Burnham was welcomed with military honors in Berlin on ThursdayImage: Carsten Koall/dpa/picture alliance Chancellor Friedrich Merz received relatively new British Prime Minister Andy Burnham with military honors in Berlin.  During Burnham’s visit, the new Treaty on Friendship and Bilateral Cooperation between the UK and Germany — signed last year by previous Prime Minister Keir Starmer — officially comes into force.  Aslo known as the Kensington Treaty, the 27-page document lays out a 17-point action plan for closer cooperation in the post-Brexit era, with the UK no longer a part of the EU.  Merz called it a historic day and said the deal opened up new opportunities for bilateral cooperation, particularly for students and young people. “That’s what we’re doing this for,” Merz said. “So that the young generation also notices when it comes to bilateral relations between Germany as part of the EU and the UK, how well we Europeans...

Gerhard Schröder visited one of the Moscow branches of the new Hyperglobus supermarket chain on Wednesday, a few days after being named a member of its supervisory board.  Russian TV footage showed employees at the branch greeting the former German chancellor and his current wife, So-yeon Schröder-Kim, with sustained applause.  Schröder has current or recent links to a series of Russian businesses and to President Vladimir Putin, issues that have become increasingly contentious in Germany in recent years, particularly since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.  Schröder was German chancellor when Vladimir Putin first became Russian president; the pair have remained close since he left office, despite all that followedImage: Alexei Druzhinin/dpa/picture alliance What is Hyperglobus’ link to Germany?  The new Russian supermarket chain Hyperglobus was spun off from Germany’s Globus Holding last year.  Last week, Hyperglobus announced that Schröder had been appointed to the supervisory board. The supermarket confirmed that the...

The arrest of August Hanning, former president of Germany’s foreign intelligence service, the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), and his former chief-of-staff, Manfred D.*, is threatening to cause a major rupture in Germany’s intelligence relationships, according to analysts, as the full scale of the scandal begins to be understood abroad. Manfred D. is accused of having sold around 2,000 highly classified documents to Hanning over a period of 12 years, long after the latter stepped down from the BND in 2005, after seven years as its chief. Manfred D. continued to serve all of Hanning’s successors, including the current BND chief Martin Jäger, before retiring in March this year. On one occasion, the state prosecutor said, Hanning “used classified intelligence provided by Manfred D. to draft an analysis for an officer of a foreign intelligence service.” DW’s Michaela Küfner looks at Germany’s espionage scandal To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider...

Munich’s bid for the 2036 Summer Olympics will be up against at least six candidates from Europe, Asia and Africa. On Tuesday, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced that, in addition to Germany, Hungary, Turkey, India, Qatar, South Korea and South Africa all intend to bid for the Games. All are currently engaged in the Continuous Dialogue stage of the bidding process with the IOC. However, there could be further applicants, as the deadline for interested parties to submit a bid is October 31. The candidates are to present their plans virtually to the Future Host Commission in November. In March 2027, the IOC is to deliberate, analyze, and narrow down the field of applicants to a group selected to enter into the Strategic Dialogue stage. A subsequent Targeted Dialogue stage with one or more bidders is planned for 2028, with the final decision on the 2036 Olympic host expected at the IOC Session...

Let’s start with people’s real world fears about AI. Here’s a sample of people we asked: Sebastian, 22, says it’ll be an AI-powered robot uprising that finally wipes out humanity: “I think that’ll take some time,” he says, admitting his dystopia owes a lot to the 2004 film “I, Robot.”  Luisa, 19, has heard the rumors too. Her fear is what happens when these tools get into the wrong hands. “I’m more afraid of people,” she says. “Powerful people.”  Pilar, 25, is pessimistic about humanity’s prospects. “The world is going down,” she says. “Hopefully after my lifetime.”  In 2026, AI systems have repeatedly slipped out of human control — and at some of the world’s largest AI companies.  What happens when AI agents go rogue?  OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and Meta have all disclosed in 2026 that their AI agents escaped the controlled test environments. Agents are AI systems that don’t just answer questions but...

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and French President Emmanuel Macron sent a joint appeal to the European Commission on Monday, calling for tougher EU measures against unfair trade practices by other states.  They said that the existing instruments at the EU’s disposal were no longer sufficient.  The appeal did not name any specific country but it seemed most clearly tied to Chinese trade policy, the EU’s vast deficit with China, and its dependence on certain key raw materials. The other apparent candidate would be the US, not least under the current unpredictable trade policy stewardship of tariff-loving President Donald Trump. It also came just a few days before the EU’s trade commissioner, Maros Sefcovic, is set to visit Beijing.  How China is upping pressure on German businesses To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video What did Merz and Macron say?  The joint...

Four games, three goals, two draws, one loss and one win. Jürgen Klopp would have hoped for better results from his first international break as Germany coach. But though the comfortable win over Serbia (2-0), draws against the Netherlands (1-1) and Greece (0-0) and a shock loss to Greece (0-1) in Germany leave them third out of four in their Nations League group, Klopp saw mostly positives. “Everyone showed what they’re made of; everyone earned their place. We’ve shown signs that we can do some things better than people gave us credit for. I wanted to get something going, and I definitely saw that happen,” he said after Sunday’s 0-0 draw in Thessaloniki. For all the positivity of the former Liverpool and Borussia Dortmund coach, the four matches have, in reality, been a mixed bag for Germany. It’s a long road back to the top Having fallen in the last 32...

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz visited the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, on Sunday and called on Russian President Vladimir Putin to stop his “barbaric attacks” and end what he called a “senseless war.” Speaking alongside Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the badly damaged building of Ukraine’s Academy of Sciences, where at least two people died in a drone strike last week, Merz said: “We are ready for ​talks, we are ‌ready to discuss bringing this war to an end, but these barbaric attacks on the civilian population of Ukraine must stop. I can only repeat once ​again: Mr Putin, put an end to this senseless war.” Merz arrived in Kyiv by train early on Sunday morning, accompanied by German Economy Minister Katherina Reiche and a delegation of leading figures from German business, including executives from Siemens Energy, Hensoldt, Diehl Defense and Quantum Systems. “If Russia is not stopped, it will turn its war machine against us...

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz arrived in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, on Sunday morning, accompanied by Economy Minister Katherina Reiche and a delegation of leading German economic figures. “If Russia is not stopped, it will turn its war machine against us sooner or later,” Merz said upon his arrival by train. The chancellor is expected to announce a new raft of measures to support Ukraine in its fight against the ongoing Russian invasion, including a further billion euros in German military aid, plus €350 million ($395 million) for energy sector repairs, according to German media reports. Merz is also expected to unveil plans for the co-production of interceptor drones and long-range missiles both in Ukraine and Germany. Focus on ramping up drone production According to German government sources cited by the Reuters and dpa news agencies, arms production is expected to focus on the development and delivery of thousands of drones capable...

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier has warned that Germany’s democracy is once again being challenged. The 70-year-old used his final German Unity Day speech as president to reflect on more than three decades of political change. “I thought everyone had learned the lesson from history, and now I see supporters of right-wing extremism seeking to erase the memory of the victims of the Holocaust,” Steinmeier said at the official ceremony in Bremen. “I believed our democracy was secure and now have to experience it being challenged anew.” Steinmeier, whose second and final term as president ends in March, said his expectations after the changes that began in 1989 had been greater than what ultimately became reality. Those expectations had included greater progress for liberal democracy and for “the undeniable reason of international cooperation,” he said, acknowledging that there had been “bitter setbacks.” Looking ahead to his successor, Steinmeier warned that the...