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DAILY NEWS IN ENGLISH

Madeira bus crash highlights over-tourism woes On Thursday,a bus crash in the Madeiran town of Canicothat killed at least 29 people, all of them German, threw the infrastructure issues brought on by over-tourism into stark relief. Madeira faces a huge challenge transporting the 1.4 million tourists (five times its own population) who visit every year. "The tourism sector is one of the main engines of Madeiraʼs economy," says a recent EU report focused on creating better mobility on the autonomous group of Portuguese islands. Tourism accounts for about 20% of Madeiraʼs GDP, and the vast majority of those tourists are German and British. According to the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC), Portugal as whole isEuropeʼs fastest-growing tourist destination, as more than a decade of campaigns from local and national tourism boards, promotions from business like TAP airlines, and the declining costs of travel begin to coalesce.

How safe is bus travel in Europe?

Thursdayʼs fatal crash in Madeira is the latest in a series of horrific bus accidents in Europe. DW looks at how safe bus travel really is. If you are feeling concerned about traveling by bus after hearing aboutThursdayʼs crash on the Portuguese island of Madeira, according to statistics you shouldnʼt be. Althoughterrible crashes are widely reported in the media when they happen, far fewer people are killed in bus accidents than in car accidents.

According to Germanyʼs Federal Statistical Office, most bus accidents in 2017 involved public transport buses. Of the 5,926 bus accidents in the country (of varying degrees of severity), 4,052 involved the public transport system.

Only 229 involved tour buses.

Of these thousands of accidents, 22 people were killed.

91/2019 • 19 APRIL, 2019

Greek parliament demands Berlin pays WWII reparations Athens is due to raise the issue with Berlin, where the matter is seen as long settled

Greek lawmakers have officially endorsed a diplomatic offensive to have Germany pay reparations over the WWII occupation of Greece.

French business tycoons pledge millions to help rebuild Notre Dame Cathedral Answering a call from French president Emmanuel Macron to donate funds for the reconstruction of the fire-ravaged Paris landmark, two of the countryʼs wealthiest families have stepped forward offering millions in aid.

French fire officials on Tuesday said that theNotre Dame Cathedral in Parishad been saved from "total destruction." But pictures of the blaze relayed across the world left little doubt that rebuilding the ravaged structure, whose roof and main spire collapsed, will require enormous funds. Even as a first damage assessment has yet to be made,French president Emmanuel

Macron has shown himself fully convinced that a efforts to restore the Paris landmark will be successful. "We will rebuild the cathedral together," Macron said in a statement outside of the cathedral, adding that France would start an international fundraising campaign to raise money for the renovations. One of the first to step forward in support of the call was Francois-Henri Pinault, the chairman and chief executive officer of French designer and luxury goods group Kering. He and his father, Francois Pinault, announced Tuesday that they would donate €100 million ($113 million) from their Artemis investment company.

Where persecuted writers find refuge Rabab Haidar is one of the countless people looking for a secure life in Germany. A writer, translator and journalist, she fled Damascus in October 2018. The Syrian civil war, which has been going on for eight years, expelled her from her homeland. Haidar found refuge in Langenbroich in the region of North Rhine-Westphalia. For the past three decades, authors who can not freely write in their homelands

have been given the opportunity to stay in the former home of German writer Heinrich Böll. As one of these authors, Haidar received a one-year scholarship that has allowed her to live in peace and work on her second novel. Her first novel Land of the Pome‐ granate was published in 2012 and she also translated a volume of poetry by the Bahraini poet Iman Aseeri, The Book of the Female, into English.

Mueller report finds ʼno collusion by any American,ʼ says William Barr Attorney General William Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who oversaw the 22-month Mueller investigation, summarized their findings on the nearly 400-page report at a news conference on Thursday. The report investigated key details on Russiaʼs meddling in the 2016 election and whether President Donald Trumpʼs associates conspired with the Kremlin, as well as possible obstruction of justice by the president.

What did Department of Justice (DOJ) say? Barr said the "investigation did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities."He noted that Trump was "frustrated and angered" by the investigation, and said the White House cooperated fully.Barr said Trumpʼs lawyers reviewed a redacted version of the report prior to its release.

Saudi sister asylum-seekers given help in Georgia Maha, 28, and her 25-year-old sister Wafa Alsubaie received an offer of help by Georgian authorities Thursday after attracting attention on social media while fleeing Saudi Arabia for fear of their family. The sisters took to Twitter on Tuesday with a plea for international protection claiming they were trapped in Georgia after their passports were blocked by Saudi Arabia. They said that their father and brother were looking for them.

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8 / 19 °C Precipitation: 0 mm

91/2019 • 19 April, 2019

Auschwitz Museum asks visitors not to balance on train tracks The Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museumimplored visitors to respect the memories of the 1.1 million people who were killed at the concentration camp — and not to balance on the train tracks that brought Holocaust victims to the site. "There are better places to learn how to walk on a balance beam than the site which symbolizes deportation of hundreds of thousands to their deaths," the museum wrote on Twitter. They also posted several pictures visitors had taken of themselves walking on the tracks. In recent years, numerous visitors to concentration camp museumsand other Holocaust memorialshave beencriticized for taking selfiesand other seemingly jovial pictures at the sites that remember the victims of Nazi genocide. Auschwitz-Birkenau was the largest Nazi death camp, where 1.1 million victims, including some 1 million Jewish prisoners, were killed. Last year,the Auschwitz Museum saw a record number of visitors, with 2.1 million people coming to visit the site.

F1 2019 — the runners and riders

Baltic cod walloped as stocks crash NGOs are calling on the fisheries ministers of all EU Baltic member states to immediately end fishing in the Eastern Baltic. This follows a report by scientists showing cod stocks at a critically low level.

According to the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES), the cod population in the Eastern Baltic Sea has reached such a critically low level it is unable to reproduce itself to maintain a future healthy stock. The ICES, an intergovernmental marine science organization, raised the alarm at a regional Baltic meeting of fisheries stake-

holders in January. Scientists there presented data from 2018 Baltic International Trawl surveys that found a record number of empty trawls.

"The cod stock in the Eastern Baltic Sea is in a state of acute crisis.

Some would say, thatʼs not news (at least to us)," Nils Hoglund from the Clean Baltic Coalition told DW.

How trade fells trees in Brazil and Indonesia Hunger for beef, palm oil, soy and timber fuels rainforest clearance at enormous scales, especially in Brazil and Indonesia. That matters for climate change.

The margarine Martin Persson spreads on his sandwiches each morning doesnʼt keep him awake at night — but it does taste lightly of guilt.

Persson, a scientist at Chalmers University in Sweden who follows a vegan diet, knows his innocuous breakfast spread helps devastate forests about ten thousand kilometers away.

Along with beef and soy,palm oilin

margarine and other everyday foods have long been known to accelerate deforestation in countries such as Brazil and Indonesia. Now, Persson and an international team of researchers have quantified how much foreign demand for commodities drives that destruction. The study, published last week, found that 29-39 percent of the carbon dioxide (CO2) released through deforestation is driven by international trade — with farmers felling forests to clear space for croplands, pastures and plantations that grow goods often consumed abroad.

Itʼs all change in the Formula 1 paddock ahead of the 2019 campaign.

Three familiar teams are likely to fight it out at the front, but two of them have fresh faces behind the wheel. Mercedes seeking sixth season in charge Defending champions Mercedes are one of just two teams with an unchanged driver roster this season. Five-time champ Lewis Hamilton and his Finnish wingman Valtteri Bottas will try to maintain the teamʼs perfect record in the turbohybrid engine era. Ever since the major engine overhaul of 2014, Mercedes have won everything in sight. Is it time for a change?

Múzeum+ February at Museum of Fine Arts The February edition of monthly event series Múzeum+ is being held on the 14th at the Museum of Fine Arts. For each of these events, besides interactive workshops and concerts, an English-language guided tour also features. This time the theme is German Renaissance Art, starting at 7pm. For the complete schedule, check the museum website.

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Germanyʼs FlixBus in talks to buy intercity competitor Eurolines FlixBus, which offers low-cost intercity bus travel across Europe, is negotiating to buy its smaller competitor Eurolines. French transport group Transdev, which owns Eurolines, and the Munich-based Flixbus confirmed on Monday that exclusive talks were underway, without disclosing the financial details. Eurolines, whose network spans 25 countries, operates French domestic routes under the Isilines brand, which would be part of the possible deal. "With this merger, FlixBus would have an even more comprehensive and more diverse offer to attract even more passengers.

We want to be the first choice for travelers across Europe," Flixbus managing director Jochen Engert said.

Airbnb cuts listings in Israeli West Bank settlements Home-rental platform Airbnb announced Monday it would no longer offer its service in Israeli settlements in the West Bank, drawing an angry response from Israel. Israel seized the West Bank in the 1967 Six-Day War, but most countries consider the Jewish settlements there to be illegal. The company said in a statement the decision would affect about 200 properties "in the occupied West Bank that are at the core of the dispute between Israelis and Palestinians." "Our hope is that someday sooner rather than later, a framework is put in place where the entire global community is aligned so there will be a resolution to this historic conflict and a clear path forward for everybody to follow," it added. Palestinian and human rights groups had long called on Airbnb to remove the settlement listings from its site. Waleed Assraf, head of a Palestinian antisettlement group welcomed the development, saying if more companies followed it would "contribute to achieving peace." Israeli Tourism Minister Yariv Levin condemned the move as "the most wretched of wretched capitulations to the boycott efforts."