Semua Kabar

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."

When Qatar bought Paris Saint-Germain in 2011, it looked like they would quickly spend their way to the top. They’ve shed stars for a likeable young side, but it’s hard to see this as a win for football.

This was a night of firsts. A firstChampions Leaguefor Paris Saint-Germain. The first time a final has been won by five goals. And a first European trophy for Qatar.

"Everyone doubted us," said Qatari club president Nasser Al-Khelaifi after the match. " A lot of people didn't have faith in our project. Today we've proved it. Honestly, I can't believe it, we won 5-0. It's a dream,

As PSG coach Luis Enrique and his players bounced joyfully on theMunichpitch before lifting up Al-Khelaifi after a stylish 5-0 dismantling of Inter on Saturday night, Qatar Airways advertising provided both backdrop and a further reminder of the engine of their success.

After 14 years of near misses, implosions and the departures of Lionel Messi, Kylian Mbappe, Neymar and the rest of the big names, Qatari Sports Investments, which is operated by the Qatari government, had finally got the statement win it craved. Given that Inter warmed up with Qatar Airways emblazoned on their training kit too, perhaps they couldn't really lose.

That Qatar Airways branding is a familiar sight in Munich, with Bayern Munich — who usually play their home matches at this stadium — wearing the logo on their sleeves untilthe deal ended in 2023, following intense pressure from fans about the country's human rights record.

Michael Ott led fan pressure at the time and told DW that football higher-ups will not be forced to cut their ties with countries with questionable human rights records.

"It was a deception. You feel a bit betrayed, but I think we expected it," he said of the fact thatBayern signed a new deal, with another country with a questionable record, Rwanda, shortly after they ended their public relationship with Qatar.

"All signs were showing the deal wasn't continued because of Qatar and not because of the Bayern officials. There wasn't really a shift in the mindset of the Bayern officials."

Now the win with PSG has even more eyes on Al-Khelaifi, whose claim to be the most important man in football grows ever stronger.

As well as being president of PSG, the 51-year-old former tennis player is chairman of the European Clubs Association — which represents the interests of 700 European clubs — is on the executive committee of UEFA — which organizes European football including the Champions League — and on the organizing committee for the upcomingFIFA World Club Cup. He is also a minister without portfolio in the Qatari government and chairman of state-owned broadcaster BeIn Sports, which has bought the rights to the Champions League.

Bayern's fans, and German fans in general, tend to object to state ownership of clubs that were once community assets and made the point when PSG visited Munich last November. They raised a huge banner of Al-Khelaifi with a red line through it. The same image was stuck to escalators, walls and benches across the city on Saturday.

Paris, however, seems largely to have welcomed Qatar and Al-Khelaifi.

Ott, who now lives in France, said the attitude of PSG fans is "a stark contrast to Germany."

"Of course, they have been speaking about human rights problems before the [2022 Qatar] World Cup, but way less than in Germany, and when I speak to the French, most of them care way less than the Germans about this topic," he said.

"It has taken longer than we imagined but we have won the Champions League," PSG fan Sebastian told DW shortly after the match. "The players were so good tonight but of course we needed the money from the owners to get here. They have been great for us. This is just about football."

As the big screen camera panned to Al-Khelaifi just before the trophy was presented, the crowd greeted him with warm applause. The Qatari reciprocated then took his place in the lineup of dignitaries, hugging each player as they collected their medals.

About an hour earlier as, Doue, 19, finished yet another sumptuous team move to score PSG's third goal on 63 minutes, it was easy to see just why so many fans don't concern themselves with the ownership question. Two goals from a French teenager in the most dominant Champions League final performances in memory is exactly the kind of story that draws people to the game.

But Doue isn't quite the homegrown talent narrative of old, he was signed from Rennes for €50 million ($57 million) last year. No other French club has ever spent that much on a player while PSG and Qatar have surpassed it 10 times. Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, the Georgian winger who scored the fourth cost even more, though substitute Senny Mayulu, who added a fifth, has come through the PSG youth system. That mix of smart big money purchases and finally beginning to tap their rich local market of talent will worry more traditional European powerhouses.

For the masses of Parisian fans making their way into the Munich night, there seemed to be no worries at all.

Chinese researchers have developed an infrared contact lens that makes night vision possible. Nanoparticles make the previously invisible light range visible to the human eye.

Light consists of individual particles that propagate in waves. The wavelength determines the color and energy of the light.

The human eye can only perceive a small section of this spectrum, approximately the range between 400 and 700 nanometers.

Because of that, we humans are unable to see the infrared range, with its longer wavelengths of 750 nanometers to one millimeter.

So in order to see infrared light, we have needed comparatively bulky night-vision goggles or night-vision devices with their own energy source — until now.

Researchers at the University of Science and Technology in Hefei, easternChina, have nowdeveloped a contact lensthat converts infrared light into visible light, enabling humans to see in the dark.

Yuqian Ma and his team have combined conventional soft contact lenses with 45 nanometer particles consisting of gold, sodium gadolinium fluoride, ytterbium and erbium ions.

The upconversion contact lenses (UCLs) convert infrared light with wavelengths between 800 and 1,600 nanometers into visible light, the team wrote in the scientific journalCell.

The nanoparticles enrich the long infrared light waves with energy. In doing so, they convert infrared light into three primary colors, making them visible to the human eye.

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One drawback is that the resulting images are very blurred because the nanoparticles in the lenses scatter the light, which the team was able to partially compensate for by adding additional lenses.

However, the infrared contact lenses are still nowhere near as powerful as night vision goggles, which amplify weak infrared signals, making them visible.

The team first injected nanoparticles into the retinas of mice and their behavior showed that they could see in the dark.

The newly developed contact lenses are much more practical because they are non-invasive — meaning no injections into our retinas.

In tests, humans were able to recognize patterns, letters and flashing infrared signals in the dark. And the infrared lenses work even better with closed eyes, because the infrared light can easily penetrate the eyelids and image generation is not disturbed by normal visible light.

Several animal species are able to perceive infrared light, which is extremely helpful when hunting in the dark. They do not see infrared light as "light" in the sense of human vision. Instead they perceive the heat radiation emitted by objects.

This helps some cold-blooded reptiles such as snakes (rattlesnakes and pit vipers), certain fish (piranhasand cichlids), some amphibians (bullfrogs) and some blood-sucking insects (mosquitoes and bugs) with orientation or hunting in the dark.

Warm-blooded animals — such as humans, other mammals and birds — cannot see infrared light because their eyes do not have the appropriate receptors and their body's own heat radiation would also interfere with the perception of infrared light.

As fascinating as the Chinese innovation is, it remains to be seen how it could be used in everyday life.

According to the developers, the lenses could be used in surgical procedures, in the field of encryption orcryptography, or for counterfeit protection.

This is because infrared light is what makes invisible features or inks visible on documents, for example.

The lenses could also be used to rescue people in poor visibility conditions because they make heat-emitting objects visible. However, many critics doubt this, as night vision devices are much easier to use, and are also significantly more powerful.

This article was originally written in German.

Near-infrared spatiotemporal color vision in humans enabled by upconversion contact lenseshttps://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(25)00454-4

Germany's former foreign minister has been elected to become the new president of the United Nations General Assembly for one year in September. How did Annalena Baerbock get here?

Annalena Baerbockknows how to land on her feet. Just a few weeks after it became clear that herGreen Partywas unlikely to be part of the next German government, the country's first-ever female foreign minister was already lining up a new job.

The UN General Assembly elected her on Monday, June 2. She ran unopposed for the one-year top position, which is primarily of ceremonial significance and mainly involves organizing plenary sessions. The inauguration is due to take place on September 9, shortly before the general debate of the UN General Assembly — and while the job is limited to a year, it is considered a good stepping stone for subsequent roles.

When Germany's former center-left government nominated Baerbock as the new president of the United Nations General Assembly, a post that Germany was next in line to occupy, government spokesperson Steffen Hebestreit said Baerbock was highly respected and "highly qualified for the job."

The appointment did not come without some internal grievance: Germany had said last year that it would nominate the much-respected diplomat Helga Schmid for the post. A former Green Party member, Schmid is a Foreign Ministry veteran and was considered a vital architect of the nuclear agreement between Iran, the EU and other states, concluded in 2015.

Baerbock responded to the criticism saying her appointment was be "analogous to many predecessors who were also former foreign ministers or former prime ministers."

Baerbock, still only 44, was foreign minister until the center-rightChristian Democratic Union (CDU),Christian Social Union (CSU)and the center-leftSocial Democratic Party (SPD)negotiated their way to Germany's new government.

At least rhetorically, Baerbock always remained committed to the "value-based foreign policy" she said she wanted to enact even before she took office. As the Green Party's chancellor candidate in 2021, she made what many saw as assertive statements about human rights and democratic freedoms in China, Belarus, Hungary, and Russia.

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But her outspokenness often did not go down well later, when she took office. Her ministry was forced to clarifya remark she made during a meeting of the Council of Europein Strasbourg in January 2023, when, during a call for unity among western allies, she said, in English: "We are fighting a war against Russia, not against each other." This was immediately pounced on by the Russian government, when spokesperson Maria Zakharova claimed that this was proof that the West was waging a "premeditated war against Russia."

Then in April 2023, during a press conference with her Chinese counterpart Qin Gang in Beijing, she offered a note of warning about China's international ambitions, only to be told by Qin that the "last thing that China needs is a teacher from the West."

Nor did it help Chinese-German relations when, in an interview with US broadcaster Fox News in September 2023, she describedXi Jinpingas a "dictator," which led the Chinese government to summon Germany's ambassador to Beijing.

Overall, Baerbock's three years as foreign minister were marked by momentous international crises, which necessitated a tireless work rate: She made a total of 160 trips in her time in office, visiting some 77 countries — face-to-face diplomacy had never been more necessary, she once told public broadcasterARD.

During her time in office, she showed herself a strong supporter of sending military supplies toUkraine, a country she visited nine times — including visits to Ukrainian troops on the front.

Following the October 7, 2023attacks by the terror group Hamas, Baerbock attempted to walk a line between expressing Germany's continued support for Israel, while also trying to negotiate humanitarian aid for Gaza.

She also attempted to enact a more "feminist" foreign policy, something she expressed by increasing the proportion of female officials in her own ministry, as well as in German embassies around the world, a third of which are now headed by women.

Baerbock's political career was marked in her youth by her parents, who took her on anti-nuclear demos in the 1980s. On her personal website, she describes being "touched by worldwide injustice" since her teenage years, which she said sparked early ambitions to be a journalist.

She studied political science and public law in Hamburg, earned a master's degree in international law at the London School of Economics, and then began a doctorate at Berlin's Free University, which she broke off in 2013 on being elected to the Bundestag.

Her academic career ran in parallel to a steep political ascent. Having joined the Green Party at the age of 25, she became leader of the party in the state of Brandenburg only four years later, while simultaneously acting as spokesperson of the party's working group on European affairs and serving as a board member of the European Green Party.

She continued this focus on European affairs in her first term in the Bundestag, when she claims to have "worked hard on making the German government finally acknowledge its international responsibility as one of the largest economies in the world and to lead the German 'energy transition'."

Her rise continued into April 2021, when she won an internal power struggle against her Green Party co-leader Robert Habeck, and became the party's first-ever official chancellor candidate in a national election campaign.Her candidacy was underminedhowever, when it emerged that her ghost writer had plagiarized parts of her hastily-released book. Though her party's election result that year was a disappointment, it set her on her course into foreign diplomacy.

This text was first published in 2021 and has been updated to reflect recent news developments.

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.

Openly living in a same-sex relationship in early 20th-century Germany, she later used her privilege, resources and courage to help Jewish families flee Nazism.

In the annals ofWorld War IIhistory, few would have expected a British-born Sikh princess from a dethroned royal family to quietly resistNazi Germany, and live openly with a female partner long beforeLGBTQ+ rightswere acknowledged — let alone accepted.

Yet, that is precisely what Princess Catherine Hilda Duleep Singh did.

The daughter of the last Maharaja of the Sikh Empire, Catherine blazed her own trail and defied social norms.

The recognition of her legacy is relatively recent. Among those who've brought her acts to the forefront is British biographer Peter Bance, who has spent over two decades researching and writing about the Duleep Singh family, besides piecing together Catherine's extraordinary contributions from scattered records and family documents.

Bance explained toMetroin 2023: "She didn't do these things for self-promotion, so the stories weren't in books or anything. Her stories have survived through the people she saved. Her intervention at that time have seen families across the world thrive."

Born in 1871 in Suffolk, England, Catherine was raised far from the land her father once ruled.

At age 10, Maharaja Duleep Singh was forced to surrender the Sikh Empire — and the(in)famous Koh-i-Noor diamond— after the British annexed Punjab. In return, he received a pension from the British Crown on the condition he "remain obedient to the British Government."

He later married Bamba Müller, a German-Ethiopian woman, with whom he had six children; Catherine was the fourth. The family lived in exile, but under the patronage of Queen Victoria, who was also Catherine's godmother.

Educated at Somerville College, Oxford, Catherine supported the suffragette cause with her two sisters, campaigning for women's voting rights. But it was her private life — especially her years in Germany — that would come to mark her unconventionality and gumption.

Having lost both her parents during her teens, Catherine had developed a close bond with Lina Schäfer, her German governess. In the early 1900s, Catherine left England and moved with Schäfer to the central German city of Kassel. The villa in which they lived together for more than three decades still stands today. Their relationship, though never formally acknowledged, defied social norms of the time and remained steadfast until Lina's death in 1937.

Catherine initially felt at ease there  — among others, the couple enjoyed annual visits to theBayreuth Festival— but the 1930s saw Germany degenerating into a police state under Hitler.

"Being brown-skinned and gay in Germany during the rise of Hitler was dangerous for her," according to Peter Bance. "I remember reading some correspondence between her and her accountant. He urged her to leave the country warning she was going to be targeted. She was being watched by the local Nazis, but she refused to leave."

As the Nazi regime tightened its grip, Catherine used her resources and influence and helped several Jewish individuals and families escape persecution in Germany and start over in Britain. She wrote letters of recommendation, provided financial support, and personally guaranteed immigration documents that were crucial to survival.

One of the most documented examples involves the Hornstein family. Wilhelm Hornstein, a Jewish lawyer and decorated First World War soldier, was arrested during theNovember Pogrom of 1938and imprisoned in a concentration camp. He was later released on condition that he left Germany. Catherine arranged safe passage to England for him, his wife Ilse and their two children.

Catherine hosted them at Colehatch House, her country home in the village of Penn, Buckinghamshire, as well as other Jewish refugees, including a physician named Wilhelm Meyerstein and his partner, Marieluise Wolff, and a violinist named Alexander Polnarioff. She also advocated for those interned as "enemy aliens" — a cruel irony for Jews who had fled the Nazis.

"I think she did her part for humanity. There was a lot of atrocities going on at that time which were going under the radar, and some were there blatantly as well, and people were sort of turning a blind eye. And she could have quite easily turned a blind eye and said, it's not my business, but she made it her business," Bance tells DW.

In 2002, one outcome of her "one-woman rescue mission" resurfaced in a chance encounter.

Bance recalls how, after having published a local article about Catherine, a man named Michael Bowles walked into his office and told him: "My mother and my uncles and my grandparents were saved by Princess Catherine in Germany. And if it wasn't for her, I would not be alive today."

Bowles, it turns out, is the grandson of Ursula, one of the Hornstein children saved by Catherine's intervention.

Catherine died in 1942, aged 71. Neither she nor her siblings had any descendants. In her will, she'd requested that part of her ashes be buried at Lina Schäfer's gravesite in Kassel.

Over the decades, the site fell into disrepair and Bance is now working with Kassel's Main Cemetery to formally mark their shared grave. "I really think it's something Princess Catherine would have liked … They spent their whole life together. And she loved her so much," he explains.

Their bond, though subtle in its time, resonates today. Bance tells DW that while Catherine never hid her relationship "and her sisters obviously knew about it, but it was very hush hush," since in that era "it was not something they would have sort of flaunted or advertised."

However, as Catherine's valor gets more media mileage, LGBTQ+ communities have been posthumously embracing her as an icon for having fearlessly loved and lived as she willed. And she has since headlined media coverage during diverse Pride Months, including one by the BBC in 2023.

Bance is now working on a new book set to coincide with a Kensington Palace exhibition titled "Princesses of Resistance," set for March 2026 that will focus on Catherine and her sisters Sophia and Bamba.

"It's a very female-oriented exhibition showing the efforts of these Duleep Singh princesses," Bance tells DW, adding that he'll be lending items from his personal archive of nearly 2,000 family artifacts that he's collected over the course of 25 years.

While details continue to emerge about the Jewish families that Catherine helped, Bance had once described her as an "Indian Schindler,"  in reference to German industrialistOskar Schindler (1908–1974), who is credited with saving around 1,200 Jewish lives during the Holocaust.

Acknowledging that Catherine's efforts may not meet the scale of the original Schindler's list, Bance nevertheless tells DW: "Saving one life or saving 10 lives, it's still 'saving.' You're saving somebody who's not your color, not your religion, not your ethnic background, but you're doing it based on humanity."

A profile on her alma mater's website sums it up: "A true LGBTQ+ icon, who put herself at risk for the comfort of her aging lover, and the very essence of the Somerville motto: 'Include the excluded.' Catherine did not just include the excluded: she saved them, campaigned for them, fought for them."

One French billionaire is spending millions of euros to boost far-right initiatives. But the case of Pierre-Edouard Sterin is just the tip of the iceberg and prompting calls for stricter rules.

On May 20, the hearing of a French billionaire before a parliamentary inquiry committee was intended to lift the lid on what the committee had earlier called an "outright ecosystem of political conquest."

The lid, however, had to be kept tight because Pierre-Edouard Sterin didn't show up to theNational Assembly.

Originally, French lawmakers wanted to question the billionaire founder of Smartbox — a company that sells experience gifts — on his Pericles project, through which he's invested about €30 million ($34.24 million) in initiatives promoting his conservative values.

"Yesterday, Mr Sterin told us he wanted to testify via video link for security reasons," the committee's president, Thomas Cazenave, said.

"I replied that we had taken appropriate measures to protect him, just like for lawmakers who regularly receive threats," Cazenave — a lawmaker for the government coalition Ensemble! — stressed, adding that he deplored Sterin's "stalling technique."

"It means we won't be able to verify whether Pericles respects French campaign rules," Cazenave added.

The Pericles project's general director, Arnaud Rerolle, had shown up for a hearing a week earlier, saying France's "economic, social and moral situation is in a dire state."

"We're an incubator on the right of the political spectrum for meta-political projects. So far, we have financed less than 15% of the 600 applications we received," he told the committee.

Among the initiatives supported by Pericles are far-right magazineL'Incorrectand theObservatoire du decolonialisme, which, for example, denounces what it calls "woke obscurantism" — a catch-all term used to decryleft-wing ideologies, often centered on the identity politics of minorities.

However, Sterin is not the only billionaire trying to steer French political opinion towards the far right and notablyMarine Le Pen'sNational Rally (RN).

Rerolle refused to unveil the names of all the supported projects — less than a third of which are known. But he said Pericles didn't finance political candidates, which is legally allowed only for political parties under French campaign financing laws.

Pierre-Yves Cadalen, a lawmaker for the far-left party France Unbowed (LFI) and the committee's vice president, calls Rerolle's statement "wishy-washy."

"Daily newspaperL'Humanitepublished an internal document, according to which Pericles aims to help the far right National Rally (RN) win 300 cities in the 2026 municipal elections," Cadalen told DW.

During his hearing, Rerolle had confirmed the document was genuine, but called it "outdated."

According to Rerolle, €150 million will be spent over a decade tofight against Islamism, immigration and gender ideologyand work towards a victory at the 2027 presidential and parliamentary elections.RN President Jordan Bardellaand RN presidential candidate Marine Le Pen are being qualified as "people of trust."

"It's a problem for democracy when billionaires interfere this much with political life," Cadalen said, adding that he wasn't only talking about Sterin.

In France, 80% of the daily generalist printed media are owned by 11 billionaires, with their TV and radio stations reaching more than half of the country's audience.

Cadalen thinks that Vincent Bollore — the majority shareholder of logistics and communication group Bollore — especially wields "huge influence through his media conglomerate, which includes TV channel CNews, radio station Europe 1, the weeklyJDD, plus polling institute CSA.

"Together, they have huge firepower and spread far-right narratives that are then picked up by other media," said Cadalen.

Abel Francois, professor for political economy at Strasbourg University, says that the way they wield so much influence is "relatively new” to French politics. "Billionaires used to buy up media to influence politicians, for example, to be chosen in public tenders. Today, it's about boosting a certain ideology," Francois told DW.

In public interviews, Bollore has maintained he has no influence on the content of his media.

DW's requests for interviews with both Bollore and the Pericles project remained unanswered.

Meanwhile, France's concentration of media ownership has far-reaching consequences, says Amaury de Rochegonde, an  economic journalist at weekly magazineStrategiesand public radio station RFI.

Journalists "self-censor" when it comes to reporting about those billionaires because no-one wants to get "on the wrong side of a potential future employer."

What's more, the billionaires are teaming up, Rochegonde told DW. "Bollore and Sterin are known to have met. Both are pushing for a union of the right, meaning an alliance between the conservative Republicans' right wing and the RN", he said.

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Alexis Levrier, a media historian at northern Reims University, has experienced what it means to rattle the Bollore cage.

"I received thousands of messages with insults and even death threats, including from an arms dealer," Levrier told DW in one of his first interviews on the issue since late February.

Back then, he told daily newspaperL'Opinionthat he supported a decision by the French media watchdog to revoke the license for C8, one of Bollore's TV stations. The withdrawal came after C8 was found to have ignored dozens of formal reprimands, including for sexism and homophobia.

Levrier believes that another of Bollore's media outlets, CNews, which unleashed the hate campaign, should receive a similar sanction.

"Many fellow researchers don't dare to speak up against the Bollore empire any more. The cultural sector has also gone quiet, although artists used to be staunch advocates of humanist values," said Levrier.

Yet Bollore and Sterin are exceptions among entrepreneurs, says Herve Joly, a historian at national research institute CNRS, because hardly any business leader openly supported the RN.

"In the past, employers didn't endorse the far right before it came to power. They tended to back established, conservative parties. Nowadays, entrepreneurs even promote progressive values, such as gender equality and the fight against climate change," he told DW.

At the same time, he warns that this could change if the far right were to rise to power. "In Germany, company bosses cooperated with Hitler after he had taken over and even consolidated his power."

LFI lawmaker Pierre-Yves Cadalen wants to prevent that with "new regulations against market concentration" in French media.

"Reactionary forces are using these platforms to push for dismantling our rule of law just like in the US," he said.

But Ensemble! lawmaker Eleonore Caroit, also a member of the investigative committee, doesn't think that new laws are needed.

"We can fight against projects like Pericles by laying them bare," she told DW. "I'm sure that's why Sterin didn't show up for the hearing."

The French billionaire now risks two years in prison and a fine of up to €7,500.

Former Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock was voted in as president of the UN General Assembly. Meanwhile, Germany's tough migration policy has been dealt a setback in court. DW has more.

This blog is now closed. Here's a roundup of the news stories fromGermanyfrom Monday, June 2, 2025:

Newly-elected UN General Assembly President Annalena Baerbock hopes to oversee some big changes in her new role.

DW's Ines Pohl sat down with Baerbock in New York City to outline her plans to reform the organization.

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The Ukrainian representative to theUnited Nations, Andrii Melnyk, has told DW that he is hopeful new UN General Assembly President Annalena Baerbock will be able to use new position to bring an end to the war.

"Her record as a foreign minister, personally contributing to the support of Ukraine, also saw Germany as the second biggest, ally of Ukraine in this war," Melnyk told DW.

"I am confident that Annalena Baerbock will pursue the goal of consolidating democratic forces [in Ukraine], strengthening the United Nations, but also helping Ukraine to defend our independence."

Russia has repeatedly vetoedUN Security Councilresolutions to condemn the it attempt to annex parts of Ukraine. However, Melnyk is hopeful that with Baerbock at the helm, she could help ensure the UN charter is upheld.

"We think that the General Assembly could play a special role," he added. "Especially in this historic moment. We believed that Annalena Baerbock would be capable to consolidate the support within this important democratic organ.

"We are happy to have a president that understands why the UN charter and why international law should be protected and upheld to to stop the war. This war shall be finished on the principle of UN charter, which is territorial integrity and sovereignty."

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Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said Monday evening that the government would stick to its migration policy after the Berlin Administrative Court's ruled that turning backasylum-seekersby police at German border controls is unlawful unless carried out under theEU's Dublin procedure.

"You can see how dysfunctional the whole asylum system is. The numbers are too high. We are sticking to our practice," he told reporters.

"We will continue with the pushbacks," Dobrindt said in a statement, adding that "we think we have the legal justification for this."

Dobrindt added that the interior ministry would provide more detailed justifications for the pushbacks, as requested by the court.

Chancellor Friedrich Merzhas pledged to crack down on migration. Shortly after taking office last month, Chancellor Merz's government advised police that they could turn back irregular migrants at the border, even if they applied for asylum.

A study released on Monday has revealed that more than one in five women inGermanyexperiencedsexual violence as children.

The extent of the offences is "alarmingly high," said Harald Dressing, a psychiatrist who authored the study for the Central Institute of Mental Health.

Almost 21% of women aged 18-59 are estimated to have beenvictims of sexual violence before turning 18, based on a survey, compared to 4.8% of men. Up to 95% of perpetrators are men.

"Sexual offences happen everywhere where children and parents should be able to expect a safe space for children," Dressing noted.

Known for researching sexual abuse in the Catholic and Protestant churches, Dressing said thatviolence is rife across varying environments in Germany.

The effects of abuse can be devastating, he warned. "When a child becomes a victim of sexual violence, it is a serious trauma.It can destroy a life."

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According to the study's authors, sexual violence covers behavior with and without physical contact, such as sexual harassment, coercion and penetration and also encompasses internet grooming.

In total, 5.7 million people in Germany are said to have suffered sexual violence as children, representing 12.7% of the population, the study found.

The average age of victims was 11.2 years old, with around half experiencing sexual violence on multiple occasions.

In around a third of cases, girls reported suffering abuse from family members or friends. In contrast, boys were more likely to be targeted in sport clubs, youth groups or religious contexts.

More than a third of respondents in the study said they had never previously disclosed the abuse, while only 7% said they had filed charges against their perpetrators.

German authorities have requested for a new search operation to take place in southern Portugal related to the disappearance ofBritish child Madeline McCann, local media have reported.

According to reports by CNN Portugal and SIC Noticias citing investigative sources, Portuguese police will begin searching on Tuesday at the Algarve seaside resort of Praia da Luz where three-year-old McCann disappeared 18 years ago.

According to CNN Portugal, the new search will also include a house wherethe German suspect in McCann's disappearance,a sex offender with multiple previous conviction, is said to have lived in Portugal in the early 2000s.

The request for a new search is part of a warrant issued by the Brunswick Public Prosecutor's Office, in northern Germany, which is conducting a preliminary investigation into the suspect.

Investigators suspect that she was kidnapped and murdered. However, a body was never found. The last known majorsearch operation in this case took place around two years ago, at the end of May 2023. Like previous search operations, it ended without result.

Germany's economy minister, Katherina Reiche, said on Monday that the government plans to build new gas-fired power plants in the southern state ofBavariaas part of its bid to fulfil pledges to bring down electricity prices forenergy-intensive industry.

She told a meeting of the Bavarian Cabinet that "two-thirds" of the planned new capacity would be built in the state as part of a "southern bonus," with Bavaria prioritized in "the tender for the first 20 gigawatts that we have planned in Germany."

"Security of supply, climate protection and affordability must come together again in a balanced triangle," the minister said.

She said the government was already holding consultations with the EU's executive body, theEuropean Commission, about the plans.

The plans to increase reliance on gas-fired plantshave come under criticismfrom environmental groups and some energy experts.

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FormerGerman Foreign MinisterAnnalena Baerbock  was elected president of theUN General Assemblyafter a vote on Monday in New York.

She received 167 votes in a secret ballot, with Chairman Philemon Yang making the announcement on Monday.

Baerbock was the only candidate to runand expressed her gratitude for her election, saying she wanted to be an "honest broker" for the General Assembly.

Baerbock is due to be inaugurated for the role, which is largely ceremonial, on September 9, shortly before the General Assembly's annual meeting. Herterm as president will last for one year.

She is the fifth woman to hold the post since the UN was founded almost 80 years ago. All 193 UN member states are represented in the General Assembly.

An administrative court in Berlin hasruled that it is illegalfor asylum seekers to be turned back at the border.

The ruling is a blow to ChancellorFriedrich Merz, who has pledged to crack down on irregular migration.

Shortly after the conservative-led coalition government took office last month,it advised police that they could block irregular migrants from entering German territory,even if they applied for asylum.

The ruling came in response to a lawsuit brought by three Somalis who were sent back to Poland from the German border town of Frankfurt an der Oder last month.

The court said Germany was obliged to fully comply with the EU's so-called Dublin procedure for asylum cases.

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Civil liberties in Germany have been ranked as "impaired" by relief organization Brot für die Welt (Bread for the World), putting the country in a category with Slovakia, Argentina and the United States, and behind Austria, Estonia, the Scandinavian countries, New Zealand and Jamaica.

Germany was taken out of the first, or "open," category of countries with full civil liberties two years ago, partly because of the harsh way it has dealt withclimate protests, the NGO said.

In its Atlas of Civil Society, which gathers date from theCivicusnetwork of civil society organization, Brot für die Welt said just 3.5% of the world's population enjoyed unrestricted civil rights and liberties.

Altogether 40 countries, including 12 EU member states, were put in the "open" category, 42 in the "impaired" category, 35 in the "restricted" category, 51 in the "oppressed category" and 29, including Russia, in the "closed" category.

This latter category, which includes 29.9% of the world's population, denotes countries where people live in an "atmosphere of fear."

The Atlas (in German) can be foundhere.

The German government is preparing a bill that would make it easier for it to determine "safe countries of origin" for migrants, a move that is likely to further restrict the possibility of applying for asylum, a newspaper has said.

TheTagesspiegelnewspaper reported that the German Cabinet could approve the measure on Wednesday.

The bill would make it possible for the government to decide on which countries are listed as safe without approval of the categorization by theBundesrat, the upper house of the German parliament.

Migrants from countries designated as "safe" are unlikely to have their asylum applications approved, and deportations of asylum-seekers to such countries face fewer legal hurdles.

The conservative-led government under ChancellorFriedrich Merzhas vowed to focus on tackling irregular migration.

Under the coalition agreement between Merz's conservative bloc and the center-left Social Democrats (SPD),India,Algeria,MoroccoandTunisiaare first in line to be designated "safe."

Currently, the list of "safe countries of origin" includes EU member states and a small number of other countries.

In Eastern Europe,Albania,Bosnia-Herzegovina,Kosovo,North Macedonia,Serbia,GeorgiaandMoldovaare all deemed safe, along withSenegalandGhanain western Africa.

German ChancellorFriedrich Merzwill advocate a "fair ceasefire" in Ukraine during his first in-person meeting with US PresidentDonald Trumpin Washington on Thursday, a German government spokesperson said on Monday.

"The government's objectives are clear and the chancellor will do everything in his power to lobby the US president for a fair ceasefire, including with the threat of sanctions," the spokesperson told reporters in Berlin.

The spokesperson added that Merz was aware that US Republican Senator Lindsey Graham was pushing for tighter sanctions on Russia overits full-scale invasion of Ukrainebut said the chancellor would not interfere in US domestic affairs.

Trump has so far appeared reluctant to impose tougher sanctions on Russia despite at times seeming to befrustrated at Moscow's continuing attacks on Ukraine.

Meanwhile, a Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman has said Kyiv officials have met with diplomatic advisers from Germany, Italy and the United Kingdomahead of talks later on Monday in Istanbul with Russian delegates.

"The sides coordinated positions ahead of today's meeting between Ukrainian and Russian delegations. Members of the Ukrainian delegation reiterated Ukraine's commitment to peace efforts," the spokesman said.

The number of lawsuits overasylum decisionsand over fast-track processing of asylum applications in Germany has risen dramatically since last year, the mass-circulationBilddaily reported on Monday.

According to the paper, which cited statistics from higher administrative courts in all German states, there were 67% more such lawsuits in the first quarter of 2025 than in the same period in 2024.

The highest number of lawsuits was registered in the northwestern state of Lower Saxony, with an increase of almost 120%.

The flood of legal actions has led the judges' association BDVR to describe as "unrealistic" the declared aim of the German government and states to shorten the processing of asylum applications ahead of the planned reform of the EU's asylum system from July 2026.

"Many German states will not manage to finish up asylum proceedings within the planned six-month deadline," the BDVR's deputy chairwoman, Caroline Bülow, said.

As a reason for the increase, theBildcited the fact that an increase in staff since early 2024 at the Federal Office forMigrationand Refugees had led to a rise in the number of asylum applications processed.

However, another part of the problem is that many asylum-seekers see the German government as having reneged on asylum promises,as DW reported last month.

Several of the measures introduced by German ChancellorFriedrich Merzto curb migration since taking office, such as tighter border controls,have come under fire as possibly violating both German and EU law.

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German PresidentFrank-Walter Steinmeierhas congratulatedright-wing nationalist Karol Nawrocki on winning Poland's presidential election on Sunday.

"German-Polish friendship is a matter close to my heart. Let us strengthen the friendship between our peoples together," said Steinmeier.

"We must work closely together on the basis of democracy and the rule of law in order to secure Europe's future in security, freedom and prosperity," he added.

He invited the president-elect to Berlin.

Nawrocki's victory could in fact complicate ties between Berlin and Warsaw, as Nawrocki vowed during his campaign to raise the issue ofWorld War II reparations, which has long dogged German-Polish relations.

German ChancellorFriedrich Merz, during his inaugural visit to Warsaw, emphasized that the new conservative-led government in Berlin sees the issue of World War II reparations as legally closed, but Warsaw does not share this view.

The euroskeptic Nawrocki, who as president will have considerable powers, might also use them to block efforts by Polish Prime MinisterDonald Tusk's government as his predecessor Andrzej Duda has done in the past.

German ChancellorFriedrich Merzhas urged Israeli Prime MinisterBenjamin Netanyahuto give more emergency aid to the Palestinian population in theGaza Strip.

According to government spokesman Stefan Kornelius, Merz told Netanyahu in a phone call that it was urgently necessary to allow sufficient humanitarian aid to enter thePalestinian territoryand to guarantee its safe distribution.

Merz's remarks come afterreports of the Israeli military shooting at civilians waiting for aid distribution.

The German chancellor also reiterated in the phone call that the security and the right to existence of Israel were an integral part of Germany's fundamental political position, Kornelius said.

Merz also stressed that the German government considered anegotiated two-state solutionas the best way of enabling peaceful coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians.

Israel has been carrying out a war in the Gaza Stripin response to militant attacks on southern Israel led by the IslamistHamasgroup on October 7, 2023, in which more than 1,200 people were killed and some 250 hostages taken.

The offensive has killed tens of thousands and created a humanitarian crisis in the Palestinian territory, with the UN recently calling Gaza "the hungriest place on Earth."

Nearly one-third of people living inGermanyare planning to travel less or for shorter periods of time this year, a YouGov survey has shown.

According to the survey conducted for an annual tourism industry summit in Berlin, about one in five (20%) said they intend to take less frequent trips, while one in 10 (11%) said their trips would be of shorter duration.

However, 10% of respondents said they planned on traveling more often in 2025, and 44% said they were not changing their travel habits in comparison with last year.

Two-thirds of those surveyed said that they had planned their vacations between June and September despite the increased frequency of heat waves and wildfires in popular holiday destinations, with just under 30% saying that extreme weather and the risk of natural catastrophes influenced their travel behavior.

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Some 54% said rising costs were a major factor in planning travel, while 45% cited the political situation in the planned destination as playing a role. Families of three to four people were more concerned about these aspects than smaller family units, the study said.

Every second person in Germany planned at least one trip within the country itself in 2025, while 5% intended to travel to either North or South America.

According to the study, 17% are not intending to travel at all in 2025.

Germans are known for their love of travel,a well-documented phenomenon.

Many popular holiday destinations are struggling from the environmental impact of huge visitor numbers. How can the issue be tackled?

Tourismis booming all over the world. In 2024 there were around 1.5 billion holiday makers, setting the second highest ever record after 2019.

From Gran Canaria to Mallorca andRome, many population destinations are now overcrowded with visitors.

Overtourismdescribes the excessive, and often simultaneous, rush of vacationers to one place. According to the UN World Tourism Organization it is usually defined as the point at which locals or visitors feel tourismhas negatively impacted the quality of lifein a region to an unacceptable degree.

All of this applies to theseven Canary Islands.The archipelago in the Atlantic, home to 2.2 million locals, hosted a total of 15.2 million visitors last year — and a new record is expected this year.

While tourism accounts for more than a third of the islands' economy, it is mainly large investors that profit, according to local groups.Rents are exploding, the environment is suffering and living space for the local population is becoming scarce as property owners capitalize on lucrative short-term rentals.

Overtourism exacerbates the existing problems of heavy tourism and often stretches infrastructure and local resources to their limit.

Noise, littering, drones flying through the air to take holiday snapshots and traffic jams are just a few of the less pleasant aspects of surges in visitors.

Landscapes are often altered by additional footpaths or new parking lots catering to tourists, disrupting the local flora and fauna.

Tourism threatens water resources, especially on islands and in warm regions as vacationers, particularly wealthy ones, generally consumemore water than locals.

Waste water is also often a problem. For example, the wastewater discharged into the sea off the popular Spanish Balearic island of Mallorca has caused underwater seagrass beds, important helpers in the fight against theclimate crisis,to shrink considerably.

Emissions from tourism increased by 65% between 1995 and 2019. Today it is today responsible for 8% to 10% of allglobal greenhouse gas emissions.Air travel is the main driver of its growing climate impact. While flying accounts for a quarter of all vacation trips, it is responsible for three quarters of tourism emissions.

Added to this are emissions from localtransportation, accommodation and leisure activities. The general rise in travel often leads to overtourism: If more people are traveling, particularly popular destinations become more crowded.

Short trips are becoming more popular. Last year, Germans alone took around 94 million short trips — an increase of almost a quarter compared to the previous year. This type of travel is particularly damaging to the climate, as the largest proportion of tourists' CO2 emissions comes from the journey to and from a destination. More short trips equals more arrivals and departures, and this means more emissions.

According to the Swiss non-profit organization fairunterwegs, air travel has a particularly influential role in driving overtourism. They say the existence of nearby airports, particularly if they are served by low-cost airlines, encourages the emergence of overtourism. Mallorca, for example, would probably not be as popular if people had to travel there by ship.

Howevercruise shipsare also criticized for exacerbating the problem. Cruise ship tourists tend to go ashore for only a few hours, putting a strain on local infrastructure and contributing relatively little to the local economy, as they are usually fully catered for on board.

And then there is the phenomenon of so-called set-jetting. The filming locations of popular TV series often experience a huge spike in visitor numbers. On Maui and Sicily, the filming locations for the first two seasons of US series "The White Lotus," the number of guests has risen by 20% since the islands appeared on-screen.

Dubrovnik in Croatia,where much of Game of Thrones was filmed, is also suffering from overtourism. And in Hallstatt,Austria,a local initiative is fighting against the impact of a tourism surge, likely driven by the picturesque town being featured in the South KoreanNetflix series"Spring Waltz."

Some cities and regions are trying to limit thenumber of travelers at certain times or altogether.

In Venice,day tourists have to pay up to €10and Lisbon charges cruise ship operators €2 for every disembarking passenger. Tenerife is restricting access to the summit of the Pico del Teide volcano to 300 visitors per day.

Paris has moved to limit the number of days per year locals can rent out their main residence via platforms such as Airbnb, while Thailand is closing the popular Similan and Surin Islands this year until autumn to allow local ecosystems to recover, and is planning to charge entrance fees in future.

In addition to access restrictions and higher taxes on overnight stays, visitor flows are also managed through digital booking systems that help avoid queues in front of monuments or museums. Some tourism hotspots are also promoting attractions outside city centers.

Copenhagenis trying a different approach by instead rewarding more climate-friendly travellers, with those arriving by train able to access free rental bikes, yoga lessons, guided tours and reduced admission prices.

This article was first published in German.