Update in the morning: Just dive in

In the foreign journal this evening we not only provide background – but also dive down towards the seabed. And show fascinatingly beautiful things. “Stunning, absolutely incredible! “I… I could cry,” says Mia Hayer, visibly impressed, describing her encounter with a whale in the South Pacific. Mia is a volunteer with one of the most famous whale researchers in the world, Nan Hauser. Hardly anyone gets as close to these giants of the ocean as they do.

Around 30 years ago, she set out on a mission on Rarotonga, the main island of the Cook Islands: to protect the fabulous creatures – with education and very dry scientific work. Together with volunteers like Mia from Boston, she collects GPS data from whales, compares photos of fins or analyzes genetic codes using scraps of whale skin. The aim is to map migration routes as accurately as possible: When does which whale stay where?

This will ensure that fishermen from whaling countries are not in the area when the whales are migrating there. With success: the humpback whale population in the South Pacific was quickly wiped out, but in recent years it has grown again.

And in the summer of 2024, the Pacific island nations of Tonga, New Zealand, French Polynesia and the Cook Islands even signed a treaty that gives whales and dolphins personal rights. If you want to find out more about the “Whale Lady” – as Nan Hauser is reverently called by the locals – and how a whale saved the researcher from a dangerous tiger shark, then you are welcome to dive with our correspondent Johannes Hano World of Humpback Whales in the South Pacific.

We wish you a fascinating day with lovely surprises

Antje Pieper, foreign journal presenter and deputy head of the ZDF political department

Prime Minister election in the Saxon state parliament: Incumbent Michael Kretschmer (CDU) is hoping for re-election. However, his coalition of CDU and SPD does not have a majority in the state parliament. In the first round of voting, an absolute majority of votes is required; after that, the majority of votes cast is sufficient. Matthias Berger from the Free Voters will stand for election, and AfD state leader Jörg Urban also kept the option open.

Fed decision expected: The US Federal Reserve Bank decides on the further course of monetary policy, including the level of the key interest rate.

Source: AFP

Thirty years ago, researchers discovered a cave with paintings near the French town of Vallon-Pont-d'Arc. The age of the drawings, which primarily depict animals but also people, is estimated to be 17,000 to 20,000 years old.

Source: ZDF

25 percent of Germans have an immigration history. Today is International Migrants Day. The United Nations declared it 24 years ago to draw attention to the situation of migrants and their families.

On Wednesday the rain will move into central Germany in the morning. In the afternoon it will rain in the east and lighten up again in the west. Especially on the coasts there are squalls with maximum temperatures of 8 to 13 degrees.

Source: ZDF

Compiled by Anna Grösch and Katharina Schuster.