Penulis: Agus S

DW visited one of only a few people in Germany who sails and uses a wheelchair. The 11-year-old sails for the pure joy of her sport, but she is also aiming to become a role model for others.

When Nomine Fabian made her way to a beach on the coast of Föhr in theNorth Seafor her first sailing lesson of the year, she did so in a wheelchair. She was accompanied by Dirk Hückstädt, her coach, who runs a surfing and sailing school on the smallGermanisland.

The two know each other well, as Hückstadt started teaching Nomine how to sail some six years ago, when she was only five.

"Nomi was the first wheelchair user who came to us wanting to learn to sail," Hückstädt told DW.

"At the time, we had no experience with wheelchair sailing, but we started her out on a children's catamaran."

Hückstädt and his team thought about how they might modify the vessel to meet Nomine's physical needs, but she quickly proved to them that people in wheelchairs can sail without special equipment.

"We soon realized that she could slide wonderfully from one side to the other. And Nomi could operate the sheet and rudder quite normally," Hückstädt recalled.

As long as a sailor can do that, there should be no major problems, explained the 52-year-old, whose philosophy is not to rule anything out as being impossible, without having first given it a try.

"If someone comes to me wanting to learn to do something, we'll find a way," he said.

While Hückstadt had never taught a wheelchair user how to sail before, the idea didn't seem at all unusual to him, as he has also helped wheelchair users to learn how to do things like kite surf or drive a beach buggy.

Nomine is clearly in her element on the water. Before the training session began, Hückstadt asked her a couple of questions to test what she had learned about sailing so far, then he gave her a few last-minute tips.

A few minutes, later, Nomine was skillfully steering the catamaran through the small waves of the North Sea. Whether tacking or jibing, Nomi has every move down pat.

Right from her very first lesson, she's never been afraid of sailing alone, because, as she puts it, "the North Sea isn't deep and there's nothing dangerous. Just the porpoises… they only eat smaller fish and plankton."

Nomine earned her sailing license at the age of eight.

"She said, 'I can read now, so I can answer the theoretical questions. And I can write, so I'm going to get my sailing license now,'" her mother, Andrea Fabian told DW.

"It makes me incredibly proud and very happy to see what's possible despite having a spinal cord injury," she said.

"Back then, we never would have thought that a wheelchair user could develop such independence. It makes us very happy to see her so happy and so free."

Asked about her biggest dream, Nomine doesn't have to think twice.

"I want to compete in the Paralympics at least once," she said, without narrowing her dream down to a single event – or even specifying Summer or Winter Games.

"I think it's great that the Paralympics exist. You can show people thatsportsare possible even with a disability," she said.

"I want to help people feel strong and be able to do whatever they want." Sports, according to Nomine, are for everyone—including sailing.

Asked about her greatest success (so far), that's also a no-brainer.

"My greatest success is that I started sports," she said. "I can do everything except run. I'm proud of that."

This article was originally published in German.

Judges have dismissed a climate case brought by a Peruvian farmer against German energy company RWE seeking damages for endangering his home due to melting glaciers.

In a decision that has been 10 years in the making, judges in the western German city of Hamm have thrown out the case of a Peruvian farmer seeking damages from energy giant RWE for the risk of flooding connected to melting glaciers.

Delivering its verdict in the David vs. Goliath case, judges said the damage to Saul Luciano Lliuya's property from a potential glacier flood was not high enough. They ruled out an appeal.

But in a legal first, the court did rule thatcompanies can be held liable for the impact of their emissions.

Speaking after the verdict,Lliuya'slawyer Roda Verheyen said that although the court had not recognized the risk to her client's home, the ruling was a "milestone" that would "give a tailwind to climate lawsuits against fossil fuel companies."

"The judgment that we've just heard means that every community and every person that is affected by climate change today can look at large emitters to take a responsibility, legal responsibility, and it is an immense historic shifting of the dial that's happened today," she told DW.

The environmental NGO Germanwatch, which has supported the plaintiff throughout the long legal proceedings, said the ruling marked "a great success."

"The court's decision, which at first glance sounds like a defeat due to the dismissal of the case, is actually a historic landmark ruling that can be invoked by those affected in many places around the world," the nonprofit said in a statement.

"This is because there are very similar legal requirements in numerous other countries, such as the UK, the Netherlands, the USA and Japan."

It's been almost adecade since Saul LucianoLliuyafirst fileda lawsuit against the German energy giant, calling on the company to pay its fair share to protect his home in Peru.

Lliuya's town of Huaraz is located in the west of the country, in a valley below the Palcacocha mountain lake. As greenhouse gas emissions have causedglobal temperatures to rise, glaciers in the region have been melting.

The amount of water in the lake above Lliuya's home has increased more than fourfold since 2003 alone, leading experts to warn ofan increased risk of flooding, with potentially dire consequences for the region. They say if large blocks of ice were to break off the glacier and fall into the lake, it could trigger meter-high flooding in lower-lying urban areas.

Lliuya has been suing RWE under a German neighborhood law, which works to protect residents from disturbances resulting from the actions of their neighbors — for example, from tree roots causing damage from an adjacent property. His initial lawsuit was rejected in 2015 by a court in Essen, the western German city where the energy company is headquartered.

But in 2017, a higher court in the nearby city of Hamm granted an appeal. In March this year, judges at that court heard evidence over whether Lliuya's house was really in jeopardy and whether RWE can be held responsible.

The Peruvian farmer, who earlier this year told DW the case was about "holding those who have caused the damage to account," was calling on RWE to cover a pro rata percentage of the estimated costs to build flood defenses to protect his home from the rising lake water. This would equate to around €17,000 ($19,000).

RWE, which is not active in Peru, said it has always complied with national legal regulations and has repeatedlyquestioned why it has been singled out.

In a statement after the ruling, the energy giant said ithad always considered such civil "climate liability" to be inadmissible under German law. "It would have unforeseeable consequences for Germany as an industrial location, because ultimately claims could be asserted against any German company anywhere in the world for damage caused by climate change."However, Lliuya's lawyer said her client'sproblem was not going away.

"The risk from the Palcacocha Glacier Lake and from glacial lakes all over the world actually is still there and the global community and everybody needs to do something about it because we can't just have people living in such danger zones,"Verheyentold DW.

As an energy powerhouse with a history of largely using coal to generate electricity, RWE is one of Europe's biggest polluters. A 2023 analysis found the company to be responsible forjust under 0.4% of global emissions— more than twice that of Greece.

In ruling the case as admissible in an earlier hearing, experts saw the court as effectively recognizing the transboundary effects of climate change — even if the damage occurs thousands of kilometers away.

"Some of the arguments made in the case are of course transferable, even if not directly applicable in any other jurisdiction," said Petra Minnerop, a professor of international law at Durham University in the UK.

"And this is what we see in litigation generally that litigants have tried to transfer the arguments and also learn from the court outcomes and then provided improved evidence and the adjusted legal argument," she added.

Since the RWE proceedings began, Noah Walker-Crawford, a research fellow at the London-based Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, said around 40 cases have sprung up.They are challenging big companies over their responsibility for climate changein countries such as Belgium, Indonesia and the United States.

"There has been insufficient political progress on climate change over the past decades, especially at an international level and especially in terms of loss and damage, in terms of the devastating impacts that communities are facing around the world, and that's why we're seeing more and more that communities are turning to the courts, really out of desperation," he explained.

Sebastien Duyck, senior attorney with the Center for International Environmental Law, said the judgement shatters the "wall of impunity for major polluters."

He added that "this precedent provides a legal spark to accelerate the pursuit of climate justice. The recognition that a company can, in principle, be held accountable in court for climate harms halfway across the planet will buttress the arguments presented in dozens of pending cases as well as embolden impacted communities to seek justice through the courts."

This article has been updated to include comment from the plaintiff's lawyer and from RWE.

Correction, May 29, 2025: An earlier version of this article misspelled the name ofSaul Luciano Lliuya. DW apologizes for the error.

Beginning in 2040, Danes will not be eligible for retirement until they reach the age of 70. While European pension systems are difficult to compare directly, some believe this may signal a broader trend.

On May 22, the Danish parliament passed legislation raising the retirement age. The law, approved by 81 lawmakers with 21 voting against, sets theretirement ageat 70 for all citizens born after December 31, 1970. Currently, the retirement age inDenmarkis 67. By 2030, it will rise to 68, and by 2035 to 69.

Last year, 47-year-old Social Democratic Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen stated that she would be open to reviewing the system once the official retirement age reached 70.

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International comparisons show just how differently retirement ages are regulated. In some countries, people continue to work even longer than the legal requirement.

Germany's new governmentis still trying to figure out how to deal with the country's struggling statutory pensions system.

At a recent party convention of the rulingChristian Democratic Union(CDU) in Stuttgart, Germany's new chancellor,Friedrich Merz, praised himself and hisSocial Democraticcoalition partner for having "written many good things into the coalition agreement." The key issue of how to shore up the finances of the chronically underfunded pension system, however, isn't among them.

Merz warned that "the way things are today can only last for a few more years at most."

For Bernd Raffelhüschen, a former German government economic adviser, the Danish reform effort is worth emulating.

"We should raise the retirement age to 70 quickly so we can still catch at least part of the baby boomer generation," the economist told theAugsburger Allgemeinenewspaper recently, referring to the large cohort of people born at the end of the 1950s and early '60s, who are currently retiring in huge numbers.

Raffelhüschen said that because 1 million Germans will be leaving the workforce every year until 2035, this would push pension contributions higher for younger generations.

Pension financing in Europe follows two main models named after their founders: the Bismarck model, based on social legislation introduced by German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck in the 19th century, and the Beveridge model, developed in the 1940s.

The Beveridge system is a welfare model that provides universal coverage and is funded by taxes. It was devised by British economist William Henry Beveridge, a member of theUKLiberals' parliamentary faction.

The Bismarck model, on the other hand, is an insurance-based system in which both workers and employers pay into a fund. In simplified terms, it's a so-called pay-as-you-go system where the working population finances the pensions of retirees through their contributions.

This is whycomparing pension systems across Europe is difficult— even more so as many countries use hybrid models combining aspects of both. The specifics, often complex, also vary widely between nations.

Germany's Bismarck-based system is increasingly under strain due to demographic changes. As the population ages and the workforce shrinks, there are more retirees and fewer people to fund the social insurance schemes.

At the same time, people are living longer due to rising life expectancy, which means they draw pensions for more years.

This has put mounting pressure on pay-as-you-go pension funds, with the result that either contributions must keep rising, or pension benefits may stagnate, failing to keep up with inflation. Alternatively, the overall pension level may have to drop.

Of course, a shorter working life and earlier retirement are appealing for most people, as they can leave work before their physical capabilities decline and use the final third of their lives for meaningful activities or more time with family.

There are also economic benefits, as more leisure time creates more opportunities to spend money, thus stimulating consumer demand and the broader economy.

But working longer can also have advantages. Many people feel fit and engaged well into their 60s, so they may enjoy continuing to work and pass on their knowledge, valuing the interaction with younger colleagues.

Employers benefit from retaining experienced staff and established routines, which may also help to mitigate theskilled labor shortage in Germany.

Looking at international statistics reveals that legal retirement age rarely aligns with when people actually stop working. In most cases, people retire earlier because their bodies can't keep up, or in creative professions, because of burnout.

In a few countries like New Zealand, Japan, Sweden or Greece, people often work beyond the official retirement age. Whether they do so voluntarily is unclear. The reasons are often too personal to be captured by statistics.

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The so-called gross replacement rate — the ratio of pension benefits to the final salary — plays a major role in people's decisions. If that gap is too wide, some workers can't afford to retire.

The threat ofold-age povertycould be reduced if pensions were high enough to provide financial security after a long career. But that would require money that the pension system currently lacks. On the other hand, raising contribution levels too much would limit workers' ability to save privately for retirement.

This article was originally written in German.

Mozart had many admirers and would no doubt have countless followers on Instagram today. But did he have real friends? Or did he live solely for music? All is explored at the Mozart festival in Würzburg.

If the famous composerWolfgang Amadeus Mozartwere a child prodigy today, he would probably have millions of followers and "friend" requests on social media.

But even in the 18th century, Mozart's father Leopold warned his son against false friends — people who envied him, but also flatterers who only told him what he wanted to hear.

This year'sMozartfest Würzburg, which started this week and runs through June 22, is about Mozart's friendships.

The festival in Würzburg is the oldest and largest Mozart festival in Germany, held every year at the Würzburg Residence, aUNESCO World Heritage Site.

The festival's motto this year, "But through sound: friend Mozart," refers to one of his quotes, and how music was his main form of expression — and connection.

"A true friendship requires trust and mutual understanding," says artistic director Evelyn Meining, adding that even millions of followers on social media platforms cannot replace such a relationship.

Mozart caused a sensation in the mid-18th century as a so-called wunderkind. He traveled with his father through Europe for years, captivating court nobles with his talent on the violin and piano.

But there was no time for close friendships with his peers.

"Of course, the family was very focused on itself; the bond was particularly strong in the early 1760s," Meining told DW.

Even later, one cannot imagine Mozart hanging out with friends at cozy dining events. "These were more likely relationships built within a musical context: colleagues, musician friends, teachers, patrons or orchestra musicians from the bands," explains Meining.

Artistic friendships also play a special role among the performers at the Mozartfest this year.

The opening event featured friends Nils Mönkemeyer (viola) and William Youn (piano), accompanied by the Ensemble Resonanz under conductor Riccardo Minasi. Mönkemeyer and Youn met through music. They love Mozart's works, but they also wanted something more modern for their performance.

They therefore commissioned Manfred Trojahn, who has made a name for himself with modern operas, to write a new piece: "Trame lunari," a double concerto for viola, piano and chamber orchestra that facilitates an unusual combination of instruments. "Trame lunari" translates roughly as "moon phantoms."

"There are many color changes in the piece, many nuances of lighting, and that's what the title refers to," Trojahn told DW.

He appreciates the transparency of Mozart's music. "My composition should by light and transparent, just like Mozart's works," Trojahn explains.

Mönkemeyer and Youn are a well-rehearsed team. They performed sometimes extremely delicate sounds with nuance and sensitivity.

Mozart is still considered a role model for many musicians today. He himself had role models such as the composer Joseph Haydn and Bach's son, Johann Christian Bach, whom he admired for his elegant, light music.

Joseph Haydn was 24 years older than Mozart. They developed a friendly father-son relationship, and Mozart wrote in letters that Haydn was his "dearest friend." In 1785, he dedicated six string quartets to Haydn, to whom he handed the scores, saying they were his "children."

The horn player Joseph Leutgeb was also one of Mozart's close friends. Mozart wrote humorous taunts into his scores, such as "For you, Mr. Donkey."

Mozart was also friends with Anton Stadler, one of the best clarinetists of his time. He composed a clarinet quintet and a clarinet concerto for him.

Later, as Mozart became increasingly ill and lonely, he wrote that music was essentially his only friend.

And what about the false friends Mozart's father worried about?

One of them appears in Milos Forman's 1984 film, "Amadeus": Antonio Salieri is portrayed in the movie as a mediocre composer and as Mozart's adversary, scheming behind Mozart's back and even poisoning him.

Although this narrative has long since been refuted, it remains a popular belief. Evelyn Meining wants to dispel such clichés at the Mozartfest: "Salieri was not a vicious competitor. That's all untrue," she says. Nor was he a failure living in Mozart's shadow, but a respected court composer. "Mozart and Salieri held each other in high esteem," Meining adds.

Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, is also portrayed as Mozart's rival in literature and in the film "Chevalier" (2022), directed by Stephen Williams.

Born in Guadeloupe in 1745, the son of a white French nobleman and a Black slave, he came to France as a child. He made a name for himself early on as a violinist and composer.

Joseph Haydn later composed for Bologne's own orchestra. Bologne was also considered for the position of director of the Academie Royale de Musique, but racial discrimination prevented his appointment.

The violin duel between Mozart and Bologne depicted in the film "Chevalier" never actually took place. It is questionable whether Bologne, nine years older than Mozart, even had direct contact with him as a young musician.

As composers who were active at the same time and were celebrated artists in their circles, it has simply been since assumed that they were competitors, explains Meining. Even the label "Black Mozart" for Joseph Bologne only came about posthumously.

The festival's "Mozart Laboratory" hosts discussions on the topic of friendship, with a focus on artistic associations and social networks. "Because, of course, we are in the midst of a revolutionary social transformation, strongly driven by new digital developments such as the internet, social media and AI," says Meining.

To counteract this, there will also be concerts held in private homes, where like-minded people can come together and perhaps rediscover music as a "medium of friendship."

Who knows, the event might lead to new friendships.

This article was originally written in German.

Cats use scent to tell their owners apart from strangers. But a cat's disposition also plays a part, according to a Japanese study.

A new study by researchers at the Tokyo University of Agriculture inJapanhas identified patterns of behavior shown by cats toward humans they know, such as their owners, and strangers.

Previous research suggested that cats rely on their sensitive noses to identify other cats as friend or foe. But whether that same function applies to detecting humans was not fully understood. So, the researchers in Japan took 30 domestic cats and tested their responses to a range of special scents.

The cats' owners provided samples of their scents by swabbing their underarms, behind their ears and between their toes. These swabs were then presented to the cats in a tube. And the researchers monitored the behavior shown by each cat and the time they spent sniffing the scent samples. They repeated the process with swabs from humans the cats did not know, and also with a blank swab, or placebo, as a measure to control or verify the test.

Their results appear to show that the cats spent twice as long smelling samples from strangers than samples from their owners, and that they favored their right nostrils over their left nostrils when sniffing the swabs from strangers.

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The research team thinks the choice of nostril may correspond to the way in which many animals process new information.

"Dogs, but also fish, birds, and other vertebrates process novel information using the right brain hemisphere," they wrote in a study paperpublished May 28, 2025, in the journal PLOS One. "The left brain is responsible […] when a routine response emerges."

The researchers said that while their findings suggested a cat's sense of smell was a tool for their recognizing humans, they could not conclude that smell was the most important mechanism for cats to do that.

Personality traits may also play a role in how cats interact with odors — human or otherwise.

The researchers asked the cat owners to complete a survey about their cats' personalities. They then tried to match those personality traits with the behaviors they observed during the smelling test, in a hope that this would enable them to identify behavioral differences among cats in responding to smells.

They observed that among male cats, the more "neurotic" ones repeatedly returned to the smell tubes, while those described as being more "agreeable" rarely returned to a scent. No behavioral differences were identified among female cats.

The personality traits were quantified usinga test known as "the Feline Five." That test was developed by another research team for a study of about 3,000 cats in Australia and New Zealand.

In that study, published in 2017, highly neurotic cats were described as "insecure, anxious, fearful [of people], suspicious and shy." More agreeable cats were described as "affectionate, friendly to people and gentle."

The test was originally pitched as a tool to support animal welfare in the home, by helping owners create safe environments for their cats.

While dogs are often called "man's best friend," cats have a reputation for being mercurial, wayward, untamed domestic co-habitators.

For example,one study from the University of Leedsfound that cats don't bond with humans in the same way as dogs do. "Adult cats are typically quite autonomous, even in their social relationships, and not necessarily dependent on others to provide a sense of security and safety," said the authors of that study when it was published in 2015.

So, although this latest study from Japan may suggest cats are able to recognize their human companions, they may still think very little of them.

Glaciers are the planet's frozen water banks. They sustain water supply, ecosystems and even cultural traditions. But many of these sprawling beds of ice are melting. Why does that matter?

The collapse of a glacier in theSwiss Alps this weekhas underscored the impacts of a warming world on the ice-packed parts of planet Earth.

When the meltingBirch Glacier on crumbled on Wednesday, it engulfed the picturesque village of Blatten in the country's southern Wallis region. Amound of debris has clogged the path of the Lonza River, increasing the risk of flooding.

Glaciers and ice sheets store about70% of the world's freshwater reserves. High-altitude regions are often dubbed the world's "water towers" because they gradually release meltwater in the summer, sustaining townsandfarmsdownstream.

Two billionpeople globally rely on glacial melt for their day-to-day water needs, researchers say. Yet,as the world gets hotter, the ice is thawing.

Glaciers around the world are now meltingat twice the rate measured just two decades ago. Between 2000 and 2023, they lost an ice mass equivalent to 46,000 Great Pyramids of Giza.

And this is affecting communities worldwide. Some regions are left with too little water, while others struggle with too much.

The residents of the small western Peruvian town of Huaraz draw almost 20% of their annual water supply from melting ice. But Andean glaciers are thawing even faster than elsewhere.This poses a risk of flooding. Ina decadelong lawsuit, one resident of Huarazsued a German energy company over the potential risk to his home from a mountain lake that is filling with meltwater at a rapid rate.

It's not only in Peru that huge glacial lakes form when glaciers thaw. Whenthey become too full, deadly floods can wash away buildings, bridges and wipe out fertile land, like in Pakistan,where a glacial lake burst inOctober 2023.

Thatsame month in neighboring India, a lake of melted ice overflowed and killed 179 people. Scientists estimate that globally, at least 15 million people are vulnerable to sudden flooding from thawing ice,mostofthem living inIndia andPakistan. Since 1990, the volume of water in mountain lakes there has increased by around 50%.

The collapse of the Birch Glacier in Switzerland caused a landslide of rock and ice that covered most of the 300-strong village of Blatten in mud. Though residents had been evacuated as a precaution, one man is missing inwhat scientists call the latest dramatic example of climate change's impact on the Alps.

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As glaciers shrink, they eventually reach a threshold — known as peak water — at which runoff declines. As a result, less meltwater flows downstream, with potentially far-reaching consequences.

Reduced water supply has forced local farmers, who traditionally grew corn and wheat, to change both their crops and water management. Some communities in the Andes have now switched to growing a bitter potato variety that is more resilient todrought.

Unstable water supply is alsostalling electricity production. In Chile, 27% of power is generated by hydroelectric dams which critically depend on meltwater. In 2021, the Alto Maipo plant was shut down due to dwindling flow.

Thermal expansion of ocean water due to increased temperatures is the main cause of rising sea levels, yet the meltingof glacial ice shields crucially contributes to it as well.

And it's not only glaciers in high altitudes that are melting, but also those in the ocean, likeThwaites Glacierin Western Antarctica. The majority of its ice shield is located on land, yet the glacier’s front extends some 50 km (30 miles) into a huge floating ice shelf. This frosty giant is the size of the US state of Florida and has been deemed "very unstable."Scientists have said it isthawing on all sides.

Thwaites Glacier has been dubbed "doomsday glacier" for its potential impact on what some researchers call "abrupt" sea level rise.

Inthe last 25 years alone,melting glaciers have caused global sea levels to riseby almost 2 centimeters (0.7 inches). This might not seem like much, but low-lying islands like Fiji and Vanuatu in thePacific Ocean are at risk of disappearingunder the waves.

In addition, more than 1 billion people in megacities like Jakarta, Mumbai, Lagos and Manila live within 10 kilometers (about 6 miles) of the coast. Protective dikes are only a temporary solution, assea levels continue to rise.

Glaciersalso hold spiritual and cultural significance.

Every year, tens of thousands of pilgrims gather at one of Peru's most sacred glaciers, the Colquepunco, for a religious festival.

In the past, ice blocks were carved from the glacier and carried down to local communities who believed in their healing properties. But as the glacier vanishes, this ancient tradition has come under threat.

ThePresena Glacier in Italy, a popular destination for skiers, has reportedly lost a third of its volume since 1990. Andnatural snow in the European Alps is expected to declineby 42% by the end of the century. Scientists estimate that many ski resorts worldwide won't be profitable in the future.

Localscan adapt to some of these dangers.In the Pakistani village ofHassanabad, an early warning system has been installed to monitor activity at the nearby Shisper Glacier. Should there be a need for a warning, it can be communicated through external speakers in the village.

In theneighboring Ladakh region, researchers are experimenting with growingartificial glaciersthat can mitigate water shortage in summer to meet this challenge.

But these strategiescan only work up to a point. Scientist say the best way to tackle receding glaciers is to slow the rising temperatures that are heating the Earth.

The article was updated on 6.02.25 to add information on the thermal expansion of oceans.

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Football team Real Kashmir FC was set up to help young people in the troubled region and has been successful on and off the pitch. The club wants to present a different view of Kashmir, especially after recent events.

Thetragic events of April 22,when 26 tourists were killed in Indian-administeredKashmir, were not only devastating for families and friends of the victims. They also pushed India and Pakistan into a dangerous confrontation and had consequences on the football field too. Real Kashmir FC (RKFC) has been working hard to present a different face of the region to the wider world, with some success, but now the area it represents wasback in the news for all the wrong reasons.

The immediate challenge is to ensure the events of April do not drive public interest and the private sector away from a club that is less than a decade old but has already made significant progress. "April 22 is the most unfortunate and tragic incident that could have happened," Arshad Shawl, the owner of RKFC, told DW. "It sets us back because when you have millions of tourists coming in, it becomes a bigger and better market for brands, products and services. When there is escalation between the two countries, it becomes an unattractive place for all."

India and Pakistanboth claim Muslim-majority Kashmir in its entirety, but each only controls a section of territory, as does China. The region has been a flashpoint for India and Pakistan since they became independent from the United Kingdom in 1947. Long-term security issues and civil unrest ensured that even before the mass shooting in April, this beautiful part of the world often made international headlines for the wrong reasons.

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"We were literally cut off from the whole world in many forms," Shawl said. "The youth were disillusioned as there were no investments into the region.”

After floods devastated Kashmir in 2014, two people came together to try and make a difference. Shamim Mehraj, a Muslim newspaper owner, and Hindu businessman Sandeep Chattoo, who died in 2023, decided that local youngsters needed something to keep them from drifting into violence. They distributed 100 footballs. It was simple but effective.

"That was the idea,” said Shawl. "‘Let's start allowing the Kashmir youth, feeling stress, anxiety and depression, to come and play.'" It all started from there and in 2016, Real Kashmir FC came into existence. "The club was formed with a motto: 'create, believe and inspire.' [Kashmir] was known for bullets and stones but every Real Kashmir win symbolises our collective effort."

It has struck a chord with locals.South Asia may be a hotbed of cricketbut this northwestern corner of the subcontinent is different. "We grow up with football and we have a passion for it," fan Amal Mirza told DW. "We have a different identity in Kashmir, and football gives us a chance to enjoy that for ourselves and show it to others."

The club also says so in its official video, explaining that, "when you see Kashmir through the lens of football, you see the real Kashmir."

Helped to get off the ground by local and national support, the club started out in the third tier ofIndian footballand was promoted to the I-League in 2018. The following year, it reached the semifinals of the Durand Cup, one of the oldest cup competitions in the world.

Since then, the so-called "Snow Leopards" have been performing well in the second tier and in the 2024-25 season, finished third, just three points from the top spot and promotion.

The breathtaking scenery with mountains, lakes and forest has actually helped the players too. "We are at a high altitude and with our oxygen capacity and diet, we are quite strong physically," said Shawl.

Faisal Ashraf, cofounder of the Real Kashmir Fan Club, has been a supporter since the beginning. "There is a love for football in Kashmir, more than anywhere else in India and people come together to support the team, there is a real legacy here," Ashraf said. The club told DW that the average attendance for last season was over 6,000, over three times higher than the league average.

"When the team plays, nobody cares about what else is going on, there is no thinking about violence or anything," Mirza said. "We just want our team to win. You see the crowds are not just men and boys but there are girls and women there too, and old people. It gives people something to talk about and support. I hope we can keep going and getting better."

Decades of instability left what facilities there were in the state almost unusable but the club's growth as well as support from the government has helped to ensure that pitches are now in good condition and well-used. International and national sponsors — Adidas and Livpure, a drinking water provider — have also been involved.

The challenge is to keep the momentum going and win a place in the Indian Super League (ISL), the country's top tier. To get there and face the giant clubs from Kolkata, Mumbai, Kerala and elsewhere could be a game-changer.

"It would be the biggest thing that can happen, giving the chance to the youth to see the biggest ISL teams who would come and play here," said Shawl. "It would open up a new chapter and be the greatest thing that can happen to Real Kashmir and the entire Jammu and Kashmir [area] as well."

But Real Kashmir has never just been about results on the pitch. "This club started with a mission, not purely to play football but to get the boys out and allow them to play with the mainland and integrate,”" said Shawl. "Our front pages were about youth turning to violence. We wanted to bring that change." And despite events of April, that is still the club's enduring mission.

Initiated 200 years ago, Museum Island was in ruins after World War II. Then the UNESCO World Heritage site was reborn thanks to a master plan.

Berlin's Museum Island uniquely encapsulatesGermany's modern history — from the ideas of theEnlightenmentto the destruction ofWorld War II, from theCold Warera to its current ultra-modern restoration that has turned the ensemble of museums into a tourist magnet.

Standing as a testimony to Europe's architectural and cultural developments, the historical complex of museum buildings was recognized by UNESCO in June 1999 as aWorld Heritage Site, and this year it is celebrating its 200th anniversary since the first building's foundation stone was laid.

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During the Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815), when the French invaded the historic German kingdom of Prussia, many artworks were plundered from its capital, Berlin. When the looted works were returned after the war, Prussian leaders decided to create a museum to showcase the treasures publicly.

The Altes Museum (Old Museum) was the first building in the series of five institutions that would later become known as Museum Island. Simply called the "Museum" in its early years, the Altes Museum's foundation stone was laid in 1825, and it opened in 1830.

At the time, after decades of war, Prussia was economically and financially ruined, "and yet they invested in such a cultural building, hiring the best architect of the time, [Karl Friedrich] Schinkel," Hermann Parzinger, outgoing president of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, tells DW. It's a fact he particularly likes to point out in the current context, as politicians question the importance of funding culture.

Amid the ideals of the Enlightenment, education was recognized as a priority. Thinker and statesmanWilhelm von Humboldtviewed museums as an important pillar of the educational reform he developed. "The museum, as a space of the citizen's aesthetic education, was very important to him," explains Parzinger. "So it was more than just building a museum; there was a vision behind it, and art, together with science, played a very central role."

During the colonial era, the collection of ancient artifacts grew, along with leaders' aspiration to showcase German national Romantic artists. More museums were needed in Berlin to house those works.

In the century that followed, four more major museums were therefore added to the complex located on the northern part of Spree Island, in the historic heart of Berlin: the Neues Museum (New Museum) opened in 1859; the Alte Nationalgalerie (Old National Gallery) followed in 1876; the Bode Museum (then the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum) came in 1904; and finally, thePergamon Museum, designed to house the monumental Ishtar Gate of Babylon, was completed in 1930.

For a few years before World War II, Museum Island was one of the crown jewels of European culture.

The Nazis celebrated the classical and ancient works in the Museum Island collections, which they saw as part of a supposed Aryan heritage.

During World War II, museum officials partly evacuated valuable artifacts to underground bunkers, mines and castles across Germany. This move saved many exhibits — including the bust of Nefertiti and large portions of the Pergamon friezes — but also contributed to the dispersal of several other treasures.

After the war, when the Soviet Red Army occupied the area in May 1945, art collections throughout Germany were looted as war reparations. So-called Trophy Brigades of the Red Army sent millions of historical items to Moscow and St. Petersburg, with many landing in undocumented private collections.

Many objects were later returned to Berlin in the 1950s, particularly during the rule of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, but it is estimated that around a million works of art, more than four million books and manuscripts, and a considerable number of archival materials are still kept in Russia and its neighboring countries.

Even though German and Russian institutions developed common research efforts into those contested objects over the past decades, today, "because of the war [in Ukraine], everything is on hold and interrupted — and we don't know when we can resume these contacts," says Parzinger.

In divided Germany, Museum Island landed in East Berlin, under the control of theGerman Democratic Republic (GDR). The communist state "simply didn't have the resources for reconstruction after 1945. The buildings were repaired, but not completely renovated," explains Parzinger.

The Neues Museum, which had been particularly damaged, was left untouched, as a symbolic ruin of war. Parzinger clearly recalls his own visit to East Berlin as a student, in 1984 — decades before he became, in 2008, the president of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, which is the government body that oversees Berlin's state museums, including those that are part of Museum Island. His student visit is when he first saw the bombed-out shell of the Neues Museum: "I remember there were huge trees growing out from the stairwell. There was no roof, and you could see the crowns of the trees above the building. It was unbelievable to me."

When theBerlin Wallcame down, it was therefore essential to completely renovate the buildings and make them fit for the future, explains Parzinger.

What's known as the Master Plan outlines the multi-phase restoration of the five museums that make up the UNESCO World Heritage ensemble.

Certainly the most important restoration project was the resurrection of the Neues Museum. British architectDavid Chipperfield's design was initially met with strong resistance. He integrated the ruins into a new construction, working with the scars of war by leaving bullet holes and missing ceiling frescoes visible; purists opposed, calling for a restoration that would have been faithful to the original neoclassical building.

But pushing through with this "magnificent concept" was the only right decision, says Parzinger enthusiastically, adding that he still keeps discovering new details every time he returns to the building. The renovated museum won numerous national and international architecture awards.

Housing the Egyptian museum and the papyrus collection, the Neues Museum's most famous exhibit is the pharaonic bust of Queen Nefertiti. Last year,a petition was launchedto have the 3,370-year-old bust returned to Egypt. But for the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, there is nothing to discuss about its return: "Nefertiti came to Berlin as part of a completely legal, well-documented discovery," maintains Parzinger.

Nevertheless, Parzinger has been a key figure in the restitution debate, particularly concerning the return of theBenin Bronzesand other objects with colonial histories. After 17 years at the helm of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, he is now retiring and being succeeded by Marion Ackermann. She becomes the new president of the foundation on June 1, just as festivities for Museum Island's 200th anniversary year are launched.

"The 200th anniversary of Museum Island is a great opportunity for us to become even more attractive," Ackermann tells DW.

As she takes over, the buildings' restoration will continue, as defined by the Museum Island Master Plan.

One recent notable milestone in the completion of the plan was the opening of theJames Simon Galleryin 2019. As a new addition to Museum Island, it serves as the main entrance, providing orientation to visitors.

The Pergamon is currently closed until 2027 as it undergoes its makeover. The Altes Museum will be next.

When all restorations are completed, four of the five historical buildings will then be connected by a handicap-accessible underground ramp known as the Archaeological Promenade, inspired by historic bridges between the museums that were destroyed during World War II.

All additions and restorations contribute to further anchor Museum Island's status as Germany's blockbuster equivalent to the Louvre in Paris or the British Museum in London. By giving a new lease of life to the museum complex on the Spree River, Museum Island is set to keep reflecting Berlin's history for centuries to come.

Switzerland is a success story in predicting landslides — but more must be done to help the rest of the world prepare for these deadly, unpredictable disasters.

The destructive landslide in the Swiss village of Blatten is the latest natural disaster to hit valley communities in the Alpine nation.

While Blatten was engulfed by a slick of icy sediment this week, early warnings of a potential landslide gave residents time to evacuate.Only one person— who chose to remain in his home — is currently unaccounted for. The search for him has been suspended.

Switzerlandis an early warning success story.

Government agencies there use a broad range of technologies and methods to assess risks that could threaten lives and property.

This includes terrain mapping and continuous monitoring of rainfall, permafrost melt, groundwater levels, tectonic shifts and ground movement.

This data allows authorities to maintain hazard risk maps across the country.

"Every community in Switzerland that's affected by a hazard has a hazard map. They're federally mandated for the areas where people live," said Brian McArdell, a geomorphologist at the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL).

In Blatten's case, officials issued alerts after a nearby rockfall destabilized the Birch Glacier.

Combined with warming summer temperatures, the glacier fractured. A slurry of ice, sediment and mud then roared down the mountain to the village below.

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"When you slam rock over ice, what you do is liquefy part of the ice," Daniel Farinotti, a glaciologist at ETH Zurich, told DW. "The ice melts, and that lubricates whatever you have."

The Blatten landslide was particularly rare.

"The sheer size, the amount of material that has been moved there, that's not something you see every day, not every year, not every decade in Switzerland," said Farinotti. "It's kind of a historic event."

Steep slopes, unstable terrain and exposure to high rainfall or permafrost melt put mountain regions more at risk of landslides and avalanches.

For valley communities in Switzerland, the potential for a landslide can mean entire towns need to be evacuated.

Following the Blatten landslide, several nearby communitiesremain on alert, including forpotential flooding.

Brienz, a village around 25 miles (41 km) north of Blatten, is also preparing for possible evacuation. The town has facedrepeated warningsand "near miss" rockslide events since 2023.

"In general, debris flow is a mixture of coarse and fine sediment — so everything from boulders, to mud, to very fine sediments and water," said McArdell.

"These events can occur quite suddenly and they're quite, quite dangerous."

Regions with the highest landslide-related fatalities globally include the Himalayas, parts of Central and South America, Italy and Iran.

While landslides can be forecast, predictions tend to be "probabilistic" rather than precise, Fausto Guzzetti, a now-retired geomorphologist formerly with Italy's Institute for Applied Mathematics and Information Technologies (IMATI), told DW.

"We can predict in [a] general area, it could be in a municipality, it can be a catchment," Guzzetti said.

Unlike earthquakes and floods, monitoring landslides is far more difficult.

While earth tremors can be registered using seismic instruments, and floods can be quickly detected visually, most landslides are unnoticed.

"Tens of thousands of landslides simply go unreported," Guzzetti added. "We don't know where they are, and this complicates the ability to forecast them."

Even small slides — just a few meters in length — can be deadly, especially if they carry large debris or occur near homes or roads. "A cobble that hits a car or hits a person walking along a road can kill," said Guzzetti, "That's significant."

Climate change is also expected to increase rainfall in mountain regions, which in turn is predicted to cause more frequent small-scale landslides.

Efforts are being made to strengthen international monitoring and preparedness for landslides andglacial melt.

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The International Conference on Glaciers' Preservation is currently being held in Tajikistan, where Farinotti expects the release of a "Glacier Declaration" urging greater action to protect ice masses from the effects of climate change.

"[It will] call for various actions and, among others, it will call for increased preparedness against risk deriving from cryospheric hazards, so avalanches," he said.

Guzzetti also highlighted the UN's Early Warnings for All initiative, which aims to establish a global early warning system by 2027. If achieved, this could be a major step toward saving lives from natural hazards.

While wealthy nations like Switzerland have reliable infrastructure to warn communities of potential disasters, many others are still playing catch-up. According to UN figures, only 108 countries had the capacity for "multi-hazard early warning systems" last year  though that is more than double the number from 2015.

The benefits are clear, said Guzzetti, pointing to the Blatten evacuation: "It seems that they were very good at evacuating the town in time, so that fatalities were nil, or very small."

"I think it points to the fact that we are moving in the right direction."

The US president's much-touted tax bill includes a plan to place significant levies on remittances leaving the country. The impact on migrants and their families will be felt across the world, including Africa.

For Enoch Aikins, a political economist who focuses onAfrica, the topic of sending money home to relatives is personal.

"I can use myself as an example, as somebody that comes from a typical village with a lot of people or [with] a family that depends on me," he told DW.

A researcher with the Institute of Security Studies now based in Pretoria, South Africa, Aikins grew up in the small town of Agona Kwanyako, about 70 kilometers (some 43 miles) from the Ghanaian capital, Accra.

His job means he can provide a vital source of income for many in his family back home inGhana, whether it be for his mother's medical bills or for his cousins' education.

"Anytime there's a family problem, they call me and I have to quickly find a way to send money to them to solve an emergency crisis," he said. "Mostly it is household expenses, things like food, accommodation, school fees or to cover medical expenses."

Aikins is one of many millions of Africans across the continent and around the worldwho sends remittances, which are financial transfers to their home country or region.

The importance of these financial transfers has come into sharp effect as a result of the recent tax bill from US PresidentDonald Trump, passed on May 22 by the House of Representatives. The measure includes a 3.5% tax on remittances made by anyone who is not a US citizen or national. The original plan was for the tax to be 5% but it was lowered before the vote.

The bill has led to fierce criticism across Latin America, where it is likely to severely hurt poor migrants from Mexico, Central and South America.

Africans will also be significantly affected, according to Aikins. "We cannot tell them how to go about their fiscal business, but this is going to have a huge impact on African economies."

World Bankdata shows that remittance flows into Africa were more than $92 billion (€81 billion) in 2024, with the United States alone accounting for at least $12 billion in that year.

According to World Bank, the US is also the largest origin country for all remittances in the world, accounting for more than $656 billion in 2023.

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Monica de Bolle, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington D.C., said, however, here is a lack of reliable data on remittances because so much is not sent via recorded transactions.

"People have different arrangements for sending money back home," she told DW. "Sometimes it's as official as a family member comes and visits and then they get a wad of cash and they go back home with that. And those kinds of transactions are simply unaccounted for."

Nonetheless, whatever data is available, she argued, underlines the importance of the US as a source of remittances for Africa and much of the Americas.

Remittances are important across Africa for three key reasons. Firstly, they represent a major chunk of income for many of the continent's economies, many of which are among the world's poorest.

Recent data suggests annual remittances now outweigh both aid andforeign direct investment (FDI)as income flows into the continent.

Aikins said remittances are the "largest external financial flow into Africa" at the moment. "There are no bottlenecks or administrative issues that, for instance, if you are giving aid of about $100 million to an African country or an institution, more than half is gone on administration before it reaches people," he added.

Then there's the fact that it's typically lower-income groups that are most reliant on remittances from relatives or friends working abroad.

"It's extremely damaging," said Monica de Bolle. "A lot of the time, these flows are coming from low-income folks in the United States to their home countries and their families who are also not well off."

Some African countries will be hit harder than others. While the continent's big economies such as Egypt, Nigeria and Morocco account for the highest total level of remittances from abroad, some economies are especially dependent, according to Aikins.

World Bank data shows that remittances received as a percentage of GDP is around 20% for Lesotho, Comoros, Somalia, Gambia and Liberia.

De Bolle is critical of the remittance levy, and thinks migrants will find ways of avoiding the tax. "People who are sending money back home, if they were using official channels to do this, they're now going to try to use unofficial channels to do it because they will want to evade the tax."

She points out thattaxation of remittances is rare globallyand thinks the policy is part of the Trump administration's campaign against illegalmigration.

"The effect will be squeezing the migrants, squeezing the people who are currently living in the United States, shutting off mechanisms by which not only they sustain themselves, but they sustain their family members," said Bolle.

"Bottom line is that remittances are a pocketbook issue. You are taking money out of people's pockets."

Aikins' remittances won't be taxed, as they are not coming from the US. Yet he can clearly imagine the real-life consequences for someone in a village like the one he grew up in who is dependent on a relative sending money from the US.

When he gets a request for money, it's needed quickly, and he thinks migrantswill turn increasingly to cryptocurrencyand other off-grid methods to send the money where it needs to go.

"The tax is going to have a tremendous effect on how people send money to their dependents back home."