The Canadian Armed Forces has deployed “gender advisors” to such conflict zones as Ukraine and Haiti, a recent internal report has revealed.

The deployments were part of the Department of National Defence’s Military Cooperation Program, which primarily provides advice and assistance to non-NATO countries. According to the 2024 report, the initiative has helped train nearly 2,000 military personnel from 55 countries. It has focused on the “integration of women and gender perspectives in the armed forces.”

“Gender Advisors and Gender Focal Points,” both full- and part-time roles, are deployed in all CAF international operations to help “Commanders in the application of GBA+ and gender perspectives”institutionally and operationally.

Heralded as a hero in Western media, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has allowed foreign private interests to steal his country’s best land

In early November, Barbara Bonte, a Belgian member of the European Union (EU) parliament, raised concern about the sell-off of Ukrainian land on a massive scale to U.S. private equity firms along with some Saudi agro-industrial and investment businesses.

Why no more romantic symphonies are written

For grand orchestra and stretched gut kitten

Where are the composers of platonic love

Of music that made me dance with a dove

In flight with woodwinds, violins and a piano

Of glorious melodies full of tempting tempo

Rhythms of the magic heart without Wicked

Nor any of the clichéd musicals addicted 

Like awful Cats, hidden Phantom down the Opera 

Sunset Boulevards, Evitas and a dumb Cinderella

Technicolour dream-coats gone bonkers

Noise sausage for elevated knuckle-draggers

Loud beat from dead Neanderthal skull-drums

Degraded Punk, Pop and Beatles bums

Nor serious notations with necessary discord

That no respected musician really should afford

Interminable repeats and absent counterpoints

Sad dudes who decompose with darkening tones

The battle is on to see which side of politics can boast of siphoning the most profits to the weapons industry – at the expense of health, education, climate and environmental action, and everything else we need – and of bowing more obsequiously before the US and its war machine.

The leaders of President-elect Trump’s new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, have been meeting with Republican lawmakers recently. None of those involved shared details from their meetings, which was by design to allow for brainstorming. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) did say “Government is too big. It does too many things, and it does almost nothing well,” adding Musk and Ramaswamy would help usher in change. But how will Elon and Vivek actually seek change? What are their tools to bring to bear?

Ukraine would benefit from being targeted by a Russian nuclear strike, which is why Moscow will never undertake such a step, a notorious far-right activist and head of a hate group has claimed.

Prominent Ukrainian neo-Nazi Evgeny Karas has said he would welcome a nuclear escalation in the Ukraine conflict, in an interview on Tuesday with Ukrainian broadcaster Radio Bayraktar. Karas is leader of the S14 far-right group, whose members have a record of harassing minorities and have been accused of high-profile political murder.

”Nuclear war is good,” he told the station, named after a Turkish-made attack drone. “When it happens, we’ll have no more reasons to whine. Nothing worse could happen after a nuclear strike.”

The UK government has confirmed that Israel’s top soldier, Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi, was given special diplomatic immunity to visit Britain last month.

Halevi is the Chief of the General Staff of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), and has been directing the Israeli military’s operations throughout the Gaza genocide.

He arrived in Britain in late November to discuss “the ongoing conflicts in Lebanon and Gaza” with senior UK officials from the Ministry of Defence and Foreign Office. A further meeting was held with Britain’s attorney general, Richard Hermer.

The trip came just three days after the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant for “crimes against humanity and war crimes”.

RT winning ‘cognitive war’ – BBC boss
Tim Davie has told lawmakers that the British state broadcaster needs more money to compete with Russia and China

RT and Chinese media outlets are winning public trust and waging a “cognitive war” on Western audiences, the director of British state broadcaster the BBC has told parliament, at a hearing during which he asked for more taxpayer money.

Tim Davie appeared before lawmakers on Tuesday to argue for continued funding of the BBC World Service, which broadcasts in around 40 languages to an audience it claims is up to 320 million people per week.

Maintaining this service is vital to Britain’s strategic interests, he claimed, arguing that “we are facing a tsunami of bad actors, disinformation, [and] fakery. The threats are overwhelming.”

States don’t tend to kill each other’s generals, not least because it invites reciprocal action. The bombing in Moscow this week, killing General Igor Kirillov, was a successful attack by Ukraine and its allies. The ongoing use of long-range missiles by the West to hit targets inside Russia is, I suggest, surprisingly similar. both are designed to provoke a reaction rather than to achieve anything militarily. They can’t alter battlefield realities. It says a lot about where we have got to in the Ukraine war.

Republican Rep. Barry Loudermilk, chairman of the House Administration's subcommittee on Oversight, in a new report suggests former GOP Rep. Liz Cheney should be investigated for alleged criminal witness tampering, claiming she played an "integral role" shaping key witness testimony before the Jan. 6 committee investigating the attack on the U.S. Capitol by a pro-Trump mob.

French President Emmanuel Macron has “angered everyone” and is likely to leave his post early, right-wing leader Marine Le Pen has predicted, stating she has been already preparing for early elections “out of precaution.”

Speaking with Le Parisien newspaper in an interview published on Wednesday, the long-time leader of the right-wing populist National Rally (RN) party, who currently heads its parliamentary group, said Macron had lost all authority both at home and abroad. 

“He has angered everyone. He has no more influence in the European Union,” Le Pen said.

The head of X and Donald Trump’s new best friend, Elon Musk, has claimed that the ABC Chair, Kim Williams, is “the head of Australian government-funded media, their Pravda.” 

Pravda was the official voice of Soviet communism and the Central Committee of the Communist Party between 1918 and 1991. While it began life as an underground workers’ newspaper, after the Russian revolution in 1917 it became the official publication of the Soviet era, and all party members were required to read it.

Cassandra Parkinson
President
ABC Friends

Pravda was a government mouthpiece, seen by both Soviet citizens and foreigners as a reliable reflection of the Soviet government's positions on various issues.

This is the H.R. Further Continuing Appropriations Act, 2025. Let me simplify why Elon Musk and people are pounding the table to not get this bill passed. There are a lot of hidden agendas here!

1/ Funding for alleged censorship operations: the bill supports government agencies involved in what they consider to be illegal censorship.

2/ Excessive spending: the bill supports many unnecessary expenditures to gain political support.

3/ Lack of transparency: the bill's complexity and length are seen as mechanism to hide details from the public and legislative review.

4/ Includes policy bills: the bill bundles other policy changes within the funding bill, making it a way to pass controversial policies, hiding it under the radar.

Ukrainian forces have suffered almost 1 million casualties since February 2022 and have lost about 20,000 tanks and armored vehicles, Valery Gerasimov, the head of the Russian General Staff, told foreign diplomats on Wednesday.

Russia’s top general hosted foreign military attaches to brief them on the activities of the country's military in 2024 and how the Moscow views the global security situation. Part of his 30-minute report was dedicated to the Ukraine conflict.

”The US and its allies have significantly increased the volume of military assistance to Ukraine” in a continued attempt to inflict a “strategic defeat” on Russia, Gerasimov said. Despite this, Russian troops are currently on the offensive, having pushed Ukrainian forces out of more than 190 settlements this year, he added.