Recent changes to university admissions rules in Syria have put a dent in Lin Najab's plans. The 23-year-old from Damascus is one of the few women at her college studying mechatronics engineering.

"My original plan was to pursue a master's degree," Najab told DW. But earlier in October, new rules were announced by Syria's education ministry regarding two newly created colleges, the National University of Defense Sciences and the Syrian University for Security Sciences. The former now restricts certain courses exclusively to male students, and the latter almost all of them.

A bad omen? Syria bans women from university courses

BY Omar Albam in Syria | Cathrin Schaer

The luxury carmaker is set to open its first factory in the United States — a move Trump credits to his tariffs. DW examines the German reaction amid a massive auto industry cull at home.

US President Donald Trump announced the investment on Saturday, during a campaign rally in Georgia, a key battleground state for his Republican Party in the midterm elections next week.

What Germany thinks of carmaker Audi's $4 billion deal with Trump

BY Nik Martin

Russian President Vladimir Putin has held a phone call with Finnish President Alexander Stubb and Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store, discussing efforts to resolve the Ukraine conflict, the Kremlin announced on Tuesday.

The conversation was initiated by the Finnish and Norwegian sides and followed last week’s meetings involving US special envoy Steve Witkoff in St. Petersburg, and the Oslo discussions between Stubb, Store, and Vladimir Zelensky.

The Kremlin said the Nordic leaders welcomed the agreement to resume trilateral talks between Russia, Ukraine, and the US in Abu Dhabi in the first half of November. The negotiations will address security arrangements for Russia and Ukraine after the conflict ends, among other issues.

There was a time when the Democratic Party, under the leadership of FDR, was seen as shunning belligerence in foreign affairs, emphasizing instead international co-operation and respect for sovereign rights. In this it contrasted starkly with an aggressive Republican Party that rarely found a war it didn't like.

In subsequent decades, however, this characterization changed sharply. Whilst increasing numbers of Republicans moved to an isolationist position, a battle amongst the Democrats saw those who believed in the pluralistic and cooperative principles enshrined in the UN Charter increasingly marginalized by those embracing a crusading interventionism abroad.

On the eve of Israel’s election, Gideon Levy warns that another Netanyahu term would deepen war, democratic repression and international isolation, with sanctions no longer unthinkable.

The list of looming catastrophes is far longer and far more frightening than just another pointless round of fighting with Iran.

Gideon Levy

My first encounter with Steiner education was some years ago. 

And, as is the norm, it took the form of muddling them up with Montessori schools. 

However, last week, Newsnight ran a report on the 30 or so private Steiner schools that showed how different they are from anything else. 

The schools are known for being playful and hippyish. 

But it was his estimate of how quickly that advantage could be translated into military results that made the argument particularly striking.

Six Weeks to Defeat Russia? The Cost Missing from Sikorski’s Calculation

BY Adrian Korczyński

Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski made an unusually confident assessment of a hypothetical war between NATO and Russia during the Yalta European Strategy conference in Kiev on September 12.

Six Weeks 

Some studies have linked disgust sensitivity to socially conservative attitudes. But ahead of the US midterm elections, does disgust shape our politics, or do our beliefs shape what we find disgusting?

The smell of rotten food can make us recoil. Certain sexual practices can provoke a similar reaction. And in today's polarized political climate, even political opponents can become objects of disgust.

Rotten food, sex and politics: What connects them?

BY Richard Connor

Why Trump no longer wants to see or hear anything about Zelensky ?

Mohamed Lamine KABA, October 25, 2026

Before the ceasefire last year, Israel subjected Gaza to a comprehensive and enforced siege which prevented countless necessities from entering the Strip, including cooking gas. However, after the Witkoff Agreement was signed in October 2025, which contained a humanitarian clause allowing 600 trucks to enter daily, including 50 trucks designated for fuel and cooking gas, we Gazans believed that we would finally be able to use healthy and safe gas and that our suffering of looking for alternatives to cook would be over.

Israel Restricts Cooking Gas Into Gaza, So We Must Burn Toxic Plastic to Cook

The vile fumes saturate our food with their smell. Our daily inhalation of toxic burned plastics is slowly killing us.

By Nour Abo Aisha, TRUTHOUT

Senior CSIRO scientists are discussing scenarios in which parts of northern Australia become unliveable and reef ecosystems collapse, and asking why the country is not confronting those risks openly.

Senior CSIRO scientists have had a candid internal discussion about the threats posed by a warming world and how to convey them to the public, including that northern Australia will become unliveable and Great Barrier Reef corals that “all turn white forever”.

Peter Hannam

Hopes that the federal anti-corruption watch puppy might be resuscitated by a change of leadership have been dashed, writes Michael Pascoe. The NACC is only capable of embarrassing itself. 

The National Anti-Corruption Commission is now making the case itself that it is useless. On a bang-for-buck basis, any marginal difference the NACC might be making to corruption at the federal level simply isn’t worth the candle. 

NACC declares itself useless, the joke worsens

by Michael Pascoe

SpaceX has closed a “loophole” that allowed the Ukrainian military to use the civilian satellite internet network for offensive drone strikes, Elon Musk has announced, telling warmongers who prolong the conflict to “burn in hell.”

The billionaire’s harsh remarks on Saturday come amid a deepening rift between Washington and Kiev, with US President Donald Trump accusing Vladimir Zelensky of repeatedly rejecting opportunities to end the conflict and worsening global fuel shortages by attacking Russian oil infrastructure.

These days, European headlines resemble reports from a war zone: from stormed city halls in Marseille and Lille, to looted boutiques along the French Riviera, burned tourist offices in Lyon, and clouds of tear gas enveloping the Élysée Palace. The ‘day of rage’ in France drew over 800,000 protesters onto the streets – an event that was dismissed by Paris and the European mainstream as merely the “spontaneous revolt of the outskirts” or a “raid by migrants.” However, a closer look at the ‘rebels’ reveals respectable, bourgeois-looking students and well-off citizens engaging in destruction and violence.

Europe’s next crisis is already hiding behind the riots

The streets may eventually fall silent, but the struggle over who governs, who pays and what survives is only beginning

BY Ksenia Smertina