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DAILY NEWS IN ENGLISH

Iranian protesters attack Islamic school as sanctions loom Anti-government demonstrators in several cities stretched into a fourth day in Iran, with protesters attacking an Islamic seminary west of the capital, Tehran, according to Iranian news agencies and social media reports on Saturday. The protests come amid looming US sanctions, many of which are set to be reimposed on Tuesday.

Hundreds took to the streets across the country Friday night, including in Tehran, Isfahan, Shiraz, Mashhad and Karaj, according to videos on social media. The protesters also reportedly attacked a Shiʼite Muslim seminary in Eshtehard, 100 km (62 miles) west of Tehran, according to the semi-official Fars news agency. "At 9 pm (Friday) they attacked the school and tried to break the doors down and burn things," Fars quoted the head of the school in the town of Eshtehard, Hojatoleslam Hindiani, as saying.

Bangladesh students paralyze Dhaka with road safety protests Thousands of students brought the capital of Bangladesh to a standstill on Saturday, marking the seventh consecutive day of mass protests calling for road safety reforms. Students as young as 13 participated in the protests, blocking roadways and performing impromptu checks to ensure drivers had official documents allowing them to operate a vehicle. Read more:Is Bangladesh becoming an autocracy? "We donʼt want to be killed [by a] road crash," 10th grader Mohammad Selim told the Deutsche Presse-Agentur news agency. Last week, two teenagers were killed and nine others injured when a speeding bus plowed into a crowd. The deadly road accident triggered protests across Dhaka and other parts of the country.

178/2018 • 06 AUGUST, 2018

Denmark fines first woman for violating ʼburqa banʼ The ban, which took effect on August 1, prohibits full-face Islamic veils in public places

A 28-year-old woman has been fined for wearing a niqab at a local shopping center, in violation of a controversial new law.

Danish police have fined a woman for wearing a niqab in a shopping complex, local media reported. Itʼs the first such fine to be issued for violating the countryʼs contentious law banning full-face Islamic veils in public places, which came into effect on Wednesday. In accordance with the law, the 28-year-old was asked by police to either remove her veil or leave the public space. She chose the latter. She was also informed she would receive a fine of 1,000 kroner ($156/€134) in the mail. Read more: Full-face veil ban: How laws differ across Europe Police were called to a shopping center in Horsholm, north of Copenhagen, where the woman had become involved in an altercation with another woman, police duty officer David Borchersen told the Ritzau news agency. "During the fight her niqab came off, but by the time we

arrived she had put it back on again," Borchersen said. Police are going through surveillance video to determine if the other woman deliberately ripped off the niqab. Both women have been charged with disturbing the peace, The Copenhagen Postnewspaper reported. The new law bans wearing a burqa, which covers a personʼs entire face, or the niqab, which only shows the eyes, in public. The law also prohibits accessories that hide the face such as balaclavas, masks and false beards.

Critics see the law —approved by parliament in May— as encouraging anti-immigrant sentiments, pointing to the very small number of Muslim women in Denmark who actually wear fullface veils. Supporters of the law argue instead that the ban enables better integration of Muslim immigrants into Danish society.

Israel intercepts Gaza-bound boat ʼviolating blockadeʼ The Israeli military on Saturday said its forces have intercepted a Swedishflagged activist boat attempting to breachits naval blockade of the Gaza Strip. The ship, named Freedom, said it was attempting to deliver humanitarian goods, including medical supplies. "The ship was monitored and was intercepted in accordance with international law," the military said in a statement. "The [military] clarified to the shipʼs passengers that they are violating the legal naval blockade and that any humanitarian merchandise can be transferred to Gaza through the Port of Ashdod." Earlier this week, the Israeli navy intercepted a Norwegian-flagged activist boat. The boat, called al-Awda, formed part of a flotilla that left from Scandinavia in mid-May and included the boat Free‐ dom.

Confidential UN report: North Korea continuing nuclear, missile program North Korea has violated a number of sanctions by the United Nations, most notably continuing their nuclear weapons and missile programs, a 149page confidential UN report said Friday. The report comes days after reports suggestingthe North is developing new missiles. The United Statesʼ top diplomat Mike Pompeo called on countries to maintain pressure on the North and not violate UN sanctions.

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178/2018 • 06 August, 2018

On the front line of the opioid epidemic in the US Cheryl, a 71-year-old woman from Phoenix, has adopted her threeyear-old great-grandniece Jessie, who was an addict before she was even born, suffering from drug withdrawal symptoms at birth.

While Jessie sits in her car seat, Cheryl takes out the baby stroller to be able to push Jessie around through the shopping mall. Cheryl doesn’t take Jessie to the mall often because itʼs tiring to go on these trips. She prefers staying at home, or they go to the nearby playground. They often visit Jessie’s biological sister who lives two doors down. Raising a threeyear-old as a 71-year-old is a lot to ask for. The number of grandparents taking care of their grandchildren in the US because their parents are addicted to drugs, specifically opioids, is increasing. According to recent studies, around 12 percent of children in Arizona live with relatives, almost 9 percent of those live with their grandparents.

Balkan bottleneck: Germany overwhelmed by ʼenormous increaseʼ in work visas The ability of people from the Western Balkans to gain entrance to Germany and work is currently under threat by the length of time taken to process visa applications. Citizens of Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia — all Balkan statesin the midst of joining the European Union— have been able to enter Germany on working visas since November 2015. The agreement is part of the bureaucratic migration channel known as the Western Balkan settlement. The only prerequisite is that applicants must already have a binding job offer. In the first nine months of 2017, German embassies in the Balkans issued 19,294 visas. Most of these were in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo, with 4,702 and 4,758 respectively, followed by Macedonia (3,675) and Serbia (3,613). In the same period, the embassy in the Albanian capital of Tirana issued 2,796 working permits. But far more visa applicants are still waiting for their work permits to be processed, and the delay is lengthy. There has been an enormous increase in working visa applications from the Western Balkans," the German Foreign Ministry confirmed to DW, adding that the number of applications continues to rise.

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Turkeyʼs Erdogan threatens sanctions against US officials over pastor spat US-Turkish relations have deteriorated over the fate of an imprisoned American preacher

In a tit-for-tat move, the Turkish president said he would freeze the assets of the "American justice and interior ministers."

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday announced tit-for-tat sanctions targeting US officials afterWashington imposed financial penalties against Turkeyʼs interior and justice ministerearlier this week.

"Today I will give our friends instructions to freeze the assets in Turkey of the American justice and interior ministers, if they have any (such assets)," said Erdogan in a televised speech. It is unclear which officials will be targeted by

Court jails youngest member of British female terror cell A British court sentencedSafaa BoularFriday to life in prison with no chance of parole for 13 years for planning terror attacks in London with her mother and sister. The trio is Britainʼs first case of an all-female terror cell. Prosecutors told Londonʼs Central Criminal Court that the 18year-old began plotting an attack in Britain after authorities thwarted her attempts to travel to Syria tomarry a fighterfrom the so-called "Islamic State" (IS). Boular had been planning a gun and grenade assault in online messages with the militant but was ar-

the sanctions since the US has different offices for those functions in Turkey. Jeff Session is US attorney general, while Kirstjen Nielsen serves as homeland secretary and Ryan Zinke as interior secretary.

The US Treasury on Wednesday imposed sanctions against Turkish Justice Minister Abdulhamit Gul and Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu for their role in the detention of 50-year-old Andrew Brunson, an evangelical pastor. rested in April 2017, along with her sister and mother, after her plan was discovered. Undercover officials had put the family under surveillance, tracking their movements and listening in on telephone conversations in which they discussed the plot using coded language.

Chile: Catholic bishops apologize for failing sex abuse victims After five days of meetings by Chileʼs Episcopal Conference, Catholic bishops asked for forgiveness on Friday for having "failed" victims of sexual abuse. "We failed in our duty as pastors by not listening to, believing, car-

In Syria, death notices for the missing bring unwelcome closure Since May, Syrian authorities have quietly updated civil registries to show thatthousands of people detained or disappeared since the beginning of the seven-year-old conflicthave died, often claiming they had succumbed to a "heart attack." In many cases, the relatives of the deceased found out that their missing family members actually died years before, in the wake of the 2011 uprising. In one such instance, the family of Syrian activist Yahya Shurbaji found out through an update to a municipal registry that he had died years after he was detained. Shurbaji, dubbed the "man with the roses," wasarrested in September 2011. He had played a key role in organizing peaceful protests against Syrian President Bashar Assad in the Damascus suburb of Darayya from the onset of the uprising. Shurbajiʼs family said his record, updated earlier this year, showed he died years ago, on January 15, 2013,according to the Syrian Network for Human Rights. His family isnʼt the only one to find out the fate of a loved one under such circumstances. Local sources have put the latest batch of detainees declared dead at some 5,000, Amnesty Internationalʼs Syria researcher Diana Semaan told DW. "Some families have received notices before, but it was never in big numbers or in one batch as we have seen now" she said.

ing for or accompanying the victims of grave sins and injustices committed by priests and clergy," the church said in a statement. "For this we apologize first and foremost to the victims." Chilean prosecutors said last week they are investigating 158 members of the church, including priests, clerics and laypeople. The cases of sexual abuse involve 266 victims, including 178 children, and date as far back as the 1960s. Church opening files On Wednesday, prosecutors said they had asked the government to submit a formal request to the Vatican for information about nine clergymen and laypeople who have been accused of sexual abuse of children. Authorities have raided several church offices since June as part of investigations into accusations that the Catholic Church covered up or failed to properly investigate abuse.

178/2018 • 06 August, 2018

Serbia: Aleksandar Vucic ready to ʼprotect peaceʼ in north Kosovo Tensions in the Serb-majority northern part of Kosovo are rising ahead of a deadline to set up an association of Serb municipalities in the region. Serbiaʼs president has told compatriots "peace is in our best interest."

In an open letter to Serbs in Kosovo, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has said Pristina will "not lift a finger" to establish the agreed-upon Community of Serb Municipalities in Kosovo.

The association is designed to give Serb-majority municipalities in Kosovo limited autonomous powers.

The plan resulted from the European Unionʼs 2013 Brussels Agreement, which is intended to normalize relations between Serbia and Kosovo, but the proposal has been on hold since

Germany: Mistakenly deported Afghan asylum-seeker to return soon An Afghan asylum-seeker, who was mistakenly deported by German authorities, could return to the country in the coming days, German news outlet Spiegel Online has reported. All the necessary documents have been prepared to ensure a smooth return of the asylum-seeker, Spiegel reported, citing government sources. Nasibullah S., who had been living in a migrant shelter in Neubrandenburg in the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, was deported along with 68 other Afghans back to Kabul last month, although the legal proceedings surrounding his asylum case were still ongoing. The 20-year-old, whose initial asylum request was rejected in April 2017, had been waiting on a decision on his appeal before an administrative court in the German town of Greifswald.According to Spiegel, Nasibullah S. has been kept in a safe place near Kabul for the past few days by the German Foreign Office.

then. Saturday is the deadline by which the Kosovo government is supposed to finish the first draft of the statute for the association. Pristina has insisted the deadline will be met, but Vucic expressed doubt. "All the warnings and suspicions that I have been expressing the whole time are being confirmed and are coming true," Vucic said in the letter,a translation of whichwas provided

by Serbian broadcaster b92. "Pristina will not lift a finger… to form the Community of Serb Municipalities."

NASA names astronauts for first commercial space flights

NASA has named the astronauts who will fly the first commercial capsules into orbit next year. The nine astronauts, most with previous experience in orbit, will ride theSpaceX Dragon and Boeing Starliner capsules to the International Space Station. The commercial flights will mark the return of crew launches to the US, which has not seen humans lift off for space since the end of the iconic space shuttle program seven years ago. "For the first time since 2011, we are on the

brink of launching American astronauts on American rockets from American soil," said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, who made the introductions at Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas on Friday. "This is a big deal for our country and we want America to know that we are back," he said. US astronauts have been relying on Russian capsules to travel to the space station, with each seat costing NASA as much as $82 million (€71 million).

Iraqʼs Yazidis mourn the loss of their homeland Itʼs as if someone had taken a huge sledgehammer and beaten the hell out of it. Ruins and yet more ruins. Pulverized concrete and smashed bricks as far as the eye can see. There is hardly anything left of Sinjar, once the largest city in the Yazidi homeland in northern Iraq, which bears the same name. With the backing of massive US airstrikes,Kurdish fighters managed to free Sinjar city from "Islamic State" (IS) tyranny in November 2015. It had been in IS hands for just over a year. But it was above all the US air raids that almost wiped out the unofficial capital of the Yazidi homeland.

The fact that the liberation was followed by more Turkish airstrikes has only reinforced deep-rooted fear within the Yazidi community. There is a palpable sense of a lost homeland.

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178/2018 • 06 August, 2018

Peru’s vast lithium discovery: A risky economic boon?

An estimated 2.5 million tons of lithium carbonate have been discovered deep in Peruʼs southern region of Puno, near the border with Bolivia and Lake Titicaca. Canadian mining company Plateau Energy Metals Inc. made the announcement last month, saying it marked the first discovery of hard-rock lithium deposits in South America and could become one of the largest mines in the world. The finding was located in a prehistoric lake in northern Puno, where a large deposit of uranium was also discovered. It would be groundbreaking for Peru, but it would also pose a host of challenges, from the geopolitical and economic to the social and environmental. High demand for lithium The news has raised expectations, given that a growing demand for batteries has tripled the price of lithium carbonate in the past three years, with a current value of $12,500 (€10,750) per ton. Executives from Plateau Energy Metals have estimated that Peruʼs exports of the highly lucrative mineral could yield $500 million per year, beginning in 2021. "There are a lot of expectations, but also distrust within the local and regional populations over the impacts that the project could have. Peru is facing a complicated political moment as it searches for government stability, but it is also at an economically challenging time," Narda Henriquez, sociologist at the Catholic University of Peru (PUCP), told DW.

Turkish lira hits record low as US sanctions bite The Turkish lira fell to a rate of 5.1 against the dollar in early Friday trading, breaking the symbolic resistance threshold of 5 for the first time. The currency has lost 4 percent against the dollar over the last week and is down about 36 percent this year, according to FactSet. The lira plummeted in late July after the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey (CBRT) left interest rates unchanged as inflation continued to rise, with one analyst likening buying the currency to "catching a falling knife."

The sense of doom was compounded on August 1 when the US imposed selective sanctions on Turkey over the detainment of an American pastor. "Crucially, the geopolitical risks are now much higher following the decision by the US to impose sanctions on two Turkish ministers.

Frankly, we do not know what level of real policy rate would compensate for this increase in risk premium," Inan Demir, an analyst at Nomura, told DW. 4

Eiffel Tower to reopen after strike over long queues The Eiffel Tower - closed to visitors since Wednesday afternoon - is to reopen on Friday after workers went on strike over unacceptably long queues at the Paris landmark.

Workers walked out in protest at a new access policy that has seen separate lifts allocated to visitors with pre-booked tickets and those who buy them on site.

Workers walked out in protest at a new access policy that has seen separate lifts allocated to visitors with pre-booked tickets and those who buy them on site.

At the same time, the tower now sets aside half of daily tickets for internet customers, up from just 20 percent previously. Workers said the changes resulted in lopsided queues that could extend to three hours for those waiting to

Australian retailer Colesʼ green optics blackened in plastic bag farce With social media awash in condemnation, Australiaʼs second largest grocery chain Coles on Thursday said its plastic shopping bags would be free to shoppers until August 29. Coles has been handing out reusable plastic bags to most of its customers since July 1, when it introduced a ban on single-use plastic bags. It had told customers they would be charged 15 Australian cents (€.09, $.11) for the reusable bags as of July 8 and then shifted that deadline to August 1 before the latest flip flop. "I appreciate this transition phase is taking longer than anticipated, but it is absolutely the right thing to do by our customers," Coles Managing Director John Durkan said in a statement to staff, adding that change in habit had proven to be "big and difficult" for customers.

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Chinaʼs stock market falls to third place Chinaʼs stock market has been overtaken as the worldʼs second biggest by Japan, having been hit this year by the threat of anevergrowing trade war with Americaand slowing economic growth.

Data from Bloomberg News in intra-day trading on Friday showed the value of equities in mainland China had slipped behind those of their tiny neighbor for the first time since China took its coveted second place spot in 2014. Recently there has been a string of data indicating that Chinese economic growth in general is slowing, while Beijing has embarked on a drive to cut a worryingly large debt mountain as well as reduce pollution. Fridayʼs figures showed Chinese stocks were worth $6.09 trillion (€5.26 trillion), compared with $6.17 trillion in Japan. The US market by comparison is worth $31 trillion and as of Thursday$1 trillion of that belonged to Applealone.

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pay for tickets, and up to an hour for internet customers who are supposed to have reserved time slots. But late Thursday, management and unions said that the tower would reopen on Friday.

Earlier workers had demanded more flexibility in managing the thousands hoping to reach the top of the "Iron Lady" each day during the peak summer tourist season. The towerʼs operator said, however, that queues were no worse than before, even as visitor numbers have risen, with more than 6.2 million tickets sold last year.

Apple is the worldʼs first trillion-dollar company

Long known as one of the most valuable firms in the world, the US tech giant hit a milestone market capitalization of a trillion dollars as its stock price keeps inching higher.

Itʼs a watershed moment for the company.

In early morning trading on Thursday, Appleʼs stock jumped 2.8 percent and sent the company over a magic hurdle as it became the worldʼs first privatesector publicly traded company with a market value of $1 trillion (€860 billion). For those who like visuals, in numerals that is 1,000,000,000,000.

PetroChina, a state-owned oil giant, was the first company to hit this mark during its initial public offering in 2007, though its value has declined dramatically since then. Apple on the other hand is the first non-stateowned company to reach this stratospheric valuation on its own merits through a long, sustained upward climb without implicit government guarantees or backing. It is a market development that has been in the pipeline for well over a year.

178/2018 • 06 August, 2018

Plastic bottle recycling champion: Norway or Germany?

Germany has long had a similar scheme. So whose works best?

Carlo Chatrian: The festival is bigger than the person As always, the atmosphere is full of energy at the beginning. People look forward to watching the new films and meeting with guests. The opening film was the French comedy Les Beaux Ésprits paired with a Laurel and Hardy

slapstick film from 1929. Is humor this yearʼs main motto? We try to have

more than one thread or topic. But for sure – we call it lightness, because itʼs not just about humor. It is a lightness that doesnʼt counteract the will to talk about the world we are living in, with all its conflicts, contrasts and frictions.

Help the planet with a strawfree August in Budapest Norwayʼs bottle deposit scheme has been getting a lot of celebratory press. But some of the figures being quoted may be misleading.

At the end of last year, a study by British environmental consultancy Eunomia named Germany the worldʼs best recycler, with the country recycling 56 percent of its household waste. But since then, various media reports have given the impression Norway was way ahead. International media have carried the news that Norway recycles 95 percent of its polyethylene terephthalate — or PET — bottles, and social media has run with it, with avideo posted by the World Economic Forumcelebrating this impressive figure achieved through

a tax and deposit system. "Norway is very proud of its bottle deposit system," said Peter Sundt, general secretary of the European Association of Plastics Recycling and Recovery Organizations, and a Norwegian himself. The system is simple: Manufacturers of beverage bottles are subject to a high tax on their product. But they get a rebate depending on how many of the empty containers they collect from across the country. Sundt says this makes a lot of sense in Norway, where taxes are seen as a simple and effective tool.

Donʼt instrumentalize culture, says Goethe-Institut president The German cultural instituteʼs work has become particularly difficult in China, Russia, and Turkey, according to Goethe-Institut President KlausDieter Lehmann. With 12 to 14 institutes in each of 14 designated regions across the world, the organization cooperates with local partners. In Russia, a law restricting the activity of foreign agents has made life difficult for NGOs, Lehmann told DW. They are included among the GoetheInstitutʼs local partners and have to

justify working as "foreign agents" with a German institution that "naturally represents freedom in the arts."

At the same time, China has increasingly begun to use culture as a political tool, Lehmann said, pointing out that 500 new Confucius educational institutes have been founded worldwide over the past few years. Wary of using culture to fuel a competition of political systems, Lehmann argued that "culture should not be instrumentalized."

It’s the last straw for bars and cafés in Budapest. A planetfriendly campaign is launching this weekend, requesting guests to skip the plastic straws when ordering drinks. The event kicks off at 3pm on Sunday, August 5th with a straw-free toast on Liberty Bridge, closed to traffic for one of its weekend summer picnics. Then through August 21st and beyond, many city hangouts have committed to not offering plastic disposables, a commodity that’s sucking the life out of nature. See where to hang out to support the cause.

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Sweden wildfires spread as far north as Arctic Sweden has requested emergency help from the EU on Wednesday to fight a dozens of forest wildfires, in the midst of an extreme heatwave that is plaguing the Nordic region.

Authorities said that 44 fires were raging across the country and in the counties of Gavleborg, Jamtland and Dalarna, residents were asked to evacuate. The Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB) fire Chief Britta Ramberg told Swedish TT news agency that the fire in Jamtland was "the largest and spreading the fastest".

The blaze engulfed 2,500 hectares (6,000 acres) and was spreading by 10 square meters (100 square feet) per minute, authorities said.

Read more: Will extreme weather become even deadlier?

The fires also affected Lapland, Swedenʼs northernmost region, which lies within the Arctic Circle.

The town of Jokkmokk, a popular winter tourist destination, was threatened by fires in the vicinity.

Rescue officer Thomas Andersson told AFP news agency that in Jokkmokk, a wildfire of this magnitude had not been seen for in 12 years.

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178/2018 • 06 August, 2018

Bayern Munich CEO Karl-Heinz Rummenigge slams DFB president for populism, his use of Twitter

Karl-Heinz Rummenigge has renewed his criticism of the DFB. However, the Bayern chairman stopped short of calling on its president, Reinhard Grindel, to resign.

He also had words of criticism for Mesut Özil.

Rory McIlroy ready for American challenge at Carnoustie

The Open Championship returns to Carnoustie for an eighth time this week with Rory McIlroy among the home players hoping to break an American stranglehold on the majors.

All four of golfʼs biggest prizes are held by US players, with Jordan Spieth the returning champion for the 147th Open, which starts at 06:35 BST on Thursday. Northern Irelandʼs McIlroy won the Silver Medal as the leading amateur on his Open debut in 2007, the last time the championship was held at Carnousite. "Itʼs great to be back," said the 29-year-old, who won the Claret Jug in 2014. "Hopefully I can create more good memories this week.

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Aleksandar Kolarovʼs free kick stunner secures Serbia win over Costa Rica A brilliant second half free kick from captain Aleksandar Kolarov led Serbia to a deserved win over Costa Rica. Serbia were wasteful in front of goal but did enough to secure three vital points in Group E. Another World Cup day, another sublime freekick. If Cristiano Ronaldo’s ice-cold effort tosnatch a point against arch-rivals Spain on day two was the current goal of the tournament front-runner, the Portuguese may have just met his match. Aleksandar Kolarov, take a bow. A combination of poor finishing and sublime goalkeeping had kept the scores level until Serbia’s no.11 produced his moment of magic. Kolarov’s powerful left foot is no secret, but few inside the stadium would have expected such a thunderous strike when the Roma defender stood over a free kick midway through the second half. His shot was unstoppable; a side-footed missile which screamed into the top corner of the Costa Rica net. Kaylor Navas, who kept his team in the game with several crucial saves either side of half time, was nowhere near it.

Doctors speak positively about F1 legend Niki Lauda’s recovery A more comprehensive update will be released at a later date

Doctors are optimistic about Formula One legend Niki Laudaʼs recovery following an emergency six-hour lung transplant.

The 69-year-old had been in "extremely critical” condition beforeundergoing the surgery in Vienna on Thursday. Head of the Department of Thoracic Surgery Walter Klepetko, who performed Laudaʼs surgery had words of optimism the day after the procedure. "In the last seven days, Mr. Lauda was kept alive only by a pump," Klepetko said in a television interview on Austriaʼs Oe24 on Friday. Reports also suggested the triple world

champion had been brought out of a medically-induced coma. "Without a transplant, life expectancy in such circumstances would be limited to days or weeks. Considering the not very easy circumstances we are very, very happy with the developments," Klepetko added."Breathing on his own will begin in the next few days, but thereʼs no rush." The hospital are due to release a comprehensive update about Laudaʼs condition at a later time.

F1: Lewis Hamilton extends contract with Mercedes until 2020 Defending driversʼ champion Lewis Hamilton has extended his contract with Mercedes. The Briton has won 44 races with the Silver Arrows, as well as three driversʼ championships. ormula One superstar Lewis Hamilton has signed a two-year contract extension with Mercedes, the motorracing team announced on Thursday.

"Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport and Lewis Hamilton today an-

nounced the agreement of a twoyear contract extension for the 2019 and 2020 Formula One seasons," a statement from the team read. No figures were given in the statement, but the deal is reportedly to be worth around 40 million pounds (€45 million, $52 million) per year.

Hamiltonʼs contract with Mercedes was set to expire at the end of the current season.