Ukraine's survival in danger, Pentagon chief warns | REUTERS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MJsc9hc9no

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin warned that Ukraine's survival was in danger and sought to convince allies that the United States was committed to Kyiv, even as Washington has essentially run out of money to continue arming Ukrainian forces.

TikTok being banned in the USA is not the issue. The fact is, this is a ban on any current or future successful technology owned by a potential adversary and, let’s not make any mistake about it, China, where the ownership of TikTok’s parent company sits, is considered to be the major adversary, for now and for no other reason than the fear that they may be.

Mud in the water is being stirred up because, the “dreaded ccp” could get its hands on the data collected by TikTok and who knows what they could do with that, probably the same as they do with the data they Can collect from our use of digitally connected fridges, cars, cranes, mobile phones, laptops, computers and anything else that’s connected, even though there’s no evidence anywhere that they might.

Throughout the considerable history of internal conflicts in Yemen, the influential role of tribes has been critical in shaping the outcomes of external wars and internal power struggles. 

These ancient tribal structures, deeply embedded in Yemen's social fabric and military dynamics, have played kingmaker roles in times of conflict – even during periods when the state, with its superior military and security apparatuses, was involved, as seen in the Six Saada Wars. 

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, has ribbed US aerospace giant Boeing by sharing a story which jokes that passengers could bring sharp hand tools like screwdrivers aboard their flights to assist with maintenance.

The billionaire posted a screenshot from The Shovel, an Australian news satire site similar to The Onion, which declared that “Screwdrivers, drills now permitted on Boeing flights to allow passengers to help with maintenance.”The tongue-in-cheek story follows recent reports of mid-air malfunctions on Boeing airplanes. 

The EU must revise its military strategy and drastically ramp up defense production to help Ukraine in the conflict with Russia, European Council President Charles Michel said on Monday. The call comes amid repeated warnings from Kiev over ammunition shortages.

Writing in an op-ed published by the La Libre Belgique newspaper and the Euractiv website, Michel claimed that Moscow “is a serious military threat to our European continent and global security.” 

“If we do not get the EU’s response right and do not give Ukraine enough support to stop Russia, we are next,” he added. 

“Empires don’t just fall like toppled trees. Instead, they weaken slowly as a succession of crises drain their strength and confidence until they suddenly begin to disintegrate” – historian Alfred W. McCoy.

Israel’s war on Gaza is a war on children, a war on their childhood and a war on their future. Children are dying at an alarming rate from malnutrition and dehydration and doctors are no longer seeing normal-sized babies.

On the first Friday in Ramadan this year 36 members of the Tabatbi family were killed by an Israeli air strike that bombed a 4-story building in the al Nusairat refugee camp, in central Gaza. Most of the killed were women and children. Just another terrible statistic of murder by Israel with America bombs, an entire family slaughtered and family history, memories and life extinguished, just like that.

IN 2016, AS THE AMERICAN MEDIA WAS PREPARING TO CELEBRATE "THE FIRST WOMAN PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES", I THINK CNN INVITED JOURNALISTS AROUND THE WORLD, INCLUDING AUSTRALIA, TO WITNESS THE OCCASION AT "ELECTION PARTIES", WITH STREAMERS AND LOLLIES...

THE ELECTION DID NOT GO AS PLANNED, AND TRUMP WAS ELECTED....

THE AMERICAN MEDIA AND THEIR AFFILIATED PEN-PUSHERS AROUND THE WORLD ARE PISSING IN THEIR PANTS BECAUSE "PUTIN IS BACK" AS HE NEVER LEFT, EXCEPT FOR A FEW YEARS WHEN MEDVEDEV WAS "PRESIDENT", WHILE PUTIN WAS PULLING THE STRINGS, AS PRIME MINISTER.

AS UKRAINE IS BEING "CUT IN HALF" (OR THIRDS), AS IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN IN 1991, DUE TO ETHNIC COMPOSITION, AS THE RUSSIAN ECONOMY IS GOING OKAY, AS EUROPE IS TANKING IN ITS OWN BRAND OF FASCISM, THE WESTERN MEDIA IS GOING CRAZY AT THE PROSPECT OF THE DONALD COMING BACK AS CEO OF THE EMPIRE....

Putin may be the biggest dupe of his fake election landslide

With official results showing he won nine out of 10 votes, has the Russian autocrat overplayed his hand?

BY EVA HARTOG

“The most important outcome of any Russian election is legitimacy,” Vladimir Putin told Russia’s top election officials when they gathered at his residence outside Moscow in November. “That is the foundation of political stability.”

On Sunday, after three days of voting, those same officials declared a landslide victory for the president.

Why Dutton is going nuclear
The opposition leader thinks he can sell nuclear power to the public. The energy industry remains unconvinced by the business case.

BY Jennifer Hewett

Peter Dutton believes he has found a politically saleable energy formula. It includes the now familiar condemnation of Labor’s “reckless” policy and warnings of catastrophic consequences in making power “exorbitantly expensive and the grid unreliable”. The shiny new element is the Coalition’s commitment to establishing nuclear power.

https://www.afr.com/business-summit/why-dutton-is-going-nuclear-20240312-p5fbs1

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that by criticizing democratic processes in other states, all while using their own administrative resources to suppress one of American presidential candidates, Washington has become a laughing stock of the rest of the world.

Speaking to the journalists at his campaign headquarters in Moscow on early Monday morning, after the preliminary results indicated his victory with over 87% of the vote in the country’s presidential elections, the Russian leader said that the "whole world is laughing at what is happening” in the US.

“We are behaving with more restraint than their opponents in other countries, but this is just a catastrophe, not a democracy – that’s what it is,” Putin said.

French President Emmanuel Macron has said he will propose a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine during the Summer Olympic Games, set to take place in Paris between July 26 and August 11.

In an interview with Ukrainian media on Saturday, Macron was asked whether France, as the host of the games this year, will follow tradition and seek “a ceasefire during the Olympics.” The journalist was apparently referring to the Olympic Truce, a period of conflict cessation which historically began seven days before the games and ended seven days after so that the athletes could safely travel to and from the Olympics. 

“It will be requested,” the French leader responded.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has said that interest accrued from Russian assets frozen in the EU will be used to purchase weapons for Ukraine.

Soon after Russia launched its military operation against Ukraine in February 2022, Western countries froze approximately $300 billion of funds belonging to the Russian Central Bank. Of that sum, the Brussels-based clearinghouse Euroclear holds around €191 billion ($205 billion), which has accrued nearly €4.4 billion in interest over the past year.

Speaking at a joint press conference with French President Emmanuel Macron and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk in Berlin on Friday, Chancellor Scholz said: “We will use windfall profits from Russian assets frozen in Europe to financially support the purchase of weapons for Ukraine.”

Unpredictability has become a feature of life in Russia. 

But that does not apply to elections. 

When Russian state TV flashed initial results showing that Vladimir Putin had won re-election with nearly 88% of the vote, this official landslide came as no surprise. 

James Eastwood and his union colleagues got to their office one Tuesday afternoon to find that someone had broken in. The intruder hadn’t taken personal valuables or expensive equipment: all they had done was pull down the pro-Palestine posters in the window.

The break-in didn’t come as a huge shock to Eastwood, co-chair of the University and College Union (UCU) branch at Queen Mary University in east London. 

By Anita Mureithi
Open Democracy