Volkswacht Bodensee - News from Lake Constance, St. Gallen, Thurgau, Schaffhausen, Switzerland, Europe and the whole world

Germany is considering Australia's "Ghost Bat" robot fighter as it looks to select a combat drone to modernise its air force, defence minister Boris Pistorius said Friday.

Nepal's rapper-turned-politician Balendra Shah will be sworn in as the new prime minister on Friday, after issuing his victory message in a rap song, urging unity.

Since the start of the Middle East conflict, Iran has witnessed massive cryptocurrency flows.

Myanmar's ageing railway stations are bustling with life, crowded with passengers as surging fuel prices due to the Mideast war drive commuters to choose trains over costly planes and cars.

US President Donald Trump has pushed back his deadline for strikes on Iran's energy assets, saying talks on ending the war were "going very well" as Israel announced fresh strikes on Tehran early Friday.

Bolivia and Jamaica moved to within one win of returning to the World Cup after decades-long absences on Thursday after securing opening victories in FIFA's intercontinental playoff tournament in Mexico.

In the dry-season heat of northern Thailand, Hmong villagers zip through forested slopes, blasting tinder with leaf blowers and cutting through brush with machetes, while others scan for smoke on live feeds from their phones.

The feather-shaped namele leaf is so central to Vanuatu it features on the national flag, and now it is being enlisted to protect some of the country's most important forests.

George Russell went fastest ahead of team-mate Kimi Antonelli in an eventful first practice for the Japanese Grand Prix on Friday as Mercedes continued their dominant start to the Formula One season.

World number one and defending champion Aryna Sabalenka subdued second-ranked rival Elena Rybakina 6-4, 6-3 on Thursday to book a Miami Open title clash with American Coco Gauff.

British charities and disability advocates have slammed a trend for using AI to generate "fetishised" images of women with disabilities and genetic conditions including Down syndrome, vitiligo and albinism.

Oil prices fell Friday after Donald Trump again pushed back a deadline for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, though most equities also dropped as traders shrugged at the news following a series of conflicting messaging from the White House.

Vaibhav Suryavanshi's parents told AFP how they made a practice pitch in their village in India's poorest state to spark the teenage cricket prodigy's stunning rise -- and now his younger brother hones his skills on it.

World number one and defending champion Aryna Sabalenka powered past second-ranked Elena Rybakina 6-4, 6-3 on Thursday to line up a Miami Open title clash with Coco Gauff.

The colourful residents of Copenhagen's libertarian Christiania enclave, long a refuge for anarchists, hippies and artists, fear new housing within its borders could spell the end of the freetown's identity.

Kon Knueppel scored 26 points as the Charlotte Hornets maintained their late-season charge for an NBA playoff berth with an emphatic 114-103 defeat of the high-flying New York Knicks on Thursday.

While the world frets about surging energy prices pushed up by the Middle East war, one small German village has been reaping the benefits of its turn to climate-friendly renewables.

The United States is set to come under scrutiny Friday on day two of the World Trade Organization's ministerial conference, with Washington wanting to shake up the multilateral trade system.

A cyclone off Australia triggered outages at two of the world's largest LNG plants, energy giant Chevron said Friday as Middle East turmoil stoked soaring demand for the fuel.

A US federal judge on Thursday suspended sanctions imposed by President Donald Trump's administration on Anthropic, saying the measures likely violated the law in blacklisting the AI powerhouse for expressing unease about the Pentagon's use of its technology.

US paper currency will soon bear Donald Trump's signature, the Treasury Department announced Thursday, in a move that would be a first for a sitting American president and coincide with the country's 250th anniversary.

Bolivia produced a second-half fightback to shatter Suriname's unlikely dream of World Cup qualification with a 2-1 victory in their FIFA playoff game in Mexico on Thursday.

Ukraine’s campaign against Russian oil infrastructure has developed into a direct assault on one of Moscow’s most important economic arteries. The focus is not on symbolic targets but on the nodes through which a large share of Russian crude exports is loaded and shipped. Pressure on the Baltic outlets of Primorsk and Ust-Luga is especially significant because they handle a major part of seaborne exports. Add the after-effects of the disruption around Novorossiysk, interruptions in the Druzhba corridor on Ukrainian territory, and growing pressure on tankers linked to Russia’s shadow fleet, and the picture becomes larger than a handful of dramatic fires. What is under attack is the export chain itself: storage, loading, routing, maritime dispatch and ultimately cash flow.Current estimates indicate that roughly 40 percent of Russia’s oil export capacity has at times been disrupted or temporarily knocked offline. That amounts to around 2 million barrels per day that failed to reach the market as planned or had to be rerouted with delay and higher cost. For the Kremlin, this matters because oil is not merely a commodity; it remains one of the pillars of federal revenue. When terminals go down, ships queue, cargoes must be reassigned and transport risks rise, the economic impact widens even if part of the volume is later recovered. The strikes therefore hit the area where Russia, despite sanctions, price caps and alternative shipping arrangements, has tried hardest to preserve hard-currency income.What makes the Ukrainian approach notable is that it is designed less for one-off spectacle than for repeated operational disruption. Every hit on port infrastructure, pumping systems, storage tanks or loading chains can create bottlenecks far beyond the point of impact. A delay of only a few days can alter tanker rotations, export schedules, settlement timing and production planning. The fact that one facility may resume operations relatively quickly does not remove the vulnerability exposed by the pattern. Moscow is being forced to reshuffle volumes, test alternative routes and absorb added risk at nearly every step of the process. That is a structural problem for an export model that depends heavily on a limited set of maritime hubs.

Pittsburgh's Paul Skenes was sent to the exit after two-thirds of an inning while other pitchers and new technology created a historic Thursday of Major League Baseball season openers.

Italy will face Bosnia and Herzegovina for a place at the 2026 World Cup after beating Northern Ireland 2-0 on Thursday, as Wales and the Republic of Ireland suffered agonising penalty shootout defeats in their qualifying play-off semi-finals.

Gennaro Gattuso said Thursday that Italy still have a mountain to climb with Bosnia and Herzegovina standing between the Azzurri and the World Cup finals.

Goalkeeper Matej Kovar saved two penalties in a shootout to take the Czech Republic past Ireland in their World Cup 2026 qualification play-off in Prague on Thursday.

Wales' World Cup dream was ended by defeat on penalties as Bosnia and Herzegovina set up a play-off final against Italy after coming from behind in Cardiff.

Kylian Mbappe moved to within one goal of equalling France's all-time scoring record with the opener in a 2-1 win over Brazil as two of the leading World Cup contenders faced off in a glamour friendly in the United States on Thursday.

Italy's bid to end a 12-year World Cup absence will continue after beating Northern Ireland 2-0 on Thursday to reach the play-off final.

An oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico affecting hundreds of kilometers of coastline was caused by "illegal dumping" from a ship and exacerbated by seepage from natural sources, Mexican authorities said Thursday.

Viktor Gyokeres scored a hat-trick as Sweden brushed Ukraine aside 3-1 on Thursday to set up a showdown with Poland for a spot at the 2026 World Cup.