Semua Kabar

Planned for 2035, the nuclear reactor would power research and exploration of the moon's south pole as part of the the International Lunar Research Station project.

ChinaandRussiaplan to build an automated nuclear power station on themoonby 2035.

A memorandum of cooperation for the project was signed between Russia's space agency Roscosmos and the China National Space Administration (CNSA) this week.

The power station will be part of the proposed ILRS lunar base and will provide energy to enable long-term lunar exploration and scientific research.

ILRS is seen as a rival to the US-ledArtemis program, which plans to build an orbital lunar space station called "Gateway" from 2027.

Artemis involvesNASAand the space agencies of 55 other countries, includingEuropean Space Agencymember states.

The ILRS project aims to establish a scientific research base on the moon located within 100 kilometers (62 miles) of the lunar south pole.

It will feature long-term autonomous operations and short-term human missions.

"The station will conduct fundamental space research and test technology for long-term uncrewed operations of the ILRS, with the prospect of a human being's presence on the Moon," Roscosmos said in a statement.

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First announced in 2017, ILRS includes involvement from Pakistan, Venezuela, Belarus, Azerbaijan, South Africa, Egypt, Nicaragua, Thailand, Serbia, Senegal and Kazakhstan.

China will also invite 50 countries, 500 international scientific research institutions and 5,000 overseas researchers to join the ILRS as part of its "555 Project," said Wu Weiren, chief designer of China's lunar exploration program in a statement last year.

While the ILRS aims to be a center of scientific research, the Moon's natural resources are also an enticing prospect for spacefaring nations.

The moon holds valuable metal oxides, regolith (lunar soil), rare Earth metals, and possibly significant amounts of helium-3, a potential fuel for nuclear fusion power.

The question of who can actually own bits of the moon ishotly debated among legal experts.

ILRS is part of China's mission to be come a leader in space exploration and scientific research.

The first pieces are to be laid by China's Chang'e-8 mission in 2028. This will double as China's first attempt at landing an astronaut on the lunar surface.

China has been landing unmanned rovers on the moon since 2013 and its scientists have led missions that have mapped the lunar surface, including the "dark side of the moon," which is the lunar hemisphere that always faces away from Earth.

In June 2024, China became the first nation tosuccessfully collect rocksfrom this hemisphere.  The mission washailed by China, with state news agency Xinhua describing it as "an unprecedented feat in human lunar exploration history."

Wildfires in Europe are becoming more severe. With climate change intensifying droughts and reducing summer rain, wildfire risk is predicted to more than double by 2100. Do we have to learn to live with fires?

In a single week in the fall of 2024,ravaging fires burnt downmore than 100,000 hectares of land inPortugal—an area roughly the size ofHong Kong. Plumes of smoke were visible from space. It was one of the largestwildfiresin Europe that year, killing at least seven people.

Fires on that scale are likely to happen more often, scientists say.

"Many parts of Europe are facing a large increase in multi-year droughts, leading to an increased probability of extreme fires," said Thomas Elmqvist, Environment Director of the European Academies Science Advisory Council (EASAC). "Some areas are likely to experience severe events every two years."

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About 60,000 forest fires rage through the EU every year, causing €2 billion ($2.2 billion) in economic losses, the scientists laid out in a report published today. On average, they scorch an area nearly twice the size of Luxemburg—year by year.

Europe is the world'sfastest warming continent. Over the past 30 years, temperatures have risen twice as much as the global average. Elmqvist points to the established link betweenclimate change and elevated fire danger. Increasingdroughtsand less rain are expected to double the fire risk by 2100.

Increasing urbanization is another culprit for the flames. Abandoned farmland and unmanaged vegetation growth have created vast landscapes of flammable biomass, the scientists analyzed. Extensive monocultures, particularly of conifers, pines, and eucalyptus trees also ignite fast.

The highest risk inGermany, for example, is in the northeastern part of the country with its large pine plantations, said Elmqvist.

Having monitored wildfires over the course of two years, he concluded that the number of fires and total area burned have actually decreased in Europe, "because we have more capacity to fight them."

But the fires will become larger and more severe.

Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece are most affected, the scientists found.

Mediterranean countries are better preparedfor fires compared to other European countries, says Claudia Berchtold from the Fraunhofer Gesellschaft. She is looking at research like the new EASAC study to formulate a strategy for Europe on how to deal with wildfires.

"In Germany or in the Netherlands for example, a comparatively small fire would meet a system that is not as well prepared," she added.

More than twice as many urban areas are deemed at risk of fire in Europe than in North America and Asia, the study found.

"Urbanizations have been built into pine plantations without thinking about what happens when big fires come," said ecologist Pierre Ibisch, who co-authored the study. "This is of course very risky."

This happened in the small town of Borkwalde in the German state of Brandenburg. Since 2000, people edged closer and closer into the forest, even after large fires led to evacuations in a nearby town, Ibisch said.

Problems like these could be avoided when landscape planners, foresters and farmers join forces, EASAC scientists say. They also call for more awareness and a public debate about the changing nature of fires.

"People living next to forests or moving into forests are not aware of the fact how much the fire is here and it's here to stay, and that we have the chance to reduce the risk by land management," Ibisch said.

The experts also say it's crucial to implement policies such as theEU's Nature Restoration lawquicker and more consistently, most notably to manage forests sustainably and restore carbon-rich peatlands. Allowing feedstock to graze landscapes and even burn dry stretches under supervision can dramatically increase the intensity of the fire. "Not all fires are bad", Elmqvist said.

Low intensity firescan actually be part of a natural cycle and spur fresh regrowth.

Other solutions could be to map forests digitally, to allow for better monitoring. AI can also help in evaluating drone images of wildfires, or to monitor how quickly inflammable vegetation grows back after grazing.

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Japan's laws allow the use of copyrighted content to train AI models. Even though artists are worried for their future, some of the country's cultural and social aspects might make it easier to accept AI.

When the AIStudio Ghiblifilter that turns photos and videos into the beloved style of Hayao Miyazaki's anime was released, it sparked a heated debate onartists' copyrights.

Even though Studio Ghibli didn't directly react to the viral trend, a 2016 interview with the company's co-founder also widely circulated. In it, Miyazaki said that he was "utterly disgusted" byAI-generated content, calling it "an insult to life itself."

But that hasn't stopped Japan from pushing AI development.

Japan's Copyright Act, amended in 2019, is largely interpreted as allowing the use of copyrighted materials to train AI tools — without the consent of the copyright holder. The law, specifically more permissive than those in the EU or the US, aims to attract AI investors to the Asian country.

Japanese artists are already worried about the developments. According to a 2023 survey by Arts Workers Japan, which collected data from nearly 27,000 respondents working in creative fields, 94% of Japanese artists have qualms about AI infringement of their copyrights.

Opening up the discussion to the public, the Japanese Agency for Cultural Affairs specified last year that the country's permissive rule does not apply if the exploitation of copyrighted works "unreasonably prejudices the interests of the copyright holder."

But by now, any battle for copyright protection is bound to be challenging. Even if lawmakers manage to agree that using copyrighted content to train AI models is not right, everyone has been targeted by the approach, saysCharlie Fink, a professor of cinematic AIat Chapman University, California.

"So the question is, if the crime is big enough, how would you possibly begin to address the damage?" he asks.

As part of an international brand strategy known as "Cool Japan," the Asian country has been promoting its unique cultural productions. Anime is part of those noteworthy soft power exports.

A global anime boom pushed the Japanese market to a record high in 2023, with an output of as many as 300 TV titles that year, according to an annual report by the Association of Japanese Animations.

And AI is already part of the mix. The first AI-powered anime, "Twins Hinahima," was launched in March this year. In 2023, a short anime clip named "Dog & The Boy" released by Netflix Japan also used AI-generated artwork to paint the backgrounds.

There is currently a labor crunch in the anime industry due to its unattractive working conditions. A 2024 report by the Nippon Anime and Film Culture Association showed that workers were overworked and underpaid, with hourly rates below the country's minimum wage being common.

The use of AI in anime can therefore be seen as a solution to fill in the gap, points out Roland Kelts, an anime expert and visiting professor at Japan's Waseda University School of Culture, Media and Society.

"The population is shrinking, so there are not many young artists, and they are paid very poorly to do a lot of hard labor," he told DW.

K&K Design is an anime production studio that incorporates AI in its work. It uses a customized version of the text-to-image model Stable Diffusion. The tool helps with coloring, background generation, and turning photos and videos into anime, saving lots of time and effort, says Hiroshi Kawakami, vice president of K&K Design.

He told DW that a five-second anime clip that would typically require a week of hand-drawn work can now be produced within a day by feeding only two drawings to the AI model.

According to the Arts Workers Japan survey, about 60% of artists in Japan are worried about losing their jobs to AI.

Despite the possibility of future job losses, Kawakami stresses that AI plays a "supporting" role and will not be able to replace humans in visual judgement and creative ideation, among other areas.

Studios churn out anime projects for late-night TV, and AI can help produce such content, says Kelts. But he doesn't see this as threatening creativity in the East Asian country.

Kelts explains that the Japanese do not necessarily see the perspective of having AI recreate its version of "One Piece" within a few years as a threat.

"In Shinto [Japan's national religion], all things have a 'kami,' or spirit … so the Japanese are less afraid of these ideas about robotics, about AI, about tech, because technology is woven into nature."

After all, as he points out, the first anime hero was called Astro Boy, and he was half boy, half robot.

The AI trend will be affecting filmmakers worldwide, and many are already integrating the technology into their work.

Canadian independent filmmaker Taylor Nixon-Smith, who has been writing on the impact of AI on the film industry,  says he uses ChatGPT to generate lists of tasks for pre-shooting, consolidate research and draft up operational contracts, but stresses that most filmmaking tasks can still only be done by humans.

"You still need a costume designer to draft up boards, you still need buyers to go out and buy things, you still need stitchers to draft up the wardrobe so it fits the actors properly," Nixon-Smith told DW.

Charlie Fink, former Disney producer and current adjunct professor of cinematic AI at Chapman University, feels that the use of the rapidly developing tech will "lead to a new golden age of Hollywood," one that would be "highly democratized, because an individual could make a film for a few thousand dollars," he told DW.

Fink says that having hundreds of people involved in the production of a live-action movie will become a thing of the past.

For now, actors are still at the center of production, but Fink adds that AI performances will "totally change in the next couple of years. "

The looming threat already prompted Hollywood actors to strike last year over a lack of AI-related protections for workers.

The NO FAKES Act, targeting unauthorized AI replicas, was reintroduced last month in the US Congress. The bill gained support of entertainment giants, including Walt Disney, YouTube, SAG-AFTRA, among others — as well as OpenAI.

For Fink, however, this legislation can be seen as "the first stage of grief." In his view, the rise of AI remains inevitable. He predicts it will slowly replace actors and producers, and suggests getting ahead of the game by learning to use AI: "Disruption also means opportunity.”

World Sevens Football is a new seven-a-side format focused on global reach, player empowerment and financial equity. However, the fast-paced new series is not without its critics.

Women's footballis experiencing a surge, breaking attendance records, drawing new investment and inspiring a new generation of players and fans.

World Sevens Football (W7F) , a new seven-a-side series, aims to take advantage of this boom. It brings faster, more dynamic matches to fans worldwide while giving players an opportunity for a significant financial reward.

However, the inaugural event, which will take place in Estoril, Portugal, from May 21-23, has drawn criticism for one participating club, Rosengard, disrupting theSwedishleague schedule and the tournament adding to player workloads ahead of theWomen's Eurosin July.

The idea for World Sevens Football came from the series' co-founders, entrepreneur Justin Fishkin and NY/NJ Gotham FC and Chelsea minority owner Jennifer Mackesy, with the latter having committed to an investment of $100 million (€88.7 million) over five years. They have not disclosed how much other shareholders may have invested.

"This project has come from our (Fishkin's and Macksey's) shared passion for women's football and the new formats that are proliferating through various sports around the world," Fishkin told DW.

The games are to feature two 15-minute halves on a pitch half the size of a standard 11-a-side field. The smaller pitch was set up within the multi-use Antonio Coimbra da Mota Stadium, including custom-made areas for fans, activations and entertainment to help differentiate the atmosphere from a regular football game.

In an age of digital-first entertainment, Fishkin believes that the shorter format and smaller pitch,as has also been tried on the men's side,is ideally suited to attract younger fans.

"The emerging sports fan globally is less inclined to sit down for 90 minutes and watch a game," he said. "Seven-a-side is made for social media. It's familiar, fast, and accessible."

One of the series' defining features is its player-centric approach. The Player Advisory Council is made up of current and former players, including Tobin Heath, Anita Asante and Caroline Seger.

Seger, a two-time Olympic silver medalist with Sweden, told DW that the advisory council's purpose is to help shape player care and welfare and the competition strategy and make a positive long-term impact on the players and clubs.

"It's very important to see it from the players' perspective, because normally everyone else is making decisions above the players' heads," she explained.

"Anything, from traveling to the facilities, how the game should be played, what players want to eat after a game. Sometimes it's small things, but they're all important."

Fishkin echoed the reasoning behind adopting the Player Advisory Council.

"It was critical to us that this be a player-centric competition," he said. "We needed it to be designed by people who know and love the game."

Clubs will be allowed to bring a squad of 25, with 14 eligible to play per match. The tournament prize pool is $5 million, including $2.5 million for the winners. That is significantly more than the €1.4 million theChampions Leaguevictors will earn.

The prize money for the top four teams will be divided between clubs and their players and staff, with the exact distribution determined by each club. The teams that finish fifth to eighth will receive a participation fee, and the tournament's organizers are to pay for each team’s flights and accommodation.

"You'll see that 40% of the prize monies are going directly to players and staff," Fishkin said. "We've had teams where captains have said, 'We wanted to make sure everyone (all first team players at the club) gets paid, not just the players that participate,' and that's being driven from the players up to management."

The financial rewards drew immediate interest from the inaugural eight teams, which includeBayern Munich, Manchester United, Ajax and Roma.

However, as World Sevens Football is a series that has not been sanctioned by eitherFIFAorUEFAand is therefore outside of the world football calendar, decisions on participation rest solely at the discretion of the clubs.

With the competition not being part of the football calendar, Rosengard, a club in Sweden's top-flight league, had to request to move their first division league match against Hacken, which is scheduled for May 24, to participate in the inaugural event in Portugal.

This has drawn criticism from Swedish league leaders Hammarby and former Swedish international defender Hanna Marklund.

"I perceive it as frivolous if you do not fully invest in the women's league," Marklund told Swedish national broadcaster SVT.

"It's positive that interest in women's football is increasing, but it's important to find the right time for tournaments like this. Moving a league match to play a seven-a-side tournament is not something I see as an okay reason."

The Swedish side is the only team to face this issue for the inaugural event, with most other domestic European leagues having finished their seasons in mid-May. Whether this problem will crop up again remains to be seen. Organizers hope to hold a second tournament late this year, but neither dates nor location have been confirmed.

While questions remain, including over ticket sales and how much interest has been generated for fans in an already bloated football calendar, Seger said the biggest draw for her to being involved with World Sevens football was the feeling she was working with "allies" wanting to promote women's football.

"I wanted to work with people who feel the same way [about women's football], so I don't have to always fight my way through," Seger said.

"The tables have turned, and you don't have to fight as hard. Even if there's still a long way to go, it's much easier today than 20 years ago."

Germany aims to support embattled industrial companies with lower electricity prices, but critics say the plan could threaten market stability and climate goals.

Ahead ofFebruary's general election in Germany, the country's industry leaders raised the alarm. They urged the new German government to do something against high electricity prices andwarned of business closures and companies relocating abroadif nothing happened.

Their concerns appear to have resonated with the new coalition government of the conservative CDU/CSU party alliance and the Social Democrats (SPD) headed byChancellor Friedrich Merz.

After only a few weeks in office, it is planning significant relief measures, but some experts are warning of potential downsides.

It's hard to pinpoint a single figure, as existing relief from electricity costs varies depending on company size and sector.

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According to a study by the Bavarian Business Association (vbw) based in Munich, Germany's industrial electricity prices were around the European average in 2022. However, the impact ofRussia's full-scale invasion of Ukrainein February 2022 affected energy markets, making year-to-year comparisons difficult.

Recent EU data shows that Germany ranks third in the bloc regarding electricity prices for non-household consumers — a category that includes not only industries but also public institutions like schools and government offices, thus making it hard to draw conclusions about the impact on industry specifically.

When it comes to the wholesale electricity price — before taxes and fees — Germany is in the middle of international comparisons, said Bruno Burger, energy expert at the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems, while speaking to the German dailyFrankfurter Rundschaurecently.

One thing is clear, though,companies in the US and China pay significantly less.

In 2023, industrial electricity prices were around 7 euro cents (around 8 cents) per kilowatt-hour in the US, according to the German ifo Institute think tank, and about 8 cents in China, vbw data show. In Germany, however, industrial firms pay around 20 cents, ifo says.

Plans by the coalition government in Berlin reportedly include broad-based relief measures to reduce industrial electricity prices.

In Germany, the electricity price is made up of the wholesale price, plus an electricity tax, surcharges, and grid fees. Grid fees are charges for using the power network, while surcharges fund specific government initiatives.

Berlin is now planning to reduce the electricity price by 5 cents per kilowatt-hour for businesses by lowering the electricity tax to the EU minimum and cutting surcharges and grid fees.

The government also wants to extend and expand the electricity price compensation program, which reimburses energy-intensive industries for costs arising from CO2 pricing. The CO2 price is applied to the use of fossil fuels in Germany and the EU to discourage emissions.

Andreas Fischer, energy and climate policy expert at the Cologne-based German Economic Institute (IW), told DW that "from the consumer's perspective, the broad-based relief is positive."

Max Jankowsky, CEO of Lössnitz Foundry and president of the Chemnitz Chamber of Industry and Commerce, agrees, telling DW in a statement that the urgency of reducing electricity prices for industry has been "recognized."

But the plan is also drawing criticism.

"A blanket reduction in electricity prices contradicts the needs of a system based on renewable energy," says Swantje Fiedler, scientific director at the Forum for Ecological-Social Market Economy. Rather, the German energy system would need incentives for energy storage and flexibility, she told DW, because renewable electricity supply is bound to fluctuate, with abundant supply in summer and scarce in winter.

“At the same time, it is important to consider how flexible a company can be,” says IW expert Fischer, as not all firms could quickly adapt to changes in electricity supply or pricing.

Leonhard Probst, from the Germany-based Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems in Freiburg, believes lower electricity prices may reduce incentives for companies to use electricity more efficiently.

Probst, who manages the Energy-Charts.de platform — the most comprehensive database for power generation in Germany — also said that, on the other hand, cheaper electricity can make it easier to electrify industrial processes, which is better for the environment in the long run.

The Lössnitz Foundry would be such a case in point, as the company's CEO Max Jankowsky has been planning to switch from coke to an electric smelting furnace. So far, however, high power prices are holding him back: "It feels like running into a buzzsaw," he said, referring to the risk of permanently high electricity prices.

The coalition agreement of Germany's ruling parties also mentions further relief for energy-intensive companies. It remains unclear whether this includes capping the wholesale electricity price, though some experts believe that's the intent.

As shown in price breakdowns, taxes and surcharges already account for only a small portion of the final electricity cost.

Fraunhofer scientist Probst warns that artificially lowering prices could backfire: "If electricity is in short supply but sold cheaply, scarcity intensifies and prices rise further," he argued.

Sebastian Bolay, head of energy, environment and industry at the German Chamber of Industry and Commerce (DIHK), sees another problem looming for the government on the horizon.

"A price cap would interfere with market pricing and would likely not be permissible under EU state aid rules," Bolay told DW.

Moreover, a price cap could also be expensive for taxpayers, Probst added, as many companies that don't need relief, because energy costs make up only a small part of their value creation, would "benefit unnecessarily."

Swantje Fiedler is convinced that a faster rollout ofrenewable energyin Germany will "lower prices in the long term."

In the meantime, said Probst, "targeted subsidies" are more effective than blanket price reductions, and could include special electricity rates for the use of heat pumps.

Jankowsky is also calling for what he called "tailored measures," especially to help small and medium-sized businesses (SME's), noting that many existing subsidies don't apply to them, which must be changed, "and it needs to happen fast."

This article was originally written in German.

It’s only the second time the World Health Assembly has adopted a health treaty, but key details of this Pandemic Agreement remain unclear. An analysis.

World Health Organization member states adopted a treaty on global pandemic preparedness at its 78th annual Assembly on Tuesday, May 20, after three years of protracted negotiations.

It's only the second time in WHO history that member states have successfully negotiated and agreed a major treaty; the first was the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control in 2003.

"That in itself is an achievement," Ayelet Berman, a global health law expert at the National University of Singapore, told DW.

TheWHOPandemic Agreement follows theCOVID-19 pandemic, which is estimated to have resulted in more than 20 million human deaths. It remains one of the world's biggest ever health and economic disasters.

Through the treaty, countries have agreed to improve theirpandemic preventionmeasures, monitoring capacities, and establish pandemic prevention plans and infectious disease controls.

Equity measures are also included: The agreement seeks to ensure the "distribution and rapid scale-up of the global production of pandemic-related health products."

Vaccines are considered the most important of those provisions, but equity measures could also encompass personal protective equipment and medical treatments, such as antivirals and antibiotics.

Resource sharing is central to the agreement, particularly the common access to pathogen genetic data between nations through a Pathogen Access and Benefit-Sharing System — "PABS" for short.

Access to a reserve of testing equipment, medicines and vaccines is also provided for. A fifth of available equipment will be set aside for allocation to low-income countries, according to the agreement.

How exactly PABS will work is yet to be decided. Member states must work out the details by May 2026.

But its intention is clear: A rapid sharing of disease information could help slow the transmission of a new, deadly pathogen.

"It will be very important to have rapid communication," Daniela Manno, an epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, told DW.

"Sharing the pathogen [genetic data] would be important because that is what you would use to produce vaccines and tests. This idea that [pharmaceutical] manufacturers and other countries can access the sequence of the pathogen would be important."

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The pandemic agreement is effectively a statement of intention; its enforcement is unclear.

Some countries expressed concerns over early drafts of the agreement that it would compromise state sovereignty.That's not the casein the final version. The agreement's governing principles explicitly emphasize each nation's rights to implement laws and policies.

But some experts said that has come at the expense of enforcement.

"Legally speaking, it's quite limited," said Berman. "The question is, how will it be implemented?"

"The agreement does not give the WHO any powers of interference in domestic affairs whatsoever."

Berman said the agreement's success will depend on how its initiatives are financed — another detail that is yet to be decided — and political will.

A conference of the parties, similar to the "COPs" of theUnited Nations' climate and environment programs could align international pandemic preparation, experts said.

"The idea there is that it will be a place where member states will meet and, in a non-adversarial manner, assess implementation," Berman said. "It's more of a soft mechanism for encouraging implementation."

The most notable absence at the World Health Assembly is theUnited States. Itwithdrew from the WHO by executive orderwhenDonald Trumpstarted his second presidency in January 2025.

That move,widely criticized in the global health community, deprives the WHO of its top funder and the largest player in global health. At the opening plenary session on Monday, May 19, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus asked the remaining WHO member states to support a new budget that would be 21% less for its next two-year funding cycle.

Funding aside, the US will not need to participate in any of the provisions of the pandemic agreement, which means pharmaceutical companies based inside the country may not need to play along with the information-sharing provisions.

It's a definite limitation, said Berman.

"So much of the pharmaceutical industry research institutes are based in the United States, so you're not going to have a government that is supposedly encouraging them to collaborate on research and development … tech transfer and these many other issues," said Berman.

That could reduce the equity ambitions of the treaty, which aims to assist low-income nations in fighting pandemics bysharing technology, although several of the major COVID-19 vaccine developers, such as BioNTech and AstraZeneca, are based in Europe.

Manno is hopeful, however, the agreement will mark an important first step in stopping — or limiting — the next pandemic.

"I hope having an agreement like this will mean that the public feels a bit more protected, because countries are willing to work together. I hope they would feel there's more equity in how technology is shared, I hope people living in low- and middle-income countries will have a bit more faith in how the international system operates," Manno said.

The recent power outage in Spain and Portugal has raised questions about the stability of solar and wind power. It also reignited the debate around the phasing out of nuclear energy.

At 12:33 p.m. on April 28, swathes ofSpainand parts ofPortugalwere plunged into darkness: trains were stranded, phone and internet coverage faltered, and ATMs stopped working.

The electricity blackout across the Iberian Peninsula is believed to be one of the worst in Europe's history.

Whilemost power was restored by the next morning, weeks later the investigation into the blackout is ongoing.

Last week, Spain's energy minister Sara Aagesen said so far it was clear an abrupt loss of power at a substation in Granada, followed by failures in Badajoz and Seville, led to a loss of 2.2 gigawatts of electricity, but that the precise cause was unknown.

In the wait for answers, some havepointed the finger at Spain's high relianceonrenewablesand reignited debates over plans to phase outnuclear powerby 2035.

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Spain is one of the leaders in Europe'sgreen energy transitionand has ambitious targets for renewables to provide 81% of its electricity by 2030. Last year they accounted for a record 56% of the country's electricity andsolarcapacity grew at almost twice the European rate.

Shortly before the blackout, renewables accounted for around 70% of Spain's electricity production, mostly from solar.

This has been used by members of the opposition party and nuclear advocates to suggest that overreliance on renewables was at fault — which both the country's grid operator Red Electrica de Espana and Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez have disputed. Nuclear currently provides around 20% of the country's electricity.

While solar andwindare dependent on weather, nuclear can provide a relatively continuous baseload power. However, Sanchez has said there is no evidence more nuclear capacity would have prevented April 28th's events.

Using the event to speculate against solar is more politically motivated than factually-based, said Rutger Schlatmann, head of solar energy at Helmholtz Zentrum, an energy research center in Berlin.

Schlatmann points to the fact that the high percentage of renewables in the grid was nothing unique. "This has happened many times before."

Earlier last month, Spain managed to cover 100% of electricity demand on a weekday with renewables alone.

Schlatmann added that countries like Germany also have experienced a high percentage of electricity from renewables while remainingone of the most stable power systems in the world.

Experts suggest the Spanish blackout highlights grid stability issues more than problems with renewable energy sources.

"It's mainly that the system has not adapted on the grid scale enough yet to the massive change towards these renewable sources," said Schlatmann, adding many electricity grids still reflect the demands of a fossil fuel system.

The grid is often described as the most complex system ever devised by humans — encompassing an intricate network of generators, transmission and distribution lines that all need to be kept in balance to function.

Nuclear, coal and gas power plants have huge steel generators that provide large rotating mass — often referred to asinertia— that can maintain stability if there are fluctuations in the grid.

While removing these from our power grid changes the way a system behaves, it is now possible to replace their stabilizing function, explains Robert Pietzcker, senior scientist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research."You can do virtual inertia, like with these inverters that have grid-forming capabilities."

Inverters with grid forming capabilities help create a type of "synthetic inertia" and stabilize fluctuations in the electricity system.

The technology to create synthetic inertia — which involves electrical storage and improved control systems — are already available on a commercial scale but aren't yet implemented on a national or European scale, said Schlatmann.

Other solutions that can also provide stability are flywheels, with the largest in the world today built in Ireland. Flywheels use cylindrical rotors that accelerate at a high speed, storing kinetic energy that can be used quickly when needed.

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Better battery storage and increasing flexibility in grid systems is important, said Stefan Thomas, head of energy, transport and climate policy at the Wuppertal Institute in Germany. "More connections to neighboring countries that can help to keep the system in synchronization around the 50 Hertz." Maintaining a stable 50 Hertz frequency is essential to the stability of Europe's electricity grid.

He highlights Germany as an example of a country with good connections to other countries and a high degree of stability.

Things such as electric vehicles — which can store power and then feed it back into the grid when needed — could also help provide flexibility, added Thomas.

For regions like northern Europe, that may experience periods of little wind and sun, backup capacity, which could be provided by sources such as hydrogen turbines, may be necessary, said Pietzcker.

Electric vehicles, chips,AIand air conditioning are helping to fuel a rapid growth in electricity demand.

The technological solutions for a low carbon and stable grid are now available, said Pietzcker. "With today's understanding of systems, you can design stable systems that will be as resilient based on renewables."

While grid stability is holding back the roll out of renewables in Europe a little, he says in the EU the commission is strongly pushing for more interconnectedness.

The amount of investment in grids globally needs to double by 2030 to over $600 billion (€532 billion) a year, according to the International Energy Agency. The annual investment into grids has stayed almost the same since 2010, while investments into renewables have nearly doubled.

In the wake of Spain's blackout, Jordi Sevilla, the former president of the country's grid operator Red Electrica, told Spanish media it was clear that the country's grid required funding to adapt to the reality of the new generation mix.

Banu Mushtaq is the first author of Kannada-language literature to receive the award for translated fiction. Her short story collection "Heart Lamp" was written over 30-years.

Banu Mushtaq, theIndianwriter and activist, was awarded the International Booker Prize on Tuesday for her short story collection "Heart Lamp," the first Kannada-language author to win the prize for translated fiction.

The 77-year-old Mushtaq will share the £50,000 ($67,000, €59,300) prize with her translator Deepa Bhasthi, who also helped with picking the stories featured in the award-winning collection.

This marks the first time that a collection of short stories receives the award. It also makes Bhasthi the first Indian translator to win the prize in its current form, adopted in 2016.

The annualInternational Booker Prizeis run alongside theBooker Prize for English-language fiction,but the latter is handed out in the fall.

The award ceremony was held at London's Tate Modern Museum, and announced by bestselling Booker Prize-longlisted author Max Porter, who chairs the five-member voting panel.

Porter hailed "Heart Lamp" as "something genuinely new for English readers."

"These beautiful, busy, life-affirming stories rise from Kannada, interspersed with the extraordinary socio-political richness of other languages and dialects," said Porter.

"It speaks of women's lives, reproductive rights, faith, caste, power and oppression."

During her acceptance speech, Mushtaq described the award as a "great honor," saying she was receiving it "not as an individual but as a voice raised in chorus with so many others."

"This moment feels like a thousand fireflies lighting a single sky — brief, brilliant and utterly collective," she said.

Kannada is spoken by some 65 million people, primarily in southern India.

Mushtaq wrote the short stories featured in the collection between 1990 and 2023. Bhasthi's curation and translation was keen to preserve the multilingual nature of southern India.

The collection was critically praised for its dry and gentle humor, witty style and commentary on issues such as patriarch, casteism and religious conservatism.

Intense, persistent heat waves and severe drought are making devastating forest fires more likely. But new approaches can help local communities to save what's left.

Mariana Oliveira, a forests expert at the World Resources Institute inBrazil, didn't mince words when describing howwildfireshave ravaged her country.

"Last year, Brazil experienced itsmost intense and widespread droughtin seven decades. Combined with high temperatures, this caused the fires to spread on an unprecedented scale throughout the country," she said, speaking with reporters. "This was quite a hard year for us."

A new report from the World Resources Institute's Global Forest Watch platform and the University of Maryland in the US outlines just how hard it was — in Brazil and worldwide. Tree cover loss data show thatrecord-breaking global temperaturescontributed to a catastrophic surge in forest loss worldwide in 2024, with wildfires responsible for nearly half of the destruction.

Fires destroyed five times more primary tropical forests last year than in 2023, especially in Latin America. That made fires the leading cause of tropical primary forest loss for the first time, ahead ofagriculture.

Brazil, which is gearing up to host the COP30 climate change conference in November, saw its worst year for forests since 2016. Some 2.8 million hectares (7.0 million acres) of old-growth forest were wiped out, an area only slightly smaller than Belgium.

Two-thirds of that loss was due to fires sparked primarily by human activity. Around 80% was in theAmazon rainforest, often called the lungs of the world for its vital role insoaking up planet-heating carbon dioxide.

Forests not onlymitigate the effects of climate changebut also influence local temperatures and rainfall — and everything that depends on that, including agriculture and human health. Robust, biodiverse forests shelter ecosystems that, in turn, support the livelihoods of one-third of the world's population.

The hot, dry conditions andsevere drought experienced in Brazilalso fueled larger, more widespread blazes across South America, especially inBoliviaandColombia. But land clearing for agriculture, especially soy and cattle ranches, along withminingand logging operations, also contributed to forest destruction, especially in Colombia.

Primary forest loss also spiked in Africa's Congo Basin, one of the world's last major carbon sinks. In one of the world's poorest areas, locals rely on the forests for food and fuel. Conflict in theDemocratic Republic of Congohas also put tree cover at risk. But even here, in the neighboring Republic of Congo, fires were behind 45% of the destruction.

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"The underlying cause of a lot of this is climate change, which is ultimately fueled by human activities," said Rod Taylor, director of forests and nature conservation at World Resources Institute. But, he added, the world has entered a new amplifying phase, a "real climate change feedback loop wherefires are just much more intenseand much more ferocious than they've ever been."

Taylor told DW that as the forests dry out and become increasingly degraded, fires that might have once been snuffed out on their own are spreading further. "Instead of being resistant to fire, [forests are] tinder, ready to go."

The forest loss wasn't just concentrated in the tropics. Major wildfires in northern boreal forests in places likeCanadaand Russia added to a record disappearance of 30 million hectares worldwide in 2024, with global wildfires adding 4.1 gigatons of greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere.

Sarah Carter, a research associate at Global Forest Watch, pointed out that unlike in tropical forests, fires are part of the natural process in boreal forests. But, even here, "feedback loops of drier conditions and more intense fires are being seen as the climate warms."

A few countries managed to buck the trend, however.Indonesiasaw an 11% decrease in forest loss in 2024 that Carter said was due, in part, to fire prevention and response efforts and the work of the private sector and local communities.

Primary forest destruction was also down 13% in neighboringMalaysiathanks to stricterdeforestationlaws and increased commitment from the corporations. Part of the success in these two countries can be attributed to local communities and the private sector banding together and using new apps and shared data to quickly and easily monitor disturbances in forests and ecosystems over vast areas — and stop them.

"The advantage of this information is that it's available in near real time, so you get these alerts almost every day, which tell you where forests are being lost," Carter told DW. This, she said, along with policy action at the government level, can help protect the forests we have left. "It's crucial to have that information."

Matt Hansen, a professor at the University of Maryland and co-director of the Global Land Analysis and Discovery Lab, said efforts to reduce forest loss were being challenged in a time when governance is weakening worldwide,particularly in the US. That made information like this, however "frightening," all the more important.

"This data should spur much more than concern," said Hansen, and instead push governments and people to act.

Anke Rasper contributed to this report.

The 77-year-old Indian activist is the first Kannada-language author to win the award, which also recognizes the work of translators: Deepa Bhasthi also played a central role in the book's success.

"This book was born from the belief that no story is ever small; that in the tapestry of human experience, every thread holds the weight of the whole," author Banu Mushtaq said in her acceptance speech for theInternational Booker Prize, which she won for "Heart Lamp" on May 20.

"In a world that often tries to divide us, literature remains one of the last sacred spaces where we can live inside each other's minds, if only for a few pages," theIndianwriter added.

The English-language translation of her book "Heart Lamp" (original title: "Hridaya Deepa") becomes the first short-story collection to win the prestigiousprize for translated fiction. Mushtaq is also the first Kannada-language author to win the award.

The Booker jury describes Mushtaq's writing as "at once witty, vivid, moving and excoriating, building disconcerting emotional heights out of a rich spoken style. It's in her characters — the sparky children, the audacious grandmothers, the buffoonish maulvis [a learned teacher or doctor of Islamic law] and thug brothers, the oft-hapless husbands, and the mothers above all, surviving their feelings at great cost — that she emerges as an astonishing writer and observer of human nature."

But before landing in the international spotlight, there were also moments in the now 77-year-old writer's life that were so dark that she no longer wanted to live.

She recalled in a recent interview with Indian magazineThe Weekthat she once poured white petrol on herself and was ready to set herself on fire. Her husband managed to persuade her out of doing it by placing their baby at her feet, saying, "Don't abandon us."

"I realized then what a terrible thing I was about to do. Looking back, it might have been post-partum depression. But it felt deeper, heavier ― like something inside me was breaking."

As a new mother, she turned to writing to explore what she was going through.

"Everything in my stories is somewhat autobiographical. That experience made me more empathetic," she said.

Mushtaq was born in 1948 into a Muslim family in Karnataka, a state in the southwestern region of India. Defying her community's conventions, she attended university and married for love at age 26.

During the 1980s, Mushtaq got involved in Karnataka's growing social movements that aimed to abolishcaste and class hierarchies.

While learning about social structures and the plight of marginalized communities, she supported her family by working as a reporter for a local tabloid, and a decade later, she became a lawyer.

As a Muslim woman lawyer with deep roots in her community, she developed a unique voice in her short stories, building in her own spirit of resistance and resilience in her female characters.

She emerged as one of the rare female voices to significantly contribute to Bandaya Sahitya (Rebel Literature), a literary movement that emerged in Karnataka as a protest against social injustices.

Her activism and writing has however made her the target of hostility and threats.

In an interview withThe Hindu, she recalls the severe backlash she faced for advocating for Muslim women's right to enter mosques in 2000. A fatwa — a legal decree under Islamic law — was issued against her, and a man once attempted to attack her with a knife.

Despite the dangers, Mushtaq nevertheless pursues her work as an activist and a writer.

"I have consistently challenged chauvinistic religious interpretations," she toldThe Weekmagazine. "These issues are central to my writing even now. Society has changed a lot, but the core issues remain the same. Even though the context evolves, the basic struggles of women and marginalized communities continue."

"Heart Lamp" is a collection of 12 short stories written by Mushtaq between 1990 and 2023. Her oeuvre includes six short story collections, a novel, a poetry compilation and numerous essays.

The International Booker Prize recognizes the essential work of translators, with the prize money of 50,000 pounds (€60,000, $67,000) divided equally between the authors and translators.

In this case, translator Deepa Bhasthi also served as an editor of the book, having selected the stories for the collection.

"I was lucky to have a free hand in choosing what stories I wanted to work with, and Banu did not interfere with the organized chaotic way I went about it," Bhasthi told the Booker Prizes organizers.

The jury particularly praised Bhasthi's skilful translation as "something genuinely new for English readers. A radical translation which ruffles language, to create new textures in a plurality of Englishes. It challenges and expands our understanding of translation."

Mushtaq's first language is actually Urdu. She started learning Kannada, Karnataka's official state language, at the age of eight when she was enrolled in a convent school by her father.

It became the language she chose for her literary work. But her writing reflects the linguistic diversity of her region, often blending Kannada with Dakhni Urdu (a mix of Urdu, Kannada, Marathi and Telugu).

She sees using colloquial language as not just a medium of communication but a tool for cultural expression and resistance.

The English translation conveys the original approach, combining different languages, as Bhasthi retains several Kannada, Urdu and Arabic words.

The Booker Prize website states that an estimated 65 million people speak Kannada. Last year, it became the 53rd language of Vatican Radio.

But like many other Indian languages, Kannada has often been sidelined in favor of English or Hindi in India's publishing industry.

Mushtaq's success disrupts that trend, contributing to increased funding and translation efforts for other regional works, especially those by women and marginalized writers.