futures markets is also rising. January 2023 prices are up to €90 per megawatt hour, a clear signal that the market expects European gas supplies to be low by the end of this winter and that little gas will come from Russia over the summer to replenish supplies before winter next year. Russian President Vladimir Putin put the blame for Gazprom's lowered transits on importers in Germany and France and their failure to sign long-term supply contracts. They could, he said, ease the price pressure by ending delays to the Nord Stream 2 (NS2) gas pipeline that runs from Russia to Germany under the Baltic Sea. The pipeline has been caught up in strong geopolitical headwinds. "They are sawing the branch they are sitting on," he told Russian media. Gazprom is meeting long-term contracts, but has virtually stopped selling gas on the spot market and has not been reserving additional capacity in the pipelines or fully using what it has already reserved. Why it is doing this is open to speculation. On the one hand, a sympathetic observer might point to the fact that, with Russia in a cold snap, Gazprom may prefer to keep its gas for domestic needs. The heating season in the European part of Russia began early in mid-September. It has also shifted to a "value-over-volume strategy" that some believe may have tested its ability to maintain pre-existing volumes. With Poland not continuing its long-term gas contracts with Gazprom after they expire next year, and Ukraine a thorn in Russia's side, it is paramount from the Kremlin's point of view to do what it takes to get NS2 online — and get Germany to stick with its side of the deal. Why book further capacity elsewhere? And why not show the West how much it needs the security of cheap Russian gas? To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said Europe was missing out on additional Russian supplies because of delays to NS2. "European leaders have made mistakes in reducing the use of long-term supply deals," he told Russian state TV channel Rossiya-24. "All problems in Western Europe have been created by themselves and there is no need to blame Gazprom for this. It is better to look in the mirror," he said. And therein lies the rub: For Russia and previous German governments, NS2 was an exclusively commercial enterprise. Now it quite clearly is not. Last week, Poland's government accused Moscow of stopping deliveries via Yamal-Europe, saying Gazprom had engaged in "manipulation." Ukraine's pipeline operator said on Friday that Russia is sending less gas to Europe via Ukraine than agreed to in the transit contract. Gazprom and Ukraine signed a five-year deal on Russian gas transit to Europe at the end of 2019. Ukraine has spare transit capacity roughly twice that of NS2, but Gazprom is not using it. "When the Kremlin — that is Putin and his siloviki [hard men] friends in the energy sector — see signs of weakness and political stupidity on part of their perceived adversaries, they simply cannot resist the urge to attack, regardless of the strategic damage to Russian long-term interests," former EU diplomat Albrecht Rothacher told DW. "First, they don't like the inexperienced and moralizing new German ‘traffic light' government, and notably the Greens which — if successful with their climate change policies — would threaten the Russian fossil-based business model," Rothacher said. "Hence, the urge to demonstrate ‘who is the wolf in the forest' and teach a lesson in energy power politics when the winter is coldest in Central Europe and demand highest and when solar panels are deep under snow and the wind is not blowing," he said. Benjamin L. Schmitt, a senior fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis, is also unequivocal in condemning what the Kremlin has been doing for months. "This is the Kremlin's energy weaponization against Europe," he said. Anna Mikulska, from the Center for Energy Studies at Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy, agreed. "Russia has been trying to create difficult gas market conditions in Europe without the need to turn to overt geopolitical actions," she said. "In a way, each of these elements — storage levels, supply of only contracted volumes and now reverse flows to Poland — are commercially acceptable. But, when combined and given the context of a very difficult and undersupplied gas market in Europe, then one could start having doubts about sensu stricte market dealings by Gazprom," she added. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Germany played a risky game with Russia during a very tricky transition from fossil fuels. "The German exit from nuclear, coal and finally oil plays perfectly into Russia's hands, as renewables are in no position to satisfy increased demand," Rothacher said. "The EU's dependency on Russian gas has increased from 40% to now 53% from last year alone, as the Netherlands have ceased production and US liquefied gas is shipped to East Asia (Japan, Korea, Taiwan), where it fetches even higher prices. Plus, apart from in Poland, there are no LNG terminals along the North Sea or Baltic Sea coasts," he added. This is exacerbated by the fact that EU institutions exclude energy and foreign policy from their executive remit and member states pursue often conflicting policies. Europe is the frontrunner in climate action, but its decarbonization push is too slow to outpace changes in the global energy sector . "What we see right now with the reverse flow of Yamal pipeline gas from Germany back to Poland in my view is just the prelude of larger things to come. Hence, a tougher sequel is likely to follow," Rothacher said.

0Business

The government of Luxembourg will be the first in the European Union to legalize growing cannabis, local media reported on Friday. Under a new raft of laws presented by the Cabinet, residents aged 18 and over will be allowed to grow up to four plants for personal use and carry three grams on their person in public. Fines for possessing cannabis, which used to run up to €2,500 ($2,900), will be drastically reduced and limited to those who consume the substance in public spaces where it is prohibited. Levels of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the psychoactive component of cannabis, will cease to be regulated. The new legislation would address "the problem of drug-related crime in Luxembourg", the government said.  The sale and distribution will also be decriminalized, paving the way for a state-regulated supply chain and market for cannabis products. Government revenues from this process will then be spent on addiction “prevention, education," and health care, officials said. Luxembourg joins only Canada, Uruguay, and 11 of the 50 US states in legalizing the growth and distribution of cannabis. In the European Union, not even the Netherlands, where a ban on the sale and consumption of cannabis is not enforced, has done so. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video In Germany, there are hopes that the new government may legalize the recreational use of cannabis. The Green party, which is set to be part of the country's next coalition, has promoted legalization in the past. Now, it appears fellow coalition members, the Social Democrats (SPD) and Free Democrats (FDP), are also in favor. Johannes Gallois, an executive at GECA Pharma in the city of Cologne told DW that he thinks Germany should follow Canada's model, with the "potential to have up to one million patients and users in Germany in a relatively short time."

8Society

China's state media outlets have stepped up their attacks on Western media in the past few weeks. The Xinhua news agency said in an English-language report on March 15 that Western media organizations have "recruited a cohort of Chinese media practitioners as pawns to propagate their China-bashing rhetoric." "The stories have distorted China's domestic and foreign policies and reinforced the highly biased image of China in the Western world, gravely violating basic professional ethics and eliminating any sense of objectivity," the report said. Xinhua cited Western media's reports about China's initial COVID response and the human rights violations in Xinjiang state as examples of Western media's "smear campaign against China" that would not have been possible without the help from their Chinese staff. "Chinese reporters in Western media have also cobbled together 'evidence' depicting China's so-called human rights violations," the Xinhua report claimed. Experts are of the view that the Xinhua article reflects a worrying trend of finger-pointing at Chinese journalists associated with Western media outlets. Kecheng Fang, assistant professor of media and communications at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, told DW that other nationalistic media outlets have also published similar reports. "Some of these local journalists are now worried about their personal safety as well as the safety of their family members in China," he said. "The Xinhua article criticized them for participating in China-bashing stories, but many of the journalists I have spoken to say they will continue to contribute to the China-related reporting in Western media," Fang said, adding that they believe their work adds to a better understanding of China in foreign media. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video According to China observers in the West, accusations against local journalists working for foreign media organizations reflect the overall sense of nationalism in China. "There is this general atmosphere of protection against the hostile intention of the 'outside,'" said David Bandurski, co-director of the China Media Project, an organization monitoring the media environment in China. "There is a renewed push against Chinese people who are seen as colluding. We even see the word 'hostile forces' come in. It doesn't just mean outside forces; it means people inside China who are working with these 'hostile foreign forces,'" he added. Yangyang Cheng, a fellow at Yale Law School's Paul Tsai China Center, fears the trend will put Chinese journalists working for foreign media in harm's way. "In addition to potential friction with the Chinese state and its security forces, the views expressed in the [Xinhua] article, coming from an official channel, will further legitimize and incentivize harassment and online attacks on these Chinese journalists from Chinese nationalists and their sympathizers," she told DW. A Mandarin-language article published by the state-run tabloid Global Times newspaper in February named several Chinese journalists who "defected to Western media" and stabbed the Chinese people and the country in the back. The article revealed the names, employment histories and photos of some Chinese journalists working for foreign media outlets, and criticized them for playing a part in the alleged Western conspiracy. "Originally, cross-culturalism was the outstanding advantage of these people, who could bring a more objective and realistic view of the world and China to Chinese and Western readers with their unique perspectives," the article said. "However, they [Chinese journalists] used their reports to pass the knife to the anti-China forces in the West and shoot their compatriots in the back." Chiaoning Su, a journalism professor at Oakland University, said these measures could encourage Chinese nationalists to initiate a witch hunt against these journalists. "By describing these journalists as 'traitors' and denigrating their professionalism and impartiality in the field of journalism, the Chinese government is attempting to clear its name from the misconduct that they have committed," she said. "They also try to distort press freedom that has been upheld by Western media into an ideological propaganda." To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Yangyang Cheng from Yale Law School said it's imperative for foreign media to do more to protect their Chinese staff and sources in China. Experts agree the worsening media situation in China is likely to make reporting on the country even more difficult for foreign media. "Authoritarian countries, including China and Russia, are restricting the space for news coverage," said Chiaoning Su from Oakland University. "As an increasing number of foreign media outlets are forced to leave China due to various reasons, they will face more challenges when it comes to their China reporting," Su said, adding that it will be difficult for them to gain the trust of the interviewees and to portray a truthful picture of the situation in the country. Edited by: Shamil Shams

8Society

Coca leaf cultivation in Colombia, the world's largest producer of cocaine, rose last year to its highest levels in twenty years with around 204,000 hectares planted in 2021, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said on Thursday. Coca acts as cocaine's base ingredient.  There had been "an increase of 43 percent in the area planted with coca... from 143,000 hectares in 2020 to 204,000 hectares in 2021," the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said in a statement. The uptake of coca cultivation saw an increase in cocaine production from 1,010 tons in 2020 to 1,400 tons in the following year. This was the highest level since two decades of monitoring, the UNODCS reported. It was assumed that the drug was mostly destined for Europe and the United States.  This continued an "upward trend that has been consolidating since 2014," the UNODC added. "Coca cultivation continues to threaten the cultural potential of the country and its biodiversity," said the statement. "About 50 percent of the coca is located in special management areas. A high percentage is concentrated on the lands of black communities and in forest reserve areas." The report stated that more productive varieties, more advanced technical assistance and the replanting of coca bushes led to an increase in output. It also highlighted the risk that poorer communities may turn to coca cultivation in order to make money. However, the UN report contradicts figures published by the White House which published that potential cocaine output fell in 2021 to 972 tonnes. Its estimation for the area of coca cultivation was higher to the one the UN calculated, lying at 234,000 hectares.  Colombia has been engaging in decades of anti-narcotics efforts, yet remains the world's largest producer of cocaine. New left-leaning President Gustavo Petro has called for the regulation of narcotics and voluntary crop substitution programs. He aims to increase social funding in production areas as well as arrests of drug gang leadership.  Petro has deliberated to offer amnesty for drug traffickers if they were willing to abandon the trade. To him, coca growers and pickers are victims of the current legislation, as thousands of them are behind bars on trafficking charges while the state used pesticides on their land to eradicate any illegal plantations.     "We had an increase in sown hectares and cocaine production that are without precedent in the history of the country," said Justice Minister Nestor Osuna.  He added that 440,000 hectares of coca had been eradicated in recent years, but a peace deal with FARC rebels from 2016 wasn't being followed.  Osuna went on to slam measures taken by the US, the world's largest cocaine consumer, saying that the numbers indicated a clear  "failure of the war on drugs." He added that the government was concerned with a new drug policy. For now, the legalization of cocaine would not be considered.  US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Petro in Colombia earlier this month, highlighting that the US was supporting "the holistic approach the Petro administration" was taking. He mentioned the two countries shared "extensive common ground".  "On both the enforcement side but also on the comprehensive approach to the problem... I think that we're largely in sync," he added. The US, a longtime ally of Colombia, has long put pressure on the country to limit its production. los/es (AFP, Reuters) 

7Politics

The European Central Bank (ECB) increased its key interest rate by a further 75 basis points on Thursday as the eurozone struggles with runaway inflation. "Inflation remains far too high and will stay above the target for an extended period," the bank said in a statement. Eurozone government bond yields fell following the ECB's statement. ECB President Christine Lagarde said there was still ground left to cover, adding the central bank would "have further rate increases in the future" to bring down record-high inflation. "We are not done yet. There is more ground to cover," Lagarde said. "In the present state of uncertainty, with the likelihood of recession looming much more on the horizon and the probability of it having increased, everyone has to do their job," she added. "Our job is price stability. This is our primary mandate and we are riveted to that." The hike is the second such move by the ECB in recent months and matches a three-quarters of a percentage point increase last month. The ECB has now raised rates for the 19-country eurozone by 2 percentage points in just three months — this is the fastest set of increases in the history of the euro. The interest rate increases aim to dampen spending by increasing the cost of borrowing in hopes of bringing down rising costs of essential goods such as food and energy. Inflation in the eurozone was at around 10% in September, five times higher than the 2% maximum target. Government spending during the coronavirus pandemic and the subsequent Russian invasion of Ukraine are seen as the main culprits for rising prices. "A long lasting war in Ukraine remains a significant risk," Lagarde said. "Confidence could deteriorate further and supply side constraints could worsen again. Energy and food costs could also remain persistently higher than expected," she said. "A weakening world economy could be an additional drag on growth in the euro area." Europe's withdrawal from Russian energy has left several economies in already precarious situations — Germany is expected to watch its economy shrink by 0.4% next year. Some European leaders have criticized the ECB's decision to increase interest rates, saying that it will pile problems on countries with high debt and that it will torpedo demand — further stoking recession fears. ECB President Christine Lagarde has said that inflation is "far too high" and called for more steps to be taken. She also warned eurozone members against high government spending that would counter the ECB's attempts to bring inflation back under control. ab, sdi/sms (AP, AFP, Reuters)

0Business

Humanity is changing nature at an unprecedented rate. The numbers of mammals, birds, fish, amphibians and reptiles have decreased by almost 70% since 1970, according to a report by the conservation NGO, World Wildlife Fund (WWF). This mass extinction is caused by the destruction of natural habitats, environmental pollution, agriculture, global warming and the trade of wild animals and plants. The Washington Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) was created to protect almost 40,000 species of animal and plant through international trade restrictions. CITES was negotiated in 1973 and in the intervening years, almost every country in the world has joined the convention. Every three years, government representatives meet to discuss existing and new trade restrictions in an effort to stop species extinction. This year's convention in Panama has focused on the protection of almost 600 animal and plant species. Elephants are among the species with the highest protection status. The international ivory trade has been banned since 1989, but according to WWF, poachers still illegally kill some 20,000 elephants in Africa every year. Some African countries lack the resources to prevent this from happening. Poaching could make some elephant populations go extinct, with African savanna and forest elephants particularly at risk.  Yet in parts of southern Africa, local elephant populations have managed to recover, which has led some countries to request a reintroduction of the ivory trade. It is unlikely this year's CITES conference in Panama will produce a majority vote to lift the ban on ivory export. The population of white rhinoceroses in Namibia has also been able to rebound. The animals are now allowed to be traded for conservation purposes in their historical habitat in Africa. The selling of rhino horn, however, remains forbidden. Shark and ray fins are regarded as a delicacy by many people in Asia. According to estimates by the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO), 70 million sharks die every year as a result. Their numbers are also falling due to overfishing, with one third of the more than 1,200 shark species facing extinction.  A preliminary decision at the CITES conference saw a majority of states agree that 90% of traded shark and ray species should be protected. That would apply to 54 breeds of basic sharks, six hammerhead and 37 guitarfish species. These animals are supposed to be added to the so-called appendix II of CITES, meaning trade in sharks and rays would only be allowed in regions with a healthy population. Each country would be responsible for reviewing local populations and handing out export permits.  More than 1,000 animal and plant species are threatened with immediate extinction, according to CITES, which is why they have a special protection status.  Among them are gorillas and chimpanzees, as well as pangolins, pandas, parrots, snakes, chameleons and sea turtles. Endangered plants under special protection include cacti, cypresses and orchids. Wild animals and plants under the highest protection status can no longer be commercially traded, but require export and import permits which certify their legal origin. Big cats such as leopards, lynx, lions, jaguars, pumas and tigers are already under special protection, but tigers are still illegally poached and traded, according to a recent WWF study. Tiger skin is illegally sold as rugs, tiger teeth and bones as lucky charms or for medicinal purposes. According to the WWF study, so-called tiger farms are involved in this outlawed trade, especially in Thailand, Laos and Vietnam. WWF is demanding that countries introduce harsher penalties for smuggling and poaching tigers. The conservation organization also wants the closure of illegal wild animal markets and tougher actions against tiger farms. They hope for respective decisions to be made at the next CITES meeting.  The main culprit for species extinction in oceans is fishing, and only clear trade restrictions can stop that. CITES is also important for animal and plant species on land to prevent them from going extinct. An export prohibition managed to protect vicugna, which are similar to alpacas, in South America from eradication. They are hunted for their soft fur and their population had decreased to just 10,000 animals. Today, they number around half a million animlas and are no longer considered endangered.   But the most devastating cause of species extinction is the destruction of natural habitats, especially due to deforestation, industrial agriculture, environmental toxins and global warming. CITES has not yet been able to stop these threats through trade prohibitions. This article was originally published in German.

6Nature and Environment

The Norwegian government summoned a US embassy official on Thursday over spying reports. Danish broadcaster DR revealed on Sunday that Danish spies collaborated with their US counterparts to eavesdrop on political leaders and officials in Germany, France, Sweden and Norway. Those targeted reportedly included German Chancellor Angela Merkel, then German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and former German opposition leader Peer Steinbrück. The revelation came to light from a 2014 internal investigation by the Danish Defense Intelligence Service (FE) on its cooperation with US National Security Agency (NSA). DR spoke to anonymous intelligence figures privy to that report. They reportedly collaborated between 2012 and 2014.  To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg told Norwegian news agency NTB that "the Americans have clearly said that they changed their practice in 2014 when it comes to monitoring allies, and that they will work with us and others to clarify what has happened." "We have today met with the US embassy in Oslo to follow up on this invitation," Solberg told the NTB. On Thursday, she met with the Danish prime minister, where she said that espionage against allies is "unacceptable and unnecessary," public broadcaster NRK reported. Defense Minister Frank Bakke-Jensen met with officials in the US embassy to convey that same message, his ministry said in a post on Twitter. aw/rt (AP, AFP)

7Politics

If animal oracles are to be trusted in the matters of football, Germany has every reason to feel confident when facing off against England on Tuesday. A female Asian elephant named Yashoda reached for Germany's flag when presented with both teams' colors at the Hamburg Zoo on Monday. The prophecy was greeted by a small crowd of German fans who attended the occasion. DW's Jonathan Crane said Yashoda's choice was bad news for England fans. "She's got all three Germany games correct so far. Unclear if she also does lottery numbers," he tweeted. The 42-year-old elephant can indeed boast a flawless track record when it comes to German games at the Euro 2020. According to news agency DPA, Yashoda accurately predicted Germany would lose to France and beat Portugal. Most surprisingly, she also predicted the draw against Hungary — grabbing both flags ahead of the meet in Munich last Wednesday. Germany is now set to play England in a last-16 match at London's Wembley Stadium. Millions of football fans are counting the hours to the kickoff as the knockout phase of the long-delayed football tournament heats up. Expectations are especially high in England. The country's national team has not won against Germany in a major tournament knockout game since the 1966 World Cup final. Yashoda is only the latest in the series of animal oracles tasked with predicting the outcomes of major football matches. The practice was popularized by Paul the Octopus, the late resident of a Sea Life Center in Germany's Oberhausen, during the Euro 2008 and the 2010 World Cup. The English-hatched oracle made his predictions by choosing between two different boxes with food. He quickly became famous, and his predictions triggered death threats from angry fans. While his 2008 record was somewhat flawed, he correctly picked the winner of all eight World Cup matches he was presented with in 2010, before dying of natural causes three and half months after the tournament ended.

9Sports

Russia's war against Ukraine has triggered a large movement of refugees toward the West. Some 4.8 million people were registered as temporary protection seekers by the UN Refugee Agency through early December, mainly in the eastern European Union: Poland, Germany, the Baltics, Romania and Slovakia. Depending on the course of the war, next year could see even bigger numbers. The bloc faces the biggest refugee crisis since World War II, EU Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson said in Brussels in mid-December, adding that together Europe would continue to support people. However, some EU states have already complained of being overwhelmed. In Germany, too, the federal and local governments have cited difficulties with accommodation. Johansson faces the challenge of maintaining a sense of unity among the member states in 2023. That's because so far, the war refugees have not been distributed according to any formula, and are instead moving freely within the EU under a special protection status without asylum procedures. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Concerns about Ukrainian refugees have also obscured growing migration movements in the southeast. In the past year, the numbers of asylum-seekers from Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Egypt, along with irregular border crossings, have risen sharply. The border management agency Frontex registered around 280,000 irregular entries by October — 77% more than in 2021 and the highest number since the peak of the so-called refugee crisis in 2015 and 2016, for which there are only estimations. In its "risk analysis" for the coming years until 2032, Frontex said it expects migration pressure to continue increasing. "In the next decade, EU border management will experience a higher occurrence of migration/refugee crises (or disproportionate pressures) that will test the effectiveness of border controls. The complex interplay of geopolitics, security conflicts, and other megatrends will influence different regions of the world, including countries in close proximity to Europe," the report said.  Since migration movements would pose a massive threat to the security of Europe's external borders, the Warsaw-based organization, also known as the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, has recommended comprehensive precautions to strengthen border protection. European Union interior ministers have taken these warnings seriously and promised at the last meeting of the year in Brussels to once again intensify their efforts in 2023. In the first half of the year, the Swedish presidency of the EU is expected to push for asylum reforms and border management, topics that the ministers have been unable to agree on for years. But the fundamental conflict between the states that want to further restrict access for migrants and those that are still willing to accept them is unlikely to be resolved in 2023. While the more migrant-friendly states are demanding solidarity and relief from the proponents of the concept of "Fortress Europe," this has hardly been forthcoming. As a result, countries of first entry such as Greece, Italy, Spain, Hungary, and Croatia currently allow migrants and possible asylum-seekers to continue their journey northward. Austria and Germany then complain that tens of thousands of people are filing asylum applications there when they should actually file in the country where they entered the EU. The so-called Dublin rules, which designate responsibility for asylum seekers in the state of first entry, are not working. The European Commission has presented various proposals for reform, but of the ten draft laws, only three are under serious discussion. According to EU Home Commissioner Johansson, further laws will be passed in the coming year to finally establish a system of responsibility and solidarity in EU migration and asylum policy. A voluntary system for distributing asylum seekers from countries of first entry to the rest of the EU recently failed again because France cannot reach an agreement with the new radical right-wing government in Italy. Rome aims to stop letting any migrants at all ashore with a kind of naval blockade against Libya and Tunisia in the southern Mediterranean, a move that other EU states consider to be both legally questionable and impractical. Another legally questionable practice has emerged along the so-called Balkan route. At the external EU borders in Hungary, Croatia, Greece, and Bulgaria, "pushbacks" of migrants, the practice of forcibly rejecting people who have already reached EU territory, are said to occur regularly. Media and refugee advocates have accused Frontex of looking the other way, and the head of the organization subsequently resigned last spring. The Balkan route via Greece, North Macedonia, Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia, and Hungary currently sees the highest number of migrants and asylum-seekers. The EU has therefore offered the Western Balkan states more assistance in protecting their borders. Additionally, states such as Serbia are set to change their visa policies because people from Pakistan can enter Serbia visa-free and from there try to enter the EU. Regarding migration policies for the Balkans, German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said: "We agree that we need to strengthen external border protection and that there can only be joint EU action to solve the big issues." Migration issues face harsher criticism in Austria, which despite being surrounded by EU countries recorded nearly 100,000 asylum applications in 2022. Hungary, which has an external EU border, had only 50. The disparity led Austrian Interior Minister Gerhard Karner to suspect that something could be wrong. Asylum-seekers from the south of the EU couldn't simply be going north to file asylum applications wherever it suits them, Karner said. In that case, Austria, Germany and others would have to carry out permanent border controls, which should no longer exist within the Schengen area. "We currently have internal border controls in many places in Europe: Austria toward Hungary. Germany toward Austria. Czech Republic toward Slovakia," he said. "This is further proof that the system is not working on many sides at the moment." This is why Austria is blocking the inclusion of Romania and Bulgaria in the Schengen area. "I think it's wrong for a system that doesn't work in many places to be extended," Karner said. But because Austria is alone in this position within the EU, another attempt will be made in 2023 to modernize the Schengen area rules without systematic border controls. The goal is to abolish the temporary border controls due to migration movements and also integrate Bulgaria and Romania. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video The pushbacks aren't just happening on the Balkan route, but also in Poland and Lithuania. There, authorities argue people are deliberately being brought to the border by Belarus to create political pressure. Attempts by Poland and other states to use this "instrumentalization" of migrants as an opportunity to temporarily suspend the right to asylum in the EU have not been successful — at least not yet. Migration researcher Gerald Knaus has sharply criticized the state of European refugee and asylum policy. He sees a "dramatic situation in the EU" because Europeans have signed conventions on human rights and asylum, but failed to comply with them since 2021, he told Austrian broadcaster puls 24 in December. Knaus argued for more migration agreements with countries of origin to relieve pressure and deter people from irregular and often hopeless migration. But the already tough negotiations with countries of origin such as Pakistan, Afghanistan, Egypt, Syria, and others will remain a tricky task for the EU in 2023. This article has been translated from German. Edited by: Richard Connor

7Politics

The Netherlands on Monday offered its "deepest apologies" for the role played by Dutch peacekeepers in the Srebrenica genocide. Roughly 8,000 Bosnian Muslims were brutally murdered by attacking Bosnian Serb forces 27 years ago. For the first time since the 1995 massacre, Dutch Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongren apologized to survivors for the Dutch peacekeepers' failure to prevent the killings. "The international community failed to offer adequate protection to the people of Srebrenica. The Dutch government shares responsibility for the situation in which that failure occurred. And for this, we offer our deepest apologies," Ollongren said during a ceremony in Potocari. The Srebrenica killings came at the tail end of the Balkan wars of the 1990s. Bosnian Serb forces overran the Dutch UN protection zone at Srebrenica and massacred 8,000 Muslim men and boys. Their bodies were dumped in mass graves. The peacekeepers, the Dutch government, and the United Nations have faced stinging criticism for their failure to prevent the killings. The slaughter, judged an act of genocide by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, was the worst single atrocity of the war, in which about 100,000 people died. Dutch courts had already determined that the Netherlands was partly responsible for the fall of Srebrenica and compensation was paid to survivors. Ollongren told survivors, "The events of 1995 led to deep human suffering that is palpable here to this day. We cannot relieve you of this suffering. But what we can do is to look history straight in the eye." Last month, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte apologized for the government's treatment of hundreds of Dutch soldiers who were sent to defend the enclave of Srebrenica during the 1992-95 Bosnian war. Rutte admitted that the Dutchbat III unit had been given an "impossible task" of keeping the peace in eastern Bosnia without sufficient resources. Thousands gathered to commemorate the 27th anniversary of the atrocity on Monday. Fifty newly identified victims were honored and reburied. Mass funerals of those identified are held each July 11, the takeover date by the forces of Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic, who has been jailed for life for war crimes. The discovery of skeletal remains from the massacre have become rare in recent years, even though some 1,200 people have still not been found, according to the Missing Persons Institute of Bosnia-Herzegovina. lo/fb (AP,AFP, dpa, Reuters)

1Catastrophe

A  21-story high-rise building has collapsed in the Nigerian city of Lagos, burying an unknown number of workers. At least six people have been confirmed dead but with over 100 people feared missing, the death toll is expected to rise. Emergency services crews and locals in the upscale residential and business district of Ikoyi are currently at the scene trying to free workers trapped under the rubble of the luxury apartment building, which has been under construction for the past two years. "It is a 25-story [sic] building still under construction. Many workers are trapped under the rubble. We are trying to rescue them," according to Femi Oke-Osanyintolu, an official with Lagos State Emergency Management Agency. "We cannot say at this moment how many are dead. The rescue operation is ongoing." "All first responders are at the scene while the heavy-duty equipment and life detection equipment have been dispatched," said agency officials. So far, at least three people have been rescued, with one telling a local TV station that about 50 workers were in the building at the time of the accident. Other workers at the site say that as many as 100 people were in the structure when it collapsed. Officials were greeted by angry residents when they arrived on the scene some three hours after the collapse occurred. Soldiers were deployed to the scene to control the situation. Authorities say it is as yet unclear what caused the collapse, though such tragedies are not uncommon in Lagos, where building regulation and safety enforcement are lax. With over 20 million residents, Lagos is the most populous city in Africa, and Nigeria it's most populous country. The collapsed structure was part of a three-towered development touted by real estate mogul Femi Osibona, owner of Fourscore Homes, as a "bold, beautiful lifestyle statement." The project's website has been shut down. In February 2020, structural engineering company Prowess Engineering Ltd., formally submitted its withdrawal from the project citing concerns over how it was being executed as well as with the quality of concrete being used.  To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video js/sms, jsi (AFP, Reuters)

8Society

Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said in a live television broadcast on Friday that he has told the government to reject British and American-made vaccines. "Imports of US and British vaccines into the country are banned. I have told this to officials and I'm saying it publicly now," Khamenei said. The statement followed a recent rise in tensions between Iran and the US, exemplified by Iran's seizure of a South Korean oil tanker earlier in the week. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video The announcement effectively prohibits the three major vaccines that have so far been given the green light around the world. The German BioNTech vaccine is co-produced by the American firm Pfizer, the Moderna vaccine is a US achievement and the Oxford University-AstraZeneca vaccine — cheaper than the other two options — is from the UK. Khamenei though praised on-going efforts to produce a vaccine inside Iran. Iran has been particularly hard-hit by the coronavirus pandemic with almost 56,000 deaths since the virus reached the country. Khamenei also expressed a lack of interest in the US returning to the nuclear deal which was abandoned by Trump, although he insisted that sanctions be lifted. "We are in no rush and we are not insisting on [the US's] return. Our demand... is the lifting of sanctions," Khamenei said. Both issues — vaccine acquirement and a return to negotiations with the incoming US President-elect Joe Biden — have shown a split between the hardliner Khamenei and the government led by the more moderate Hassan Rouhani. President Rouhani has previously expressed openness to working with the new US president. ab/rt (Reuters, AFP) Correction: A previous version of this article stated that Iran was working with the Chinese company Fosun Pharma to produce and distribute vaccines. This could not be verified and has now been removed. The department apologizes for the error.

7Politics

Rescue teams located the missing Indonesian submarine on Sunday, authorities said. Navy Chief of Staff Yudo Margono said the submarine had been broken into three pieces. "With this authentic proof, we can confirm that KRI Nanggala 402 has sunk and all of its 53 sailors have died on duty," Air Marshall Hadi Tjahjanto told a press conference.  Underwater drone images showed the wreckage on the seafloor. It was found by a Singaporean craft about 1,500 meters (5,000 feet) to the south of where it last dove. Indonesian President Joko Widodo earlier offered his condolences to the families of those lost in a submarine accident four days ago. He confirmed that the KRI Nanggala 402 submarine sank, and that the 53 crew members are presumed to have died.   "All of us Indonesians express our deep sorrow over this tragedy, especially to the families of the submarine crew," he said. He said rescuers were still expending their best efforts to recover the craft and its crew. He offered his hopes and prayers, and wished the families patience and strength. The 44-year-old West-German-built submarine lost contact while taking part in torpedo drills off the coast of Bali on Wednesday. It failed to surface and only had enough oxygen for the crew to survive up to 72 hours. Rescue teams announced on Saturday they had found objects such as prayer mat fragments, a piece of the torpedo system and a bottle of periscope lubricant near the submarine's last known location. This led them to believe that the vessel had broken open. Navy Chief of Staff Yudo Margono later announced that sonar scans had detected a submarine-like object 850 meters (2,790 feet) underwater, well beyond the diving range of the craft. Ships and helicopters from Australia, the United States, Singapore, Malaysia and India are helping in the search effort. aw/mm (AFP, AP, Reuters, dpa)

1Catastrophe

Several German government ministers have indicated that under specific conditions, Germany is ready to take in Russians fleeing the "partial military mobilization" ordered by Russian President Vladimir Putin. "Deserters threatened with serious repression can, as a rule, obtain international protection in Germany," Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said in an interview with the daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. "Anyone who courageously opposes Putin's regime and thereby falls into great danger, can file for asylum on grounds of political persecution," she said. German Justice Minister Marco Buschmann tweeted using the hashtag "partial mobilization" that "apparently, many Russians are leaving their homeland — anyone who hates Putin's path and loves liberal democracy is welcome in Germany." Meanwhile, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock praised Russian anti-war protesters and added that no one inside the country can continue turning a blind eye to what's happening in Ukraine because "every Russian is now going to be at risk of being drafted into this war." German Bundestag parliamentarian Robin Wagener of the Greens told DW that it has always been a "cause of the West to open borders to those fleeing from regimes," like those seen in the former Soviet Union. "When I hear [Ukrainian] President Zelenskyy saying saying directly to Russian young men, 'protest against the regime, fight it or flee.' Then there needs to be a place to flee to," he said. Wagener added that under European law, persons fleeing from military service, when this military service is also linked to war crimes, have the right to asylum. "We should keep to that and have our arms open for those fleeing," he said.   To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video On Thursday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov downplayed reports of draft-age men from Russia fleeing en masse after Putin's announcement.  "The information about the hype at airports and so on is very much exaggerated. ... There is a lot of fake information about this. We need to be very careful about this so as not to become a victim of false information on this matter," he said. Since Putin declared a "partial mobilization" of reservists, flights for the coming days from Russia to visa-free countries including Armenia, Turkey, Azerbaijan and Serbia have sold out entirely. Lengthy lines were reported at Russia's borders with Georgia, Finland, Kazakhstan and Mongolia. The German-based human rights organization Pro Asyl also called for countries to grant asylum to deserters and conscientious objectors from Russia and Belarus. "According to EU law, those who escape a war that violates international law have a right to asylum and protection. In this sense, Germany and Europe must now unbureaucratically organize the admission of the people who vote with their feet against the Russian war of aggression," the head of the European department of Pro Asyl, Karl Kopp, told the Rheinische Post newspaper. Since February 24, Germany has taken in around 1 million Ukrainians fleeing Russia's invasion, but also welcomed Russian dissidents. According to Faeser, 438 Russian dissidents, including journalists, have also benefited from an accelerated process to obtain protection in Germany. However, she pointed out that political asylum is not automatically granted; applicants are first subjected to security checks. The European Commission also said people fleeing partial mobilization in Russia have the right to claim asylum in the European Union. "This is an unprecedented situation," Anita Hipper, an EU spokesperson responsible for migration said. According to Hipper, the applications would need to be considered on a case-by-case basis. She added that work was ongoing with EU member states to find a joint approach. On Wednesday, officials from the EU's Baltic member states said they will not offer refuge to any Russians fleeing Moscow's partial mobilization. Earlier this week, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania closed their borders to most Russian citizens in response to the wide domestic support in Russia for the war in Ukraine. dh/wmr (AFP, dpa) While you're here: Every Tuesday, DW editors round up what is happening in German politics and society. You can sign up here for the weekly email newsletter Berlin Briefing.

2Conflicts

French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday told his Iranian counterpart Ebrahim Raisi over the phone that reviving the 2015 nuclear deal was "still possible," according to a statement from the Elysee Palace. The deal needs to be revived "as soon as possible," Macron stressed. France's president "expressed his disappointment" at the lack of progress after the suspension of talks in Vienna. He said that Iran needed to return to the accord and implement its nuclear commitments, the Elysee statement said. Negotiations between Iran and world powers have stalled since March. The 2015 deal aimed to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear bomb in exchange for the lifting of international sanctions. Former US President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew the United States from the accord in 2018 and reimposed sanctions on Tehran. Iran then began to roll back on its commitments under the deal. Indirect talks between the US and Iran were held in Qatar in June. But discussions were interrupted two days into the talks without any breakthrough. Earlier this month, the US and Israel signed an agreement pledging to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Last week, an Iranian official said Tehran had the capacity to develop a nuclear bomb but no plan to make one. Iran's Foreign Ministry said there was "no change" to the country's nuclear policy. Macron also called for the liberation of four French citizens "arbitrarily held" in Iran. One of the detained French citizens is Benjamin Briere, sentenced to more than eight years in jail after a court found him guilty of espionage. Also detained in Iran is French-Iranian researcher Fariba Adelkhah, who received a five-year prison term last year for "endangering national security." The two other detainees are trade unionists held since May 11. They are accused of threatening Iranian security. sdi/sri (AFP, Reuters)

7Politics

India's representative to the Palestinian Authority, Mukul Arya, was found dead inside the Indian mission in Ramallah on Sunday. India's Foreign Minister S Jaishankar expressed shock at the sudden death of Arya, who was 36-years-old. "He was a bright and talented officer with so much before him. My heart goes out to his family and loved ones," Jaishankar said in a tweet. The cause of his death was not immediately known. Many Indian officials who worked with him were also taken aback by the news of Arya's death. "This is truly shocking. A wonderful colleague snatched away so young. My deepest condolences to his family," said TS Tirumurti, India's ambassador to the United Nations, who also previously served as a representative to Ramallah. The Palestinian foreign ministry said that President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh had ordered security and police officials, as well as forensic experts, to immediately move to the Indian representative's place of residence to closely monitor the case. It said that all parties were fully prepared to do what was required in such difficult circumstances. The ministry added in a statement that it was in touch with Indian authorities for transporting the envoy's body. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Raised and educated in the Indian capital of New Delhi, Arya joined the foreign service in 2008, at the age of 23. He was a career diplomat who had previously served at the Indian embassies in Kabul and Moscow. He was posted at the Permanent Delegation of India to UNESCO in Paris, and at the foreign ministry in New Delhi. He took charge of the mission in Ramallah last year. India, one of the 138 UN members to recognize the State of Palestine, maintains its diplomatic presence in Ramallah through its Representative Office. Edited by: John Silk

8Society

There is no end in sight to China's zero-COVID strategy, even as public discontent reaches a fever pitch after almost three years of continuous lockdowns and disruptions to the economy.   And despite authorities' efforts to stamp out the virus, new cases in recent weeks are on an upwards trend. Over the past 24 hours the number of daily cases hit a new record, with Beijing reporting more than 31,000 new cases nationwide on Thursday, the highest number since the pandemic began. In several cities, millions of people are being confined to their homes.   Businesses have been ordered to have staff work from home while parks and museums have been shut down.   Authorities in Beijing say the capital is facing the most serious test of the pandemic so far. New rules require that anyone arriving from other parts of China remain in their accommodation and be tested for three days.   On Wednesday, demonstrations by workers at the world's largest iPhone factory protesting harsh living conditions were suppressed violently, according to witnesses and videos on social media. The southern city of Guangzhou, which has around 19 million residents, is currently experiencing one of China's largest coronavirus outbreaks. Millions of people have been locked down, with sporadic protests breaking out.   Videos posted on social media showed frustrated residents running through barriers and the streets of the Haizhu district, and also clashing with health workers in hazmat suits. A Guangzhou resident, who wished to remain anonymous, told DW that although the entire city has not been locked down, residents were frustrated with the constant lines for testing and the requirement for a "health code" to access public places. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video "Sometimes, the test doesn't come back in time and you lose the green health code for a few hours," the man said. "People are definitely frustrated with all of this."   Chinese citizens willing to protest publicly is a sign of how desperate the situation has become.  Yaqiu Wang, the senior China researcher at Human Rights Watch (HRW), told DW that the clash between frustrated citizens and local authorities in Guangzhou was a "last resort" form of resistance.   "In China, the price of resistance is very high, and in Guangzhou's case, many frustrated citizens are migrant workers who can't make a living due to the lockdown imposed on the city," she said.   "I think Chinese people wouldn't protest unless they have no other choice. The price to protest is simply too high for them," Wang added.   Earlier this month, Chinese authorities slightly relaxed some pandemic control measures, including reducing quarantine time for incoming passengers and canceling mass COVID testing in several cities. This comes while other cities continue to experience lockdowns.   Xi Chen, a professor of health policy at the Yale School of Public Health, told DW that authorities will find it more difficult to maintain a coordinated approach nationwide as cases continue to rise.   "This wave of virus transmissions will soon surpass the peak of the Shanghai lockdown earlier this year," he said. "However, the stretched local financial conditions after three years of mass testing and quarantines and economic slowdown, public dissatisfaction with the economy and COVID control measures all make coordinated strategies more difficult," he added.   "In the coming weeks, China will have to make some major adjustments in the face of this looming crisis," he said. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Chen said Chinese authorities still do not have a long-term solution for living with the coronavirus and have not made adjustments after the initial successes in fighting the spread of the virus during the early phase of the pandemic.   "The long-term inclination towards short-term COVID control measures will risk losing the larger picture of an exit strategy," the expert said. "The overwhelming focus has been on the very short term to eliminate virus transmissions, such as through mass PCR testing and quarantine."  Longer-term solutions would include introducing more effective vaccines, and antiviral drugs, preparing health care systems, and better communicating with the public.   The expert added that continued "draconian COVID control measures" across the board risked "tearing society apart."   Besides disruptions to daily life, another more dire impact of draconian lockdowns is on medical care. Last week, outrage on social media was sparked by the death of a four-month-old baby in the central city of Zhengzhou, after it failed to receive medical treatment while in quarantine.   In another recent incident, a three-year-old boy in the city of Lanzhou died from carbon monoxide poisoning after government restrictions prevented him from being taken to the hospital in time.  According to local government reports, the boy's father tried to call a hotline four times, but when he finally got through, the dispatcher said only an online medical consultation was possible since the family lived in a "high-risk area."  "Some people died because they have no access to medical treatment, while others lack food security or have lost their means to make a living," said Wang from HRW. She added that the human rights impact of the pandemic would be long-lasting.   "Although the government's handling of the pandemic will have a long-term impact on Chinese people, it doesn't mean the resistance will continue. There is no social base that can sustain any form of resistance as the Chinese government has eliminated all means for people to organize. Even if there is a lot of discontent towards the government, these voices can't be brought together," she said.   To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Edited by: Wesley Rahn  This piece was updated on November 24 to reflect the rising number of COVID-19 cases.

5Health

When I first moved from my native Malaysia to Germany 19 years ago, culture shock hit me almost immediately. Just about everything — from driving on the "wrong" side of the road to separating rubbish to adhering to quiet times — were all foreign to me. Over time, and through much trial and error, I slowly began to adapt to life here. Learning the language and having a healthy sense of humor — even if sometimes dourness was all the reaction I got — helped ease my integration into life here. And without realizing it, some things that I thought I'd never grow accustomed to have in fact grown on me, with people sometimes commenting that I'm now "eingedeutscht" (or Germanized). On the other hand, there are some aspects of German life that I'll never quite come to grips with but must accept. I recently returned to Malaysia after a four-year gap — partly caused by the global COVID lockdown — and I realized that in some situations I now deal with reverse culture shock.  One thing is certain: If I opt to return to Malaysia for good, I will require a refresher course in navigating the traffic there. Unlike in Germany where generally drivers keep to their lanes, use their indicator lights and dutifully do the "zipper merge" when necessary, in Malaysia I need to swivel my head 360° to take in traffic from all directions — especially motorbikes that dizzyingly weave in and out of traffic at will. The general civility demonstrated by German drivers on the road here has dulled my reflexes somewhat. Except for some big car drivers making like bats out of hell on the Autobahn, I find driving in Germany a cake walk. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video And speaking of walking, pedestrians are still pretty much at the bottom of the food chain in Malaysia. So, standing expectantly at a zebra crossing for cars to slow down for you doesn't always work. Any talk of "defensive driving" will most likely have you dismissed as a weakling. I should know. I was one of "those" drivers myself when I lived and worked in the capital, Kuala Lumpur. For context though, Malaysia's big cities are often caught in interminable crawls during peak hours. Everyone is on edge and edging into every possible gap in traffic to get to their destinations faster. So, using emergency lanes or tailing ambulances — both no-no's in Germany — is a "ja" in Malaysia. I once had a postcard with an African saying that went, "Westerners have watches, we have time." It could very well have been coined by a Malaysian. In fact, we have the concept of "rubber time" — implying that time, like rubber, can be stretched at will and therefore sticklers for punctuality need to take a chill pill. However, having been raised by a father who was both extremely punctual and impatient, rubber time always niggled me. In my early days as a reporter in Kuala Lumpur, one had to factor in at least a 30-minute delay before any official press event began. You eventually learn and arrive later too, thus keeping high blood pressure at bay. Where keeping time is concerned, Germany wins hands down for me.  The relative ease with which one gets to see a medical practitioner in Malaysia is what makes retiring there almost a certainty for me. I understand that we're comparing two vastly different societies — an aging versus a yet-to-be-aging one. But even after years of being in Germany and knowing that the health system is overstretched capacity-wise, I still cannot accept the fact that I'm offered appointments sometimes up to six months down the line when I'm in pain and unable to function — now! And many general practitioners or GPs — the Malaysian equivalent of the German Hausarzt — offer 24-hour clinics where no appointment is necessary. You walk in when you're unwell, get a number, and get treated. My idea of heaven.  To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video My most unforgettable introduction to life in Germany happened about a month after we'd moved into an apartment in a multiparty house, and I learned about the hallowed "Ruhezeit" or "quiet time." In Germany, the commonly observed quiet times are from 10 PM to 6 or 7 AM on weekdays and the entire day on Sundays and public holidays — rules may differ among the different states and even among landlords. During these time periods, it is verboten to operate loud household or gardening appliances, play loud music or have loud parties. We had a frazzled neighbor come by and tell my husband that I was not to laugh too loudly from 8 PM onwards. Yes, you read right. My husband wryly responded that according to the house rules I could technically laugh out loud till 10 PM after which I'd proceed to cellar if need be. Coming from a society where you're exposed to noise almost all the time, I do now appreciate the concept of quiet time. However, my early exposure to noise became particularly advantageous when I started to have to work from home, all while workmen noisily went about their business around me. On the whole though, I find that experiencing culture shock both ways can be a win-win in some instances. If anything, it makes us more tolerant of things we'd rather do differently.  You'll find more from Meet the Germans on YouTube, Instagram and at dw.com/MeetTheGermans. Edited by: Elizabeth Grenier

4Culture

A pro-Moscow official in the southern Kherson region of Ukraine said Russian troops there were regrouping for a counterattack after sweeping gains by Kyiv's forces. While Russian troops have conceded territory in southern Ukraine, they also faced losses on the northeastern front. The Operational Command of the Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF) said on Wednesday that it had extended the area it controlled on some parts of the front line "between 10 to 20 kilometers" (6.2 to 12.4 miles). In its daily report, the UAF said Russian forces were destroying ammunition and reserves and trying to destroy bridges and crossings to slow the Ukrainian advance. It said the withdrawing Russian forces in Kherson were planting mines on "infrastructure facilities" and in homes. The report said that, in the last 24 hours, Russia had lost 31 troops and more than 40 pieces of equipment, including eight tanks, 26 armored vehicles, and a large caliber howitzer. The Russian state-owned news agency RIA quoted Russian-installed Kherson official Kirill Stremousov as saying that Russian forces there were "conducting a regrouping in order to gather their strength and deliver a retaliatory blow." Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the Kremlin is "working on the assumption that the situation in the new territories will stabilize." Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, says gains have been made in the Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Kharkiv regions. He listed several smaller settlements in Kherson specifically, saying that they had been "liberated from the occupier and stabilized." He also described his list of locations as "far from complete."  To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video The UK's Ministry of Defense on Wednesday said Ukraine was also making progress in offensive operations on the north-eastern front. In Kharkiv Oblast, it said, Ukraine had now consolidated a substantial area of territory east of the Oskil River. The ministry said Ukrainian formations had advanced up to 20 kilometers beyond the river into Russia's defensive zone towards the supply node town of Svatove. The gains reported by Ukraine were in three of the four regions — Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia — that Moscow claims to have annexed after so-called referendums last week. The move has been widely condemned by Ukraine and Western governments as a violation of international law. The exact borders Russia is claiming still remain unclear, but the Kremlin has vowed to defend Russia's territory. The regions make up a crucial land corridor between Russia and the Crimean Peninsula, which Moscow annexed in 2014. The UK Ministry of Defense noted that Russia's loss of territory on the borders of Luhansk could prove both strategically important and politically damaging to leaders in Moscow. "It is highly likely that Ukraine can now strike the key Svatove-Kremina road with most of its artillery systems, further straining Russia's ability to resupply its units in the east," said the UK assessment. "Politically, Russian leaders will highly likely be concerned that leading Ukrainian units are now approaching the borders of Luhansk Oblast, which Russia claimed to have formally annexed last Friday." rc/nm (dpa, Reuters, AP, AFP)

7Politics

Charlie Watts, the legendary Rolling Stones drummer, has died at the age of 80. The musician "passed away peacefully in a London hospital earlier today surrounded by his family," his publicist, Bernard Doherty said on Tuesday. "Charlie was a cherished husband, father and grandfather and also as a member of The Rolling Stones one of the greatest drummers of his generation," Doherty added. Watts revealed earlier this month he would not go on tour with the Rolling Stones in 2021 after undergoing a medical procedure. Charlie Watts was often described as one of the top musicians of his generation, helping to cement one of the greatest rhythm sections in the history of rock. As a member of one of the first British bands to conquer the United States in the 1960s, the Rolling Stones went on multi-million pound tours across the world. But in a recent interview with The Guardian he just spoke of himself as someone who was following his passions. "I love playing the drums, and I love playing with Mick and Keith and Ronnie," Watts told The Guardian once. "I don't know about the rest of it. It wouldn't bother me if the Rolling Stones said: 'That's it ... enough.'" Without Charlie Watts as a calming influence among rock 'n' roll's long-serving band, the Rolling Stones would probably have not lasted as long as it has. Watts' diplomatic tact often served to bring the hot-tempered, quarrelsome Mick Jagger and Keith Richards to their senses. It was due to his calming influence that the Rolling Stones were still together when he passed away and were even ready to hit the road again once the pandemic subsided. As Richards once said: "There couldn't be a Rolling Stones without Charlie Watts." Musicians from all over the world have been quick to praise Watts' musical genius which inspired a generation. Fellow British star Elton John said Watts was "the ultimate drummer" in a Facebook post. He called him "the most stylish of men, and such brilliant company," while offering his condolences to his family and the members of his band. Another great British musician, Paul McCartney called Watts "a lovely guy." "A fantastic drummer, steady as a rock. Love you, Charlie, will always love you," Paul McCartney said in a video he posted on Twitter. "RIP Charlie Watts, one of the greatest rock drummers ever and a real gentleman," tweeted Canadian rocker Bryan Adams. Watts was sidelined from the Rolling Stones earlier this month after his doctors found a unspecified problem they wanted to rectify, according to press reports. At the time, he said that "for once my timing has been a little off" and he would not be going on tour as originally planned. "I am working hard to get fully fit but I have today accepted on the advice of the experts that this will take a while," Watts added. Watts had received treatment for alcohol and heroin abuse, but said he had been able to leave those addiction problems behind. He also underwent treatment for throat cancer in 2004. "We kindly request that the privacy of his family, band members and close friends is respected at this difficult time," his spokesman Doherty said while announcing the musician's death. jc/dj (AP, Reuters)  

8Society

Nepal doesn't boast strong economic ties to either Russia or Ukraine, but the war between those two countries has battered the Himalayan nation's already feeble economy.      Skyrocketing fuel and food prices brought on by the conflict are hitting Nepal's economy , which has already been weakened by a pandemic-induced loss of tourism, a fall in remittances, a widening trade deficit and depletion of foreign exchange reserves.   Even before the war, the country's financial health was not sound, said Roshee Lamichhane, assistant professor at Kathmandu University. Lamichhane points to the drop in tourist arrivals and foreign investment, among other problems. "And the ongoing conflict has further aggravated the situation," she told DW.   The Himalayan nation of 29 million people, sandwiched between giants China and India, relies solely on imports to meet its fuel needs. With the rise in global crude prices following Russia's Ukraine invasion, the state-owned oil monopoly, Nepal Oil Corporation, has been forced to hike prices of petroleum products. Prices of other commodities like food stuffs, soybeans and palm oil as well as iron, have also surged, making life much tougher for many Nepali people.   Annual consumer price-based inflation accelerated to 7.1% in mid-March, a five-year high, compared with an average of 5.18% over the past three years. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video The price rises and the soaring import bill have adversely affected the trade deficit and the value of the nation's currency, prompting fears that it could lead to a balance of payments crisis, which occurs when a nation is unable to pay for its imports or service its foreign debt payments. The trade deficit expanded 34.5% year-on-year to 1.16 trillion Nepali rupees ($9.5 billion, €8.8 billion) in the first eight months of the fiscal year as import costs surged. Nepal's gross foreign exchange reserves fell to $9.75 billion as of mid-February, down 17% from mid-July last year when its financial year started, Reuters reported. The current reserves are estimated to be enough to support imports for about six months. Meanwhile, remittances from overseas — which account for as much as a quarter of Nepal's GDP — fell 5.8% to $4.53 billion between mid-July to mid-February, data from the central bank showed. Nepal is the fifth-most remittance-dependent economy in the world, with estimates suggesting that there are about 3 to 4 million Nepali migrants employed across the globe.   In a bid to save the foreign currency reserves, authorities this month imposed curbs on imports of luxury goods like cars, gold and cosmetics.   But Lamichhane is skeptical about the effectiveness of the move in the long run. "This may be helpful to improve foreign currency reserves in the short term. But this is not a sustainable way of addressing the problem," she said, adding that the country needs to increase local production and trade. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Officials say Nepal's GDP target of 7% growth for the financial year to mid-July will likely be missed. "The current problems are a cumulative result of our inability to invest in wealth creation," Govind Raj Pokharel, a former vice chairman of the National Planning Commission, told DW. "Since the economic reforms of the early 1990s, successive governments have failed to invest in wealth creation and rather relied on the easy flow of remittances and import tariffs to run our economy." Meanwhile, Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba's government has suspended the central bank governor, Maha Prasad Adhikari, and named his deputy as interim chief.   The government has accused Adhikari of leaking sensitive information and formed a panel to probe the charges against him.   But the move drew sharp criticism from some observers and opposition parties.   "Removing the governor at this critical time is a tragedy," Bishwambher Pyakurel, a prominent economist and a former board member of NRB, recently said in a public speech. "It is not good for the country's financial stability."   This view is shared by Pokharel, who said that Deuba chose the wrong approach to the situation. He argued that the government should have first concluded its investigation into the accusations leveled against Adhikari before taking action against him.   To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Nepal's economic woes have drawn comparisons with Sri Lanka, which has been hit by severe economic turmoil in recent weeks.   The island nation, which has seen mass protests and calls for President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to resign, has started upon the path to a sovereign default amid an onerous external debt load and a shortage of foreign exchange reserves.   Despite comparisons with the current situation in Sri Lanka, Nepal is not heading down that path, said Pyakurel, who previously served as an ambassador of Nepal to Sri Lanka.   "The situation is still manageable if we receive a bit more remittances and foreign tourists, and if we are able to increase our exports and local production," he stressed.   Edited by: Srinivas Mazumdaru

0Business

Accepting his new position on Wednesday, Green Party politician Sven Lehmann said "everyone should be able to live freely, safely, and with equal rights." In the newly created role of "Federal Government Commissioner for the Acceptance of Sexual and Gender Diversity," Lehmann will be responsible for working with government ministries on policy projects affecting the LGBTQ+ community. He will also spearhead the government's National Action Plan for Sexual and Gender Diversity. Germany's month-old government — made up of the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), the Greens and the neoliberal Free Democrats (FDP) — previously set out the plan in their coalition deal. "Germany should become a pioneer in the fight against discrimination," the agreement reads. In announcing his appointment, Lehman said that protection of all people regardless of their sexual and gender identity "must be ensured in accordance with the Basic Law" (Germany's constitution) and that "the fundamental rights of trans, inter and non-binary people must finally be fully enforced." "We also need a broad strategy to combat hatred directed at groups — which explicitly includes 'queerphobia'," Lehmann said. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video The 42-year-old parliamentarian has been a member of the Bundestag for the Greens since 2017. From 2018 to 2021 Lehmann served as spokesperson for queer policy and social policy within the Greens' parliamentary group, alongside Ulle Schauws. "The issue of justice drives him," Schauws told DW. "That's why fighting for a life free of discrimination, for acceptance and diversity is like an engine that drives him." Lehmann's close contact with rights groups and activists means he knows exactly what issues are affecting the queer community," she said. "Even in discussions where there's criticism, he always has an open ear for what's important and what problems there are." In the 2021 federal election, Lehmann won the direct mandate for his constituency in the western city of Cologne, which is home to one of the country's largest gay communities. Germany's Lesbian and Gay Association (LSVD) said the newly created office is "another important signal for the queer political awakening promised by the coalition government." Lehmann has to become "the driving force in the government in order to implement the queer political projects promised in the coalition agreement," Henny Engels from the LSVD board told DW. "Right now he should urgently endeavor to ensure that LGBTQ+ people are explicitly included in the admission program for refugees from Afghanistan, which was recently presented by Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock," Engels said. In December, Baerbock vowed to speed up the evacuation of those in need of protection in Afghanistan. Germany's action plan includes cutting back on bureaucracy to hasten the process. The German Society for Trans Identity and Intersexuality (dgti) also said it looked forward to working with Lehmann on the path to a "better world for all trans, inter and non-binary people." In recent years, some changes have been initiated in this area of equality and diversity that can now be brought to a good end, dgti told DW in a written statement. "From the dgti's point of view, this includes, above all, the abolition of the 'transsexual law' and the passage of new legislation on self-determination." In 2018, Germany became one of the few countries worldwide that officially recognizes the existence of more than two genders when it introduced a third option, "diverse," in addition to "male" and "female." In the new government's coalition deal, the three ruling parties pledged sweeping reforms for LGBTQ+ rights including an end to restrictions on blood donations by gay men, as well as legal changes to allow trans people to determine their own gender. The coalition also wants to see transition-related medical care fully covered by statutory health insurance and plans to create a compensation fund for trans and intersex people who were harmed by previous legislation, which included forced sterilization. Prior to legal reform in 2011, trans people in Germany were forced to undergo sterilization to receive legal gender recognition. "Some of these people suffer from these sex-assigning forced surgeries all their lives," the dgti statement read. "Trans people who were only able to change their civil status after an adjustment operation must also be compensated. For many, this meant that their marriages resulted in a divorce or were annulled. Such action on the part of the state is against human dignity and human rights," the dgti said. The creation of such a compensation fund would see Germany follow in the footsteps of European neighbors Sweden and the Netherlands. Compensation has also been an issue with the Bundeswehr, Germany's army: In 2020 the Defense Ministry published a report on the extent of discrimination of gay soldiers before 2000.  To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Volker Beck, a Greens politician and former member of parliament, has praised the creation of the new post, even if it "comes somewhat late," he told DW. Beck campaigned vehemently for the recognition of sexual diversity in the German parliament during his time as a Bundestag MP between 1994 and 2017. The first proposals for establishing a position similar to Lehmann's were already drawn up in the 1980s. Looking to European neighbors, Beck said he hopes the position will be a "signal that gays and lesbians and sexual minorities are seen as citizens with equal rights." Similarly, Lehmann's colleague Schauws said that while Germany still lags behind many countries on LGBTQ+ rights, she hopes the new government can lead by example for those even further behind. The new coalition has the task of ensuring that "people with queer biographies are finally taken seriously and the realities of diverse families are reflected in our laws so they can live free of discrimination." "And this goes way beyond queer politics," said Schauws. "This applies to all forms of discrimination, and hatred towards specific groups that we experience in our country — and experience increasingly from right-wing groups. We have to keep a watchful eye on them and say: 'No, not in our country'." Edited by: Rina Goldenberg and Kyra Levine While you're here: Every Tuesday, DW editors round up what is happening in German politics and society. You can sign up here for the weekly email newsletter Berlin Briefing, to stay on top of developments as Germany enters the post-Merkel era.

7Politics

In Ouarzazate, Morocco's gateway to the Sahara Desert, more than half a million curved mirrors form gigantic circles.   Every few minutes, the mirrors rotate to better direct sunlight towards tubes full of synthetic oil, making it so hot, it turns into vapor. A turbine uses the vapor to produce enough power for 1.3 million people.  This is the Noor Ouarzazate complex, the largest concentrated solar farm in the world.  In a coastal town in southeastern Morrocco, lies another renewables mega project — the Tarfaya wind farm. With 131 turbines, it is one of the largest of its kind in Africa.   "We benefit from solar radiance and wind levels that are among the highest of any country in the world," said Ghalia Mokhtari, a lawyer and energy specialist with the Moroccan Institute of Strategic Intelligence, a think tank based in the capital Rabat.   And the country's leaders are trying to harness those renewable resources to make Morocco a green leader in Africa, she added. The goal is to reduce climate-warping greenhouse gas emissions by 18.3% by 2030.  The country's solar and wind expansion has been long in the making, dating back to a 2009 energy plan. The goal was to reach 42% of installed renewable power capacity by 2020.   "King [Mohammed VI] wanted to turn Morocco into a green energy hub because of climate change," said Mokhtari.  Like most African states, Morocco's carbon emissions are tiny compared to industrialized nations and major historical polluters. But it's feeling the harsh consequences of the climate crisis, from scorching heat and droughts to coastal flooding, all of which are worsening food insecurity and water scarcity. North Africa is one of the most vulnerable regions in the world to climate change, with summer temperatures predicted to soar by 4 degrees Celsius (7.2 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2100.  But, added Mokhtari, the country's leadership also wanted to expand renewables, "because we relied heavily on energy imports from Algeria and Spain." The country still imports 90% of its energy and relies primarily on fossil fuels. In a bid to wean itself off foreign hydrocarbons, Morocco opened its renewables market to private competition and phased out petrol and diesel subsidies when oil prices were low in 2014 and 2015. But butane gas, popular in households and agriculture, still receives much government support.  The 2009 energy strategy proved to be slightly too ambitious: Morocco missed its 2020 target for renewable power capacity by 5%. But the government seems to be on track to meet a 2030 target of 52%, according to a recent report by the consulting firm Ernst & Young (EY).   According to the analysis, Morocco is punching considerably above its weight in the renewables market given its small economy. And with two new solar power plants and a wind farm being inaugurated in the last year, renewable energy supply rose by almost 10%.   Besides the electricity sector, Morocco also has its eyes set on decarbonizing other areas like transport or agriculture. It shows huge potential to produce green hydrogen, which is being touted as an alternative fuel to replace oil and diesel in heavy industry and aviation, according to the report.  Still, green hydrogen requires huge amounts of clean energy to produce, which, according to German environmental think tank, the Heinrich Böll Foundation, is still in too short supply in the country in spite of its gains. Although, international demand for the alternative fuel could bolster Morocco's renewables expansion, it added. Recently, the country also signed a deal with the European Union for a "green partnership" to boost cooperation on renewables.  "There is no doubt ... that Morocco has the natural resources, regulatory support and government commitment to lead Africa's green revolution," said the EY report.   Still, Morocco faces significant challenges in its transition to green energy. Fossil fuels still power most of the country. Coal, which is especially polluting, makes up 37% of electricity production and is getting more expensive due to sanctions on Russia. The country has also come under fire for commissioning new coal power plants and extending the life spans of others. And Climate Action Tracker, an independent scientific monitoring group, says the country needs more international support to get on the pathway to decarbonization.  Civil society organizations have also criticized the state's focus on giant power plants over small-scale projects, according to the Heinrich Böll Foundation. NGOs say local populations have no say in the projects and don't benefit from jobs.  At the same time, power demand is also soaring. As the population grows and the country develops, consumption could quadruple by 2050. To plug that demand with green energy, the country still has a long way to go, according to the Heinrich Böll Foundation. Morocco's King Mohammed VI urged the government to speed up the development of new renewables projects at a recent meeting. "By building on its progress, Morocco should accelerate the deployment of renewable energies in order to strengthen its energy sovereignty, reduce energy costs and position itself in the low-carbon economy in the decades to come," said the monarch in a statement.  Edited by: Jennifer Collins 

6Nature and Environment

Dozens of Benin Bronzes that were stolen in Africa during the colonial era will go on display in Berlin from Saturday. They'll be displayed in the new east wing of the Humboldt Forum in the German capital. Two rooms in the sprawling museum are being dedicated to the art and the history of the kingdom, an exhibition realized "in close cooperation with partners in Nigeria." The Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, whose collection is being exhibited at the Forum, transferred property rights of its 514 objects to Nigeria. Instead of the 220 objects to be exhibited initially, only 40 pieces will be shown to the public. Earlier this year, Germany and Nigeria signed an agreement about the return of the objects from the famous Benin Bronzes collection. About a third of the collection will remain in Berlin for an initial period of 10 years. After that period, the loan contract will expire and will need to be renegotiated with Nigeria. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video The valuable artifacts — sculptures and reliefs made of bronze and brass, as well as works made of ivory, coral and wood — were stolen from the former Kingdom of Benin by British colonial forces in a brutal punitive expedition in 1897. The royal palace from pre-colonial times was razed to the ground, and Benin City, in what is now south-western Nigeria, was almost completely destroyed. Thousands of Benin bronzes, metal plaques and sculptures are now scattered around Europe, but many museums have begun looking at restituting the artworks. The display in Berlin would include information on the looting, while educational workshops have also been planned around the display. "When it comes to colonial injustice, I think we're on the right path," said Hermann Parzinger, president of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, which oversees the national museums in the German capital. "We're nowhere near the end," Parzinger added, but the museums were open to continuing the journey to a better understanding of the past "together" with international partners. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Germany already began repatriating other artifacts to Nigeria earlier this year. Two Benin bronzes – a 35kg head of an oba, or king and one of a cockerel were returned to Nigeria and went on display in Benin City. Nigeria was planning to build a museum in Benin City to bring together the works on their return. Germany is not the only country to begin returning stolen artefacts. In November 2021, France returned 26 artifacts from the royal treasures of Abomey to the country of Benin, next to Nigeria. Pressure is also growing on the British Museum, which has around 700 bronzes. Correction: An eariler version of this story stated the figures would go on display one last time. This has been amended. While you're here: Every Tuesday, DW editors round up what is happening in German politics and society. You can sign up here for the weekly email newsletter Berlin Briefing. lo/kb (AFP, AP)

4Culture

There are not a few aviation experts who are surprised that Russia's commercial airlines are still taking to the skies despite a range of biting international sanctions targeting the country's aviation sector. Not long after the beginning of the war in Ukraine, Western countries barred their airspace to Russia's airlines; foreign airlines cut their commercial ties to them, and plane makers such as Boeing and Airbus stopped delivering crucial spare parts to Russia. According to those experts, it wouldn't take more than two weeks before commercial aviation in Russia collapsed. Nine months into the war, however, reports about Russian aviation's imminent death are proving to be premature. Flight services for Russian passengers operate seemingly uninterrupted, at least on domestic routes. How can that be? "It's a combination of things," argues Richard Aboulafia, an aviation expert from US aerospace consulting firm AeroDynamic Advisory. "Leaky sanctions are definitely a part of it…existing parts inventories, creative workarounds and cannibalism," he told DW. Bevor the Ukraine war, Russian airlines operated more than 800 aircraft, almost all of them made by Western manufacturers. The latest available data provided by the country's state-owned airline, Aeroflot, shows that more than 120 million passengers used the country's airlines in 2019. More than half of them took international flights, which have meanwhile been cancelled completely amid the sanctions regime. Aboulafia said the thinning out of flight schedules has come to be a blessing for the airlines, allowing them to disassemble the grounded planes and maintain domestic services. "I'm sure their priority is preserving domestic air travel. When you no longer have to worry about international routes that allows you to save a lot of miles on your fleet, and put the maintenance resources and components into that domestic capacity." Russian airline expert Anastasia Dagaeva agrees. She told DW that disassembling idled airplanes was "a possibility to secure critical components" as long as there are no other procurement options available and fewer planes needed. Russian commercial airlines currently operate almost entirely modern Western aircraft made by Boeing and Airbus. Most of them are operated on leases from international companies — a business model facilitated by the so-called Cape Town Convention. The international treaty was signed in the South African city in 2001, reducing the risks for creditors, and consequently, the borrowing costs to debtors, through improved legal certainty. "The convention allowed international financiers to assume that everybody was in a pretty good credit risk. Therefore, they were eager to finance jets in emerging markets and Russia was no exception," Aboulafia explained. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video As Russia began rejuvenating its commercial airliner fleet in the years after 2001, replacing its old Soviet-made aircraft, it also adopted Western maintenance schedules and airline safety standards. As those binding schedules could no longer be guaranteed by the Russian airlines in the wake of the sanctions, many investors demanded their leased aircraft back — more than 500 jets worth well over $10 billion (€9.65 billion). However in March, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed into law regulation allowing the country's airlines to register their aircraft in Russia — a move that "effectively meant we have stolen the planes," said independent Russian aviation expert Vadim Lukashevich. "Now we are forced to steal spare parts, which has become a matter of survival for civil aviation in Russia," he told DW. He also said that Iran used to be a big hope for Moscow as the Mullah regime was showing how to circumvent Western sanctions in the field of aviation. A hope which, however, isn't materializing for Moscow, he added. Aboulafia thinks that Russia and Iran cannot be compared as Teheran is using mostly older models in its fleet that date back to the 1970s and 80s. Russia's modern airplanes are much more dependent on regular software updates and state-of-the-art semiconductors. "You can fake it a lot more easily with older-generation jets," he said, adding that Russia has "no internal, commercial aircraft manufacturing capability of any note" that would allow it to make up for a Western boycott on parts deliveries. Moreover, Western manufacturers are "really good at keeping track of components," meaning Russia is currently cut off from parts suppliers elsewhere in the world. "I suspect you'll see a bit of a cliff falling off at some point. Because getting parts here and there, cannibalizing existing jets — that's a six-to-12-month story. Beyond that I just don't see how that keeps going," Aboulafia said. Aboulafia also thinks what could become even more dangerous to Russia's commercial aviation industry is Moscow's blatant violation of the Cape Town Convention. "I don't think there's anybody who's going to ever finance capital equipment to Russia again." This piece was originally published in German.

0Business

A young conscript allegedly opened fired on fellow soldiers in the eastern Ukrainian city of Dnipro, killing five people and injuring five others on Thursday, police and the interior ministry said. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has ordered a probe into the incident. He called the mass shooting "terrible" and offered condolences to the victims' families and friends. He was captured Thursday morning after going on the run in the town of Pidhorodne some 20 kilometers (12.5 miles) north  of the mass shooting. The conscript allegedly took an AK47 and ammunition from the armory before shooting at colleagues just before 4 a.m. local time (0200 GMT). Twenty-two soldiers were on guard duty at the time of the incident. Two soldiers were able to flee and contact police and an ambulance. Ukraine's Interior Ministry wrote on Telegram that the the shootings occurred "on the territory of the Yuzhny Machine-Building Plant Yuzhmash." "A soldier of the National Guard of Ukraine," who they named as a 20-year-old conscript, was responsible for the incident.  Makarov Yuzhny Machine-Building Plant is a leading state-owned rocket and space equipment manufacturing company in Dnipropetrovsk. A female soldier was among those who died after succumbing to her injuries, according to the interior ministry. The shooter was on the run and last spotted near the Rocket and Space College. He was wearing his camouflage uniform and allegedly concealing an AK47 underneath. National police and national guardsman are on high alert following the incident, Interfax reported. Ukraine's State Bureau of Investigation later said the gunman called police and  surrendered in the town of Pidgorodne just north of Dnipro. The site of the shooting has been sealed off and civilians are being directed away from the scene. ar/aw (AFP, Interfax, Reuters)

2Conflicts

French President Emmanuel Macron said on Friday that more than 2,000 troops from an anti-extremism force will leave Africa's Sahel region starting within the next few months.   Macron announced last month that such a reduction would take place, saying that the current operation was not in tune with the region's present requirements. France currently has 5,000 troops in the region sent there to help stabilize the security situation in the face of a largely Islamist threat. During a press conference following talks with African leaders, Macron said France would start closing its bases in northern Mali in the second half of 2021, a process to be completed by early 2022. He said French troops would first be moved further south to focus on the restive border area where Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger meet before the reduction in troop numbers began. He gave no exact time frame. In the future, France's military presence will focus on neutralizing extremist operations and helping train local armed forces, Macron said. "There will also a dimension of reassurance ... to remain permanently ready to intervene rapidly in support of partner forces,'' he said.   France, as the former colonial power in the Sahel region, has had troops in Mali since 2013. They aided local forces to oust Islamist extremists who had seized towns in the country's north. Although their presence has been welcomed by governments in the Sahel, there has been some criticism likening it to a vestige of colonialism. The operation has anyway been only partially successful, with militants continuing to carry out attacks on both soldiers and civilians. A series of massacres in villages in the region at the border of Niger and Mali has claimed hundreds of lives since January. Some experts say Paris has grown frustrated with the lack of any ultimate success and with the political turmoil still prevailing, particularly in Mali. Niger's President Mohamed Bazoum, who spoke at Macron's side during the press conference said that France should continue giving support to local forces, but only as needed. "The main thing is that France maintains the principle of its support, its cooperation and support for the armed forces of our different countries," Bazoum said. "We need France to give us what we don't have. We don't need France to give us what we already have," he added.  tj/rt (AP, Reuters)   

2Conflicts

The Mount Merapi volcano in Indonesia erupted on Wednesday spewing ash, gas and extremely hot rock fragments for four hours, the Research and Development Center for Geological Disaster Technology reported. There were no reports of casualties, but the Development Center kept the alert system at its second-highest level. The explosion happened just as residents had begun to return to their nearby homes on the island of Java after fleeing previous eruptions. The resulting lava flow was the biggest since authorities raised the danger level in November, Hanik Humaida of the local Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation Center said. Some 2,000 local residents had fled their homes in the Sleman and Magelang districts near to the volcano after a series of eruptions, but had begun to return. Local authorities said they were prepared to evacuate people again if necessary and told people to stay clear of the 5 kilometer (3 mile) danger zone around the crater. "We are taking inventory of vehicles that will be used to transport villagers," the head of the local civil protection agency, Makwan, was quoted as saying by the Antara news agency. "So far no ash rain has been observed in residential areas," he said. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video The Indonesia islands lie on the Pacific "Ring of Fire", an area characterized by frequent earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. The country has around 128 active volcanoes of which Mount Merapi is the most active. The 2,968-meter high volcano has erupted repeatedly since 2018. Its most recent deadly eruption occurred in 2010 when it killed 340 people and left more than 60,000 displaced. ab/rt (dpa, AP)

6Nature and Environment

In mid-February — a few days before Russia invaded Ukraine — two-time Olympic basketball champion Brittney Griner was arrested at Moscow's Sheremetyevo International Airport after cannabis-based vaping liquid was found in her luggage. In August, she was sentenced to 9 years in a Russian prison on drug charges. Earlier today, Griner arrived in the United States as part of the prisoner swamp between Moscow and Washington. In exchange for Griner, the US gave up Russian citizen Vicktor Bout, who was serving a 25-year sentence in a US federal penitentiary "for conspiring to kill US citizens and aiding terrorist organizations." Over the decades, Bout has been portrayed in the media as a mysterious international character, even serving as inspiration for Hollywood directors. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Viktor Bout was born in Dushanbe, the capital of what was then the Soviet Republic of Tajikistan, in 1967. He is a former military officer who served in the Soviet Army. In the 1990s and early 2000s, after the fall of the USSR, he ran what he says was an air transport business, delivering goods to dangerous parts of the world. It was during this time that Victor Bout caught the attention of the United Nations (UN), and when the body began investigating his involvement in the illegal arms trade breaching UN embargoes and fueling mass killing and war crimes in African countries such as Angola, Rwanda, Sierra Leone and the Congo. US authorities became interested in Bout in the early 2000's, following media reports about his alleged military aid to the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. Bout denied all allegations, claiming that he provided weapons for commanders fighting against the Taliban. In 2002, Belgian authorities issued an arrest warrant, Bout, however, managed to flee the country, finding refuge in the United Arab Emirates, South Africa and then Russia. American officials also made attempts to hold Bout accountable. But although they froze his assets in 2004, they were unable to find legal grounds to bring him to trial. Four years later, in 2008, agents from the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) reached out to Bout through former associates of his. They introduced themselves as buyers working for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) — a leftist Latin American militia hostile to the United States. In March 2008, Bout was detained by authorities in Thailand as US undercover agents engaged him in discussions about weapons shipments to the FARC. Bout was extradited to the US in November 2010, where he was convicted for conspiring to kill US citizens and officials. Bout had been found guilty of selling heavy weaponry to the FARC, a disbanded Marxist Colombian rebel group that US authorities say is a terrorist organization. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov criticized Bout's arrest and extradition, saying it was part of Washington's political pressure on Bangkok and "an example of blatant injustice." Moscow promised to fight for Bout's release and his return to Russia. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Many experts suggest Viktor Bout was useful to Russian intelligence. And yet, the arms dealer has denied any connection to the Russian government or access to state secrets. "I have no secret information about the Russian state, and I do not know its leaders. I have worked neither for Russian companies, nor state agencies," he claimed in an interview with journalists. Over the past decade, Russian officials and media have occasionally pitched Viktor Bout's exchange for other Americans imprisoned in Russia. In conversation with DW independent US-Russia analyst Alexandra Filippenko explained that Viktor Bout's importance for Moscow is driven by a Cold War mentality, harkening back to a time when the USSR and US were engaged in a fierce rivalry. "In the mind of many, both Americans and Russians, Victor Bout is a shard and personification of the Soviet system. He does not recognize the new world order. That is why he is so important for the country," Filippenko explains. "He is an inside man, and in the Russian tradition, you don't give up on people who serve the system." Many observers claim the swap was a diplomatic victory for Moscow since the exchange was so uneven — Bout's and Griner's crimes were of entirely different magnitudes. Filippenko, however, does not share that opinion, saying the exchange was equal. Viktor Bout, she says, had already served nearly half his sentence, so if US intelligence wanted to get information from him, they would have already done so. As for Brittany Griner, she is an all-American girl, a self-made star from Texas, representing LGBTQ+ community. And given the new "gay propaganda" legislation recently introduced in Russia, her release is greatly beneficial to the Biden Administration." Griner's release has, however, fueled debate about the fate of American Paul Whelan, a former US Marine officer who is currently serving a 16-year sentence in Russia for espionage. US officials say he is "wrongfully detained" and call the case politically motivated. On Thursday, Russian state news agency Interfax cited Whelan's lawyer in reporting that negotiations for his release are ongoing. Russian President Vladimir Putin, when asked on Friday if more prisoner exchanges may take place, said, "Yes, anything is possible. Contacts continue. In fact, they have never stopped ... A compromise was found, we do not reject continuing this work in the future." To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Edited by: Jon Shelton

7Politics

The felt hat and fishing vest were his trademarks; felt and grease, his favorite materials. He wanted to abolish capitalism and heal the world with art: This is how Joseph Beuys became Germany's best-known and most influential artist of the 20th century. Beuys caused a stir in the art world for much of the past century, where to this day, he has his ardent admirers as well as those who think rather little of him.  Twelve museums along the Rhineland, all the way from the Bundeskunsthalle museum in Bonn to the Kulturhaus gallery in Kleve, which is where the sculptor, philosopher, art teacher and installation artist was born on May 12, 1921, are participating in this year's anniversary program, marking the 100th birthday of one of the biggest names in art to ever have come out of Germany. One museum has already launched its anniversary program, titled after Beuys' famous guiding principle, "Everyone is an artist." The K20 museum, which is part of the Kunstsammlung NRW museums in Düsseldorf, has started showing 12 selected artworks and so-called "happenings" — performances by Beuys that were captured on film by his contemporaries roughly half a century ago. These images can be seen flickering across screens and canvases at the K20 as of March 27, 2021, and are accompanied by a myriad of pictures, words, sculptures and the bright lights of projectors filling the space and structured by a framework of steel rods. The exhibition includes the 1974 installation "I like America and America likes Me" — a controversial work of action art in which Beuys was locked up in a New York gallery for two days alongside a live coyote. This performance not only earned him the reputation of being somewhat of a shaman but also caused a steep hike in the prices his works would fetch in the global art market at the time. There are also photographs documenting Beuys' planting of "7000 Oaks" at the 1982 documenta7 exhibition in Kassel, which the artist used to propagate his need for "Stadtverwaldung statt Stadtverwaltung," a play of words in German amounting to "urban forestation instead of urban administration." But what message does Beuys have today that would resonate with younger generations who were born after his death in 1986?  In order to explore this question, the curatorial team of Isabella Malz, Catherine Nichols and Eugen Blume added 34 works and ideas by contemporary artists, authors, thinkers and activists to the Beuys retrospective. Though these may not refer directly to Beuys and his art, they help the audience enter into a dialogue with the artist — and with each other. For the audience's search for answers to the pressing questions of our time is not only reflected in Beuys' work: for example, there are quotes by climate activist Greta Thunberg, an interview with controversial philosopher Michele Houllebecq and insights from US civil rights activist Angela Davis, Indian ecofeminist activist Vandana Shiva, and Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh. These voices are juxtaposed with Beuys' quotes, which are stuck all over the walls, creating a polyphony of sounds, words and impressions — something that the artist would probably have enjoyed himself. The exhibition almost becomes a work of action art in its own right. However, this perhaps is also the weakness of the show in Düsseldorf: It reduces the artist to his action art, while his drawings, sculptures and mixed material creations are omitted entirely. The show is, therefore, rather less of a typical exhibition than a racecourse through Beuys' history as an artist against today's backdrop. Then again, this approach is quite in keeping with Beuys' understanding of the concept of art. With his works, his actions and his statements, Joseph Beuys always posed questions that went beyond art and creativity, using art to start debates on the fundamental structures of society and bringing his audiences into communion with each other.  His artworks challenge established ideas: What is democracy? Has capitalism come to an end? What purpose does art serve in society? For Beuys, art did not mean individual works that one could hang up at home or in a museum but included events, conversations and thought processes. After all, the famous Beuys quote "Every person is an artist" means that every person is a social being who has the creative power to change themselves and the world.   While Beuys' works may reflect many questions about society, they provide little information about the artist himself. For example, Beuys would routinely make up details about his own biography to stir up the bureaucracy that is part and parcel of the global art market. This eventually led to his dismissal as an art professor at the Düsseldorf Art Academy.  Still, this is seen as an outstanding example of his talent for self-promotion, but it is unclear where the self-promotion ended and Beuys' authentic self began: For example, Beuys was a co-founder of Germany's Green Party, while hanging out in neo-Nazi circles. He promoted the cause of environmentalism while driving a big Bentley. He was staunchly against capitalism while rubbing shoulders with bankers with sketchy pasts. Was Joseph Beuys a visionary, as his ardent admirers believe — or a charlatan hiding under a hat, as his critics say? The Düsseldorf exhibition does not address such questions. It rather confirms the fact that Joseph Beuys was a complex artist in post-war Germany. As the Beuys anniversary year has only just begun, there might be answers to questions relating to his person elsewhere in the many events and venues highlighting and celebrating the artist's life. This article was adapted from German.

4Culture

African political and security analysts are warning that the latest escalation in the Tigray conflict and the reported movement of Eritrean troops into the northern Ethiopian region is a major setback to efforts to restore peace. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell issued a similar warning on Twitter on Wednesday, "The EU urges once again all parties to forget about any military solution and join efforts for the benefit of their populations."  The US administration this week also condemned the escalation. "We have been tracking Eritrean troops' movement across the border ... and we condemn it," US Special Envoy for the Horn of Africa Mike Hammer said on Tuesday.    Accra-based Security expert Adib Saani told DW that all parties to the Tigray conflict must show a commitment to a peace process. "No amount of talk can bring peace to the area unless all parties show the right level of commitment — not just show it but demonstrate it, and that is what is lacking," he said. Saani criticized the sentiments being expressed by the EU, US and the United Nations on the conflict, saying they lack a strong and concerted commitment. "The international concerted effort we saw with Ukraine is not as we see with Ethiopia," he said. "This is also demonstrable of the fact that Africans would have to learn to address their own problems and not count on anybody from anywhere."  The African Union has been trying to broker peace between the Ethiopian government and Tigrayan forces. Hammer, the US envoy, has been helping to facilitate the process.  "There is no military solution to the conflict. The Ethiopian people have suffered too much already, and it is critically important that the parties participate in a robust African Union [peace] process," Hammer told journalists on Tuesday. The Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) had initially opposed the decision by the AU to appoint its Horn of Africa envoy, Olusegun Obasanjo, as a mediator and cited his "proximity” to Ethiopia's Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed as an obstacle to fair talks. However, earlier this month, the TPLF said it was ready to take part in peace talks led by the AU. Ethiopia's government had also signaled its support for the talks.   But on August 24, a ceasefire that had been in place since March was shattered by renewed fighting in Tigray.  To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video On Tuesday, the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) said it had received a report by a panel of UN human rights experts that details war crimes in Ethiopia.  The UN International Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia detailed instances of extrajudicial killings, rape, sexual violence and the starvation of the civilian population since the Tigray conflict in November 2020. "The Commission finds reasonable grounds to believe that, in several instances, these violations amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity," Ethiopia's Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Ambassador Zenebe Kebede, rejected the report in an interview with the AFP news agency. "The only source they talked to is the TPLF itself. They wrote in their report what was dictated by the TPLF itself, otherwise there is not any single evidence that shows the government of Ethiopia used humanitarian aid as an instrument of war,"  Kebede said, "The report itself is self-contradictory and biased and doesn't pay any attention to the atrocities committed in Afar and Amhara regions, but solely focusing on Tigray." To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Edited by: Benita van Eyssen

2Conflicts