shooting = Schießerei

to fire shots = Schüsse abgeben

prayers = Gebete

eyewitness = Augenzeuge

to open fire = losschießen

authorities = Behörden

suspects = Verdächtige

to arrest = verhaften

at the scene = am Tatort

immigration ban = Einwanderungsverbot

willingness = Bereitschaft

to flee = fliehen

prosecution = Verfolgung

©Cristian Vasile

Social unrest started in Romania as the Government prepared to pass an emergency ordinance which would make changes to the penal code, as well as pardon certain categories of inmates, supposedly in order to improve the living conditions in the country’s prisons. However, it is believed that the true reason behind this proposed action is a hope of the ruling party to thus be able to release numerous politicians from within its circles, as well as to prevent the imprisonment of a number of its members accused of corruption and other criminal offences. A large protest took place on Sunday, when tens of thousands of people gathered in Romania’s main cities to demonstrate against the emergency ordinance. The demands of the protesters have not been answered to, as on Tuesday night the Romanian Government issued the emergency ordinance that had caused the unrest. In response to this action by the country’s executive power, further, increasingly bigger protests took place in the entire country, as well as abroad, and they are expected to continue until the ordinance is abrogated. On Wednesday, in the capital Bucharest alone, 150,000 marched towards the seat of government chanting against the ruling party. It has been reported that these are the largest protests to take place in the country since the 1989 revolution which brought about the fall of communism.

Read more about the protests and the emergency ordinance at the following link: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-38836322

unrest = Unruhen

emergency ordinance = Noterlass

penal code = Strafgesetzbuch

to pardon = begnadigen

certain = bestimmt

inmates = Insassen

supposedly = angeblich

prisons = Gefängnisse

ruling party = Regierungspartei

to release = (hier) entlassen

imprisonment = Haftstrafe

criminal offences = Straftaten

demands = Ansprüche

to abrogate = aufheben

to chant = skandieren

to bring about = verursachen

©Krisztian Bocsi / Bloomberg

British and American regulators claim that Deutsche Bank illegally moved $10 billion out of Russia through shares which had been bought and sold by its branches in Moscow, London and New York between 2011 and 2015. The bank will now have to pay a fine of $630 and hire an external monitor to observe its compliance measures.

More on this topic at http://www.bbc.com/news/business-38805085

to fine = mit einer Geldstrafe belegen

money laundering = Geldwäsche

regulators = Aufsichtsbehörde

shares = Aktien

branches = Niederlassungen

fine = Strafe

monitor = Beobachter

to observe = beobachten

compliance = Regelkonformität

©space.com

Every year on 31^st January, the American space agency NASA holds its Day of Remembrance dedicated to the seventeen American astronauts who lost their lives on its three tragic missions in 1967, 1986 and 2003. On Tuesday, NASA organised a ceremony in which the crews of Apollo 1, Challenger of Columbia were commemorated. This year also marked fifty years since the Apollo 1 fire which killed astronauts Virgil Grissom, Edward White and Robert Chaffee during a ground test on 26^th January 1967.

More information about NASA’s Day of Remembrance at http://www.techtimes.com/articles/194554/20170127/remembering-apollo-i-challenger-and-columbia-nasa-to-hold-day-of-remembrance-2017-on-jan-31.htm

space agency = Raumfahrtagentur

day of remembrance = Gedenktag

astronauts = Raumfahrer

ceremony = (hier) Andacht

crews = Besatzungen

to commemorate = gedenken

On Sunday, tennis fans from all around the world enjoyed an exciting final at the Australian Open in Melbourne, where two legends of the sport, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal battled for the first Grand Slam title on this year’s circuit. At the end of five sets, the 35-year-old Swiss champion secured his fifth win at the Australian Open and his eighteenth Grand Slam title, thus consolidating his advantage in the ranking with the most successful tennis players of all time.

©AFP

exciting = spannend

to battle = kämpfen

tennis circuit = Tenniszirkus

sets = (hier) Sätze

to consolidate = festigen

ranking = Rangfolge

More about Federer’s victory at the following link: http://www.bbc.com/sport/tennis/38787436

©Matthias Schrader

It has been an outstanding end of the week for the German teams competing in numerous winter sports. At the Luge World Championships, which took place in Igls, Austria, the German relay team obtained the gold medal. This is yet another world title in a series starting in 2008, the year this category was introduced at the luge championships. At the same sporting event, Germany dominated in the doubles luge event with gold, silver and bronze, while another world title was won by Tatjana Hüfner. At the ski jumping individual event in Willingen, Andreas Wellinger obtained his second world cup victory, while Johannes Lochner and Joshua Bluhm won two gold medals at the bobsleigh world cup competitions in Königsee. Another success story was written by Eric Frenzel and Johannes Rydzek in the Nordic combined triple in Seefeld, who obtained the gold and silver medals after an intense race against each other. Among the other podium results achieved by the German athletes last weekend are the second places obtained by Francesco Friedrich and Thorsten Margis in the same event and by the pair Aljona Savchenko – Bruno Massot at the European Figure Skating Championships, as well as the bronze medals won by the German ski jumping team in Willingen and by alpine skier Stefan Luitz in the giant slalom race in Garmisch-Partenkirchen.

outstanding = hervorragend

luge = Rennrodeln

series = Folge

race = Rennen

to achieve = erzielen

©AFP

The city of Ostrava, located in the East of the Czech Republic, hosted this year’s edition of the European Figure Skating Championships between 25^th and 29^th January. The surprises were few, as the favourites confirmed their skill and experience to win another European medal. For Javier Fernandez, the champion in the men’s category, it was the 5^th European title, while in the women’s event Evgenia Medvedeva obtained a second consecutive gold medal in the continental competition. The events in Ostrava also saw the return of Italian European and World champion Carolina Kostner, who had been banned from figure skating in 2015 for having lied in a doping scandal. She won silver, in this way obtaining her 10^th European medal. In the pairs’ and ice dance categories, the titles were taken by the French Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron and by the Russian Evgenia Tarasova and Vladimir Morozov.

skill = (hier) Können

experience = Erfahrung

consecutive = in Folge

return = Rückkehr