Assad may win Syria's war, but he will preside over a broken country
Updated 0854 GMT (1654 HKT) March 15, 2018
In the summer of 2015, President Bashar al-Assad was in trouble. His army -- fighting on multiple fronts amid desertion and exhaustion -- was losing ground. Islamist rebel groups were threatening to cut key routes connecting regime strongholds. And then an Iranian general went to Moscow, and the tide of Syria's conflict began to change, gradually but remorselessly, in the regime's favor.
That general was Qasem Soleimani, commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards' Quds Force.
He had seen at first hand that the war was going badly, despite the involvement of pro-Iranian militia and the Lebanese Hezbollah fighting on the side of the regime.
Russians’ view of spy poisoning: ‘We are the world’s scapegoat’
Salisbury nerve attack draws responses in Moscow ranging from outrage to fear
Ask someone on the street in Moscow about the nerve agent attack in Salisbury, and their answers often reflect those heard every day from local TV pundits or MPs.
“What reason would Russia have to do this?” said Sergey Markosyan, 36, as he popped into a Magnit supermarket in Moscow for beer, salty snacks and a carton of eggs. “He was in Britain, right? So shouldn’t they look in Britain?”
On Wednesday, Theresa May told British MPs there was “no alternative conclusion other than the Russian state was responsible for the attempted murder of Mr Skripal and his daughter”.
United Nations blames Facebook for spreading hatred of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar
Facebook has played a “determining role” spreading hatred of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, according to a UN human rights team probing an alleged genocide of the ethnic minority.
Investigators said the social media platform had “turned into a beast” into the south-east Asian country, where more than 700,000 Rohingya have fled Rakhine state into Bangladesh since a military crackdown on “insurgents” last August.
The UN human rights chief said last week he strongly suspected acts of genocide had taken place, but Myanmar’s national security adviser demanded “clear evidence”.
Bottled water not safe from microplastic contamination
The revelation from a new global survey into microplastics in bottled water serves up a bitter irony. What we drink may well be contaminated. Possibly from the bottles themselves.
Advertisements for bottled water tend to play on themes of purity and healthy living. If sales figures are anything to go by, many of us seem to be buying into that. The global industry is worth €119 billion ($147 billion) a year.
But original research and reporting by the global journalism organization Orb Media, and shared with DW, muddies the association.
The first of its kind on a global scale, the research tested bottled water from 11 brands bought at 19 locations in nine countries around the world for microplastics. The contaminant was identified in 93 percent of samples — in sometimes greatly varying quantities.
S Korean moguls skiers banned for life for sexual harassing, assaulting teammates in Japan
Two South Korean freestyle skiers who competed at last month's Pyeongchang Winter Olympics have been banned for life for allegedly sexually harassing and assaulting female teammates, Seoul's ski association said Thursday.
Choi Jae-woo and Kim Ji-hyon are accused of "physically and sexually abusing female athletes" at a competition in Japan this month, a Korea Ski Association (KSA) spokesman told AFP.
After an investigation, he said, "we decided to ban Choi and Kim permanently", adding the two would be barred from registering as skiers at the KSA -- a first step to taking part in competitions at home and abroad.
“We’re mad that we haven’t been listened to”: students speak on the National School Walkout
Thousands protested across the country on the one-month anniversary of the Parkland shooting.
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Maxwell Nardi, an 18-year-old senior at Douglas S. Freeman High School in Richmond, Virginia, thinks close to half his school — somewhere between 500 and 700 students — stood up and walked out of class at 10 am on Wednesday, filing out to a fenced area where they read the names of the Parkland victims.
“We can all relate to these stories,” Nardi said. “These aren’t unheard-of people. These are things that we connect with — we all do band, we all participate in sports.”
Nardi and his classmates were some of the thousands of students who walked out of class on Wednesday. The National Student Walkout fell on the one-month anniversary of the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida; walkout supporters organized around the slogan #EnoughIsEnough. The walkout was supposed to last 17 minutes — one minute for each person murdered in Parkland — though some groups extended that time to honor other victims of gun violence or because students had more things to say.
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