Space command’s rare attempt at humour misfires after critics point out the ‘fascist’ connotations of hosting stormtroopers
The German military’s decision to invite Darth Vader to the launch of its new space defence programme backfired after critics pointed out awkward parallels to the Nazi past.
At the opening ceremony for the new headquarters of Germany’s space command, Major General Michael Traut gave his speech flanked by stormtroopers and imperial officers from Star Wars.
Desperate tactics used by both sides to secure a crucial victory in the city are taking a mental toll on soldiers
At Ukraine’s military academies, they still teach the doctrines of Georgy Zhukov, the celebrated Soviet general, whose victory at Stalingrad reversed the fortunes of the Second World War.
But they are taught about him as an example of what not to do. Given that the focus of the present war in Europe, the Battle of Bakhmut, is being described as Ukraine’s Stalingrad, that is a gamble of which the academies’ recruits are only too aware.
“We are taught many ways of how not to fight,” said Second Lieutenant Roman, an open-faced 23-year-old, freshly commissioned into the Ukrainian army’s 80th brigade. “We aren’t taught so many ways of how we are supposed to do it.”
Former governor-general David Johnston will be given broad powers to investigate foreign interference in Canada and paid around $1,500 a day over the course of his probe, which follows Globe and Mail reporting on Chinese government meddling in this country’s elections.
Mr. Johnston will be empowered to “review any classified or unclassified records and documents, including, where necessary in their estimation, records protected by cabinet confidence,” the government said in a statement on Thursday detailing his role as special rapporteur.
Johnston is a member in good standing of Canada’s China Class, he’s already a sell-out like Justin.
The last anyone heard from Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich before his arrest was last Wednesday. He’d just arrived at a restaurant in Yekaterinburg, Russia’s fourth-largest city, an 1,800-kilometre drive from Moscow, east of the Ural Mountains. A colleague had texted him, wishing him luck. “I’ll let you know how it goes,” Gershkovich responded.
The fog of war …
A curious demographic trend in Canada is that spiritual or religious belief has persisted despite the famously steep decline in church attendance and other formal religious observances.
A new poll reveals a related dynamic from another perspective, what the researcher Jack Jedwab calls a “decoupling” of belief in God from the sense of attachment to one’s religion. You can lose one, but keep the other, and plenty of Canadians are doing it.
A decline in faith in religious institutions is certainly part of this as is the human tendency to cafeteria style belief, we pick and choose what suits us as circumstances warrant distancing us from our respective places of worship.
This week school choice is being debated in Texas & some Republicans are opposing it
This trans nonbinary Texas middle school teacher explains how she incorporates discussions about queerness & transness in the classroom
Parents should have the power over their kids’ education! pic.twitter.com/buQvNCFuuk
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) April 5, 2023
The UK Conservative Party are once again talking tough about the scourge of ‘grooming gangs,’ as Pakistani child rapists are euphemistically referred to in Britain. This should not surprise anyone. With the next general election likely only a year away, Home Secretary Suella Braverman is promising to make good Rishi Sunak’s 2022 pledge to stamp out this particular evil.
NOW: Protest at BlackRock head office in Paris.
French ain't standing around anymore.. pic.twitter.com/ko6JNesk59— 🍁Antonio Tweets 📣 (@AntonioTweets2) April 6, 2023
NOW – Protest at BlackRock head office in Paris.
The Globalists are starting to run into some bother as the world awakens from its slumber #paris #blackrock #biden #us #France #Dollar #protests pic.twitter.com/jBv93gtvbh
— jamiemcintyre (@jamiemcintyre21) April 6, 2023
Classified documents detailing secret American and NATO plans have appeared on Twitter and Telegram.
WASHINGTON — Classified war documents detailing secret American and NATO plans for building up the Ukrainian military ahead of a planned offensive against Russia were posted this week on social media channels, senior Biden administration officials said.
The Pentagon is investigating who may have been behind the leak of the documents, which appeared on Twitter and on Telegram, a platform with more than half a billion users that is widely available in Russia.
Military analysts said the documents appear to have been modified in certain parts from their original format, overstating American estimates of Ukrainian war dead and understating estimates of Russian troops killed.
Kostroma is not a bad place to go looking for the effects of the Ukraine war on Russia. For this city is home to a celebrated regiment that bears its name and has been in the forefront of all the main battles in the Kremlin’s campaign against its neighbours.
The 331st Guards Parachute Regiment, often called the Kostroma Airborne Regiment, has been the subject of investigations by BBC’s Newsnight since shortly after last February’s invasion. These have revealed the price paid by the regiment and its home community. We had confirmed 39 fatalities by April last year, 62 by late July, and now the toll has reached 94.
#Ukraine: A Russian 2S9 Nona 120mm self-propelled mortar was destroyed by the Ukrainian 128th Territorial Defence Brigade in Klishchiivka near Bakhmut, #Donetsk Oblast.
Spectacular explosion included. pic.twitter.com/LLwVjeXwhR
— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) April 5, 2023
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) openly says it wants to establish dominance in emerging critical technologies as part of its strategy to supplant the United States as the world’s dominant power, establish a new world order and replace the US-led international system established after WWII.
The US has only a little time left in this race. Reports indicate that deep cuts to the military made by several administrations have severely impaired its ability to catch up. Remaining talent and resources will possibly be reallocated in a new administration, if it is not too late by then. China has been supercharging its military for years while the U.S. has sat back, watched, and argued about unrelated social issues.
Actor Leonardo DiCaprio took the stand and testified in the federal trial of Prakazrel “Pras” Michel, founder of the hip hop band Fugees, and his alleged involvement in a money laundering scheme that included a huge — and illegal — donation to Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign.
An average family of four will be paying approximately $1,000 more for groceries in 2023 as food inflation continues to push prices higher albeit at a slower pace than what was witnessed last year, a new report warns.
Canada’s Food Price Report, which is compiled by researchers at Dalhousie University, the University of Guelph, the University of Saskatchewan, and the University of British Columbia, suggests that food prices will rise by another five to seven per cent in 2023 after increasing by more than 10 per cent in 2022.
Forget solar, wind, hydro, and wave power. The capacity to burn coal for electricity generation rose in 2022 despite global promises to phase out the fuel with a defiant China leading the way, a report Wednesday set out.
An Ontario man who once allegedly bragged he’d moved over 1,000 people across the Canada-U.S. border, is now facing a nine-count indictment alleging he was the “primary organizer” of a human smuggling network using Akwesasne Mohawk territory.
Simranjit “Shally” Singh of Brampton, Ont., pleaded not guilty on Wednesday in the U.S. Federal Court for the Northern District of New York to charges related to human smuggling. He was extradited to the U.S. on Thursday.
