Pablo Picasso was renowned for having numerous muses — mostly women with whom he also had harmful relationships. But there's at least one of these muses who was freed from toxic romantic entanglement: a cute dachshund called Lump.

Before becoming his most famous canine model, Lump originally belonged to US photojournalist David Douglas Duncan.

The dog and the photographer visited Picasso at his villa in Cannes in 1967. According to Duncan, upon their first encounter, Lump jumped right onto Picasso's lap. He apparently "decided" to stay with the painter, and they lived together for six years.

The story does not reveal how Lump's decision was communicated, but that immediate special bound was immortalized through art: Picasso painted the dachshund's portrait directly onto a ceramic dinner plate that day, and Duncan did a series of photos documenting them together while the work was created.

The plate and the photos are on show at the new exhibition "The Dachshund. An Icon off the Leash" held at the Kunsthalle Bremen until March 28, 2027.

Lump also appears in many of Picasso's series of paintings reinterpreting Diego Velazquez's masterwork "Las Meninas," in which the original work's large mastiff was replaced with Picasso's adoptive pet.

A particularly iconic animal

With their long ears and extreme length compared to their short legs, dachshunds have a silhouette that's instantly recognizable: "It's really a dog with an iconic shape, and that makes them interesting for many things" — from art to advertisement, says exhibition curator and art historian Annett Reckert.

Alongside Picasso, a surprising number of important artists, including Andy Warhol, Otto Dix, David Hockney, Max Liebermann and Rosemarie Trockel, have paid tribute to the dachshund. "It's striking how often the dachshund has served as a muse, model and studio accomplice for them," Reckert tells DW.

Combined with this prolific artistic career, the dachshund can equally be explored from a historical perspective, since "there's also the fact that we associate them with something German," the curator adds.

Germany's 'badger dog'

Bred to track and chase badgers, foxes, rabbits and other burrowing animals, the dachshund originated in Germany over 300 years ago. Breed standards were established in 1879, and the German Teckel Club (DTK) — one of the oldest dog breeding organizations in Germany — was founded in 1888.

The name combines the German words "Dachs" (badger) and "Hund" (dog), literally translating to "badger dog." But Germans more commonly call them Dackel or Teckel.

Because of their long, narrow build, dachshunds are also colloquially known in English-speaking countries as wiener dogs or sausage dogs.

An evolving cultural icon

Beyond their role as hunting dogs, dachshunds have a surprisingly rich place in German cultural history, from bourgeois stereotype to Olympic icon.

Germany's last emperor, Kaiser Wilhelm II, was an avid dachshund enthusiast and owned several of them.

Two of his dogs, Wadl and Hexlsome, made history by causing a minor diplomatic incident during a visit to the estate of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, Konopiste Castle, in 1908. The dachshunds reportedly killed one of the archduke's prized golden pheasants. The attack was widely commented on in aristocratic circles, and Kaiser Wilhelm II was forced to issue a formal apology.

The pheasant incident was obviously not as consequential as another event involving Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne: his assassination in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914, which became the primary catalyst of World War I.

Still, the dachshund remained present throughout this global conflict. In propaganda maps and political cartoons, Germany was represented as a dachshund, the British as a bulldog and the French, a poodle.

The popularity of the dachshund in the United States plummeted during the World War I because of this association; those who owned one called their dogs "liberty hounds" instead of using the German word.

During World War II, dachshunds were used for military tasks such as mine detection.

However, their missions weren't as outlandish as the stories published by the UK's tabloid press relatively recently, which claimed that the Nazis aimed to build armies of talking dachshunds. The rumors followed the publication of a non-fiction book on dogs published in 2011, "Amazing Dogs: A Cabinet of Canine Curiosities," which outlined Nazi research into dogs' — including dachshunds' — intelligence and personalities.

The dachshund definitely didn't fit into the Nazis' aesthetics: "They were used in the war, too, but not in the same way as other dogs. After all, they weren't the kind of dog a Nazi would have wanted to be seen with for the sake of appearances," notes Reckert. "Take Hitler, for instance: He famously made public appearances with his German Shepherd, Blondie. They would rather be seen with a Doberman or dogs that looked big and dangerous."

A symbol of the 'other' side Germany

The endearing potential of the dachshund is actually one of the ideas that guided Reckert in her curation of the exhibition. They "simply give the impression that they have a sense of humor," the art historian says. "That's an attribution, of course. But they really do spread good cheer and have a truly likable character."

In the 1970s, this slightly absurd and cheerful domestic companion inspired a figure embodying a new image for West Germany: the official mascot for the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Waldi.

A stark contrast to the heavy symbols that represented Germany during the Third Reich — the eagle, Germania, forests, Wagner and Prussian discipline — the mascot created by renowned graphic designer Otl Aicher and his intern, Elena Schwaiger, was as iconic as the shape of the dachshund.

The designer was vehemently against including brown or any of Germany's national colors — red, black and gold — in the brand identity. Instead, he went for delicate pastel shades: "The approach to color was truly visionary," notes Reckert. "Their intention was something we are still working on today — something we still haven't completely achieved: an open, cheerful, democratic and colorful Germany."

Still today, right-wing extremist groups attempt to co-opt the dachshund as a subtle nationalist fashion symbol that appears on ties or socks, inspired by accessories worn by Alexander Gauland. On the other hand, "Dachshunds Against the Right" has also emerged as a counter-protest movement.

But altogether, Reckert has focused on the dachshund as a symbol of friendliness and joy while conceiving "The Dachshund. An Icon off the Leash." The exhibition includes halls that are open to small dogs and even features artworks and performances specifically designed for them.

The feedback Reckert's been getting in the run-up to the show also aligns with this cheerful image. She notes that hardly a day goes by without something arriving in the mail related to the dachshund — whether pictures, artworks or information about dachshund-related events.

"It's really crazy," she says, showing examples of the stuff she's received. "I've never had an exhibition that was greeted ahead of its opening in such a friendly, diverse way. It's almost a bit uncanny, really."

Edited by: Brenda Haas

For Star Trek fans, he was the legendary Captain Picard; the British actor and director Patrick Stewart, longtime member of the  Royal Shakespeare Company, died on Thursday at the age of 86 following a "brief and poignant journey" with Alzheimer's disease and Lewy body dementia, according to an official statement on his social media accounts.

In Los Angeles, California, far away from the small English village of Mirfield where he was born, Stewart achieved world fame. He was 47 years old when he landed the role of a lifetime in the legendary science fiction series Star Trek: Playing Captain Jean-Luc Picard in "Star Trek: The Next Generation," he stepped into the shoes of the legendary Captain James T. Kirk, played by William Shatner.

Stewart brought a calm, measured and distinctly British presence that quickly made Picard a fan favorite and a cult figure in the Star Trek universe. He returned to the role decades later in the spin-off series "Star Trek: Picard," which ended in 2023, proving the character's enduring appeal.

As Captain Jean-Luc Picard, he led the crew of the starship Enterprise, a spaceship with the sizeable mission: "To explore strange new worlds. To seek out new life and new civilizations" — and most importantly, "to boldly go where no man has gone before!"

In love with Shakespeare

Stewart's interest in acting was sparked in the early 1950s when a teacher asked him to recite a work by Shakespeare. His passion for Shakespeare stayed with him until the end.

His parents were far removed from the glamor of the theatrical world. His father was a highly respected officer in the British Army during World War II, but at home, he was an abusive husband, and young Patrick had to helplessly witness repeated violence against his mother. Stewart wrote about his experiences with domestic violence in The Guardian in 2009. The stage, he confessed there, seemed to him "a far safer place" than reality; he saw acting as a way to escape his home life. 

Patrick began acting at the age of 12. At 16, he left school early and, thanks to a scholarship, studied acting in Bristol, England. Along the way, he worked as a journalist. In 1965, he became an official member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, and remained with the theather company from 1966 to 1982. Such was his passion for the great English playwright and lyricist that he even shared his sonnets on his Twitter account during the 2020 coronavirus pandemic.

Stewart dazzled the theater world with his own stage adaptation of Charles Dickens' 1843 tale "A Christmas Carol." He played more than 30 roles himself. After its 1987 premiere in Stewart's hometown of Mirfield, the one-man show became a critics' favorite and a long-running hit on Broadway in New York. 

'Star Trek' offer from Hollywood

In the same year,  Stewart went from being a stage actor to an international TV star. Star Trek producer Robert Justman offered him the role of Captain Jean-Luc Picard, one of the main characters in a new edition of the popular TV series "Star Trek: The Next Generation."

The successful Shakespearean hesitated. Until then, he had never worked in Hollywood. But his agent encouraged him to accept the role, Stewart recalled in a 2020 interview with the German newspaper Die Welt. "You can accept the offer as a start for now. It won't be a big deal, you can't revive a series as iconic as Star Trek anyway." 

Adventures in the universe

But his agent was to be proven wrong: Stewart led the Starship Enterprise through its galactic adventures for seven seasons and four full-length feature films. The TV series had astronomical success on Earth in a very short time.

At first, the producers were at odds as to whether Stewart's British accent could really fit the role of commander of a US starship in the 24th century, but it soon became impossible to imagine the series without the subtly diplomatic Captain Picard, who often quoted Shakespeare while at the helm. It seemed as if all the time he had spent as a Shakespearean actor had prepared him to command the Enterprise, Stewart once remarked with a wink. When the cult series ended in 1994, he had ruled out ever returning to the Enterprise's command center. 

In 2010, the actor was knighted by the Queen of England. Stewart considered it the greatest honor of his career to stand alongside acting greats such as Sir Laurence Olivier and Sir Alec Guinness. 

Beyond the screen, Stewart has long used his voice for social and human rights causes. In recent years, he has drawn attention to issues such as violence against women, age discrimination and the protection of children.

A short-lived retirement

In a June 2020 interview, "Playboy" asked the New York resident whether he was considering retiring from acting. "Never! That would mean giving up my life," replied Stewart, who was approaching his 80th birthday at the time. He was filming the second of three seasons of "Star Trek: Picard." The series ends with a final episode in which the retired Starfleet admiral makes his last appearance. In the series, Picard retires to his family vineyard in France but is drawn back into space to confront new threats to the Federation.

This series also showcases Stewart's affection for his pit bull, Ginger. In "Star Trek: Picard," Picard also has a pit bull, a loyal four-legged companion named Number One — a deliberate reference to Stewart's real-life love of the breed. For his efforts to combat prejudice against pit bulls and to support their adoption, Stewart was honored by the US animal welfare organization ASPCA, among others.  

In 2024, he published his memoir "Making it So." In it, he recounts his passion for theater and his love of Shakespeare.

Now, at the age of 86, the British actor has finally departed for another galaxy. Farewell, Patrick Stewart!

Translated from German by Sarah Hucal.

Genghis Khan is one of history's most radical figures. A blood-thirsty invader whose conquests caused the deaths of an estimated 40 million people, he was also a visionary political thinker who established the largest contiguous land empire in history. 

The founder of the Mongolian Empire died in 1227. Ahead of the 800th anniversary of his death, Berlin's James-Simon-Galerie explores his legacy and the "Mongol Century" (1250–1350) in the exhibition "Genghis Khan and the World of the Mongols."

The power of a disruptive individual

The ruler remains "incredibly relevant" to this day, says Matthias Wemhoff, the director of the exhibition project.

"What the era of Genghis Khan — the 'Mongol century,' if you will — vividly demonstrates is how quickly established structures can collapse, how rapidly vast empires can vanish from the map and how swiftly the entire landscape can be utterly transformed," the archaeologist tells DW.

The charismatic leader's unprecedented impact on the world also evokes present-day disruptive individuals who are triggering sudden, unpredictable societal shifts, says Wemhoff: "There's always been this question: Are world politics shaped by individuals or rather by groups and sociological processes?"

In this case, the answer is clear, says the museum director, who also co-wrote a 2026 book on the nomadic leader. 

"If Genghis Khan hadn't existed, the course of world history would truly have been entirely different — so much of it is inextricably linked to his person," Wemhoff says.

The founder of the world's largest empire

Genghis Khan was born as Temujin around the year 1162. His father, a Mongol chieftain called Yesugei, died when he was still a child. His family was abandoned by its tribe. To secure his familial position, Temujin killed his older half-brother, Bekter, when he was still a young teenager.

Thanks to his charismatic personality, he built alliances and found followers who helped him become the sole ruler on the Mongolian steppe. He formally adopted the title of Genghis Khan in 1206.

At its peak, the Mongol Empire covered approximately 24 million square kilometers (about 9.3 million square miles), stretching from China and Korea to parts of Eastern Europe and the Middle East, and accounting for over 16% of the Earth's total land area.

Wemhoff lists various innovations under his rule: For one, Genghis Khan transformed warfare. Commanders were promoted for skill, discipline and loyalty rather than based on aristocratic rank or tribal loyalties. Soldiers were organized into decimal units of 10, 100, 1,000 and 10,000.

Despite being illiterate by modern standards, he also pushed for the introduction of the first written script for the Mongolian language, which allowed to build a state bureaucracy, track population and tax registers, record decrees, issue legal decisions and handle diplomacy.

A set of laws were established that replaced fragmented tribal customs with a unified legal system.

Trade was simplified through his adoption of a paper currency.

A policy of religious freedom was also established across the Mongol Empire, allowing all individuals to practice their chosen faith without state coercion.

Before the Mongol Empire, the Silk Road was fragmented by local conflicts and heavy taxes. Mongol rule placed the entire route under a single authority, making long-distance travel vastly safer.

The Mongol Empire is known as a period of relative political stability, economic growth and cultural exchange, an era historians call the "Pax Mongolica."

But "it all came with incredible levels of cruelty. The millions of people who fell victim to the Mongols — the mass executions, the abuse of women — this happened on a scale previously unheard of," notes Wemhoff.

Shifting centers of power

The exhibition opens with a raid that happened after Genghis Khan's death, but took place just 260 kilometers (around 160 miles) away from Berlin: the 1241 Battle of Legnica, in Silesia, Poland.

It embodies the brutality and intensity of the Mongols' methods.

There came the "highly mobile, agile Mongols on small horses — lightly armored in lamellar gear, wearing helmets that left the face exposed, and wielding bows capable of firing 20 or more arrows in a single minute," points out Wemhoff.

European knights, heavily armored and mounted on large, massive warhorses, didn't stand a chance against their enemies.

"When a hail of arrows rained down on them, the horses eventually went down, and the knights ended up lying on the ground, stuck on their back, much like a June bug," he adds. "The two styles of combat were simply mismatched."

The Mongols' western campaigns shifted historic power centers in a way that still impacts world politics today.

For example, after the Mongol invasion of Kievan Rus', which was the first East Slavic state, its thriving capital Kyiv was reduced to a depopulated ruin. Moscow became a key regional power, partly because it chose to cooperate with the Mongols rather than pursue resistance.

"In our Western European collective memory, the Mongol invasion plays hardly any role. It's something of an anecdote," says Wemhoff, noting that the era of Genghis Khan and his immediate successors is barely mentioned in standard Western European school curricula.

Germans are mainly familiar with the name of the empire's founder through the 1979 Euro-disco pop band Dschingis Khan, which represented West Germany at the Eurovision Song Contest with a campy song of the same name that reduced complex history to extreme tropes.

But in eastern Europe, the Mongol invasions "changed everything fundamentally," says Wemhoff. "And so fundamentally that we still feel the consequences of it today."

The exhibition "Genghis Khan and the World of the Mongols" runs from October 21, 2026, to April 18, 2027.

Edited by Helen Whittle

For ten years, publishers rejected You Yeong-Gwang's book. Yet before it was even printed in South Korea, the once-abandoned manuscript had international publishers flocking to secure translation rights.  

"I'm so grateful that the book has now been published in more than 20 countries. Even more astonishingly, it also appeared on the Der Spiegel bestseller list in Germany," he told DW while attending the 2026 Frankfurt Book Fair. 

For a debut novel by an unknown author, it was a massive success, securing publication in 15 languages, including English, German, Spanish and traditional Chinese.

"The Rainfall Market" tells the story of a mysterious, hidden shop that only opens when it rains. In the shop, visitors can exchange their deepest unhappiness for a ticket to a brand-new destiny. The plot revolves around Serin, a disheartened young girl who stumbles into the marketplace run by whimsical spirits, finding a warm, comforting space.  

"In fact, Serin's story is my story," author You said. "For a long time, I even wondered how wonderful it would be if I could sell my unhappiness and use the money to buy happiness."  

While writing the book, he was going through a difficult time himself.  

"I had to care for my mother, who had been ill for a long time, and I had also been responsible for supporting my family financially for many years. Life felt incredibly heavy," he reflected. 

"But when I was writing, I could immerse myself in the world of the story and, even if only for a short while, forget about those circumstances. That's why writing made me so happy. I truly enjoyed it." 

On the creation of 'The Rainfall Market'

The idea of rain is inspired by his own life.

"At that time, my circumstances felt as though it were raining constantly," You said.

The story draws heavily on traditional Korean folklore, serving as a quintessential "healing fiction" tale in which its young protagonist must weigh the true cost of seemingly perfect lives.

"When I was writing, I wasn't consciously trying to write healing fiction. At the time, I didn't even really know that such a label existed." 

He initially planned to publish a book independently and started crowdfunding. But as the funding failed, he used all his savings and printed 200 copies, which bookstores refused to take. In a month, he only sold five copies. "I thought that's it. I really have to give up now.” 

"At the time, I had undergone eye surgery and due to complications, I couldn't see, so I started working at a call center, where I could work using my voice." You said. "During the week, I worked at a call center, and on weekends I went to a computer academy. I learned how to make books on my own for a few years."

He then taught himself how to use the software needed to create books on his own.

While running one of the crowdfunding campaigns, he started working as a food delivery driver. "The round trip between my home and the area where I delivered food took about four hours each day. So I wrote on my phone's memo app while traveling on the subway." 

"Even when I was going through very difficult circumstances, I was able to keep writing because the moments when I was writing were so joyful. For a little while, I could forget about the difficult situation I was in," You explained. 

Finally a breakthrough

"I gathered those pieces of writing together and launched what I intended to be my final crowdfunding campaign," he said.

The campaign was intended to fund the publication of "The Rainfall Market."

"To my amazement, the campaign succeeded, and I was able to publish the book commercially for the first time," he said.

Following the crowdfunding success, the novel was acquired by Clayhouse, a prominent South Korean publishing company. 

Before it was even published, he had received offers from publishers in five countries and signed international publishing contracts. 

And in the first month after publication, the original South Korean language edition sold 30,000 copies across all formats, ranking as the bestselling e-book and third-bestselling physical book.

"I still find it hard to believe that all of this has happened and that I'm here at the Frankfurt Book Fair. I'm incredibly grateful and happy," said You.  

A new horizon for Hallyu, or the 'Korean Wave:' K-Comfort Fiction 

Korea's newest soft power is K-literature, which sold about 1.2 million translated copies abroad in 2025 for the second consecutive year.

And You's book belongs to a trending genre called Korean comfort fiction.  

"When readers closed the book, I wanted them to feel a little warmth in their hearts," he said. 

Although Korean literature was first known for darker, more pragmatic books about societal realities, K-comfort fiction is the child of South Korea's pressure-cooker modern society. It offers an answer to the human need for escapism and a transient antidote to the reality of a hyper-competitive education system, brutal job market and intense corporate pressure. 

"When I was writing, I was going through a very difficult time myself, and I wished someone would comfort me. So, I thought, why don't I try reading something like that myself? Why don't I write something that can comfort me?" You wondered. 

With burnout on the rise globally, more readers are seeking soul-soothing literature with exhausted protagonists they can relate to. Usually without a need to defeat a villain, the stories follow protagonists with a deep desire for rest, community and emotional repair.  

The whimsical fiction aspect is the missing element allowing them to step away from reality. The genre originally gained traction through indie productions, online crowdfunding and endorsements from high-profile K-pop artists.

Despite the Korean context, this style of storytelling quickly went global, capturing different international audiences, including those already familiar with cozy K-dramas or those simply looking for a gentle refuge from the anxieties of the modern world. 

Last year, the bestselling Korean novel abroad was "Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop," according to the Literature Translation Institute of Korea. The novel belongs to the same genre as "The Rainfall Market."  

While readers embrace the genre, critics view it with literary skepticism. They point out that it relies heavily on a predictable, repetitive formula, often built around a single magical space, with simplistic prose and low-stakes conflicts that prioritize cozy vibes over deep character development. 

Reviewing "The Rainfall Market" for the Korea Times, Peter Juhl, a literary critic, described healing fiction as light, feel-good stories and argued the boom reflects a deliberate effort to write global novels for international markets. 

Future aspirations and message to readers 

"Of course I'm happy that my book is receiving so much love and that I'm able to write. But more than anything, I hope my mother gets better and regains her health," You said after mentioning that his mother underwent surgery a week before his arrival at the book fair. 

Beyond the book itself, people seem to relate to and appreciate the story of his own life.

"If I have the opportunity, I'd like to share more stories about hope and dreams with people who are going through circumstances similar to mine," said You. "If my story can help one person even a little, in any way, I don't think anything could make me happier."

Edited by: Srinivas Mazumdaru

There's a lot of stopping and staring in Knightsbridge. This part of central London is within a stone's throw of Buckingham Palace, Hyde Park and Harrods, bringing inquisitive tourists in droves.

While it may not divert quite as many eyeballs as the seat of the British monarchy, a curious collection of plants, garden umbrellas, shopping bags and children's toys filling a building's entrance causes many a curious glance.

The peculiar arrangement on a grand portico is what Anders Fernstedt, a man from Sweden who fell on hard times, has been calling home for more than three years already.

That building hosting his makeshift setup was, just a few years ago, London's most expensive house.

The mega-mansion at 2-8A Rutland Gate sold in 2020 for a then-record £210 million (€244 million, $278 million) to Hui Ka Yan, the founder of China's Evergrande group, who was sentenced to life in prison last month.

Hui never moved in and the house was registered under his wife's name. The freezing of her assets means it can't be seized by liquidators and the house is in a state of limbo.

So too was Fernstedt when he first stumbled across it. "I just thought, it would be a shelter for the night. I'm an avid camper, like an amateur botanist. I'm not afraid of nature," he told DW.

'Camping on the balcony'

Fernstedt has never been inside the property, which appears to be in a state of disrepair. Instead, he gradually built his home in the portico, where grand columns guard the 45 rooms, indoor swimming pool and 116 windows. Year round he sleeps under the portico roof and a large umbrella which provides a hidden nook in which he's placed mattresses and bedding.

"I haven't had a bad night's sleep for as long as I can remember. And that goes for four seasons. It's not cold in the winter, and because I don't have walls, I get the breeze in the heat," he said.

"My conceit when I started was that sort of fake dream. Oh, I'm just a boy, my parents are in the house, everything's normal, I just asked them for permission to camp on the balcony."

Fernstedt was raised by his mother in Sweden before embarking on a range of careers at home and in the US, building a name for himself in the tech world.

In 2016, he moved to England where he worked as a journalist and fact checker at publications including The Economist, before work dried up around the time of the COVID pandemic.

A share in a tech company from his days in the US gave Anders a nest egg he relied on. But it couldn't last forever and he found himself living in a tent and then temporary accommodation, where he experienced violence and brushed up against people with severe addictions.

"Perhaps in this contemporary world, the biggest curiosity about my lifestyle is I'm completely off money," he said. 

Community support powers unusual lifestyle

Fernstedt has built relationships with bakeries, cafes and florists in which he gets unused food, flowers for his home and use of power. He also makes use of a homeless charity in nearby Victoria for showers, clothing donations and socializing. But he's also made himself a broadly accepted part of one of London's most affluent neighborhoods.

"This is a very sophisticated neighborhood. I'd stayed for a few weeks and I knew everybody knew that I was here. And I thought, how can I sort of convey my presence without being present? And I thought, my constituency has to be the neighbors' children and grandchildren. Because if they plead my case at the kitchen table, my prospects improve," he said, by way of explaining the toys that line his abode.

"It is, in a way, a squirrel's nut collection," he added, when asked if he's worried about leaving his possessions out in the open. "I have so many nuts that I won't notice when something disappears."

There are some neighbors who do object to his presence, but Anders does his best to keep his home neat and his life quiet. Indeed, many others feel his presence prevents the house being a target for thieves or vandals. Overall though, he's found the community welcoming.

"Sometimes they introduce themselves asking what might I want or need. And my stock answer being: 'well, what you just gave me, a little bit of normal time, right? And neighborly banter'," he said. "Sometimes I'll be given food and very elegant Italian dinner jackets and clothes have arrived on a few occasions."

Homelessness a growing concern in London

Not all homeless people in London have found such a stable lifestyle. Homeless charity Crisis estimates that there are over 200,000 people classified as homeless in England's capital, where "4,392 people were recorded sleeping rough in London between April and June, up from 4% on the same time last year. This is up 58% compared to 10 years ago."

According to government figures, there were 105,138 empty homes in London in 2025, or 1 in every 37 homes. Andy Burnham, who became British Prime Minister in July, has since vowed to offer "every rough sleeper in England a route off the streets by Christmas." 

With such an enormous price tag, even after six years of being abandoned, Fernstedt knows that the house he lives at could potentially become untenable at virtually any moment.

But over the last few years, it's given him something he craved when pitching up his tent or being moved from one scary temporary residence to the next.

"I'm no longer really worried that I'll cycle around the corner and everything will be gone. Because I've been here so long, I'm free of worrying now, and if we worry too much, we won't be happy."

Edited by: Elizabeth Grenier

In a dark underground hideout, dim light spills from a handful of oil lamps. A comrade fiddles with a rifle. A red flag hangs on one of the roughly hewn stone walls, bearing a hammer and sickle on a white star — the symbol of the ChineseWorkers' and Peasants' Red Army. Weapons are scattered on the ground. One is picked up, and soon the action moves into the snowy forest, where gunfire erupts among the trees.

Such a scene could fit in a new installment of "Call of Duty," the popular first-person shooter game that transports players to battlefields past, present, and future. But it is actually from "The Defiant." The game is currently being developed by the Chinese studio Hoothanes Technology in Hangzhou. It tells the story of Chinese forces fending off the Japanese army in the 1930s and 1940s.

Developer Connor Xu tells DW the weapons featured in the game are unique. They were used only in Asia and are therefore unfamiliar to many Western players, he says. The same goes for the story, which Xu says has never before been told in a video game.

"The Defiant" is also designed to appeal to an international audience. In just a few years, China has emerged as a major player in the global gaming industry despite strict regulations, censorship and a former ban on video game consoles.

Gaming is part of everyday life in China

More than 700 million people in China regularly play video games. According to market research company Newzoo, most consider gaming an important part of their lives. Many use games to stay in touch with friends.

"Games make life more interesting," developer Xu says. "I can try different roles, different stories, different characters, because we only have one life to live, but we can play a role in another story. That's really attractive, I think, to Chinese users."

People in China primarily play games on PCs and smartphones, while consoles are much less common. There are historical reasons for that: While gamers in Europe and North America debated whether PlayStation or Xbox was the better console in the early 2000s, the devices were not officially sold in China between 2000 and 2014. Chinese authorities said the restrictions were intended to protect children and teenagers from becoming addicted to gaming.

Limits on gaming time and extensive controls

Minors in China are currently allowed to play online games for no more than three hours a week. There are no such limits for adults, but gaming is subject to strict controls. Anyone who wants to play must register using their real name and a personal identification number. That effectively allows the state to track who plays what and when, as well as whom they communicate with.

There is also a gray area that the Chinese government appears to tolerate. Some players log in using VPNs, giving them access to games that are not officially available in China. Some younger players use their parents' accounts to get around the limits on gaming time.

Despite its strict controls on underage gamers, China has become increasingly receptive to video games in general, having recognized the industry's enormous economic potential. Early on, games released for Chinese players often appeared to be copies of Western titles. At the same time, Chinese tech companies such as Tencent and NetEase invested in numerous Western gaming companies.

No license? No sales in China

One distinctive feature of the Chinese market is its licensing system. "Unlike a lot of the other big video games markets in the world, China has a tightly regulated and licensed official video games market," George E. Osborn tells DW. The journalist advises NGOs and governments on video games and spoke at the Gamescom congress. In his book "Power Play," he describes how authoritarian states use video games to pursue political objectives. 

The rule for all games in China is simple: No license, no sales. "That system essentially forces developers who want to release their video games to go through multiple layers of approval from China's Ministry of Propaganda, Ministry of Culture," Osborn says.

Strict criteria for video games

Games are prohibited from containing material that threatens China's unity, sovereignty or territorial integrity, among other restrictions. Pornographic content and gambling are also banned. Games may not incite crimes that threaten national security or spread information authorities believe could disrupt public order.

"The whole point around this criteria is that it's deliberately designed to be pretty vague," Osborn says. Whether a game violates the rules is a matter of interpretation. Sometimes games are altered even after release. In the 2025 action role-playing game "Wuchang: Fallen Feathers," for example, enemies based on famous Chinese figures from the Ming Dynasty suddenly could no longer be killed. Instead, they would collapse from exhaustion.

Chinese culture is an international hit

The Chinese action role-playing game "Black Myth: Wukong" became an unexpected international hit in 2024. By then, it was clear Chinese developers could do more than cater to the domestic market — they could create successful games for a global audience as well. The game was inspired by the 16th-century Chinese literary classic "Journey to the West."

Osborn sees nothing wrong with bringing Chinese culture to audiences around the world. The question, he says, is how much the state actually intervenes in the games themselves. "I think in general, video game players are actually quite deeply skeptical of these kinds of things. They are generally very good at spotting when someone might be selling to them or someone might be propagandizing. And so I think if it's too obvious, it won't work," he says.

The problem of self-censorship

Because of the licensing system, Western developers also have to comply with government requirements if they want to sell their games in China. And they do want to, Osborn says, because the market is too big to ignore. "But I think when you start thinking about the potential impact this has on creative standards around the world, I think it's really important that developers ask themselves the question of what will we or won't we compromise on here?"

He fears the real danger lies in self-censorship. That could lead developers, for example, to leave queer characters out of their games. That would represent a major step backward, he says, because games help many people explore their identities.

China is not the only country where games are modified to comply with national regulations. In Germany, for example, symbols that violate the country's constitution, such as the swastika, may not be shown in games unless the game in question explicitly contributes to the country's culture of remembrance. Depictions of extreme violence also have to be removed from German versions.

History from a Chinese perspective

Glorifying violence is prohibited in China, too, yet Xu's team is still allowed to develop a war game. How does this add up? Xu explains it this way: "I think in this game, the most important thing is not violence. The most important thing is to tell history."

Xu says the team is committed to delivering a historically accurate product. Whether it succeeds will be for historians to judge.

This article was translated from German and edited by Sarah Hucal.

In the history of German resistance to Nazism, some names have become symbols: Sophie Scholl, Claus von Stauffenberg, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Georg Elser. Yet many others have remained largely forgotten.

Among them is Eva Mamlok, a young Jewish woman from Berlin whose acts of defiance began in her teenage years and continued until her murder in a Nazi concentration camp.

Now more people will get to know her story as Berlin renames Blücherplatz, a square in the district of Kreuzberg, Eva-Mamlok-Platz on October 16.

"Eva Mamlok was a very remarkable person. As a young Jewish woman from Berlin, her spirit of resistance was particularly striking," said cultural researcher Alexandra Weltz-Rombach, who has worked extensively with the historians' network "Gruppe Eva Mamlok."

'Down with Hitler'

 Mamlok was born on May 6, 1918, into a Jewish family in Berlin. They ran a wholesale wine business, and the family belonged to the vibrant Jewish middle class that formed an important part of Berlin's social and economic life during the Weimar Republic.

But Eva came of age just as Germany was descending into dictatorship. When Hitler became chancellor in 1933, she was only 14 years old. She was also a member of the Socialist Workers' Youth (SAJ). Following the suppression of the left-wing political youth organization later that year, she became active in the underground resistance.

According to testimony from Inge Berner (1922-2012), the sole survivor of Mamlok's later resistance group, Eva climbed onto the roof of a department store on Blücherplatz as a teenager and painted the slogan "Down with Hitler."

"She was caught doing that, though she wasn't arrested at that particular moment — that didn't happen until a year later," noted Weltz-Rombach.

Arrested for honoring socialist icons Luxemburg and Liebknecht

Mamlok first appeared in official records in November 1934, after she was arrested for taking part in commemorations for socialist leaders Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht at Berlin's Friedrichsfelde Cemetery.

Authorities determined that the 16-year-old held "hostile views toward the state" and placed her in "protective custody until further notice" — a euphemism the regime used to justify imprisonment without trial. She was sent to the women's concentration camp at Moringen in Lower Saxony, where she remained until May 1935.

After her release, she continued her anti-Nazi activities despite the increasing danger, facing persecution both as a political dissident and as a Jew.

In these underground circles, she met Pieter Siemsen (1914–2004), and they remained a couple until he emigrated to Argentina in 1937. The only known surviving photograph of Eva comes from his personal archive.

She had a daughter, Tana, in 1939. The father's identity is unknown, however. The child was placed in a Jewish orphanage in Berlin and deported in 1942 to the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp, where she was murdered.

Meanwhile, because she was Jewish, Mamlok was forced to perform compulsory labor at the Berlin firm F. Butzke Schrauben-Industrie in 1940. There she met other women who shared her opposition to Nazism.

Together they formed what later became known as the "Eva Mamlok Group," an informal resistance network of Jewish and non-Jewish women. They distributed anti-Nazi leaflets and wrote slogans critical of Hitler.

They also shared banned books. "They were books that are today part of Germany's educational canon," from Thomas Mann to Lion Feuchtwanger, said Weltz-Rombach. That the Berlin Central and Regional Library (ZLB), Germany's largest public library, stands on the new Eva-Mamlok-Platz is a fitting symbol of this act of resistance and the importance of books, she added.

Mamlok and others in her group were arrested for distributing this forbidden literature. On January 13, 1942, she was deported from Berlin to the Riga Ghetto in occupied Latvia.

According to Inge Berner's testimony, Mamlok remained active in the resistance there too. For example, she arranged for a contact still in Berlin to send her a cake with a miniature camera hidden inside it to document persecution in the ghetto.

In October 1944, she was sent to the Stutthof Nazi concentration camp, where she died in December of that year.

Replacing old symbols of Franco-German hostility

Blücherplatz was named after the Prussian field marshal Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher, whose most renowned achievement was leading his army against Napoleon at the Battle of Leipzig in 1813 and the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.

Several places, including streets and parks, have been named after him in Germany.

"There is no shortage of Blücher memorial sites," said Weltz-Rombach. "And perhaps it's also time to put an end to this old Franco-German enmity — which is, of course, inherent in the name Blücher, given its Prussian tradition — and to establish, in its place, a different form of remembrance."

The square also happens to be the site of the Carnival of Cultures, a multicultural street festival and parade held every year to celebrate Berlin's global diversity.

Role models for a new generation

Having first heard about Mamlok when a Stolperstein commemorating her was laid in 2011, Weltz-Rombach has been researching her biography for the past few years. The Berlin-based filmmaker, producer and curator has also been sharing the resistance fighter's story through various projects, including an exhibition in 2024 and a podcast series with young Berliners.

Since Mamlok was only a teenager herself when she became politically active, the workshop participants can easily relate to her fate.

These teenagers learn about Mamlok's experiences at the actual locations where she was active, helping them imagine what it would be like to be arrested and imprisoned for six months without trial for doing things that normally wouldn't be considered crimes — such as simply expressing an opinion publicly or laying flowers at a commemorative event, explained Weltz-Rombach.

"Above all, she is, of course, a role model — an example of how one would like to act oneself, and how courageous one would like to be."

"[Women's] resistance was often of a more everyday nature, rather than planting bombs," said Weltz-Rombach. Their stories offer examples of "forms of resistance that have only recently received more attention." Other examples include a 2024 exhibition and the launch of a database dedicated to female resistance fighters. 

Even though many of the eyewitnesses are now dead, Weltz-Rombach believes there are still many more of these stories that deserve to be brought into the spotlight: "There are definitely many names we do not know, that are waiting to be further researched."

Edited by: Joshua Lang

Hamburg in the near future: Instead of human drivers, robots deliver parcels. In cafes, robots roll between the tables, serving diners. On the streets, one encounters humanoid robots walking dogs — or the other way around, people taking their robot dogs for a walk. 

This is the setting of Doris Dörrie's new film, "Frau Winkler verlässt das Haus" ("Mrs. Winkler Leaves the House"). At the core of the plot is an elderly woman who can no longer live on her own after a fall. With her only daughter unable to provide permanent care, the solution seems simple enough: a care robot with a built-in EOL program, or "End of Life" mode. This robot not only assists with everyday life but can also provide assisted dying under certain conditions, namely when the person explicitly wishes to end their life and meets the relevant medical criteria.

Dörrie's film tackles several major social issues with remarkable lightness. These include the challenges facing aging societies such as Germany, Japan and China, the question of dying on one's own terms and a mother-daughter relationship that raises questions of guilt and responsibility. Even though the story is set in Germany, such issues resonate globally.

"I write about what personally moves and interests me," Dörrie told DW.

One of the best-known contemporary German film directors, Dörrie achieved her breakthrough in 1985 with the comedy "Men…" She gained further international recognition with films such as 2008's "Cherry Blossoms" and "Greetings from Fukushima" (2016).

Who decides when we die?

Assisted suicide is one of the most complex ethical questions of our time. Laws vary around the world. Though some countries permit active euthanasia under certain conditions, others prohibit and criminalize all forms of assisted dying. 

In her film, Dörrie asks what happens when artificial intelligence begins calculating the cost of caring for an elderly person and weighing whether that cost is still "worth" bearing for society.

The underlying idea isn't new, Dörrie said, pointing to the Japanese legend of Narayama, which is also mentioned in the film. According to the legend, the eldest children were responsible for taking their ageing parents to a mountain and leaving them there to die because there was not enough food for everyone. "And that's also the debate we are currently facing to a certain extent: Can we really afford to let older people live longer and longer?"

In Dörrie's film, elderly people are allowed to make their own decisions once they reach a certain state of health — but they can't change their minds afterwards. Yet what does it really mean to make a decision freely? "It's a tricky situation," says Dörrie, because the question is to what extent one is also pressured into making this decision, "not only because it makes more economic sense, but also because one is no longer a burden on one's loved ones — in this case, one's daughter..." 

The film often raises these questions indirectly and with plenty of dark humor. At one point, a care adviser presents the EOL feature to Mrs. Winkler as an attractive and, above all, straightforward additional option, making it sound as though there would be nothing more for her to worry about.

Staying close despite the algorithm

Dörrie is not interested in demonizing AI in her film — quite the opposite. In the film, the care robot, which Mrs. Winkler names Pavlovich, helps the elderly woman rediscover some of her zest for life and get out of the house. 

"When you travel through Germany, you see small houses everywhere, and statistics show that an elderly person lives alone in every other house," Dörrie said. "If AI can help in these circumstances, why not use it?" She said she sought to explore this ambiguity in her film. Dividing things into black and white would neither be interesting nor, in her view, accurate.

Dörrie and her crew were surprised during filming by how quickly people can develop emotional bonds with robots. She attributes this to the human brain. "We regard anything that moves and speaks as a living being. We can't help it," she explains. And that is precisely what we need to pay attention to when interacting with AI, Dörrie says. "How often are we truly aware that we are talking to a machine rather than a living being? These are things we still have to learn."

The difference between humans and machines

As AI develops, it seems that the boundaries between humans and machines are becoming increasingly blurred. That is precisely why we need to talk about it, Doris Dörrie says. In her view, things become problematic "when we can no longer distance ourselves from technology and stop forming our own thoughts."

Human beings need to ask who we are and what truly defines us, Dörrie said. "I believe there is a major difference between robots and us, and that is the ability to play. A robot might be able to initiate a game, she explains, "but play itself is something profoundly human because it has no particular meaning or purpose."

Alongside these philosophical questions about what it means to be human, Dörrie makes a clear call for AI regulation. "At some point, we had to discuss nuclear weapons internationally, too. We've talked about all kinds of issues in the past, and we haven't just talked about them — we've also managed to find solutions," she points out.

"And I believe we need to move very quickly on this, too," Dörrie said.

This article was originally written in German.

Aylin and Mae, both age 15, are members of their school's Little Feminist Book Club in Bicester, Oxfordshire, England.

During a group discussion, the club learned that teenagers at other schools were trying to have the sale of school uniforms banned in sex shops.

Schoolgirl costumes are also widely used in pornographic videos.

"All of us unanimously agreed. We wanted to take it a step further; we wanted to ban school uniform from all pornography," Aylin told DW. As a result, they started a petition to raise awareness of the issue. 

Many of their fellow students, as the petition states, have already had unpleasant experiences while wearing their uniforms. Some reported being harassed as early as the age of 11. Many of these experiences had left them feeling frightened, ashamed and insecure. "I don't wear my school uniform outside of school," said Mae. "I don't like wearing it out." 

One in three schoolgirls reports harassment

In their petition, the girls also refer to a 2018 report by the charity Plan International. According to a survey in the report, 35% of the 1,004 respondents aged 14 to 21 had experienced unwanted sexual attention while wearing a school uniform. Eight percent said they had been filmed or photographed by a stranger without their permission, or that someone had taken a photo under their school skirt, known as "upskirting."

"Something that should actually be innocent, something that is supposed to symbolize a community, has now become discredited in society," said Mae. "And our perception of what a school uniform represents has been distorted by this disgusting media."

School uniforms often mandatory

School uniforms are common in many countries around the world. They are meant to make class and financial divides less visible, which is also supposed to prevent bullying while strengthening a community feeling.

In the United Kingdom, uniforms are mandatory at almost all schools and preschools, which means essentially all children between the ages of 4 to 16 wear them.

Outside school, children have no way to escape unwanted attention.

"We just want to prevent people from thinking about children and school uniforms in that way," said Mae. "Hopefully, we'll be able to actually turn the ban into legislation."

Until that happens, they still have a long way to go, but the girls are optimistic. As of October 5, 2026, the petition has garnered more than 24,000 signatures. Thanks to an article in the English newspaper The Times, it's also gotten plenty of attention.

Now, Mae and Aylin hope to get parliament to debate the issue. Two Members of Parliament have already voiced their support. 

But the girls also know some people believe longer skirts are the solution. "I believe that's wrong," explains Aylin. "We shouldn't blame the victims. We should blame those who think it is acceptable to sexualize them."

This article was originally written in German.

The 2026 Youth Word of the Year, "Ragebait," was announced on Saturday at the Frankfurt Book Fair by publisher PONS Langenscheidt.

The "Jugendwort des Jahres," or German Youth Word of the Year, is an annual campaign that documents the popularity of new slang expressions.

"Ragebait" (in English: rage bait) refers to social media content that is deliberately designed to make people angry, frustrated or morally outraged.

It aims to drive engagement, since the algorithms of platforms like Instagram, TikTok and X reward high-energy interaction. A post that generates a heated debate through angry comments, or that is widely shared due to the emotional reaction it provokes, counts as high engagement, which leads the platforms to push the content to more feeds.

Shortlist also included 'Peak' and 'Crashout'

"Ragebait" was on a shortlist of three words for the 2026 Youth Word of the Year, alongside "Peak" and "Crashout."

All three terms are borrowed from English, demonstrating once again the language's significant influence on German youth culture.

Around 1 million young people, aged 11 to 20, have voted since August 28 for their favorite term.

"Ragebait" obtained 36.5% of the votes, followed by 33.8% for "Peak" and 29.7% for "Crashout."

"The close result shows that all three terms have a firm place in the vocabulary of generations Z and Alpha," said Artur Raiser, marketing manager at PONS Langenscheidt, in a press statement. "'Ragebait' held a slight lead from the start," but only by a narrow margin throughout the voting period, he added. 

"It remained an exciting race for us at the publishing house, too, until the very last moment," said Raiser

Peak crash out

"Crashout" (used by young Germans as "crashout gehen," or "going crash out") originally comes from the English "to crash out," which traditionally means to fall asleep very quickly due to exhaustion.

But in newer internet slang, popularized on gaming and social media platforms, "crashing out" means having an intense emotional breakdown, losing control of one's temper or reacting with sudden, uncontrolled anger or stress. It is often used with a touch of humor, to emphasize that the reaction might be somewhat exaggerated.

As for the other shortlisted word, "Peak," it refers to something that is the absolute best. In German youth slang, it functions like an adjective: "That was peak football" or "that is peak comedy."

PONS Langenscheidt, a publishing company that specializes in language reference works, has been selecting the German Youth Word of the Year since 2008 — originally via a jury, and since 2020 through an online vote. Offensive, racist or discriminatory terms are not permitted. The multi-stage public nomination and voting process for next year's word will start in the summer of 2027. 

"Das crazy" was selected last year, while "Aura" was the Youth Word of the Year 2024.

This article was originally written in German.

When Taiwaneseauthor Yang Shuang-zi's "Taiwan Travelogue" won the 2026 International Booker Prize, it marked a historic breakthrough on the global stage. But behind the triumph lay a sharp geopolitical reality. 

On stage, Lin King, who translated the book into English, gave voice to the anxiety looming over Taiwan, where she spent a large part of her childhood. 

"In 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine, I made the explicit decision that rather than translating Sinophone works indiscriminately, I would only translate writing from Taiwan for the foreseeable future," she said in her acceptance speech. "I will continue to do so until the day comes that my homeland's sovereignty is no longer a provocation or a punchline — until no English speaker feels comfortable saying to me, 'I really should come visit you in Taiwan while it still exists.'"

Literature and politics 

"Taiwan Travelogue" follows a young Japanese writer visiting Japanese-colonized Taiwan in May 1938 on an official government-sponsored lecture tour. As she and her Taiwanese interpreter explore local street food together, a subtle intimacy unfolds between them. The narrative centers Taiwan's history rather than Beijing's preferred "Greater China" framework. 

"Literature and politics are directly connected," Yang told DW. "Politics determines the allocation of resources, and the allocation of resources determines which works get pulled out, held up high and defined as 'good literature.' The idea that politics can just be kept out of it doesn't exist." 

A few days after the 2026 International Booker Prize was announced, China's Taiwan Affairs Office reacted by saying: "Writers from both sides of the Taiwan Strait should firmly uphold a national standpoint, respect historical facts, and squarely face the immense suffering inflicted upon the Chinese people ... by Japan's war of aggression and fascism." 

"From China's perspective, they do not want to see Taiwan's voice gain prominence." Yang said. 

Her book demonstrates that Taiwanese culture is shaped by multiple historical strands — including indigenous, Japanese colonial and local Han influences, rather than being merely a "branch of Chinese culture." 

During Yang's German book tour this October, an event at the Literaturhaus in Munich sparked controversy when the writer's interpreter significantly shortened certain statements concerning Taiwan, China, history, and politics. The interpreter later admitted that there had been oversights and shortcomings in the translation but denied deliberately deleting content due to their political stance or the situation in Taiwan. 

Taiwan and China 

Beijing claims Taiwan as a Chinese province and has long threatened to use force to bring the island under its control. Taiwan's democratically elected president has rejected Beijing's assertion that its laws apply to Taiwan.

Since 1949, Taiwan has functioned with de facto independence, maintaining its own government, military, and legal systems while facing ongoing military pressure from Beijing. 

China's international overreach?

China's monitoring of Taiwanese international engagement reaches far further than words over a literature prize.

"The target of suppression and harassment primarily include outspoken individuals, exiled activists, diaspora community organizers, alongside their family members and close affiliates back home," said Dr. Yan-ho Lai, senior fellow of Georgetown Center for Asian Law. "From the PRC's (People's Republic of China) eyes, these groups are a threat to regime security, as they are able to amplify the dissenting voices and alternative stories of China to the West."

In April this year, Taiwanese barista Lin Shao-hsing, also known as Bala, won the 2026 World Latte Art Championship in the United States. Soon after, all mention of Taiwan as it related to Bala's win was removed from the official World Coffee Championships website.

It now says that Bala was representing "the competition body of Chinese Taipei," a term often used in international contests, such as the Olympics, to refer to Taiwan, but almost never used in Taiwan itself.

According to a 2026 poll by National Chengchi University's Election Study Center, the vast majority of people in Taiwan identify as "Taiwanese," while only 2.5% identify as Chinese. 

In 2024, China allegedly planned to stage a "car collision" during Taiwanese Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim's visit to the Czech capital Prague. Czech intelligence officials told local media that the incident had been part of a much larger and escalatory plan by Chinese diplomats and intelligence officers working out of the Chinese embassy in Prague. 

In early October this year, the FBI said authorities arrested a woman in California for allegedly spying on the son of Taiwan's president. 

According to the US Department of Justice, the woman had traveled to Seattle in 2025 under instructions from Beijing to monitor the Taiwanese president's son and his family, capturing photos, video footage, and license plate information. 

During a press conference on October 6, China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it "consistently opposes the hype surrounding so-called 'Chinese spies' and the smearing and vilification of China." 

"It reflects the ambiguity and limitation of international law, that the PRC using soft power to restrict the visibility of Taiwan may not directly fall into international law arena, as Taiwan is not recognized by international bodies as a sovereign state party." said Dr. Lai. 

Edited by: Kate Martyr

Maria Kalesnikava knows all too well how authoritarian regimes repress art: The Belarusian flautist and activist spent five years in detention as a political prisoner, three of which were in solitary confinement.

Speaking at this year's Beethovenfest, she said: "A person's external freedom can be taken away, sometimes almost entirely. Their freedom of movement, contacts with other people, and access to information can be limited." She pointed out that it is, however, much harder to control what has already become part of one's memory, imagination and inner experience. "And it is precisely in this that I find the explanation for why culture is so important for a free society and why authoritarian systems so often view it with distrust" she concluded during the keynote speech.

A key figure of the Belarusian opposition, the artist and political activist was arrested by the regime of Alexander Lukashenko in the summer of 2020, after the regime had violently suppressed the peaceful revolution for democracy and freedom. Across the country, mass protests and a democratic civil rights movement took place after the controversial presidential election on August 9, 2020. 

Kalesnikava recalled how, during her imprisonment, she had carried her world and her experiences, with her all along. This enabled her to remain free, and not to feel like a victim. To Kalesnikava, this is precisely the power of art and also the reason why all dictators — whether Stalin, Hitler or Putin and Lukashenko — hate independent arts and culture, even if it's not overtly political.

During a panel discussion in Bonn, Kalesnikava stressed this point directly:

"The question often arises: what are we defending in Ukraine? Why do we need so much money and new weapons? For me, it is completely clear: the war Russia started is not just against Ukraine. It's a war against European values and European culture. It is a war against our civilization." Kalesnikava realized this immediately when she heard about the Russian war against Ukraine in February 2022, while she was imprisoned.

Music saved her

Kalesnikava was released and has been living in freedom again for ten months now — a miracle that she didn't think was possible and an achievement of international diplomacy. The fact that she emerged and returned to her life full of resilience is thanks in part to Beethoven and Bach, as Kalesnikava, who studied the flute and earned a degree in early and new music in Minsk and Stuttgart, recalled. "I spent a lot of time in complete silence. But this silence was almost never empty, because music constantly played in my head," Kalesnikava said in Bonn. "We musicians know this state very well — sometimes a melody or a musical phrase gets so stuck in your head that it's simply impossible to get rid of it. In normal life, this can even be annoying. In prison, I realized for the first time that this could bring great happiness."

During her visit to Bonn, the Belarusian activist also visited DW and appeared as a guest on the DW Russian language show "DW Novosti." Kalesnikava currently lives in Berlin following an invitation by the German government, where she is also recovering from the horrors she experienced. She sees it as her responsibility to remind the world about what is happening to more than 800 political prisoners in Belarus, as well as the importance and fragility of free artistic expression. On October 2, 2026, she held her keynote speech at the Beethovenfest in Bonn as part of a conference titled "Cultural Events as Political Spaces?," organized with the support of the German Federal Cultural Foundation.

The concert hall as a space for freedom

More than 200 representatives from concert institutions and music festivals from across Germany came to the newly renovated Beethovenhalle in Bonn for the final weekend of this year's Beethovenfest. Together, they debated innovative forms and formats for music, as well as issues that stretch far beyond the music industry and urge on to think outside the box.

"Arts and culture are not responsible for taking on specific opinions from political parties, or for making explicitly political statements," Steven Walter, artistic director of the Beethovenfest and host of the conference, told DW. "What art always creates, however, is spaces for encounter, and places where people can tolerate ambivalence. And that is such an important part of our society, that we're able to handle making collective experiences." To Walter, this is precisely where arts and culture come in, as artists create spaces for independent thought, subjective interpretations, as well as doubts. "Perhaps it's true that there is something like a DNA of freedom in the nature of art," Walter explained in an interview with DW.

The most successful Beethovenfest in years

The festive closing of the 2026 Beethovenfest took place on 3 October, which is also German Unity Day. The BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, under the baton of conductor Anja Bihlmaier, performed Johannes Brahms' "A German Requiem," an iconic piece that evokes reconciliation and trust.

After four weeks of Beethovenfest 2026, the festival recorded the highest number of visitors in a decade. Around 35,000 people came to experience, celebrate and discuss art together at more than 100 concerts and events.

This article was written by Andrey Gorezky, translated from German and edited by Sarah Hucal and Tenzin Sekhon.

The 1990s in Britain are often remembered through a haze of nostalgia consisting of rave culture, Britpop and provocative art and fashion by the likes of Tracey Emin and Alexander McQueen.

Undeniably, the decade was a time of major change in British society — the long reign of Margaret Thatcher had come to an end and the West entered a period of relative post-Cold War stability.

Meanwhile, British cultural icons like Oasis, the Spice Girls and Vivienne Westwood garnered international fame.

But Tate Britain's new exhibition "The 90s: Art and Fashion," which opens on October 8 and runs through February 14, 2027, urges viewers to look beyond the familiar names and images. 

Even though now prominent artists such as Damien Hirst and Juergen Teller are among the show's 70 contributors, the exhibition also aims to highlight the creative input of those in communities which were left out of the mainstream discourse.

After all, says chief curator Edward Enninful in the exhibition's program, "the energy of the 90s was not concentrated in a single movement, but distributed across communities, disciplines and geographies that have not always been equally represented."

An inclusive perspective

For Enninful, the exhibition is personal: The Ghanaian-born British fashion editor, stylist and creative director became the youngest-ever fashion director of i-D Magazine in the 90s at age 18, helping shape the diverse and experimental London fashion scene of the 1990s. He later became editor-in-chief of British Vogue in 2017.

Enninful writes that he and his co-curators aimed to present a body of work which "reflects a broader landscape of practices and voices that shaped the period, many of which operated beyond the structures of visibility at the time." The exhibition pays special attention to artists of color and women whose work was not necessarily showcased as prominently at the time.

Black masculinity became "a site of cultural negotiation" in Britain in the 90s, writes co-curator Helen Little in the program text: "Figures such as Chris Ofili, Steve McQueen, Keith Piper, Koto Bolofo and Ozwald Boateng reimagined the Black masculine, challenging the racist specter of Black men, who had been defined as part of a masculinity crisis linked to post-industrial decline and excluded from the narrative of 'Cool Britannia.'"

Just like "Swinging London" in the 1960s, "Cool Britannia" became a widespread phrase to refer to the 1990s as an era during which British youth culture, pop music, art and political optimism boomed.

DIY meets Dr. Martens

The 90s also offered artists plenty of chances to create without waiting for support from traditional gatekeepers. Britain entered the decade in recession, but that economic uncertainty also left artists free to do what they wished. 

Empty buildings and industrial spaces were turned into informal venues. A 23-year-old Damien Hirst orchestrated "Freeze," a self-organized student exhibition in 1988 in a disused London warehouse. It became a landmark early art exhibition for the generation of artists known as the "Young British Artists" or YBA.

Artists Sarah Lucas and Tracey Emin opened The Shop, a temporary art gallery and social space in 1992, as a place where exhibitions could develop outside established galleries. Lucas and Emin also paved the way for women artists thanks to their deeply personal works and their edgy expressions of female liberation.

While the Spice Girls helped make feminism accessible to a younger generation of Brits in the 90s by popularizing the "girl power" slogan and shaping "identity through agency power and resistance," as Tate curator Helen Little argues, Emin and Lucas meanwhile "presented a new visual language of clothing as art to tackle societal taboos around female sexuality, vulnerability and desire" — from t-shirts with provocative slogans to a grunge look of scuffed Dr. Martens boots with razor blades. Their work "held a mirror up to gender, behavior and identity," Little writes.

Fashion and haute couture in the spotlight

At the same time, the British fashion industry came into the international spotlight.

In a feminine sensuality counter to the gender stereotypes dismissed by Emin and Lucas, waif-like Kate Moss came to represent the feminine ideal of the 1990s. Dubbed "heroin-chic," the style was an antithesis to the glamorous, athletic physiques of the supermodels who preceded her. Corinne Day's photographs of the model led to the raw aesthetic to be labelled "grunge" after the anguished style of rock music hailing from Seattle and led by Nirvana.

The trend has undergone significant cultural reexamination since then: "Along with the look also came criticism that the strung-out look of drug or alcohol addiction was glamorized while encouraging serious eating disorders in a generation of young women," points out Alex Farquharson, director of the Tate Gallery in his foreword to the exhibition.

The 1990s were also an exciting era for Britain in haute couture, as legendary designers John Galliano led Dior, while Alexander McQueen started directing Givenchy at the age of 27. 

McQueen's runway presentations were more akin to performance art than commercial fashion shows — and they often included historical critiques. Among them was the famous finale of his Fall/Winter 1998 collection at a London warehouse, during which the model stood in a circle of flames. Titled "Joan," the show was a reference to the killing of Joan of Arc.

McQueen designed several other runway shows that reflected on British history, with topics of conquest and punishment repeatedly coming to the forefront. His 1995 presentation "Highland Rape" referenced the history of Scotland's subjugation, with the designer describing it as "England's rape of Scotland."

As co-curator Jessica Vaughan points out in her exhibition text: "Art, fashion and photography were not simply transgressive reactions … but reflected a genuine public unease with Britain's global identity and its past."

In a world that can now feel increasingly mediated by screens, algorithms and established platforms, the artwork of the 90s offers a reminder of the value of physical spaces and fresh DIY creativity of the last smartphone-free decade. 

Edited by: Elizabeth Grenier

Amelia Earhart's attempt to become the first woman to fly around the globe at the equator ended in mystery when she and her navigator, Fred Noonan, disappeared over the Pacific Ocean in July 1937.

With the 90th anniversary of her disappearance on the horizon, a new expedition is setting out to finally determine what happened over the vast Pacific. This expedition has what it believes is crucial new evidence.

The team from Purdue University in Indiana and the Archaeological Legacy Institute (ALI) is scheduled to depart for the uninhabited island of Nikumaroro on Saturday to determine if an anomaly in the island's lagoon is Earhart's missing plane.

Part of the low-lying Pacific island nation of Kiribati, Nikumaroro has long been considered the place where Earhart and Noonan died.

The pair took off from New Guinea on July 2, 1937, on the leg to the island of Howland, where they were to refuel before continuing on to Hawaii and completing the circumnavigation in California.

Something went amiss en route, however, and even though a US Coast Guard ship could hear Earhart's radio transmissions and her Lockheed Electra must have been tantalizingly close, she was never found.

One of the last messages said she was running on a north-south navigational line that gave her the best chance of finding land before her fuel ran out. That line went through Nikumaroro.

Landing on a coral reef

In 1988, researchers from the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) were the first to suggest that Earhart could have reached Nikumaroro and landed on its fringing coral reef.

TIGHAR's first visit to the island was in 1989, and the group has returned seven more times, turning up compelling artifacts, including lengths of aircraft aluminum and plexiglass from a windscreen.

The group found a scent bottle, a zip made in Pennsylvania in the mid-1930s, parts of a pocket knife of the same brand listed in the aircraft inventory, and the heel of a woman's shoe.

Archive research discovered that human remains discovered on the island in 1940 were initially believed to be of Earhart or Noonan — but were lost in the chaos of the Pacific war.

Despite the searches, no one has yet found the "smoking gun" artifact, an item that could only have come from the doomed flight. 

Satellite images offer fresh hope

Expedition leader Rick Pettigrew, executive director of the Archaeological Legacy Institute (ALI), believes the elements may have uncovered incontrovertible evidence.

A powerful tropical cyclone tore through the central Pacific in 2015, shifting geographical features on the island and in its lagoon. Satellite images taken over the following years showed what might be the outline of an aircraft fuselage and wings in shallow water off the Taraia promontory.

"This object in the satellite images is exactly the right size to represent the fuselage and tail of the Electra," the ALI website states. "It also appears to be very reflective and is likely to be metallic. It lies in very shallow water, largely covered by sediment, in a place where the current would bring an object floating into the lagoon through Tatiman Passage, the opening to the ocean and the reef."

Pettigrew's 17-strong team intends to focus all its efforts on the place where the images indicate debris may be located, using drone photography, remote sensing with magnetometers and sonar units. If the initial results are positive, a hydraulic dredge will excavate sediment.

"Once we have a sufficient portion of the object exposed, we should be able to identify it," according to the ALI's expedition plan. "If it is made of aircraft aluminum and has the specific shape and rivet patterns of the Electra, we will know that we have found the remains of Earhart's aircraft."

In search of a 'smoking gun'

Much of the ALI's theory is based on the research and fieldwork carried out by TIGHAR, but its executive director, Ric Gillespie, is not convinced the researchers will find the "smoking gun."

"The object visible in old satellite imagery that Pettigrew believes is aircraft wreckage does not look like aircraft wreckage," Gillespie told DW. "It looks like a dead pandanus tree that was uprooted in a storm and washed up on Taraia."

"Pettigrew thinks the wreckage is no longer visible because it is buried in silt," Gillespie noted. "He has never been to that location and does not understand that the silt there is only a few inches deep."

Teams from TIGHAR searched the same location in 2001 and 2007 with metal detectors and drew blanks, he said. Yet Gillespie remains convinced that Earhart was on Nikumaroro.

"I think the aircraft sank immediately after being washed over the reef edge and was smashed to pieces in the surf," he said. "Major components were eventually buried in underwater landslides … or grown over with coral. We have found what there is to find."

Dorothy Cochrane, who has monitored progress in the search for Earhart for more than 35 years as curator at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC, and continues to do so since her recent retirement, says Earhart still holds fascination for so many people "because it is 'the greatest unsolved mystery of the 20th and continuing into the 21st centuries.'"

An alternative scenario

She has a different view of what happened in 1937. She argues that if Earhart was nearly out of fuel while still close to Howland, it would have been impossible to fly another 640 kilometers (400 miles) to Nikumaroro. Cochrane also says that items cited as evidence of a castaway on the island can be explained by other visitors and by a small settlement that existed there for several years.

"I believe that Earhart and Noonan were in the general vicinity of Howland Island, based on the facts of the flight, but just could not find it before they ran out of fuel," she said.

"Howland Island was a tiny speck in the morning light of a vast sea," she said, suggesting Earhart could not establish radio contact to guide her the last few miles to her destination.

Cochrane believes the Electra lies on the seabed near Howland. Others have advanced this theory, and several searches of the area have been carried out in recent years.

If Pettigrew's lead pays off, however, it will conclude aviation's nearly 90-year puzzle.

Edited by: Keith Walker

"The first week went by peacefully," Oktoberfest Director Christian Scharpf said at the festival's half-way point. Munich's Deputy Mayor Verena Dietl praised the "good, harmonious atmosphere." 

The city's police force also delivered a positive report half-way through the event in Munich.

But if you take a closer look, all is not peachy at the Wiesn, as as the event is popularly known. Service personnel are among those painting a very different picture. And they're the ones at the heart of the action. The situations they encounter often go unreported and don't appear in the statistics, but sometimes, a line is crossed with racist, discriminatory comments, for example.

In response, a group of service staff have launched an initiative calling for "mutual respect at the Wiesn."

In a video posted on Instagram and TikTok, staff say: "For years, we've been observing how it's suddenly acceptable to say certain things again, and that there's less of an outcry."

Service personnel say the election successes of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) in Saxony-Anhalt, coupled with their personal experiences at Oktoberfest, were a catalyst for setting up the initiative. To them, the current climate is an indication that right-wing views are gaining social acceptance.

Hence the name of the initiative: "Staff Against the Right."

Security at Oktoberfest

In an interview with Bavaria's public broadcaster, Bayerischer Rundfunk, a spokesperson for vendors at Oktoberfest insisted that "the entire Oktoberfest family has always rejected and continues to reject any form of discrimination, racism and sexism in the strongest possible terms."

But supporters of this latest initiative want to see more being done to address the problem.

There's certainly no shortage of surveillance: Oktoberfest is monitored by 56 police CCTV cameras and patrolled by around 600 police officers and thousands of private security staff.

Halfway through the festival, police had recorded around 470 offenses. Reports were also filed for assault, sexual harassment and "upskirting" ― secretly filming or taking photographs up someone's skirt.

Munich's Oktoberfest is the world's largest folk festival and attracts millions of visitors from all over the world every year. At the halfway point, organizers estimated visitor numbers at around 3.8 million people. Oktoberfest ends on October 4 after 16 days of revelry.

This article was originally published in German.

Toby Morton, who wrote several episodes of the animated comedy series South Park, launched a website seeking accountability in connection with an alleged 2024 sexual assault case involving seven fraternity members at Cornell University in the US. The site names seven men accused of sexually assaulting a 20-year-old woman who was allegedly unconscious after being given drugs and alcohol at a Cornell fraternity house, and collects personal data and photos of the members involved.

"I've received messages reminding me I'm not a journalist, I'm 'just a satirist,'" Morton wrote in a September 27 Instagram post regarding the creation of his website TheCornell7.org. "This is true, but it makes me more dangerous," he added, saying he has "nobody to tell me I've gone too far."

The case has recently drawn a surge in public attention after the accuser, identified as Jane Doe to protect her identity, filed a lawsuit in mid-September. Her complaint alleges that she was brutally sexually assaulted in 2024 by seven members of the Chi Phi fraternity while unconscious after being pressured to take ketamine, smoke marijuana and drink alcohol at the fraternity house on Cornell's campus in Ithaca, New York. The university, she said in the lawsuit, failed to protect her. Cornell conducted an internal investigation after the incident, but no one was charged.

Since the lawsuit was filed on September 16, the case has generated widespread commentary on social media. Some have criticized Cornell and the district attorney's office, while others have questioned the allegations.

Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten, who handled the original case, said his office has reopened it and plans to present evidence to a grand jury amid public questions about why no criminal charges were initially filed. 

Van Houten said in a statement that his office is considering bringing criminal charges related to the incident, though the allegations in the civil complaint are "dramatically different" from the woman's statement to police two years ago — in her statement to authorities, she did not allege she was drugged without her knowledge or that she did not consent to engage in sexual acts.

Justice sought

Cornell's Chi Phi chapter was barred from campus after the alleged incident in 2024. The woman who accused the men of sexual assault dropped out of Cornell University, according to her attorney. 

One of the most chilling allegations of the lawsuit is that a message was sent to a Chi Phi Snapchat group at about 1:42 a.m., inviting members to the room to abuse Doe, who was heavily under the influence of drugs and alcohol. The lawsuit alleges that more men then entered the room and that the assault continued for several hours until Doe lost consciousness.

"There were so many people that could have prevented it and they didn't. I've never seen anything like it," an attorney for Jane Doe, Thomas Giuffra, told CBS.

Giuffra pointed out that two of the seven accused fraternity members were expelled, while the others received lesser disciplinary measures.

"Not one of these guys was arrested," Giuffra told the network.

Politicians and actors speak out

Many people, from US politicians to Hollywood actors, have spoken out about the case in recent days. US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat, condemned what she described as a "culture of rape" protected by elite institutions.

"When I read what happened at Cornell, those men posted in a group chat. That means it was normal to them. That means it was acceptable to them. This is a culture, and what we must do is understand that we cannot protect those spaces anymore," she said Sunday at a forum near Cornell's campus.

British actress Florence Pugh described the allegations as "horrific" on social media and expressed her support for the student involved.

Pugh, who is currently on a promotional tour for her upcoming Netflix series "East of Eden," wrote a lengthy statement on Instagram, saying that "Colleges/schools/universities repeatedly fail women around the world. You build men that get taught through time and time again that they can do extreme harm and that they won't be harmed in return."

"Those who protect and impose light sentences on men who rape and destroy lives should be punished and closely scrutinized. Why are you protecting someone so fiercely?" she wrote.

American actor Josh Gad, best known as the voice of Olaf in Disney's "Frozen" films, also commented on the Cornell case, criticizing what he described as insufficient disciplinary consequences for the students accused of sexual assault. In an Instagram post, Gad said sexual violence should not be treated as a mistake or addressed with limited disciplinary action by a university. 

He argued that the alleged conduct had "destroyed a life" and called for greater accountability.

Edited by: Joshua Lang

One could safely say that Francis of Assisi's life — and afterlife — is defined by paradox.

He embraced poverty, yet lies entombed today in a grand basilica in his native Assisi, Italy, with frescoes by renowned medieval artists.

He advocated meekness, yet hundreds of thousands venerated his remains when they went on public display earlier this year to commemorate 800 years since his death on October 3, 1226.

So, why has this Catholic saint inspired papal encyclicals, ecological activism, global pet‑blessing rituals and even the propaganda of former Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini? And what might Francis make of this fame that he'd shunned while alive?

From riches to rags

Born in Assisi, a hill town in central Italy, in 1181 or 1182, he was first named Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone. His father, a cloth merchant with trade links to France, renamed him Francesco.

Early Franciscan hagiographers, that is medieval writers who recorded his life and shaped how later generations understood him, describe him as a lively, sociable young man who enjoyed singing, parties and the privileges of wealth.

However, he didn't want to join his father's trade; he dreamed of becoming a knight.

In 1202, Francis joined Assisi's forces in a battle against neighboring Perugia. He was captured, spent a year in prison and returned home shaken and ill. This, and a series of subsequent events, precipitated a slow shift in his outlook.

One occurred at the small, ruined Church of San Damiano outside Assisi, where Francis believed he heard Jesus Christ calling on him to "rebuild my church." Taking it literally, he began repairing local chapels. When he ran out of money, he sold cloth from his father's shop, which enraged the latter and led to a dramatic episode in Assisi's town square.

Before the bishop and gathered townspeople, Francis stripped off his fine clothes, renouncing his father, his inheritance and all material comforts. He committed himself to a life of poverty, humility, care for the poor and sick and a deep kinship with nature. 

A relatable saint

As a wandering preacher, he drew followers and eventually founded the Order of Friars Minor, known today as the Franciscans.

Widely considered the first saint to have miraculously received the stigmata — physical wounds resembling those on the crucified body of Jesus Christ — Francis was canonized by Pope Gregory IX on July 16, 1228. This unusually swift recognition amplified his fame beyond Assisi.

In the following centuries, Francis became one of the most frequently depicted saints in Western art, inspiring works from Dante's "Divine Comedy" to films, children's books and even a 1980 Marvel comic.

"Most saints are seen as unapproachable or unrelatable, but Francis' story of lifelong conversion and the desire to be in a positive relationship with others, God and the rest of creation speaks to people across time and cultures," theologian and former Franciscan friar Daniel P. Horan tells DW.

According to cultural historian Amanda Minervini, this broad appeal is also what made Francis so adaptable across eras. 

"In Francis, there seems to be something for everyone: the pacifist, the ascetic, the mason, the environmentalist, the minimalist, the lover of animals also loved by animals, the diplomat, the mystic, the radical, the performer, and even the model of a different kind of masculinity," they tell DW.

Pacifist mascot of a fascist regime

Minervini points out that his image has been reconstructed throughout history. Their research highlights one particularly jarring example: Francis' political appropriation by Benito Mussolini's fascist regime.

In their recent book, "St. Francis and Mussolini: Fascist Appropriations of a Beloved Italian Saint" (2026), they explain how fascist rhetoric manipulated Francis' stigmata, reframing them as symbols of heroic suffering and sacrifice. "The wounds of the saint were thus invoked to glorify sacrifice and inspire Italian youth to go to war."

Noting how Mussolini chose to be symbolically baptized in 1927 to strengthen his alliance with the Vatican, they add, "St. Francis offered a particularly useful means of conferring religious legitimacy upon political power."  

Minervini's research shows that Francis' pacifism, "likely because he had known what war meant," was deliberately played down. Their book reproduces a confidential note addressed to military chaplains in 1929, which expressed concern that they might preach ideals of peace to the troops. 

"This document provides clear evidence that peace was an aspect of Francesco's legacy that fascist groups sought to suppress rather than promote."

Furthermore, after Italy — a former Axis power along with Nazi Germany — switched sides and joined the Allies during World War II, the latter were often willing to condone or overlook Italy's crimes rather than investigate its fascist past.

"In this climate, many fascists remained in place, and the politically compromised image of Francis was quietly set aside," explains Minervini. 

Medieval peace envoy

Francis has, however, remained associated with peace-making.

In 1219, during the Fifth Crusade, he traveled with the crusading army to Damietta, a port city in northern Egypt and obtained permission to cross into the Muslim camp and meet personally with the sultan, Malik al-Kamil. He aimed to convert the sultan and end the bloody conflict.

Describing his action as "an extraordinarily audacious thing to do," Minervini says the encounter did not produce the conversion or political breakthrough Francis may have hoped for, but his unscathed return ensured early sources took notice of him.

Horan, the former Franciscan friar, adds that despite Christians viewing Muslims as the enemy back then, St. Francis "would not go along with that dehumanizing perspective" and instead celebrated "the shared humanity and brotherhood he recognized in the Sultan."

From mendicant friar to climate icon

But he is most widely known as an animal lover and an early figure of environmental consciousness. 

"He was ahead of his time both theologically and in terms of modern natural sciences, recognizing the complexity of the cosmos and the fact that human beings are also creatures in relationship with the world around us," says Horan, author of "Francis of Assisi and the Future of Faith" (2012).

In 1979, Pope John Paul II declared Francis the patron saint of ecology, while the Argentinian Jorge Mario Bergoglio chose the saint as his papal namesake when he became Pope Francis in 2013. 

This pope would later publish "Laudato Si'" in 2015 — based on the saint's 1225 hymn "Canticle of the Creatures," in which he addresses natural elements as "Brother Sun," "Sister Moon" and "Sister Mother Earth."

The pope's encyclical connected environmental destruction directly to human suffering, besides critiquing consumerism and the "throwaway culture," and urging humanity to undergo an "ecological conversion." 

"I also believe that in a time of deep polarization and economic inequality that St Francis models another way of being in the world, one that prioritizes relationship and community over individual gain and power," says Horan.

But what might Francis make of his fame today?

"It's always tricky to try and guess what St. Francis, who died 800 years ago this October, would think about anything today. Our world is so unlike his own. But we do know that in his own time he was very uncomfortable with the positive reception he and his brother friars were receiving across Europe," says Horan.

Minervini suggests that he might have been more comfortable with representations of himself as a pacifist saint. 

"I suspect he would be profoundly troubled, perhaps even furious, as it is known he could get upset, by the condition of our late-capitalist, technocratic world and by the ways in which we continue to understand ourselves as separate from, and superior to, the other creatures."

Edited by: Elizabeth Grenier

"In the entire film industry, whoever works without aligning with us, or works with Salman Khan, will be killed."

This warning was delivered in an audio message by presumed attackers on Indian actor Tiger Shroff in Mumbai earlier this month, as they claimed responsibility for the shooting.

The apparent perpetrators said they were connected to Lawrence Bishnoi, a student-politician-turned-gangster who has been in prison since 2014. Notably, police have not confirmed the gang's involvement.

The shots fired at Shroff, which injured his driver, were only the latest in a string of attacks targeting prominent figures from the Mumbai-based film industry, popularly known as "Bollywood".

Since 2022, gunmen fired shots at actor Salman Khan's apartment and at the home of filmmaker Rohit Shetty in Mumbai, as well as actor Disha Patani's family home in northern India. Actor Ranveer Singh also reportedly received an extortion demand of nearly $1.1 million (around €980,000).

The attacks have spread to the other side of the globe, with a cafe owned by comedian Kapil Sharma in Surrey, Canada, also hit three times.

For an industry that once lived in the shadow of organized crime, the attacks have revived old fears, harking back to the crime bosses of the 1990s. But experts say the threat facing Bollywood today looks very different from the one it faced three decades ago.

When the underworld ruled Bollywood

In the 1990s, Mumbai's underworld was deeply entangled with the Hindi film industry.

"The mafia was always fascinated with the movie industry," said S. Hussain Zaidi, crime journalist and author of "Dongri to Dubai: Six Decades of the Mumbai Mafia," who has covered organized crime in the city for over three decades.

Gangsters like Dawood Ibrahim, Abu Salem and Chhota Shakeel "were totally obsessed" with Bollywood, he told DW, much like mafiosi who sought a foothold in Hollywood.

To the gangsters, films offered glitz and glamor, but also a way to launder their profits. They invested in films "so that they could control the industry and have a legitimate way of making money," Zaidi added.

When producers didn't cooperate, the consequences could be fatal. In 1997, music mogul Gulshan Kumar, founder of the label T-Series, was shot dead. In 2000, filmmaker Rakesh Roshan, father of Bollywood star Hrithik Roshan, was shot and wounded.

Mumbai's streets were "made red with blood" in 1998, Zaidi said, describing the year as the pinnacle of gang killings. 

D. Sivanandhan, the former Police Commissioner of Mumbai, who led the crackdown, says 101 businessmen were shot dead in 1998 alone, or one "every third day," mostly over unpaid extortion demands. 

Police efforts were reinforced by a tough new organized crime law passed in 1999, which Sivanandhan calls the "ultimate weapon." Security forces used electronic surveillance and preventive detention, and seized some 2,500 illegal weapons. 

"A few encounters also happened, but that is not a policy nor a strategy,” he told DW, referring to police shootouts.

By the early 2000s, the gangs' hold had been broken, and a new Mumbai seemed to be emerging.

A gang run from a prison cell

The man believed to be behind the latest wave of attacks is not from Mumbai.

Bishnoi, 33, comes from a landowning family in the northern state of Punjab and was studying in Chandigarh when he was drawn into violent student politics. Then, he was arrested, incarcerated and eventually turned to crime, says journalist Jupinderjit Singh, author of "Gangs of Punjab."

"He was introduced to the University of Crime through the jail," Singh told DW.

Bishnoi went on to build what Singh describes as one of the first criminal syndicates spanning several northern Indian states. Investigators say he still directs operations from prison using concealed phones and messaging apps.

Currently, Bishnoi is held in a jail in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's home state of Gujarat.

His network stretches beyond India's borders. In September 2025, Canada designated the Bishnoi gang a terrorist entity. Last month, the FBI added Satinderjeet Singh, popularly known as Goldy Brar, to its Ten Most Wanted list, offering up to $1 million for information leading to his arrest. US prosecutors described him as the alleged leader of Bishnoi's group in North America.

While Bishnoi comes from an affluent landowning family, his shooters are mostly poor. The gang usually recruits them online.

"There are so many youngsters who want to do something… they are just pulled by the lore attached to Lawrence Bishnoi," Singh explained. "Recruiting is no big issue… They offer money, protection, weapons."

Why target film stars?

For Bishnoi, it seems personal.

In 1998, Salman Khan was accused of killing a blackbuck, an antelope revered by Bishnoi's community. Bishnoi vowed revenge, and many of the attacks targeted people close to the actor, including the 2024 killing of politician Baba Siddique, which police have linked to the gang.

Singh sees the feud as a bid for respectability. Criminals "always try to find something that makes them a moral guardian," he says, and this case was Bishnoi's "chance to redeem himself."

But money and intimidation matter too.

"Bollywood has a lot of money," Singh added, pointing that the previous generation of gangsters was no longer in position to take advantage.

"With Dawood Ibrahim and his counterparts away, there was a vacuum, and Lawrence Bishnoi is trying to exploit that."

Sivanandhan explained the old Mumbai gangs ran a whole "basket" of illegal businesses, from smuggling to protection rackets and cricket match-fixing. Their members were "local boys," while the Bishnoi gang has “nothing to do with Mumbai,” he added. It targets Bollywood because the industry is "loaded with money" and a "soft underbelly."

"They are using Bollywood as an ATM," he told DW. "Insert a card and collect your money."

Meanwhile, Zaidi sees the attacks mainly as publicity. "It's a way to grab headlines," he told DW. Within hours of the recent attack on Shroff, someone claimed on social media that he was targeted for being close to Khan, a logic Zaidi called "absolutely illogical and absurd."

But publicity is useful to gangs that live off extortion. "The base material of extortion is: create fear," a security professional responsible for the protection of several Bollywood stars, who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue, told DW.

Is Bollywood under siege?

Still, experts say its hard to argue that the ongoing violence is comparable to the 1990s crime wave.

"I won't say resurgence, because that would be a bit of an exaggeration," Zaidi said. In the 1990s, several rival gangs fought for control of Mumbai. Today, other than Bishnoi's faction, other gangs are not considered active in Mumbai.

The film industry is also not paying up the way it once did, because the shift to digital payments has made large cash transactions hard to hide, he added.

Sivanandhan disagrees. The shootings at walls and gates, followed by quick claims on social media, are "all aimed at collecting… extortion money," he said. In his view, "cash-rich Bollywood would be coughing up so much, which is enough to run an army of people."

At any case, the fear remains real.

And even if violence is not as prevalent, hundreds of thousands of people rely on the Mumbai film industry for their livelihoods.

"If the fear of the underworld continues, leading names may be forced to leave Mumbai," the All Indian Cine Workers Association (AICWA) President Suresh Shyamlal Gupta wrote to Home Minister Amit Shah.

"Mumbai will not be allowed to go back to the underworld days of the 1990s, and Bollywood will not be allowed to work in the shadow of fear," Gupta wrote.

With security forces seemingly on the back foot, gangsters are likely to continue their campaign.

Several Bollywood stars have already stepped up their security.

Edited by: Darko Janjevic