Comments by "" (@tekannon7803) on "DW News" channel.

  1. General Hodges, you are doing the Ukrainians, the world community and your country a great service by your analyses and thoughts and criticisms about the war in Ukraine. War is something I have never known; in fact, I've never been in the military, but I can tell you that by listening to your take on what is going down in the Ukrainian/Russian war, it is great to know there are people with the expertise and experience like you on the side of the allies. What we all need to realize is that war is the most serious business of all and every day 20 Ukrainian soldiers on average are getting killed and as many or more on the other side. Innocent people and civilians are dying as well which is why we all have to stay focused on getting a solid win for the Ukrainians.
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  2. Let's be real: We, in the west have urged the Ukrainians to go ahead with their counter-offensive in a way no western country would ever do. The militaries of today’s world would only attempt a counter-offensive with Bombers to carpet bomb the mine fields, Warthogs to strafe enemy trenches and take out tanks, G-9 Bulldozers to plow through dragon's teeth and hidden mine fields and trenches, Attack Helicopters to mow down advancing enemy forces and take out ground support vehicles and artillery emplacements and finally fighter planes to take out missile loaders far behind enemy lines and keep the enemy's choppers and fighter planes at bay. Boys and girls, we have asked the Ukrainian military to do something none of our countries in the west would even attempt to do and we have the gall to posit why progress is slow. Defense Secretary Austin along with the defense secretaries of all NATO member countries have known since Russia took Crimea that this war was going to happen and yet they have failed in getting the Ukrainian military up-to-speed for the crucial counter-offensive needed to push Russia back to its borders. They all must resign and let capable military specialists take over.
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  3. The whole world is suffering from Ukraine fatigue, but for one fundamental reason: we are waiting to see the Russians retreating. What's the solution? How about trusting the Ukrainian military command with weapons to make the war end sooner than later?
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  4. Lt. General (Ret.) Ben Hodges speaks truth to power like no one else and his message is always a resounding 'Yes' Ukraine can win its war against Russia. What would be great to see would be General Hodges sitting down with former President Donald J. Trump and letting them both talk about the Ukraine war.
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  5. Determination on one side of the conflict demands equal determination on the other side. When I was in high school, a friend of mine's dad worked for a car company as an executive. When my friend turned 16 he decided to ask his dad for a Mustang. "Dad," he said, "I want a Mustang". His dad kept a straight face and looked back at his son and said "It's nice to want things". Here we have Russia throwing all its might and missiles and howitzer shells and just about everything else it can muster at a sovereign nation. In effect, they're saying to Ukraine. "We want your country". I think the only response that the Ukraine and the western countries and NATO can give President Putin and Russia is "It's nice to want things".
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  6. Let's be real: Recently, retired General David Petraeus, the former architect of the Iraq war said that before American troops would go on a counteroffensive if American troops were in the place of the Ukrainian troops against Russia, that first B1 Bombers would carpet bomb the trenches and minefields. G9 Bulldozers would finish the job. Warthog ground-support fighters with 50 caliber cannons would make hamburger out of retreating Russian forces and take out troop carriers and tanks and artillery guns. Apache attack helicopters would take out hidden artillery batteries and cover advancing forces, F-16s would be crisscrossing the Russian lines dropping bombs on tanks and firing at fleeing soldiers and keeping Russian jets at bay. The Ukraine does not have bombers, G9 bulldozers, Warthog ground-support fighters, Apache attack helicopters or F16s covering the troops and having air superiority. Does anyone see what I am saying here? Ukraine has gone into a counteroffensive with one hand tied behind its back against the 2nd Superpower on the planet. Asking ourselves questions like "how is it possible that the Ukrainians have made such little progress?" is absurd. We have to give them the weapons they need to win the war. Period.
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  7. Can we also point out that the Ukraine's counter offensive is the first in modern history without the offensive forces going in with air superiority. The Ukrainians are literally fighting with one hand tied behind their backs while Russians have the edge on air power. Fighter planes and bombers would have made mincemeat of Russian troops in the trenches and mine fields would have been strafed and the like. I am not a military analyst and I am only repeating what professional military analysts like Mr Martin have said and which explains why it is so hard for the Ukrainians to pierce the Russian front-line defenses. This is why the highly controversial cluster munitions should be something the Ukrainians can use to better even up the odds.
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  8. At only 12:52 into this extraordinary interview with retired British Army General Sir Richard Shirreff, the master of the provocative question, Tim Sebastien, shows us why his interviews stand above the rest like proud sentinels in the world of televised broadcasting. What is clear to me about the Ukrainian war is that what matters most is the mindset of a nation and especially for its political class. Britain has the mindset of a superpower and that is why it really has become a superpower at a time where having all the kit in the world is only secondary. What President Putin has shown us is a mindset that is a mockery of good soldiering. Russian commanders have shown themselves to be inept and incompetent with poor leadership skills. Russia still has a WW I training-manual state of military mind and their lack of concern for the life of their fighting men is appalling. The troubling factor of course, with 'Putin's war' as Chancellor Scholz called it, is that Putin alone decides for his entire nation and he knows he cannot stop the war in Ukraine, because if he does his life will become expendable. What General Shirreff chillingly spells out though, is that complacency has begun settling in like gangrene in our western nations the more the war drags on. The Russians are smiling with glee as their famous and formidable friend, the winter god, is once again going to be a workhorse for them in wearing down the Ukrainian armed forces while the west twiddles its thumbs and gives pro-Ukrainian politicians the finger. We would be fools to refuse to heed Sir Richard's words of wisdom and this is why we must do everything in our power to give the Ukrainians the weopons they need to win their independence.
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  9. There is nothing that strikes one in the heart and soul more than seeing Mother Nature on the run.
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  10. Prigozhin has shown to the Russian people that they have the power in their own hands to have the kind of leadership they deserve. For twenty years, stovepipe governmental rule has meant that everyone must bow and obey, obey and bow, never question and never take the initiative. Remember, one of the first things Putin did was to take away the Russian people's right to elect governors of their provinces or regions. Suddenly, all the people who were running the districts were hand-picked by Putin. It has never stopped and Prigozhin is giving them the instruction manual in how to overthrow a regime. The question of course is if there is a spark of courage left in the Russian masses...
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  11. It's incredible the number of children in poverty-stricken homes in Columbia who are suffering from food insecurity among other things. What we are seeing in South America is the pandemic in control.
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  12. What I see as someone who has now had two doses of the Pfizer vaccine is that I no longer think it's wise to think I'm in the clear. I'm on the continent and the Indian variant has been detected here, like where you are and 40 some other countries if not more. My worry is the if the B 1716.2 variant is a step above the Kent variant, then we're far from out of the woods, because we'd be naïve to think there won't be another, more potent and more deady variant coming down the line sooner or later.
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  13. It is always informative to tune in to DW News and one thing that is impossible for me to understand is how the Wagner Chief, who has experience only as a bank robber, prisoner and a catering chef, was put in charge of ill-equipped, poorly trained, morally bankrupt soldiers who were fighting against a formidable foe? What on Earth is going on in Russia to have such incompetent and frankly ignorant people in command of troops that have been lost in the tens of thousands from battle plans that Alexander the Great would have laughed at? We talk of the loss of 20,000 troops like as if they were slaughtered hogs. These were fine young men who were coerced into fighting on the front lines and many times ordered to attack in waves simple to draw enemy fire to determine where Ukraine's artillery units were hiding. Who could order hundreds of men a day to certain death and call himself a military commander? It is appalling and so careless and cruel with such utter disregard for human life and how in the world Putin is backing this charlatan soldier is beyond belief. Lastly, seeing how the Wagner Chief can stand in the blown-out and completely destroyed city of Bakhmut and claim victory is the most blatant example of a military farce the world has ever seen.
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  14. What I have learned from DW News and its colleagues in the news business is that telling it like it is makes for the best way to present the news and DW News does a fine job of doing just that. As far as what is the most appalling and the most distressing and the absolute hardest thing for me to understand from the Ukrainian / Russian conflict is how the Wagner Chief was allowed to direct military operations in the first place. We will one day undoubtedly have some sort of ball park figure of how many untrained, ill-equipped and poorly motivated Russian soldiers were sent to their untimely deaths in wave after wave in a large part to draw out Ukrainian artillery units and pinpoint enemy strategic positions. Cannon fodder is what even Russian soldiers were calling themselves. A lot of us reading this were once 19 or 20 years old and if we remember a little, it was a marvelous life out there waiting to be lived to the fullest, but not by the Russian conscripts and former prisoners that the Wagner Chief carelessly and cruelly sent to their early deaths to take a city that had very little strategic value. It's heartbreaking and unimaginable to think a world superpower would have commanders who had no business running battalions, let alone being in charge of military operations with no experience in the military like Prigozhin himself. Pathetic
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  15. Hats off to the DW News team and reporters. You are all doing a great job. This war is not yet 365 days old, but I know that DW News and your colleagues and sister news organizations have brought us all up-to-speed on numerous occasions. We know that reports like this brave lady will never get over some of the atrocities she and her colleagues have seen. Death scenes never erase from our minds. What we all have to realize is that the Russian regime has taken invading a foreign country to a new level. Liberated villages, towns and cities from the Russians in the Ukraine are revealing war crimes and atrocities that makes even the most battle-hardened people wince. Bravo and be safe---
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  16. You do excellent analyses and interviews. How important it is to have people study war and military tactics. I have always wondered why people study war, why there are war colleges and now we know. We will be forever in their debt, these analysts like Mike Martin and his colleagues for being able to show ordinary people by dissecting the events of what war is. Mr Martin said in this interview that Putin attacking civilian tactics does nothing to increase his war effort; one would have thought the contrary. But now I see his point, nothing militarily has been gained by the Russians to shell civilians. It's bits of knowledge like that that enable us watching from the comfort of our homes---in our case 2,000 kilometers from Kiev---just what the war in Ukraine is all about. It also allows us to move out of our comfort-zones and realize more than 5 million people have had to leave their 'comfortable' flats and homes because they were invaded.
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  17. Excellent reporting. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has become an international leader of universal esteem in what can only be said is a testament to his capabilities to lead Germany and be a resounding voice in the free world. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is also becoming the man for the times. With Scholz and Kishida one feels a lot safer and grateful to have voices of reason and leaders who are willing to stand up to superpowers.
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  18. Julia Kiryanova touches every heart in the human community and her love of country surpasses anything that tries to destroy the Urkainian people.
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  19. We have to send a bouquet of symbolic flowers of solidarity to the brave and courageous people of Ukraine. If neighboring France had amassed tens of thousands of troops on the border of our country, I know for one it would be constantly on our minds. We would be constantly asking: what is going on? Are they going to attack us? What have we done to deserve this?
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  20. With all due respect for the climate change scientists and environmental activists, but we must be real; as long as China is a coal-burning nation among a host of others, we can't expect our sacrifices will do any good. One half of the world doing everything it can to bring down CO2 levels and the other half doing the opposite is the reality we all have to face up to.
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  21. What I don't understand is why aren't the Russian artillery batteries being targeted? Of course, some must be getting taken out of action, but it is maddening to think that the only reason the Ukraine cannot fight back is because the long-range howitzers are still not in place.
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  22. While the US gets through doing their thing and getting government back up and running, why doesn't DW News focus on showcasing some or all of the 54 countries contributing to the war effort in Ukraine. I am sure people would be happy to know if a small country is only contributing mittens and strawberry jam. By doing this it would give the big donors time to reset their clocks after nearly 600 days of providing non-stop help and aid and weapons and give them time to catch their breath for the next round of fighting in the Ukrainian war.
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  23. There is no one to blame for Ukraine's counteroffensive gains or losses. General David Petraeus, America's favorite retired general, was asked what a counteroffensive would look like if American troops were on the front lines against the Russians in eastern Ukraine. First, he of all he said before one soldier was allowed to make one step into enemy territory, B1 bombers would carpet bomb the minefields. G-9 Bulldozers would be sent in to clean up the kilometers of dragons' teeth. Ground support aircraft like the feared Apache attack helicopters and Warthog fighter planes with 50 mm cannon would Straif the trenches and retreating troops. Back behind enemy lines F16s would take out hidden artillery batteries, everything that moves or drives or rolls on the battlefield or back roads like support vehicles or troop transporters would be annihilated and destroyed. The Ukrainians have tanks, and Himars, but there would be Tacams that could take out military installations far behind enemy lines. Does anyone see where I am going here? We have criticized the Ukrainians for going on a counteroffensive that the most powerful army in the world would not attempt without all the forementioned kit and gear and equipment. Let's be real: the Ukrainians would be able to puncture enemy lines and take back Crimea in mere days if they only had the weapons.
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  24. Excellent reporting on what could happen to any of us. Can anyone really imagine what it must be like to come back to your flat or home and have it not there anymore? It's made life stop in many ways. I am an artist, but I can only paint now at the end of the day and I have to force myself to put brush to canvas. My prediction is that at Easter 2023, all of Ukraine will be back in Ukrainian hands---Crimea and the strip of land annexed in 2014 as well. Russia will be forced to abandon its siege warfare on Ukraine and retreat back to its territory. But we all know if the Russians lose Ukraine, they will not allow themselves to lose face in front of their allies and the west. That is my biggest worry.
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  25. At 22:32 into this revealing and extraordinary videocast, the American Lt. General (Ret.) Ben Hodges spells out what the Ukrainian war is all about. Our western leaders must accept that the Urkainians must win this war and that we will help them in every way we can.
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  26. It's been an informative interview with top quality questions that have engendered excellent answers like from former tank commander Justin Crump. His analyses of the nuts and bolts of the Challenger and Leopard II tanks show us that the Ukraine is getting some real firepower this time round. What I have never imagined is to be hearing about tanks being necessary for the war after seeing Russia and the Ukraine lose literally tens of their own tanks to anti-tank rockets, but I guess this is the price you have to be willing to pay in 21st century warfare. You're going to lose a lot of crews to modern anti-tank weapons. The tanks do one thing that I heard a Ukrainian tank commander say that I also never thought about before and that is that apparently the infantry feel much more secure when they accompany tanks are on the battlefield. There are battles ahead, many battles are lost and we hope the tanks help get Crimea back in Ukrainian hands asap.
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  27. Great work Ben and to your colleagues as well who bring dignity to reporting the news and the cold, hard truth to our doorsteps every single day. First, may we wish you all a very Happy Holiday Season in spite of the terrible loss of life in Ukraine and other hot spots around the world today and raise a glass to Germans and to your great country in these dangerous and more and more often, impossible times to understand and deal with. War rages on, practically touching down at your borders and how hard it must be for you to announce on this 29th day and over 650 days where war has raged in Ukraine and so many innocent civilians have paid the price for empire-expanssion cum agression by Ukraine's now hated neighbor; Russia. I have no idea how it must be to go to work and say to the world that bombs and missiles have once again targeted civilians and infra-structure in a country that has paid ten times the price of most other countries simply to exist and live in peace. Slava Ukraine and glory to Germany and peace on earth.
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  28. What we have to realize is that there is going to be a sort of 'Zelensky's Law' coming into play in the next six months. What do I mean by Zelensky's Law, it's just a made-up name to copy Moore's Law which stated that technological progress with double every 18 months, but I think we are going to see war-making technology upgrade itself every month in the Ukraine war. Already, it's impossible to hide anything, even in forests and there is nowhere to run or get away. What we have to realize is that every nation worth its salt across the world are inventing new hardware, upgrading weapons and especially bringing drones up to stratospheric levels. Missiles will be even more deadly and accurate as the weeks grind on. I predict we will also begin seeing laser-guns used to saw through armored vehicles and bring down hypersonic missiles. There is no stopping the war unless one side or the other is brought to its knees by a heretofore unknown weapons system that has no equal. We can expect to see even more mind-boggling drones used as FOs, bombers and rocket launchers combined. Nothing and nowhere is safe anymore.
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  29. I don't think I have ever felt such apprehension about a threat to human society in my lifetime. You would almost think that we have been invaded by an invisible, contageous, deadly organism---in this case Covid-19 variants Delta and Omicron---but there is an eerie feeling in the air. We're neighbors with France and to hear that 218,000 thousand people got infected in one day is quite literally off-the-charts. Can anyone put this puzzle together, because this virus doesn't seem to be like anything we've ever heard of before. The Spanish Flu Epidemic killed millions so it must have been very contageous too, but what I don't see is a light at the end of the tunnel. With most of the worlds' population unvaccinated, aren't we looking at the real possibility that a variant coming down the line will be able to overcome our vaccines? Lastly, we send our warmest Season's Greetings to health workers around the world and a bouquet of thanks to journalists and reporters and news people for keeping the world informed and we wish you all safe passage through the pandemic.
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  30. What a time we live in with the Covid-19 pandemic continuing to send thousands of people into ICU's across Europe and the rest of the world. We have got to stop being a world of countries and become a world of one human family. We see now how one country can make life very difficult for another country and what I am really saying is that people who are already struggling to put food on the table will have to suffer even more. We have got to become one people and think of ourselves as the human family.
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  31. There is a proverb in military jargon that goes something like this: try to imagine what the enemy thinks you are going to do and do the opposite. The Nord Stream gas pipeline fits into this paradigm. Whomever committed this act is the best at getting everyone to look one way while they go about doing what no one in the world would think they would do. Ukraine is the obvious guilty nation. But that's just it: it's too obvious...
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  32. What would Alexander the Great be doing if his army was the encircled Ukrainian forces in Mariupol? Just knowing briefly his military tactics, I would bet that he would drive a wedge through the Russian eastern flank and circle round to come at the Russian forces from behind. It would take the Russians off-guard. The Ukrainian forces can only win back the demolished city by going on the offense.
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  33. Never in my life have I seen anything like what is happening around the world and especially in India with so many losing their life because of lack of hospital beds and medical supplies. Our hearts and prayers go out to our Indian brothers and sisters in their darkest hour. Nevertheless; it's not the time to point fingers at who's to blame and show anger, but to follow the people who are helping each other, for example. Everyone must do what they can do to get precious oxygen to patients unable to breathe correctly. This is a time for all of us to remember we are all a part of the human family and that every one deserves the chance to recieve needed medical care and supplies and above all oxygen. India's Prime Minister Modi is doing everything in his power to get supplies to the people in need, but I think no one realizes the logistics in getting supplies to such a vast number of people. It's understandable people are upset, but it's no good now to criticize the Indian government with a crisis of such epic proportions. India will survive the pandemic and show the world what a great people they are.
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  34. What on Earth is going on that the poorest of Afghanistan's people are being left to starve to death.
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  35. There is no one to blame in Germany for this because there have been political winds blowing six ways from Sunday for the German government to do more to fight polution for decades. Politicians wanting to have reliable energy sources were shouted down by the environmentalists who only see energy as something that must not pollute. That being said, we've got to look at this as a window of opportunity and leave our emotions at the door. Like in days of old when there was a miserly king and the peasants were left to starve and suffer at the whim of the crusty old man with the crown on his head, President Putin has replaced the king. He is a very smart man and he has used his brilliant mind to construct a ruling class that is obedient only to him. Russian people tell us that they don't even allow themselves to think of anything else than what Putin says is the truth. Imagine what effect this has on young people growing up and needing to take responsibility for their lives? A man from Russia visiting our city told me that Russian people need to be told what to do. They have no incentive to try anything new that might bring on a reply from the government. This is what Germany is dealing with and this is why Germany will suffer through this winter perhaps, but Chancellor Sholz is a very smart man and he's going to create an energy system that will allow Germany to never again be subject to blackmail.
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  36. What is important is for Kosovo to continue to implement the new rules but to do with grace. You can get people to understand things by being persuasive and understanding and to just keep saying that this is how it will be from now on, but that people can live freely as always. To recap: you say to the people: here are the new rules. You keep repeating with a smile.
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  37. Eliot Cohen's analysis of the Ukrainian war and Russian competence is mind boggling and surreal. What we had grown up believing was that the Russian war machine was unstoppable and could out-fight any western army. What Mr Cohen points out is exactly the oppposite. I've never been in the military, but what we see on our television screens is the Russian army unable to fight in combat. They seem disoriented and poorly trained. Their way of fighting is slash and burn, bomb and send in missiles. More than 70 hospitals have been attacked. What on Earth is going on here to have doctors and health workers targeted and hospitals full of patients getting bombed? This shows us once and for all that authoritarian regimes are toxic for the human community and have no place in the world.
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  38.  @VladislavDoroshuk  GGGGGGGGreat to hear from you. We need to hear from all sides of an argument to make sense of the situtation at hand. We must remember that under international law that was signed by Moscow, all the treaties say that sovereign countries get to choose what alliances sovereign countries belong to. Treaties like the UN Charter was signed by Russia. The 1975 Helsinki agreement was signed by the Soviet Union. The 1990 Charter of Paris for a new Europe was also signed by the Soviet Union. The 1997 NATO Russia Founding Act was equally signed by the Russian Government. All those documents were signed by either the Soviet Regime or the Russian regime, which is the legally recognized international inheritor i.e., successor of the Soviet State. The fact is those agreements are still in place and they clearly state that sovereign countries can freely choose their foreign policy and what alliances they want to join.
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  39. Emily Sherman does an excellent job explaining the Russian losses. What Emily may not know is that the liver spots or dark spots on her nose and cheeks and neck can easily be removed by a dermatologist. The technology is finally here to remove blemishes and since Emily is on global TV, she might want to take advantage of being able to have a clear complexion.
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  40. It makes no sense to see the extent of the lockdowns in China unless we aren't seeing things the way we should be. Maybe there is an ulterior motive to the lockdowns in that they are being used to deliberately derail the global economy by using Covid-19 and therefore Chinese officials will not being able to be criticised or blamed for the meltdown it's having on the entire world?
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  41. The solution is masks. Everyone should wear a mask through the winter.
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  42. No; the UK is not spiraling into chaos, it is chiraling into spaos! These are exciting times to be a leader of country. What people don't get is that everything looks bad if we look at the world through last years spectacles. Boys and girls, it's a whole new world out there and it's a great place to be if you are up-to-date.
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  43. No one can give an interview like Tim Conway. Former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov is a master at not revealing crucial information, but we all know how he has to cover his tracks and the information he does give is very helpful in giving us a fuller picture of political life in an autocratic regime, so it's been a postive listening experience. His portrait of Putin is ghostly however; it's as if we have no meat on the bones of who and what Vladimir Putin really is like as a person. The red flag is that Mr Kasyanov paints a picture of a man in a business suit who does his job and that's it. No one works with someone without some very interesting insights into what makes the person tick.
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  44. Ines Pohl has given was has to be General (et.) David Petaeus' finest interview. The questions were sizzling hot and every response from General Pataeus was crystal clear and factual and realistic.
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  45. What I take out of this very good interview by DW News with military analyst Marina Miron is that the only way we can look at the current situation in the world is that for all practical purposes, the world is on the brink of another world war! We're talking about beefing up ammunition production, tank production---everything is about increasing military spending and that Russia is always in the forefront of any discussion as to why the west has to do more to support Ukraine. The west and Russia is not in a cold war situation like before; it's in fact a hot war on hold. We're days, weeks, months and maybe a year away from the Ukraine war breaking out of its borders and this is where the prospect of a tactical nuclear war is starting to come into focus, because how else will Russia fight its foes with so many of its military troops either dead or out of commission along with all the kit and armor destroyed already and needed to fight an extended war?
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  46.  @sweetedoutsweetmachines9188  GGGGGGGGGGGreat to hear from you. That kid is now a Ph.D with a practice in psychology. He was one of those people who never let anything get in his way of becoming a success.
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  47. Excellent videocast and we are all sitting on pins and needles as the Ukrainian war moves forward. What is striking is how calm and jovial President Putin is during ceremonies with young entrepreneurs, for example. We now know the Ukrainian war is all about Empire and this means Europe is in for some street fighting.
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  48. I am going to give what I think is what could allow Barcelona and reservoirs in Catalonia to be re-supplied. I am an artist and an inventor. My idea is not new: aqueducts were used by the Romans. My idea for our time is to put piping---underground aqueducts---under roads and railway tracks and give transportation systems a duel purpose. Water is abundant in some regions of Spain and Europe and it could be sent via underground aqueducts to cities like Barcelona which is experiencing a 3-year-old drought. Of course, it's probably going to be very expensive to begin re-puposing our infrastructure, but we must think of a future with more and more extreme weather conditions. What we see now in the present is that our climate is not something we can count on to have enough water for people in regions where there is severe drought. The jet streams have been altered according to climate scientists and this is why there are these ultra-dry conditions. Piping under roads and railway systems as aqueducts is doable.
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  49.  @GreenIsTheWayForward  GGGGGGGGGGreat to hear from you. I have sent this idea to places around the world from Australia to India to the Governor of California. I think water circulating under the roads could also be used to 'cool down' cities like Athens, Greece where the ashphalt melts in summer in the cities and becomes an oven at night. It doesn't rain any more, it's more like water bombs where a whole year of rain falls in hours. This water could be sent straight away to reservoirs and drought-stricken regions.
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  50. It has to be said that Olaf Scholz, who has only been in the Chancellor's office for mere months is already coming across as an astute and very wise world leader. On the other hand, he is coming to the office of the Chancellor of Germany with probably out-dated ideas on what President Putin is capable of doing. One thing Chancellor Sholz may believe is that Putin would actually use nuclear weapons and therefore it would be better not to call his bluff. Recently, I saw a panel of experts debating the topic of Putin using nuclear weapons, and the gentleman from Russia said that we have to fight for the freedom of the Ukraine no matter what weapons Putin uses. We can't let Putin's threats of using nuclear bombs deter us from helping the Ukrainians win their country back. They need long-range artillery weapons and cruize missiles and long-range rocket systems: let's get those weapons over to Zalensky's troops in the badlands of the Ukraine by using the legal channels available to us and not worry about what President Putin may or may not do in retaliation.
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  51. Our hearts and prayers go out to the great Indian nation and people. All the world is sending you love and healing energy. What none of us can imagine is to be suffering from an illness which makes it hard for one to breathe. All we know is that India will conquer this terrible disease, but let us hold off to criticize Prime Minister Modi who is doing all he possibly can to get precious oxygen to people in need. We have to stop pointing fingers at who's not doing a good enough job and who's to blame, and simply focus all our efforts on getting medical supplies and oxygen to people in need. We must also remember that when the pandemic ebbs, there will be millions of Indians and other people around the world suffering from long-Covid, which has 50 known symptoms. If anything can make us all unite as the human family, we must realize this pandemic is the keystone in all of us coming to the aid of our brothers and sisters in the great Indian nation, and those suffering around the world. We must unite and focus on getting our world to be one world.
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  52. What we all have to do is send our condolences to the families and friends of the lost souls caught up in a war that defies understanding in the modern era. We see in these videocasts time after time grandmothers and children being taken from their friends and families by missiles raining down on them in their sleep. Russians are known to have relations all over Ukraine, so the people getting murdered in their sleep are related to the military leaders ordering the strikes. We have been called a human community of altruists governed by psychopaths and these heartbreaking images of a nation under siege confirm it. The dogs of war will go for the juglar every time and in this case it.s civilian targets as Russia's meatgrinder tactics on the front lines only render its armed forces useless on the field of battle. Slava Ukraini
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  53. ​ @chriswilde7246  GGGGGGGGGreat to hear from you. You are right of course, and the Ukraine military commanders should have put the gas pedal to the floorboards all those years ago. It is so easy to look back at what should or should not have been done, but the reality is that the Ukraine counter-offensive is the only counter-offensive in modern times to go ahead without air superiority and the like. Drones have of course made modern warfare into a new ball game which is why the Ukrainians have carved out a new niche for themselves in military history by actually going ahead with their counter-offensive using limited arms. What lies ahead is of course what is on all of our minds.
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  54. One thing we may not realize is that the Ukrainians may want to keep defending Bakhmut for one very good reason: it's already a destroyed city. Why fight in other Ukrainian cities when you know the Russians use artillery and siege warfare i.e., burning down or blowing up everything. So; why not just stay in Bakhmut and do all the fighting there? We must also remember that Zelensky speaks perfect Russian and he knows how the Russians think. He probably knows something we don't about Russian pride and their willingness to sacrifice their soldiers for a strategic goal. Bakhmut is a meat grinder for Russian forces and although the casualties are high for the Ukrainian side, I would bet the farm that Zelensky knows that there is a straw that breaks the camel's back for the Russian people. The spring will show beautiful flowers across Russia, but they will adornthe newly dug graves and one day there will be one grave too many.
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  55. Teri Schultz has made a brilliant exposé into how a small and up until now seemingly insignificant role in helping Ukraine is showing the world what they know is coming down the pike. And: DW News is doing the Ukraine War effort a great service by airing this excellent report of a small country that has had very little publicity being under the American and NATO umbrella for going on 600 days of endless war. While America puts its house in order and other countries teetering on the brink of war fatigue as they see their coiffeurs diminish and arms and ammunition stocks become dangerously depleted, re-examine and re-adjust their future war efforts for the Ukraine, it is breath of fresh air to see reports on countries like Lavia which was itself under Russian rule for a staggering 50 years, beef up their defenses and prepare a fight to the death, if need be, to remain a free country.
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  56. The most striking part of Phil's excellent vocast is at 8:22 when the German Chancellor says that Russia 'will not win' the war in Ukraine. We can listen to leaders of countries throw their support behind President Zalensky and the Ukrainian people, but when the German Chacellor says that Russia will not win, that is like saying Putin will be defeated. Full stop. A German leader saying those words means the whole of Germany will do everything in its considerable power to stop the Russian war machine in its tracks. Russia will not be allowed to annexe territory from a sovereign state. Experts say the war will go on until at least the year's end and my guess is that there will be an end to it by Easter of 2023.
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  57.  @garydurham784  GGGGGGGGreat to hear from you. The Wagner Chief is a former catering chef. That's like going to hospital and needing an operation and the chief surgeon operating on you today is the head of maintenance, because the trauma surgeon fell out with the Hospital director. Putin picked Prigozin because he's loyal. Seriously, the sad awful fact is that someone who knows nothing about military operations caused the death of tens of thousands of young men. At the least it's unprofessional.
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  58. DW News does not disappoint. You do excellent interviews and ask nothing but highly relevant questions. Justin Crump is a former tank commander and he analyzes the Ukrainian offensive in words that are very clear and he does not have any qualms in criticizing both sides of the conflict. What I take away from the interview is that tanks and armored vehicles are lost in any offensive to artillery, missiles and mines and soldiers get killed and what he said that sticks in my mind is that a tank commander can attack and have a very bad day and lose many tanks to mines etc., and soldiers too. War is brutal as Crump says and people like myself whom have never served in the military see very clearly that there is nothing joyful in winning back a village for the Ukrainians other than they have taken back one of their own, because when the fighting is over there are bodies from both sides of the firefight and that means friends and comrades won't be there for the next fight. We see young men not yet 20 coming out of a battle with an experience that pushes them much farther from their youth than years would do and leaves them with emotional scars that will fester never leave them in a lot of cases. What is practically consistent in all of the military analysts is that there is high praise for the Ukrainian fighting men. Britain, Germany, NATO's allies, all of you must be very proud to have trained tens of thousands of Ukrainians and see what your excellent military instructors have produced: 'A' list soldiers that have the world's admiration as a first class military. There are some terrifying days ahead for all of us, because in the stovepipe command system of Russia, one man bent on restoring his nation's former glory has the keys to the castle. President Putin is undoubtedly calculating what he will do when the walls of the Bastille castle come tumbling down around him and he is alone and faced with a tzars last goodbye. Will Putin leave by the ramp the west is offering him or blow us all up with him?
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  59. The big question for me is are we---the western world---really going to allow the grain to not be delivered simply because Russia starts firing missiles at Ukrainian ports? I mean, are we going to allow ourselves to be blackmailed and have forever on our consciences that because of us caving in and allowing Russia to bulldoze a deal it has signed and promised to honor, millions or as Erdogan puts it---billions of people---will starve? Isn't it time to put our foot down and say we want no part of any war with Russia, but we cannot allow innocent people to die simply because a Russian commander nixes on the deal set to save people from going hungry. I have never gone hungry in my lifetime, but it must be agonizingly painful and especially if you see your kids crying themselves to sleep with empty stomachs. You know, the first person to shout often takes control of a situation. We should start shouting for the human community until the grain is delivered...
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  60. It is appalling to see how Lebanon, the Switzerland of the Middle East has had to reach this level of despair. The world is fighting an ever-increasingly deadly pandemic and to hear this videocast of our brothers and sisters in Lebanon is heart breaking. We thank Ms Khoury for her courage and frankness and we wish her and her compatriots a passage through the crisis in Lebanon as soon as possible. The miracle to save Lebanon will happen.
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  61.  @JB-yb4wn  GGGGreat to hear from you. As Churchill once said, Socialism is a terrible system, but Capitalism isn't the best either, but it's all we've got. We know our democracies are not the answer, but they at least are self-improving systems. Authoritarian regimes become worse with time because the autocrats only want to hear good news.
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  62. Bravo! Imagine 60,000 women in uniform in the Ukrainian army and 6,000 on the front lines!
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  63. Can we see the touchdown? Certainly there were cameras filming the descent---
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  64. Excellent reporting.
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  65.  @Just_another_Euro_dude  GGGGGGGGGGGGGGreat to hear from you. The 'Spanish Flu epidemic started in Kansas, USA. It took out 20 - 50 million people. What is going on now is that because people doubt their leaders and believe alternative facts, and that poor nations will never get enough of their people vaccinated, we are looking at a known unknown. We just don't know where this thing si going, and we're 24 long months into the pandemic. I'm a singer, I just want to get back on stage.
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  66.  @Drunkenstupor  That's why I wrote The Treatise of Teknomix which was published 7 months ago offering an alternative economic system to replace capitalism.
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  67. Let's get real: Erdogan got a telephone call and a warning of SERIOUS consequences if he agrees to Finland and Sweden joining NATO.
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  68. It is time for peace in this region and the way forward is for the Palestinian people to be granted and/or allotted a patch of territory that can house all of the population and where kids can grow up with a future. It looks like peace is a long way off, but it does not need to be. There needs to be a UN resolution re-drawing boundaries and borders whereby a new country emerges that is called Palestine. This is doable.
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  69.  @valp1621  GGGGGGGGGGGreat to hear from you. Are you writing to the right person? I am an artist living 2,000 kilometers from Kiev! I have no military experience so I am happy to hear from both sides of the conflict. I have never been in a warzone, but it looks bad no matter which side you are on. People are dying and the war is expanding; Russia today says it will expand the war. Many people believe the Russians will use battleground nuclear-tipped missiles. Chancellor Sholz said it right when he said this is Putin's war. No one has ever predicted the outcome of a war, but I think it is safe to call it the beginning of WW III.
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  70.  @valp1621  GGGGGGGGGGGGreat to hear from you. The whole thing to me is that this is all about who is going to run the world. I mean, think of it. Russia is a country 9,000 kilometers long and it has 11 time zones under one man's control! Putin now wants even more territory and this time the world is saying stop. Putin knows that if he doesn't win in the Ukraine, he will need to show he is in control and he may well risk starting WW III with a nuke if it keeps him in power.
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  71.  @valp1621  GGGGGGGGGGGGGreat to hear from you. There can only be one winner in the Ukraine/Russian war. You can see on Putin's face that he sees the writing on the war. This war is high-tech. They can photograph a postage stamp from space. You can't hide arms depots anymore, the Russians can have every weapon in the world, but you need ammunition and they can't hide ammunition dumps from spy satellites. This is the Russian's Achille's Heel. They need tons of ammo---they fire 90,000 shells and mortars and bullets every day. You have to put ammo in a separate place and that's easy to see from space. It's over for the Russians and Lavrov knows it. Everybody is going to play the game until Putin throws in the towel. Crimea and the land strip and the Dombas will not leave Ukraine's territory. But they'll fight and fight and fight to save face, and it may well spread to engulf Europe.
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  72. Okay, Russia has some new toys from a friendly country and now the Ukrainians are getting hammered with weapons so powerful whole apartment blocks can be destroyed. Boys and girls, let's give the Ukrainians some new toys---
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  73. What we are not hearing from Administrations in the west across the world is this: We want Ukraine to win. After losing tens of thousands of troops and performing a counteroffensive even a country like Germany would never allow, the Ukrainians are being sent into battle without the best kit. This is inexcusable.
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  74. I am an inventor. Please excuse me if this idea is far-fetched, but in my mind here is how we solve the world's fresh water dilemma. Every major road and railway system must be set up for a dual purpose. 1. As a road for vehicles or a train track for trains. 2. Under the roads and railways we should put aqueducts in the form of pipes that would be able to transport water to needed areas. Recently, in Ottawa, Canada, flooding was and is so severe it's being called a national disaster. Imagine if that excess water could have been sent to put out the 990 forest fires burning more land than the country of Cuba? We don't have severe storms anymore; we have water bombs with more water falling in an hour than in a year sometimes. Underground pipes that followed major roads could suck up the flood water and send it to reservoirs and places where drought has taken over. In short: we have enough water, but it does not get to the people who need it. Recent flooding in Sydney, Australia saw only 8% of the water was saved---the rest was put in the ocean. In the outback farmers and ranchers are screaming for water, if aqueduct underground systems were in place water could be transported far and near and countries like Lebanon, Omar and others could be saved from extreme drought.
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  75.  @Rnankn GGGGGGGGGGGreat to hear from you. Thank you. Very well written response.
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  76. The question is not why are these attacks happening now, the question is how can we get the right weapons to the Ukrainians so that they can fight back against these cowardly, monstrous attacks on civilian targets. Imagine if Cologne had been attacked by missiles from Russia. Do you think for one minute Olaf Sholz would say that Germany shouldn't shoot back? Let's get the anti-missle systems in place so that Ukraine can at a minimum defend itself. I feel like we're watching ducks getting picked off in a pond with the western nations on the banks of the pond cheering on the dwindling ducks.
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  77. Happy New Year to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and everyone involved in the middle east conflict that rages on in Gaza. I have no qualifications as a peace negotiator, but I believe I may have a kernel of a plan for peace that could be the way to end all future wars between warring nations. Gaza is 145 square kilometers of blood-soaked sand and it has seen 5 wars in the last 15 years. This should be a red flag to all of us and especially President Guterres of the UN that a new way forward is needed. Here is what might be the key to solving these seemingly intractable conflicts that only ruin lives and leave kids orphaned and without any real future. What do all religious groups respect equally? Nature. My proposal is to transform Gaza into nature reserve cum Galapagos of the middle east to save the frightening number of endangered plants, animal and aquatic life that are disappearing all over the earth at an astounding rate. Imagine Gaza as a Galapagos where instead of wars being fought, animals and plants and aquatic life are being saved and literally brought back from certain extinction! Boys and girls, imagine what future generations will say about us! "Yeah, they found the way to have peace on earth back in 2024 by rescuing nature." We can use wildlife reserves to end these conflicts by transforming murderous border wars into life-saving ventures that will bring in more tourists than the pyramids and have Palestinians, Israelis and other nationalities working side-by-side to save our precious faun and fauna. Palestinians need a country, of course, and this is the mind-bender, but borders have been re-drawn in the past and can be now to come up with a decent parcel of land for these wonderful people who have been on the wrong side of history for far too long. This is doable...
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  78. Conflict Zone has produced one of the most revealing and honest interviews of Russia by former deputy foreign minister Andrei Federov in recent memory. He is candid and frank and we see that there is no worry about Russia coming apart. DW's Sarah Kelly delivers a powerful interview with questions that bring solid explanations and detailed answers about the Russian mindset. This very interesting interview comes across as an inside view into the mysterious country where President Putin is still viewed positively by the Russian people in spite of the allegations of war crimes and heavy losses from the Ukraine war. What is apparent from Mr Fedorov's analysis of Putin is that Putin views negotiations as a sign of weakness and that he will never back down from fighting the Ukrainians until Russia wins the war. This of course means things are only going to rachet up until the whole world is involved in stopping the conflict in one way or another.
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  79. Delivering Taurus missiles is not why Chancellor Scholz thinks it is a bad idea, what NATO countries and Germany and her allies know is that it would place the latest technological innovations right in the hands of Vlad the man who would be very glad to have latest technology signed, sealed and delivered to him and his scientists and engineers. Everyone knows one or more of the missiles would misfire and land on the Russian side, that's why sending 50-year-old F16s is no problem because the Russians have already picked clean all they needed to steal for their own warplanes.
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  80. The Chinese have gotten what they wanted from the silly balloon game: everyone from the President of The United States on down has decided to get on the complain-train and riddle the Chinese with veiled accusations of not playing by the RULES. There are no more international rules and the Chinese are certainly not agreeing to any other country's rules. What must be avoided is discussing these incidents out loud in international viewing platforms by the whole world. The distinguished John Kirby should not be openly criticizing the Chinese, because this only gives ammunition to them for future antagonistic responses. The Secretary of State should have gone to China to speak to President Xi and not mentioned the absurd balloon practical joke. One can imagine the Chinese leadership and military laughing out loud among themselves at how the Americans took the bait. American / Chinese relations are too important to be discussed by each and every American official trying to determine what they are doing. The Chinese are best dealt with by a poker face; that's the only thing that throws a stick into their spokes.
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  81. Michel Link makes Germany appear as a major player on the world stage and it is coming at a time where the west needs the German people more than ever before.
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  82. What is frightening is that the Delta plus is even more infectious than the Delta. Boys and girls, I think we have to realize that we are confronted with one of the most intelligent(ly) (designed?) viruses to ravage the Earth since the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic. What does not compute in my head is how it keeps getting deadlier--and popping up everywhere. We are sick to death of lockdowns and masks and our societies facing so much hardship, but what's needed now are cool heads and for all of us to keep our guard up until it's over.
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  83. The wolf and animals like it were brought into people's homes and dwellings millennia ago and bred and today there are huge and powerful dogs like the husky who are as gentle with a human baby as humans are. What am I saying here? Max says progress can't be slowed on AI development which is normal because people have to heat their homes and put food in the frig. Victor Hugo famously said that all the armies in the world cannot stop an idea whose time has come. AI as an idea is now interconnected in every apparatus we use and robots will soon be becoming part of our daily life. But let's be real: no matter how intelligent or powerful or whatever super power AI becomes, it must be 'bred' i.e., programmed from its inception to be people-friendly. This is doable and it might seem impossible at this time in the evolution of AI development, but it must be the ultimate goal to have each AI machine or object no more to us than the family dog. AI products must heel i.e., take orders; a robot must obey and protect and respect all human life and especially a child. AI must obey commands that are sound, and above all else it must be like the family dog and love humans. We have to incorporate this artificial 'gene' in the synthetic DNA of all AI machines. Period. The metaphor that AI is a wolf in today's level of technology is how we should proceed; there is no doubt we are going to have serious problems because of it breaking free and becoming unmanageable until we succeed in making it obey us unconditionally, but we will prevail because we have to. Fire was an invention that became a way for us to heat our homes, cook our food, but it can be weapon or cause destruction. Enter; the fire department.
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  84. Prigozhin, for all his negative points, knows that the war in Ukraine is a no-brainer. This is not about his discontent with the Russian army. He knows he is fried onions on a hot stove when the rubber hits the road, but he also knows he alone has the key to bring the Ukrainian war to an end. And: this will not be by attacking another city in Ukraine but by an armed rebellion against Putin himself, a surprise uprising against those in power. He knows how to start a civil war. He also knows by doing it he will remove the person whom has taken Russia to the edge of the abyss and allow the great Russian people to regain stability and return to being a peaceful society.
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  85. Begs the question means assumes what it should be proving and does not mean raises the question. Correct use : « When I asked the dealer why I should pay more for the German car, he said I would be getting 'German quality', but that just begs the question. »
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  86. It is clear that forest management has to become a ministerial post. A Department of Forests in every country where forest fires are endemic needs to be created to face the growing threat of wild fires across the world. We have to re-analyze how to safeguard forests. Drones must be deployed 24/7 year round. This will help identify the pyromaniaks and will also allow swift intervention. Water stations must now be in a grid across the forests. What do I mean by this? I mean water storage domes to store water for quick access when firefighters are called in. They also could release water to quel nearby flames. We have to treat our wilderness areas like state parks, gardens, fragile--very fragile--regions where destruction by fires can reverse decades of natural growth. We have to realize that CO2 in the atmosphere is the culprit and we must use it to help us instead of trying to change to renewable energy sources. What do I mean by this? The CO2 is causing the harm, it's now choking our atmosphere. We've got to pull it out of the atmosphere, transform it with hydrogen infusion to make water or other environmentally-favorable substances. Renewables are the answer, but we can't wait ten more years let alone ten more months. Let's get the top brains working on CO2 reduction; it's doable. It's not too late.
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  87. What we have to realize is that almost everything we eat and the air we breathe have certain characteristics that can harm us. My former next-door neighbor died in his sleep last month at the age of 52 with no known health problems and I am not sure, but he probably got vaccinated like the rest of us and it has been shown that death rates are above normal in countries that had vaccination from Covid-19. What am I getting at? Cannabis, like alcohol has risks, but I believe it is better to have substances that people intake controlled by government agencies. Also, the money that once went for people selling cannabis illegally will now fill government coffers and it couldn't come at a better time for Germany.
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  88. Excellent reporting, Rosie does a very good job of covering President Zelensky's trip to the Hague. What I think should be done is to create the war-crimes tribunal in advance. What do I mean by that? I mean that we all know that Russia will out-smart all of us in ever accepting that Putin takes the stand. So; why not set up the whole process virtually? It could even be done in an animated fashion which would give the global public a look-see into how a tribunal would work.
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  89. What a sad state of affairs that the west needs to pour billions into more defense spending! We live in a world teetering on environmental tipping points being surpassed which is going to lead to climate change that will leave a path of disaster across the planet of catstrophic proportions. And: right on schedule, we have another dictator who only sees the world through the lense of someone who has lost touch with the human community and sees war as the only solution and the way to move ahead.
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  90. This is, of course, hogwash and everyone should realize that it is probably more likely that Poland is doubling its war effort to their neighbor. Remember, an axiom in war states that you should try to imagine what the enemy is thinking and then do the oppposite.
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  91. Commander Paul from the USA said on his show that the Pentagon's aid to Ukraine totals----now get this----1/10 of 1 % of the Defense Department's yearly budget.
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  92. What we have to realize is unmistakable and irreversible is that the Ukrainian war has changed the world's mindset both for militaries across the globe and for people in their living rooms who have seen more people killed on camera than in some Hollywood films. Suddenly, it's a new world out there. Men have a new mission in life; be in tune with the progress going like mad on all fronts. Women have found themselves in a world where they are as adept on the battlefield as in the command module of a spaceship and this has meant that what it means to be a man and a woman has made raising children into a new domain. And: children are paying the price because they are getting technology shoved down their throats and being babysat by smartphone movies being played in their prams and mothers and dads with their heads plunged into their smartphones as the kids in the park see them now as phantom parents. High tech, drones, AI are fine, but we had better realize that the drip down side-effects of all of the newness in machine learning that is making our cityscapes into herds of humans wandering around lost in their tiny screens is making our kids into a new kind of human being that perhaps we had better take more time to ponder on.
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  93. What President Macron has done is show us what French Intelligence has probably told the President of France. Russia is at her weakest point right now and this would be an excellent time to go in with our militaries and clean up over in Ukraine with fresh, highly-motivated, expertly trained French and NATO soldiers to relieve battle-weary Ukrainian troops worn and fatigued and low on ammo and soldiers after more than 24 months of war ravaging their country with a front line over a thousand kilometers long and Russia pumping up battalians on the fly. Bravely putting on the table now what we all feel in our bones will be coming anyway, President Macron is showing his courage and he knows in his heart of hearts that the only way for Ukraine to win is for western powers to go and settle things once and for all with a message to the Russian leader that the jig is up. The downside; what everyone knows is that whatever we do, whether we go in and help Ukraine win or sit back and be cheerleaders, mushroom clouds are going to be the price for victory in Ukraine.
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  94.  @zoedark7101  GGGGGGGGGGGGGreat to hear from you. It's so hard to get this pandemic behind us. Where we live in Europe, infections are on the rise. No one in my building wears a mask. You have to wear a mask on public transport and in the shops, other than that people do what they want. We're all exhausted from almost 2 years of this mysterious, relentless virus that keeps going on and on. You've got to listen to your own inner voice to get through this thing.
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  95. What is absurd about President Putin's saber rattling about nuclear weapons is that everyone knows that the minute one nuclear missile has been fired and a Ukrainian town or city is turned into ashes and cinders in a heartbeat, the whole world pivots towards Armageddon in a big way. If you ask me those nukes are already in Belarus and ready to go.
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  96. This war is not only immoral it is an attack on the human family and shames every decent person walking the earth. Some people in Donbas have lived with shelling going on for more than 8 years and are only leaving now because the kids are afraid to go to sleep at night, because it's gotten so intense! Boys and girls, we are in 2022 and it sounds like we are living at the time when our present economic system was put into place. In 1694 The Bank of England issued the first bonds and, according to some sources, ushered in consumer capitalism---a system that no longer works for the common good, unlike seige warfare from the middle ages that Russia is using which still works just fine. We've got to get a new economic system and we've got to outlaw seige warfare tactics which have put rebuilding the Ukraine at hundreds of billions of dollars USD and cost untold amounts of misery and loss of life. Over 15,000 war crimes have already been committed according to special prosecutors. I don't know how it is <chez vous> where you live, but where I live it takes 1,2 sometimes even 3 years per case from start to finish. Do the math.
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  97. Militarized-Mobbing: What no one is talking about is China's incessant war cries and threats to invade Taiwan. This is what I call the militarized mobbing of the Taiwanese people. Mobbing is organized harassment; China sending fighter jets to buzz Taiwan is mobbing on an industrial scale. Mobbing is destructive because people are fragile and constant teasing by feigned attacks or barely disguised false threats i.e., screaming jets overhead for example, can cause people to become jittery, anxious and afraid. Anxiety can disrupt one's mental state, disturb one's sleeping habits and cause unease in a myriad of ways. This is unfair and it needs to stop.
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  98. It beggar's belief we are seeing the deeply flawed and once magnanimous Russian President, Vladimir Putin, fall so far off the mark and issue comments that have no basis in reality about how the Ukraine war is a fight for Russia's survival. In truth, history will look back on this very sad self-promotional video as the work of a desperate and deluded President of a great nation that has let a dream in his head become the nightmare of Europe and the free world. It makes you feel sorry for President Putin to see this absurd farce he is promulgating, when everyone knows it is his warped version of the facts. The sad awful truth of the moment is that the curtain is closing in on the leader of the second most powerful superpower in the world. This illegal and ill-planned war on an innocent and sovereign country will cost Russia decades of reparation payments and be remembered as the work of raving madman, a bumbling fool for not living in the real world.
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  99. As a US presidential historian, for Jim Robenalt to say the Trump scandal is far worse than the Watergate scandal is proof that America is going to experience a sea-change if President Trump is or is not indicted. My guess is that the powers that be won't want to see Donald J. Trump do any sort of jail time; I think all Trump will get is a slap on the wrist and house arrest for 2 or 3 years i.e., to spend the next 36 months on his Mara Lago golf course. But as Robenalt says, if Trump isn't indicted what will this say about justice in the American legal system?
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  100. Yes; Putin has painted himself in a corner we had better make sure we cut a new door and a window in the walls around him so he can walk away from this unscathed and not feeling like a war criminal. We can and must show him a dignified way to get out of this major military mistake or he just might go nuclear to show he's tougher than anyone ever thought he could be. He has nothing to lose and every dictator in the world we have known operates on a mantra of staying in power at all costs. People who commit suicide apparently cannot find a way out of the predicament they're in so they opt for an end to it all and take themselves out of the equation. The next step up from suicide is to commit mass-murder.
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  101. Tim, go full razor cut, you are a supreme interviewer but you look like a wizard from a Harry Potter's film. What we have to realize is that Kaupo is showing us once again why a slap on the proverbial wrist is what the Russian high command needs to see its venture into Ukraine was a disaster.
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  102.  @JuliusHunter-ku2vv  GGGGGreat to hear from you and former President Trump's new campaign slogan is an upgrade of MAGA to MAKE AMERICA GOOFY AGAIN. I think it fits his brand of governing style.
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  103. This a tipping point being surpassed, but we should be aware of one thing. CO2 in the atmosphere is the culprit. Renewable energy is the answer--for the future, because there is no way we can cut fossil fuel consumption for decades. The cure is in the malady. I'm not a chemist, but surely converting CO2 into H20 is doable. There needs to be hydrogen in the mix of course, but that's readily available too. Why not get NASA's mars project team bifurcating their activities into solving this problem?
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  104. Could we ask Frank Legwidge the difference between fighting in, say, the Iraqui war to the Ukrainian war? Isn't warfare changed forever as we see now how deadly small groups of 9 soldiers with two or three anti-tank guns and a drone scouting out the territory in advance and signaling to the small fighting group where the armored vehicle is hiding...
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  105.  @McAwesomeDelux  GGGGGGreat to hear from you. You've got some good insight into how things will probably play out. The way it looks now is like when some animals like lions who at times eat their prey while they are still alive. To be in one's country and experience an insurgency force of foreign fighters coming in and taking over a section and then saying they will annexe it must be horrifying to live through. The Russians have decided another country is 'theirs' and they are going through the motions of conquering a sovereign nation by seige warfare in front of the whole world. It's a death spiral they will ultimately have to reconcile with when the war runs out of steam. The question is how the Ukraine is going to come out of this conflict.
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  106. In the name of God, what on Earth is going on with our UN? It is sickening to see how we are letting our brothers and sisters starve to death and the worst is that babies are malnourished and it will affect their general health for the rest of their lives. We need a world government that looks over the entire world. Our nation-state system simply turns a blind eye to poor countries in need. Our capitalist system makes it possible for people from poor countries to turn a blind on their brothers and sisters who are starving.
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  107.  @Godzilla-t1z  GGGGGGGGGGGreat to hear from you. General Hodges is not a pilot!
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  108. What is good about the problem of severe gas reduction to countries like Germany that have relied heavily on Russian gas? Tony Robbins, the American psychologist of change, suggested using this as a way to confront seemingly intractable problems. Germany has been blackmailed; this cannot be refuted, but Germany is also one of the most innovative countries the world has ever known. If you have ever owned a German car, you know how well-respected they are. I remember getting caught in a hail-storm at an intersection with my VW camping bus. Dozens of cars were caught at the four corners by murderous hail. When it was over, I heard people yelling and cursing. Their cars were pock-marked, windows were broken and once beautiful sedans made to look like junk-yard trophies by the lemon sized hail stones. Then everyone looked at my VW bus and suddenly their mouths opened and no words came out. I got out of my bus and looked and there were no dents at all in the vehicle because it was German-made. This is an excellent opportunity for coming up with a way to skate through having to find a new energy source. In the meantime, people in Germany need to be thinking of six months from now on 29 February or 1 March 2023. This is what and where every inventor and future-planner must focus on. What can you do to come up with the energy system needed to heat homes and allow industry to function? Diversification will now become the German byword for progress; this is my prediction.
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  109.  @mikefox955  GGGGGGGGGGreat to hear from you. Please use the English corrector. What is UA or Elensky? Who is stuck on a deceptive rocord.
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  110. Why can't we take down the NATO shield just for humanitarian reasons and let ground troops, air power and heavy weaponry into the Ukraine so that food and ammo and reinforcements can cut a path through to the last fighters? Russia says they will use nukes, I know. But if they do it's suicide for them as well.
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  111. What is on my mind is that something like 5% of the people in poor or developing countries have been vaccinated. Doesn't this leave the door open for a possible catastrophic mass-spreading of the Omnicron variant as it is 5 times more contageous than previous variants? Surely, we are going to see a variant coming out of the pandemic storm that will be raging in the unvaccinated nations that will mutate its way to creating a strain that cuts through all known vaccine capabilties.
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  112. If you ask me, the Taliban have crossed the Rubicon as far as the Afghanistan people are concerned in this latest atrocity. You know they know it, because for the first time they are pointing the finger at another extremist group who also excel in killing innocent people. The great Afghanistan people will make the monsters who did this pay a hundred times over when the Americans have left. The world is now going to witness what these wonderful people are all about; they are the most patient and forgiving and respectful people in the world, but if you kill their children there is no place you can hide. These cowardly killers have lost their souls; they no longer belong to the human family; they no longer belong in the great country of Afghanistan.
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  113. Striking places of learning with cruise missiles i.e., two universities shows the desperation in the Russian attempts to destablize and subjugate the Ukrainian people to Russian rule. The Kremlin war planners do not seem to understand the Ukrainian psyche: the Ukrainian people refuse outside rule. President Putin of Russia seems to think that by destroying hospitals and medical centers and shopping malls and now universities, that he has found the formula for making the Ukrainians come to their senses and surrender. History is replete with absolute rulers who fail in disgrace and absolutely by reaching out too far one last time. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the fallen and to the families and friends of those killed in today's senseless shelling and missile attacks.
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  114. We have to put ourselves into the spaceships of the supposed UFOs or aliens. Can anyone imagine a spaceship from Earth travelling through space for perhaps a decade or decades until it reaches a galaxy or planet where there is intelligent life---now hold on because here is the punch line---where intelligent life, a civilization exists, sentient beings, equal to or more advanced than human beings and then orders come from Earth: do not engage with this civlization; play hide and seek. Everytime you are spotted; disappear. If they come after you, fly at ridiculous speeds then take a sharp right or left and dive into the sea. Boys and girls, it makes no sense for an advanced civilization to send a manned spacecraft to the Earth and not want to meet the Earthlings. They would have the technology to convert seawater to fresh water, cure diseases, etc. Would we hide away knowing we had the savoir faire to help an alien civlization come back from environmental disaster. No; we'd land our spacecraft in the most public place and ask to meet the leaders of the world we came to.
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  115.  @edvargas3105  GGGGGGGGGGGGreat to hear from you. Did you know that there is one thing you have that no one else in the whole universe has? It's your point of view and if you have noticed even if you wanted you cannot give it away, because everyone has their point of view. We must remember that under international law that was signed by Moscow, all the treaties say that sovereign countries get to choose what alliances sovereign countries belong to. Treaties like the UN Charter was signed by Russia. The 1975 Helsinki agreement was signed by the Soviet Union. The 1990 Charter of Paris for a new Europe was also signed by the Soviet Union. The 1997 NATO Russia Founding Act was equally signed by the Russian Government. All those documents were signed by either the Soviet Regime or the Russian regime, which is the legally recognized international inheritor i.e., successor of the Soviet State. The fact is those agreements are still in place and they clearly state that sovereign countries can freely choose their foreign policy and what alliances they want to join. For the President of Russia to warn western nations not to help the Ukrainians defend themselves is pure hypocrisy and insulting to the free world writ large.
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  116. People who lose control in demonstrating and start looting and burning cars and breaking everything they can to vent their anger have one thing in common: they have time. People who cannot conduct themselves in a peaceful manner must simply be deprived of their time and their portable phones. If there is one thing that will wake somebody up who is in their late teens or early twenties is that their lives are inextricably linked to social media. Just one day without their portable phones, and it will sink in to someone that they never want to be away from their phones again. Imagine people who spend all their waking hours on social media deprived of their phones for the rest of the summer sitting in the slammer! Then you put heavy fines and community service work on them when they get out. They lose big time on the next thing: criminal records that will never be expunged. These three things are a deterent that will make any young person think three times before going on the rampage again.
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  117.  @stefanstruger9949  GGGGGGGGGGGreat to hear from you. Blanket statements are impossible to decipher. State what you are criticizing in livid detail, then tell us what is the right way.
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  118.  @mrcactuar8515  GGGGGGGGGGGreat to hear from you. Who are cowards? Blanket statements are hard to understand. Tell us more detail. Sometimes I say 4 or 5 things and people write back "you're wrong". Tell us what is the right anlysis.
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  119.  @elmohead  GGGGGGGGGreat to hear from you. I am an artist not a military strategist. We will never know what Alexander the Great would do, but I am willing to bet he would not lose against the Russians. Warfare is like art, you have to be creative. Russia outnumbers Ukrainian forces 10 to 1, they have nukes, but that doesn't mean dog doo doo on the battlefield.
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  120. I don't think it's business savvy or cold feet as to why Elon Musk is putting Twitter on the back burner to simmer. It's cold tweets!
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  121. No one should worry about a populist pro-Russian winning Slovakia's election. There should be celebration for his win, but now the work begins to get this man's train moving west instead of east. What is obvious is that he has bought Putin's kettle of fish hook, line and sinker----and he is not alone. What Slovakia's Prime Minister needs to do, however, is get over to Kiev and have him visit the front lines with President Zelenski. The sad awful fact is that the Ukraine is the cradle of democracy and if Ukraine does not survive, all of our democracies and democratic institutions will be affected. If Russia ends up on the Polish border, we all know the next country that will fall if Russia is not stopped at Ukraine's border. Our world is complex and everyone can see the cracks in the woodwork appearing everywhere, but we're all down the drain if autocratic politicians run the planet no matter what they say.
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  122.  offroadguy7772  GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGreat to hear from you. You are right of course. They would probably take out 60% of the planes. But to break through a front line defense only two dozen fighter bomber jets are needed to flush out the trenches and blast away mine fields and finally open the gate for the 11 Ukrainian brigades waiting to go in action. Everyone knows high losses are part of any counteroffensive. Once through the Russian defenses, the war changes into something called winners and losers.
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  123. One thing no one ever imagined is happening to the Earth: a virus that defies scientific understanding and that keeps mutating and getting stronger with each new variant that happens along. France's President Macron has had to go for the juglar on this rampaging pandemic and stop it in its tracks. What all of us should be aware of is that there is no crystal ball showing us the end in sight of the Covid-19 virus pandemic. We should realize therefore, that this is the time to take care of ourselves better than ever before and eat good food and if possible to be in the best physical condition--to get in shape--and maintain a good state of mind as much as possible and to get outdoors as much as possible and not let our fears get the best of us.
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  124. DW News is tops. You all do a fabulous job. We have spent over 470 days watching a war that defies all logic for the human mind. Russia's reasons for invading started with denazification of the Ukrainian government, then reclaiming historic lands and finally to counter NATO expansion. Throw into the mix more war crimes and acts of barbarism that you cannot count and it distills down into what an autocratic, tzarist regime is all about. What we know is that the west will lose all credibility if we give up our support for saving Ukraine. It is our existential problem that can only be resolved by forcing Russia back to its borders. Moreover; the cost in blood and treasure will haunt our consciences for decades to come.
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  125. Well, we now know President Putin will be throwing in the towel when he hears that Ukrainian women are on the front lines. Seriously, we have all got to stand behind these incredible people fighting an existential battle for their homeland.
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  126. Top reporting from everyone at DW and today's vocast is no exception. What is maddening is how the west has been unable to help the Ukrainians reverse the Russian advances in Sievierodonetsk. What is also something that is absolutely horrifying is that we hear Russia is giving Russian passports to the Ukrainian citizens in two cities it has turned into rubble. It's like as if Venezuela attacked the US and conquered Florida and then gave Floridians Venezuelan passports to replaced their American ones. How long are we going to sit on the side-lines and see a democratic country go under the hammer of a nation of thugs?
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  127. Begs the question means assumes what it should be proving and does not mean raises the question. Correct use : « When I asked the dealer why I should pay more for the German car, he said I would be getting 'German quality', but that just begs the question. »
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  128.  @abdoulayedewa1789  GGGGGreat to hear from you. We wouldn't let a bus driver do a heart operation. It's so tempting to think you need a tough guy to run a country. That's what they say of Putin in Russia, he's a tough guy, but my grandmother should be able to run a country. It's a strong mind that's needed, not strong arms. If a leader is not up to the job, there's someone else waiting in the wings.
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  129.  @jovicatrpcevski209  GGGGGGGGGGreat to hear from you. You sound like you've got a handle on the situation a lot better than me. I only try to find solutions to problems and the problems between competing communities are massive. I would like to find a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian crisis most of all. Something has got to give so that both of those peoples can live normally again. It's got to be just as hard between Serbs and Kosovars, but we know there is always a solution...
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  130. Could you please confirm that the Prime Minister and his staff were having a lock-down party because of a British researcher who claimed to have found the cause of the Covid-19 virus: Pinochio bats? Yes; pinochio bats are the culprit and Prime Minister Johnson was apparently so relieved and elated and excited to be the first to unravel the truth and find the mystery animal that he called in his staff to spread the good news and then someone broke out a bottle of wine, somehow it got opened, more bottles were found, glasses were brought out, one thing led to another and suddenly everyone realized that they were in what has become known as lcck-down party-mode. Every one knows how hard it is to escape from a lock-down party. The Prime Minister realized after a mere 6 hours that what was going on was not a tea party and he immediately asked his guests to leave through the back door; that was all it was. FYI: Pinochio bats are found in the attics of the halls of government offices around the world; they are known for misleading scientists by as yet some form of unkonwn form of trickery in that after examination, they always come out with clean results: no virus there. But thankfully, a British biologist cracked the code and found Covid-19 virus babies hiding behind the bats' ears.
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  131. Please allow me a second comment to Jessica Berlin's criticism of Germany's Olaf Sholz and France's President Macron. Of all the western and NATO leaders, these two countries are championing the Lavrovian philosophy of saying one thing and doing the opposite. French and German arms are pouring into the Ukraine as we speak and President Macron and Chancellor Sholz are saying the opposite. Why are they doing this? Someone has to play to two audiences and these two leaders know they have President Putin's ear. But the price is to mimic puppet regimes and praise Russia for its desire to end the war soon. I am not a military strategist, but what I see is a new stage of the war where we can no longer believe what either side is saying.
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  132. We have to remember that the Ukraine is mounting a counter offensive without air superiority. This is like cooking a pizza at midday on the sidewalk during a heatwave. It gets cooked alright, but not like cooking it in a pizza oven. There are no rules in war except to win by whatever means you can get your hands on. What we must try to do is help the Ukrainians punch through the Russian front-lines and cut a swath of destruction to the coast of the Sea of Azov to sever the Russian land bridge which would mean Crimea would fall in days.
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  133.  @danielmorgner1169  GGGGGGGGGGGGreat to hear from you. There is someone who wants to talk to you and she will appear tonight in your 3rd dream. She has the head of a hyena and the body of a RR. Just kidding, but you're right----and everyone's opinion needs to be listened to. What we must realize is that, like the homeless, we must get people the minimum in life or life is meaningless. In my country, if you lose your flat and have no place to live you go down to a city park and put up a tent and hang out a sign saying you have no place to live. The government will provide you a place to live, food, money for clothes etc. It's in the constitution. It's the minimum. How can you improve in life if you haven't even got a place to live let alone food to eat and clothes for your kids? I say: Feed the hungry and we'll let their governments worry about what's next on the agenda.
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  134. The sad awful truth of the matter is that nationalism is on the rise. It costs billions and billions of Euros, pounds, dollars, francs to build more and more powerful nuclear arms that everyone knows if enough nukes went off it would put the Earth in a nuclear winter. The worst thing is that instead of the pandemic bringing us together, it has made us form yet more alliances and throwing more oil on the fire. We need to be moving towards a world government not reinforcing our arsenals and saber rattling till kingdom comes.
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  135. That is terrible to see a woman getting caned or whipped like that in the public square. President Biden will be criticized ad Astra for getting American troops out of Afghanistan, and the starving children are a testimony to how fragile any country's social system and infrastructure are, but the world at large can now see what this band of imposters, the Taliban, really are. To see a man in military uniform, guns hanging off his belt, go around whipping women in broad daylight where everyone in the world can see them is testimony to the fact that the Taliban are barbarians in sheeps' clothing. President Biden has done us a favor because before we only heard about their incivilities to women; now we can see it for what it is: cruel and inhumane.
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  136. This is an excellent vocast and at the same time terrifying to see the Rhine river looking like a stream. How could so much water have been whisked away? I mean, a river has hundreds of thousands of gallons of water moving down stream. Professor Bart van den Hurk points out very clearly that rising temperatures are the next pandemic affecting our weather system. This means one thing that no one is talking about yet. We have to go about solving this problem on a global scale and quit having individual countries go it on their own. We need a fresh water management czar at the UN who is given powers to transport water where it is needed. We need to have a UN funded climate control bureau set up where we have the top scientists in the world at work trying to reverse-engineer rain clouds and find a way to reflect heat back into space. One thing I think should be looked into is water transfer mechanisms i.e., aqueducts put under our roads, highways and railways. Grey water could be sent under the roads to where it was needed and at the same time could lower the temperatures of the roads that get so hot they buckle in summer. Everything must be tried, but what we need is this problem of climate change to be delegated to a special branch of the UN. We need a global climate czar and not a toothless bureaucracy that only can tell us what's wrong and give advice. We also have to realize we cannot stop burning fossil fuels and this means we have to work around it. We have to become the masters of our weather and there is no better time than now for us to take a year or two off of blowing ourselves up with more and more sophisticated weapons and putting all of our brainpower into reverse engineering the weather system of our planet. It's doable. We must do it.
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  137. Excellent reporting and if I may say something as a layperson with no military experience to Mr Ledwidge. What I think we have to realize is that the west is finally using Lavrovian diplomacy tools in detailing arms shipments and battleground tactics and projections on the end of the conflict. What do I mean by Lavrovian diplomacy? The Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says one thing and does another thing the next day. It's the Russian way to keep the opposition off-balance. I could be wrong, but I think what we are seeing is the Ukrainians and the western allies are using the same technique. They say they're delivering 4 rocket launchers---but that might be today's batch. Lastly, and it would be interesting to have Frank's take on this suggestion. Mr Ledwidge, wouldn't it be a better way to cover the war and help the Ukrainians win the war by staying in 24-hour increments? What do I mean by 24 time periods. If we just report what is going on in the 24-hour period we call real-time, it won't be so frightening to constantly be worrying about how the Ukraine is going to stay in the safe-zone in, say, 8 months. Everyone is starting to get worried about how on Earth the Ukrainian economy can pay for the war etc. What this does is make it look hopeless; wars cannot be predicted so let's just focus on the next 24 hours and this allows the Ukrainians to focus on what they're doing today and the rest of the world can evaluate what is happening right now and how to better use the resources they have to continue fighting rather than what the west is going to send in 6 weeks time. There are too many moving parts. Let's stay in a 24 hour or similarly short time span and not look further. It's better to take small steps to victory than live with some hypothetical amount of time for an end to a conflict that not even military specialists like Mr Ledwidge could predict with any degree of accuracy; no one knows for sure when the fighting in the Ukraine will end so why should we be wringing our hands and worrying about something we have no control over.
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  138. We all must prepare ourselves for something other than a false flag operation getting cooked up. The hard men of the Kremlin are not going to go the way of the dodo and with Ukraine holding its own in their counter offensive, the only viable way for Russia to get the ball rolling back down the hill is to get Belarus involved into the conflict by claiming Polish troops attacked a Wagner Bros. training camp in Belarus. We can see that Lukashenko has been gagged and when he dies Belarus will be under Russian command. The trouble is we know that tactical nukes have been placed in Belarus and as Putin is becoming more desperate by the day, there is only cover for him by making the war cross borders and of course claim that Russia was invaded by Poland.
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  139. Military officer (Ret.) Frank Ledwige doesn't mince his words on the battle of Ukraine. I am an artist living 2,000 kilometers from Kiev this is starting to look like WW III is on the horizon with every passing day. I have no military experience, but why on Earth are the Ukrainians not driving a wedge to the Mariupol steel plant so that trapped civlians can be escorted to safety? Once that is done, it seems the next logical step would be to drive the wedge to the Sea of Asov effectively cutting the Russians' land bridge in two. That accoplished they could circle round on the Russians' east and west flank and drive them back to their border in the east and Crimea in the west. Obviously, they'd be doing this if they had the manpower and equipment, but why can't the west help them get this very painful part of the war done and dusted?
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  140. What is all the fuss about? Here is the deal. Both China and the USA are nuclear powers. An accident would lead to attacks with conventional weapons and then a nuclear device would be used. Simple as that. All this posturing is ridiculous. China, like Russia, is---for lack of a better term---a tzarist nation. From top down, it's stovepipe leadership. We can huff and puff all we want, but they are going to live with one-man-rule for as long as we're in the world; it's a bitter pill to swallow and if we don't there is only Armageddon waiting in the wings. The Chinese system is one person calling the shots---as they do in Russia. So; what's the solution for the South China Sea and Taiwan hullaballoo? You just keep throwing this line of questioning and response at the Chinese when they do a daring maneuver with one of their warships or planes: "Hey, we're listening. What's up guys? What are you trying to tell us? What do you want us to do?" This is all you can do realistically. And: you don't have to obey their commands. Yes; we have to accept what is unacceptable in our culture and way of life and do our best to avoid an air collision or a sea mishap, but we have to understand that the Chinese mentality is a one-way street. So; you keep asking every time there is a new provocation: "Hi guys, we're listening, what do you want? Is there something we can do to help?" You don't have to do what they say, but what doesn't work is to flex your muscles. The Chinese cannot lose face on the international stage; they do not use emotions like we do. They always have a poker face: we have to do the same. It's either play the game like this or risk nuclear annihilation for billions of people.
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  141.  @naynay1139  GGGGGGGGGGGreat to hear from you. Vested interests are the rulers of the world. You tell it like it is in a nutshell; but it's unfortunately the truth because we all live with an economic system that really runs the show. Money is the ultimate god of the 21st century like it was since the beginning of civlization. All we know is that the Ukrainian war has sounded the death knell for the Russian Federation; it has been shown to be a farce, a fairy story that shows no one should have to live in a country where one man calls the shots for everyone.
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  142. Just how much pain are we going to have to take from the Russian President's political spankings he keeps giving everyone and every country who won't go along with his planned military exercise i.e., assault on the Ukraine? Putin either has forgotten or chooses not to accept what his country has already agreed to, but he should remember that under international law that was signed by Moscow, all the treaties say that sovereign countries get to choose what alliances sovereign countries belong to. Treaties like the UN Charter was signed by Russia. The 1975 Helsinki agreement was signed by the Soviet Union. The 1990 Charter of Paris for a new Europe was also signed by the Soviet Union. The 1997 NATO Russia Founding Act was equally signed by the Russian Government. All those documents were signed by either the Soviet Regime or the Russian regime, which is the legally recognized international inheritor i.e., successor of the Soviet State. The fact is those agreements are still in place and they clearly state that sovereign countries can freely choose their foreign policy and what alliances they want to join. For the President of Russia to warn western nations not to help the Ukrainians defend themselves is pure hypocrisy and using energy cutoffs to countries like Germany is insulting to the free world writ large.
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  143. As someone not in the military or politics---I am an artist---what I see as the solution to the terrible situation that is boiling over in the middle east is for the UN to put every dossier on the back-burner and get people like General (Ret.) Petraeus to weigh in on this proposal. First, in my opinion, Hamas only exists because of the suffering of a great people called the Palestinians. They are wonderful people who have been on the wrong side of history for too long. Take away the suffering and Hamas would have no reason to exist. What is my solution? Gaza is a blood-soaked piece of territory of 145 square kilometers that was described by former American President Jimmy Carter as an open prison. Let's be real: that is no place for kids to grow up. Gaza could be transformed into a wildlife sanctuary cum Galapagos of the middle east that could see Israelis working alongside the other nations to help save the dwindling numbers of species of plant, animal and aquatic life and save many creatures and plants and fish and the like. Every one of us will be proud of our generation to have found a way out of these interminable and senseless conflicts that ruin people’s lives. Borders need to be redrawn in the region and a territory of sufficient size set up to house the entire Palestinian population that would be free from outside intervention, settlers, etc. The incredible task of relocating 2.3 million people to a new homeland is logistic challenge that only people like General Petraeus could achieve. You see, I am in it for the kids. For a child to have lived through 5 wars in 15 years is inadmissible in our times. We could be the generation that solves these neighboring-country wars by creating something and that something could be nature reserves. Every religious group respects nature.
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  144.  @rampage241  GGGGGGGGGGGGGreat to hear from you. Of course, you are right, but the movers and shakers of the region might see a solution in some part of what I imagined as a peace plan.
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  145. First, our hearts and prayers go out to the patients with Covid-19 Delta variant in Indonesia and around the world. The front-line health workers look like nuclear-plant personnel with every inch of their bodies protected from the (virus) radiation. What I feel is indignation that this is happening at all. Right from the beginning, the then Vice-President of Taiwan was the first to know the Wuhan virus was deadly, but from then on this was handled very badly. We have the WHO who were not efficient. We have mixed messaging coming from our governments to the people. Worst, we have been attacking the virus as a bunch of nations instead of a one-world centered approach with crisp, clear orders coming from the WHO who are supposed to be looking out for us. All of this suffering. The pandemic is going to be remembered as the Afghanistan of all pandemics. We have lost the battle and it is the poor and uniformed who will pay the highest price. We must unite as one human family and realize that the Covid-19 virus is only the first shot over the bow.
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  146. Kira, if you are able to read this, please try visualization before every battle. See yourself winning and staying alive and pushing back the enemy. Be strong by visualizing yourself winning in your mind and it will be so. Moreover, know that you have the free world behind you. The no-fly zone cannot be put into place because it would mean air combat operations which would escalate the war to WW III status. However; just know that every western government is working around the clock to implement a plan 'B' that will help you win the skies.
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  147. It is mind boggling to hear Vladimir Putin warn the west not to send the weapons to Ukraine that it needs to defend itself. That's like being in a shipwreck and the captain saying not to throw life preservers to certain people swimming for their lives or he will shoot those who try to help them. To send in hypersonic missiles and rain down missiles and phosphorous bombs on civilian targets and to have Russian tanks blast away at apartment buildings and level the Ukrainian infra-structure and burn down homes and kill civilians and rape the women and throw them in mass graves is what President Putin's roving bands of military exercise specialists has been doing to a sovereign state. We must remember that under international law that was signed by Moscow, all the treaties say that sovereign countries get to choose what alliances sovereign countries belong to. Treaties like the UN Charter was signed by Russia. The 1975 Helsinki agreement was signed by the Soviet Union. The 1990 Charter of Paris for a new Europe was also signed by the Soviet Union. The 1997 NATO Russia Founding Act was equally signed by the Russian Government. All those documents were signed by either the Soviet Regime or the Russian regime, which is the legally recognized international inheritor i.e., successor of the Soviet State. The fact is those agreements are still in place and they clearly state that sovereign countries can freely choose their foreign policy and what alliances they want to join. For the President of Russia to warn western nations not to help the Ukrainians defend themselves is pure hypocrisy and insulting to the free world writ large.
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  148.  @_morgoth_  GGGGGGGGGGGGreat to hear from you. There's always going to be a solution, and you may have it. What we don't know of course is where this Omicron variant is going to lead us. We're 24 months into a pandemic that is showing no sign of letting up. My gut feeling is that we haven't seen the worst of it yet.
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  149.  @willsalazarramirez5139  Great to hear from you. Our concierge is from Columbia and she's very nice. The Lambda variant is now the dominant variant in Columbia, what does it look like to you? Are you experiencing mass hospitalizations?
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  150. The secret to winning against China for Taiwan is to use China's secret weapon: politeness. Tawain must become more and more polite in its insistence on wanting to remain a sovereign country. The more Taiwan reciprocates with kind and thoughtful refusals, the more China's CCP will be struck without a response. Let the tanks roll, let the landing ships come, Taiwan has only polite words and a big stick to fight back. In short; Taiwan must fight against a superpower with utter kindness, for the Chinese people are not to be blamed for the desire of a privileged few.
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  151. Excellent reporting; we are so fortunate to have journalists of such high caliber sending out interviews and pictures and videos that are very difficult to process. A country is being systematically destroyed and civilians cut down on the streets and for some reason know one really understands, we can't send in our soldiers to fight the Russians.
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  152. We can't blame Gerhard Schröder for becoming a German-Russian. He was given a choice job and became friends with President Putin. Once President Putin declares that you are his friend, one can imagine that every possible door is open for you across Russia. Schröder is in political quicksand and he knows it. He has two options: go with Mother Russia where President Putin is waiting for him with open arms or stay in his home country which is a disgruntled Germany that is threatening him with bags of insults and shouts of treason.
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