Ukrainian army chief says effort continues ‘to destroy and dislodge’ Russian forces from strategic Donetsk region city.
Published On 1 Nov 20251 Nov 2025
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Ukraine has deployed special forces to the embattled eastern city of Pokrovsk, the country’s top military commander said, as Kyiv seeks to maintain control of the area amid an intense Russian offensive.
Russia has been trying to capture Pokrovsk, dubbed “the gateway to Donetsk”, since mid-2024 in its campaign to control the entirety of the eastern Donetsk region.
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“We are holding Pokrovsk,” Ukraine’s army chief Oleksandr Syrskii said on Facebook on Saturday. “A comprehensive operation to destroy and dislodge enemy forces from Pokrovsk is ongoing.”
Home to more than 60,000 people before the Russia-Ukraine war began in February 2022, Pokrovsk lies on a major supply route for the Ukrainian army.
Taking control of the city would be the most important Russian territorial gain inside Ukraine since Moscow took over Avdiivka in early 2024 after one of the bloodiest battles of the conflict.
Russia and Ukraine have presented conflicting accounts of what has been happening in Pokrovsk in recent days.
The Russian Ministry of Defence on Saturday claimed its forces had defeated the team of Ukrainian special forces that were sent to the city. It later posted videos showing two men it said were Ukrainians who had surrendered.
The footage shows the men, one dressed in fatigues and the other in a dark green jacket, sitting against a peeling wall in a dark room, as they speak of fierce fighting and encirclement by Russian forces.
The video’s authenticity could not be independently verified, and there was no immediate public comment from Kyiv on the Russian ministry’s claims.
Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed last week that his forces had encircled the city’s Ukrainian defenders.
But Syrskii, the Ukrainian army chief, said on Saturday that while the situation in Pokrovsk remains “hardest” for Ukrainian forces, there is no encirclement or blockade as Russia has claimed.
“The main burden lies on the shoulders of the units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, particularly UAV operators and assault units,” Syrskii said.
For his part, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy acknowledged on Friday that some Russian units had infiltrated Pokrovsk, but he insisted that Kyiv is weeding them out.
Russian officials say control of Pokrovsk and Kostiantynivka to its northeast would allow Moscow to drive north towards the two biggest remaining Ukrainian-controlled cities in Donetsk – Kramatorsk and Sloviansk.
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Precious crown jewels including the Parure Marie-Amélie diadème are yet to be recovered
Two more people have been charged over a theft at the Louvre Museum in Paris last month, French media report.
A 38-year-old woman, who has not been named, is being prosecuted for complicity in organised theft and criminal conspiracy with a view to committing a crime. Another person was also charged on Saturday. Details are yet to be made public.
The two were detained earlier this week with three others. Two men who had previously been arrested were already charged with theft and criminal conspiracy after officials said they had “partially recognised” their involvement in the heist.
Jewels worth €88m (£76m; $102m) were taken from the world’s most-visited museum on 19 October.
Louvre Museum
Louvre Museum
The Marie-Louise necklace and a pair of earrings were among the eight items stolen
A tiara worn by the Empress Eugenie, wife of Napoleon III, was taken
Four men carried out the lightning-quick daylight theft.
Two of the alleged thieves – who had been arrested earlier – later admitted their involvement. Another person arrested this week is thought to have taken part in the heist, while the fourth has not yet been caught.
On Saturday, the woman who has been charged was in tears as she appeared before a magistrate and confirmed that she lived in Paris’s northern suburb of La Courneuve, a journalist working for the AFP news agency reported.
The magistrate later ruled that she must stay in custody.
Another person was also charged – it was not immediately known what the charges were.
The two were among the five people arrested earlier this week in and around the French capital. Three of those held have been released without charge.
Watch: Two people leave Louvre in lift mounted to vehicle
On the day of the heist, the robbers arrived at 09:30 (07:30 GMT), just after the museum opened to visitors, Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau said last week.
The suspects arrived with a stolen vehicle-mounted mechanical lift to gain access to the Galerie d’Apollon (Gallery of Apollo) via a balcony close to the River Seine. The men used a disc cutter to crack open display cases housing the jewellery.
Prosecutors said the thieves were inside for four minutes and made their escape on two scooters waiting outside at 09:38, before switching to cars.
One of the stolen items – a crown – was dropped during the escape. The other seven jewels have not been found.
It was later revealed by the Louvre’s director that the only camera monitoring the Galerie d’Apollon was pointing away from a balcony the thieves climbed over to break in.
Since the incident, security measures have been tightened around France’s cultural institutions.
The Louvre has transferred some of its most precious jewels to the Bank of France following the heist.
Canadian PM says anti-tariff ad featuring Ronald Reagan ‘offended’ Trump, who has since cut off trade talks with Canada.
Published On 1 Nov 20251 Nov 2025
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Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney says he apologised to Donald Trump over an anti-tariff advertisement that has drawn the United States president’s ire and disrupted trade talks between the two countries.
During a news conference in South Korea at the end of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit on Saturday, Carney stressed that he is responsible for negotiating Canada’s ties with its largest trading partner.
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“I did apologise to the president. The president was offended,” the prime minister said of the advertisement, which was produced by the Canadian province of Ontario.
“I’m the one who’s responsible, in my role as prime minister, for our relationship with the president of the United States, and the federal government is responsible for the foreign relationship with the US government,” Carney added.
“So, things happen – we take the good with the bad – and I apologised.”
The US-Canada relationship has deteriorated over the past year amid Trump’s global tariffs push, which saw him impose steep duties on his country’s northern neighbour.
Ontario’s commercial, which featured a 1980s speech by former US President Ronald Reagan in which Reagan said tariffs can lead to “fierce trade wars” and unemployment, worsened that already tense situation.
The Trump administration suspended trade talks with Canada over the advertisement, which Washington has claimed misrepresented Reagan’s views and sought to unfairly influence a looming US Supreme Court decision on Trump’s tariff policy.
Last weekend, the US government also announced an additional 10 percent levy on Canadian goods after the commercial was not immediately pulled from broadcasts in the US.
On Friday, Trump told reporters that he did not plan to resume trade negotiations with Canada despite getting an apology from Carney.
“I have a very good relationship, I like him a lot – but you know, what they did was wrong,” the US president said.
“He [Carney] was very nice, he apologised for what they did with the commercial because it was a false commercial. It was the exact opposite; Ronald Reagan loved tariffs and they tried to make it look the other way.”
The Ontario commercial used real excerpts of Reagan’s speech, but the statements were presented in a different order than how they were originally delivered.
The US and Canada, which share the world’s longest land border, traded $761.8bn worth of goods last year, according to the Office of the US Trade Representative.
Nvidia Corp. Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang still hopes to sell chips from the company’s Blackwell lineup to customers in China, though he has no current plans to do so, he told reporters Friday.
Asked whether Nvidia intends to sell AI accelerators from that family of products in the Asian country, the tech chief said, “I don’t know. I hope so someday.”
Huang’s comments came a day after US President Donald Trump said he didn’t discuss the prospect of Blackwell chip sales in a meeting with Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, despite saying earlier that he would do so. US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, asked whether Blackwell chip sales to China would be discussed more going forward, said “I don’t think that’s on the table right now.”
Huang, speaking Friday in South Korea, expressed optimism that might change. “No decisions have been made, and we’ll see how it turns out,” said Huang, 62, of Nvidia’s Blackwell export plans. “I hope it turns out well.” The Nvidia chief said earlier this week that the company hasn’t applied for Washington’s permission to sell Blackwell chips to China, permits that are required under export controls first imposed in 2022.
The Blackwell family of chips is Nvidia’s latest generation of artificial intelligence semiconductors and the industrial standard for developing and running large language models like OpenAI’s ChatGPT. The processors have capabilities that far surpass those of semiconductors that Washington effectively banned from export to China several years ago, as well as anything that’s currently available from Chinese competitors like Huawei Technologies Co.
Selling those products to China, as Huang hopes to do, would require a dramatic departure from the Trump administration’s stated approach to the tech competition between the world’s two largest economies. Still, the president had put it on the table. Trump said months ago that he’d be open to allowing China shipments of an unspecified, downgraded Blackwell chip. Ahead of his meeting with Xi, Trump said he’d discuss the “super duper” Blackwell accelerators with the Chinese leader — remarks that helped make Nvidia the first $5 trillion business by market value.
But while Trump and Xi did discuss Nvidia’s access to China in general, Trump said after the meeting, those talks did not touch on Blackwell chip approvals: “We’re not talking about the Blackwell,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One. “That just came out yesterday.”
Back in Washington, China hawks breathed a sigh of relief. Many US officials had worried that Trump, in an effort to reach a broader trade deal with Beijing, might give away what they consider to be the country’s strongest technological asset — and one with significant national security implications. Concern about Blackwell chip sales to the Asian country is one of the primary motivations behind a bipartisan congressional measure that could have major implications for Huang’s hopes for the China market.
The legislation, an earlier version of which has already passed the Senate, would require chipmakers like Nvidia to prioritize American customers before selling chips to buyers in arms-embargoed countries, including China. Hours after Trump and Xi concluded their meeting, lawmakers introduced the highly-anticipated bill to the US House of Representatives.
One congressional staffer, who requested not to be identified, described a sense of uncertainty akin to a fog of war when asked how Trump’s stance on Blackwell chips was playing on Capitol Hill.
Read More: AI Chip Export Controls Backed by House After Trump-Xi Talks
Nvidia has criticized trade restrictions as hamstringing US competitiveness and lobbied aggressively against chip export controls more broadly. “I think it’s really good for America and it’s really good for China that Nvidia could participate in the Chinese market,” Huang said Friday. Nvidia’s argument is that restricting Chinese AI developers from using American chips will only push them toward domestic alternatives.
To be sure, participating in China would also be really good for Nvidia: the world’s most valuable company wrote down billions of dollars in revenue earlier this year when Trump’s team restricted sales of a less-advanced processor called the H20. Washington later reversed course and greenlit H20 chip shipments, but Beijing has discouraged Chinese companies from using those accelerators.
Trump said Thursday that Nvidia and the Chinese government will have to keep talking about the chipmaker’s access to the Asian nation’s market, which is the world’s biggest for semiconductors. Huang, though, said the topic didn’t come up during his meeting Friday with Ren Hongbin, Chairman of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade.
“We were just talking mostly about enjoying each other’s company,” Huang said.
Brought to you by Spectrum Aquatics, a SwimSwam partner, our Weekly Wonders of Age Group Swimming series celebrates swimmers of every age and experience level with age group profiles of some recent results.
Derek Hernandez-Ojeda, 15, Nitro Swimming (ST): Hernandez-Ojeda set five best times two weeks ago at the Longhorn Aquatics 11 & Over Fall Kickoff, highlighted by his performance in the 200 back. The Nitro Swimming product dropped more than five seconds to clock 1:47.16, ranking him 1st this season in the boys’ 15-16 age group despite still being 15. He also set bests in the 200 fly (1:50.28) and 400 IM (3:58.60) to rank 4th this season in the 15-16 age group, and added PBs in the 500 free (4:44.49) and 100 fly (51.19).
Vera Chen, 11, Long Island Aquatic Club (MR): Chen set PBs in every event she raced at LIAC’s Chappy Invitational last weekend in East Meadow, including a nation-leading time in the 100 free. Chen knocked more than five seconds off her best time, dropping from 1:01.01 to 55.77, to rank 1st this season among 11-year-old girls and 16th in the 11-12 age group. She also set a best of 2:02.62 in the 200 free to rank 5th this season among 11-year-old girls, and 2:19.81 in the 200 IM to rank 13th. She added bests in the 100 back (1:05.81), 100 breast (1:16.19) and 100 fly (1:05.41).
Harrison Banks, 14, Baylor Swim Club (SE): Banks set six personal bests at the Martha Bass Invitational two weeks ago in Chattanooga, including breaking a monumental barrier in the 1650 free. Banks, 14, clocked 15:59.59 to crack the 16:00 barrier and slash more than 40 seconds off his previous best time of 16:39.72, set in February. The swim also ranks him 3rd this season in the boys’ 13-14 age group, while he moved to 10th in the 400 IM this season with his swim of 4:14.41, and 27th in the 200 IM after clocking 2:00.33. He added bests in the 50 free (22.91), 200 breast (2:17.70) and 100 fly (55.24).
Gabby Green, 14, Parkway-Rockwood Gateway Swim Club (OZ): Green put up five best times at the Jim Devine Memorial Invite in Columbia, Mo., moving into the top four in the girls’ 13-14 age group this season in four of them. Green set a PB of 2:02.83 in the 200 IM to rank 2nd this season in the 13-14 age group, while her swims in the 500 free (4:58.18), 100 fly (56.41) and 200 fly (2:04.66) all rank 4th this season. She also cracked 25 seconds for the first time in the 50 free, leading off the Gateway Swim Club 200 free relay in 24.80.
Connor Ventura, 12, Maui Swim Club (HI): Ventura established five lifetime bests at the 25th Annual Bill Smith Invitational in Waipahu, cracking the top 10 in the boys’ 11-12 age group this season in four of them. The Maui Swim Club product now ranks 3rd this season in the 200 IM (2:04.76), 4th in the 50 free (23.43), 7th in the 50 fly (25.69) and 8th in the 50 breast (30.16), while he also set s PB in the 100 breast (1:06.78) to rank 13th this season. His swim in the 200 IM also marked a new Hawaii Swimming LSC record for 11-12 boys.
Since 1972, Spectrum Aquatics has been setting the standard for excellence in competition. Backed by a team of driven professionals, we proudly design and manufacture high-quality, custom products in our Missoula, Montana facility. With unmatched expertise and an unrelenting commitment to innovation, we don’t just meet expectations—we exceed them, delivering superior solutions tailored to your specific needs and pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in competitive swimming.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said the defence of Pokrovsk is a “priority”, as elite special force were deployed to the embattled town on the eastern front line.
Ukrainian army sources told the BBC that special forces from military intelligence and assault groups were being used as regular infantry to protect supply lines to troops holding the town in the Donbas region.
There have been growing reports of Russian advances around the strategic town to the west of Donetsk. Ukraine has denied claims their forces were surrounded.
Moscow wants Kyiv to cede the entire Donbas region as part of a peace deal, including the parts it currently does not control.
Russia currently controls around a fifth of Ukrainian territory, including the Crimean peninsula it annexed in 2014.
The deployment of special forces suggests officials in Kyiv are determined to try to hold onto the town, which Russia has been trying to seize for more than a year.
Local media reports that the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence, Kyrylo Budanov, was in the region to personally oversee the operation.
Pokrovsk is a key transport and supply hub whose capture could unlock Russian efforts to seize the rest of the region.
But Kyiv also believes its capture would help Russia in its efforts to persuade the US that its military campaign was succeeding – and, therefore, that the West should acquiesce to its demands.
Zelensky has indicated he was open to Trump’s proposal for a ceasefire that would freeze the war along the current front lines. Russia has publicly insisted Ukrainian troops leave the remainder of the Donbas.
In his nightly address, the Ukrainian president said: “Pokrovsk is our priority. We continue to destroy the occupier, and that is what matters most… They must be halted where they have reached – and destroyed there.”
Reuters
Russia claimed to have killed Ukrainian special forces who landed near the town by helicopter
Images shared with news agencies appear show a Ukrainian Black Hawk helicopter deploying about 10 troops near Pokrovsk, although the location and date could not be verified.
Russia’s defence ministry has claimed it thwarted the deployment of Ukrainian military intelligence special forces north-west of the town, saying all 11 troops who landed by helicopter had been killed.
DeepState, a Ukrainian open-source monitoring group, estimates about half of Pokrovsk is a so-called “grey zone” where neither side is in full control.
A military source in Donetsk told the BBC that Ukrainian forces were not surrounded but their supply lines were under fire from Russian troops.
“The situation in the city has changed so much that [Ukraine’s commander-in-chief, General] Syrsky is now sending elite units into the city to stabilise it,” he said.
These included special forces and assault units in Ukraine’s Defence Intelligence agency (GUR), he said.
“Fighting is now taking place for the railway station and the industrial zone in the west. The battles for the industrial zone have almost reduced logistics from roughly vehicle-based to foot-based.
“The Ukrainian Armed Forces are not in a physical encirclement, but in an operational one – this means that all logistics are under fire control.”
The US-based Institute for the Study of War said Ukrainian forces had “marginally advanced” during recent counter-attacks north of Pokrovsk, but said the town was “mainly a contested ‘grey zone'”.
It’s well known that deadly snakes strike very swiftly, and it is easy to infer that if you’re unlucky enough to be bitten, the moment of contact will be as simple as it is sudden: a lightning-quick penetration that precipitates an emergency. It may be unsettling therefore to view the results of very recent research that has captured, on ultra-slow motion video, the attack styles of 36 very venomous serpents.
The study was led by researchers from the School of Biological Sciences at Monash University, in snaky Australia, but it did not restrict itself to Antipodean reptiles. Instead, the Australians collaborated with researchers at Venomworld, a venom collection center on the eastern outskirts of Paris. Venomworld houses dozens of species across the big three families of poisonous snakes: vipers, elapids and colubrids.
Vipers include rattlesnakes such as the western diamondback, which is believed to inflict more bites on humans than any other snake in the United States. Among the elapids are cobras, and in Australia death adders and tiger snakes. Members of both families deliver venom from fangs rooted at the front of their jaws. Unlike those of an elapid, the large fangs of a viper are hinged.
Colubrids, by contrast, tend to be rear-fanged, with a mangrove snake (also called the gold-ringed cat snake), widespread in south-east Asia, among two examples of this class whose biting style was examined.
The study was innovative for the very high frame rate – more than 1,000 fps – achievable by the cameras that recorded the animals’ behavior, and for shooting from two cameras simultaneously, set in different positions, from which software could generate 3D representations. It was also by far the biggest study of this type to compare snakes across different families.
The snakes were induced to strike at cylinders of medical gel, which had been painted with two dots (to resemble eyes), warmed to mammal body temperature, and placed at one end of a snake hook. Strikes were provoked by advancing and suddenly withdrawing the gel, and sometimes by tapping the snake on its tail. Multiple strikes from each species of snake were recorded.
Arguably the most disturbing feature of the results is the evidence that venomous snake bites tend not to be simple. Rather, each snake family displayed characteristic ways of maximizing the effects of a contact.
Vipers used their folding fangs to contrive serial penetrations from a single strike. About half of the 31 viperid species often augmented a first penetration, in which case “one or both of the fangs were removed from the gel and repenetrated at a more favorable angle,” the study reported.
Deinagkistrodon acutus, commonly known as the Chinese moccasin, a viper.
“When the snake only just reached its prey and needed a better grip, the fang was removed and that side of the jaw was moved forward, ‘walking’ the fang further onto the prey so that it could be repenetrated in a better position,” the study said.
The fixed fangs of elapids denied them this option. Instead, they resorted to multiple injections of venom at the initial site. “After the first bite, they slightly released and bit again a few times,” the researchers said. “This repeated biting action is likely a result of the muscles tensing repeatedly to squeeze the venom gland and inject more venom.”
Aspidelaps lubricus, commonly known as the Cape coral cobra, an elapid.
Poisonous colubrids had developed a third technique that created the biggest wounds. “After prey contact, they closed their mouths and started to alternatingly drag their maxilla [jaws] across the prey surface, resulting in two crescent-shaped cuts. This large wound likely ensures good venom transfer into the prey,” the researchers said.
The study was also able to compare the elapsed time of snake strikes, from initiation to contact, across species, finding that vipers were the most rapid, on average, but that some elapids matched the speediest of them.
Prior studies had established that humans and other mammals have startle reflexes that initiate body movement in the range 60–395 milliseconds after a stimulus. In this study, 84% of the vipers recorded reached their prey within 90 ms of initiating a strike, and 55% did so within a mere 60 ms.
Among elapids, elapsed time for the rough-scaled death adder, a denizen of northern Australian deserts, was only 30 ms, while the African forest cobra reached its target in 73 ms, on average.
Several deadly species of snake are widespread in Australia, even in the temperate south where I’ve grown up. You might meet one when hiking in the countryside, on a rural property or even in a suburban backyard, especially in late spring when many emerge from winter hideouts and go hunting.
The official policy drummed into residents is to avoid alarming or attempting to kill snakes, since their interactions with humans are wholly defensive. The study results reinforce that advice: if a venomous snake is within striking range you are probably powerless to deflect an attack, because it will reach you before you can move.
Nevertheless, surprise encounters occur and about 3,000 Australians each year are bitten. Typically, only two of those bites will be fatal. While the availability of anti-venom treatment contributes to the survival rate, the complexity observed in the study helps explain why some snakebites are much more deadly than others.
A year ago, three ex-BMG senior execs – Dominique Casimir, Maximilian Kolb and Justus Haerder – launched a new Berlin-based entertainment company called umn (pronounced ˈhjuːmən).
Today (October 30), the indie music company has confirmed details of its first acquisition, and they say it’s a big one.
The company has partnered with Kobalt to acquire the authors’ share and the publishing rights to the catalog of Peter Plate and UlfLeo Sommer, the multi-award-winning German songwriters behind what umn Entertainment calls “some of the country’s most celebrated pop repertoire of the last 35 years”.
While financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed, the companies claim that the deal is “Germany’s largest music rights acquisition yet.”
umn co-founder Justus HaerderexitedBMG at the end of 2021, after 12 years with the company, most recently leading M&A.
The exec, who first joined BMG when it was reborn as an indie in 2008, was named CCO of the company in May 2022. Casimirexited BMG in March 2023.
Maximilian Kolb was most recently EVP of Repertoire & Marketing Continental Europe at BMG. He exited the role in July last year after over a decade with the company. Kolb joined BMG in 2012 as an A&R manager and was ultimately appointed Managing Director for the GSA region in 2019.
Their new deal with Peter Plate and UlfLeo Sommer in partnership with Kobalt covers the duo’s entire body of work, including their career as Rosenstolz, one of Germany’s “most influential and best-selling pop acts”, as well as hit songs written for other leading artists such as Sarah Connor, Roland Kaiser, Max Raabe, Zweiraumwohnung and many more.
The deal also encompasses their billion-plus streaming work on the soundtracks to Germany’s kids film franchise Bibi & Tina, and the songs in the string of hit musicals the pair have produced on the stage of Berlin’s legendary Theater des Westens.
The combined streaming total of the duo’s work is approaching 3 billion streams.
“We couldn’t have thought of a better beginning for the journey of partnerships and acquisitions ahead.”
Dominique Casimir, Maximilian Kolb and Justus Haerder
umn co-founders Dominique Casimir, Maximilian Kolb and Justus Haerder said: “Peter and Ulf have shaped the sound and identity of German pop culture for decades and remain a defining force in contemporary music.
“They have created one of the most influential and successful song catalogs in German pop music. Their works are part of our cultural heritage. Our long-standing collaboration is personal – built on friendship, trust and respect – and it is an honor for us to now preserve and develop this body of work together with Kobalt.
“As umn, we see our role not only in enabling such landmark transactions but in shaping the creative future of these works – creating new contexts, making them accessible to today’s and future generations, and ensuring their continued relevance and impact. We couldn’t have thought of a better beginning for the journey of partnerships and acquisitions ahead.”
“We are proud to be partnering with umn to become the custodians of Peter and Ulf’s extraordinary catalog – a body of work that has left a profound mark on German pop music and beyond.”
Kobalt CEO Laurent Hubert said: “We are proud to be partnering with umn to become the custodians of Peter and Ulf’s extraordinary catalog – a body of work that has left a profound mark on German pop music and beyond.
“At Kobalt, our mission is to combine global reach with transparent, writer-friendly administration, ensuring that timeless songs remain alive across generations and territories.
“Partnering with umn Entertainment has been key to bringing this acquisition to life, and together we will safeguard and amplify the cultural and commercial legacy of these songs for the future.”
“The sale of our catalog gives us the freedom to focus on our theatre work and to tell new stories on stage independently and with full creative energy.”
Peter Plate and Ulf Leo Sommer
Peter Plate and Ulf Leo Sommer added: “We see this not as an ending, but as a new beginning. The sale of our catalog gives us the freedom to focus on our theatre work and to tell new stories on stage independently and with full creative energy.
“We’re grateful to umn and Kobalt for their trust and for keeping our songs in such good hands. We would also like to take this opportunity to thank our lawyer Bettina Strehl, who provided us with legal support during this process.”
Plate and Sommer’s catalog spans chart-topping singles, platinum-selling albums, and what umn and Kobalt call “enduring hits that have shaped the sound of German pop since the early 1990s”.
The companies noted that as Rosenstolz, Plate and Sommer released multiple No.1 albums, selling over 4 million records in Germany alone, building a “cross-generational fanbase with their blend of pop, chanson, and socially- conscious songwriting”.
Beyond their own artist career, they have penned hits for other artists, including Sarah Connor’s million-selling 2015 album Muttersprache.
Elsewhere, as artistic directors of Berlin’s historic Theater des Westens, Plate and Sommer have created and produced multiple hit musicals, including Ku’damm 56, Ku’damm 59, Romeo & Julia – Liebe ist alles, and Die Amme, which have attracting “millions of visitors”.
According to umn and Kobalt, the proceeds from the catalog deal will support the development of new productions, including their upcoming original musical Wir sind am Leben, set in 1990s Berlin.
Dominique Casimir, Maximilian Kolb and Justus Haerder launched their new company in September 2024, with singer-songwriter Max Giesinger named as the debut signing.Music Business Worldwide
