Greece native Ioannis Ikonomou learned English at age five, German at seven and Italian at barely 10. He hasn’t stopped since, and is currently mastering Albanian.
Source: DIE WELT
Die Welt (“The World”) is a German daily founded in Hamburg in 1946, and currently owned by the Axel Springer AG company, Europe’s largest publishing house. Now based in Berlin, Die Welt is sold in more than 130 countries. A Sunday edition called Welt am Sonntag has been published since 1948.
Young do-gooders flock to Cambodian orphanages to volunteer, sometimes paying for the privilege. But child advocates worry if these visitors are more harmful than helpful.
Malls, not walls, in Germany’s capital, but can it compete with the Internet?
WUPPERTAL — The god you’ll discover if you become a Salafist is not a god who will coddle you. That’s a message zealot Pierre Vogel sends out loud and clear over the microphone when he’s doing his village tours to promote the “perfect sharia.” Germany’s best-known convert to Islam used to be a professional boxer […]
Compared to radical Sunni terrorist organizations like ISIS, the regime in Tehran can seem relatively tame. But don’t be fooled.
Dutch aerospace student Boyan Slat, 20, has an idea that could conceivably remove millions of tons of toxic trash from the world’s waters. It even has a revenue model. But will it work?
The Russian President is again one step ahead of the U.S. and Europe, and many have begun to wonder if sanctions are even worth it. And then there is the question: where to after Ukraine?
Not the same imminent threat as Vladimir Putin, but the Hungarian prime minister is posing a bold challenge to the West, with a troubling speech in Romania that flew below the radar.
Just how should the West deal with terrorists as ruthless as ISIS? Hunt them down, ally with their enemies, mess with their minds? Some concrete options, but there’s no time to waste.
Nepal has commissioned meteorologists and geologists to remap the wind systems, mountains and valleys on the “Roof of the World.” It could help us predict natural disasters.
SAN ANTONIO — It’s a mild evening on Passeig de Joan Carlos I, opposite Ibiza’s historic Old Town. The setting sun bathes Life Marina Ibiza, an apartment development designed by renown Paris architect Jean Nouvel, in a surreal sea of color. At the Madrigal Bar, Champagne cocktails are being prepared. At the roundabout by the […]
-OpEd- BERLIN — American Foreign Policy magazine’s home page is a little bit like a quotation board for security policy strategies. Here you see not only how various players evaluate the world’s conflicts but also how much support there is for their point of view, because the number of times the article has been shared […]
India and Pakistan are arch enemies whose ongoing Kashmir conflict shows no signs of ending. So will the film kiss between a beloved Pakistani actress and an India heartthrob be censored?
After 15 years of living and working in the United States, a Die Welt correspondent says good-bye, not only to his adopted country but also to the pre-9/11 grandeur the U.S. once enjoyed.
MOSCOW — The war in eastern Ukraine is being fought on several fronts — with deathly weapons and munitions on the one hand, and with competing interpretations of reality on the other. As the conflict drags on, it’s increasingly becoming a propaganda war. From the beginning, the Russian media has taken an active part in […]
WHAKATANE — “Here, hang this around your neck, we’re nearly there,” says Keris Adams, handing out yellow gas masks to some 50 ship passengers. I’m starting to feel uneasy. It’s only a few kilometers to White Island, the only New Zealand isle with an active volcano. Even from a distance the island has something mystical […]
It isn’t just the Ukrainian military defending the country against pro-Russian militias in eastern Ukraine. Voluntary fighters, many of them intellectuals, have left their jobs to help the cause.
The U.S. has a poor record on Iraq, but it’s optimistic that cooperation with the country’s new prime minister can help him win the war against terrorists and restore regional stability.
–Commentary– BERLIN — There are photographs of Afghanistan’s capital city Kabul, taken in the 1960s, that show elegantly dressed women sitting in street cafés. There are similar photos from the period shot in Ankara, Cairo, Damascus and Karachi. A half-century later, comparable scenes are nowhere to be found in many of these cities. Ankara is […]
The emirate of Qatar is tiny, but it wields disproportionate power in the world, where it maintains complicated and often troubling relationships. Just ask Israel.
When a journalist visits an old horse stable converted into a sado-masochist club, he finds surprisingly normal people who just have a different idea of foreplay.
Reactions are coming in after the U.S. and Europe doubled down on economic sanctions against an ever more defiant Moscow.
The island was a German colony until 1914, which was once a source of pride and income for many. A century later, this part of its history is deepening Samoa’s economic and social woe.
MAASTRICHT — The worst thing about it, says Marina Smirnova, is that people won’t tell her directly to her face what they think of her. When the 27-year-old Russian, a linguist, joins a discussion with colleagues at work about the crash of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, and points out that responsibility for the tragedy has […]
Can you spot the Russian women lounging under umbrellas? A (male) German writer says he can. British, French and, yes, Germans too.
AMSTERDAM — Two-thirds of the 298 passengers on downed Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 were Dutch, and their countrymen are seeking ways to vent their anger. Some have found an outlet in the daughter of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Masha. The 29-year-old is married to Dutchman Jorit Faassen, 34, who works for Gazprombank and Stroytransgaz in […]
Protests over the weekend in major European cities to support the people of Gaza were fertile ground for a growing movement of anti-Semitism.
A crafty entrepreneur is bringing the canceled wedding market to Germany, where brides and grooms are embracing new ways to save tons of cash off the leftovers of altar breakups.
KLAIPEDA — The entrance to this Lithuanian city’s port is a lesson in geopolitics. Klaipeda is the major transit hub for Russia on the Baltic Sea, but there’s no overlooking the huge semi-domes of the new terminals for LNG (liquefied natural gas) which Lithuania hopes will free the country from its energy-dependence on Moscow. There […]
BERLIN — How is Germany supposed to react to the U.S. spying activities that have come to light recently? The political opposition seems to think the answer is simple: Expel all U.S. intelligence agents! Allow whistle-blower Edward Snowden asylum! Immediately halt all negotiations regarding the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP)! Stop all cooperation with […]
The Mannschaft’s World Cup winning team was the perfect embodiment of what Germany hopes to be perceived as — a mix of artistry, perseverance, solidarity and individual freedom.
There are signs of ‘Denglish,’ a German (Deutsch)-English brew becoming fashionable in American culture. Some of it is crossover from Yiddish, some of it is über hipster posing.
VANCOUVER — The bearded Garlic Guy at Granville Island Market looks as if he’s been standing here since the 1970s pitching his organic garlic. The name of his one-man enterprise is Oddball Organics. He grows 19 kinds of garlic and mixes the cloves into sauces (“Nuclear Nectar,” for example) that he sells on Granville Island, […]
SAARBRÜCKEN — If you’re looking for the biggest whorehouse in the state of Saarland, you’ll probably end up first at a dog training school. There aren’t any signs yet pointing the way to the brothel — or, as it calls itself, the “wellness oasis” — so the GPS will take you right past its unobtrusive […]
BEIJING — Wang Huning is on time, standing alone. The lean man, who looks as if he might be a university professor, doesn’t stand out in the lobby of the luxury hotel. He is waiting for the sign that it’s time for Chinese President Xi Jinping’s delegation to leave. The protocol officers who’ve come to […]
The controversial Norwegian author reflects on the state of the novel, the ghost of Hitler and plans for the future.
BRUSSELS — The Ukraine crisis and Russia’s aggressive behavior have hit NATO right between the eyes. Utterly caught off guard, the defense alliance has begun asking itself how it must react, both in the short-term actions, as well as bigger questions about NATO’s role for the future. The pressure to be decisive has a firm […]
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Robots Park Your Car At Dusseldorf Airport
Starting on Tuesday, arriving passengers at Düsseldorf airport will be able to turn their car over to robot Ray who’ll park it for them. Vehicles are left in one of six boxes about the size of a car-wash unit. Each box is equipped with its own Ray. Once the car is parked in the box, […]
The online world’s big data and nanosecond velocity means we are losing control of the machines we’ve built ourselves. How can we avoid becoming victims of our own intelligence?