German Chancellor Friedrich Merz urged a new “trans-Atlantic partnership” during his address at the Munich Security Conference (MSC) on Friday. However, in the speech, he also placed great emphasis on what he said was a necessity for Germany and Europe to take on a proactive role in a fast-changing geopolitical environment that he described as a phase of new great-power politics — “a dangerous game.” US not powerful enough to go it alone in era of ‘great power rivalry’ Merz said the old international rule-based order was being destroyed. “This order, however, imperfect it was even at its best, no longer exists in that form,” Merz said, speaking of a dangerous new era where freedoms are “endangered.”  As examples, he spoke of Russia’s “brutal war against Ukraine” and “violent revisionism,” and China’s ambitions to gain increased global influence and the US’ reaction to this.  He stressed the importance of the Western military alliance NATO...

02/14/2026February 14, 2026 ‘Give us a ceasefire and we will hold elections,’ Zelenskyy says Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said Ukraine is prepared to hold elections once a ceasefire in effect. The Ukrainian president was responding to demands from US President Donald Trump, who has accused Zelenskyy of being a “dictator” due to his refusal to hold elections while his country is at war. On Friday, Trump again applied more pressure on Kyiv, saying, “Russia wants to make a deal, so Zelenskyy has to get moving.” In response, Ukraine’s president said, “Give us two months of ceasefire, and we can go to elections.” He said he would not put Ukrainians at risk by asking them to head to polling stations when his country is still coming under “ballistic attacks.” “Give us the possibility for our soldiers to vote. How can they defend our lives, our country, and at the same time go...

Burglars ransacked several safe-deposit boxes in a bank in the town of Stuhr in Lower Saxony in northern Germany, police said Saturday. Police said they have not identified the perpetrators or established what was stolen. “We can’t say anything about the contents,” a police spokesman told Germany’s DPA news agency. “We don’t know what the bank customers had stored there,” he said. The bank had 728 safe-deposit boxes in total, 14 of which were broken into, according to police. “All the other boxes are intact,” the bank was cited by DPA as saying. Police said the break-in was carried out between 12 p.m. and 2 p.m. local time (1100 and 1300 UTC). According to initial witness reports, three men in blue overalls were seen walking toward a car in front of the bank around midday. Unknown liquid spotted at crime scene A police spokesperson told DPA that a bank employee...

Die Faschingszeit steuert auf ihren Höhepunkt zu. Pfannkuchen dürfen da nicht fehlen. Bei der Wahl des Bäckers hat jeder seinen eigenen Favoriten. Aber kann der Präsident des Faschingsclubs an der Chemnitz sein Lieblingsgebäck auch erkennen, wenn er nicht weiß, welches es ist? Sechs verschiedene Chemnitzer Bäckereien, sechsmal Pfannkuchen mit Marmeladenfüllung – ohne Schnickschnack, einfach der Klassiker. Aber welcher schmeckt am besten? Die „Freie Presse“ wollte es wissen und hat sich mit zwei waschechten Faschingsprofis zur Blindverkostung verabredet. Christoph Laubner und Thomas Kempe sind die Chefs des 1…. Registrieren und testen. Jetzt mit Ihrer Registrierung 1 Monat gratis testen und alle Beiträge lesen. Schon Abonnent? Melden Sie sich mit ihren Zugangsdaten an. Deutsche Welle

Berlin’s new airport? Planned for 5 years, finished in 14. Stuttgart’s central station? Still under construction after 16 years. Hamburg’s concert hall, the Elbphilharmonie? Nine years instead of three. And the costs? Sometimes 10 times higher than promised. Or take Cologne’s opera house. Built in the 1950s as a symbol of modern democracy, it was a cultural jewel. By 2012, it needed renovation. The plan sounded simple: three years of work, reopening in 2015. Fast-forward to today: The building, which comprises the opera itself, a theater with two stages, and a children’s opera with its own stage, remains a construction site. Opera singer Emily Hindrichs recalled her optimism upon joining in 2015. “At the time, I thought, ‘Okay, that’s something they will figure out quickly.’ I was optimistic.” Ten years later, Emily hasn’t set foot in the building. Performances have been scattered across temporary venues, and frustration runs deep. The original budget of €250 million ($297...

In einem Doppelhaus brach am Freitag ein Feuer aus. Als freiwilliger Feuerwehrmann versuchte Jürgen Lehmann auch sein eigenes Hab und Gut zu retten. Das Haus, das er erst kürzlich sanierte, ist nicht mehr bewohnbar. Jürgen Lehmann war gerade auf Arbeit, als er zum Einsatz gerufen wurde. Als Mitglied der Freiwilligen Feuerwehr Wittgensdorf sollte er zu einem Brand ausrücken. Die Adresse, die ihm angezeigt wurde, ließ ihn aufhorchen: An der Halde, eine kleine Stichstraße am Rande des Dorfes. „Da wusste ich gleich, was los ist.“ Registrieren und testen. Jetzt mit Ihrer Registrierung 1 Monat gratis testen und alle Beiträge lesen. Schon Abonnent? Melden Sie sich mit ihren Zugangsdaten an. Deutsche Welle

Prominent Indian writer Arundhati Roy has canceled her planned attendance at the Berlin International Film Festival, saying her withdrawal comes in response to “unconscionable statements” made by the jury and its president, Wim Wenders, about the Gaza Strip. “With deep regret, I must say that I will not be attending the Berlinale,” Roy wrote in a statement issued by her publisher on Friday. At the press conference on the festival’s opening day on Thursday, jury members were asked to comment on the festival’s position on the conflict in Gaza. A journalist had accused the festival of showing solidarity with Ukrainians and Iranians but not with Palestinians. One jury member, Ewa Puszczynska, said asking such a question was “unfair.” Jury president Wenders responded, “We cannot really enter the field of politics,” and described filmmakers as “the counterweight to politics.” In Roy’s statement, she wrote that “[to] hear them say that art should not be political is...

The Berlin International Film Festival is no stranger to political controversies, but the first one to hit this year’s event happened hours before the Berlinale officially kicked off on February 12 with its opening film, “No Good Men,” during a press conference introducing the international jury in the morning. The conference brought together festival director Tricia Tuttle and the seven people who will be selecting the winners of the Golden and Silver Bears: Jury president Wim Wenders, director of acclaimed films including “Wings of Desire” and the Oscar-nominated “Perfect Days,” and his fellow jurors — Nepalese director Min Bahadur; South Korean actor Bae Doona; Indian director, producer and archivist Shivendra Singh Dungarpur; US director, screenwriter and producer Reinaldo Marcus Green; Japanese director, screenwriter and producer HIKARI and Polish producer Ewa Puszczynska. The international jury posing together at they are introduced to the pressImage: John Macdougall/AFP Political question interrupted mid-sentence in livestream The livestream of the press conference was interrupted just as political...

German flag carrier Lufthansa today said close to 800 flights had been canceled, as pilots and flight attendants went on strike. An estimated 100,000 passengers have been affected. Many Lufthansa planes remained grounded after Vereinigung Cockpit (VC), the German pilots’ union, and Germany’s flight attendant union UFO called a strike. This is not the first labor dispute this year. After a pause last year in negotiations for many industries, the motto in 2026 seems to be: A new year, new strikes. New collective bargaining agreements are due for around 10 million employees in 2026. If the unions cannot reach an agreement with employers regarding pay and working conditions, there will likely be labor disputes. Earlier this year, Ver.di, a service sector trade union, called for nationwide strikes ahead of a third round of collective bargaining negotiations with Germany’s federal states. Schools, daycare centers, universities, theaters, state administrations, and security agencies were affected....

You may remember that US Vice President JD Vance sent shockwaves with his speech at last year’s Munich Security Conference (MSC). In it, he railed against what he described as an erosion of democratic norms across Europe, citing, among other things, the decision not to invite lawmakers from Germany’s far-right Alternative for Deutschland (AfD) to the conference. To add insult to injury, he later declined a meeting with then German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and instead met with the AfD’s co-leader, Alice Weidel. Coming in the middle of an election campaign, the move was widely seen as a significant breach of diplomatic decorum. This year, Vance is not attending. The AfD, however, now the largest opposition party in the Bundestag, will be represented. Three AfD lawmakers have been invited, although organizers stress they will not be “given a platform.” The party’s defense policy spokesman, Ruediger Lucassen, told me he wants Germany...