Skip next section Suspected arson attack cuts power to thousands of Berliners
09/09/2025September 9, 2025
Suspected arson attack cuts power to thousands of Berliners
Repair work might take until WednesdayImage: Jens Kalaene/dpa/picture alliance
Tens of thousands of homes in south-eastern Berlin remain without power following a suspected arson attack.
Two high-voltage pylons caught fire in the Johannisthal district, cutting electricity to over 43,000 households and 3,000 businesses.
Around 25,000 homes were still affected late on Tuesday.
“Far-reaching underground work and cable installation are needed to make emergency repairs,” a spokesman for the power company said.
“Preparations for cable installation work will be created during the course of Wednesday,” he added.
Police say the blaze was likely deliberate. A letter claiming responsibility has surfaced, allegedly targeting Berlin’s science and tech hub in Adlershof.
Berlin’s mayor condemned the attack, saying it endangered lives and city infrastructure.
“People’s lives and the security of our city were deliberately placed in jeopardy through this attack,” Mayor Kai Wegner said.
https://p.dw.com/p/50FUj
Skip next section Outgoing chief Limbourg says DW ‘a voice of freedom’
09/09/2025September 9, 2025
Outgoing chief Limbourg says DW ‘a voice of freedom’
Germany’s foreign broadcaster Deutsche Welle has been led by Peter Limbourg for 12 years, but his tenure is coming to an end. As he departed, Limbourg spoke about the importance for media outlets to champion freedom of the press.
“We don’t have a ‘woke’ agenda. We have an agenda for human rights and democracy,” Limbourg said.
“This is the only agenda we have and freedom of the press and freedom of expression. So if you want to call this woke, fine, go with it. But it’s something which is really important for us that we are a platform for a lot of opinions,” he added.
Limbourg addressed criticism that DW has recieved over its coverage of the conflict in the Middle East.
‘We are the voice of freedom’: DW Director General Limbourg
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The Director General is responsible for steering and coordinating DW’s strategic and operational activities in close collaboration with its governing bodies.
Limbourg said it was vital for DW to inform people in areas where they don’t get all the information or censored information.
“And we are the voice of freedom. And unfortunately, our American friends had to close down their operation Voice of America and Radio Free Europe is in big trouble. So I think this brings Europe into a new role, a new position. So we have to do more,” he said.
The Deutsche Welle Broadcasting Council has named Barbara Massing as the next Director General. She will succeed Peter Limbourg on October 1, 2025.
https://p.dw.com/p/50FKL
Skip next section Hollywood Reporter to publish in Germany
09/09/2025September 9, 2025
Hollywood Reporter to publish in Germany
Munich-based Maier Media has announced that it will publish a German edition of The Hollywood Reporter.
“We are excited to bring the legacy of The Hollywood Reporter – a synonym for world-class entertainment journalism – to Germany,” said Hollywood Reporter editor Maer Roshan.
“Our vision is to build a powerful stage for Hollywood stories and German cinema – and to link brands, talent and audiences in a unique way,” Maier Media chief executive Grace Maier added.
The Hollywood Reporter was founded in 1930 and is one of the most well-known trade publications covering the US and global entertainment sector.
The German-language edition will debut in print by the end of October this year, with the digital platform going live this month, the company said.
Exclusive events, a podcast, movie industry coverage and in-depth reporting on the international and German media and cultural landscape, are all planned to be covered by Hollywood Reporter’s German edition.
https://p.dw.com/p/50Eyr
Skip next section Germany seeking free trade agreements with Latin America, India
09/09/2025September 9, 2025
Germany seeking free trade agreements with Latin America, India
Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said he hoped Germany could seal free trade agreements with Latin American countries and India by the end of the year in a push for Europe to seek other markets as trade relations with the US have been affected by Washington’s tariffs.
“That would be a crucial prerequisite, not only for the exchange of goods and services with these countries. It would also show that the European Union is capable of acting as a geopolitical factor,” Wadephul said at a meeting of German ambassadors in Berlin.
“Demonstrating this capacity to act has never been more urgent than it is now,” he added.
Wadephul said it was the “central task of politics to ensure that these agreements are concluded as quickly as possible – and it is achievable: before the end of this year.”
The German foreign minister also stressed the need for Europe to look for new sales and raw materials markets, in light of US President Donald Trump’s policy on imposing tariffs.
Wadephul made the remarks a week after the EU Commission sent the bloc’s 27 members two major free trade deals with Latin American countries to sign off on.
One of those trade agreements is with the Mercosur trade zone of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay, which had been negotiated more than 25 years of talks and would create one of the world’s largest free trade zones with 700 million inhabitants.
EU-Mercosur trade deal: A tale of two cattle breeders
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https://p.dw.com/p/50Evl
Skip next section Most German adults support social media age restrictions
09/09/2025September 9, 2025
Most German adults support social media age restrictions
A total of 85% of German adults are in favor of limiting social media access to apps like Instagram and TikTok to those 16 and older, according to a survey released on Tuesday.
While many expect the olds to be for such restrictions, the measure also found considerable support among the teens polled. Among 16- to 17-year-olds, 55% were in favor of restrictions. Restrictions found 39% support of those between 14 and 15 — the only group polled that would actually be affected by such a ban.
The Australian parliament passed legislation in November restricting access to social media for children and teenagers, allowing access only for those aged 16 or older. The ban is due to take effect in December.
For the survey, Germany’s ifo Institute questioned 2,982 adults aged 18 to 69 and 1,033 teenagers aged 14 to 17 on their views on social media between May and June. The results largely tracked those of a YouGov poll from November 2024.
Cell phone bans at school: How effective are they?
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“The results show that the population is very concerned about the potential risks of social media,” said Ludger Wössmann, director of the ifo Center for the Economics of Education.
At the same time, he noted, young people aren’t the only ones spending considerable time on social media.
Some 96% of those aged between 14 and 17 said they use social media every day during the week, which was also true for 90% of adults.
Overall, 47% of adults said they would prefer to live in a world without social media compared to 19% of young people. Majorities of both groups (64% of adults and 58% of 14-17-year-olds) agreed on banning mobile phones during school lessons.
Cellphone bans for children and adolescents
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https://p.dw.com/p/50DI4
Skip next section Demonstrators protest German ‘autosaurus’
09/09/2025September 9, 2025
Demonstrators protest German ‘autosaurus’
Police cut out the asphalt around the hands of half a dozen protesters in MunichImage: Jason Tschepljakow/dpa/picture alliance
While the German chancellor was inside at the auto show, a group of demonstrators outside the exhibition hall glued their hands to the roaddisrupting traffic and protesting against the auto industry.
The climate activists called for increased investment in “buses and trains instead of car madness.”
Germany has long been known for producing large, heavy automobiles that create more greenhouse gas emissions.
Ahead of the start of the auto show in the Bavarian capital of Munich, protesters also put dinosaur head protruding from a car roof in an artificial lake outside the exhibition grounds.
The protest group Attac said the “autosaurus” symbolized a car industry that is beyond help and that needed to go underImage: Alexandra Beier/AFP via Getty Images
“Year after year, Germany fails to meet its climate targets in the transport sector, the fossil fuel regression under the Merz government is in full swing, and the transport transition is being slowed down,” Attac’s Thomas Eberhardt-Köster said in a statement. “The automotive industry is celebrating itself at the IAA,but it will not change voluntarily.
“It doesn’t care about climate neutrality because it is only interested in making profits with ever larger and more harmful cars. In the long term, it would rather sink itself than become part of the necessary transport transition,” Eberhardt-Köster added.
https://p.dw.com/p/50D3a
Skip next section Chancellor wants Germany to lead in car manufacturing
09/09/2025September 9, 2025
Chancellor wants Germany to lead in car manufacturing
Chancellor Friedrich Merz said German car manufacturing needed to become a leading industry and that there needed to be better political framework in place for the overhaul of the car industry.
“We want to shape the transformation of the automotive industry and not chase after it,” Merz said.
He added that increased competition from China and the United States meant German automakers needed to respond with innovation, quality and sustainable production. Merz also said the European Union needed more flexibility in its shift to e-mobility and that “we do not want to limit ourselves to one goal, one technology.”
Munich’s IAA offers peek into future of mobility
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“We are, of course, committed to the transition to e-mobility,” Merz said, adding that “we need smart, reliable and flexible European regulation.”
The German leader’s comments on Tuesday came at the opening of the IAA Mobility automobile show in Munich.
https://p.dw.com/p/50Cum
Skip next section Annalena Baerbock takes over UN General Assembly presidency
09/09/2025September 9, 2025
Annalena Baerbock takes over UN General Assembly presidency
Annalena Baerbock, a former German foreign minister, officially takes over her new job as president of the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday.
She takes over the largely ceremonial role at the start of the UN assembly’s 80th session from Philemon Yang, a former prime minister of Cameroon.
UN must be updated to meet 21st-century demands: Baerbock
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As General Assembly president, Baerbock chairs UNGA sessions and helps set the agenda and rules of meetings. Her new position is entirely separate from that of UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres.
The 44-year-old Green Party politician, who served in the German government until May, is the fifth woman to hold the post and was elected with 167 of 193 possible votes.
DW’s Jens Thurau looks at why not everyone is happy to see Baerbock take on the new role or how she received it.
https://p.dw.com/p/50BoO
Skip next section Arson suspected in fire that left tens of thousands without power in Berlin
09/09/2025September 9, 2025
Arson suspected in fire that left tens of thousands without power in Berlin
Two high-voltage pylons caught fire in a case of politically motivated suspected arson that left some 50,000 households without power in Berlin, police said on Tuesday, adding that it was still unclear what possible political affiliation the perpetrators may have.
The Berlin Fire Department extinguished the blaze, and authorities were investigating at the scene of the fire.
Entire streets and local transport are affected, a police spokesperson told public broadcaster rbb. Some patients at two nursing homes were transferred to hospitals, according to the fire department.
Work is underway to restore power by switching to other lines, but it was not initially clear how long the outage would last.
“This scale is an absolute exception,” a spokesperson for utility provider Stromnetz Berlin said.
Several tram lines were halted due to the power outage, but most are running again, according to the public transport authority.
https://p.dw.com/p/50CJS
Skip next section Victims demand more than sympathy 25 years after NSU’s first murder
09/09/2025September 9, 2025
Victims demand more than sympathy 25 years after NSU’s first murder
The Turkish-born florist Enver Simsek was waiting for customers at his roadside stall near the southern German city of Nuremberg when his murderers ambushed him in the early afternoon of September 9, 2000.
Nine more people, nearly all of Turkish or Greek origin, would be murdered, and it would take over a decade for authorities to uncover the trio of killers in the far-right extremist National Socialist Underground (NSU).
Questions remain regarding how a right-wing extremist terror group could execute people with non-German origins for years without the police and the Office for the Protection of the Constitution noticing a pattern.
Read more about the National Socialist Underground and how German authorities let down victims.
https://p.dw.com/p/50Bf5
Skip next section Far-left 30-year-old faces up to 9 years for attacking neo-Nazis
09/09/2025September 9, 2025
Far-left 30-year-old faces up to 9 years for attacking neo-Nazis
Demonstrators have called for Hanna S.’s release Image: David Oßwald/News5/dpa/picture alliance
Federal prosecutors requested a nine-year sentence for 30-year-old Hanna S. for attacking a group of neo-Nazis in Budapest in February 2023 in their closing argument on Monday.
The alleged left-wing extremist is on trial in Munich for attempted murder, grievous bodily harm, and membership in a criminal organization. Prosecutors said she is a member of a group with “militant left-wing extremist ideology” that rejects the rule of law and that she engaged in what it called “violence tourism.”
The defendant is alleged to have been part of a group that attacked and beat people they saw as neo-Nazis during what members of right-wing groups called a “Day of Honor” in Budapest. Right-wing extremist groups from across Europe gather in Hungary on the day to commemorate an attempt by Nazi soldiers and Hungarian collaborators to break a Red Army siege on the city, according to the Federal Prosecutor’s Office.
At the beginning of the trial, defense attorney Yunus Ziyal called the event in Budapest a “neo-Nazi show” and claimed prosecutors did not have clear evidence for the charges brought against S.
S. and other group members are alleged to have participated in two attacks on a total of three people.
S. has been in custody since her arrest in Nuremberg in May. Six other people face charges of participating in the attack and were arrested after having surrendered to authorities in January and March. According to their defense attorneys, they did so in part to stand trial in Germany rather than be extradited to Hungary, where they could face excessive prison sentences and potentially unfair trials.
S.’s trial started in February, and a verdict is due later this month.
Editor’s note: DW follows the German press code, which stresses the importance of protecting the privacy of suspected criminals or victims and obliges us to refrain from revealing full names in such cases.
https://p.dw.com/p/50BgT
Skip next section Welcome to our coverage09/09/2025September 9, 2025
Welcome to our coverage
Guten Tag from DW’s newsroom in Bonn and welcome to our Germany coverage.
A 30-year-old woman could face nine years in prison if convicted of attempted murder for attacking five people participating in a meeting of European far-right groups.
Automobile innovations with a focus on electric cars go on display in Munich at the IAA Mobility international motor show.
Stay with us for news and updates from Germany.
https://p.dw.com/p/50Bex
