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Documents reviewed by The Washington Post reportedly show how Russia has attempted to forge a coalition between Germany's far-left and the far-right to oppose support for Ukraine. Russia attempted to influence German public opinion to oppose support for Ukraine and become more hostile toward the West, according to a report by The Washington Post on Friday. The US newspaper reviewed Kremlin documents that recorded meetings between its officials and Russian political strategists about how to unite elements in the Left Party and the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) behind a common, pro-Moscow cause. The documents were first obtained by an...

The head of Russia's mercenary Wagner Group threatened to withdraw his troops from the embattled city of Bakhmut in Ukraine amid heavy casualties. Yevgeny Prigozhin told military blogger Semyon Pegov losses were five times higher than necessary because of the lack of artillery ammunition. "Every day, we have stacks of thousands of bodies that we put in coffins and send home," Prigozhin said in the interview published on Saturday. He had written to Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu asking for supplies. "If the ammunition deficit is not replenished, we are forced, in order not to run like cowardly rats afterwards,...

The hydrogen pipeline will bring "green" gas from the Iberian Peninsula to the rest of Europe. France, Portugal, and Spain previously agreed to build the pipeline, which should be operational by 2030. https://p.dw.com/p/4MYzX Germany will join a new hydrogen pipeline project between Spain, Portugal and France, according to the Franco-German declaration on Sunday's 60th anniversary of the Elysee Treaty. The project, called H2Med, will connect Portugal and Spain with France and now Germany to supply about 10% of the European Union's hydrogen demand by 2030. The pipeline under the Mediterranean Sea will carry green hydrogen, made from water via electrolysis...

Germany’s public broadcaster, Deutsche Welle, has revised its code of conduct to require support for Israel’s right to exist, and employees who fail to do so may now be fired. The move announced Sept. 1 preceded a court order last week that DW reinstate a former employee fired who was fired after the company determined she had made comments about Israel that could be construed as antisemitic. In all, seven employees from the broadcaster’s Arabic service were let go last year on similar grounds, and so far two have successfully sued DW for reinstatement. The revised conduct code appears to...

Sheltering from air raid sirens in Kyiv last month, Ukrainian meteorologist Svitlana Krakovska said what we all know: climate change and the war on Ukraine are both rooted in fossil fuels, and our dependence on them. This conflict is hastening a difficult but crucial transition for Germany. In recent years, it has made significant strides in recognizing climate's links with national security. This alone has not freed the country from the tether of Russian oil and gas. The shocking force of Russia's invasion, financed by its grip on the world fossil fuel market, shows that Germany's national security depends on...

All DW's staff have lost their press accreditations and the channel is barred from broadcasting in Russia. Russia argued it was retaliating after German regulators decided a new Russian state-run TV channel, RT DE, did not have a suitable licence to operate. RT has channels in English, French and Spanish and launched its German-language satellite channel in December 2021, using a licence from Serbia, outside the European Union. Russia's foreign ministry said it was also launching a procedure to label Deutsche Welle as a foreign agent... RT has faced difficulties with its English-language channel too. It was fined £200,000 by...

Kenya’s Film Classification Board (KFCB) has banned a documentary about two gay lovers. The film, I Am Samuel, is a movie about the romantic relationship between two men who live in Nairobi. In a statement on Twitter, the board’s head, Christopher Wambua said the documentary “propagates values that are in dissonance with our constitution, culture, values and norms.” In his review of the film Wambua said: “By deliberately advocating same-sex marriage in Kenya, the film blatantly violates Article 165 of the Penal Code that outlaws homosexuality.” Wambua also said the film was an affront to the country’s religious values. “Worse...

The usually quiet residential neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah in east Jerusalem is in turmoil. For the past two weeks, young Palestinians have been holding nightly protests against the imminent eviction of several Palestinian families from their homes in the neighborhood, to make way for Jewish settlers. Tensions have been building in the city. On Friday, 205 Palestinians and 18 police officers were wounded as clashes erupted after prayer at Jerusalem’s holy Al-Aqsa mosque compound and elsewhere in east Jerusalem. […] The violent skirmishes in recent weeks have added to long-standing legal battles between the residents of Sheikh Jarrah and Israeli...

… Ohio is one of the key swing states in the US that regularly see close contests between the Republican and the Democratic candidate for president. In 2016, Trump won Ohio. Recent polls show the incumbent and Biden neck and neck. Winning swing states like Ohio is the only way to win the election — and the Buckeye state has proven to be a good predictor for who will succeed at that. Since 1944, Ohioans have only once sided with the losing candidate in a presidential race, when they opted for Richard Nixon over John F. Kennedy in 1960. […]...

Voice of America (VOA) director Amanda Bennett and her deputy Sandra Sugawara jointly quit on Monday following sharp criticism from President Donald Trump and the confirmation of his ally, Michael Pack, as the new head of the organization which oversees the US media outlet. The state-funded broadcaster is directed at audiences outside the US and produces news in 47 languages. Bennett and Sugawara said Pack has the right to name his own team of leaders as he prepares to take the reins at the US Agency for Global Media. The two veteran journalists did not address the conflict with Trump,...

If you believe a new survey, Germans are turning to China in the wake of the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic. “Germans view the United States less positively since the outbreak of the coronavirus crisis while their attitudes toward China have improved,” the German public broadcaster DW News reported citing the survey. The broadcaster added that “73% stated that their opinion about the United States had deteriorated due to the current health crisis caused by the novel coronavirus,” compared to only 36 percent who looked more unfavorably towards China since the outbreak. “Coronavirus turns Germans more critical of US,” the DW News...

A majority of Germans are in favor of reducing Germany’s reliance on the United States militarily, according to a YouGov poll commissioned by the German news agency DPA. According to the poll, 55% of Germans believe that European members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) should protect themselves from an attack without US help. In addition, a majority of poll participants believe the US should partially (23%) or completely (26%) withdraw its 30,000 troops stationed in Germany. Conversely, 54% said NATO should work more closely with Russia rather than relying on deterrence. Meanwhile, 37% are for lifting sanctions against...

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will unveil a statue of former US President Ronald Reagan at the US Embassy on Friday, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday. […] For over 10 years, the United States has wanted to honor Reagan with a statue in Berlin. However, the administration of the capital had till now rejected numerous applications from US officials and dignitaries. Berliners had mixed reactions to the new statue. One older woman told DW that she was not opposed to a statue of Reagan as the US had been a “protecting power” over West Germany. But a man...

German Health Minister Jens Spahn sent a clear, important signal on Monday when he declared that “homosexuality is not a disease and therefore does not need therapy to be treated.” He fleshed out his plans to ban so-called gay conversion therapy in Germany. The practice purports to transform homosexuals into heterosexuals. According to Spahn, anyone still found offering such “conversion therapies” will face up to one year in jail or a steep fine. Spahn’s step is both important and, unfortunately, still rather timely. That’s because many Germans are probably not even aware that each year, thousands of teenagers and adults...

Germany is currently serving as a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. From the beginning of April, it officially takes over the chair — as part of a “dual presidency” with France. […] This closer UN cooperation was agreed by Berlin and Paris as part of the Treaty of Aachen. […] From the beginning, Germany has placed an emphasis on promoting the idea of the UN; i.e., international cooperation and collaboration. Germany and France have adopted their multilateral approach in opposition to the growing nationalism of people like Donald Trump. The “dual presidency” already symbolizes this idea, but...

Right-wing Christian groups in the United States spent at least $50 million (€56 million) on supporting far-right activists and campaigns in Europe in recent years, according to an investigative report. Publicly available financial filings showed 15 conservative non-profit organizations spent some $51 million in Europe from 2008 to 2017, the report by UK-based openDemocracy found. The filings did not detail what the money was spent on, but openDemocracy said the groups used it to: lobby European Union officialschallenge anti-hate speech laws in European courtssupport anti-LGBT+ and anti-abortion campaigns in eastern and southern Europe. […]Two of the organizations named in the...

Germany will not declare Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement a terrorist organization, a top official said Friday. Deputy Minister in the Foreign Ministry Niels Annen told news magazine Der Spiegel that the Iran-backed Shiite Islamist movement is a relevant factor in Lebanese society and part of the complex political landscape in the country. The comments come after Britain last month banned Hezbollah’s political wing, accusing the movement of destabilizing the Middle East. “The British move is a national decision that has no direct impact on the position of the German government or the EU,’ said Annen. The European Union had already added...

An eight-day "ultimatum" for Venezuela's President Maduro to call fresh elections is set to expire in hours. Several EU nations are preparing to recognize Juan Guaido as interim leader, but Maduro remains defiant. Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro faces massive pressure to call for new elections before midnight on Sunday. Germany, France, Britain, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands and Belgium have said they will recognize opposition leader Juan Guaido as president if Maduro fails to announce a second vote before the eight-day ultimatum expires. France's European affairs minister, Nathalie Loiseau, told LCI television on Sunday that "if by tonight [President] Maduro does...

Born on December 7, 1928, Noam Chomsky was raised by Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants in Philadelphia. Though his father was a Hebrew scholar who studied medieval grammar, Chomsky lacked direction through school and university and only committed to the study of linguistics when he took up a post at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1955. It wasn't long, however, before the young unknown scholar single-handedly revolutionized the field of linguists, his book Syntactic Structures (1957) kickstarting his concept of "transformational grammar" that argued — contrary to the behaviourist fad of the time — that our linguistic capacity is genetic...

The German government has “no plans or protocol” should first contact with aliens occur, according to a report by German daily Bild. The government considers such an event “extremely unlikely according to current scientific knowledge,” the Ministry of Economics said when responding to a question from Green MP Dieter Janecek. “Concrete cases that could have been the subject of bilateral or multilateral talks with other states are not known,” the ministry’s statement continued. While Germany might not have a plan for extraterrestrial visitors, the US is more prepared. Even before the establishment of a Space Force that US President Donald...