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DOHA – Son Heung-min’s South Korea toiled into the Asian Cup knockout rounds on Jan 25, after conceding a last-minute equaliser in a madcap 3-3 draw with minnows Malaysia.
The result in Doha meant the Koreans advanced as Group E runners-up and avoided a last-16 showdown with pre-tournament favourites and arch-rivals Japan.
Instead they will play the winners of Group F, which Saudi Arabia led ahead of Thailand before their match on Jan 25.
Bahrain topped Group E and will face Japan after a 1-0 win over Jordan, who also went through to the last 16.
“We didn’t want to avoid Japan, definitely wasn’t our plan to concede three today. We wanted to go through in first place, that was our goal,” said South Korea coach Jurgen Klinsmann.
“But Malaysia defended well, they worked so hard. They played with a lot of heart, got to give them credit for their performance but we should have won this game.”
Malaysia were eliminated despite a heroic effort that saw the world’s 130th-ranked team score a 105th-minute equaliser from Romel Morales.
Klinsmann’s side thought they had won it after Lee Kang-in equalised with an 83rd-minute free kick that went in off goalkeeper Syihan Hazmi and then Tottenham Hotspur’s Son scored from the penalty spot in the 94th minute.
Jeong Woo-yeong gave the Koreans the lead in the 21st minute, only for Malaysia to come roaring back with two goals early in the second half from Faisal Halim and Arif Aiman.
Klinsmann named Wolverhampton Wanderers forward Hwang Hee-chan among the substitutes for the first time at the Asian Cup. Hwang, who has scored 10 goals in the English Premier League this season, has been struggling with a hip injury.
South Korea had the VAR (video assistant referee) to thank for their opening goal. Jeong thumped a header that Hazmi initially looked to have clawed away with a fantastic save. But the replay showed that the ball had crossed the line before Hazmi got a hand to it.
It was a rare moment of ruthlessness from a Korean side that dominated possession but could not score in the first half, and Malaysia made them pay with a stunning equaliser six minutes after the restart at Al-Janoub Stadium.
Darren Lok robbed a sleeping Hwang In-beom on the edge of the box, and Halim turned Bayern Munich defender Kim Min-jae inside out before slotting the ball home from a tight angle.
And more was to come when a VAR check gave Malaysia a penalty after Seol Young-woo was ruled to have kicked Aiman, who buried the spot kick leaving some of their fans in tears as they contemplated a famous win.
Halim almost scored again on the counter, with the Koreans pouring forward in desperate search of an equaliser.
The Taeguk Warriors kept up the pressure and Lee delivered with his third goal of the tournament.
Captain Son then put South Korea ahead from the spot after substitute Oh Hyeon-gyu was fouled in the box in injury time. But Malaysia had the final say as Morales notched a famous equaliser.
Before the match, Malaysia’s South Korean coach Kim Pan-gon had called on his players to “don’t fear and play bravely against Korea”.
He can be proud that it was exactly what they did.
In the other game, Bahrain netted the winner from a first-half counter-attack when Abdulla Yusuf Helal sprinted from the centre circle with just the goalkeeper to beat and pulled the trigger from outside the box. REUTERS, AFP
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https://www.straitstimes.com/sport/football/south-korea-struggle-into-asian-cup-last-16-with-malaysia-draw
| 2024-01-25T16:27:32Z
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BERLIN - Union Berlin coach Nenad Bjelica was banned for three matches and fined 25,000 euros ($27,075) on Thursday after he shoved Bayern Munich's Leroy Sane, the German Football Association (DFB) said.
The Croatian coach was sent off after 74 minutes in Wednesday's 1-0 Bundesliga loss to Bayern after shoving Sane.
The player had gone to get the ball from Bjelica near the Union bench for a throw-in.
He pushed the ball out of the coach's hands and Bjelica then put his hands on the Germany international's face twice, pushing him away.
"Nenad Bjelica was banned for the next three league matches and fined 25,000 euros for unsporting behaviour," the DFB said in a statement.
Bjelica, who took over in November, will now miss his team's Bundesliga matches against Darmstadt 98, RB Leipzig and Mainz 05.
Union, who last year finished fourth to qualify for the Champions League, are currently in 15th place on 14 points, three above the relegation playoff spot. REUTERS
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https://www.straitstimes.com/sport/football/union-coach-bjelica-banned-for-three-games-after-shoving-bayerns-sane
| 2024-01-25T16:27:42Z
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Human rights organization Save Ukraine managed to retrieve four more children from Russia and the occupied territories of Ukraine.
“Today, the children finally met their families after a long separation. Some of them had not seen each other for almost two years,” Save Ukraine wrote in a Facebook post.
Thousands of other minors still in captivity are being illegally adopted into Russian families despite having alive parents in Ukraine or brainwashed into becoming Russian mercenaries.
Save Ukraine is a volunteer organization helping families and children affected by war. Its executive director is Mykola Kuleba, former Ombudsman for Children with the President of Ukraine. On 24 January, Save Ukraine completed its 15th rescue mission, and in total, they managed to return 231 Ukrainian children from Russia and the occupied territories.
The unlawful deportation of children is a war crime. According to Ukraine’s official data, Russia has kidnapped almost 20 thousand children, though the figures might be underestimated due to active hostilities and occupation of part of the territory of Ukraine. “If we return one child every day, it will take us 55 years,” said Dmytro Lubinets, Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights. According to Lubinets, Ukraine returned 517 abducted children home as of 14 January.
Based on these allegations, in March 2023, the International Crime Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, and the Commissioner for Children’s Rights in the Office of the President, Maria Lvova-Belova. The ICC accuses both individuals of committing war crimes, specifically the unlawful deportation and transfer of children from occupied areas of Ukraine to Russia.
Read more:
- House of Commons of Canada condemns deportation of Ukrainian children by Russian troops
- US sanctions 11 Russians over Ukraine children forced deportations
- OSCE’s report confirms large-scale deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia
- Putin, Lvova-Belova responsible for deportation of “at least hundreds” of Ukrainian children to Russia – Hague Prosecutor Khan
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https://euromaidanpress.com/2024/01/25/ukraine-returns-four-abducted-children-from-russian-captivity/
| 2024-01-25T16:27:45Z
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SINGAPORE – Bharoti Pande knows the pain of losing a loved one to drowning.
Her daughter Aakanksha Pande was a strong swimmer, but the 37-year-old drowned off a beach in Bali in July 2018 after being caught in rip tides.
Highlighting that proper safety protocols were not in place then, Bharoti, 72, is hopeful that others will not have to suffer the same fate with the help of clear guidelines and standards.
She was speaking at the launch of Sport Singapore (SportSG) and the Singapore Standards Council’s codes of practice for water safety at SportSG’s auditorium on Jan 25.
Recounting the ordeal, Bharoti said that Aakanksha still had a pulse when she was brought back to the beach by a surfer. However, there were no lifeguards at the scene to render immediate cardiopulmonary resuscitation.
When the ambulance arrived, there was an oxygen cylinder but no defibrillator. To worsen matters, the first hospital that Aakanksha was taken to was closed. By the time they made it to another, it was too late to save her.
A teary Bharoti said: “I thought that maybe by sharing my story… I could make both people who are swimmers and those who are involved in setting safety standards more aware.
“I honestly believe that safety should not be compromised, because no family deserves this.”
Two codes of practice were launched – the first (SS 700:2023) is an updated set of guidelines for aquatic facilities following its previous edition in 2019, while the other (SS 701:2023) is a new list of requirements for activities involving inland and open waters.
Delphine Fong, ActiveSG’s head of sport safety, said that the update was necessary due to the increasing prevalence of drowning incidents involving breath-holding and hyperventilation.
One example in the code states that lifeguards, instructors, coaches and parents must look out for signs of a shallow-water blackout, in which the victim is unconscious due to a lack of oxygen.
The code specifies that an average person can hold his or her breath for 30 to 90 seconds and, as a rule of thumb, a breath-hold can be done for a maximum distance of 25m at one time.
Guidelines for inland- and open-water activities include a venue and equipment checklist, a checklist for safe water activities and a guide to staffing ratio for adult participants during activities. There are also examples of risk factors and control measures for water sports such as scuba diving, rowing and sailing.
Both codes are available for purchase on the Singapore Standards e-Shop. Organisations involved in aquatic activities and those managing aquatic facilities are encouraged to adopt the new guidelines.
Fong said that roadshows will also be organised to educate the public and swimming pool operators on the importance of adopting the codes of practice.
She added: “Our biggest target is really the hotels and the condominiums where they have pools and many of them are not manned by lifeguards. Drowning prevention is a shared responsibility and everyone plays a part.”
Concerns about water safety have been heightened recently, following a spate of drowning incidents.
Last October, a 33-year-old kayaker died off the coast of Sentosa. On Dec 10, there was a case of suspected drowning when the body of a 20-year-old man was retrieved from the waters off East Coast Park. In the same month, a Singaporean man was subsequently found to have drowned after going missing off Desaru in Johor.
ActiveSG chief Tan Hock Leong said that with a “growing demand for aquatic sports among Singaporeans, it is imperative to uphold stringent levels of safety”.
He added: “Whether you are an event organiser, a coach of a school or club, the (codes of practice) allow one to effectively evaluate the known risks of aquatic sporting activities and help mitigate them. The necessary safe practices in place will provide ease of mind and encourage more to participate in aquatic sports.”
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https://www.straitstimes.com/sport/new-codes-of-practice-for-water-safety-in-singapore-launched-to-prevent-drowning-incidents
| 2024-01-25T16:27:52Z
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MELBOURNE - Aryna Sabalenka continued her confident march towards a second successive Australian Open crown with a 7-6(2) 6-4 victory over Coco Gauff in a blockbuster semi-final on Thursday to set up a title-decider against Chinese 12th seed Zheng Qinwen.
Zheng ended qualifier Dayana Yastremska's remarkable run 6-4 6-4 in the day's second semi but will be long odds to land her first Grand Slam title against the second seed on Saturday and match compatriot Li Na's triumph a decade ago.
Sabalenka again looked in almost irresistible form as she avenged her loss to Gauff in last year's U.S. Open final in a high-quality contest to reach the championship match without losing a set for the second year in a row.
The American teenager, also looking to land her second Grand Slam title, is one of the most athletic players in women's tennis and tore around Rod Laver Arena to stay in the contest until the Belarusian's power finally overwhelmed her.
"It was an incredible match," said Sabalenka. "She's a great player, always tough battles against her. I think the key was that I was able to stay focused no matter what, no matter what the score was, I just keep trying my best, keep fighting for it.
"It's one more to go, and I'll do my best."
The two reigning hardcourt Grand Slam champions made contrasting starts as Belarusian Sabalenka fired an ace and revved up her forehand to hold before pouncing on two double faults by Gauff to break.
Gauff hit back right away and the pair swapped breaks again but the 19-year-old New York champion continued to teeter on her serve, allowing Sabalenka to settle her nerves after going 6-5 down in a frantic spell to clinch the first set in a tiebreak.
The pair were locked together until 4-4 in the second set as Sabalenka countered Gauff's speed with power and the 25-year-old second seed edged ahead with a decisive break when the teenager hit a shot long before sealing victory with two massive serves.
"I think it just came down to a couple of points, and that's tennis," said Gauff, who was playing her last Grand Slam as a teenager.
"I'm going to dwell on it tonight but ... the sun is going to rise tomorrow. Tomorrow, I don't know, I'm going to try to go to the movies or something, be proud of myself."
While the opening semi-final was between the world number two and four, the second pitched Zheng, the only seed left in the top half of the draw, against 93rd-ranked qualifier Yastremska.
The match was just as tight with Yastremska, the first women's qualifier to reach the last four at Melbourne Park since 1978, belying her lowly ranking with some brilliant shot-making, particularly off her rocket of a backhand.
Zheng was named most improved player on the WTA tour and showed why by maintaining a consistently high level with her serve and groundstrokes as her opponent's waxed and waned, particularly after she pulled up clutching her abdomen.
She was still troubled by Yastremska's returns into the second set, however, and the Ukrainian put huge pressure on Zheng's serve before the Chinese 21-year-old managed to break for 4-3 and held to stand on the brink of victory.
Yastremska held her final service game and got to 30-30 as her opponent served for the match but Zheng summoned up two thumping service winners before holding aloft her arms in triumph.
"It feels unbelievable," said Zheng, the first Chinese player to reach a Grand Slam final since Li won the 2014 title at Melbourne Park.
"I'm super excited to have such a great performance today and get into the final. My opponent she played unbelievable tennis and has really good baseline strokes. It's tough to explain my feelings now." REUTERS
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https://www.straitstimes.com/sport/tennis/sabalenka-edges-gauff-to-set-up-melbourne-final-against-chinas-zheng
| 2024-01-25T16:28:03Z
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LUANDA - U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken hailed progress in the construction of the Lobito Corridor, a rail link key to metals exports from the central African Copperbelt, during a visit to Angola on Thursday.
The United States has been supporting the project that links resource-rich Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Zambia to the port of Lobito in Angola to bypass logistics bottlenecks in South Africa that have held up exports of copper and cobalt.
"I had a chance today to see some of the dramatic progress that's already been made in building out this corridor. It is moving faster and further I think that we might have imagined," Blinken told a news conference, standing alongside Angolan Foreign Minister Tete Antonio.
The United States has committed funding to refurbish the existing 1,300-km (800-mile) rail line and has taken the first steps to build out another 800 km, he added.
Blinken said the expansion of the corridor would secure critical minerals supply chains and spur investment in telecommunications, agriculture and other sectors.
"We maintain the dream of linking the Atlantic and Indian Ocean through that specific corridor," Antonio said.
Blinken praised Angolan President Joao Lourenco's efforts to de-escalate tensions between Rwanda and the DRC and said he had talked to Lourenco about ways to "move the diplomatic track forward".
Fighting in Congo's east between the Congolese army and the M23 rebel group has caused a diplomatic rift between Rwanda and the DRC, with Congo accusing Rwanda of backing M23, which Rwanda denies.
Blinken is on the last stop of a four-nation Africa tour that also took him to Cape Verde, Ivory Coast and Nigeria.
The trip's stated purpose was to discuss U.S.-African partnerships over trade, climate, infrastructure, health and security.
In Nigeria, Blinken said the United States was determined to remain a strong security partner. He also pledged $45 million in additional financing to help fight conflict and bring stability to coastal West Africa.mtl REUTERS
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https://www.straitstimes.com/world/blinken-hails-progress-in-construction-of-angolas-lobito-rail-corridor
| 2024-01-25T16:28:13Z
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BERLIN - German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said on Thursday he was not aware of a swap offer that would see German Taurus cruise missiles going to Britain and Ukraine receiving British Storm Shadow systems in return.
"I am not aware of this offer. If there are talks about it, then not in my house," he said in an interview with daily BILD, broadcaster WELT TV and news outlet Politico.
Britain has offered Germany a swap of cruise missiles that could allow the German government a way of overcoming concerns over a suggested delivery of missiles to Ukraine, German newspaper Handelsblatt reported on Wednesday.
Kyiv has been pushing Berlin to supply its Taurus missiles, which could give Ukraine the ability to cause significant damage deeper within Russian-occupied territory, but the German government is hesitant due to concerns it could escalate the conflict.
"With Taurus, we are talking about a highly technical system, not comparable with the products of other nations. And that's why we have to weigh up very carefully the conditions under which we do this," Pistorius said.
The head of Germany's parliamentary defence committee criticized the idea of a swap and instead called on both countries to supply their systems to Ukraine.
"Our European partners must think we are completely bonkers," Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann told Reuters. "Are we in kindergarten here on a merry-go-round?" REUTERS
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https://www.straitstimes.com/world/europe/german-defence-minister-not-aware-of-cruise-missile-swap-offer
| 2024-01-25T16:28:23Z
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On 25 January, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, held a telephone call with Wiesław Kukuła, Chief of the General Staff of Poland,
Zaluzhnyi reported this on his Telegram channel.
Zaluzhnyi briefed Kukuła on the operational situation at the frontline and Ukrainian forces’ continued efforts to hold defensive positions and eliminate invading Russian manpower and hardware.
Two generals also discussed security risks and possible cooperation in the context of Ukrainian-Polish cooperation. “In particular, the training of our military in Poland and the exchange of combat experience,” Zaluzhnyi says.
Zaluzhnyi extended an invitation for General Kukuła to visit Ukraine to jointly collaborate with Ukrainian brigades and command centers. He also updated the Polish commander on Ukraine’s ongoing efforts to counter Russian missile strikes, underscoring strengthened air defenses as vital for the country.
“I am grateful to our Polish partners for their support and assistance. Together, we will win!” Zaluzhnyi noted.
During their recent conversation, the Ukrainian and Polish presidents, Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Andrzej Duda, discussed among other topics the defense sector, with the presidents delving into the needs of the Ukrainian Defense Forces. Zelenskyy briefed Duda on the recent Russian missile attacks in Ukraine, highlighting civilian casualties and infrastructure damage, and stressed the urgency of enhancing Ukraine’s air defense capabilities.
Read also:
- Poland activates its air defenses amid Russia’s morning missile attack on Ukraine
- Minister: Some 5,000 trucks left for Poland after Polish truckers suspended border blockade
- The first Ukraine-NATO meeting of Chiefs of Defence took place without Zaluzhnyi
- Zelenskyy, Duda discuss Ukraine-Poland defense cooperation, Ukraine’s EU aspirations
- Ukraine’s army chief Zaluzhnyi visited southern frontline commanders “to increase effectiveness given the available resources”
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https://euromaidanpress.com/2024/01/25/ukrainian-polish-military-chiefs-discuss-training-combat-experience-exchange/
| 2024-01-25T16:28:25Z
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PARIS - Parts of a contested new French immigration law go against the constitution and must be scrapped, France's Constitutional Council said on Thursday.
The council, a body that validates the constitutionality of laws, annulled around half of the articles in the law, which was passed in December, including restrictions on family reunifications and student residency permits, and making residing in France illegally a crime.
Most of the articles were scrapped for procedural reasons. REUTERS
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https://www.straitstimes.com/world/europe/top-french-court-rules-large-parts-of-new-immigration-law-go-against-constitution
| 2024-01-25T16:28:34Z
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GENEVA - A deal allowing Italy to build reception camps in Albania for thousands of migrants arriving by sea raises concerns about arbitrary detention and living conditions, the U.N. human rights chief said on Thursday.
"Transfers to Albania to conduct asylum and return procedures raise important human rights issues, particularly freedom from arbitrary detention; adequate asylum application procedures, including screening and identification; and living conditions," The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said in an address to the Italian Senate.
"Italy's legal obligations under human rights and refugee law must not be undermined," he said, adding that similar arrangements had caused "great suffering and harm" in other countries, without naming them.
The Italian right-wing government of Giorgia Meloni, which takes an hard line against illegal immigration, is struggling to stem flows of migrants from Africa.
The scheme, announced in November, would involve Italy, an EU member, opening two camps in Albania, a non-EU member, in the spring. One would screen migrants on arrival and a second would detain them while asylum applications are processed, and hopes they can process as many as 3,000 cases a month.
The project has drawn criticism from human rights groups and evoked comparisons with the British government's plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda, judged illegal by Britain's Supreme Court. However, Brussels has since said that the Italian plans do not breach European Union law.
Turk also criticised Italy's existing migration policies saying that the extensive use of detention for asylum-seekers was "troublesome". And, in comments apparently referring to Italy's targeting of Mediterranean rescue vessels, he said that saving lives at sea was a "human rights imperative, which should never be criminalised or prosecuted". REUTERS
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https://www.straitstimes.com/world/europe/un-rights-chief-voices-concerns-over-italy-albania-migrant-pact
| 2024-01-25T16:28:44Z
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THE HAGUE - Judges at the World Court will hand down a judgment on Wednesday in a case in which Ukraine accused Russia of violating an anti-terrorism treaty by funding pro-Russian forces, including militias who shot down a passenger jet, and discrimination.
In the case before the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the U.N.'s top court, which was launched in 2017 and predates the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Kyiv says Russia equipped and funded pro-Russian forces in eastern Ukraine, including militias involved in shooting down Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17, killing all 298 passengers and crew, in July 2014.
Ukraine also says Russia breached a U.N. anti-discrimination treaty by trying to erase the culture of ethnic Tatars and Ukrainians in Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
Russia denies systematic human rights abuses in Ukrainian territory that it occupies. It also says it has met its obligations under the U.N. treaty against financing terrorism.
Judgments of the ICJ, also known as the World Court, are final and without appeal but the court has no way to enforce its rulings.
There is a separate case of Ukraine versus Russia at the ICJ which deals with alleged violations by Moscow of the 1948 Genocide Convention. That case is waiting on a decision on the challenges to the court's jurisdiction by Russia before it can move forward. REUTERS
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https://www.straitstimes.com/world/europe/world-court-to-rule-next-week-on-ukraine-case-against-russia-on-mh17-discrimination
| 2024-01-25T16:28:54Z
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GAZA/GENEVA - In battered, hard-to-reach north Gaza, rare aid deliveries get mobbed by desperate, hungry Palestinians and aid workers report seeing people thin and visibly starving with sunken eyes.
Hunger stalks the entire Gaza Strip, the tiny enclave where 2.3 million people have been living under Israel's bombardment since Oct. 7 as it battles Hamas militants. The United Nations warned this week that pockets of the territory face famine.
While areas near the Egyptian border get limited supplies of imported food, people in the north and centre of the strip, where fighting has been fiercest, face catastrophe aid workers say.
"The food situation in the north is absolutely horrific. There's almost no food available and everybody we talk to begs for food," said Sean Casey, a World Health Organization (WHO) coordinator in Gaza.
No comprehensive data on hunger is available for Gaza, with aid agencies struggling to move and communicate amid the fighting. They plan to assess malnutrition by measuring around children's arms for signs of wasting flesh.
A U.N.-backed report in December said the whole population of Gaza faced crisis levels of hunger and a growing risk of famine.
Medics in Gaza hospitals describe babies born sick to malnourished mothers, infants losing weight, mothers unable to produce breast milk and injured patients too weak from hunger to fight off infection.
In a Rafah hospital ward, paediatric doctor Jabr al-Shaer pointed to a baby whose weight had plummeted to 5.5 kg (12 pounds) from 7.5 kg a month and a half ago.
"This is bad. It impacts his immunity. He constantly has inflammation in the chest and gastroenteritis," he said.
His mother, Shoruq Shaaban, who is breastfeeding her baby, has little to eat herself. Like most other people in southern Gaza she now lives on a little bread and canned food.
MALNOURISHED
The U.N. children's agency UNICEF projects that over the coming weeks more than 10,000 children in Gaza risk wasting, one of the most serious results of malnutrition, which can stunt physical growth and brain development.
"We saw a lot of very thin people just sitting around and staring into space looking wasted," said Nick Maynard, a British surgeon who worked in central Gaza in December and early January with the charity Medical Aid for Palestinians.
"There was very clear evidence of people who were now malnourished," he said.
Ayadil Saparbekov, a WHO doctor who was recently in northern Gaza, said he had particularly seen children and elderly people showing signs of wasting, and described people coming to beg for food, raising hands to mouths to mime eating.
"I saw children on the streets who were visibly malnourished by the look on their faces. They were visibly thin. Their hands were thin and they had sunken eyes," he said, estimating that two or three of every 10 children he saw there matched that description.
At the start of the war, after a Hamas assault that killed more than 1,200 people, Israel announced it was cutting off all supplies to Gaza. It later agreed to let in humanitarian aid but far less is entering the enclave now than before Oct 7.
Israel's military campaign in Gaza has killed at least 25,700 Palestinians since Oct. 7, health authorities in the Hamas-run enclave say.
Aid agencies say Israeli checks are hampering aid deliveries into Gaza and that the military prevents distribution outside the southern area around Rafah.
Israeli government spokesperson Eylon Levy has denied there are limitations on humanitarian aid entering Gaza and ascribed any problems to U.N. distribution capacity.
However, World Food Programme spokesperson Abeer Etefa said there was a "systematic limitation" on aid getting to the north and the U.N. humanitarian agency OCHA said Israel had only permitted about a quarter of planned aid deliveries there.
DESPERATION
Spokeswoman Juliette Touma said UNRWA, the U.N. aid agency for Palestinians, believed as many as 200,000 people remained in the north. Social media videos that Reuters has verified have shown chaotic scenes as crowds of desperate people rush for aid deliveries.
Maynard, the British surgeon, described a boy of seven or eight years old approaching him in the hospital wanting food. "He said all his family had been killed and he hadn't eaten for three days," he said.
Even in the south, people lack enough food and Gaza residents say they have taken to grinding animal feed to bake dry, barely edible bread.
Palestinians Reuters interviewed said they often went days without eating or could only eat once a day. What food was commercially available was often unaffordable.
The biggest threat in Gaza was severe acute malnutrition which occurs when people cannot get the right vitamins, minerals and proteins for the body to function, said Heather Stobaugh of Action Against Hunger, with children at highest risk of dying.
Before the war, Mariam from Gaza City fed her family a breakfast of eggs, milk, cheese, beans, falafel, hummus, tomato, cucumber and bread. At best they now have a piece of flatbread with some powdered thyme. Lunch or supper is now a small portion of canned sardines or tuna split among many people. They skip the other meal.
She recently found eggs in the market for the first time in months - and paid more than four times what they used to cost. "The children were so happy they laughed and jumped," she said. REUTERS
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https://www.straitstimes.com/world/middle-east/gaza-starves-as-israel-presses-war-on-hamas
| 2024-01-25T16:29:05Z
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The murky career of Christian Wehrschütz, from far-right Aula to ORF correspondent accused of pro-Russia bias, encapsulates Austria’s complex relationship with Moscow.
As the Austrian public broadcaster’s chief Ukraine correspondent, Christian Wehrschütz holds considerable sway over Austrian public opinion on Ukraine. However, his reporting is often indistinguishable from Russian propaganda, from whitewashing Putin to demonizing NATO.
Flaunting press freedom, Wehrschütz leverages lawyers and tabloids to evade scrutiny for his factually flawed reporting. Meanwhile, his employer provides an uncritical platform for disinformation that toes the Kremlin’s line and promotes Russia’s occupation of Ukraine. While Austria relies on Russia’s gas, Wehrschütz whitewashes Putin’s war crimes.
His views permeate state TV despite clashing with Austria’s official pro-Ukraine stance. With the pro-Russian Freedom Party polling at 30%, will its dogma shape ORF’s future coverage?
The report was written by the Alliance for a Stable Democracy – a collective of authors who desire to remain anonymous. Euromaidan Press has verified the identity of one of the authors — a trusted specialist in the field — and is publishing the report because publicizing this in-depth analysis of Russian narratives in Austria is in the public interest.
Read their previous article: NGO Institute for Security Policy, Austrian Ministry of Defense, and Valdai-Club: Case study on Russian influence in Central Europe
Introduction
The reasons for the relative success of pro-Russian positions in Central and Western Europe can be summarized as follows:
- The role of certain mass media and media personalities who, intentionally or unintentionally, spread Russian narratives;
- sympathies for the “strong man” Vladimir Putin and his way of “doing things decisively” (many opinion polls testify to an increasing “longing for the strong man”, dwindling trust in the existing democratic system, and authoritarian tendencies among the population);
- the influence of certain lobbyists and businessmen who have made a lot of money in and with Russia;
- indifference in the population, politics, and media towards Ukraine, a lack of solidarity with it;
- widespread ignorance about Ukraine (and Russia) among the population as well as the political class;
- “traditional” anti-Americanism, which also fuels and supports the theory of a “proxy war” between the USA and Russia over Ukraine (see chapter 7).
In this context, it must be taken into account that Austria (since 1955) – unlike most other countries in Central and Western Europe that belong to NATO – is neutral. The right-wing radical and populist Austrian Freedom Party takes advantage of this to present itself as a “defender of neutrality,” which is, however, only a cipher for its pro-Russian orientation. Thus, it has since 2016 a cooperation agreement with the United Russia party, a tool of the Kremlin’s increasing and eventually totalitarian rule. The Freedom Party has been leading in all opinion polls for about a year with about 30%, why it would therefore clearly win parliamentary elections.
Its current success can be at least partly explained by a considerable “longing for the strong man” and desires for an “overall change of the political system” in society, which can be clearly proven on the basis of opinion polls.
Austria has traditionally been one of the most pro-Russian members of the EU. In this country, the wrong conclusions have been drawn from the events since 2014 with Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the unleashing of a war in the Donbas. Soon after the annexation, namely at the beginning of June 2014, Putin was received ceremoniously in Vienna. Especially during his visit to the Economic Chamber, some top Austrian politicians delivered exceedingly embarrassing scenes.[1]
In 2018, a contract for the supply of Russian natural gas to Austria – and thus its dependence on Moscow – was extended once again, until 2040 (!). And in the same year, pictures of the dance of then Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl (nominated by the Freedom Party) with Putin at her wedding went around the world.[2]
In Austria, even in the face of the war of annihilation against Ukraine, in April 2023, 31% of respondents were of the opinion that Russia was a “necessary partner” with whom “for strategic reasons” (whatever that may be) “cooperation” should take place (Hungary also had 31% on this question; and only Bulgaria with its particularly strong affinity with Russia, had more sympathy here, with 47%); a further 3% in Austria even considered Russia to be “an ally that shares our interests and values” (46% considered Russia an “enemy”, 7% “a rival – with which we need to compete”).[3]
The media as well as readers’, listeners’, and viewers’ reactions to their reporting, dominant or in any case very strong opinions in social networks, events on “the street” (demonstrations and other events), and in educational institutions, etc. show that in Austria a tendency is very strong which can be summarized as follows:
- “This is not our war” (i.e. against Ukraine)
- Ukraine is horribly corrupt and a “bottomless pit” for any Western help
- Russia is much bigger and more important than Ukraine, why it is crucial to get on well with Moscow – also because “we need the natural gas” (which is factually wrong).
And usually it is immediately added that American fracked gas should not be bought under any circumstances because it is expensive and also produced under conditions that are harmful to the environment. In contrast, hardly anyone is interested in the fact that Austria’s gas purchases are pouring billions of euros into Russia’s war chest every year and thus helping it to fund the war against Ukraine.
According to an opinion poll in the summer of 2023, 42% of Austrians advocated that Ukraine should continue fighting to regain all of its territory, while 37% advocated “peace at any price” (meaning: with cessions of territory to Russia). It is interesting to note that supporters of the Freedom Party are 63% in favor of Ukraine relinquishing territories in order to achieve “peace with Russia”.[4]
All this is the background, always to be taken into account, for the reporting of the correspondent of the public Austrian Broadcasting Corporation (Österreichischer Rundfunk, or ORF) in Ukraine, Christian Wehrschütz, who is the main subject of this paper.
On 15 August 2023, the main TV news program of the ORF, “Zeit im Bild 1,” carried a Wehrschütz-edited reportage that claimed to cover corruption in Ukraine.[5]
Firstly, it presented a footage of the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) from March 2023, which de facto showed the arrest of an agent of the Russian secret service FSB in the Ukrainian city of Odesa[6],[7] calling it “arrest of a Ukrainian draft dodger.” And a second video played was not about the forced recruitment for the army at a Ukrainian university as claimed by Wehrschütz but about the rejection of Ukrainian students at the Shegyna checkpoint on the border with Poland (where the Ukrainian border guards took one person away). And Wehrschütz from all his coverage drew the conclusion “that not all [Ukrainian] men are ready to fight for their country.”[8]
But all this is, of course, not comprehensible to the necessary extent without illustrating Wehrschütz’ personal and political background and the history of his many years of work on – or better: against – Ukraine.
1. Who is Christian Wehrschütz and how does he report from Ukraine?
Wehrschütz (born in 1961) started his career in journalism in the magazine Aula (discontinued in 2018), which is also described as “right-wing extremist” in the Wikipedia article about him.[9] He denied that it was extreme in “his time” there; and for him, there was “nothing to regret” at all. Instead, he wondered why people were still talking about it. “I stand by what I wrote.”[10]
Good to know, Mr Wehrschütz. And because of your explicitly formulated complete unwillingness to even remotely distance yourself from this part of your professional past, the explanation and justification often used in similar situations, that these were “youthful sins” that should not be “rehashed” decades later, is totally inapplicable. It is, therefore, appropriate to point out that, according to the Vienna-based Documentation Centre of Austrian Resistance (against Nazism), Aura “essentially […] served the German nationalist to right-wing extremist milieu in Austria”; moreover, the magazine had attracted attention because of “persistent anti-Semitic agitation.”[11]
The Austrian journalist Hans-Henning Scharsach called the Aula a “link between fraternities [German: Burschenschaften], the Austrian Freedom Party, and neo-Nazis.” According to him, the authors of the Aula included, “in addition to Freedom Party politicians, the elite of brown history falsifiers, Holocaust deniers, racists, anti-Semites and despisers of democracy, who appear as speakers at fraternity events and at the same time act as cues for the violent neo-Nazi scene.”[12]
In 1995, after Wehrschütz’ tenure with the magazine, Aula editor-in-chief Herwig Nachtmann was legally convicted of violating the Austrian Nazi Prohibition Act (Verbotsgesetz) because of his article “Laws of nature apply to Nazis and anti-fascists,” published in mid-1994, where he had praised Holocaust denier Walter Lüftl.[13] This makes it completely indisputable that the Aula was right-wing extremist before and after Wehrschütz – and only during his days there, it is supposed not to have been? By the way, one of Wehrschütz’ first interviews for the paper was with the British Holocaust denier and conspiracy theorist David Irving.
After Aula, Wehrschütz served as editor-in-chief of the party newspaper of the right-wing populist Austrian Freedom Party, the Neue Freie Zeitung (New Free Newspaper). According to his own statements, he resigned from the Freedom Party in 2002 (when he had already been working for the ORF for more than a decade). But his entire activity since then leaves little doubt that he took most or all of the “ideological baggage” from there with him and “cherishes” it to this day. He admitted this indirectly, but clearly himself (“I stand by what I wrote,” see above).
Wehrschütz’s reporting from Ukraine, to where he has traveled since the 1990s, has raised countless questions already before the large-scale Russian attack on Ukraine with the aim of destroying it as a state on 24 February 2022. And since then, Wehrschütz’s importance in ORF’s foreign policy reporting increased dramatically. He was now practically constantly on air, exerting a considerable influence on public opinion in Austria on Ukraine and Russia.
If Wehrschütz has ever dealt with the history, culture, traditions, etc. of Ukraine, he carefully conceals this in his oral and written statements. The question arises whether he has any basic knowledge about the country at all. Thus, he referred to Kharkiv as the “first capital of the Soviet Union” [14] (!) And he claimed that Ukraine was larger in area than France and Germany combined.[15] (!) But Ukraine occupies 603,700 square km. France (France métropolitaine) has 543,940 and Germany 357,588, which together make up 901,528 square kilometres.
And sometimes it really seemed that Wehrschütz did not report from Ukraine but from an alternative reality, a different dimension, so to speak. Has the decades of consumption of the German trash series Perry Rhodan, openly admitted by the science fiction fan Wehrschütz, taken its toll? When asked whether there were “parallels to real political events” in Perry Rhodan and to what extent “politics” there was “comparable to reality”, he literally said: “Yes, of course, I draw comparisons. I felt this particularly strongly around 9/11, for example, where the overlaps between reality and fiction were, in my opinion, especially noticeable.”[16]
2. Wehrschütz on the Euromaidan
The strictly pro-Russian Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych has, according to Wehrschütz, done “far more” for Ukraine’s rapprochement with the EU than Viktor Yushchenko (president 2005-2010) and Yulia Tymoshenko (prime minister 2005 and 2007-2010)[17]. But in fact, it was Yanukovych who refused to sign Ukraine’s EU Association Treaty in November 2013, triggering the Euromaidan. Then, Wehrschütz believed that behind the Euromaidan Revolution in Kyiv in 2013/14 there was “of course an organization” that “someone financed.”[18] – This conspiracy theory was and still is a central narrative of official Russia and the radical right and left parties in the EU that are close to it. On 20 February 2014, Wehrschütz drew the following picture of the events on the Maidan:
“Opposition members captured weapons caches last night. These weapons were brought to Kyiv. Police barracks were stormed. The armament of the extremist opposition is massive. This morning, the new violence has come from these extremist groups, who have sent snipers into the streets of Kyiv.”[19]
So, according to Wehrschütz, the demonstrators on the Maidan were the main instigators of the violence, at least at this time. And more than eight years after the Euromaidan, Wehrschütz still held to the “correctness” of his line at the time: thanks to his “contacts” in Yanukovych’s camp, as he praised himself, he had succeeded at the time in drawing “a far more differentiated picture” than “was offered by the usual Maidan reporting,” which had been “characterized by a one-sided good/evil scheme.”[20]
In fact, Wehrschütz in his reports “overcame” this “scheme” by simply blurring the clear distinction between victims (100 dead civilians) and perpetrators (the snipers and Yanukovych’s police who shot them) on the Maidan.
3. Wehrschütz’ impressions from Crimea and the Donbas
What came to Wehrschütz’ mind about Russia‘s annexation of Crimea in March 2014? Literally: “The time in Crimea will be changed to Moscow time, because that suits the rhythm of life here better.”[21] (!)
Later, Wehrschütz asserted that Russia had invested more money in the development of Crimea between 2014 and 2019 than Ukraine had in the previous 25 years.[22] – What are the occupation and annexation of the peninsula, the massive suppression of any opposition to this (especially on the part of the Crimean Tatars), the recruitment of young men from Crimea for the Russian army (although it is forbidden under international law to call up persons from occupied territories into one’s own armed forces), the total militarization of the peninsula etc. in comparison?! And what did Wehrschütz want to achieve with such absurd comparisons – to make Russian control over Ukrainian territory seem “better,” “more understandable,” somehow “justified,” etc.?
In his radio and TV coverages, writings, and interviews Wehrschütz countless times called the territories in Eastern Ukraine controlled by Moscow since spring 2014 “pro-Russian rebel republics” (!). However, the “Donetsk People’s Republic” and the “Luhansk People’s Republic” were always completely artificial entities established and maintained by Moscow’s armed forces and secret services, devoid of any legitimacy. At the same time, Wehrschütz used the very term “entity” to refer to Ukraine[23] which is also constantly present in the “public space” in Russia (sometimes with the addition of “artificial”), especially since 2014[24] in order to disparage and de-legitimize Ukraine.
According to Wehrschütz, Donetsk was a “pro-Russian rebel stronghold” from 2014 to 2022[25] – and not a Ukrainian city occupied by the Russian army, from which (almost) all those who reject this occupation have been expelled or had to flee (if they have not been murdered, tortured, deported, etc.). Furthermore, Wehrschütz mentioned a “Ministry of State Security” in Donetsk[26] – without any inverted commas and without any indication that this is nothing but a branch of Russian secret services. But it is important for him to note that they “always behaved correctly and politely” towards him and his team there[27]. That is an interesting contrast to the other behavior of this “ministry,” where torture and murder are part of everyday business.
Wehrschütz has interviewed Russian collaborators in Ukraine countless times since 2014 – and even Russian intelligence operative and terrorist Igor Girkin (who publicly boasted about murders of Ukrainians) – in order to put them on air. Wehrschütz obviously saw no problem in interviewing the so-called “tourism minister” and other officials installed by the Kremlin (such as Crimean Tatar collaborators) in Russian-controlled Crimea. He incorporated their ridiculous to bizarre statements into his reports – which he himself freely admitted that he did not give any assessments.
Yes, that is precisely the problem, Mr. Wehrschütz (which you do not even recognize as such): You let the pro-Kremlin babble go over the airwaves and give “no assessment” of it! This also applied to a book he published in 2014, “Focus on Ukraine,” which contained interviews with people of very different ideological orientations – including open conspiracy theorists such as Margarete Seidler, a German convert to the Russian Orthodox faith, who agitated for the Russian occupiers in the Donbas as of 2014.
At the beginning of this book, Wehrschütz praised himself as follows: “A journalist better prepared for Ukraine and for a book will not be easy to find in the German cultural area.”[28] Apart from the enormous self-confidence expressed here, you have to read that three times: “In the German cultural area”? What exactly is that supposed to mean? And what terminology is that? Is it a – conscious or unconscious – recourse to the 1930s and/or the Austrian Freedom Party milieu?
In February 2015 Wehrschütz stated that “it is clear that Putin is no longer interested in intensifying the conflict [in Donbas] because it would be extremely costly”[29] (!). Once again, one thought one had misread/heard. But unfortunately, this was not the case; he actually passed on such and many other odd “assessments” as “facts.” And on countless occasions, Wehrschütz called Putin’s soldiers, undercover agents ,and mercenaries in Eastern Ukraine from spring 2014 – often linked to local collaborators – “citizens’ militia”, “people’s militia” and ” freedom fighters”[30] (!).
This was no longer simply a “distortion” or “unfortunate wording,” but – yes, what actually? Naivety? Fear of losing “contacts” in Donetsk and to Russia in case he strays too far from Kremlin narratives? Hope in the ignorance of the audience? Or all of the above together?
And what did Wehrschütz think about the – very restrained – sanctions against Russia that the EU declared in response to the annexation of Crimea? In June 2016, the Austrian Raiffeisen Bank International AG (RBI), which has been active in Russia for many years (and even after 24 February 2022) and still earns very good money there, organized a panel discussion on the sanctions as part of RBI’s traditional annual customer reception in Vienna. There, Rainer Seele, the then pro-Russian CEO of the Austrian oil, gas, and chemical group OMV, and RBI CEO Karl Sevelda agreed that the sanctions had “done more harm than good to all those affected.”
Wehrschütz and Austrian businessman Siegfried Wolf, chairman of the board of Russian Machines (controlled by the pro-Putin-oligarch Oleg Deripaska), “expressed a similar opinion.”[31] Incidentally, the Freedom Party is fighting the EU sanctions with all its “political powers” and has announced that it will prevent their extension in the EU if it comes to power.
4. Wehrschütz feels threatened in Ukraine
At the end of 2018, one of Putin’s Kremlin’s main propaganda weapons, the First Channel of Russian TV, ran a quite lengthy report on Wehrschütz.
The presenter called him by his first name (!) several times as if he was talking about an old friend, ally, and confidant. And Wehrschütz, according to this “extremely credible” source, “rightly feels threatened by Ukrainian ultra-nationalists”.[32] Well, if Putin’s television says so…
In December 2018, Wehrschütz in a letter to ORF Director General Alexander Wrabetz and the Austrian government stated that he was in danger. “In Ukraine, there are militant, ultra-nationalist groups that threaten journalists who report critically on the politics of Ukraine’s leadership and try to respect the requirement for objectivity” (by which he clearly meant himself).
Wehrschütz had appeared on the website Myrotvorets (Peacemaker), which accused him of pro-Russia reporting, particularly with regard to the situation in Crimea.[33] Wehrschütz continued: “Two journalists have already been murdered, and I certainly have no intention of being the next one.” Therefore, he demanded a diplomatic intervention in his favor.[34]
This, of course, raised numerous questions. First of all, where should the problem principally be, if he, according to his own statements, had “never […] been shy in his life”[35] and had “no fear”? And courage, according to the Kronen Zeitung (which is by far the largest tabloid newspaper in Austria and has supported him for many years; see chapter 13), was “one of Wehrschütz’ great strengths”?[36] And specifically: Who was he referring to with the two “murdered journalists”?
First of all, presumably to Oles Buzina, who was shot dead in 2015 (which the Moscow propaganda immediately tried to exploit for its own purposes). The Russian opposition website Insider noted that Busina had basically distinguished himself through “impudent behavior,” insulted the (undoubtedly democratic) Ukrainian president Yushchenko as a “neo-Nazi” in 2009, and staged a brawl on a live political TV talk show in 2011. In addition, Buzina wrote a scathing book about the Ukrainian national poet Taras Shevchenko (1814-1861). The resolutely pro-Russian Buzina made many enemies – and by no means only among Ukrainian nationalists, but also among feminists and in the LGBT community. No one was ever convicted of his murder. For this reason, too, it cannot be claimed a priori that his violent death was necessarily due to what he considered his “professional activity.” The “gut feeling” of Wehrschütz (and others) that it was nevertheless so is clearly no proof.
And who is supposed to have been Wehrschütz’s “second journalist” (if Buzina is to be considered a journalist at all – and not an agitator and propagandist)?[37] Some observers guessed Oleg Kalashnikov, who was shot dead by unknown persons in 2015 after appearing on Myrotvorets. But he had not been a journalist at all, but a former (2006-2007) MP for Yanukovych’s “Party of Regions” and, appropriately, a pro-Russian activist. Who else comes into question as a “second journalist”?
One possibility would be Pavel Sheremet, a native of Minsk, who lost his life in 2016 in Kyiv in a car bomb attack (still unsolved as of July 2023). However, this vehement critic of Putin and the Belarusian dictator Alyaksandr Lukashenka had never been on a list of “enemies of Ukraine.”[38] Ukrainian nationalists had no subjective reason to murder Sheremet, but Russian (and/or Belarusian) secret services did. And Wehrschütz never claimed to feel threatened by them. However, at a book presentation in Vienna on 6 October 2022, in the presence of the author, he named Sheremet as the “second murdered journalist.”[39] And that made it definitely clear that his threat scenario resolutely did not fit together from the very beginning.
5. Wehrschütz on NATO expansion into Eastern Europe
On countless occasions, Wehrschütz reiterated the story – persistently disseminated also and especially by the Russian side – of “verbal commitments by leading Western politicians” not to expand NATO to the East.[40] But when exactly are these supposed to have been made – around 1990 (the year of German reunification), when the Warsaw Pact still existed? Wehrschütz does not tell us. Rüdiger von Fritsch, 2014-2019 German ambassador to Russia (who personally met Putin and the then Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev), commented on this issue: “Just imagine if the American Secretary of State had promised his Soviet counterpart in the summer of 1990 not to admit Latvia to NATO – at that time an integral part of the Soviet Union”.[41] Gorbachev himself said that NATO enlargement to the East had not been discussed at all with Western leaders in 1990.[42]
In principle, oral promises (alleged or actual) of whatsoever are worthless in international relations. But even if they were not, it should be remembered that the Kremlin itself constantly breaks its own verbal promises. Thus, shortly after the military occupation of Crimea at the end of February and beginning of March 2014, Putin assured that annexation was “not planned”[43] – only to announce it himself a few days later, on 18 March. In the same speech, he also said: “We don’t want a partition of Ukraine, we don’t need that.”[44] But on 30 September 2022, Moscow declared the annexation of no less than four Ukrainian regions. And even a few days before 24 February 2022, Putin denied any intentions to attack Ukraine to the German federal chancellor (prime minister) Olaf Scholz.
Where would Wehrschütz have dealt with all these important issues? When would he also have elaborated that Russia has cynically broken countless written agreements (the Charter of the United Nations, the Budapest Memorandum of 1994, the Friendship Treaty with Ukraine of 1997, which once again enshrined the territorial integrity of the contracting parties) with complete impunity so far? And that the right of every country (and therefore also of Ukraine) to join (or not join) military alliances (such as NATO) is enshrined, among other things, at the very beginning of the Helsinki Final Act of the 1975 Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE)?
After the collapse of the USSR, the corresponding passage was taken over, mutatis mutandis, in documents of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), among others, under which Russia’s signature also appears. And the Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation, and Security between NATO and the Russian Federation of 1997 did not contain a waiver of NATO’s eastward enlargement, but emphasized (in full conformity with international law) an “inherent right” of all states “to choose the means to ensure their own security, the inviolability of borders and peoples’ right of self-determination as enshrined in the Helsinki Final Act and other OSCE documents.”[45]
So if, in the opinion of whichever European states (and therefore also Ukraine, whose territorial integrity Russia has trampled on since 2014 at the latest, although it has recognized it in several bilateral and multilateral documents, including the Friendship Treaty with Ukraine), membership in an alliance should be part of their policy, it is impossible to see what could be legally and/or logically objected to this. Moreover, Russia itself is a member of a military alliance, namely the so-called “Collective Security Treaty Organisation.” How, therefore, can it summarily “forbid” other states to join whatever alliance they want?
But of course, Wehrschütz (and his followers) do not say a word about all this. And his position is – coincidence or not – fully compatible with the line of the Freedom Party, which its chairman Herbert Kickl outlined as follows at a party conference on 17 September 2022: The US and NATO had expanded their “sphere of influence” more and more and thus “cornered Russia.”[46]
The champagne corks must have been popping in the Russian embassy in Vienna. Kickl took the cake in mid-December 2022 when he described the EU sanctions against Russia in the National Council (the lower house of the Austrian parliament) as “the result of a stupid and irresponsible policy of apportioning blame in the war between Russia and Ukraine” and called on Austria’s federal chancellor Karl Nehammer to “stay out of it” instead of “dragging Austria deeper and deeper into the conflict” with “warmongering”[47] (!).
Putin, on the other hand, has never been accused of “warmongering” by Kickl. Nor by Wehrschütz, by the way.
Wehrschütz actually believes that NATO is capable of doing a lot of bad things, and he constantly conveys this opinion to his audience. Thus, he repeatedly imagined the “stationing of medium-range missiles” in Ukraine, “which would take three or four minutes to hit Moscow.” No one in NATO or Ukraine had even thought of such a “deployment,” let alone realized it; but that did not bother Wehrschütz. He simply repeated stories from the Moscow propaganda kitchen and presented them as a real possibility.
So, Putin had literally meant: “If US and NATO missile systems appear in Ukraine, their flight time to Moscow will be reduced to seven to ten minutes, and if hypersonic weapons are deployed, to five minutes.”[48] In this context, it is important to note that Wehrschütz completely ignored the stationing of Iskander missiles in the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, known since at least 2016, from where they could actually hit Berlin, Copenhagen, and Warsaw within minutes of launch[49]. Instead, he demanded on numerous occasions, completely unabashedly, that “Russian security concerns be taken into account.”[50]
Thus, he was referring to the “interests” of the very country that threatens other countries, invades them, sets up puppet states on their territory, etc. And Russia unleashed the biggest European war since World War due to “the NATO threat” in Ukraine but couldn’t care less about Finland and Sweden joining the same alliance. Moscow even withdrew massive numbers of troops from the border with Finland – how could that be, when NATO posed “a great danger”? And why did Wehrschütz not take care of all these obvious contradictions?
6. Wehrschütz’ expertise in military technology issues
Wehrschütz said that for war reporters – apart from journalistic skills – there is also “what you need to know about weapons systems”.[51] This is definitely correct. Unfortunately, he is clueless. His reports were countless times odd to the point of tragicomic. Only a few “highlights” can be recalled here.
Wehrschütz said that a modern tactical nuclear bomb would have roughly the explosive power of the American “Hiroshima bomb” of 1945.[52] – This statement is largely pointless: This device (called “Little Boy”) had an explosive force of about 15 kilotons of TNT; the smallest tactical nuclear weapons in service today have about 0.3-0.5 kilotons, the largest 50[53] or maybe 100 kilotons[54] (and possibly even more; the nuclear powers – unsurprisingly – “spare” precise information here).
And in an article for the Kronen Zeitung, Wehrschütz mentioned “2,000 nuclear weapons” on the territory of Ukraine at the moment of the disintegration of the Soviet Union at the end of 1991.[55] What is meant here by “nuclear weapons” – warheads or delivery systems (one of which can sometimes carry several warheads)? Not even that is clear. In fact, there were 130 UR-100N intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) with six warheads each, 46 RT-23 ICBMs with ten warheads each, and 33 nuclear-tipped long-range bombers in Ukraine at the time, bringing the total number of strategic warheads to about 1,700.[56] The number of tactical nuclear warheads in Ukraine was predominantly estimated at 3,000 to 4,000. – So where did Wehrschütz’ figure of 2,000 come from? It remains a mystery.
In late February and early March 2022, Wehrschütz portrayed the situation in and around Kyiv as “increasingly desperate” (for the defenders). The Ukrainians, he said, were unable to attack a 65-kilometer-long Russian military convoy, indicating a “certain weakness in missiles and artillery.” For Wehrschütz, an “encirclement of Kyiv” was “imminent”.[57]
In reality, however, there was absolutely no such thing. The convoy was stopped and partially destroyed by the Ukrainian defenders. It disappeared “without a trace” from the media coverage (and also that of Wehrschütz), and at the end of March and beginning of April 2022, the Russian invaders were pushed out of the entire north of Ukraine. The defense of the capital went on in a disciplined (albeit often improvised) manner, there was nowhere even the slightest mention of mass panic among the population or an imminent collapse of the army and/or the Government of Ukraine. A “despair of the Ukrainians” was mentioned only by Wehrschütz.
He was also permanently mistaken in his assessment of Ukrainian air defense. At the beginning of June 2022, for example, he said that Russia had “obviously de facto almost unrestricted air sovereignty” over Ukraine, which, according to him, had no longer “any relevant air defense.”[58] He repeated this several times over a period of several months. Thus, in January 2023, he again identified a “notorious weakness” of Ukrainian air defenses.[59]
But this, again, had little to do with the facts. What was the situation really like? Here is a voice from the end of August 2022:
“Russia failed to establish air superiority, capture Kyiv, or take any major cities in northern Ukraine; and the Donbas campaign is locked in a virtual stalemate. Despite estimates that Russia would establish air superiority within seventy-two hours, Russian forces have failed to control the skies, and have suffered huge aircraft losses that have hindered their air support for the ground invasion.”[60]
Or better Austrian voices? Here we go! Brigadier Philipp Eder, Head of the Military Strategy Department of the Ministry of Defence, judged in the second week of September 2022 that the Russian Air Force had at no time managed to “achieve air superiority over Ukraine” and played hardly any role in supporting the infantry.[61] The following month, Colonel Berthold Sandtner of the National Defence Academy in Vienna said that “the Russians […] do not control Ukrainian airspace at all”; and Ukraine’s air defences are “getting better and better.”[62]
This was now already the exact opposite of what Wehrschütz never got tired of claiming. Contrary to his statements, Ukrainian air defense became better and better as the war continued – of course also and especially thanks to Western supplies. Thus, from May 2023, it was also able to shoot down the Russian hypersonic Kinzhal missiles, which the Kremlin had long celebrated as “impossible to defend against.”
On 16 May 2023, Wehrschütz criticized (!) the cost of defending against the Russian air attack on Kyiv the night before: a Patriot defensive missile would cost over $5 million, which, in the case of a single Russian attack, 30 fired to defend against it had cost $150 million.
At first it was completely unclear where the figure of “5 million” was supposed to come from. The PAC-3 Missile Segment Enhancement (MSE) – the only version that the US is currently procuring – costs about $4.1 million apiece. PAC-2 cost about half that.[63] It was not clear what kind of Patriot systems have been donated to Ukraine, but it is likely that it has at least some of the newer PAC-3 CRI interceptors.[64]
In any case, it was obvious that Wehrschütz’ calculation of $150 million was invalid. But even if it was true: Mr. Wehrschütz, should one allow oneself to be shot at and killed by Russian missiles, including Kinzhal, because air defence is too expensive for you?
Wehrschütz avoided criticism of Putin or the Russian army with embarrassing precision even in view of the shelling of Kyiv, which could also kill him during his presence right there. He only remarked that “we didn’t need an alarm clock this morning. At two o’clock in the morning, Austrian time was boom, boom, boom.”[65]
Apart from the fact that a correspondent of a public broadcaster should be able to use rhetoric other than “boom, boom,” Wehrschütz withheld a reference to the immense costs of the ever-new air attacks on Ukrainian cities for Russia from his audience for inexplicable reasons, although they are enormous: according to Ukrainian estimates (Russia, of course, does not publish corresponding figures), the air attack on Kyiv in the night from 15 to 16 May 2023 cost at least $119 million.[66] (!)
In May 2023 alone, the Russian army undertook 20 waves of attacks with a total of at least 563 missiles and kamikaze drones on the whole of Ukraine (mostly Kyiv was also and especially affected). The costs for this could be calculated at over $1.7 billion[67] (!), without Wehrschütz having found any reason to complain (by the way, about 90% of all these missiles were shot down by Ukrainian air defense). And of course, most Ukrainian cities would have been reduced to rubble long ago without the air defenses that were overpriced for Wehrschütz.
But what “message” does he actually want to convey with such odd “calculations”? Does he want to say that (which, by the way, is trumpeted practically every day by the Austrian Freedom Party in accordance with Moscow propaganda narratives as well) foreign aid to Ukraine, which was and is to a considerable extent responsible for the functioning of Ukrainian air defense, is much too costly and should therefore no longer be financed by Western taxpayers?
In mid-April 2022, Wehrschütz announced that “Americans would be sitting inside” drones (!) to be delivered to Ukraine.[68] Mr.Wehrschütz.Drones.Are.Unmanned.
Such and countless other breathtaking and embarrassing blunders are allowed by a correspondent who likes to refer persistently (and, among other things, on his homepage) to his status as a militia officer of the Austrian Armed Forces – rank: Major (on his LinkedIn page, however, he states that he has not been in this capacity since May 2017, so what is true?).
One of Wehrschütz’s favorite methods of reporting is the notorious “bothsideism.” It is (also) demonstrated by the fact that he identifies Western, Ukrainian, and Russian “propaganda” and puts them on the same level, names them in the same sentence, and so on.
This constantly leads to completely breathtaking statements such as the one about the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant: there it is “clear” for Wehrschütz that “both sides” would try to “capitalize on it.” Ukraine, he claims, is “using” the situation around the power plant “to somehow keep the war in the consciousness of the West”[69] (!).
In addition, Wehrschütz also reported for months that it was “unclear” who was actually shooting near the power plant. He thus indirectly but clearly implied that it is quite possible that Ukraine is attacking its own power plant without giving any rational reason (i.e. not based on any conspiracy theories) for such an action, which would be complete madness. After all, in such a case, Ukraine would cause a massive risk to bring about a disaster on its own territory, which could affect many millions of its own citizens. Moreover, Ukraine’s energy supply still depends to a large extent on precisely this power plant. And it has long since been completely clarified – among other things by satellite images – that Russia has converted the power plant into a military base and is carrying out combat operations, including missile launches, from there.
But Wehrschütz simply didn’t care and stuck to his line completely unperturbed.
7. Wehrschütz demands “negotiations” with Putin
In parallel to all his factual errors, Wehrschütz stubbornly demanded “negotiations with Russia.” Thus, a few days after the beginning of Russia’s large-scale attack on Ukraine, he said that “one had to come to terms with Russia.”[70] He could hardly be more out of touch with reality: how are you supposed to “negotiate” with an enemy who attacks another country in order to “wipe it off the map” and to make an entire people, the Ukrainians, disappear through mass murder, deportations, expulsions, and “ethnic cleansing”?
A completely absurd Wehrschütz accusation against the Ukrainian leadership was that it had not prepared its own public “for the fact that there will have to be painful compromises [with Putin].” The belief of many Ukrainians in a victory over the Russian invaders would “make compromise more difficult.”[71] (!)
According to this “logic,” believing in one’s own defeat is much better because this would contribute to reaching a “compromise.” And what should or could such a “compromise” look like in concrete terms – against the background of the undeniable fact that Russia wants to completely destroy Ukraine as a state and the Ukrainians as a people (which Wehrschütz usually does not mention at all)? An only “partial annihilation” of Ukraine and its people?
Wehrschütz did not reveal it. Instead, he talked about a future “Ukrainian rump state” (!), which he obviously envisages as being considerably smaller in territorial terms, because: “We don’t know what the borders [of Ukraine] will look like”[72] (!?). According to Wehrschütz, there was “no perspective for an honorable peace” for Ukraine (!). And further: a “European security architecture” is “not feasible without Moscow” (!).
Wehrschütz thus wants to make such an “architecture” dependent on a Kremlin that embodies a neo-totalitarian, extremely nationalist, militarist, and imperialist regime, murders opposition figures at home and abroad, carries out terrorist attacks (such as on ammunition depots in the Czech Republic and Bulgaria), has kept the Assad regime in Syria – which used chemical weapons against its own people – in power by means of military intervention since 2015 (in the context of which the Russians are fighting with the Lebanese Shiite fundamentalist terrorist organization “Hezbollah”), has “flooded” the EU with refugees (from the Middle East, especially since 2015 and from Ukraine since 2022) and has militarily overrun and partially occupied Georgia and Ukraine.
Such an “architecture” (admittedly never described in detail by Wehrschütz) would be completely pointless without the postulate of inviolability of international borders, i.e. borders formally recognized by Russia. Yet, of all things, the same Russia has never accepted the borders of several former Soviet republics since the end of the USSR but has created and/or supported puppet states such as the “Dniester Republic” (Moldova), the “Donetsk People’s Republic” and the “Luhansk People’s Republic” (Ukraine), Abkhazia and South Ossetia (Georgia) as well as Nagorno-Karabakh (Azerbaijan; here, of course, the close Russian ally Armenia was “interposed”) on their territories.
It would therefore be urgently necessary – in complete contrast to Wehrschütz’s prejudices, which cannot be shaken by any facts – to completely exclude such a Russia from the design of any future “European security architecture” in order to secure peace; it should instead be designed to protect European countries against Putin’s aggressive empire.
Ukraine and its right to exist with secure borders and in control of its entire territory simply fall by the wayside. And Wehrschütz “warned,” of all things, against a possibly “weakened Russia” (!). One would like to have such worries! It doesn’t even occur to him that the more militarily, politically, and economically weakened Russia is, the less able it would be to threaten and attack other countries, to annex their territory, etc.
Instead, Wehrschütz demands that the “West” “talk to Russia.“ And: “Wars with a nuclear power can only be solved through negotiations [which is false: for example, the Taliban drove the nuclear power USA out of Afghanistan in 2021 – author]. There will have to be negotiations.”[74]
But all these calls for “negotiations” with Putin are all the more incomprehensible because they have taken place on countless occasions since 1999 – the beginning of Putin’s rule. And this led precisely to his decision to wage a war of conquest and destruction against Ukraine from 24 February 2022. The harsh reality is: Ukraine is currently being destroyed by the Russian “dialogue partners” of the “West.” But Wehrschütz does not see through this, as obvious as it is.
So, Wehrschütz wants to “talk” and “negotiate” with a Putin who, literally since his first days in the Kremlin (1999), has been starting one war after another, annexing foreign land (Ukraine, de facto Georgia), deliberately bombing the civilian population and its infrastructure (Chechnya, Georgia, Ukraine, Syria), causing environmental disasters (and not “only” by blowing up the Kakhovka dam on 6 June 2023), having his soldiers commit massive sexual violence against the civilian population (including children) from the very beginning, shelling previously negotiated “humanitarian corridors” for Ukrainian civilians, mining the nuclear power plant in Zaporizhzhia and “converting” it into a Russian military base, deports millions of Ukrainians to Russia (preferably to remote areas), attempts to cause famine (by blockading Ukrainian ports and destroying the local infrastructure), and, especially in the winter of 2022/23, deliberately tried to destroy Ukraine’s energy infrastructure in order to expose the population to cold; contaminating whole areas of Ukraine with mines (and even building them into everyday objects, children’s toys, etc.). ), threatening with nuclear weapons, and blathering that “the Western elites […] are spreading open satanism” and would “test biological weapons on living people, including in Ukraine”.[75]
Moreover, it is completely unclear what should be “negotiated” with Russia (in the sense of Wehrschütz). Nor is this necessary to end the war: all that is needed is a single decision by Putin to do just that and to withdraw Russian troops from the whole of Ukraine. Precisely that – and nothing else – would be a preliminary step towards a “solution” to the conflict.
According to Wehrschütz, Ukraine’s defensive war has “meanwhile become a proxy war between Russia and the US”, which “is a huge problem.”[76] It is important to note that the “proxy war” story is also, and especially, actively championed by the Kremlin’s propaganda mouthpiece (and part-time foreign minister) Sergei Lavrov[77] and the warmongers on Putin’s state television with the notorious Vladimir Solovyov at the helm.[78]
For example, in mid-November 2022 he announced on ORF’s main evening news: “Peace is only achievable in Ukraine if there is an agreement between Moscow and Washington.” Thus, again: he implicitly but clearly denies Ukraine the status of an independent actor with appropriate and legitimate interests (such as protection against the Russian mass murderers) and massively approximates the Russian narrative according to which Ukraine is, after all, only a “tool in Washington’s hands.” And Wehrschütz continues categorically and not plagued by any self-doubt: Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has to “abandon preconditions such as ‘There will be no negotiations with Putin’ and ‘You cannot negotiate with Russia until all troops have been withdrawn'” from Ukraine. Because, and Wehrschütz knows this very well: “These are simply not preconditions for negotiations” (?).
Moreover, he explicitly demanded “American pressure” – but not on the aggressor Russia (which would be urgently needed to increase the chances of ending the conflict), but on the victim Ukraine[79] (!). This was once again precociousness, uninformedness, and naivety stirred together into a (completely unenjoyable) “cocktail.” In November 2022, the European Parliament declared Russia a “state sponsor of terrorism”[80]; Wehrschütz did not care and continued unimpressed to demand “negotiations” with this “sponsor.”
8. Wehrschütz questions Ukraine‘s territorial integrity
Wehrschütz’ statement quoted above “We don’t know what the borders [of Ukraine] will look like” allows no other interpretation than that he wants to put Ukraine’s borders up for disposition. However, Ukraine’s constitution (Article 2) is absolutely unambiguous: “The territory of Ukraine within its present borders is indivisible and inviolable.”
Furthermore, the law “On Securing the Rights and Freedoms of Citizens and the Legal Regime in the Temporarily Occupied Territories,” first adopted in 2014, makes it explicit that Ukraine is obliged to take back these territories (Articles 4-1 and 17-2); of course, there is no provision for ceding them to another country.[81] And the president of Ukraine is the guarantor of state sovereignty, the territorial integrity of Ukraine, the observance of the constitution, and the rights and freedoms of man and citizen (Article 102 of the constitution).
Therefore, if he wanted to sign a treaty on the handover of territories to Russia, he would be impeached by parliament for high treason in full compliance with the constitution and the laws of the country and taken to where he belonged – to court.
Where would Wehrschütz have ever explained these issues, which are of central importance for any peace solution, to his audience?
Ukraine could theoretically be forced to submit to a multilateral dictate, specifically to do to it what Nazi Germany, Britain and Italy did to Czechoslovakia in Munich in September 1938: Some “powers” – probably (besides Russia) the US and the EU – decide among themselves and without any consent or even participation of the victim (i.e. Ukraine) that it has to surrender territories in order to secure “peace for our time” – like the British prime minister Neville Chamberlain said in his boundless naivety towards Hitler.
Now, one should actually know how that matter went on[82] (and good intentions cannot justify or “sanctify,” or even “explain,” the disastrous outcome of an undertaking). Does Wehrschütz nevertheless want to advocate such a downright adventurous “solution”? In any case, it is only astonishing that the Ukrainian authorities did not even take the fact that Wehrschütz, who is himself a lawyer by training, repeatedly and unequivocally called into question the territorial integrity unequivocally enshrined in Ukraine’s constitution as a reason to expel him. And the same authorities could well have taken offence (but they did not) at the fact that Wehrschütz is a correspondent from a country that continues to maintain close economic contacts with Russia and buys energy sources from it for huge sums, thus helping to finance the war against Ukraine.
Between February 2022 and August 2023, Austria transferred around €9 billion for energy supplies to the Russian war chest.[83] And where exactly would Wehrschütz have addressed this in his reporting?
9. Wehrschütz and Russian war crimes
Wehrschütz commented on Facebook on the Russian atrocities against the civilian population of Bucha, a now world-famous suburb of Kyiv, that one must also “understand the other [i.e. Russian] side” and “not forget” that “we need a solution for Ukraine.”[84]
This is correct, Mr. Wehrschütz. It would simply consist of the unconditional withdrawal of the Russian terrorist army from all of Ukraine, but of course that is not what you mean here. Incidentally or not, the phrase “also understand the other side” was also found verbatim by Freedom Party leader Kickl.[85]
And Wehrschütz continued mercilessly: “The pictures from Bucha are terrible – but the hypocrisy of the West and its misguided policies of the past 30 years are terrible.”[86]
What does that mean? That it is not Putin who is to blame for the mass murder in Ukraine in general and in Bucha specifically, but a “hypocrisy of the West”? What is this “hypocrisy” supposed to consist of? It remains completely unclear, Wehrschütz does not tell us. But that’s how it is with the “Journalist of the Year” (2014 according to the magazine The Austrian Journalist), who can remain in office at the ORF even after such unbearable outbursts, as if nothing had happened.
In an early assessment of the Russian atrocities in Butcha on ORF radio channel Ö1, Wehrschütz did not want to speak of a “massacre […] yet.” “An international investigation would be very appropriate.” He urged caution with regard to the portrayal of the situation on the part of Ukraine, because one should not forget “the second dimension of these pictures. That is the fact that it is about influencing public opinion.”
In general, for Wehrschütz it was questionable “whether all the people who were lying around” (!) were victims of Russian war crimes. “There was massive fighting in this place on the first days and the Russians were shot up there.”[87] (!)
Wehrschütz insisted that “as bad as images and crimes may be – the word ‘presumably’ must not be missing from the journalist’s vocabulary!”[88]
In his book of 2022, Wehrschütz also insisted that it should be “presumably” everywhere. So, in Bucha, there had been, at least for him, “alleged Russian war crimes”[89]. Only later Wehrschütz did deign to acknowledge Russian “mass crimes” in Bucha,[90] which he, however, immediately put into perspective by asking the following rhetorical question on Austrian Television: “Who is actually still talking about Bucha today?“[91] (!).
It was equally disturbing that Wehrschütz on 9 April 2022 complained on Twitter (now X) that “others” (i.e. his critics) were not mourning enough for the (according to Ukrainian figures) approximately 20,000 Russian soldiers killed by then (!). One has to picture this: Wehrschütz literally called those who did not really felt sorry for Putin’s cutthroats “brutes”[92] (!).
Wehrschütz wants to give the impression that he is “objective” when he accuses “both sides” (i.e. puts victims and perpetrators on the same level), seeks the “truth” in an imagined “middle” between the official statements of Ukraine and Russia or simply quotes these statements. Of course, this is the notorious “bothsideism” and has nothing to do with critical-objective journalism, but parodies it. The following sentences are typical for Wehrschütz:
“In Ukraine, the police, judiciary and forensic experts have begun to open another mass grave. It is located in a wooded area outside the town of Izium, which was recaptured by Ukrainian troops about a week ago. According to the police, 445 people have been given makeshift burials there. Ukraine speaks of war crimes for which Russia is responsible, which rejects these accusations.”[93]
There it is again, the “equidistance” and “neutrality”: Ukraine finds mass graves, accuses Russia – and Wehrschütz dutifully reports that the latter denies everything (of course; did anyone expect a frank confession of war crimes?).
And the readers/listeners of Wehrschütz are now allowed to do what? Assume that the truth lies “halfway” between these two viewpoints? Or tell themselves that Wehrschütz obviously does not exclude the possibility that “the Ukrainians” massacred their own people in order to accuse Russia?
The world-renowned historian Timothy Snyder of Yale University said about this complex of problems (without referring to specific persons): “One thing that almost everyone gets wrong is the reporting of official Russian statements. […] It is a mistake to put the Russian and Ukrainian views on an equal footing.”[94]
Basically, Wehrschütz’ reporting on the countless Russian war crimes, which the United Nations[95], among others, have identified, was on the back burner. And where and when did he – decently, not en passant – address the fact that Moscow has deported millions of Ukrainians – mostly to remote areas of Russia? Several observers have stated that Russia is committing genocide by doing so.[96]
But Wehrschütz dismissed this: “It is a war that is being waged with the handbrake on. Nobody wants a real escalation.”[97] (!) This has to be read (at least) three times, otherwise one would not believe this incompetence, arrogance, downplaying of the Russian war of extermination against Ukraine and lack of any empathy for the Ukrainian war victims.
10. August 2023: The Wehrschütz TV scandal takes its course
The “Zeit im Bild” report was immediately scrutinized by critics and sceptics, and the pro-Wehrschütz camp also took a stand. The notorious Richard Schmitt of the Austrian tabloid website Exxpress (whose pro-Russian bias is well known) immediately defended his buddy Wehrschütz without bothering to offer a single argument that could invalidate the criticism for falsely attributing content to the videos he had featured.
Instead, Schmitt fantasized about “wild attacks against ORF for alleged ‘pro-Russian propaganda'” and condemned “criticism of ORF for info that hundreds of other news channels also featured” (as if Wehrschütz’ failure would be excused, justified or explained by the blunders of other “news channels”).
In addition, Schmitt even threatened – strangely enough, in the name of the ORF, with which he formally has nothing to do: whether the ORF “legal department will intervene against these attacks [on Wehrschütz] is not yet known.” (!) So should this legal department take literally every Wehrschütz sceptic to court – regardless of the right to freedom of expression enshrined in the Austrian constitution?
And Schmitt continued: „All media that not only disseminate the information requested by the Ukrainian government are brutally attacked – as is well known, eXXpress[98] was also confronted with a savage character assassination campaign when the ambassador of the Russian Federation in Austria was able to express his view on the war in an interview. In addition, all those social media users who advocate ceasefire negotiations and an end to the killing are also insulted as ‘peace sworn’ or ‘Putin servants’ – an absolute novelty in the 134-year tradition of the European peace movement since Bertha von Suttner (‚Lay Down Your Arms!‘, published in 1889).“[99]
This is all terrible, conspiracy-theory-tinged nonsense. And it is only tragicomic to call the Austrian Nobel Peace Prize winner of 1901, Bertha von Suttner (1843-1914), as a witness for the pro-Russian position of Exxpress. Of course, Putin could end the war any day by ordering his army to cease fire and withdraw from all of Ukraine. But Schmitt (unsurprisingly) did not come up with this simple idea. And “brutally attacked,” Mr Schmitt, is Ukraine. By Russia’s army. Whose ambassador is allowed to spread “his view” – the correct term would be: war propaganda – in your medium.[100]
And what happened next? Andre Wolf from the Platform for Investigating Internet Fraud and False News (Mimikama), among others, examined the accusation that the ORF was spreading false news. He quickly came to the conclusion that the broadcaster “unfortunately fell for the tricks of Russian propaganda.”[101]
And how did the ORF itself react? Initially, a spokesperson said in a dismissive and ostentatiously condescending tone: “To accuse the ORF of ‘Russian propaganda’ is absurd and self-judging. The videos under question, which were also shown by a large number of European TV stations, were obtained by ORF via a reliable and trustworthy source.”
Then, however, the ORF in a further statement on the evening of 17 August 2023, suddenly was meek: “Further research by the ORF and a renewed check have shown that the videos from Ukraine referred to do not correspond to the content conveyed in the ‘Zeit im Bild’ of 15 August 2023, which the ORF deeply regrets.”
And: “If mistakes are made, they must be named as such and corrected. ORF will do this in ‘Zeit im Bild’ and of course correct the contribution about the Ukraine videos. In addition, ORF-TV-Information will take this as an opportunity to deal on-air with the topic of fake news in the information war.”[102]
Of course, this TV scandal was immediately discussed in various Austrian media. The investigative homepage ZackZack said that the two videos originated “directly from Russian propaganda channels, which have been using the topic of forced mobilizations to create sentiment against Ukraine for a long time. The ZiB1 contribution is by Christian Wehrschütz, who has repeatedly been criticised for his reporting. […] According to various sources, there has been a great deal of resentment against him [Wehrschütz] within ORF for years. Why, for example, Wehrschütz almost single-handedly does all the reporting from Ukraine is incomprehensible to many.”[103]
ZackZack‘s Florian Bayer, but also other journalists who investigated this Wehrschütz affair, complained repeatedly that they were ignored or fobbed off with prefabricated statements by the ORF Press Service.[104]
And what did Wehrschütz himself do? On X he stated on 17 August 2023:
“In the ZiB1 report on corruption in Ukraine, videos were used that I did not check additionally because they came from a reputable source. This mistake will be a lesson to me, the first in 23 years as a correspondent. The mistake does not change the correctness of the report!”[105]
That was Wehrschütz all over: unbearably dismissive and know-it-all. He literally contradicted the “This mistake will be a lesson to me” in the next phrase: “The mistake does not change the correctness of the report!”
One has to read this three times, otherwise it is really unbelievable: What kind of “correctness” can one speak of, if the sources selected and used by Wehrschütz himself (the two videos mentioned above) simply did not fit the basic statement of his report? And the claim that it was his “first mistake in 23 years as a correspondent” is downright bizarre. ZackZack commented that it was “certainly” wrong that Wehrschütz “spread pro-Russian false messages for the first time […]. In 2022 he reported the death of a [Canadian] sniper in Ukraine, but the claim was fictitious. This was pointed out by the fact-checkers of ‘Correctiv,’ for example.”[106]
An apology worthy that name from Wehrschütz personally to the broadcasting audience as well as to his employer (who suffered a clear loss of image) for his false sources was completely missing in his X-message of 17 August. Instead of being contrite and reserved, he was demonstratively arrogant and self-confident. He obviously did not expect his employer, the ORF, to draw any consequences for him (such as dismissing him from Ukraine) – and he was (unfortunately) to be proved right: The ORF management backed him unreservedly.
On 18 August, ORF apologised for the false sources in the report three days earlier, but without even mentioning Wehrschütz! He remained at his post in Ukraine as if that was the most natural thing in the world and continued completely unchanged. In an interview with the Kronen Zeitung he expressed this literally as follows: “I will not be dissuaded.” [107] At this point at the latest and in view of such terminology, the question arose massively whether this gentleman could be an ideologically motivated fanatic.
Notwithstanding numerous inconsistencies in Wehrschütz’ opinions and activities, many of his friends and fans in Austrian politics and media joined the public debate on his side. This was done, for example, by the spokesman of Federal Chancellor Karl Nehammer, Daniel Kosak (who linked[108] to an embarrassing glorification of Wehrschütz in the Viennese daily newspaper Kurier[109]) and the spokesman of the Ministry of Defence, Michael Bauer (who linked to a Wehrschütz interview for the Tiroler Tageszeitung [Tyrolean Daily Paper]).[110] The Kronen Zeitung published numerous letters to the editor pro Wehrschütz, and his enthusiasts on the social networks showed drastically increased activity: they insulted and offended Wehrschütz sceptics and critics, mobbed and trolled them.
Only a few days after the scandal for which he was responsible in “Zeit im Bild,” namely on 19 August 2023, Wehrschütz released on ORF Radio an interview with the, as he called him, “acting head” (!) of the Moscow-controlled nuclear power plant in Zaporizhzhia, who had been appointed by the Russian invaders.
It would actually have been the next scandal that Wehrschütz – as, incidentally, many times before – gave the floor to a representative of the Russian occupying power in Ukraine. But nobody inside or outside the ORF cared about that – and certainly not about the fact that Wehrschütz did not ask this pathetic and despicable collaborator a single critical question and let him philosophise freely about the Russian occupying forces on the site of the power plant “to protect this object”[111] (!). Wehrschütz recorded all this as if it was perfectly normal – and ORF had it aired without any objections. Wehrschütz’ behaviour can hardly be described as anything other than provocation in view of the scandal that was just a few days old at the time, with its false source information for the “Zeit im Bild” coverage.
As if that were not strange enough, on the same day, i.e. 19 August 2023, the Kronen Zeitung published a letter written by Wehrschütz in which he rejected the accusation of a pro-Russian stance as “simply false and malicious”.[112]
The reactions among the journalists, political scientists and other observers who were critical of him varied between incredulous amazement, frowning, guffawing laughter, shaking heads and other unambiguous gestures.
But on the other hand, what else could have been expected? That Wehrschütz would, for example, proclaim: “Look here, folks, I’m a pro-Russian, I’m not ashamed of it and I show it in my reporting”? Of course he will never do that.
But it is quite possible that Wehrschütz, according to his naturally strictly subjective opinion, does indeed not consider himself to be pro-Russian – and in particular because very probably most, if not all, Freedom Party supporters with and without membership cards of this party consider their position towards Putin’s Russia to be completely “normal,” “objective,” and “neutral.” When the Freedom Party’s parliamentary group in the National Council left the plenary chamber on 30 March 2023 because it could not reconcile it with its “collective conscience” to listen to the video address of Volodymyr Zelenskyy, i.e. the president of a state threatened with annihilation by Russia such as Ukraine, it did so by invoking “neutrality” and denying el pro-Russian motivation (!).
The fact is that there is not a sheet of paper that fits between the Freedom Party’s “neutrality” and Wehrschütz’ so-called “objectivity”.
11. Wehrschütz’ accreditation in Ukraine is in doubt
Florian Klenk, editor-in-chief of the Viennese weekly newspaper Falter, which otherwise opposes the Freedom Party and is decidedly left-wing, reacted on X to the news in the Austrian press that Wehrschütz could lose his accreditation as a journalist in Ukraine as follows: “That would not be good at all. Ukraine has to follow the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. Freedom of the press is also enshrined there.”[113] In Klenk’s opinion, a “threatening” withdrawal of Wehrschütz’ accreditation” must not be accepted unchallenged by the domestic media scene and above all by the ORF”.[114]
It seems very strange to postulate that the presence of Wehrschütz in Ukraine should be decisive or even constitutive for the freedom of the press there. What Klenk completely ignored was that Ukraine was ranked 79th in the World Press Freedom Index for 2023, when Russia was 164th. For comparison: Norway – 1st, Austria – 29th, US – 45th, North Korea – 180th (and last). Ukraine’s ranking was all the more astonishing because it had improved greatly (!) during the war: in 2022 it had only been 106th in the same index (Russia 155th). And this despite the “censorship” constantly complained about by Wehrschütz & Co and the “worries” of Klenk and numerous others in Austria about press freedom in Ukraine.
But Klenk’s argument is also clearly irrelevant from a legal point of view, because the European Convention on Human Rights provides for exceptions to the “unrestricted” freedom of the press (enshrined in Article 10). Article 15 (1) states:
“In time of war or other public emergency threatening the life of the nation any High Contracting Party may take measures derogating from its obligations under this Convention to the extent strictly required by the exigencies of the situation, provided that such measures are not inconsistent with its other obligations under international law.”[115]
Although Klenk himself is a lawyer, he did not care about that in his pro-Wehrschütz roundabout. Klenk just haughtily brushed aside the completely unambiguous exception of the European Convention on Human Rights: according to him, there were “softer means to react to Wehrschütz instead of revoking his visa.”
Which ones? Klenk was unfortunately silent about that. Instead, from a very high horse – and addressed to a country fighting for its existence – he simply decreed categorically from his office in Vienna, where there are no sirens wailing in warning of the next Russian air attack, that Ukraine “must tolerate journalists like Wehrschütz.” Moreover, Klenk defiantly ordered hat “Ukraine must not decide who reports for ORF from Kyiv.”[116]
But there is simply no obligation under international law (or otherwise) for the Ukrainian authorities to tolerate Wehrschütz in the country. Nevertheless, Ukraine has done so for a quarter of a century (!) – but there was not a word about this in the Falter or on Klenk’s X account. And if Ukraine has to continue to “put up with” Wehrschütz, then he should actually – strictly logically speaking – “put up with” criticism without constantly activating his lawyers. The same Wehrschütz for whom Klenk demanded “freedom of the press” has for years wanted to restrict precisely this – when it comes to his critics – with the help of his lawyers from the Lansky law firm (see chapter 12.). But Klenk did not notice this contradiction either (or kept it to himself for inexplicable reasons).
Actually, there were only two possibilities to explain Klenk’s behaviour in the Wehrschütz affair:
- He did not really know for whom he “stepped into the breach” here;
- Or he knew, but did it anyway.
In case 1), the authors of this paper have compiled an overview of Wehrschütz’s journalistic “highlights,” which was far from complete but nevertheless 47 pages long and which they urged Klenk to read carefully. But he left this unanswered. That was hardly surprising; presumably he had simply run out of pro-Wehrschütz arguments, but he certainly did not want to admit that.
Case 2) would be a veritable disaster because it would mean that the Falter stood up for an ORF correspondent who began his “career” in the extreme right-wing Aula and continued in the Freedom Party newspaper – and whose demarcation from right-wing radicalism is not always clear even after three decades in the ORF.
The ORF radio channel Ö1 tried to “come to terms” with the TV scandal of 15 August with its own programme on 1 September 2023.[117]
It said, surprisingly “self-critically,” about Wehrschütz that he can act the way he does “because he has an enormous standing with the ORF leadership, which is based on his prominence through his many years as a reporter as well as on his good networking in the Austrian army, with tabloids and in the right-wing camp. Wehrschütz has Freedom Party background and can also be seen as a signal to a group with which the ORF has acceptance problems. The fact is that Wehrschütz has staked out the Balkans[118] and Ukraine as his sole territory, which no one must contest.”[119]
Wow. After this statement, some asked whether Wehrschütz would now send the Lansky law firm off to sue his own employer, the ORF. The climax of all this grotesque, however, was probably that Wehrschütz refused to give his own broadcaster an interview on the subject (!).
In mid-September 2023, new questions arose about Wehrschütz’ accreditation in Ukraine. He had posted sensitive footage showing Ukrainian air defences in action over Odesa on his Facebook account on 23 July 2023.[120] But Ukraine has rules forbidding the posting of information on social networks that could be useful to Russia.
The Viennese daily Die Presse commented: “Wehrschütz has probably violated regulations that he must be aware of.” The latter’s reaction was completely contradictory: on the one hand he spoke of an “absurd accusation,” on the other hand he admitted: “It may be that I have violated the directive in part.” [121] But even that did not (so far) lead to his expulsion by Ukraine. Wehrschütz is so self-confident that he did not even in view of the controversy remove the footage in question from his account. And the ORF Director General, Roland Weißmann, expressed confidence in mid-September 2023 that Wehrschütz would receive accreditation from the Ukrainian authorities.
12. Wehrschütz and his lawyers
Wehrschütz has already sent his lawyers – specifically the well-known Viennese law firm Lansky, Ganzger, Goeth, Frankl + Partner – against critics several times.
Of course, it is supposed to seem particularly “clever” when a former member of the right-wing Freedom Party turns to Lansky who for decades has positioned himself as decidedly “left-wing” or close to the Social Democratic Party. How does such – at first sight – astonishing cooperation actually come about?
One possible “hinge” is the “Austrian-Russian Friendship Society,” in whose boards Lansky was represented at times.[122] Wehrschütz always claimed never to have been “active” there. But on 25 September 2017, at the Palais Kaiserhaus in Vienna, he spoke the “introductory words” to a “jour fixe” organised by this “friendship society” with the pro-Russian separatist Milorad Dodik, head of the Serb Republic in Bosnia-Herzegovina (who constantly threatens secession and thus its break-up as a state, repeatedly alluded to the genocide committed by Serbs in Srebrenica in 1995 and called it a “fabricated myth” etc.[123]). The topic of this wholly indispensable event, which reached intellectually lonely heights, was: “Russia’s Position in South-Eastern Europe”.[124]
Lansky’s law firm is also very interesting in its own right. He was (is?) a “trusted lawyer” of the Russian embassy in Vienna.[125] And after the start of Russia’s large-scale war of aggression against Ukraine since 24 February 2022, his firm spearheaded efforts in Austria to legally fight EU sanctions against Russian “oligarchs” – e.g. Andrei Melnichenko, who was eighth on Forbes‘ list of richest Russians for 2021, and steel billionaire Dmitry Pumpyansky.
In the case of Nikolai Azarov, Yanukovych’s confidant and Ukraine’s former (2010-2014) pro-Russian prime minister, Lansky was successful – unfortunately: Azarov has repeatedly, resolutely and unreservedly defended and justified Russia’s war of extermination against Ukraine.[126] By the way, Melnichenko and Pumpyansky are on a list of oligarchs whose companies support the Russian arms industry – and thus Putin’s war of annihilation against Ukraine.[127]
And Lansky? He expressed, so to speak, compassion for his billionaire clients: “Sanctions are nuclear bombs of European law. This is the sharpest possible weapon against individuals that a legal system can possess.”[128] Such statements are, especially against the backdrop of ever new demands in Russian Kremlin-kontrolled mass media to finally use real nuclear weapons against Ukraine and/or Western states, nothing but distasteful.
Over many years, Lansky’s law firm has repeatedly provided legal services to the governments of Russia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan. This is also significant against the background of the fact that Lansky (until the beginning of October 2023) was a member of the presidium of the Austrian branch of the international NGO “Reporters without Borders”[129]: In the World Press Freedom Index for 2023, compiled by Reporters Without Borders headquarters since 2002, these three countries are ranke das follows: Kazakhstan – 134th, Azerbaijan – 151st and Russia – 164th.[130] Of course, the question arises how Lansky’s law firm could work for the governments responsible for this situation, as he literally said:
“For about 40 years, as a human rights activist and then as a lawyer, I have dealt with the fundamental right to freedom of expression in courts and other appropriate venues. I have learned that this is unfortunately too often endangered and has to be fought for anew every day.”[131]
How true, Mr Lansky. And especially in Russia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan.
On 22 August 2023, Wehrschütz appeared on the X ressource Vatnik Soup, which is known for collecting and disseminating information about pro-Russian actors in the West. The introduction stated: “He’s best-known for supporting and spreading pro-Kremlin narratives on the Russo-Ukrainian War.”[132] Wehrschütz protested angrily on X on the same day and announced that he would contact his lawyers.[133]
Vatnik Soup mastermind Pekka Kallioniemi reacted as follows: “Allegedly, Mr. Wehrschütz has hired a group of high-profile lawyers who are known to sue everyone in Austria he deems even a slight threat to his reputation as an ‚objective‘ reporter.”[134] And indeed, Kallioniemi received a threatening letter dated 12 September 2023 from the Lansky law firm, demanding that he remove the information concerning Wehrschütz (consisting primarily of quotes from Wehrschütz himself; the scandal about his false sources for the report in “Zeit im Bild,” only a few days ago at the time, was not even covered by the Vatnik Soup). Kallioniemi, in turn, on X refused to do so. It will be interesting to see what happens next.
And what is the “morale” from all these stories behind the Wehrschütz – Lansky cooperation? It’s quite simple: otherwise very different exponents and actors (even from opposite sides of the political spectrum) have been able to agree again and again on a tendency towards a pro-Russian “platform”. And they sometimes help each other out.
No one has ever heard that Wehrschütz threatened pro-Russian persons, organisations, media etc. with his lawyers. Of course, the question arises about the reasons. Could it be that he never receives criticism from these “circles” because everyone there is in broad agreement with him and his claims in the media, why there is no “need” to involve his lawyers?
It is also very interesting in this context that the ORF 2023 remained silent for months when asked by journalists whether it actually pays Wehrschütz’ lawyers. Why is the ORF so secretive on this issue? Surely it would be in the public’s interest to know whether Wehrschütz is passing on the costs of “protecting” his vanity, which is always very quickly wounded, to the ORF – and thus to its fee payers.
13. Wehrschütz and the tabloid Kronen Zeitung
From the outside, it was never apparent that his ORF superiors had ever made any effort to stop Wehrschütz. Could this (also) have to do with the fact that the Kronen Zeitung constantly hails him?
Traditionally, this is the Austrian newspaper with the largest reach among the country’s population and, measured against this, is one of the largest daily newspapers in the world (22.2%; on Sundays 28.2%; the Kleine Zeitung, for which Wehrschütz also writes from time to time, is a distant second with 8.6%.[135]). What has been said for decades, namely that “Austria cannot be governed against the Kronen Zeitung,” is no longer true today. But it is still a significant power factor in shaping public opinion. And therefore it is important to consider that this newspaper incessantly polemicises against an EU rapprochement of Ukraine and prefers to publish “fitting” letters to the editor.
On 27 December 2018, the Kronen Zeitung made headlines with “ORF man fears for his life. Defamed as a Kremlin agent in Ukraine.”[136] It even happened that the paper hoisted Wehrschütz onto the front page of its Sunday edition and sang embarrassing eulogies to him (“Indescribably delightful how the tough war reporter suddenly mutates into an understanding grandpa”[137]; after the Russian shelling of a hotel where Wehrschütz and his staff were accommodated, “the three ‘reporter-musketeers’ […] were quickly in control of the situation again”[138], etc.). This is what journalist Christoph Matzl has put down on paper, demonstrating his alacrity to Wehrschütz time and again.
Of course, the Kronen Zeitung gave favourable mention to Wehrschütz’ 2022 book “My Journalist’s Life between Darth Vader and the Virgin Mary,” which undoubtedly contributed to its sales success. The “reference to the Virgin Mary” was “a profession of faith and an indication that the Christian Christian [!] knows how important a correct understanding of history is.” (!) Wehrschütz’ family is “the spiritual well […] from which he repeatedly draws the strength for his Herculean job.” This, in turn, was “a mission” for him. Wehrschütz, as Matzl continued mercilessly, delivered “razor-sharp front analyses.” And at the end of all this embarrassment, Matzl said: “Christian, I’m glad to have you as a friend. And sometimes, like Old Shatterhand and Winnetou, to be allowed to explore the world together a little.”[139]
14. Summary und conclusions
At the beginning of August 2022, the Viennese magazine Profil wrote of a “moral state failure” vis-à-vis Russia: Austrian politicians had whitewashed Putin’s regime “out of corruption, blackmail, persecution and murder of opposition members […] – despite knowing better. With terrible consequences for all of us. An apology would be due.”[140]
Against this background, the question is: Who exactly is Christian Wehrschütz? The answer is: not the least important of that many-headed (of course strictly informal) “cohort” of politicians, functionaries and lobbyists in interest groups, media people, “observers”, “analysts,” “public intellectuals,” and – last but not least – “[Russia] experts” (not to mention certain business people and managers not only from the oil and gas sector; these would be “worthy” of separate investigation) who have been “contextualizing,” “comparing,” “understanding,” and “analyzing” Putin’s Russia since 1999 (!).
Some of this group have changed their opinion – very late, but nevertheless – because of Putin’s war of annihilation against Ukraine since 24 February 2022. And others (with the Freedom Party in the lead) have remained largely to completely unimpressed with their (albeit daily failing) old “approach.”
Nor does Wehrschütz’s Ukraine reporting reveal any “break” with the past, i.e. until that fateful 24 February. In view of the above-referenced (but of course inevitably incomplete) list of Wehrschütz supporters, one is tempted to say: “Show me your friends and I’ll tell you who you are.” And an apology – suggested by the Profil – for earlier misjudgements about Putin’s Russia is surely the last thing that would ever occur to him and his fans – also because these assessments are ongoing.
In countless written and oral statements by Wehrschütz one embarrassment brutally followed the next, triggering the well-known association Si tacuisses, philosophus mansisses (loosely based on Boethius). People with the political orientation and simultaneously unlimited self-confidence like Wehrschütz inevitably have a strong tendency to present their view of things as having no alternative. And they are all the more convinced of this the more approval and support (not only in the media, but also in the political sphere) they receive, the more journalistic prizes they receive, the longer they are not expelled from the country from which they are supposed to report, etc.
Since Wehrschütz has been involved with Ukraine, numerous of his assertions, “analyses” and “prognoses” concerning it have been demonstrably empty of content, superficial, selective, questionable, one-sided, biased, ambiguous, misleading and/or generally counterfactual.
At least the parts of Wehrschütz’ journalistic work analyzed here evoke associations with bullshit in the sense of Harry Frankfurt (1929–2023).
According to this philosopher, bullshit is unavoidable, “whenever circumstances require someone to talk without knowing what he is talking about. Thus the production of bullshit is stimulated whenever a person‘s obligations or opportunities to speak about some topic are more excessive than his knowledge of the facts that are relevant to that topic. This discrepancy is common in public life, where people are frequently impelled – whether by their own propensities or by the demands of others – to speak extensively about matters of which they are to some degree ignorant.”[141]
Ukraine is being invaded by the dictatorship Russia, which denies it the right to exist, annexes its territories, deports people, destroys civilian infrastructure on a huge scale, causes environmental disasters, etc. And the biggest concern of many in Austria in general, and of Wehrschütz specifically, is whether there is really enough critical reporting on the victim of the Russian genocidal war, Ukraine.
That is a strange setting of priorities. And it was also curious that so many people in Austrian politics and journalism who have been talking and writing against the Freedom Party for many years (or even decades) in August and September 2023 suddenly – directly or indirectly – threw their weight behind Wehrschütz, who comes from precisely this party, and at the same time did not show any cognitive dissonance, the more so as Wehrschütz would fit in well with FPÖ-TV (the Freedom Party’s YouTube channel), Fox News or RT Deutsch. Incidentally, Wehrschütz has repeatedly posted approving material from RT, Sputnik, Breitbart News etc. on social networks.
By the way, Wehrschütz himself appeared on RT Deutsch in November 2014.
All these circumstances make it even more incomprehensible why both the ORF and Ukraine (albeit for totally different reasons) have tolerated Wehrschütz in Kyiv for many years.
Basically, Wehrschütz tended to portray the military situation in Ukraine as worse or much worse than it actually is. How else could this be explained than that he wants to make it clear that Russia will win whatever Ukraine and its allies do?
And at every opportunity – no matter how inappropriate – Wehrschütz talks about NATO’s eastward expansion, which “threatens Russia’s security interests.” It’s certainly just a coincidence, but so do Putin, Lavrov & Co. and their radical right and left supporters in Western European parties.
And is Wehrschütz’ insistence on “negotiations with Russia” supposed to be the “neutral, objective reporting” for which he constantly praises himself? This looks much more like “political consulting” – albeit on a miserable level. Following his “advice” would be openly dangerous, as it would play into Russia’s hands.
And Wehrschütz is apparently of the opinion that the objectivity in reporting, to which the ORF is obliged by law, is taken into account by allowing pro-Russian collaborators in Ukraine to have their say without comment.
References:
- Putin über Leitl und die WKO. YouTube, 25 May 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PY5_l3PHss (15 October 2023). ↑
- Putin Waltzes At Austrian Foreign Minister’s Wedding. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty – YouTube, 19. August 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJ8Wbmiwrwo (15 October 2023). ↑
- Jana Puglierin and Pawel Zerka, Keeping America close, Russia down, and China far away: How Europeans navigate a competitive world. European Council on Foreign Relations, 7 June 2023, https://ecfr.eu/publication/keeping-america-close-russia-down-and-china-far-away-how-europeans-navigate-a-competitive-world/ (1 July 2023). ↑
- Conrad Seidl, Nur 42 Prozent der Österreicher befürworten, dass die Ukraine weiterkämpft. Der Standard, 28 August 2023, https://www.derstandard.at/story/3000000184408/nur-42-prozent-der-oesterreicher-befuerworten-dass-die-ukraine-weiterkaempft?ref=article ↑
- Korruption in der Ukraine [report by Christian Wehrschütz]. 15 August 2023, 19.30, https://tvthek.orf.at/topic/Krieg-in-der-Ukraine/13869779/ZIB-1/14189995/Korruption-in-der-Ukraine/15448938 (18 August 2023). ↑
- Ukrainian; in Russian: Odesa. ↑
- СБУ затримала в Одесі агента фсб, який збирав розвіддані про нові підрозділи Сил оборони. Служба безпеки України, YouTube, 23 March 2023, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWlqyEUVWLw (17 August 2023). ↑
- Quoted from: Russische Propaganda? Wirbel um ORF-Beitrag. Puls 24 Chronik, 17 August 2023, https://www.puls24.at/news/chronik/russische-propaganda-wirbel-um-orf-beitrag/305419?fbclid=IwAR1CO1FkeCU8jHsYT-bjZDZl0LWJSS8qWS6VvwJ-TeGoIWo-9Yy0f1l7KKU (18 August 2023). ↑
- Christian Wehrschütz, Wikipedia, https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Wehrsch%C3%BCtz (15 September 2023). ↑
- Quoted from: Anja Melzer, ORF-Korrespondent Wehrschütz beschönigt seine Aula-Vergangenheit. ZackZack, 31 May 2022, https://zackzack.at/2022/05/31/orf-korrespondent-wehrschuetz-beschoenigt-seine-aula-vergangenheit (3 July 2022). ↑
- Die Aula. Dokumentationsarchiv des österreichischen Widerstandes. https://www.doew.at/erkennen/rechtsextremismus/rechtsextreme-organisationen/die-aula (2 August 2023). ↑
- Hans-Henning Scharsach, Strache. Im braunen Sumpf. Wien 2012, p. 123. ↑
- Herwig Nachtmann, Prozess nach NS-Verbotsgesetz. Dokumentationsarchiv des österreichischen Widerstandes, https://www.doew.at/erkennen/rechtsextremismus/rechtsextreme-organisationen/die-aula/herwig-nachtmann-prozess-nach-ns-verbotsgesetz (15 September 2023). ↑
- Christian Wehrschütz, Einigelung der Hauptstadt. Im Kriegsgebiet. Tagebücher aus der Ukraine. Kleine Zeitung Interaktiv, 20 April 2022, https://interaktiv.kleinezeitung.at/ukraine-tagebuecher/ (6 November 2022). ↑
- Christian Wehrschütz, ORF-Analyse aus der Ukraine, 9 September 2022, ORFTVTHEK, https://tvthek.orf.at/topic/Krieg-in-der-Ukraine/13869779/ORF-III-AKTUELL/14149117/ORF-,Analyse-aus-der-Ukraine/15231830 (11 September 2022). ↑
- Quoted from: Michael Marcus Thurner, Perry Rhodan-Fans: Interview mit Christian Wehrschütz – Teil 2. Journalist des Jahres 2014 und Perry Rhodan-Leser. Perry Rhodan, 3 November 2015, https://perry-rhodan.net/aktuelles/news/perry-rhodan-fans-interview-mit-christian-wehrsch%C3%BCtz-%E2%80%93-teil-2 (18 September 2022). ↑
- Christian F. Wehrschütz, Brennpunkt Ukraine. Gespräche über ein gespaltenes Land. Wien / Graz / Klagenfurt 2014, p. 136. ↑
- Ibid., p. 148. ↑
- Extremistische Opposition stürmt Waffenlager. ORF, 8 April 2022, https://oe1.orf.at/artikel/367548/Extremistische-Opposition-stuermt-Waffenlager (25 April 2022). ↑
- Christian Wehrschütz, Mein Journalistenleben zwischen Darth Vader und Jungfrau Maria. Graz 2022., p. 44. ↑
- Wehrschütz from the Crimean capital Simferopol on ORF Radio, channel Ö1, 18 March 2014. ↑
- “Increasing Restrictions on Media Freedom”: How an Austrian Journalist Was Branded as an “Enemy of Ukraine” [translation by Strana.ua]. Stalkerzone, 2 January 2019, https://www.stalkerzone.org/increasing-restrictions-on-media-freedom-how-an-austrian-journalist-was-branded-as-an-enemy-of-ukraine/ (5 July 2022). ↑
- Ida Metzger, Wehrschütz: “Oft passieren doch noch Wunder” [interview]. Kurier, 14 February 2015, https://kurier.at/politik/ausland/wehrschuetz-oft-passieren-doch-noch-wunder/113.875.681 (6 Mai 2022). ↑
- Cf. Георгий Касьянов, Украина и соседи: Историческая политика 1987–2018. Москва 2019, pp. 543-544, 594. ↑
- Wehrschütz, Mein Journalistenleben, op. cit., p. 58. ↑
- Ibid., p. 60. ↑
- Ibid., p. 61. ↑
- Wehrschütz, Brennpunkt Ukraine, op. cit., p. 7. ↑
- Quoted from: Metzger, Wehrschütz [interview], op. cit. ↑
- Wehrschütz, Brennpunkt Ukraine, op. cit., pp. 117-118, 143. ↑
- RBI Summer Talk im Zeichen EU- und Russlandbeziehungen. Raiffeisen Bank International, 8 June 2016, https://www.rbinternational.com/de/media/archiv-2016/08-06-2016—rbi-summer-talk-im-zeichen-der-eu–und-russlandbezi.html (28 August 2022). ↑
- Иван Благой, На Украине объявлен агентом Кремля австрийский репортер, не замеченный в симпатиях к России. Pervii kanal, 28 December 2018, https://yandex.ru/video/preview/13204765569404889985 (30 July 2023). ↑
- Вершютц Кристиан / Wehrschütz Christian / Vershyutts Kristian. Mirotvorets, https://myrotvorets.center/criminal/vershyutc-kristian/ (22 July 2022). ↑
- Quoted from: ORF-Korrespondent Wehrschütz in der Ukraine bedroht. Der Standard, 27 December 2018, https://www.derstandard.at/story/2000094858791/orf-korrespondent-wehrschuetz-in-der-ukraine-bedroht (5 July 2022). ↑
- Wehrschütz, Mein Journalistenleben, op. cit., p. 32. ↑
- Quoted from: Monika König-Krisper: Christian Wehrschütz: „Ich habe keine Angst“. Kronen Zeitung, 7 October 2022, https://www.krone.at/2826826 (4 June 2023). ↑
- A Viennese daily newspaper called Busina a “prominent pro-Russian activist” and “publicist” in an article that also mentioned Wehrschütz, cf. “Todesliste”: Umstrittene ukrainische Internetseite listet Gudenus. Kurier, 5. November 2022, https://kurier.at/politik/inland/todesliste-umstrittene-ukrainische-internetseite-listet-gudenus/400499866 (15 October 2023). ↑
- Юрий Бершидский, Фейк Первого канала: австрийский журналист, рассказавший правду о Крыме, опасается за свою жизнь. The Insider, 27 December 2018, https://theins.ru/antifake/134080 (18 October 2022). ↑
- Christian Wehrschütz liest in der Buchhandlung Morawa Wollzeile. Edition Kneiper, https://www.editionkeiper.at/shop/events/christian-wehrschuetz-liest-in-der-buchandlung-morawa-wollzeile-wien/ (29 May 2023). ↑
- Christian Wehrschütz, Die Zukunft der Ukraine: Zwischen Neutralität & NATO. Kronen Zeitung / Sonntagsmagazin, 24 April 2022, pp. 6-7, here p. 6. ↑
- Rüdiger von Fritsch: Zeitenwende. Putins Krieg und die Folgen. Berlin 2022, p. 60. ↑
- Has Putin’s war failed and what does Russia want? BBC, 19 February 2023, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-56720589 (20 February 2023). ↑
- Россия не рассматривает возможность присоединения Крыма, заявил Путин. RIA Novosti, 4 March 2014, https://ria.ru/20140304/998093694.html?ysclid=ldrdnngmz448540789 (5 February 2023). ↑
- Обращение Президента Российской Федерации. Prezident Rossii, 18 March 2014, http://www.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/statements/page/14 (5 February 2023). ↑
- Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security between NATO and the Russian Federation signed in Paris, France. NATO, 27 May 1997, https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_25468.htm (28 September 2023). ↑
- Quoted from: Johanna Hager and Martin Gebhart, “Bin bereit für das Kanzleramt”. Kurier, 18 September 2022, p. 8. ↑
- Quoted from: „Kriegstreiberei“: Schlagabtausch zwischen Kickl und Nehammer. Die Presse, 13 December 2022, https://www.diepresse.com/6226894/kriegstreiberei-schlagabtausch-zwischen-kickl-und-nehammer (14 December 2022). ↑
- Quoted from: Путин назвал время подлета ракет НАТО к Москве при размещении на Украине. RBK, 21 December 2021, https://www.rbc.ru/rbcfreenews/61c1cba09a79477c83bc4773?ysclid=ln345dlww7645379749 (28 September 2023). ↑
- Russia deploys nuclear-capable missiles in Kaliningrad. BBC News, 9 October 2016, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-37597075 (28 September 2023). ↑
- Wehrschütz, for example, in the TV discussion IM ZENTRUM: Putins Spiel mit dem Feuer – Droht ein Krieg in Europa? (23 January 2022). ORF Fan / YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjH1b6e9nGs (28 Septembe 2023). ↑
- Quoted from: Christian Wehrschütz beehrte den SK Sturm. SK Sturm, 22 January 2023, https://sksturm.at/n/christian-wehrschuetz-beehrte-den-sk-sturm (30 May 2023). ↑
- Christian Wehrschütz (ORF) zum Ukraine-Krieg. ORF, 28 June 2022, https://tvthek.orf.at/profile/ORF-III-Aktuell/13889091/ORF-III-Aktuell/14140667/Christian-Wehrschuetz-ORF-zum-Ukraine-Krieg/15190392 (28 June 2022). ↑
- Mike Eckel, Amid Putin’s Saber-Rattling, What Exactly Is A Tactical Nuclear Weapon? RFE/RL, 13 October 2022, https://www.rferl.org/a/explainer-tactical-nuclear-weapons-russia-ukraine-putin/32079565.html (13 October 2023). ↑
- Gordon Corera, Ukraine war: Could Russia use tactical nuclear weapons? BBC News, 26 April 2022, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-60664169 (28 June 2022). ↑
- Wehrschütz, Die Zukunft der Ukraine, op. cit., p. 6. ↑
- Robert S. Norris, The Soviet Nuclear Archipelago. Arms Control Today, 22 (1), 1992, pp. 24-31. ↑
- Quoted from: Benedikt Faast, Wehrschütz bleibt doch in Kiew. “Schwerste Entscheidung”. ZackZack, 1 March 2022, https://zackzack.at/2022/03/01/wehrschuetz-bleibt-doch-in-kiew-schwerste-entscheidung (16 April 2022). ↑
- Fellner! LIVE: Christian Wehrschütz im Interview. YouTube, 2 June 2022, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0iGDvAbclw (7 September 2022). ↑
- Christian Wehrschütz, Betrifft: Ukraine. Kronen Zeitung – Krone-Bunt, 22 January 2023, pp. 10-11, hier p. 10. ↑
- Tyson Wetzel, Ukraine air war examined: A glimpse at the future of air warfare. Atlantic Council, 30 August 2022, https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/content-series/airpower-after-ukraine/ukraine-air-war-examined-a-glimpse-at-the-future-of-air-warfare/?fbclid=IwAR2GEhG2gGoX5EEl0Qg_RrYUBqWHFogLoGxn8y1IWylijdjEkUZXNynq5M4 (9 September 2022). ↑
- Quoted from: ORF Radio, Ö1 Mittagsjournal, 10 September 2022, https://oe1.orf.at/player/20220910/690938/1662804801000 (10 September 2022). ↑
- Quoted from: Clemens Neuhold, “Am Drücker ist weiterhin die Ukraine” [interview with Berthold Sandtner]. Profil, no. 42, 2022, pp. 44-45, here p. 44. ↑
- Mark F. Cancian and Tom Karako, Patriot to Ukraine: What Does It Mean? Center for Strategic and International Studies, 16 December 2022, https://www.csis.org/analysis/patriot-ukraine-what-does-it-mean (20 May 2023). ↑
- Idrees Ali, Phil Stewart and Mike Stone, Can Ukraine use Patriot defense systems to knock out Russian hypersonic missiles? Reuters, 17 May 2023, https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/can-ukraine-use-patriot-defense-systems-knock-out-russian-hypersonic-missiles-2023-05-17/ (20 May 2023). ↑
- Christian Wehrschütz, Ukraine: schwerer Beschuss mit westlicher Technik weitgehend abgewehrt. ORF Radio, Ö1 Mittagsjournal, 16 May 2023, https://oe1.orf.at/player/20230516/719490/1684232020000 (20 May 2023). ↑
- Night attack on Ukraine cost Russia at least US$120 million. Ukrainska pravda, 16 May 2023, https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/05/16/7402408/ (20 May 2023). ↑
- Pete Shmigel, Russia’s Month of Missile Madness: 90% of Projectiles Failed, $1.7 Billion Spent. Kyiv Post, 31 May 2023, https://www.kyivpost.com/post/17726 (2 June 2023). ↑
- ORF Radio, Ö1 Mittagsjournal, 15 April 2022. ↑
- Zitiert nach: ORF-Star in der Ukraine – die knallharte Kriegs-Analyse. Heute, 24 August 2022, https://www.heute.at/s/orf-star-christian-wehrschuetz-in-der-ukraine-die-knallharte-kriegs-analyse-100224250 (25 August 2022). ↑
- Quoted from: Conny Bischofberger, Wie abgebrüht sind Sie schon, Herr Wehrschütz? [Interview with Wehrschütz]. Kronen Zeitung, 6 March 2022, https://www.krone.at/2646358 (8 September 2022). ↑
- Kriegsreporter Wehrschütz: “Die Solidarität mit der Ukraine wird zurückgehen”. Club 3, 27 May 2022, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6i6OE3gdr08 (30 May 2022); “Die Solidarität mit der Ukraine wird zurückgehen”. Profil, no. 22, 2022, p. 53; cf. Fellner! LIVE: Christian Wehrschütz, op. cit, from minute 23:05. ↑
- Ibid. ↑
- Gastbeitrag von Franziska Davies und Anna Veronika Wendland. Der Volksverpetzer, 15 September 2023, https://www.volksverpetzer.de/analyse/guerot-pro-russische-verschwoerungsmythen-buchmarkt/ (17 September 2023). ↑
- Fellner! LIVE: Christian Wehrschütz, op. cit.; Christian Wehrschütz, Betrifft: Ukraine, op. cit., p. 11. ↑
- Полный текст обращения Владимира Путина 30 сентября 2022: Стенограмма выступления
Опубликован полный текст обращения Владимира Путина 30 сентября 2022 года. Komsomol’skaja pravda, 30 September 2022, https://www.kp.ru/daily/27452.5/4655517/ (3 October 2022). ↑
- Quoted from: ORF-Star sagt baldiges Ende des Ukraine-Kriegs voraus. Heute, 28 May 2022, https://www.heute.at/s/orf-star-sagt-baldiges-ende-des-ukraine-kriegs-voraus-100209348 (5 September 2022). ↑
- Quoted from: Helen Livingstone, Russia accuses Nato of ‘proxy war’ in Ukraine as US hosts crucial defence summit. The Guardian, 26 April 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/26/russia-accuses-nato-of-proxy-war-in-ukraine-as-us-hosts-crucial-defence-summit (24 September 2023); Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s briefing on a wide range of international issues, including humanitarian aspects in the context of developments in Ukraine. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, 30 June 2023, https://mid.ru/en/foreign_policy/international_safety/1894785/ (24 September 2023). ↑
- ЗОМБОЯЩИК. Матушка, они это проглотили! Популярная политика, 20 July 2023, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lKSrzY0KDo (20 July 2023), from minute 3:00 on. ↑
- Quoted from: Selenskyj: “Wir alle spüren, wie unser Sieg naht”. ORF, 13 November 2022, https://orf.at//stories/3293599/ (16 November 2022). ↑
- Quoted from: Ella Joyner, EU lawmakers name Russia a ‘state sponsor’ of terrorism. Deutsche Welle, 23 November 2023, https://www.dw.com/en/eu-lawmakers-name-russia-a-state-sponsor-of-terror/a-63818422 (22 March 2023). ↑
- ЗАКОН УКРАЇНИ. Про забезпечення прав і свобод громадян та правовий режим на тимчасово окупованій території України, 15.04.2022, Редакція від 03.12.2022, підстава – 2764-IX, https://zakon.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/1207-18#Text (29 December 2022). ↑
- Cf. Tim Bouverie, Appeasing Hitler: Chamberlain, Churchill and the Road to War. London 2019. ↑
- Meret Baumann, Österreich wagt den Bruch mit Putin nicht – so unterstützt es dessen Krieg. Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 23 August 2023, https://www.nzz.ch/meinung/ukraine-krieg-oesterreich-wagt-den-bruch-mit-putins-russland-nicht-ld.1751849?mktcid=smsh&mktcval=Twitter (24 August 2023). ↑
- Quoted from: Twitter-Wirbel um ORF-Wehrschütz. OE24, 4 April 2022, https://www.oe24.at/welt/ukraine-krieg/twitter-wirbel-um-orf-wehrschuetz/515561615?fbclid=IwAR1zpTs1SOsB_kfQFHRCWnhaZfsVaA6XFnusOqlDbOFoKgrc6xTEIvG9cd4 (4 April 2022). ↑
- Quoted from: Kickl beim ORF-Sommergespräch: “Russland-Sanktionen bedrohen unseren Wohlstand!” FPÖ, 22 August 2022, https://www.fpoe.at/artikel/kickl-beim-orf-sommergespraech-russland-sanktionen-bedrohen-unseren-wohlstand/ (14 October 2022); Kickl: Man müsse versuchen, auch Russland zu verstehen. Puls 24, 22 August 2023, https://www.puls24.at/news/politik/fpoe-chef-herbert-kickl-man-muesse-versuchen-auch-russland-zu-verstehen/273590 (18 September 2023). ↑
- Quoted from: Twitter-Wirbel um ORF-Wehrschütz, op. cit. ↑
- Ibid. ↑
- Quoted from: Christian Wehrschütz: “Hut, wenn es windig ist. Helm, wenn es wirklich gefährlich ist” [interview]. Journalist:in, 24 May 2022, https://www.journalistin.at/singlenews/uid-935883/christian-wehrschu-tz-hut-wenn-es-windig-ist.-helm-wenn-es-wirklich-gefaehrlich-ist/ (29 June 2023). ↑
- Wehrschütz, Mein Journalistenleben, op. cit., p. 89. ↑
- ORF Radio, Ö1, Morgenjournal, 15 September 2022, https://oe1.orf.at/player/20220915/691175 (16 September 2022), from 7:05. ↑
- Quoted from: ORF-Bericht zu Gräber-Fund. ZIB 2, 16 September 2022, ORFTVTHEK, https://tvthek.orf.at/profile/ZIB-2/1211/ZIB-2/14149960 (19 September 2022). ↑
- F. Chr Wehrschuetz, Twitter, 9 April 2022, https://mobile.twitter.com/Wehrschu/with_replies (9 April 2022). ↑
- Christian Wehrschütz: Hunderte Gräber. Kleine Zeitung, 16 September 2022, https://interaktiv.kleinezeitung.at/ukraine-tagebuecher/ (1 März 2023). ↑
- Fabian Sommavilla, Timothy Snyder: “Natürlich können wir Putin demütigen” [interview]. Der Standard, 14 July 2023, https://www.derstandard.at/story/3000000178768/timothy-snyder-natuerlich-koennen-wir-putin-demuetigen (17 July 2023). ↑
- Cf. Jan Dirk Herbermann, UN-Ermittler zu Ukrainekrieg: “Kopfschüsse, stumpfe Traumata, aufgeschlitzte Kehlen” [interview with Erik Møse]. Der Standard, 14 März 2023, https://www.derstandard.at/story/2000144290440/un-ermittler-kopfschuesse-stumpfe-traumata-oder-aufgeschlitzte-kehlen (14 März.2023); Report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine. Human Rights Council, Fifty-second session, 27 February–31 March 2023, Advance Unedited Version Distr.: General, 15 March 2023, https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/hrbodies/hrcouncil/coiukraine/A_HRC_52_62_AUV_EN.pdf (16 March 2023). ↑
- Cf. Sergej Sumlenny, How Russian TV Promotes Genocide [Interview mit Julia Davis]. European Resilience Initiative Center, 30 August 2023, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30KvUtOT2l0 (30 August 2023);
Kristina Hook, The Russian Federation’s Escalating Commission of Genocide in Ukraine: A Legal Analysis. July 2023, https://newlinesinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/20230726-Genocide-Ukraine-Report-NISLAP_.pdf (4 August 2023); Patrick Heinemann, Neue Studie sieht Belege für russischen Völkermord in der Ukraine. Legal Tribute Online (LTO), 8 August 2023, https://www.lto.de/recht/hintergruende/h/studie-raoul-wallenberg-centre-for-human-rights-genozid-ukraine/ (2 October 2023). ↑
- Quoted from: Lukas Kalteis, Christian Wehrschütz über das Unfassbare vom Krieg in der Ukraine. NÖN, 14 April 2023, https://m.noen.at/st-poelten/vortrag-im-museum-noe-christian-wehrschuetz-ueber-das-unfassbare-vom-krieg-in-der-ukraine-st-poelten-363123619 (29 July 2023). ↑
- This is the spelling that this medium itself uses for its name. ↑
- Richard Schmitt, Wilde Attacken gegen den ORF wegen angeblicher “pro-russischer Propaganda”. Exxpress, 17 August 2023, https://exxpress.at/wilde-attacken-gegen-den-orf-wegen-angeblicher-pro-russischer-propaganda/ (20 August 2023). ↑
- Für Putins Botschafter “nicht mehr neutral”: Wien als Verhandlungsort ausgeschieden [interview with Dmitry Liubinskii]. Exxpress, 14 February 2023, https://exxpress.at/fuer-putins-botschafter-nicht-mehr-neutral-wien-als-verhandlungsort-ausgeschieden/ (15 October 2023). ↑
- Quoted from: ORF bestätigt falsche Videos in Wehrschütz-Beitrag in der “Zeit im Bild”. Der Standard, 17 August 2023, https://www.derstandard.at/story/3000000183263/wehrschuetz-beitrag-in-zib-sorgt-fuer-aufregung (17 August 2023). ↑
- Quoted from: ORF bestätigt falsche Videos in Wehrschütz-Beitrag in der “Zeit im Bild”. Der Standard, 17 August 2023, https://www.derstandard.at/story/3000000183263/wehrschuetz-beitrag-in-zib-sorgt-fuer-aufregung (17 August 2023). ↑
- Florian Bayer: Propagandavideos in ZiB1: Bis dato keine Aufklärung. ZackZack, 18 August 2023, https://zackzack.at/2023/08/18/propagandavideos-in-zib1-bis-dato-keine-aufklaerung (18 August 2023). ↑
- Cf. ibid. ↑
- F. Chr Wehrschuetz, X, 17 August 2023, https://twitter.com/Wehrschu/status/1692283005786567133 (18 August 2023). ↑
- Bayer, Propagandavideos in ZiB1, op. cit. ↑
- Edda Graf, “Ich lasse mich nicht abbringen” [interview with Wehrschütz]. Kronen Zeitung – Bunt, 27 August 2023, pp. 6-7. ↑
- Daniel Kosak, X, 20 August 2023, https://twitter.com/Kosak_Daniel/status/1693157787155538082 (23 August 2023). ↑
- Armin Arbeiter, Hut ab vor Christian Wehrschütz! Kurier, 20 August 2023, https://kurier.at/meinung/hut-ab-vor-christian-wehrschuetz/402563378 (23 August 2023). ↑
- Michael Bauer, X, 22 August 2023, https://twitter.com/Bundesheerbauer/status/1693853405779808549?t=J59DX9W86MdSn08vu5rl3A&s=19&fbclid=IwAR1OrsEQfthlVYLp5_EJI_J__th-DK1J_xwRK-bDtkEcKnxUprlpDQGoiwk (23 August 2023). ↑
- Wie gefährlich ist die Lage im AKW Saporosche. ORF Radio, Ö1 Mittagsjournal, from 12:32, https://oe1.orf.at/player/20230819/729715/1692441164000 (20 August 2023). ↑
- Quoted from: Christoph Matzl, Wehrschütz: “Habe keine prorussische Haltung”. Kronen Zeitung, 18 August 2023, https://www.krone.at/3089792 (20 August 2023). ↑
- Florian Klenk, X, 9 September 2023, https://twitter.com/florianklenk/status/1700486289089269863?t=Ctl68QJflBYuRK4fYRGJHw&s=09 (19 September 2023). ↑
- Florian Klenk, Pressefreiheit für Wehrschütz. Der Falter, 12 September 2023, https://www.falter.at/maily/20230912/pressefreiheit-fuer-wehrschuetz (19 September 2023). ↑
- European Convention on Human Rights. https://www.echr.coe.int/documents/d/echr/convention_ENG (3 October 2023), p. 13. ↑
- Klenk, Pressefreiheit, op. cit. ↑
- Barbara Toth, Blattkritik. Falter, 5 September 2023, https://www.falter.at/zeitung/20230905/blattkritik (5 October 2023). ↑
- Wehrschütz works, parallel to Ukraine, also in the Western Balkans and is thus the only ORF foreign correspondent who heads offices in different cities (Kyiv and Belgrade). ↑
- Krieg, Lügen und Videos. ORF Radio, Ö1 [1 September 2023 Programme], https://oe1.orf.at/programm/20230901#730416/Krieg-Luegen-und-Videos (1 September 2023). ↑
- Christian Ferdinand Wehrschütz, Facebook, 20230723 Ukraine Odesa unter massivem Beschuss Wehrsch Mod In der Ukraine ist die Hafenstadt Odesa in der Nacht neuerlich massiv von Russland beschossen worden. […], 23 July 2023, https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1088329095477101 (3 October 2023). ↑
- Quoted from: Rosa Schmidt-Vierthaler, Neue Vorwürfe gegen ORF-Korrespondent Christian Wehrschütz. Die Presse, 14 September 2023, https://www.diepresse.com/16181817/neue-vorwuerfe-gegen-orf-korrespondenten-christian-wehrschuetz (14 September 2023). ↑
- Stefan Melichar and Michael Nikbakhsh, Liebesgrüße nach Moskau. Profil, no. 11, 2022, pp. 32-36, here p. 34. ↑
- Quoted from: Zamira Rahim, Srebrenica massacre is ‘fabricated myth’, Bosnian Serb leader says. Independent, 14 April 2019, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/srebrenica-massacre-genocide-milorad-dodik-bosnia-myth-a8869026.html (23 August 2023). ↑
- Österreichisch-Russische Freundschaftsgesellschaft – ORFG. Facebook, 29 August 2017, https://www.facebook.com/orfg.network/posts/1614877018583316/ (8 April 2022). ↑
- Andreas Knapp and Josef Redl, Klub Ost: Das heikle Geschäft mit russischen Klienten in Wien. Profil, 27 August 2012, https://www.profil.at/home/erich-rebasso-klub-ost-das-geschaeft-klienten-wien-340069 (27 April 2022). ↑
- Cf. Юрий Нечаев, Экс-премьер Украины Азаров: НАТО хотела развязать ядерный конфликт с РФ в 2022 году. Rossiiskaja gazeta, 4 March 2023, https://rg.ru/2022/03/04/eks-premer-ukrainy-azarov-nato-hotela-razviazat-iadernyj-konflikt-s-rf-v-2022-godu.html?ysclid=lkv5jk2b23250965768 (3 August 2023). ↑
- Виталий Солдатских etc., Путеводитель по российским олигархам военного времени. Proekt, 21 August 2023, https://www.proekt.media/guide/russian-war-oligarchs/ (4 August 2023). ↑
- Quoted from: Marina Delcheva and Anna Thalhammer, Österreichisch-russische Freundschaft: Geld ist dicker als Sanktionen. Profil, 31 July 2023, https://www.profil.at/wirtschaft/oesterreichisch-russische-freundschaft-geld-ist-dicker-als-sanktionen/402539303 (3 August 2023). ↑
- Reporter-ohne-Grenzen-Vorstand Lansky wegen Causa Wehrschütz zurückgetreten. Der Standard, 3 October 2023, https://www.derstandard.at/story/3000000189536/reporter-ohne-grenzen-vorstand-lansky-wegen-causa-wehrschuetz-zurueckgetreten?fbclid=IwAR1c9uQXUuaXPzoF4eYeEYKUeQIQcaGT1ZX1EpDBf5D_GffuSZAvlWGR5tE (4 October 2023). ↑
- World Press Freedom Index. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Press_Freedom_Index (25 September 2023). ↑
- Präsidium. Reporter ohne Grenzen, https://www.rog.at/ueber-uns/der-vorstand-stellt-sich-vor-in-bearbeitung/ (25 September 2023). ↑
- Pekka Kallioniemi, X, 22 August 2023, https://twitter.com/P_Kallioniemi/status/1693971199297024406 (15 October 2023). ↑
- Christian Wehrschütz, X, 22 August 2023, https://twitter.com/Wehrschu/status/1694043410452091350?fbclid=IwAR3YhcRzb1LD_WYYh3vGTSdOvbUlUe-_Ua7yssvaRmjb8NxpFoFUfLhuEmg (22 August 2023). ↑
- Pekka Kallioniemi, X, 22 August 2023, https://twitter.com/P_Kallioniemi/status/1693971233480601759 (15 October 2023). ↑
- Krone Gesamtausgabe. https://business.krone.at/national/krone_gesamtausgabe#:~:text=Mediadaten%3A,von%2057%2C1%20%25%20entspricht (30 May 2023). ↑
- Wehrschütz, Mein Journalistenleben, op. cit., p. 22. ↑
- Christoph Matzl, “Der Tod kann dich überall ereilen”. Kronen Zeitung – Krone Bunt, 29 May 2022, pp. 6-11, here p. 9. ↑
- Christoph Matzl, “Muss dem Himmel danken”. Kronen Zeitung, 30 October 2022, p. 6. ↑
- Christoph Matzl, Sein Leben zwischen Darth Vader und Jungfrau Maria. Kronen Zeitung – Krone Bunt, 2 October 2022, pp. 8-9. ↑
- Christa Zöchling, Moralisches Staatsversagen. Profil, no. 32, 2022, pp. 20-25. ↑
- Harry G. Frankfurt > Quotes. Goodreads, https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/1134985-bullshit-is-unavoidable-whenever-circumstances-require-someone-to-talk-without (15 October 2023). ↑
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https://euromaidanpress.com/2024/01/25/whitewashing-putin-how-one-reporter-muddies-austrian-views-on-ukraine/
| 2024-01-25T16:29:05Z
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GENEVA – Israel on Jan 25 accused the World Health Organisation (WHO) of collusion with the militant Palestinian group Hamas by ignoring Israeli evidence of the “terrorist use” of hospitals in the Gaza Strip.
Ambassador Meirav Eilon Shahar told a meeting of the WHO’s executive board that there could not be health in the Palestinian territory when Hamas “embeds itself in hospitals and uses human shields”.
In “every single hospital that the IDF (Israel Defence Forces) searched in Gaza, it found evidence of Hamas’ military use”, she said.
“These are undeniable facts that WHO chooses to ignore time and time again. This is not incompetence; it is collusion.”
War erupted when Hamas and other militants from Gaza launched the unprecedented Oct 7 attacks on Israel, which claimed about 1,140 lives, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.
Militants also seized 250 hostages, and Israel says around 132 remain in Gaza. That number includes the bodies of at least 28 dead hostages.
Israel, in response, vowed to crush Hamas and launched a relentless military offensive that the Palestinian territory’s Health Ministry says has killed at least 25,700 people – about 70 per cent of them women and children.
The Israeli military accuses Hamas of having tunnels under hospitals and using the medical facilities as command centres, a charge denied by the Islamist group.
The WHO has not confirmed the allegations.
Mr Richard Peeperkorn, the WHO representative for the occupied Palestinian territory, told reporters on Dec 21 that “we, on our missions, have not seen anything of this on the ground”, adding that WHO was “not in a position to assert how any hospital is being used”.
“The role of WHO is to monitor, analyse and report… We are not (an) investigating organisation.”
But Ms Eilon Shahar alleged the UN health agency “knew hostages were held in hospitals and that terrorists operated within”.
“Even when presented with concrete evidence of what was happening below ground and above ground… WHO chooses to turn a blind eye, jeopardising those they are meant to protect.” AFP
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https://www.straitstimes.com/world/middle-east/israel-accuses-who-of-collusion-with-hamas-over-use-of-hospitals
| 2024-01-25T16:29:15Z
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JERUSALEM - Over more than 100 days of the Gaza war, Rami Nabulsi's antique shop in the Old City of Jerusalem has been virtually empty of customers. Still, he walks the cobble-stoned alleyways to open it every day.
The Old City, surrounded by ancient walls and home to sites sacred to Judaism, Christianity and Islam, is usually bursting with activity, crammed with worshippers and tourists from around the world.
Since the fighting started, the area has become "like a desert", says Nabulsi, a Palestinian resident of the Old City in East Jerusalem.
"Jerusalem was meant to be a city of joy," he said. "Now, when you walk in the city, even the walls are crying."
More than 25,700 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed since Israeli forces launched an all-out war on the enclave, according to figures from the health ministry there.
The onslaught was triggered by attacks on Oct. 7 by Gaza's ruling Islamist group Hamas in which around 1,200 people were killed and 253 taken hostage, according to Israeli tallies.
Israeli authorities have since increased security checks around the Old City amid fears of unrest spilling over, particularly around flashpoint holy sites.
And tourists have been staying away across the country - traffic at Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv was down 78% from the previous year in November and 71% in December, figures from Israel's airport authority show.
In the biblical town of Bethlehem, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, hotels and other tourism businesses said they had one of their worst Christmas on record.
In Jerusalem's Old City, Jews, Muslims and Christians used to pass through the gates every day to and from prayers, or to pick up a bit of shopping.
Now, whole rows of stores have shut their doors. They would rather save expenses, said Nabulsi, a jeweller.
His shop is still open, but doing next to no business.
He sits outside reading the newspaper, feeding the neighbourhood's cats and dusting the wooden shelves, waiting for customers. REUTERS
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https://www.straitstimes.com/world/middle-east/once-bustling-jerusalem-like-a-desert-says-palestinian-shopkeeper
| 2024-01-25T16:29:25Z
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MEXICO CITY - When farmers in a tiny Mexican village last month hacked to death suspected drug cartel members who were squeezing them for protection money, it shone a harsh light on one of the country's biggest security problems: extortion.
While the government has reduced murders, extortion is far higher now than when President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador took office in 2018, making it a major risk for the economy that has drawn relatively little scrutiny.
Critics say Lopez Obrador's strategy of trying to contain violence by dialing down direct confrontation with gangs has fueled the malaise because it has given them more room to prey on businesses.
"Burgeoning extortion has not grabbed the headlines, but it's been the all-the-more corrosive fallout of a security strategy that never merited the label," said Falko Ernst, a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group.
Lopez Obrador denies his strategy has fed impunity, but said after the villagers' bloody takedown of extortionists in Texcapilla, some 75 miles (120 km) southwest of Mexico City, that Mexico must fight the problem. His office did not respond to a request for comment on this story.
Registered victims of extortion jumped nearly 60% from 6,895 in 2018 to 10,971 in 2023, during which period homicides fell by 12%, official data show.
Business operators that refuse to pay extortion demands are generally threatened with violence against themselves, relatives or workers, or with destruction of their property.
Pursuing an approach he calls "abrazos, no balazos" ('hugs not bullets'), Lopez Obrador argues violence is not solved with more violence, and that the answer lies in improving living standards with welfare spending and better wages so as to root out chronic poverty and inequality that feed crime.
Security frequently tops polls of voters' chief concerns ahead of the June 2 presidential election to succeed Lopez Obrador, who under Mexican law cannot run again.
Even some close allies of Lopez Obrador's chosen successor, former Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum, the strong favorite to win, say criminals have felt emboldened on his watch.
"This has been the presidency when the other side (organized crime) has been most comfortable in the last 25 years," said an aide to Sheinbaum. "That, or worse."
Sheinbaum has defended the administration, while also pledging "zero impunity" and highlighting her own record on security in Mexico City, where murders fell far more sharply.
Ernst, who closely monitors organized crime in some of Mexico's unruliest states, said policy under Lopez Obrador had at the very least implicitly signaled to gangs they had freedom to act provided they did not derail the official narrative that "things are getting better."
Most extortion is not reported for fear of reprisals. A recent study by a Mexican Senate think tank said Mexico suffers some 13,000 acts of extortion daily.
Impunity has encouraged cartels to engage in a growing portfolio of "extractivism" that increasingly impacts basic foodstuffs, threatening economic stability, Ernst argued.
One senior Mexican executive, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said his businesses were being targeted far more by organized crime than under any past government and had to make regular payments to keep running in some areas.
Another related how his company simply wound up operations in one state rather than accede to extortioners' demands.
Concurrently, Lopez Obrador has put billions of dollars worth of public infrastructure and traditionally civilian offices into military hands, stirring concerns the armed forces are being politicized and distracted from their core duties.
"People are fed up feeling they can't protect themselves," said Carlos Heredia, a political analyst at Mexico's CIDE think tank. "There has objectively been a deep regression in the assertion of the state's authority."
The Army did not respond to a request for comment. REUTERS
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https://www.straitstimes.com/world/rampant-extortion-reveals-corrosive-hole-in-mexico-security-strategy
| 2024-01-25T16:29:36Z
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HARARE - Zimbabwe's main opposition leader Nelson Chamisa quit his Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) party on Thursday, two years to the day after its formation, saying it had been hijacked by the ruling ZANU-PF in a power grab.
"Fellow citizens, this is to officially and under my hand inform you that, with immediate effect I no longer have anything to do with CCC," Chamisa wrote in a lengthy statement posted on his X account.
The CCC party, which enjoys huge urban support, won 103 of the 280 seats in Zimbabwe's main house of Parliament and swept most of the urban councils in last year's general election.
However, several CCC lawmakers and councillors have been ejected from their seats by an official claiming to the party's secretary general, but who Chamisa and the CCC say is an imposter.
Efforts to reverse the recalls in the courts have failed. The CCC accuses ZANU-PF, in power since independence in 1980, of using the courts to destroy the opposition.
ZANU-PF has dismissed the accusations, but has benefited from the recalls after winning most of the resultant by-elections.
"The CCC has to all intents and purposes been criminally handed over to ZANU-PF," Chamisa said in his statement.
The ZANU-PF spokesperson could not immediately be reached for comment.
It was not immediately clear if lawmakers and councillors loyal to Chamisa would quit their posts in solidarity, a move which would trigger a wave of by-elections.
Chamisa's emergence as successor to long-time opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, who died in 2018, triggered leadership battles and splits within Zimbabwe's main opposition movement.
He formed the CCC in January 2022 after losing a series of court battles over control of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), which first emerged in 2000 as the biggest threat to ZANU-PF's stranglehold on power.
The 45-year-old lawyer and pastor, who rejected his narrow losses in the last two presidential elections to President Emmerson Mnangagwa, did not give details of his next move, but hinted at forming a new opposition movement. REUTERS
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https://www.straitstimes.com/world/zimbabwe-opposition-leader-chamisa-quits-hijacked-party
| 2024-01-25T16:29:47Z
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Stranger Things actress and Gen Z style muse Millie Bobby Brown just announced her first fashion as part of her brand Florence By Mills.;
The 19-year-old who already has a beauty line, a perfume collection and a fiction book (not to mention numerous acting accolades) under her belt, took to Instagram to announce the news that her apparel collection will be available to purchase shortly.
MORE: Millie Bobby Brown’s strapless feather dress is perfect for winter brides
Standing in a garden that aptly reflects the botanical nature of Florence By Mills' fragrance line, Jake Bongiovi's fiance opted to embrace the make-up free look to share her news.
"I'm really excited to finally be able to talk to you guys about my apparel line with Florence by Mills," she says, "I've always believed that fashion is a powerful form of self-expression. And I'm so excited to share a piece of my heart with you all today."
What does the Florence By Mills fashion range look like?
Millie describes the brand as "a blend of playful and versatile styles and above all confidence revolution." She continues I hope that wearing these pieces makes you feel as incredible as creating them made me feel."
The collection epitomises dopamine dressing. Sweatshirts and jogging bottoms, cropped jumpers, camis and shorts. The collection puts emphasis on cosy, comfortable clothes that provide an innate sense of joy and exuberance. SS24-approved mellow yellows, Barbiecore pinks and a variety of other cheerful colours make up the loungewear collection.
When is Florence By Mills fashion available to buy?
Millie explained that the first collection drops in February, so keep your eyes peeled over the next four weeks... You can also sign up for the waitlist.
We already know she has a penchant for fashion. From her stunning engagement outfit to matching her clothes to her brand and effortlessly chic tie-dye dresses, therefore it makes complete sense that the multihyphenate youngster's next big move was into the world of fashion.
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https://www.hellomagazine.com/hfm/fashion-trends/512072/millie-bobby-brown-fashion-brand/
| 2024-01-25T16:39:19Z
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Linguists have documented what they believe to be a new language that’s been quietly blooming in Lajamanu, a remote village in the Northern Territory of Australia predominately inhabited by Warlpiri people.
Known as Light Warlpiri or Warlpiri rampaku, it’s a mixed language created by blending different elements of standard Australian English with Warlpiri – an Aboriginal language spoken by a few thousand Indigenous people in northern Australia – and Kriol – an English-based creole developed in the late 19th century/early 20th century.
This cultural curiosity has been deeply studied by Carmel O'Shannessy, a linguistics professor at the Australian National University, who first reported the "new language" in 2005.
She believes that it surfaced in the 1970s and '80s when some of the Warlpiri adults started using the occasional English or Kriol word in the middle of Warlpiri sentences. This is what’s known as code-switching, essentially when a speaker alternates between two or more languages as they speak. When the children heard these mashed-up sentences being spoken, they processed it as a single language and developed it from there.
“For a mixed language to develop you have to have bilinguals or multilinguals, who code-switch a lot, in a very systematic pattern, and who have some kind of social reason to create their own way of speaking,” O’Shannessy told Atlas Obscura in 2018.
“Code-switching doesn’t usually lead to this kind of outcome, it’s fairly rare,” she explained.
Years on, the system of language has continued to evolve naturally and has even become the mother tongue of some people in Lajamanu. Even traditional Warlpiri is considered to be "highly endangered" and spoken by just 4,000 people, but Light Warlpiri is even more obscure, spoken and understood by just 350 people or so, the majority of whom are under the age of 40.
Lajamanu is incredibly remote. The closest community is Daguragu, about 110 kilometers (68 miles), while the nearest town of significant size is Katherine, which is over 560 kilometers (350 miles) and takes around 6 hours to drive to. Much of this journey is along “unsealed” dirt roads that are in poor repair. This intense isolation is, in part, what allowed Light Warlpiri to emerge, a bit like how secluded islands see some of the most unique animals evolve.
It isn’t just odd words and phrases that are switched out and borrowed. As O’Shannessy explains, the fundamental structure of the language is influenced by different elements from Warlpiri, English, and Kriol.
In most languages, it is uncommon to hear structures of the verb system and noun system from different, distant languages. However, in Light Warlpiri, the verbs mainly come from English or Kriol, while most of the other grammatical components in the sentence stem from Warlpiri.
“The structure of Light Warlpiri overall is that of a mixed language, in that most verbs and some verbal morphology are drawn from English and/or Kriol, and most nominal morphology is from Warlpiri. Nouns are drawn from both Warlpiri-lexicon and English-lexicon sources,” she wrote in a paper about Light Warlpiri published in 2013.
“The restructuring of the auxiliary system draws selectively on elements from Warlpiri and several varieties and styles of English and/or Kriol, combined in such a way as to produce novel constructions,” O’Shannessy added.
If you want to hear what it sounds like, you can listen to the clip above which features a young girl telling a story about a monster in Light Warlpiri.
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https://www.iflscience.com/a-new-language-spoken-by-just-350-people-has-evolved-in-australias-outback-72633
| 2024-01-25T17:48:50Z
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In the latest series of True Detective, True Detective: Night Country, a team of researchers go missing in the Alaskan Arctic and are later found frozen together in a horrifying human “corpsicle”. The series contains spooky parallels to real life, and sparks some interesting questions around human cryogenics.
In an interview with Vanity Fair, director and writer Issa López confessed to drawing inspiration from historical events in the new series. These include the mysteries of the Mary Celeste and the Dyatlov Pass incident.
What was the Dyatlov Pass incident?
On January 27, 1959, nine experienced hikers died on the slopes of Kholat Syakhl Mountain (which translates to "Death Mountain” in the local Indigenous Mansi language). The team, from the Ural Polytechnic Institute in Russia, led by 23-year-old Igor Dyatlov, embarked on a 14-day expedition in the northern Ural Mountains, attempting to reach Gora Oterten Mountain. However, they never made it to their destination, all perishing on the freezing slopes.
A month later, rescuers searching for the hikers discovered their tent, cut open from the inside with most of their belongings still inside. Footprints in the snow led away from the tent and then disappeared, and indicated that they were barefoot, wearing only socks, or a single boot.
The next day, February 27, the first two bodies were recovered near the remnants of a fire. They were barefoot, wearing only underwear, and had both suffered burns. One had bitten off his own knuckle.
Three more bodies were found scattered between the fire and the tent, frozen in poses implying that they were trying to return to camp. The others were discovered almost three months later in a ravine. Two had their eyes missing, one had no eyebrows, and one had had their tongue ripped out.
Soviet authorities at the time established that three of the hikers died due to physical trauma and the other six of hypothermia.
Has the Dyatlov Pass incident been solved?
The incident has since become infamous, and in the intervening years several explanations have been put forward, ranging from avalanches to aliens, yetis, and secret military experiments – and yet the mystery of the Dyatlov Pass incident endures to this day. Why did these very experienced hikers flee their tent so ill-equipped to survive?
“An avalanche doesn’t explain a lot of the details I think,” López told Vanity Fair. “Even if it did, I prefer the strange, incomplete answer. I think there is a fascination with puzzles that are still missing a couple of pieces, and that obsess us, and make us angry, and make us not stop thinking about them.”
While we may never know what truly happened, we can shed some light on the whole, horrific “corpsicle” situation, and answer the question: Can humans survive being frozen like a popsicle?
Can humans survive being frozen?
“The short answer is no,” Professor Gary Bryant, Associate Dean (Physics) at RMIT University, told IFLScience.
Despite the stories you might have heard about people being frozen like a “piece of meat out of a deep freeze” and living to tell the tale, it is simply “not possible, and very probably never will be,” Bryant explained.
The human body – normally maintained at 37°C (98.6°F) – really can’t cope with much temperature change at all. In fact, hypothermia begins to occur if the body temperature drops below 35°C (95°F).
Although the body has its ways of keeping us alive at very low temperatures (by slowing its metabolic rate), it can’t survive actually being frozen – and it’s all because of ice. Humans cannot survive having any ice in our bodies. And seeing as ice formation and freezing go hand in hand, it is quite the roadblock to surviving being frozen.
“By the time the internal temperature gets to below 0°C [32°F], the cold itself will have already killed many cells and organs, but once ice forms, it is basically going to be lethal to most cells, and therefore to the human,” added Bryant.
Unfortunately for anyone wanting to create a human popsicle, the adult human body is 60 percent water. Water is found in cells throughout the body: the brain and heart are nearly three-quarters water, the lungs are 83 percent water, and even our bones contain some. At extreme low temperatures, the water in these cells can freeze. As the water freezes, it expands, which can cause the cells to rupture. Lethal to both cell and human.
We’re sorry True Detective fans, but it seems like no one is getting out of the grotesque “corpsicle” alive – aside from maybe a few tardigrades and possibly the odd worm.
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https://www.iflscience.com/dyatlov-pass-incident-the-real-life-mystery-that-inspired-the-new-season-of-true-detective-72628
| 2024-01-25T17:48:56Z
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Sudden increases in methane concentrations in the Martian atmosphere have been a major puzzle for scientists, and the answer may lie in fluctuations in atmospheric pressure. The conclusion wouldn’t really change the prospects for life on our neighbor – but if it’s right, it would be a big step forward in knowing how to look for it.
On Earth, methane, as a thousand fart jokes will tell you, is often produced by living organisms. So when Mars Express detected some, it gave a boost to hopes for life. Earthly methane comes from other sources as well, but Mars Express couldn’t see any active volcanoes or oil drilling projects, so the possibility microbes were responsible remained plausible. Curiosity has since detected it on site, but not consistently, suggesting an erratic source.
What no one could work out at the time, and has remained mysterious ever since, was what was causing sudden increases. The most likely explanation was that pockets of gas were escaping from underground reservoirs, whether their original source was living or not. Yet all attempts to explain what caused these sudden releases failed – until now.
“Understanding Mars’ methane variations has been highlighted by NASA’s Curiosity team as the next key step towards figuring out where it comes from,” Los Alamos National Laboratory graduate student John Ortiz said in a statement.
Ortiz is part of a team that simulated the movement of methane through networks of rock fractures and its release into the atmosphere. Their model suggests changes in air pressure and temperature determine when methane will escape. Drops in pressure encourage methane release, but temperature affects how well rocks trap the gas. On this basis, the model predicts pulses should be most common just before dawn in the Martian northern summer. During the day, the methane either escapes to higher altitudes or is destroyed by some unknown process.
We might expect the timing to be something we would already know, but atmospheric sampling requires so much power that Curiosity can’t run its other instruments at the same time. Consequently, it takes measurements intermittently, mostly at night. These have led to the conclusion there is a seasonal, as well as daily, pattern to the methane spikes – but identifying exactly what that pattern is has proven harder.
For the model to match observations, the authors found, that subsurface fractures need to exceed a density of 0.1 percent, so we may have learned something about the conditions in which the methane is trapped already.
Curiosity’s controllers can adjust the timing of its sampling to test theories of when pulses should happen, and these findings could be put to use. “Our work suggests several key time windows for Curiosity to collect data,” Ortiz said. “We think these offer the best chance of constraining the timing of methane fluctuations.”
If the model is confirmed, it will allow existing and future rovers to know when to sample, and possibly allow them to track releases to their sources, as well as confirming the sort of rock formations in which to look. There is reason to think there is a methane source within Gale Crater – although as it continues its slow trek up Mt Sharp, it’s probably not going the right way to find it.
The study is published open access in the journal JGR Planets.
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https://www.iflscience.com/finally-a-possible-explanation-for-mars-strange-bursts-of-methane-72622
| 2024-01-25T17:49:02Z
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Children ask a lot of fun questions, often quite persistently and while you are trying to cook food. One such question comes from the 9-year-old child of a Reddit user, who asked: "If helium is lighter than air, would a balloon with a vacuum in it, also float?"
An excellent and enjoyable question. First, sorry 9-year-old, let's look at why helium balloons float. Buoyancy is an upwards force in a fluid (any flowing substance, including air) exerted on all bodies within it. The force comes from the pressure within the fluid being greater the further down the fluid you go. The pressure on the bottom of an object within the fluid is higher than at its top, causing the upwards force.
If the buoyant force of a fluid is greater than the weight of an object placed within it, the object will float.
Helium, being lighter than the other elements in our atmosphere, rises. It's the same when air is heated inside a hot air balloon, making it less dense per volume inside the balloon than it is outside, causing it to rise.
A vacuum is a volume that is empty of matter, so it's less dense (and lighter) than the air in our atmosphere. So, if you could fill a balloon with a vacuum (or really, draw out the membrane of a balloon so that it contains a vacuum and is stable), then it wouldn't just rise – it would float better than helium balloons.
Helium is so light it floats to the edge of our atmosphere to sit until it is blown away by solar winds, so presumably any perfect vacuum balloon would sit on top of any helium and hydrogen it encountered, being lighter than anything inside our atmosphere.
The idea of making transport using vacuums goes back a surprisingly long way. In 1690, following the recent invention of the vacuum pump, priest and mathematician Francesco Lana-Terzi proposed the idea of a vacuum airship, a conventional wooden ship held aloft by several vacuum balloons.
It would have been impossible back then to make a vacuum large, empty, and rigid enough to achieve liftoff, and the story is the same today. The problem in building it is the same thing that would help lift it – the pressure outside of a vacuum is higher than the inside of a vacuum. When the pressure becomes too much for the surrounding material to withstand, the result is a violent implosion, equalizing the pressure within and outside the object.
As yet, we haven't made ships that can float through the air carried by vacuums. Here's hoping the material scientists pull through.
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https://www.iflscience.com/if-you-filled-a-balloon-with-a-vacuum-would-it-float-72629
| 2024-01-25T17:49:03Z
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Charged molecules do not form a boundary layer between saltwater and air as previously thought, new research reveals. Indeed, they are depleted there relative to their abundance in the liquid as a whole. Instead, at a depth of a few molecule’s diameters an ion-enrichment layer lurks, like some mythical beast waiting to surprise. The discovery upends perceptions of these boundaries that were viewed with such confidence they were written into scientific textbooks.
Life is most abundant where land meets water and sea meets sky. Understanding what occurs at these contact points is critical. Yet when one moves to the world of the very small, studying the thinnest borders between these domains, our knowledge is scanty, leading scientists to make up stories based on what they expected to find. As technology has advanced our capacity to explore these borderlands, some of the tales have turned out to be wrong.
Salty water produces charged particles. If the salt is the familiar sodium chloride these will be primarily Na+ and Cl-, but other salts will produce different positively charged cations and negatively charged anions. Previous studies have reported larger ions are active at the surface. Ions that are easily polarized, such as bromine and iodine anions, were especially thought to accumulate at the surface. This has led to the conclusion they form a double boundary layer there, with the two sets of charges canceling out, and orientating the nearby water atoms in a particular direction.
“Our work demonstrates that the surface of simple electrolyte solutions has a different ion distribution than previously thought and that the ion-enriched subsurface determines how the interface is organized: going from air into the bulk salt solution, one first encounters a few layers of pure water, then comes a layer enriched in ions, before reaching the bulk,” Dr Yair Litman, of the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research and the University of Cambridge, said in a statement.
Besides having layers of water above them, Litman and colleagues found the ions defy expectations by orientating water molecules both towards and away from the surface, rather than pointing them all the same way.
The long-standing error occurred because studies of the molecules at the boundary were done using lasers to measure the surface molecules’ vibrations, a method known as vibrational sum-frequency generation (VSFG). This reveals changes in vibration intensity at specific wavelengths when salt is added to water, which was thought to indicate a build-up of ions there.
Although VSFG is effective at measuring the strength of vibrations, it can’t detect their orientation – specifically whether the hydrogen atoms in the water molecules point up or down.
Using a more advanced version, known as heterodyne detected-VSFG, the team examined the boundary layers in 11 types of electrolyte solutions at varying concentrations, and created computer models to make sense of what they saw.
The old models were not entirely wrong, however. Two common electrolytes, HCl and NaClO4, did indeed congregate at the surface.
Co-author Professor Mischa Bonn said, “These types of interfaces occur everywhere on the planet, so studying them not only helps our fundamental understanding but can also lead to better devices and technologies. We are applying these same methods to study solid/liquid interfaces, which could have potential applications in batteries and energy storage.”
The study is published open access in Nature Chemistry.
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https://www.iflscience.com/new-evidence-reveals-the-molecules-in-saltwater-arent-behaving-like-our-textbooks-told-us-72635
| 2024-01-25T17:49:04Z
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Superconductive materials can transmit electricity without resistance, making them fundamental for advanced and efficient technologies. The current drawback is that this property is only obtained below a certain temperature, often pretty close to absolute zero. Even high-temperature superconductors remain below freezing – but scientists are hunting for the material that would be superconductive at room temperature.
The latest “hat in the ring” for this quest is actually a pretty common material in a pretty peculiar configuration: graphite, the substance that makes up the writing part of pencils. Not all graphite is created equal – single layers of it, called graphene, are already been hailed as a miracle material with interesting properties. This work doesn't focus on that, but rather on highly oriented pyrolytic graphite (HOPG).
HOPG is a synthetic form of graphite, where the crystallites of graphite are aligned with each other so that the angles between them are extremely small. This is crucial for the interesting properties this material possesses beyond what you can get from your pencil. Graphene can be obtained by using scotch tape to remove a single-atom-thick layer of graphite. Even in this work, the sticky tape came in handy.
“First, we realized a scotch tape cleaving of the HOPG samples. The cleaved surface has wrinkles that form something like a set of sheaves. These wrinkles make a home for superconductivity,” co-author Dr Valerii Vinokur, Chief Technology Officer for the US at Terra Quantum, told IFLScience.
It is in the wrinkles of this material that the team believes Cooper pairs form. These are pairs of electrons that begin interacting and end up bound – the particle underpinning superconductivity. In superconductive materials, this happens below a specific temperature, called the critical temperature. Researchers in this work couldn’t exactly pinpoint a value for it, but it was around room temperature, which is 300 Kelvin (27 °C or 80 °F)
“Since these HOPGs are very inhomogeneous, the critical superconducting temperature varies along the sample. And, as we have demonstrated in our work, the superconductivity in the region with the best metallicity appears at room temperature, 300K,” Dr Vinokur told IFLScience.
The team measured the resistance and magnetization of the material, and it is consistent with the behavior seen in other superconductive materials. The importance of having a specific value for the critical temperature is that the changes in the material should happen consistently and sharply after that threshold is crossed.
In our investigation into the claim that LK-99 was a room-temperature superconductor last summer, we interviewed Professor Susie Speller from the Oxford Centre for Applied Superconductivity. She discussed the importance of evaluating the electrical resistance and magnetic properties of the material. However, she also stressed the importance of measuring the heat capacity of the material, which should also see a dramatic transition once the critical temperature is crossed.
We asked Dr Vinokur why the heat capacity was not included in the analysis. “The two basic ways to confirm superconductivity are to measure the resistance and magnetization. Measuring the change in the specific heat capacity is the more exquisite way that can be used to extract the additional data, but this is not the basic way for establishing superconductivity. We did establish superconductivity by measuring the resistance and magnetization,” Dr Vinokur replied.
As is praxis with extraordinary claims, the scientific community will need to assemble extraordinary evidence – not just the heat capacity, but the many other ways to test superconductivity. Having a material that is superconductive at room pressure and temperature would be a civilization-changing breakthrough, bringing forth technologies that are currently only possible in our imagination.
A paper discussing this work is published in the journal Advanced Quantum Technologies.
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https://www.iflscience.com/new-room-temperature-superconductor-throws-hat-in-the-ring-this-time-its-graphite-72630
| 2024-01-25T17:49:10Z
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A monstrous oviraptor from the Hell Creek Formation has been discovered in the US. Analysis of the hell chicken’s hindlimb suggests it weighed about 78 kilograms (172 pounds) and is a new-to-science species, indicating that there was a greater diversity of caenagnathid dinosaurs in the Hell Creek ecosystem shortly before the asteroid hit.
The Chicxulub impact crater is the witness mark of one of Earth’s worst days when an enormous asteroid hit, setting off a chain of events that would eradicate 70 percent of all species on Earth, including the dinosaurs. It’s long been debated whether dinosaurs were doing well, or already on their way out, before the Cretaceous–Paleogene (K–Pg) extinction event, and one way we can study this is by looking at the diversity of animal groups in ecosystems.
One theory suggests that the asteroid acted like the stick that broke the donkey’s back, pushing an already vulnerable group of animals into extinction. Evidence for this argument points to the diminishing number of species recorded in the fossil record in the lead-up to the asteroid hit.
However, there are a few reasons why this could be painting the wrong picture. Firstly, this is based on the fossil record that we’ve found, and secondly, it relies on us having accurately identified species from scant remains.
This new species of oviraptor is a testament to that, as it’s described only from a hind limb. However, researchers were able to glean enough information from that one leg to confidently assert that it doesn’t fit within the other known oviraptor species that were living in this region, at the same time.
The new species was named Eoneophron infernalis. Its genus name is derived from the Ancient Greek “eo” for “dawn,” and the genus name of the Egyptian vulture, Neophron, which is known as the “pharoah’s chicken”. The species name is a hat tip to where it was found, being Latin for Hell, and together the words equate to “Pharoah’s dawn chicken from Hell”. Nice.
Features of the femur were unique, and not like the larger oviraptor Anzu wylei’s, making it unlikely it was simply a smaller individual of the larger species (an argument that’s gone back and forth between T. rex and Nanotyrannus). Furthermore, the histological analysis suggested that the animal was either adult or subadult when it died, so combined with the unique proportions and combinations of its features, it looks like we’re dealing with a new kind of hell chicken.
“This smaller caenagnathid from the Hell Creek Formation has implications for the ecology and diversity of caenagnathids in the end-Maastrichtian,” concluded the study authors. “As many as three taxa of varying body size may have inhabited the Maastrichtian ecosystems of the Hell Creek Formation, but like in other regions, a poor fossil record makes untangling the taxonomy of these species problematic.”
“The ecology of caenagnathids likewise remains poorly understood, but E. infernalis expands the range of morphological variation within the family and suggests that caenagnathid diversity in Laurasia remained largely stable through the Campanian-Maastrichtian, and these dinosaurs remained successful components of Laurasian ecosystems until the K-Pg extinction.”
The study is published in PLOS ONE.
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https://www.iflscience.com/pharoahs-dawn-chicken-from-hell-weighed-about-the-same-as-a-human-72625
| 2024-01-25T17:49:16Z
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While T. rex and other large ancient predators had the advantage of size and frankly enormous teeth when it came to intimidating their prey, smaller dinosaurs didn’t have quite the same arsenal of claws and fangs to rely on. Instead, a new paper has suggested that to source their prey, these small feathered dinos used their wings to flush other species out of hiding. The team even recreated a robotic dinosaur to test their theory.
Lots of small non-avian dinosaurs possessed feathers, but one special feather type, known as pennaceous, can be seen in only one group dubbed the Pennaraptora. These feathers were present on their proto-wings (primitive wings that are too small for powered flight) and on their tails, often colored with contrasting patterns. While the function of these wings is unknown, the team thinks that displaying their plumage could have been used to help flush prey species out of their hiding places, making them easier to hunt.
The dinosaurs would have been insectivores and omnivores, driving creatures like insects out to eat. This behavior can still be seen in living bird species, such as the greater roadrunner (Geococcyx californianus) and the northern mockingbird (Mimus polyglottos). Plumage displays trigger the prey item out of hiding, allowing the animal to then pursue it and attempt to capture and consume it.
To test the theory, the team developed Robopteryx, a robotic dinosaur with proto-wings. The robot was based on the pennaraptoran dinosaur Caudipteryx, which lived roughly 124 million years ago and was thought to be around the same size as a peacock. The team then evaluated the escape behaviors of grasshoppers as a response to the robot's wing display, using this particular group of insects as they belong to the order Orthoptera, which also existed 124 million years ago.
Robopteryx was used in several sequences imitating different so-called flush–pursuit displays. Included in these displays were moments when the proto-wings were spread wide, the tail was raised and then the wings were folded back and the tail lowered.
The results showed that 93 percent of tested grasshoppers fled when the proto-wings were used by the robot, compared to only 47 percent when the wings were not used in the display. There was also a significant association between the wings having white patches and the tail having feathers and the chance that the grasshoppers would flee.
Overall the team believes this could offer one explanation for how pennaceous feathers on proto-wings and tails were used and why they might have begun to evolve like this in dinosaurs.
The study is published in Scientific Reports.
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https://www.iflscience.com/robot-dinosaur-suggests-124-million-year-old-species-flapped-feathered-wings-to-scare-prey-72626
| 2024-01-25T17:49:30Z
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Another day, another blurring of the lines between reality and fiction. There's a decent chance you’re one of the millions of people who’s watched the viral video of ants marching around a speaker that’s blasting AC/DC in a "death spiral”. We hate to break it to you, but the video is fake.
The post (below) is the handiwork of video-editing TikToker Gabriel Benício. After sharing the original video this week – which racked up almost 12 million likes and over 90,000 comments in a day – he posted another video explaining how he made the clip using slick video editing techniques.
Don’t be dismayed if you were duped, many others thought it was real too (including myself, if I’m totally honest).
“ITS NOT REAL?!,” said one of the top comments on Gabriel's follow-up video.
“I thought it was real 😭😭,” another comment reads.
“The fact that people didn’t see it wasn’t real makes me worry for the future,” said another.
It’s a convincing clip because some species of army ants do perform this strange behavior. An ant mill is a natural phenomenon that occurs when a group of ants run in a densely packed circle, continuously following one another in an endless loop. It’s also known as a death spiral or ant death circle as the insects can eventually die of exhaustion if the loop isn’t broken.
Like most screw-ups, death spirals are essentially caused by a breakdown of communication. When army ants go out on a mission to forage and hunt for food, they communicate their movement patterns through pheromone trails. Each traveling ant leaves behind a trail of chemical signals that other ants follow.
Under certain circumstances, however, the message of the pheromones can become lost. Instead of following one another toward a target, they simply follow the ants in front. Those ahead, however, are doing the same. Like a dog chasing its tail, they end up going nowhere but round and round in circles.
Ant mills were first described by American naturalist William Beebe in the 1920s who observed a circling colony of ants that reportedly spanned 365 meters (1,200 feet) in circumference. It’s not perfectly clear how the phenomenon occurs in natural settings, although scientists have been able to induce artificial death spirals in a lab.
Rest assured, this won’t be the last time a viral sensation turns out to be computer-generated fakery. At least in this instance, the video's creator was transparent about the process and clearly showed how he produced the clip.
Many similar instances have occurred in the past too. Lest we forget the ”baby platypus" that turned out to be a rock or the scandal of the two bees appearing to work together to open a soda bottle.
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https://www.iflscience.com/sorry-that-viral-video-of-ants-circling-around-a-speaker-playing-acdc-is-fake-72623
| 2024-01-25T17:49:36Z
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Job-hunting is never fun, and even just the thought of updating your resume can fill you with dread. But what if we told you there’s a way to hack your next interview, to strike that delicate balance of showing off your skills without sounding like an arrogant jerk? Well, luckily for you, psychologists might just have the answer.
According to a recent study, “humorbragging” is an effective way to highlight your competencies while making someone actually want to hire you. The trick is to blend all that bare-faced self-promotion in with some humor, to cut through the discomfort that most of us feel when forced to talk ourselves up.
“We realized that we sometimes use humor to overcome this awkwardness. Intrigued by this, we saw the potential of humor as a strategy to navigate the dilemma of balancing the need to demonstrate competence while also appearing likable and relatable,” first author Jieun Pai, an assistant professor in the Business School at Imperial College London, told PsyPost.
The study was divided into four separate investigations, with the first focusing on the dreaded resume. The team drew up two fictional resumes, identical in every way except that one included some humorbragging while the other was more straightforward.
The two resumes were sent out to 345 companies, and the researchers gauged the level of interest in their hypothetical candidates through website visits and contact from recruiters.
The resume that included the quip, “The more coffee you can provide, the more output I will produce,” got three times as many responses, suggesting humor might be an effective means of catching employers’ attention in a crowded job market.
The next part of the study focused on job interviews. Volunteers were asked to pretend to be a restaurant manager hiring a pastry chef, and were given two interview transcripts to assess. Again, one had a few humorous comments thrown in, while the other was a simple roundup of the candidate's experience.
The humorbragging candidate was perceived to be warmer and more competent, with the assessors being more likely to offer that hypothetical person a job. That’s not to say you need to be cracking jokes at every given opportunity – that would get old really fast, unless you’re interviewing for a job as a stand-up comedian. But even just one amusing comment could give you the edge.
“One of the more surprising elements of our findings was the significant impact a single line of self-enhancing humor could have on outcomes,” Pai told PsyPost.
The study then went on to look at entrepreneurial pitches from the TV show Shark Tank, looking at trends in investment offers as a function of humor in pitches. Focusing on male entrepreneurs only from the show’s first four seasons – 154 pitches in total – the researchers found that using humorbragging in a pitch was significantly more likely to lead to investment.
The final part of the study looked to differentiate between humorbragging and other types of humor in interviews, confirming that humorbragging specifically appears to be the magic formula if you want to stand out from the interview crowd.
Fascinating though these findings are, the authors acknowledge that the study has some limitations.
“While our studies show the positive effects of humorbragging, a major caveat is the context and execution,” Pai explained. Humor has to be tailored carefully to the situation, and what might work well in a job interview for one field could fall flat in another. There are also cultural and social factors to take into account – put simply, not everyone has the same sense of humor.
So next time you’re filling out a job application, you might want to consider dropping in a casual humorbrag here and there – just maybe not on every line, and maybe not if there’s potential for a misunderstanding. Unless, of course, you actually are interviewing to be a stand-up comedian. In which case, sally forth with our blessing.
The study is published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.
[H/T: PsyPost]
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https://www.iflscience.com/this-simple-trick-could-help-you-succeed-in-your-next-job-interview-72624
| 2024-01-25T17:49:42Z
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Ask if anyone in a group gets migraines, and the nodding faces will no doubt have a haunted look to them. These strange and often debilitating headaches come with a host of unpleasant symptoms, one of which is psychedelic patterns in the affected person’s vision. So, what are they?
The strange patterns people see when they’re experiencing a migraine are known as migraine aura. They don’t affect everyone who gets migraines, and they can look very different, but they typically present as jagged zigzag lines, circles, flickering lights, static, or blind spots, often in scintillating and psychedelic colorways.
As a headache disorder, migraines are among the most common, affecting around 12 percent of the population. There remain many unanswered questions as to what exactly is happening during a migraine, but it’s believed to be the result of neuronal dysfunction setting off a chain of events in the brain.
“Around 15 percent to one-third of migraineurs experience aura,” explained Dr Christian Lucas in the journal Revue Neurologique. “Aura is a fully reversible focal neurological phenomenon involving visual, sensory, speech, and/or motor symptoms that develops gradually and usually precedes the headache phase.”
“Visual aura is the most common type of aura […] It often presents as a fortification spectrum: a zigzag figure near the point of fixation that may gradually spread right or left and assume a laterally convex shape with an angulated scintillating edge, leaving absolute or variable degrees of relative [blind spot] in its wake.”
Lucas reports that there’s a large body of evidence pointing to cortical spreading depression (CSD) as a possible driver of migraine aura. This phenomenon is characterized by a wave of depolarization that sweeps across a part of the brain called the cerebral cortex.
It can alter the way blood flows, causing a range of neurological conditions and symptoms, including migraine aura. As the developing CSD changes the flow of blood to parts of the brain and triggers the release of neurotransmitters, it can activate different sensory pathways, giving rise to different sensations. Visual disturbances like migraine aura are likely due to the activation of visual pathways caused by the CSD.
Migraine aura in itself isn’t dangerous, but there’s a risk of it being misdiagnosed in more serious cases where the visual disturbances are caused due to something like a transient ischemic attack (TIA), also known as a “mini-stroke”.
Migraine aura is also associated with an increased risk of stroke, especially in people taking certain types of hormonal birth control. For that reason, people who experience migraine with aura should inform their healthcare provider in case it’s relevant to drug prescriptions or future medical decisions.
The one perk of migraine aura is that while the visual symptoms can’t be stopped, it can provide a window of time in which a person can take steps to prevent or lessen the severity of the looming migraine. As warning lights go, at least a scintillating zigzagged rainbow is original.
The content of this article is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of qualified health providers with questions you may have regarding medical conditions.
All “explainer” articles are confirmed by fact checkers to be correct at time of publishing. Text, images, and links may be edited, removed, or added to at a later date to keep information current.
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https://www.iflscience.com/what-are-those-strange-patterns-some-people-with-migraines-see-72636
| 2024-01-25T17:49:48Z
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Lying can be pretty difficult to spot, even for the machines that are made to catch liars out. So how can we tell fact from fabrication? Researchers have a few tricks up their sleeves.
Fibbing facial cues
What do you get when you combine big data, machine learning tech, and facial analysis software with a bunch of photos of people being asked questions? The ability to tell if their answers are truthful, it turns out.
A team from the University of Rochester captured 1.3 million frames of the facial expressions of volunteers, who were either lying or telling the truth about what they remembered from pictures they had seen earlier. Automated facial feature analysis software then picked out certain actions, after which the researchers used machine learning to cluster these behaviors into the facial clues of liars versus truth-tellers.
“It told us there were basically five kinds of smile-related ‘faces’ that people made when responding to questions,” said study author Taylan Sen in a statement. The one most often associated with lying was what’s known as the “Duchenne smile”, which involves both eye, cheek, and mouth muscles contracting. It reaches the eyes, making it look pretty genuine, which suggests that people might be taking pleasure in duping others.
But if liars think this information could help them, they’re out of luck. The Duchenne smile involves “a cheek muscle you cannot control,” explained fellow author Eshan Hoque. “It is involuntary.”
Texting tricksters
Of course, we’re not always in the same room as someone when they’re lying to us – people do it over text too, something the online daters among you may be all too familiar with. So how can you differentiate between when someone’s flaking on you and when their hamster has actually died?
Researchers from Cornell University sought to find the answer, analyzing 1,703 text conversations, finding 351 that contained lies. The remaining conversations were then separated into lying and truthful messages and examined for measures such as word frequency, length of the message, and the types of words used (self-words, other-words, noncommittal phrases like “probably” or “maybe”).
The results were revealed in a preprint posted to arXiv, and showed that people tend to use longer sentences when they’re lying over text. There was also a slight increase in the use of personal pronouns like “I” and “myself”, as well as non-committal phrases when people were being untruthful. That’s probably an unsurprising finding to the average Tinder user.
The team also looked at whether there were any differences between students and non-students when it came to lying. Surprisingly, there were. “Students used significantly more words, less other-oriented pronouns, and more non-committal phrases than non-students,” the authors wrote, although they weren’t exactly sure why this was the case.
Clearly, they’ve never had to explain to a professor why an essay wasn’t finished on time.
Distracting the deceiver
If you’ve ever told a lie, you’ll know that sometimes it can require concentration – keeping track of the details, giving off chilled vibes, and trying not to sweat through your t-shirt. According to psychologists from the University of Portsmouth, someone interrupting this concentration can help catch you out.
A group of 164 volunteers was divided into “truth-tellers” and “liars” and were required to convince the researchers of their opinion on a certain controversial topic, such as COVID-19 passports or immigration. Two-thirds of the 164 were also asked to recall a car registration number during the interview.
It was this secondary task that made the liars easier to spot.
“Our research has shown that truths and lies can sound equally plausible as long as lie tellers are given a good opportunity to think what to say,” explained study author Professor Aldert Vrij in a statement.
“When the opportunity to think becomes less, truths often sound more plausible than lies. Lies sounded less plausible than truths in our experiment, particularly when the interviewees also had to carry out a secondary task and were told that this task was important.”
In summary: look out for someone’s smile and see how much they use the word “maybe”, whilst also making them juggle or make you a cuppa. Easy, right?
All “explainer” articles are confirmed by fact checkers to be correct at time of publishing. Text, images, and links may be edited, removed, or added to at a later date to keep information current.
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https://www.iflscience.com/what-methods-can-you-use-to-spot-a-liar-72627
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When the doomed submersible the Titan imploded as the crew attempted to explore the wreck of the Titanic in June 2023, people began asking a lot of questions about implosions, including why the Titanic itself didn't implode despite being at a lower depth.
One such question, asked a number of times over the last year, is why champagne bottles found on the Titanic did not implode. Instead, there are bottles that appear to be largely intact.
"Remember how last year the Titan submersible got insta-crushed when going partway down the journey to see the wreck of the Titanic? For all their poor saftey guidelines and cut corners it was still a titanium case that was designed to handle such depths," one such question asked in the highly esteemed Facebook group the Journal of Scientific Shitposting. "So how did a simple glass bottle filled with champagne not shatter?"
First up, let's look at why implosions occur. Implosions are where objects collapse in on themselves, the result of a difference between internal and external pressure. When the pressure becomes too much for say a submarine's hull to withstand, the result is a violent implosion, equalizing the pressure within and outside the vessel.
Implosions can occur at the surface too as long as there is lower pressure on the inside of an object vs the outside, e.g. by removing the air inside a tank to create a vacuum.
There isn't an "except for bottles" or "except for the Titanic" rule. Parts of the Titanic did implode. The parts that did not implode avoided this particularly destructive event as the air had been released from within, causing the pressure to be equal on the outside and inside (conditions under which implosion will not occur).
So how did the bottle escape this fate? People have suggested that part of the answer is the increased pressure inside the champagne bottle, caused by the carbon dioxide within it. The pressure inside a champagne bottle is higher than you'd imagine, going up to around 6 bar (90 psi), with 1 bar being around atmospheric pressure at sea level. Today's champagne is kept in bottles that can withstand up to 20 bar (290 psi), while a metal fastener is often used to keep the cork in place.
So at the start of the champagne bottle's journey to the bottom of the ocean at least, it wasn't at risk of implosion. Old champagne has been found at depths of 50 meters (164 feet) before, unbroken and even still drinkable. In fact, as it started sinking, it was at reduced risk of explosion, as the pressure difference between the inside and outside reduced, until a depth of about 60 meters (197 feet), where the pressure is around 6 bar (90 psi). Then the pressure difference would begin to increase significantly. The Titanic is about 3,800 meters (12,500 feet) deep, under around 381 bar (5,532 psi) of pressure.
Unless glass manufacturers of the 19th Century CE created bottles that could withstand such ridiculously high pressures "just for a laugh", there must be another reason why they didn't implode. Even if "strong glass" is part of the answer, the cork would be sucked into the bottle by the pressure difference before it reached the Titanic's depths.
The clue is likely the mangled cork at the top of the bottle. For a bottle to survive imploding at this depth, like the intact sections of the Titanic, water must have got in there to equalize the pressure inside and outside of the bottle.
"I know you guys have mentioned uncorked champagne bottles discovered in the Titanic wreckage which lies even deeper at 3.8 km," YouTube channel The Dropzone explained. "It would be amazing if the seal actually held, but I reckon all the seals have already been compromised and the pressure inside equalized with the pressure outside when the ship sank on its way down back in 1912."
This could have happened quickly, like in the video demonstration, or more slowly as the cork headed down and became compressed itself by the enormous pressure.
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https://www.iflscience.com/why-did-champagne-bottles-on-the-titanic-not-implode-72621
| 2024-01-25T17:50:00Z
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A group of potty-mouthed parrots living at a British zoo are to be sworn into a larger flock in an attempt to teach them some manners. The eight African greys have become a star attraction at the Lincolnshire Wildlife Park for their tendency to turn the air blue, yet zookeepers have now seemingly had enough of their effing and jeffing.
The center adopted the first five of the profane psittacines back in 2020, yet quickly decided to remove the birds from public display once their wicked tongues started drawing attention. Named Eric, Tyson, Billy, Jade, and Elsie, the blaspheming birds were introduced to a flock of parrots with more quintessential British politeness, ultimately learning to blend in by toning down their incessant swearing, like an avian version of My Fair Lady.
“When we came to move them, the language that came out of their carrying boxes was phenomenal, really bad,” Steve Nichols, the park’s chief executive, told CNN. “Not normal swear words, these were proper expletives,” he added.
By the time the foul-mouthed five were placed back on display several months later, their language had improved somewhat although their love of swearing had not been fully eradicated. This prompted park officials to put up a sign warning visitors about the parrots’ vulgarity.
More recently, the park adopted a further three African greys - named Captain, Sheila, and Eric - with a similar skill for cussing. To prevent the situation from spiraling out of control, zookeepers have now decided to move the offensive octet to a larger flock of 100 birds in the hope that their swearing will be “diluted”.
Speaking to BBC News, Nichols said the explicit eight are unlikely to ever stop swearing entirely since "once it's in their vocabulary, it's usually there for good". However, as the parrots learn the vocabulary of the rest of the flock, they should start to "imitate other sounds as well", thus dedicating less of their time to obscenities.
Recognizing the risks inherent in this approach, Nichols admits that things could also go the other way, with the eight parrots teaching their colorful language to the rest of the flock. If this happens, Nichols says “it’s going to turn into some adult aviary.”
In spite of this potential for things to backfire spectacularly, he insists that 100 cursing African greys wouldn’t necessarily be such a bad thing, since “you never tire of being told to eff off by a parrot. You can't help but laugh.”
Unsurprisingly, then, Nichols says that most of the potty language heard around the aviary comes from human mouths, as “visitors stand around the enclosure swearing, trying to get the parrots to copy them."
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https://www.iflscience.com/zoo-to-introduce-famous-swearing-parrots-to-larger-flock-what-could-go-wrong-72631
| 2024-01-25T17:50:06Z
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The directors of Israel's Mossad intelligence service and the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency will meet Qatar's prime minister in Europe this weekend to discuss a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and release of hostages, an official briefed on the meeting told Reuters on Thursday. REUTERS
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https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/heads-of-mossad-cia-to-meet-qatar-pm-this-weekend-to-discuss-gaza-truce-source
| 2024-01-25T17:57:12Z
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WASHINGTON - U.S. Central Intelligence Agency Director William Burns plans to meet with Israeli, Egyptian and Qatari officials in coming days for talks on a potential Gaza hostage deal, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters on Thursday.
The Washington Post, which first reported Burns' trip, said Israel has proposed a two-month pause in fighting to allow for the phased release of the hostages still being held following Hamas' Oct. 7 attack on Israel, citing officials familiar with the matter.
Burns "has been... involved in helping us with the hostage deal that was in place and trying to help us pursue another one," White House national security spokesman John Kirby told reporters traveling with U.S. President Joe Biden aboard Air Force One, referring specific questions to the agency.
The CIA, which has a policy of not disclosing the director's travel, declined to comment.
Burns' dispatch by Biden to speak with officials, including, Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, comes as Israel's retaliatory military campaign against Hamas continues into its fourth month. REUTERS
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https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/us-cia-chief-to-help-broker-gaza-hostage-deal-source
| 2024-01-25T17:57:13Z
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Scotland lock Grant Gilchrist will miss his country's opening Six Nations match against Wales in Cardiff after being suspended for a week.
Gilchrist was shown two yellow cards for dangerous tackles while playing for Edinburgh against Welsh side Scarlets in the Challenge Cup last weekend.
An independent disciplinary hearing on Thursday banned the player, who accepted the charge, for the minimum of a week until Feb. 5.
Gilchrist missed Scotland's final two games of last year's Six Nations due to a three-week suspension. REUTERS
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https://www.straitstimes.com/sport/suspended-gilchrist-to-miss-scotlands-six-nations-opener
| 2024-01-25T17:57:17Z
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Dayana Yastremska did not feel too dejected by her semi-final defeat at the Australian Open as she knows her run would have boosted her rankings so that she can get direct entry into tournaments rather than playing in the qualifiers.
The Ukrainian became the first women's qualifier to reach the Australian Open semi-finals since 1978 after she began the tournament ranked 93rd in the world, and is projected to move up to 28th when the new rankings are released on Monday despite her 6-4 6-4 loss to China's Zheng Qinwen on Thursday.
The 23-year-old had been ranked a career high 21st in the world before her career was derailed by a provisional doping ban in 2021, which was later lifted after an independent tribunal accepted that her positive test was the result of contamination.
"I think it was a nice, I will say, comeback for me to get into the top 30, because for years I couldn't get back to top 50 or 60 even," Yastremska said.
"So it's a nice bonus, because now I can finally play the main draw at the Grand Slams, which gives me really priority to feel a bit more fresh."
Since her return after the provisional ban, Yastremska had fallen either in qualifying or in the first round at nine successive Grand Slams, but her improved ranking will now help her future schedule.
"The ranking actually plays a very big role, because the last four years I didn't know my schedule, I didn't know where I will get in, where I'm not going to get in," Yastremska said.
"I had to play week after week. I can say I was living at the tournaments. Now, for example, I know where I can play, where I can rest, and it's more comfortable to live like that when you know for a while your schedule."
Yastremska's amazing run was brought to an end by Zheng but the Ukrainian gained a lot of confidence during her stay in Melbourne which included defeating two Grand Slam winners, Marketa Vondrousova and Victoria Azarenka.
"I'm happy about it. I'm not sad about the loss but I still think it was a great tournament for me," Yastremska said.
"Usually in Grand Slams you get seven matches to play, and I have played nine matches, so I'm very proud of myself.
"I'm not going to look too much forward but I feel like I can, one day I can win a Grand Slam." REUTERS
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https://www.straitstimes.com/sport/tennis/yastremska-happy-to-avoid-qualifiers-after-australian-open-run-ends
| 2024-01-25T17:57:17Z
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Ukraine is working to organise a visit by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Olha Stefanishyna said on Thursday, the first visit since Russia's invasion by a figure widely seen as the most sympathetic to Moscow of all leaders of NATO states.
Stefanishyna confirmed the plans in remarks to Reuters, related by her aide.
The Hungarian and Ukrainian foreign ministers are due to meet on Monday, and President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's chief of staff has said a visit by Orban could be discussed.
Relations between Budapest and Kyiv have been strained by Hungary's opposition to providing aid to Ukraine from the EU budget and scepticism about Ukraine's NATO and EU membership aspirations. REUTERS
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https://www.straitstimes.com/world/europe/kyiv-working-to-organise-visit-by-hungarys-orban-ukraine-deputy-pm-says
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BUENOS AIRES - Argentine President Javier Milei's "omnibus" bill, a sprawling reform package ranging from tax hikes to privatizations, has cleared its first hurdle in Congress with a green light from a lower house committee. It now faces far tougher obstacles.
The bill, part of a major push to reshape the South American country's embattled economy, will require majority approval from lawmakers in both chambers of Congress, where Milei's own libertarian coalition only holds a small minority of seats.
It is a key plank of Milei's reform plans since taking office last month, aimed at reviving the fortunes of South America's no. 2 economy, which is battling inflation over 200%, high poverty levels and crippling public debt.
As part of the bill, the government would privatize a raft of public firms - though it has backtracked on selling off state energy firm YPF - and introduce a broad 15% tax on most exports, with top export soy and its derivatives rising to 33% from 31%.
The lengthy legislation faces a debate in the lower chamber of deputies next week, with some conservative and moderate blocs in Congress supportive, though often with conditions, while more left-leaning lawmakers are generally opposed.
Milei's right-wing coalition has only 15% of the seats in the lower house and 10% in the Senate, but he has allied with the main conservative bloc and brought a range of political voices into his government.
"Many of us have the will to accompany the government and help it in the necessary reforms to get the country out of this crisis," Radical Civic Union lawmaker Martin Tetaz said, according to a read-out of the lower house committee debate.
"But we are convinced that these reforms cannot be done at the expense of austerity on retirees, cannot include increases in taxes on production and, much less, on exports."
The official Peronist bloc, the main opposition, was more forthright in their plans to try to knock down the bill.
"As a bloc we are going to express our rejection," said the head of the Union por la Patria coalition German Martinez, adding he expected other political parties to join them.
"It is a very serious mistake to give more powers to this president, who wants to trample over everything," Martinez said.
Deputy Santiago Santurio from Milei's La Libertad Avanza bloc said the bill would "rebuild" Argentina. "It's a process to leave behind the decadence that politics has left us in and begin a growth project led by the people," he said.
The bill, which goes hand in hand with an equally broad presidential decree, has faced opposition from various fronts, including against the planned tax hikes, deregulation that could impact the environment and spending cuts to the arts.
Far-left lawmaker Myriam Bregman argued strongly against the bill, which she said looked like it was written by business lobbies and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), with which Argentina has a shaky $44 billion loan program.
"La Libertad Avanza does not have the numbers to approve this nonsense, they can only do it because there are those who collaborate with the disaster to which they want to lead our country," Bregman said. REUTERS
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https://www.straitstimes.com/world/mileis-argentina-omnibus-bill-faces-gauntlet-after-clearing-first-hurdle
| 2024-01-25T17:57:33Z
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Japan’s Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) successfully soft-landed on the Moon on Friday, January 19, and was able to deploy two small rovers to explore the lunar surface. But from the get-go researchers suspected that there was something odd – the solar panels were not catching sunlight and charging the lander. Images from one of the rovers have solved the mystery. The lander is on its nose, and that’s why it’s not harvesting sunlight.
The lander has been placed in sleep mode for now while the two little robots rove around. The communication between them is strong and they can communicate directly with Earth. The team hopes that as the Moon goes around the Earth, the change in inclination of sunlight will reach the solar panels even in this position, and start charging the batteries again. The solar panels are currently facing west.
While the configuration was not the ideal scenario for this mission, the main goal for SLIM was achieved. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) set out to demonstrate that a space mission can land on another world with incredible precision. The goal was to soft-land within just 100 meters (330 feet) of a specific target area. Based on the current dataset, it appears to have landed just 55 meters (180 feet) from the target area.
This is an incredible feat. Just for comparison, the expected landing site for Apollo 11 was an ellipse 20 kilometers by 5 kilometers (12 by 3.1 miles). The landing ellipse for Perseverance on Mars was 7.7 kilometers by 6.6 kilometers (4.8 miles by 4.1 miles). Achieving such precision is a major leap forward. Initial data suggested that it might have been just meters away but follow-up analysis doesn’t seem to confirm that. More work is needed to establish the exact distance.
While the rovers will continue to work, SLIM was supposed to operate for a few days on the surface. The way forward is currently unclear, and it is very much dependent on how much power SLIM can get before the long lunar night.
On the Moon, the night lasts a little over 14 days followed by an equal amount of daylight. At night the temperature plummets well below freezing, which is often deadly for landers and rovers alike. JAXA will continue to monitor the situation and update the world in the coming days.
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https://www.iflscience.com/first-image-of-japans-moon-lander-shows-it-hit-its-target-but-landed-askew-72637
| 2024-01-25T18:23:20Z
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GameFAUX: Pokemon Company Announces it Will Investigate God Over Claims of Copying Designs - Article
by Paul Broussard , posted 2 hours ago / 356 ViewsThe Pokemon Company says it plans to investigate copycat claims against worldwide religious sensation God, after fans pointed out similarities between creatures in the Pokemon series and animals in nature.
The allegations over stealing material began when representatives of The Pokemon Company started noticing similarities between their designs and living creatures.
“The Pokemon Company will take whatever steps are necessary to defend our intellectual property. Some of these creatures that 'God' made do seem to have overlap with our designs,” a company representative said. “Take this ‘duck,’ which looks suspiciously similar to our Psyduck design. It was enough that we felt we needed to examine the issue and make sure no laws had been broken and our copyright was not being violated.”
“To be sure, there is room for inspiration and parody in any creative medium. But this ‘God’ fellow appears to have taken quite a few of our designs and hardly done anything to differentiate them. Seriously, ‘Snake?’ That’s just ‘Ekans’ spelled backwards.”
When we reached out to God to comment on the impending lawsuit, he looked puzzled momentarily, then said “Wait, they’re accusing me of ripping them off? I thought we were all just stealing from Dragon Quest.”
God then politely requested if everyone reading could go buy a copy of Katana Zero, as it's his personal favorite creation and didn’t sell nearly as much as he would’ve liked.
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Lmao, love to see a good parody article.
The worst thing about Pokemon of all companies suggesting that Palworld stole their Pokemon designs is that Gamefreak themselves borrowed heavily from other game's designs back in Pokemon gen 1. You can find an image out there of about 20 gen 1 Pokemon which bear a pretty strong resemblance to Dragon Quest monster designs that came before Pokemon gen 1.
The Biblical authors who spoke about God being omnipotent did NOT account for Nintendo's lawyers at the time of writing.
God messed with the wrong monster catching game.
I do notice similarities in the designs.
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https://www.vgchartz.com/article/459734/gamefaux-pokemon-company-announces-it-will-investigate-god-over-claims-of-copying-designs/
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Microsoft Lays Off 1,900 at Xbox, Bethesda and Activision Blizzard - News
by William D'Angelo , posted 2 hours ago / 700 ViewsMicrosoft announced it is laying off 1,900 employees at its gaming division. The layoffs are primarily at Activision Blizzard, however, some at Xbox Game Studios and Bethesda/ZeniMax will also be impacted.
The 1,900 laid off is about eight percent of the Microsoft Gaming division that has around 22,000 employees.
"It’s been a little over three months since the Activision, Blizzard, and King teams joined Microsoft," said Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer in an internal memo obtained by The Verge. "As we move forward in 2024, the leadership of Microsoft Gaming and Activision Blizzard is committed to aligning on a strategy and an execution plan with a sustainable cost structure that will support the whole of our growing business. Together, we’ve set priorities, identified areas of overlap, and ensured that we’re all aligned on the best opportunities for growth.
"As part of this process, we have made the painful decision to reduce the size of our gaming workforce by approximately 1900 roles out of the 22,000 people on our team. The Gaming Leadership Team and I are committed to navigating this process as thoughtfully as possible. The people who are directly impacted by these reductions have all played an important part in the success of Activision Blizzard, ZeniMax and the Xbox teams, and they should be proud of everything they’ve accomplished here. We are grateful for all of the creativity, passion and dedication they have brought to our games, our players and our colleagues. We will provide our full support to those who are impacted during the transition, including severance benefits informed by local employment laws. Those whose roles will be impacted will be notified, and we ask that you please treat your departing colleagues with the respect and compassion that is consistent with our values.
"Looking ahead, we’ll continue to invest in areas that will grow our business and support our strategy of bringing more games to more players around the world. Although this is a difficult moment for our team, I’m as confident as ever in your ability to create and nurture the games, stories and worlds that bring players together."
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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I hope everyone laid off is able to find new work quickly. Layoffs following a merger the size of Activision Blizzard isn't a big surprise. But no matter what layoffs suck. 2024 is looking to be even worse than 2023 when it comes to layoffs in gaming.
After surpassing Apple and reaching a market cap of 3 trillion.
Great job Microsoft. Bravo.
What a depressing time to work in the games industry. It's so hard to even be excited about games these days. You'll be playing a great game and you can't help but wonder "but at what cost?" You have to wonder how much overlap there were with positions after a merger like this as ABK seems to primarily be most affected, but god damn I hate this......
Terrible. That's an insane amount.
I agree. This is sadly what I expected from Microsoft aquiring activition blizzard thouhg.
"From Microsoft" or did you mean from an acquisition in general? This is what anyone should expect after any kind of acquisition... Redundancies is the first thing they need to take care of.
At the end it sucks for those that are affected but this should def. not come as a surprise or something that "Microsoft" specifically would do...
1900 is insane!
Yes the merger was great for the employees, just like Phil, Lulu, union promised and some believed.
Layoffs were always going to happen after the merger. For starters there are alot of redundant jobs already handled by others within Microsoft Gaming in non game development departments (marketing, IT, financing, communications, etc.). We have also long heard tales of Blizzard in particular being massively oversized with the middle-management within each department at Blizzard sometimes being as much as 3 times larger than other game studios even after being adjusted for overall size. Too much middle-management leads to conflicts, too many cooks in the kitchen basically.
These layoffs are sad for sure, but ABK needed to be streamlined. Hopefully Xbox gives everyone affected a nice severance package that includes at least several months pay while they look for new jobs, and assists them with the job search.
I agree with you layoffs are going to happen. But it would have been nice if it was not so many employees.
Given the state of the games industry right now, mass layoffs at ABK were most likely inevitable even if they were still independent. That's just where the industry is right now. Yeah it sucks, but don't try to frame it like this is a MS only issue when there's already been thousands of layoffs in just this month alone.
Hell, Bobby performed mass layoffs in 2019 after record revenue and profits. There is always overlap in non-development positions in mergers of this size.
very true
Natural Lay offs are a thing, part of the industry. Not the case here, this is a +1500 bloodbath! Your statement is equivalent to saying:
"Trees die and fall every day, it's natural deforestation. The burning by fire that we experience now doesn't make that much of a difference"
Every single company is having layoffs. To suggest ABK wouldn't have been going through this exact same thing if they were independent would be disingenuous. There is nothing natural about what's happening with these layoffs in the industry.
I'm done with mergers though. I really don't want to see them anymore.
We talking about ~1500+ Jobs man! This is not just readjustment to the needs of the industry, this is the restructuring of a large company bought by another! The impact of the ABK purchase on these layoffs is absolutely undeniable and you are mistaken if you think otherwise
Unity fired 1800 jobs just a couple of weeks ago. Epic Games got rid of 900 employees last month. Look at the bigger picture man!
Yes, this is tied to the merger as well which is why I don't want to see further mergers, but a lot of these positions are non-development. I've seen a lot of community managers at Bethesda and Raven Software that are being laid off, which is a big position that has been let go around the entire industry. Like how all of Bungie's community managers were laid off recently.
Since January 2022 to now, ABK hired 4,000 staff in just 2 years. That's an insane amount of rapid growth! Bobby himself fired 1000 people just a few years ago. This was inevitable to happen again. Independent or purchased.
there is considerable difference between unity/epic vs ABK.
Unit almost imploded in controversy, they almost closed their doors. Epic never made a profit from the store, their losses were so great that they had to face reality and cut jobs.
On the other hand, ABK has always been profitable, yet...1900 jobs lost! please, just admit that the ABK purchase is a dominant factor in these cuts, stop trying to defend MS purchase.
At least we agree that the buying of big publishers has to stop.
It's a large number of people. But that's because Microsoft has a huge gaming business. Percentage wise, it's in line with what we've seen throughout the industry.
"The layoffs are primarily at Activision Blizzard..."
But sure, good guy MS will buy ABK and this will be great for workers. Lets encourage Xbox purchaseof of big publishers, it's good for industry, right!?! /S
Follow with one of the biggest Lays Off in ABK history.
This is a bad joke...
We all knew this was gona hapen but we got downvoted here for saying it and labeled as haters.
Yup, very true.
There are people trying to say that the acquisition of ABK doesn't make a difference, that the cut of ~1900 jobs would happen anyway... " it's the current state of the games industry, it would happen anyway..."
Bullshit!!
Expected when you purchase companies that there would be redundancies that would be let go. With all the talk of at least in the USA the GDP is solid, stocks are at an all time high especially Microsoft which is up 70% from what it was a year ago, you would hope for fewer layoffs. Hopefully we can get back on track later in the year and see less and less of these kinds of layoffs.
I don't think we are going to see old ABK IP's being revived someday soon. It seems like every major publisher is laying off around 10 of its workforce aside from Nintendo. They seem to be the only ones with a sustainable strategy.
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Blizzard President and Chief Design Officer Are Leaving, Survival Game Cancelled - News
by William D'Angelo , posted 2 hours ago / 545 ViewsBlizzard's president Mike Ybarra and its chief design officer Allen Adham announced they are leaving the studio and Blizzard's survival game has been cancelled.
Microsoft confirmed it plans to name a new Blizzard president next week.
"I want to thank everyone who is impacted today for their meaningful contributions to their teams, to Blizzard, and to players’ lives," said Ybarra in a statement posted to Twitter. "It’s an incredibly hard day and my energy and support will be focused on all those amazing individuals impacted – this is in no way a reflection on your amazing work. If there’s anything I can help with, connections, recommendations, etc., DM me.
"To the Blizzard community: I also want to let you all know today is my last day at Blizzard. Leading Blizzard through an incredible time and being part of the team, shaping it for the future ahead, was an absolute honor. Having already spent 20+ years at Microsoft and with the acquisition of Activision Blizzard behind us, it’s time for me to (once again) become Blizzard’s biggest fan from the outside.
"To the incredible teams at Blizzard - thank you. Words can’t express how I feel about all of you. You are amazing. Continue to do incredible things and always keep Blizzard blue and the player at the forefront of every decision.
"To all of those impacted today - I am always available to you and understand how challenging today’s news is. My heart is with each one of you."
I want to thank everyone who is impacted today for their meaningful contributions to their teams, to Blizzard, and to players’ lives. It’s an incredibly hard day and my energy and support will be focused on all those amazing individuals impacted – this is in no way a reflection…
— Mike Ybarra 🎄 (@Qwik) January 25, 2024
Microsoft's game content and studios president Matt Booty in an internal memo obtained by The Verge stated, "As many of you know, Mike previously spent more than 20 years at Microsoft. Now that he has seen the acquisition through as Blizzard’s president, he has decided to leave the company."
He added, "As one of Blizzard’s cofounders, Allen has had a broad impact on all of Blizzard’s games. His influence will be felt for years to come, both directly and indirectly as Allen plans to continue mentoring young designers across the industry."
Microsoft today announced it is laying off 1,900 employees at its gaming division. The layoffs are primarily at Activision Blizzard, however, some at Xbox Game Studios and Bethesda/ZeniMax will also be impacted.
The 1,900 laid off is about eight percent of the Microsoft Gaming division that has around 22,000 employees.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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Mike wasn't particularly liked during his tenure at leading Blizzard. Not as bad as J Allen Brack, but that's a low bar to begin with. 2 cancelled projects with the Overwatch 2 PVE and now Odyssey, and his complete disregard for StarCraft recently at Blizzcon. Can't say he did a terrible job, but didn't do a great one either.
Last original Blizzard co-founder gone with Adham. He wasn't really in the public eye but I just know he was big on Blizzard making mobile games, even defending Diablo Immortal and ensuring everyone knew that Blizzard would be making mobile games on all their IPs, so I can't really say he will be missed much either.
No announcement as to who is going to lead Blizzard. I hope it's Chris Metzen, but he's most likely comfortable in leading the Warcraft IP.
I wonder if they wouldn't have been fired if say.. Microsoft didn't buy them out.
*Comment adjusted for my own stupidity.
There's another article concerning those being fired. But we all know Bobby would've continued running them into the ground and still letting sexual harassment be rampant. It's not like Bobby wasn't susceptible to mass layoffs either after record revenue and profits in 2019.
Also, the state of the games industry is right now, layoffs at ABK would have been inevitable.
looks at headlines for both articles before you posted this
Well it seems microsoft is doing a lot of consolidation since they aquired activition blizzard.
So sick of people not giving the real reasons they are leaving. Evil corporations have a vindictive stranglehold on freedom of expression, and the gaming media is also part of the coverup.
Lots of high profile dev’s don’t want to work at Xbox and that is a massive problem. Mikami, Ybarra and many others.
And I can’t blame them when clowns like Matt Booty are still there.
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Horizon Forbidden West Complete Edition Releases March 21 for PC - News
by William D'Angelo , posted 1 hour ago / 258 ViewsPublisher Sony Interactive Entertainment and developers Guerrilla Games and Nixxes Software announced Horizon Forbidden West Complete Edition will launch for PC via Steam and Epic Games Store on March 21 for $59.99.
View the PC features trailer below:
Pre-orders are available now and include the following bonus content:
- Blacktide Outfit and Blacktide Bow (available only with pre-purchase)
- Nora Legacy Outfit and Nora Spear (available only when linking your Steam account to PlayStation
- Network)
- 2 Special Outfits (Carja Behemoth Elite and Nora Thunder Elite)
- 2 Special Weapons (Carja Behemoth Short Bow and Nora Thunder Sling)
- In-game Resources Pack including ammunition, potions, and travel packs
- In-game Apex Clawstrider Machine Strike Piece
- Exclusive Photo Mode pose and face paint
Read details on the game below:
Join Aloy as she braves a majestic but dangerous new frontier that holds mysterious new threats. This Complete Edition allows you to enjoy the critically acclaimed Horizon Forbidden West on PC in its entirety with bonus content, including the Burning Shores story expansion that picks up after the main game.
Explore distant lands, fight bigger and more awe-inspiring machines, and encounter astonishing new tribes as you return to the far-future, post-apocalyptic world of Horizon.
The land is dying. Vicious storms and an unstoppable blight ravage the scattered remnants of humanity while fearsome new machines prowl their borders, and life on Earth is hurtling toward another extinction.
It’s up to Aloy to uncover the secrets behind these threats and restore order and balance to the world. Along the way, she must reunite with old friends, forge alliances with warring new factions and unravel the legacy of the ancient past.
- See every gameplay detail with Ultrawide 21:9 and Super Ultrawide 32:9 resolutions, as well as 48:9 triple monitor support.
- Witness the Forbidden West coming to life, with NVIDIA 32DLSS 3 upscaling and frame generation, image enhancing NVIDIA DLAA and latency reducing NVIDIA Reflex. AMD FSR and Intel XeSS are also supported.
- Customize graphic settings to your preference, with the potential for unlocked frame rates.
- Take control with full support for the DualSense controller, including haptic feedback and adaptive trigger functionality.
Horizon Forbidden West first released for the PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4 in February 2022, while The Complete Edition, which includes the Burning Shores DLC, released for the PS5 in October 2023.
Horizon Forbidden West Complete Edition slides to PC on March 21.
— PlayStation (@PlayStation) January 25, 2024
Features include unlocked framerate, ultra-wide support, upscaling, and more. Full story at PS Blog: https://t.co/wAEHwdgIIi pic.twitter.com/ZEpDMenhQJ
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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Metroidvania Airhead Releases February 12 for PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PC, and Luna - News
by William D'Angelo , posted 2 hours ago / 213 ViewsPublisher HandyGames and developers Octato and Massive Miniteam announced the Metroidvania game, Airhead, will launch for the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, PC via Steam, Epic Games Store, and GOG, and Amazon Luna on February 12 for $19.99 / €19.99 / £17.49.
The game will also launch at a later date on the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.
View the release date trailer below:
Read details on the game below:
Players will experience a complex, personal story of companionship and discovery in a sprawling interconnected world. After being ripped apart by a mysterious machine, the symbiotic being Head is slowly but surely deflating, but the unassuming Body—witnessing the tragedy – bravely takes the fate of Head on its shoulders, with the two becoming Airhead. You play as Airhead, and relying on air tanks to keep the Head inflated, it is a race against time to find the mysterious machine and save Head no matter the cost. However, as players explore the world they will uncover the mystery of what connects Head, the air tanks, and the technology that litters the world.
Exploring the beautifully crafted environments, players will unlock new puzzles that will require logic and creativity to solve, using the environment, technology and the various air tanks to keep Head alive. New upgrades and abilities will be discovered as Airhead explores the dark caverns and ancient ruins of this mysterious world, while meeting a myriad of creatures who may want to help or hinder your journey.
Features:
- A beautiful art-style, embracing bold color and bleak shadow.
- An immersive 2.5D platform experience.
- Exploration in a Metroidvania-style world, full of secrets and hidden paths.
- Challenging puzzles, exploring the unique mechanics of a detachable head full of air.
- Many powerful abilities to discover, each giving access to new areas and puzzles.
- A personal story of companionship, discovery, and responsibility.
- A myriad of creatures and machines to hinder and help you on your adventure.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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https://www.vgchartz.com/article/459738/metroidvania-airhead-releases-february-12-for-ps5-xbox-series-xs-pc-and-luna/
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Over 5,600 Video Game Industry Employees Have Been Laid Off in January 2024 - News
by William D'Angelo , posted 1 hour ago / 313 Views2023 ended up seeing over 10,000 employees in the video game industry laid off and 2024 is on track to be an even worse year for layoffs.
Video Games Layoffs has reported 3,770 have been laid off in 2024 as of January 24. Once you add in the 1,900 laid off at Microsoft's gaming division that brings the total to 5,670 laid off in less than a month.
Microsoft today announced it was laying off 1,900 employees at its gaming division, which is about eight percent of the around 22,000 employees at Microsoft Gaming. The layoffs are primarily at Activision Blizzard, however, some at Xbox Game Studios and Bethesda/ZeniMax will also be impacted.
The second biggest layoff in the gaming industry in 2024 was 1,800 laid off at Unity on January 8, 2024, which is nearly 25 percent of its total workforce.
Twitch laid off over 500 employees or around 35 percent of its staff on January 10 and earlier this week Riot Games announced it was laying off about 530 employees or 11 percent of its total workforce.
Thanks, VideoGamesChronicle.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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https://www.vgchartz.com/article/459739/over-5600-video-game-industry-employees-have-been-laid-off-in-january-2024/
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Platforming Action RPG Wings of Endless Announced for All Major Platforms - News
by William D'Angelo , posted 1 hour ago / 197 ViewsPublisher JanduSoft and developer Isoca Games have announced platforming action RPG, Wings of Endless, for the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC via Steam. It will launch in Q4 2024.
View the announcement trailer below:
Read details on the game below:
Discover the secret of a forgotten war in Wings of Endless, a platforming action RPG with a captivating pixel art style that will draw you in from start to finish. Step into the role of Hariku, a brash bounty hunter who boasts of being the best at his craft.
Step into the role of Hariku, a brash bounty hunter who boasts of being the best at his craft. His life dramatically changes when a seemingly routine task morphs into an epic adventure, revealing the mysteries of an ancient war that was believed to have ended generations ago.
Accompanied by his enigmatic talking owl, Owly, and various unexpected allies, Hariku will explore vast varied landscapes, from arid deserts and damp marshlands to thick forests and icy snow zones. Every corner of this fascinating world is packed with secrets waiting to be uncovered.
Features:
- Huge and Diverse World – From deserts to snowy forests.
- Gripping Story – Unveil the secrets of an ancient war.
- Dynamic Combat – Three unique heroes switchable in real-time.
- Numerous Side Missions – Discover more about the world of Wings of Endless.
- Consumable Crafting – Create powerful potions.
- Wide Variety of Enemies and Puzzles – Challenges and puzzles at every turn
Thanks, Gematsu.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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https://www.vgchartz.com/article/459740/platforming-action-rpg-wings-of-endless-announced-for-all-major-platforms/
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Julianne Hough will no doubt have left fans intrigued as the 'Dancing with the Stars' host took to her Instagram Stories to open up about the need to "release some tears" in a candid remark on mental health.
The professional dancer took to her social media to her reveal her 'outfit of the day' which consisted of a blue onesie that was covered in white lightning bolts. The star, who was posing inside her lavish looking living room, had the hood pulled up over her blonde hair, while also carrying a mug.
"OOTD," she captioned the photo alongside a sunshine and rain cloud emoji. "Sometimes you just need to release some tears and create some space from whatever tension or build up has been stored in the body.
"In order to see the blue sky and warm sunshine on the other side you gotta walk through the fire of what can often feel overwhelming and daunting. Life is complicated and beautiful – and I'm here to embrace it all."
The two-time DWTS champion has been open about her mental health journey, speaking to People in 2019 about her issues with depression and anxiety. "I don't think a lot of people would know that about me because I come off as sunshine and happiness and positivity," she told the publication.
Julianne then spoke about how dance actually helped her with the battles, explaining: "Since I'm a dancer, I felt like that was my superpower my whole life. It really transformed my experience and gave me a way to express myself. [Dance] actually breaks the barrier so you get confidence within yourself, and it’s for nobody else but you."
She continued: "I put music on immediately, which helps my auditory and sensory experience with my body. So then my body is activated and I'm moving my body, which changes my whole energy level for the day. So I get to choose how I show up in the world, with all the external pressures."
The star's post comes as she prepares for her stint on the Dancing with the Stars tour, in which she will feature as a special guest on select dates. Fans can expect to see Julianne on February 15 through to February 18, although she will only be doing the evening show on February 17. Julianne will also perform on March 1 and from March 3 through to March 26.
Also slated to appear on the tour are recent champion Xochitl Gomez, alongside contestants Charity Lawson and Harry Jowsey. Professionals due to appear are Alan Bersten, Britt Stewart, Brandon Armstrong, Daniella Karagach, Gleb Savchenko, Pasha Pashkov, Rylee Arnold, Jenna Johnson, Artem Chigvinstev, Val Chmerkovskiy, Alexis Warr, Ezra Soza and Kailyn Rogers.
SEE: Julianne Hough is a sultry goddess in sensational halterneck dress
WOW: Julianne Hough displays phenomenal physique in see-through dress – stunning photos
Meanwhile, professional dancer Emma Slater will also feature on the tour, but as a host instead of a performer.
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https://www.hellomagazine.com/celebrities/512083/dtws-julianne-hough-cryptic-comment-opens-up-need-release-tears/
| 2024-01-25T18:42:16Z
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Congratulations are in order for Howie Mandel! The Hollywood funny man has officially become a grandfather for the third time, thanks to his youngest daughter.
The 68-year-old comedian and his wife Terry Mandel are now the proud grandparents of a new daughter thanks to their youngest, 31-year-old Riley Ehrlich and her husband Cameron.
Howie announced the news on Instagram with an adorable picture of the new baby, and simply wrote: "My new beautiful baby granddaughter," and quickly received a slew of congratulatory messages.
Several shared blessings for the entire Mandel family, with his America's Got Talent co-star Terry Crews also wishing him well, and one fan even suggesting that she'd already inherited Howie's nose.
Howie and Terry are also the parents of older daughter Jackelyn "Jackie" Shultz, 39, and son Alex Mandel, 33, with Jackie already a mom to kids Abbey and Axel.
Earlier in the year, the AGT star appeared on The Jennifer Hudson Show to talk about becoming a grandfather once again, and shared how they knew from the jump that it was a girl.
When Jennifer asked if he enjoyed being a grandfather, he remarked: "I love being a grandfather! I love it even more than being a father," and joked: "These are grandchildren, had I known it would be this much fun, I would have done that first."
MORE: Howie Mandel gives rare look inside his lavish $10million mansion
He continued to talk about the best part of being a grandparent, which to him was: "To have a child, to have a baby, to have this bundle of joy and this love that I can't get enough of. And to be able to give it back when it starts to smell…"
Howie also gushed about being able to spoil them so much, and revealed that they do arts and crafts together. His grandkids called him "Papa," and he showed off one of the colorful bracelets that his granddaughter Abbey made him.
MORE: Howie Mandel looks completely unrecognizable with new hair, sends fans into meltdown
When the audience was showed an image of Abbey and Axel, he said: "That's my little girl and my little guy. That's the joy of my life. That's all that matters in my life, are those two."
Howie asserted that he definitely thought he was a "great" grandfather, adding: "The beauty is, when you have babies, they think you're a superhero. You're the greatest thing in the world. And then a switch goes off at a certain age where you're just dumber than a rock. Not cool at all. I thought I would be a cool dad, they just… no."
MORE: Howie Mandel reveals incurable health disorder that drove his family to therapy
The comedian and actor shared an anecdote of having to drop his daughter off at school five blocks away so she didn't have to be seen with him, and Jennifer, who is the mom of a 14-year-old, could relate.
"But you don't understand, we live three blocks from the school," he joked, which left the American Idol alum giggling. "So I had to drive her further than we lived so she could walk to school from nowhere near our house."
Get the lowdown on the biggest, hottest celebrity news, features, and profiles coming out of the U.S. Sign up to our HELLO! Hollywood newsletter and get them delivered straight to your inbox.
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https://www.hellomagazine.com/healthandbeauty/mother-and-baby/512077/agt-howie-mandel-announces-baby-news-new-addition-to-family/
| 2024-01-25T18:42:22Z
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Kourtney Kardashian shares her three oldest children with ex Scott Disick, with the former couple living closeby to be able to easily co-parent.
The Poosh founder's ex recently shared a rare photo of nine-year-old Reign on social media this week, giving an insight into the little boy's personality.
Reign was pictured sitting at the table while out at dinner, dressed in a furry winter hat tied around his neck.
Fans adored seeing the sweet glimpse into Scott and Reign's evening out together, and what's more, many couldn't believe just how much the little boy was starting to look like his older brother Mason, 14.
"I've never seen it before, but Reign is really starting to look like Mason," one wrote, while another observed: "Reign looks so much like Mason here. I’ve never noticed a huge resemblance between them but now I definitely do." A third added: "Reign looks just like Mason! Such handsome kids!"
Reign has had an exciting few months as he's become a big brother for the first time following the arrival of Rocky Thirteen. Kourtney and husband Travis Barker welcomed their first child at the beginning of November.
The Keeping Up with the Kardashians star has become a lot more private in recent years, and as a result doesn't share as many photos of her family on social media.
This was certainly the case when Rocky was born, as she decided to wait several months before sharing a candid first photo featuring her youngest child, in contrast to when her older children were born - where their births even featured on KUWTK.
This week, Lucy Shrimpton, Parenting Expert at The Baby Show and founder of The Sleep Nanny, gave her analysis on the star's parenting style, and in particular, what she's adopting when it comes to parenting baby Rocky.
"Kourtney Kardashian-Barker is a devoted mum, evidently wanting to give her children the very best start in life. She adopts a 'gentle' and 'loving' approach," she explained to HELLO!.
"While her sister confesses that she is the stricter of the two, tending to get more ‘frazzled’, Kourtney tends to take things in her stride, particularly since having therapy. She is a mindful parent, aware of the time and effort she puts into becoming the best parent she can be, attempting to be present as much as possible.
"She’s said that she is more 'lenient' with her children allowing them to skip school if they’ve had a 'hard day', showing that she really listens to her children when they need a break, especially during difficult times.
"Now, with her youngest, Rocky 13, she has chosen to use the attachment style with a strong emphasis on emotional responsiveness and physical touch, creating secure emotional bonds that will allow her children to flourish in the future."
Read more HELLO! US stories here
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https://www.hellomagazine.com/healthandbeauty/mother-and-baby/512082/kourtney-kardashian-sons-mason-and-reign-comparred-in-new-photo/
| 2024-01-25T18:42:28Z
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Kelly Clarkson has opened up about her family life during a relatable chat on her award-winning show, The Kelly Clarkson Show.
During Thursday's episode, the American Idol alum opened up about fussy eaters during a conversation with Chrissy Teigen and restaurateur David Chang, and admitted that she finds it difficult to get her son Remington, seven, to eat any vegetables.
Kelly went as far as to say that she often sends her son to bed hungry due to the constant battle at dinner times. "I have to sneak it in, into a cup that is colorful, that you can't tell what the color is," she said on the efforts she goes to in order for her son to eat healthily.
"And that's how I sneak it in, in like a juice of a smoothie. He will not do it. he will smell it out, and be like 'this is a vegetable.' And he is like hard against it. I have to send him to bed hungry."
Kelly felt better that David also struggled to get his children to eat vegetables, telling him: "It makes me feel better that you're an actual chef."
Chrissy, who has been incredibly open about her own struggles with five-year-old son Mile's vegetable intake, added: "I definitely take orders. At this point with Miles, I said the other day, he doesn't eat vegetables. I mean not a carrot stick. It's just like a big fight with him."
Parenting expert Charlotte Stirling-Reed, The Baby & Child Nutritionist at The Baby Show, recently opened up to HELLO! about children's eating habits and she explained that fussy eating isn't often kids trying to be naughty.
"Sometimes it’s them just searching for autonomy or independence, which is why we see it a lot in toddlerhood", she explained.
"It can be really challenging, but it’s best to stick to what you offer regularly, but also allow children autonomy to refuse foods if they want at mealtimes.
"Simply saying: 'That’s ok you don’t have to eat it,' can actually really help."
According to Charlotte: "Quite often this is all kids are looking for and it will allow them to be eventually happy to explore more - especially if they see you exploring a variety of foods at home too!"
Read more HELLO! US stories here
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https://www.hellomagazine.com/healthandbeauty/mother-and-baby/512084/kelly-clarkson-diet-confession-opens-up-about-family-life-at-home/
| 2024-01-25T18:42:34Z
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It was only a matter of time before the feline fans made cats high fashion (again) and it seems that 2024 is the year.
Amid the glamour of supermodel Claudia Schiffer wearing an eye-catching Versace dress to the Argylle premiere in London, an unconventional accessory caught our attention. Claudia was spotted with a backpack that matched her dress in an argyle yellow pattern, carrying her cat Chip. The feline features in the movie, so it's only natural they she should share the red carpet.
You could argue that the cat trend has been done before, first sparking waves back in 2016 when Loewe presented its Fall/Winter collection, sending models down the runway with giant cat head pendants around their necks. In 2017 on the Gucci Cruise catwalk, models donned feline-adorned sweater knits, t-shirts, kilts and cross-body bags.
Karl Lagerfeld's love for his darling Choupette didn’t help either. The world's most famous and spoiled cat inspired a range of the late designer's collections, including his self-titled brand Karl Lagerfeld which is still selling t-shirts with a Choupette figure wearing a pair of Karl's iconic black sunglasses and life-size cross-body figurine bags.
Cats are back for 2024...
Fast forward seven years and cats in all variations seem to be at the helm once again. Earlier this month JW Anderson and Givenchy presented garments with specific nods to the house cat at the Menswear Fall/Winter 2024 fashion week, where Acne Studios released a new collection with watercoloured pictures of furry friends on skirts, tops and jackets.
JW Anderson printed giant cat faces onto oversized sweaters whereas Givenchy chose to hide cat faces in light grey furry jackets and printed faces on tight tank tops. Two brands channelling the same animal motif is a coincidence but three, that's a more than a coincedence.
Alongside the rise of cat-inspired collections is the recent rise of animal ears on garments. Just recently Dua Lipa was seen sporting a black hoodie with cat ears. Over the last few weeks, the streetwear realm has gone crazy for Charles Jeffrey’s Loverboy beanies, all of which feature oversized cat or bunny ears.
Whether you love or hate the feline trend it is most definitely competing against bows, mob wife aesthetic and thick jersey headbands for January's top trending spot.
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https://www.hellomagazine.com/hfm/fashion-trends/512055/its-not-just-claudia-schiffer-the-cat-is-fashions-hottest-statement-piece/
| 2024-01-25T18:42:40Z
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Princess Anne is renowned for her chic and fabulous sense of style and on Thursday, the 73-year-old looked exceptional when she stepped out in a brilliant green outfit.
The Princess Royal paid a visit to the Save The Children head office in London, a charity of which she is a patron. For the outing, she donned a stylish satin skirt which she paired with a vibrant green crew neck jumper and green dogtooth jacket from Cotswold Collections.
A slew of images was shared by the charity showing Anne's verdant ensemble from every angle and it's safe to say it was flawless.
Alongside the photos were the words: "As Patron of Save the Children, Her Royal Highness The Princess Royal visited the London Office, to meet with staff from several teams across the organisation, including Humanitarian and UK Impact and Wellbeing.
"The Princess Royal has supported Save the Children UK for 54 years and in that time has spent a significant amount of time visiting projects, overseas and in the UK. @theroyalfamily #RoyalVisit #SaveTheChildren #London #PrincessRoyal #ChildRights."
As for her hair, Anne swept her tresses up into a classic French twist updo. The Princess added a slick of red lipstick and a simple gold necklace to complete her ensemble.
The outing in the capital follows Anne's royal exploit in Edinburgh last week where Anne attended the opening of the Institute for Regeneration and Repair South building at Edinburgh University.
Anne's winter-chic look was, once again, incredibly stylish and she was wrapped up in a chestnut-hued coat and gorgeous chequered merino wool scarf from Highgrove and The Prince's Foundation's recent collaboration.
Underneath her cosy coat, the royal made sure to layer up from the cold with a chocolate brown jumper and added a pop of colour with a red neckerchief.
This wasn't the first time Princess Anne was seen wearing the piece, as she was spotted donning the scarf on Christmas Day for the royal family's annual walk to St Mary Magdelene Church in Sandringham.
Her husband, Sir Timothy Laurence, 68, wore the same matching scarf, pairing their outfits together beautifully.
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| 2024-01-25T18:42:47Z
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Super Bowl LVIII is one of the biggest dates in the sporting calendar, where the champions from the AFC and NFC leagues will come together to battle it out for the Vince Lombardi trophy.
Taking place at the Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, millions of people from all over the world will tune in for the huge event, which will make its debut in Sin City on February 11.
But before the game takes place, the conference championship on January 28 will decide which teams will play in the Super Bowl.
Here is everything you need to know...
When is Super Bowl LVIII?
Typically the Super Bowl takes place on the first Sunday in February, however, due to an additional game in the regular NFL season, this year it will take place on February 11.
Taking place in Las Vegas, the game will start earlier than usual so that it can still fall into the prime time viewing slot on the East Coast. That means that it will start at 3:30 pm PST, 6:30 pm EST, and 11:30 pm GMT.
Which teams will play?
The conference championship on January 28 will determine the teams which will play in the Super Bowl. Currently, the Baltimore Ravens will play against the Kansas City Chiefs, while the San Francisco 49ers will go head-to-head with the Detroit Lions.
The winners of these games will head to the Allegiant Stadium on February 11.
Who will perform at halftime?
Usher, the King of R&B, will perform the 2024 Super Bowl halftime show. With nine number-one singles, eight Grammys, and one Diamond-certified record, Usher is one of the best-selling artists of all time. Fans may already be excited to hear him perform "Yeah!", "OMG", or even "My Boo".
The Super Bowl halftime show is one of the biggest gigs in the country, as the biggest stars perform on a huge stage with millions watching. In the past, the likes of Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, and Rihanna have taken to the stage. Some of the West Coast's finest rappers - Dr Dre, Snoop Dogg, and Kendrick Lamar - dominated the stage with Eminem and Mary J. Blige in 2022.
Needless to say, the Super Bowl is usually a legendary slot where stars perform a medley of their hits.
Who else is performing?
Reba McEntire and Post Malone will headline the pre-game entertainment, with the country songstress singing the national anthem while Post Malone will sing "America the Beautiful". Andra Day will sing "Lift Every Voice and Sing" ahead of the game.
How to watch
The Super Bowl will be televised nationally on CBS, with Paramount+ users able to stream it. SiriusXM and WestwoodOne will be covering the game on the radio.
Meanwhile, in the UK, it will be broadcast free-to-air on ITV1 and online via ITVX. Sky Sports subscribers will also be able to watch it, and TalkSport will cover the game on the radio.
Who won the Super Bowl in 2023?
Last year's Super Bowl was particularly iconic as Travis Kelce's Kansas City Chiefs went head-to-head with brother Jason Kelce's Philadelphia Eagles. The Chiefs won, with quarterback Patrick Mahomes being named MVP.
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| 2024-01-25T18:55:27Z
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It seems Jenna Bush Hager knows all too well how tricky it can be to deal with an opinionated mother-in-law, especially in the first stages of a marriage.
The Today Show star, 42, has been married to her husband Henry Hager since 2008, and together they share kids Mila, ten, Poppy, eight, and Hal, four.
Though the former first daughter and her husband are already over ten years into their marriage, the NBC mainstay still remembers one of the first moments she had to stand her ground in an argument, and not with Henry, but with his mom.
During Wednesday's episode of 4th Hour with Hoda and Jenna, Jenna and her co-host Hoda Kotb were discussing compromise in relationships. The former then recalled a time when her mother-in-law Margaret Hager gave her an old poster of one of Henry's favorite baseball players, and insisted: "Now you need to put this on your wall. Your husband loves this player."
"I had some sort of rage come out," the mom-of-three confessed, and further remembered the insistent back and forth she and her in-law had over the poster.
She continued: "I said, 'No I will not! This should stay in your home in his childhood bedroom where basketball posters go to die,'" adding: "I probably should have just graciously said, 'Thank you so much for this poster,' and then trashed it later, which I might have done, I don't remember, it was almost 20 years ago."
Louella Alderson, a relationship expert and co-founder of dating app So Syncd, also knows a thing or two about tricky family and marriage dynamics, and spoke to HELLO! about what Jenna – or anyone else in a similar situation – could have done about it.
MORE: Jenna Bush Hager rings in 2024 with news of expanding family – meet their new pet
MORE: Jenna Bush Hager shares rare look inside stunning home as she prepares for festive season
"It seems like Jenna's mother-in-law was trying to assert her influence and control over her new daughter-in-law," she first explains, and says: "It would have been important for Jenna to stand her ground and communicate her feelings and preferences calmly but firmly. She could have said something like, 'I respect your opinion, but I don't feel like the poster aligns with my personal tastes. Henry and I will figure out between ourselves what we need to compromise on.'"
Moreover, she suggests: "Jenna's husband, Henry, should have stepped in and defended his wife's choices instead of allowing his mother to dictate them," and notes the moment "could have been a valuable opportunity for the couple to establish boundaries and show their united front as a team."
MORE: Jenna Bush Hager's 'awkward' moment with Today co-hosts as Al Roker breaks tension
Further speaking on the often tricky relationship between a woman and her mother-in-law, she says: "It's important for women to establish boundaries with their mother-in-laws early on. It can be a tricky balance between respecting their opinions and asserting your own independence, but it's necessary in order to maintain a healthy relationship with your husband's family."
Louella suggests "having open and honest communication with your spouse about how to handle situations where the mother-in-law may be overstepping or causing tension," and maintains: "You should be able to rely on your partner for support in these moments and work together as a team to find the best solution for everyone."
Ultimately, she believes that "your spouse comes first" and reminds us: "Saying no to things that cross your personal boundaries isn't something that should be compromised in a healthy relationship… As long as you are respectful and honest, you can find a balance between maintaining a positive relationship with your mother-in-law while also staying true to yourself."
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https://www.hellomagazine.com/celebrities/512088/jenna-bush-hager-confesses-rage-inducing-argument-mother-in-law/
| 2024-01-25T18:55:33Z
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Kanye West and his daughter North West are bringing expensive grills back into the mainstream, while Billie Eilish is also presenting a spin on the dental accessory in a more minimalistic sense.
However, while the opulent jewelry pieces have usually been seen as mainstays of the hip-hop scene, it was once one of pop's reigning icons, Katy Perry, who boasted the most expensive of the lot.
The 39-year-old singer still holds the Guinness World Record for the most expensive grill of all time, sporting her very flashy set in an equally historic music video.
Katy sported a set with diamonds and purple gemstones that included intricate flower patterns and spread across her teeth, seen in the 2014 music video for "Dark Horse."
In a scene from the video, the singer plays Katy Pätra, a take on Cleopatra, who rules over Memphis, Egypt and is tasked with meeting pharaohs who come as suitors and bear expensive gifts.
The first brings an extravagant set of jewelry and an enchanted Katy then zaps him with a lightning bolt, turning him into fine sand and taking the jewels for herself. Those then become her famous grill.
Celebrity stylist Johnny Wujek, who has worked with Katy on several occasions, was responsible for sourcing the grill from celebrity cosmetic dentist Dr. William Dorfman.
The grill is valued at an astounding $1 million (that's over £780,000, for reference), confirmed by experts at Cashfloat, and in 2018, was presented with the Guinness World Record for the most expensive grill of all time.
SEE: 11 celebrities with dazzling tooth gems: Hailey Bieber, Dua Lipa, Katy Perry and more
Dr. Dorfman, who held another Guinness record at the time as well, released a statement that year saying: "At that time I was totally blown away.
"I never imagined that I would get a second Guinness World Records title, so this time I am just as thrilled. In fact, I am thinking of getting the record for having the most Guinness World Records titles!"
In terms of grills, while the "Unconditionally" singer's jewels still hold the official record, Post Malone's 2021's set is now considered the most expensive, valued at a reported insane $1.6 million.
STYLE: Katy Perry stuns with out-of-this-world alien transformation in curve-hugging dress
The "Dark Horse" music video, which also features rapper Juicy J and bookended the promotional cycle for Katy's ninth and most recent number one hit, was another record breaker as well.
Upon release, the Matthew Cullen directed video became an instant success. Just over a year later, in June 2015, the video reached one billion views on YouTube, becoming the first video by a female artist to do so. It currently has over 3.6 billion views, the 24th most watched video and the third most by a female artist, only behind Shakira's "Waka Waka" and Katy's own "Roar."
MORE: Katy Perry reveals her meaningful new tattoo to mark the end of an era – you have to see it
The song was a success as well. It was initially released as a promotional single due to high demand from Katy's fans, and became a top-20 hit as a result. In December of 2013, it was released as the third single from the album Prism.
It quickly began rising up the charts and became a number one hit in the United States, the second from the album after "Roar," and was also a number one and top-ten hit worldwide. In the US alone, it has been certified 11x Platinum, and it has sold over 13 million copies worldwide, and is also considered one of the first times trap music went mainstream.
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https://www.hellomagazine.com/healthandbeauty/512085/katy-perry-history-making-purple-diamond-grill-eye-watering-value-see-here/
| 2024-01-25T18:55:39Z
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DOHA - A 24-team Asian Cup can dilute the quality of the matches with only eight teams going home after the group stage, but for some of the less illustrious nations it is a rare opportunity to show they belong at a major tournament.
Tajikistan, Palestine, Syria and Indonesia have all secured historic first knockout stage spots at this year's edition in Qatar, with the latter three all going through after finishing third in their groups.
Palestine qualified for the last 16 at their third attempt, winning an Asian Cup game for the first time when they beat Hong Kong 3-0 to advance on Tuesday, with the Palestinian players sinking to the turf in relief at the final whistle.
Despite a raging conflict with Israel back home in Gaza where more than 25,000 people have been killed according to Palestinian health officials, the team has remained focused on the task at hand.
"This achievement will motivate and bring smiles, both inside and outside of Palestine," said Palestine skipper Musab Al-Battat.
"On the pitch, emotions were set aside as we believed in the group and team spirit. Delivering the right message, we showcased ourselves as capable players, proving that we deserve to be here. Our gratitude is extended to all our fans."
SURPRISE PACKAGE
Tournament debutants Tajikistan were the surprise package in the group stage as the central Asian team automatically qualified for the knockouts when they finished second behind defending champions Qatar.
Led by the charismatic and vocal Croatian manager Petar Segrt, Tajikistan found themselves on the ropes in their final group game against Lebanon before a rousing comeback saw them advance with their first goals and first win in the Asian Cup.
"For us, it's a big dream to go through. The first dream was to qualify and the second dream was to go into second round. Now we dream again," Segrt said.
"We will go step by step, we must respect our opponents. Too much dreaming is not so good. I'm realistic and must stay realistic."
Syria qualified for the knockout stages for the first time since their Asian Cup debut in 1980, leading to emotional scenes where even the interpreter for coach Hector Cuper could not hold back tears of joy during a post-match interview.
"We started with the dream of qualifying for the Asian Cup, which was followed by an ambition to make it to the round of 16," the 68-year-old Cuper said.
"We know there are many big teams in this competition for whom that isn't a big achievement. But for us, it feels great and we will do what it takes to stay here for as long as possible."
Indonesia had to wait until Oman failed to qualify, with the south-east Asian team scraping through after previously exiting in the group stage four times.
"I coached one of the weakest teams among the 24 here in this tournament. Indonesia are ranked 146 but our performance was not the same as the ranking," coach Shin Tae-yong said.
"We were the youngest team in the group and playing the best teams in Asia will help us keep improving." REUTERS
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| 2024-01-25T19:29:49Z
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Bev Priestman, who coached the Canadian women's soccer team to an Olympic gold medal in 2021, has signed a contract extension that will keep her in the position through the 2027 World Cup, Canada Soccer said on Thursday.
The 37-year-old Priestman has a 28-9-10 record in 47 matches at the helm of the Canadian team and was a FIFA Best Coach nominee in 2021 and 2022.
"I'm delighted to commit to this team, a collection of world-class players, through to the FIFA 2027 Women's World Cup," Priestman said in a news release.
"We closed out 2023 in an exciting fashion and I can't wait to continue the journey with this incredible group."
Canada will compete in the first edition of the CONCACAF W Gold Cup starting in February prior to returning to the SheBelieves Cup in April before they look to defend their Olympic gold medal at the 2024 Paris Games.
"We are excited and proud that Bev will continue her leadership with us as we enter such an important period for our women's program and for Canada," Canada Soccer President Charmaine Crooks said. REUTERS
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https://www.straitstimes.com/sport/football/canada-womens-coach-priestman-extends-contract-to-2027-world-cup
| 2024-01-25T19:29:49Z
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MAIDUGURI - At least 30 people have been killed and several others injured in Nigeria's central Plateau state in a series of attacks around Mangu town, despite a curfew imposed by the state government, a community spokesperson said.
Farmer-herder attacks and communal conflicts are rife in central Nigeria, an ethnically and religiously diverse hinterland known as the 'Middle Belt' where a circle of violence has claimed hundreds of lives in recent years.
The latest violence on Tuesday and Wednesday came after a Christmas Day attack in the area which left at least 140 people dead. A dusk-to-dawn curfew was imposed on Jan. 23.
The attackers targeted several villages including Kwahaslalek, Kinat and Mairana, located on the borders of Mangu and Barkin Ladi local government areas, said Joseph Gwankat, head of the community group Mwaghavul Development Association (MDA).
"The victims had sought refuge in the house of a community leader after earlier unrest in Mangu town. The attackers surrounded the house and killed those inside," Gwankat told Reuters by phone.
Survivors reported that the gunmen indiscriminately shot at people, including women and children, and set fire to houses and property.
In a subsequent statement, the MDA blamed the attack on herders, and questioned why troops deployed by the federal government to the area since the Christmas attacks didn't intervene to stop the violence.
Nigeria defence spokesperson Tukur Gusau said the military remains neutral following allegations of partisanship in the conflict, adding that troops responded professionally and by the rules of engagement.
"They have successfully arrested criminals involved in looting and burning of properties, as well as recovered weapons," Gusau said in a statement on Thursday.
The latest attacks come amid a surge in violence in the Plateau, which has seen repeated clashes between nomadic herders and local farming communities.
Plateau governor Caleb Mutfwang condemned the attacks and called for calm as his government "is taking proactive measures to halt further destruction of lives and property," his said office on Thursday. REUTERS
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| 2024-01-25T19:29:52Z
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MADRID/LISBON - Spring temperatures in the middle of Spain's winter lured people to beaches and outdoor cafes on Thursday - but even those enjoying the unusually warm weather voiced concerns about climate change and the threat of new heatwaves.
The meteorology service expected temperatures to reach 28 degrees Celsius (82 Fahrenheit) in the Mediterranean region of Murcia and 24-26C in most of Andalusia in southern Spain, with many other parts of the country climbing to 20C - up to 10C above normal levels for the time of the year in some places.
Scientists have linked scorching temperatures and dry and windy conditions in many parts of the world, including southern Europe, to climate change.
Last year was the second warmest on record in Spain with consecutive heatwaves causing droughts and wildfires.
"We're a bit surprised that it's so pleasantly warm... And it's nice for us now, but we don't think it's completely normal," German tourist Thorsten Petersen, 66, told Reuters in downtown Madrid.
Adela, a local pensioner, added: "Those who say there is no climate change just have to look at what's happening: it's either too cold or too warm. I think this is a disaster".
Footage showed people taking off their winter coats and some wearing shorts and T-shirts in Madrid.
In neighbouring Portugal, the air warmed up the most in the central district of Leiria, reaching 23C, and the weather agency IPMA expected 24C there on Friday. In the North, temperatures were 8-9C above normal levels, it said.
"I think it's because of the climate change," French tourist Jane Dubois told Reuters standing by the River Tagus in Lisbon. "It's our future so we have to protect the planet."
Fabio Silvestre, visiting Lisbon with his small daughter from Italy, echoed the climate concerns: "I am a bit worried about my daughter... The weather is not normal like this." REUTERS
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| 2024-01-25T19:30:03Z
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KYIV - Questions remained on Jan 25 over the military plane crash that Russia said had killed dozens of captured Ukrainian soldiers ahead of a planned prisoner exchange.
The Russian defence and foreign ministries blamed Ukrainian forces for downing the IL-76 transport plane over the southern Belgorod region.
They said 65 captured Ukrainian soldiers had been on board, as well as their escorts and the crew.
Videos on social media on Jan 24 showed a large plane in the region plummeting from the sky on its side before crashing in a fireball, in what the Kremlin called a “monstrous act”.
On Jan 25, Ukraine’s SBU security service announced it had opened a criminal probe into the downing, specifically into “violations of the laws and customs of war”.
And Ukraine’s rights Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets called on Jan 25 for the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to be allowed to inspect the crash site.
The ICRC did not respond to Kyiv’s call, but it described the reports of the crash as “worrisome”, in a statement to AFP.
“We will not make any comments or speculations at this stage, until facts are established,” it added.
Security Council meeting
In Paris, foreign ministry spokesman Christophe Lemoine also said France was not yet in a position to comment on Moscow’s allegations.
“Russia has accustomed us to lying on these matters,” he said during a press briefing on Jan 25.
The UN Security Council is due to meet later on Jan 25 to discuss Moscow’s charges that Kyiv shot down the military transport plane.
The French presidency of the Council said in a statement that the meeting, requested by Russia, would take place on Jan 25 at 5pm (6am on Jan 26, Singapore time).
While officials in Kyiv have not denied the Russian allegations outright, they have questioned key aspects of its narrative – such as whether its servicemen were killed.
Ukraine’s military intelligence said it had no “comprehensive information” detailing who was on the flight.
Kyiv has confirmed that an exchange had been scheduled for later on Jan 24 on the border between the two countries.
But the military intelligence unit said Moscow had not informed it in advance that the POWs would be transported by plane, as it had in the past.
In another carefully worded statement, Ukraine’s army pointed to heightened Russian military activity in the Belgorod region, pledging to continue attacking Russian military targets – again without specifically addressing Moscow’s claims.
Local Ukrainian media initially cited defence sources saying that the Ukrainian army had downed the plane, and that it had been carrying missiles. That claim was quickly retracted.
President Volodymyr Zelensky has neither confirmed nor denied Moscow’s claims.
Russia was “playing with the lives of Ukrainian prisoners”, he said late on Jan 24, calling for an international investigation.
Black box recovered
Russian officials rolled out a series of statements presenting its side of the story on Jan 24 but has yet to distribute video or images of victims’ remains.
State media reported the plane’s black boxes were recovered but there has been no official comment their contents.
Moscow has been much more circumspect over previous incidents.
It offered no comment, for example, when Kyiv claimed last week to have downed an A-50 Russian reconnaissance plane and damaged an Il-22 bomber over the Azov Sea.
In August, the plane carrying the leader of the Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, crashed on a flight from Moscow to Saint Petersburg.
Prigozhin died alongside his top aides in the incident, two months after they attempted to topple Russia’s military leadership, angering President Vladimir Putin.
Putin said the plane had crashed because passengers had detonated a grenade on board, but Moscow provided no evidence.
When in July 2014, Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down over eastern Ukraine with all 298 people on board killed, the Kremlin proposed a variety of explanations – sometimes contradictory.
In 2022, a Dutch court sentenced three men fighting among Kremlin-backed separatist forces to life in prison in absentia.
Ukraine attacks
Separately, a Ukrainian security source told AFP on Jan 25 that Kyiv’s security services had orchestrated an overnight drone attack on an oil refinery in the southern Russian town of Tuapse.
Kyiv has ramped up strikes on Russian oil and gas facilities over the past two months, part of what it has called “fair” retaliation for Russian strikes on its own energy infrastructure.
Ukraine has claimed responsibility for a string of attacks on Russian energy infrastructure in the past two weeks, including a huge inferno at a depot in western Russia last Jan 19. AFP
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| 2024-01-25T19:30:13Z
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GENEVA - The head of the World Health Organization called for a ceasefire and a "true solution" to the Israel-Palestinian conflict in an emotional plea to the global health body's governing body on Thursday where he described conditions in Gaza as "hellish".
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who lived through war as a child and whose own children hid in a bunker during bombardments in Ethiopia's 1998-2000 border war with Eritrea, became emotional describing conditions in the bombed-out Gaza enclave where more than 25,000 people have been killed.
"I'm a true believer because of my own experience that war doesn't bring solution, except more war, more hatred, more agony, more destruction. So let's choose peace and resolve this issue politically," Tedros told the WHO Executive Board in Geneva during a discussion about the Gaza health emergency.
"I think all of you have said the two-state solution and so on, and hope this war will end and move into a true solution," he said, before breaking down, describing the current situation as "beyond words".
Israel unleashed its campaign to eliminate Hamas after the militants burst into Israel on Oct. 7 and killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took over 200 hostages back to Gaza.
Israel's ambassador said Tedros' comments represented a "complete leadership failure".
"The statement by the director-general was the embodiment of everything that is wrong with WHO since October 7th. No mention of the hostages, the rapes, the murder of Israelis, nor the militarisation of hospitals and Hamas' despicable use of human shields," Meirav Eilon Shahar said in comments sent to Reuters.
She also accused the global health agency of "collusion" with Hamas, saying the WHO turned a blind eye to Hamas' military activities in Gaza hospitals.
In the same address, Tedros warned that more people in Gaza would die of starvation and disease.
"If you add all that, I think it's not easy to understand how hellish the situation is," he said. REUTERS
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| 2024-01-25T19:30:24Z
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Ukraine expects to start building four new nuclear power reactors in 2023 as the country seeks to compensate for lost energy capacity due to the war with Russia, said Energy Minister German Halushchenko, Reuters has reported.
According to the minister, all four reactors will be built at the Khmelnytskyi nuclear power plant in the west of Ukraine.
Two of the units, which include reactors, will be based on Russian-made equipment that Ukraine plans to import from Bulgaria, and the other two will use technology from power equipment maker Westinghouse.
“I think (we’ll start construction) in summer-autumn,” said Halushchenko.
Currently, three nuclear power plants in Ukraine-controlled territory in Zaporizhzhia, Khmelnytskyi, and Rivne oblasts produce more than 55% of the country’s electricity needs, but Kyiv wants to expand the sector to help compensate for the loss of Zaporizhzhia, Europe’s largest nuclear plant. Since 2022, the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant has been occupied by Russian invaders.
“With the 3rd and 4th (Khmelnytkyi units), we want to compensate for Zaporizhzhia, and now we are in talks with our Bulgarian partners on the two reactors we want to take,” added Halushchenko.
In December, Ukraine’s nuclear power company Energoatom and Westinghouse signed an agreement on the purchase of equipment for Khmelnytskyi’s 5th power unit.
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https://euromaidanpress.com/2024/01/25/reuters-ukraine-to-start-building-four-nuclear-reactors-in-2024/
| 2024-01-25T19:40:45Z
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The Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense has officially claimed responsibility for sabotaging three Russian bombers, Tu-22M3, in the summer of 2023.
Frontline report: Ukraine struck one of the Russian airfields used by strategic bombers Tu-22
Russia has used its Tu-22M3 aircraft to target Ukrainian cities and villages with Kh-22 long-range anti-ship missiles. The Kh-22 cruise missile has a warhead mass of about 950 kilograms and a maximum range of up to 600 kilometers.
As deviation from the target can reach hundreds of meters, Russia uses it mostly to terrorize Ukrainian civilians.
In December 2023, Spokesman for the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Yuri Ihnat said Russia launched at least 300 such missiles on Ukraine, and none of them were intercepted. Kyiv needs the most modern air defense systems to shoot down Kh-22 missiles, such as a Patriot air defense missile system, he stressed.
The intelligence operation took place at the military airfield “Soltsy” in the Novgorod Oblast of Russia under the command of reconnaissance officer Oleh Babii.
Then, he and his unit infiltrated deep into enemy territory in August 2023, covering over 600 km on foot to carry out a special combat mission: to halt terrorist aerial assaults by Russians on Ukrainian cities.
The reconnaissance team managed to destroy one Russian Tu-22M3 aircraft and incapacitate two others. However, they themselves suffered irreparable losses.
“Returning to the controlled territory of Ukraine, the reconnaissance group led by Colonel Oleh Babii fell into an ambush and engaged in an unequal battle with Russian invaders.
In this battle on 30 August 2023, covering the retreat of his comrades, Ukrainian reconnaissance officer Lieutenant Colonel Oleh Babii sustained a fatal injury,” said the Main Intelligence Directorate.
For this heroic operation, Oleh Babii was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of Ukraine and received a “Golden Star” order.
According to the reports spread in media on 19 August 2023, the military airfield “Soltsy” in Russia was attacked by drones. The Ukrainian intelligence said two Tu-22M3 aircraft were destroyed, and two others were damaged.
On 22 August, British intelligence claimed that Ukrainian attacks on Russian military objects could have been launched from Russian territory.
“It is unlikely that drones have a sufficient operating radius to reach the Soltsy-2 facility from beyond Russia’s borders,” the British intelligence said at that time.
In its 14 January missile attack on Ukraine, Russia demolished an apartment block in Dnipro with Kh-22 missiles.
According to the Air Force, five Kh-22 cruise missiles were launched from five Russian Tu-22m3 long-range bombers above the Kursk Oblast and the Sea of Azov on 14 January.
Earlier in the day, Ukraine’s Air Force spokesman, Yurii Ihnat, said that Russia fired the same type of missile on a shopping mall in Kremenchuk this summer.
Russians fired missiles at a shopping mall in Kremenchuk, where more than 1,000 civilians could have been at the time, "The number of victims is hard to imagine" – Zelenskyyhttps://t.co/gjbomaOgWL https://t.co/vH4hUAZhT9 pic.twitter.com/mkBpS8vZv6
— Euromaidan Press (@EuromaidanPress) June 27, 2022
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https://euromaidanpress.com/2024/01/25/ukrainian-reconnaissance-officer-oleh-babii-leads-destruction-of-russian-bombers-in-2023/
| 2024-01-25T19:41:26Z
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There are currently 7.7 billion people on Earth. In the next 30 years, that number will likely rise to 9.7 billion. By the end of the century, it could be as high as 11 billion. That’s according to the latest World Population Prospects report released this week by the United Nations (UN).
According to the report, the country projected to see the greatest population increase in the coming decades is India. The nation is estimated to overtake China as the world’s most populous country by around 2027. India, along with eight other countries, will be responsible for about half of all population growth between now and 2050. These eight countries are Nigeria, Pakistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Indonesia, Egypt, and the USA. Sub-Saharan Africa’s population is projected to pretty much double by 2050.
“Many of the fastest growing populations are in the poorest countries, where population growth brings additional challenges,” Liu Zhenmin, UN Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, said in a statement. These challenges include tackling malnutrition and poverty, improving education and health care, and increasing equality. Life expectancy in these poorly developed countries is currently seven years lower than in richer nations, due to factors such as high mother and infant mortality, violence, and diseases like HIV.
In contrast, population numbers in many countries are actually declining. Since 2010, 27 countries or areas have experienced population drops of at least 1 percent. Over the next three decades, a total of 55 countries will see their populations decline by at least 1 percent, with roughly half experiencing drops of at least 10 percent. A key reason behind this trend is falling fertility rates. Back in 1990, there were, on average, 3.2 births per woman worldwide. This has now dropped to 2.5 births per woman and is expected to fall further to 2.2 by 2050.
Migration has also become a major factor in certain countries’ population declines, the UN notes. Bangladesh, Nepal, and the Philippines have seen the greatest outflows of migrants, thanks to the demand for migrant workers from other nations. Syria, Myanmar, and Venezuela have also seen many of their citizens flee due to violence, armed conflict, and insecurity. Meanwhile, in certain countries like Germany, Belarus, and Estonia, immigration will likely offset population losses.
Declines in fertility in various countries may actually be having a positive effect, the UN reports, as it means that the fastest-growing age group is 24-65, i.e. people of working age. This could help to enhance economic growth, allowing developing countries to invest more in education and health care.
In most countries, the proportion of people over the age of 65 is also on the up. According to the new report, by 2050 one in six people will fit into this age group. Today, that number is one in 11. Some parts of the world, such as Northern Africa, Latin America, and Asia, could see the number of older people within their populations double over the next 30 years.
By 2050, a quarter of people in Europe and North America are projected to be over the age of 65. This rise could cause financial strain, as more money is required for health care, pensions, and social protection systems.
“In 2018, for the first time in history, persons aged 65 years or over worldwide outnumbered children under age five,” says the report. “Projections indicate that by 2050 there will be more than twice as many persons above 65 as children under five.”
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https://www.iflscience.com/there-could-be-11-billion-people-on-earth-by-the-end-of-the-century-says-un-report-52821
| 2024-01-25T19:49:29Z
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Chicago Fire fans saw a heartfelt tribute at the end of season 12's second episode 'Call Me McHolland,' as a title card appeared that simply read 'In Memory of Dale Hay'.
Dale Hay was a part of the construction team at Cinespace Chicago Film Studios; CineSpace is one of the largest sound stage and facilities operators, and it is where Chicago Fire, PD, and Med have all shot scenes across their seasons.
According to the obituary, Dale died at the age of 57 on September 8, 2023, in Northridge, Illinois; he is survived by his wife, Laurie Mpistolarides, and his three children: Dale III, Heather, and Jessica.
In lieu of flowers, Hay’s family asked for donations to be made to the American Cancer Society, according to the Cumberland Chapels website.
Dale's sad death however is not the only loss that the team have faced this past year, as Treat Williams tragically died in June 2023 after a motorcycle crash. News of his passing was confirmed by the actor's publicist of 15 years, Barry McPherson, who said in a statement: "He was killed this afternoon. He was making a left or a right [turn, and] a car cut him off."
The incident occurred near the southwestern Vermont town of Dorset, and Vermont State Police Department Public Information Officer Adam Silverman and Lt. Steve Coote, who held a virtual press conference to discuss the accident, later revealed that Treat was still alive when he was first being rushed to the hospital after the 5pm crash.
He was then airlifted by helicopter to Albany Medical Center in New York, and was pronounced dead after he arrived at the hospital. "Williams was unable to avoid a collision and was thrown from his motorcycle. He suffered critical injuries and was airlifted to Albany Medical Center in Albany, New York, where he was pronounced dead," Vermont State Police said.
Treat starred as Benny Severide in the NBC series, the father of Lieutenant Kelly Severide, played by Taylor Kinney.
The Chicago Fire actor shared a statement with HELLO! after the Hair actor was killed: "My thoughts and prayers are with Treat’s family. He played my father on Chicago Fire, and was a father figure to everyone on set. I’ll always relish our conversations and his uncanny ability to light up a room. We all send love, he will be missed."
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https://www.hellomagazine.com/film/512092/chicago-fire-pays-tribute-to-beloved-crew-member-following-death/
| 2024-01-25T20:49:32Z
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Chrissy Teigen has opened up about a huge change in her family home this week, and it's an emotional one.
The model, who shares four young children with John Legend, revealed on SiriusXM's TODAY radio Show Happy Hour that her beloved mother, Vilailuck "Pepper" Teigen, has moved out of the family home and back to Thailand, to live her "best life".
"We haven't really told the world or the internet, and everyone's gonna be probably so confused," Chrissy explained. "She is meant to go live her best life."
While Chrissy was upbeat about the move, going on to explain the family's plans to visit Pepper every Spring Break, it is clearly a big change for her and her children. Pepper had been living with Chrissy and John since their firstborn, Luna, now seven, was little.
Relationship expert Louella Alderson, co-founder of dating app, So Syncd, has shared her thoughts with HELLO! about the emotional impact the transition will have on both Chrissy - who has an incredibly close relationship with her mom, as well as her four young children, who have grown up with Pepper playing a vital role in their lives.
"Moving can have a significant impact on families, especially when a parent or other close family member leaves to live in another country. The impact can be both emotional and practical, and it can affect each family member in different ways," she said.
"The practical impact of having a family member move away can be significant. In Chrissy's case, her mum, Pepper, lived with her, John and their four children. Pepper was heavily involved in helping with the children, and not having her around will be a big change for everyone. While Chrissy is lucky enough to have nannies to help, having her mum living with her provided support from someone she trusts on a deep level."
Louella went on to say: "For people who don't have the same financial resources as Chrissy, the practical impact of a family member moving away can be even more challenging. Finding childcare alternatives, coping with the additional responsibilities, and changes in routine can be extremely overwhelming.
"Emotionally, the impact of a family member moving away can vary greatly. Some may experience feelings of sadness, grief, or anxiety at the thought of not seeing their loved one as often. Others may feel guilt or resentment towards the person leaving for 'abandoning' them.
"These emotions can be intensified when the family member moving away is a parent, as they are often seen as a source of stability and security. It can also be difficult for children, especially younger ones, to understand why their loved one is no longer around, and they may be confused by their decision to leave. This can lead to changes in behavior, such as acting out or withdrawing from others.
"In Chrissy's case, her children may experience mixed emotions as they will miss their grandmother but they may also be excited about the prospect of visiting Thailand. They are lucky enough to be surrounded by a loving and supportive family that can help them cope with the changes.
"However, for families who cannot afford to travel regularly or are separated by long distances, the emotional impact can be significant. The lack of physical contact and face-to-face communication can make it emotionally challenging for all family members involved.
"For Chrissy, Pepper moving back to Thailand could also be seen as an opportunity for her and John to experience life without the ease of having her mum on hand to help out with everything. While it could be a challenge at first, it could also be a chance for them to grow as parents and strengthen their family unit. The distance may even bring them closer together as they learn to appreciate each other more and make the most of the time they have together when they visit Pepper.
"Visiting Thailand will also be a good opportunity for their children to learn about their heritage, different cultures, and ways of life. It can open their minds to new perspectives and experiences, making them more well-rounded individuals.
"As time goes on, the negative impact of having a family member move away tends to lessen as people naturally adjust to the changes. The distance may still be difficult, but with the right support and mindset, families can learn to thrive despite the separation. And for Chrissy and her family, their love and bond will likely continue to grow stronger, no matter the physical distance between them."
Read more HELLO! US stories here
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https://www.hellomagazine.com/healthandbeauty/mother-and-baby/512086/chrissy-teigen-and-children-emotional-upheaval-explored-by-expert-amid-change-at-home/
| 2024-01-25T20:49:38Z
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The return of baby bangs, or "the micro fringe," is quickly setting the tone as the dominant hair trend of 2024.
This stylish comeback, characterised by its short length and sharp precision, has of course been spotted on none other than the ever fashion-forward Zendaya, whose appearances at various high-profile shows during Paris Couture Week have cemented the micro fringe's place at the forefront of aesthetics.
The Euphoria star, who has become almost as renowned for her impeccable style as for her roles, has been showcasing the versatility and chic appeal of micro bangs. Her recent appearance at the Fendi Couture Spring/Summer 2024 show, exemplified the trend's elegance and edge. She turned heads with a slicked-back low bun, complemented by razor cut micro bangs that featured a subtle V-shape, accentuating her heart-shaped face. The hairstyle added a couture sensibility to her look, blending seamlessly with the sophisticated atmosphere of Paris.
MORE: Black Headbands: How the fashion set are styling them right now
RELATED: Jennifer Lopez just wore the cutest hairstyle at Paris Fashion Week
Earlier in the week, her presence at Schiaparelli in an all-black ensemble further highlighted the dramatic flair of baby bangs. Zendaya's hairstyle, this time teamed with poker straight hair, proved that this trend, while not new, has been reimagined for 2024 offering a fresh perspective.
"Sweeping Farrah Fawcett curtain bangs dominated the hair-scape last year thanks to the likes of the Princess of Wales," explains Beauty Editor Lily Worcester, "However, Zendaya's jellyfish haircut complete with a short sharp micro fringe at Schiaparelli’s couture show marks a more daring direction for fringes in 2024."
Meanwhile Maura Higgins has also jumped on the baby bangs bandwagon with her choice to sport this bold hairstyle at the Argylle premiere. The creation of talented hairstylist Milosz, was not just a fashion statement but a nod to the evolving interpretations of classic looks, once again integrating a widow's peak-like V-shape into the straight bangs for a modern twist.
The new micro fringe, with its bold helmet-like appearance and V-shape atop poker-straight hair, is the statement of confidence we can’t get enough of in 2024.
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https://www.hellomagazine.com/hfm/beauty-trends/512090/short-fringe-baby-bangs-hairstyle/
| 2024-01-25T20:49:44Z
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Sofia Richie Grainge has just announced she is expecting her first child with husband Elliot Grainge.
The news comes on the heels of her TikTok-approved Chanel clad wedding last year, and of course the socialite turned fashion mogul couldn't be more thrilled.
Speaking exclusively to Vogue, Sofia shared the intimate details of discovering her pregnancy and the journey that followed. The moment they confirmed the pregnancy with three positive tests was emotionally overwhelming for both, marking the beginning of a new chapter in their lives. “When we turned over all three tests at the same time they were all positive. He was so excited, and we both cried. It was crazy and overwhelming and so hard not to scream it from the rooftops. But knowing I was so early, I was so protective—even with my friends,” she told Vogue's Alexandra Macon.
Choosing to keep the news within the family until the eight-week mark, Sofia crafted a unique way to share the joy with their parents by disguising the announcement as a gift from Milan Fashion Week. “Everyone was like ‘Ooooh Hermes!’ But then they opened it and it had all three of the pregnancy tests [in it]. That’s how we told all of our parents. Watching their reaction go from like, ‘I’m about to get an expensive present’ to like ‘I’m about to get a grandchild’ was really sweet.”
READ: Sofia Richie just made “jeans and a tweed blazer” 2023’s coolest outfit combo
READ: How to recreate Sofia Richie's go-to dinner date outfit
The couple has discovered the gender of their baby—a girl, who is destined to be a (very fashionable) Gemini. The revelation even inspired them to plan a gender reveal, “I love the YouTubes and the TikToks—even before I was talking about getting pregnant—of gender reveals, so we had our OB text my assistant Becca [our baby’s gender], and we bought two party poppers: one blue, one pink,” explained Sofia, “Elliot and I popped it together. We both really thought it was a boy, so it was a true shock. My dream in life is to have a daughter [though], and Elliot is really excited for a girl too.”
Despite the challenges of keeping the pregnancy under wraps, Sofia has managed to navigate fashion during this period with her unique style. “I’m not really tapping into maternity wear at all, if anything, I’m just sizing up. I’m also not buying an entirely new wardrobe for this pregnancy. I’ve bought a few pairs of pants in bigger sizes, but I’m wearing my same jackets, and sweaters, and trenches—I’m about to have some fun with it now that I can spread my wings and fly.”
Sofia is also already planning for her daughter’s arrival, from curating a wardrobe to designing a dream nursery... That’s a very stylish future if you ask us.
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https://www.hellomagazine.com/hfm/culture/512091/sofia-richie-pregnancy-baby-announcement/
| 2024-01-25T20:49:50Z
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King Charles has arrived back in London ahead of his surgery for an enlarged prostate and ahead of his arrival, the winner of His Majesty's Gold Medal for Poetry was confirmed.
On Thursday, it was announced that Iranian-British poet Mimi Khalvati had been awarded the honour by the Poetry Medal Committee. The Gold Medal for Poetry was set up in 1933 by the King's great-grandfather, King George V and is bestowed upon a poet from either Britain or a Commonwealth nation for "excellence" in the field.
Mimi has published nine poetry collections and the committee hailed the poet's ability to draw on cultural traditions from her Iranian and British background which has been used to "enrich" British poetry.
The writer has achieved many honours during her illustrious career, with her poem Persian Miniatures, which was published in 1990, winning the Poetry Business Prize. Mimi has also won accolades from the Poetry Book Society with her collection, The Meanest Flower, shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize in 2007.
Charles had been staying in Sandringham ahead of his operation with his wife, Queen Camilla. The pair flew to their Norfolk estate last week after spending time in Scotland for the start of 2024.
Ahead of the operation, the King cancelled engagements and was ordered to rest. It is understood that Charles was keen to share his diagnosis to encourage other men who may be experiencing symptoms to get checked in line with health advice, a move which has been praised by charities.
It is likely the King's medical team will advise a hospital stay of one to two nights, followed by a recuperation period at home spanning 10-14 days. During this time, Charles will be advised to take it easy and avoid strenuous activities, though he may engage in light work from the comfort of his home.
Speaking to HELLO! about the procedure, Professor Damien Bolton, the Vice President of the Urological Society of Australia and New Zealand, shared: "These procedures are usually minimally invasive and performed without any skin incisions, and an estimated 25,000 are performed each year."
Buckingham Palace's announcement about Charles' upcoming hospital procedure came just 90 minutes after Kensington Palace confirmed that the Princess of Wales is recuperating at The London Clinic following abdominal surgery.
Kate is expected to remain at The London Clinic for a few more days, before returning home to Windsor to continue her recuperation. She has been keeping in touch with her children George, Charlotte and Louis via FaceTime, while William has been holding the fort at home.
The Prince has scaled back on his official engagements in order to look after his family and to be at his wife's side. Last week, he was pictured arriving at the hospital to visit Kate.
PHOTOS: King Charles travels to Sandringham ahead of hospital treatment - details
READ: Key differences between King Charles and Princess Kate's health statements and reasons behind them
LISTEN: King Charles 'loves' seeing his grandchildren Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis
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https://www.hellomagazine.com/royalty/512089/king-charles-gold-medal-poetry-arrives-london-helicopter-hospital-treatment/
| 2024-01-25T20:49:56Z
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MILAN - Serie A is exploring potential alternatives to a title sponsorship deal with Telecom Italia (TIM) whose brand has been tied with Italy's top flight soccer league for over two decades, sources familiar with the matter said on Thursday.
Serie A is seeking to sign a more lucrative deal once the existing three-year contract with TIM -- the league's title sponsor -- expires in June.
Under such a deal, TIM grants Serie A some 20 million euros ($21.67 million) annually and so far the telecoms firm has showed little appetite in improving financial terms as CEO Pietro Labriola is on hunt for savings as part of a restructuring effort, the sources said.
Beside TIM, other companies, including energy group ENI have been in talks with Serie A in recent weeks and are considering a bid for the sponsorship deal, according to the sources.
TIM, and Eni declined to comment. Serie A was not immediately available to comment.
Serie A clubs representatives will meet on Friday to take stock of negotiations at a scheduled meeting in Milan but a decision is not expected yet as talks are ongoing, the sources added.
TIM has been title sponsorship partner with Serie A since the 1998/1999 season. REUTERS
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https://www.straitstimes.com/sport/football/serie-a-explores-alternatives-to-tim-in-sponsorship-deal-talks-sources-say
| 2024-01-25T21:02:32Z
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Sophomore golfer Nick Dunlap wiped tears with his gray Alabama jacket and went to great lengths to thank family, coaches, teammates and trainers for teeing him up for the opportunity to turn pro starting immediately.
"At this time I do want to announce that I am turning professional. I am accepting PGA Tour membership and will debut at the Pebble Beach Pro-Am," Dunlap said Thursday. "A week from today, the first round starts. I'm going to continue to live here, hang out with the guys and at least live out some of my college life the rest of this year."
Dunlap, 20, wrestled with the decision after winning The American Express on Sunday to become the first amateur to win a tour event in more than 33 years. Because of his amateur status, he wasn't eligible to claim the $1.5 million winner's payout. But Dunlap said the hardest part of turning pro during golf season with the Crimson Tide was telling his teammates he wouldn't be there for them.
An instant celebrity, Dunlap took calls from recently Alabama coach Nick Saban and Tide golfing alum Justin Thomas after the victory. He said he leaned heavily on his family and coach Jay Seawell for opinions and guidance. The consensus feedback: "Go chase your dream."
"It was the easiest hardest decision I've ever had to make. It's an incredible opportunity, a golden opportunity to do that with what the PGA Tour has provided. I'm very grateful for it," Dunlap said. "There's going to be a Script A (Alabama's logo) on my bag forever."
Dunlap said he's looking forward to many challenges ahead and is still coming to terms with the path he's starting down next week.
"I'm looking forward to Augusta. That will be pretty cool," Dunlap said of the upcoming Masters Tournament.
He becomes the youngest PGA Tour member and is exempt through the 2026 season.
--Field Level Media REUTERS
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https://www.straitstimes.com/sport/golf/alabama-amateur-nick-dunlap-turns-pro-headed-to-pebble
| 2024-01-25T21:02:43Z
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OTTAWA - Canadian cabinet members on Thursday condemned the premier of the energy-rich province of Alberta for reportedly saying that Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault should be targeted over his policies.
Danielle Smith, who says Ottawa's plan to cut emissions of greenhouse gases will cripple Alberta, made her remarks on Wednesday during a public conversation with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, the Calgary Herald newspaper said.
"I wish you would put Steven Guilbeault in your crosshairs," the paper quoted her as saying during the event in the Albertan capital Edmonton. Carlson has a history of making insulting comments about Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
"This increases political violence against everyone who runs for office in this country," Guilbeault told reporters.
Employment Minister Randy Boissonnault, who represents a parliamentary constituency in Edmonton, said, "It is completely unacceptable for the premier of any province to say that she wants to put a target on the back of any Canadian politician."
Smith's press secretary Sam Blackett said Guilbeault had falsely implied that the premier was inciting violence against him.
"The Premier has been calling for him to be fired for months and will continue to do so," he said in an email.
In December, after Canada unveiled a plan aimed at pushing oil and gas companies to cut emissions up to 38% from 2019 levels by 2030, Smith said the announcement intentionally attacked Alberta's economy. REUTERS
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https://www.straitstimes.com/world/alberta-premier-assailed-for-saying-canada-environment-minister-should-be-targeted
| 2024-01-25T21:02:45Z
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QUITO - Ecuadorean Police on Thursday destroyed some 21.5 metric tons of cocaine which they seized over the weekend as part of a military offensive declared by the government to combat organized crime.
The drugs were found on Sunday stored in hundreds of blocks in storage space built under a pig farm located in the city of Vinces, officials said. One person was arrested at the scene.
Authorities used a technique known as encapsulation to destroy the drug, pulverizing the seized blocks with waste before mixing the resulting fine powder with cement, sand and glass.
The method prevents cocaine from contaminating the environment or being recovered, authorities say. REUTERS
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| 2024-01-25T21:02:46Z
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ANKARA - Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday signed off on the parliament's ratification of Sweden's NATO membership bid, the presidency's official gazette showed, marking the final step in Ankara's approval of Stockholm into the alliance.
Parliament ratified Sweden's NATO bid on Tuesday, clearing a major hurdle to expanding the Western military alliance after 20 months of delay. Hungary remains the only ally yet to ratify the Nordic nation's accession into the alliance. REUTERS
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https://www.straitstimes.com/world/europe/turkeys-erdogan-signs-off-on-swedens-nato-membership-ratification
| 2024-01-25T21:02:48Z
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DUBAI -A huge fire that broke out at a hospital in Iran's capital Tehran was contained on Thursday evening, state media reported, with an official saying the blaze had engulfed the building's exterior facade.
There were no fatalities, Tehran Fire Department spokesperson Jalal Maleki told state TV, adding that the cause of incident was under investigation.
"So far, we have not received any reports about any badly wounded person. The fire mainly affected the exterior of the hospital building," Maleki said, adding that the fire started at 1900 local time (1530 GMT).
State TV said earlier that the area around the Gandhi Hospital in northern Tehran have been cordoned off and the hospital was being evacuated. REUTERS
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| 2024-01-25T21:02:54Z
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DUBAI - A huge fire that broke out at a hospital in Iran’s capital Teheran was contained on Jan 25 evening, state media reported, with an official saying the blaze had engulfed the building’s exterior facade.
There were no fatalities, Teheran Fire Department spokesperson Jalal Maleki told state TV, adding that the cause of incident was under investigation.
“So far, we have not received any reports about any badly wounded person. The fire mainly affected the exterior of the hospital building,” Mr Maleki said, adding that the fire started at 7pm local time (11.30pm Singapore time).
State TV said earlier that the area around the Gandhi Hospital in northern Teheran had been cordoned off and the hospital was being evacuated. REUTERS
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https://www.straitstimes.com/world/middle-east/huge-fire-at-a-hospital-in-iran-s-capital-contained-no-fatalities-says-state-media
| 2024-01-25T21:03:15Z
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WASHINGTON - The U.S. government privately warned long-time antagonist Iran about a "terrorist threat" within its borders ahead of a deadly attack this month that was claimed by the Islamic State militant group, a U.S. official said on Thursday.
While the official said the warning about the Jan. 3 attack - two suicide bombings in the southeastern city of Kerman that killed nearly 100 people and wounded scores - was routine, analysts said it may imply a U.S. effort to build trust with Iran.
Such an effort would come against the backdrop of attacks by Iran-backed proxies on Western interests, including the Oct. 7 Hamas rampage that killed some 1,200 in southern Israel and missile attacks on Saturday on an Iraqi air base housing U.S. troops.
"The U.S. government followed a longstanding 'duty to warn' policy that has been implemented across administrations to warn governments against potential lethal threats. We provide these warnings in part because we do not want to see innocent lives lost in terror attacks," said the U.S. official on condition of anonymity.
The Wall Street Journal first reported the warning on Thursday.
Jon Alterman, director of the Middle East program at the CSIS think tank in Washington, said the warning may reflect a wider U.S. desire to seek dialogue with Iran despite recent attacks by Iranian-backed proxies on U.S., Israeli and other Western interests and the advances of Tehran's nuclear program.
"This is an olive branch," Alterman said, adding that U.S. President Joe Biden's administration came into office believing dialogue between Washington and Tehran could benefit both sides.
Efforts by Biden, a Democrat, to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal - which Republican former President Donald Trump abandoned in 2018 - have failed but Alterman suggested that Biden aides still wanted to explore ways to talk to Tehran.
"They have always believed in the desirability of dialogue, and that the problem is about what and on what terms," he said. "This was an opportunity to begin to build trust, which strikes me as a page from the diplomatic playbook."
Aaron David Miller of Washington’s Wilson Center think tank largely concurred, noting the failed efforts on the nuclear deal and the improbability of transforming relations that have been largely antagonistic since the Islamic Republic's birth.
"You can't transform the U.S.-Iranian relationship. All you can do is to look for opportunities ... to transact, to de-escalate, and avoid an escalatory ladder that would lead to war," he said. REUTERS
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The head of the United Nation's drugs and crime office on Thursday warned of a "vicious cycle" of arms trafficking to increasingly powerful Haitian gangs, fueling an internal conflict and worsening violence across the Caribbean.
"It's more important than ever to take every measure possible to prevent illicit flows," the UNODC's executive director, Ghada Waly, told a U.N. Security Council meeting, saying arms trafficking and gang activity were feeding off each other.
A recent UNODC report found that most illegal firearms seized in Haiti came from the United States, notably Florida, Arizona, Georgia, Texas and California.
The report found a prevalence of handguns manufactured by Taurus, Glock, Beretta, and Smith & Wesson; the latter three are defendants in a Caribbean-backed Mexican landmark lawsuit seeking to hold gun makers accountable for trafficking outside U.S. borders.
None of the gun manufacturers immediately responded to a request for comment.
The report said traffickers likely worked with sanctioned Haitians to smuggle weapons to gangs, particularly 400 Mawozo and 5 Segond, which the report said were acting as brokers using firearms distribution to further cement their power.
After the Dominican Republic shut its border with Haiti, smugglers were turning to more remote routes including clandestine airstrips, the report said.
U.S. Deputy U.N. Ambassador Robert Wood said "more must be done" to hold gangs and their backers accountable. He did not specifically mention the U.S. connection.
The meeting comes a day ahead of a Kenyan hearing set to determine whether Kenya's proposed leadership of a U.N.-ratified force to help outgunned Haitian police fight gangs is legal. No date has been set for deployment, which Haiti requested in October 2022.
Countries have been wary of volunteering troops after previous U.N. missions left behind a cholera epidemic that killed close to 10,000 people and widespread allegations of sexual abuse by peacekeepers.
"The U.N. has made mistakes in Haiti. This is an opportunity to get it right," Human Rights Watch Executive Director Tirana Hassan told the meeting, adding that Haitians the organization interviewed said they were wary but needed urgent support.
Hassan said some 300,000 people were now internally displaced, many whose homes were burned down, and called on neighboring nations to stop deporting hundreds of thousands of migrants back to Haiti.
Jose de la Gasca, the U.N.'s ambassador from Ecuador, which is facing its own internal conflict against armed gangs, called for justice and reparations regarding the allegations against peacekeepers of the U.N.'s 2004-2017 mission to Haiti. REUTERS
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WASHINGTON - Nasa said on Jan 25 that its miniature robot helicopter Ingenuity, which in 2021 became the first aircraft to achieve powered flight on another planet, can no longer fly, ending a mission that lasted far longer than originally planned.
“It is bittersweet that I must announce that Ingenuity, the ‘little helicopter that could’... has now taken its last flight on Mars,” Nasa Administrator Bill Nelson said in a recorded video posted on social media.
The US space agency said Ingenuity struggled to communicate with Earth in its final days and that one of its carbon fiber rotorblades looked bent in a recent image taken by Perseverance, the rover from which Ingenuity deployed in 2021.
What began as a planned 30-day mission to demonstrate five short flights on Mars turned into a nearly three-year scientific endeavor involving 72 flights. Ingenuity flew a combined distance in its various flights that was 14 times farther than originally planned, Nasa said. REUTERS
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WASHINGTON - Two major donors stopped funding Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley’s campaign, saying the race for the party’s nomination was effectively over and that Donald Trump will be the party nominee.
Trump issued a threat to donors on Jan 24 night to stop funding Mrs Haley as he seeks to knock her out of the race before the next major primary race, in South Carolina on Feb 24.
Metals magnate Andy Sabin said in an interview that the Republican race was now essentially over, given that Mrs Haley had not been able to pull off an upset in the New Hampshire primary on Jan 23.
“Haley needs to drop out,” Mr Sabin said late on Jan 24. “Regardless of what anyone tells you, her money is going to dry up. Why would you fund someone who you know has no chance?“
Mrs Haley’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump’s back-to-back wins in the Iowa and New Hampshire contests have made his march to the Republican nomination almost certain as he looks ahead to a likely general election rematch with Democratic President Joe Biden in November.
Another major Haley donor, Mr Reid Hoffman, the billionaire co-founder of online business and employment platform LinkedIn, also does not plan to keep funding her campaign.
Mr Dmitri Mehlhorn, a Hoffman adviser, said in a statement to Reuters that Mrs Haley no longer had a path to the nomination.
“The only way I can see (a path) happening is if Trump has a ‘senior moment,’ and she’s able to exploit it to persuade GOP voters that he’s lost it,” Mr Mehlhorn said.
CNBC was first to report that Mr Hoffman was not going to give any more money to Mrs Haley’s campaign.
Trump donor threat
Mrs Haley, Trump’s last surviving Republican rival, has vowed to carry on, triggering a warning to her donors from Trump on his social media account on the night of Jan 24.
On the Truth Social app, Trump, who is furious at Mrs Haley for refusing to drop out, said anybody making a contribution to Mrs Haley would be “permanently barred” from his political orbit.
Mrs Haley responded on social media platform X with a link to donate to her campaign: “Well in that case... donate here. Let’s Go,” she wrote.
A Haley campaign spokesperson said they had seen a “surge” as a result of her post. The spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request to share fund-raising figures.
Threatening Mrs Haley’s donors is just one tactic Trump and his campaign are using to pressure the former South Carolina governor to quit.
Trump’s team has also been courting donors, urging them to support him and in at least one case promising one-on-one meetings with Trump at his Mar-A-Lago Florida estate.
Some Haley donors brushed off Trump’s threat.
“Whatever,” said Mr Eric Levine, a New York litigator.
“He sounds desperate,” said venture capitalist Tim Draper.
Retail businessman Art Pope said he was still backing Mrs Haley’s bid.
Mr Sabin said Trump’s threat shows that he is a “nasty” person. “It just does more harm,” he added.
Still, negative headlines about donors dropping Mrs Haley could dent her momentum and ability to keep raising funds to sustain her campaign. REUTERS
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WASHINGTON - Bipartisan US Senate talks on a border security deal that some have set as a condition of further aid for Ukraine and Israel have hit a critical point, lawmakers said on Jan 25, with a top Senate Republican saying a “plan B” may be needed to provide more aid for US allies.
A small group of senators has spent months trying to iron out an agreement to address the flow of migrants across the US-Mexico border. But the effort has recently encountered growing opposition among Republicans aligned with Donald Trump, the frontrunner for their party’s presidential nomination.
“We’re at a critical moment, and we’ve got to drive hard to get this done. And if we can’t get there, then we’ll go to Plan B,” Senator John Thune, the chamber’s No. 2 Republican, told reporters in the US Capitol.
“For now, at least, there are still attempts being made to try and reach a conclusion that would satisfy a lot of Republicans.”
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell and other top party members, including Mr Thune, want a border deal that can win support from most Senate Republicans, in hopes of prompting the Republican-controlled House of Representatives to take up the measure combining border security with aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.
Mr McConnell has been the most prominent Republican advocate for additional US aid to Ukraine to help it fight off Russia’s invasion, even as a growing number of his party in the House and Senate express scepticism about the value of spending more to help an ally. It was not clear what path Mr McConnell might take on foreign aid if a border deal failed.
But Republicans aligned with Trump have become more voluble in their scepticism since the former president took to social media to warn against any deal that fails to deliver everything Republican need to shut down border crossings.
The White House said there was no reason for bipartisan border talks in the Senate not to continue.
“We need to come together on (a) common sense compromise on border measures and border policy and border resources. And we still are hopeful that that can happen,” White House spokesperson Olivia Dalton said.
Senator Chris Murphy, the Democratic lawmaker in the negotiations, said Republicans will have to decide whether to accept a border deal that has yet to be finalised.
“We have produced the compromise that they (Republicans) asked for, with the chosen negotiator that they appointed, and it is now up to them as to whether they want to accept the agreement,” the Connecticut lawmaker told reporters.
Punchbowl News reported that Mr McConnell told Republicans in a private meeting that the time and political will to pass a bipartisan border deal were running out, and that Republicans should not undermine Trump’s intention to focus his White House campaign on immigration.
A McConnell spokesman said on Jan 25 that he could not dispute the Punchbowl account.
Senator Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican who attended the meeting and has been involved in the negotiations, said it was “patently false” that Mr McConnell had changed course.
Aligning with Trump
More than half of the 49 Senate Republicans have endorsed Trump, and many want the conference to reflect the former president’s positions on major issues, including the border.
“Republicans should pay very close attention to the position that President Trump adopts regarding the border. He’s the only president who’s proven he can bring it under control,” said Republican Senator Bill Hagerty.
But Republican Senator Todd Young said it would be a mistake to give up on the issue now by taking negotiations off the table to “pay fealty to short-term considerations.”
“I don’t believe we should take this off the table, certainly not to clear the way for a clean campaign debate season,” Mr Young told reporters. “Let’s get something consequential done for the American people.”
Some Republicans also maintain that they will not vote for a border agreement that fails to win support from a majority of Republican members.
“I generally don’t support voting on things that divide us, unless there’s a good reason to do so,” Republican Senator John Cornyn told reporters.
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BRASILIA - Venezuela and Guyana have reassured that they will not use violence, threats or involve third parties in their dispute over the Esequibo territory's borders.
The region is generally recognized as part of Guyana, but in recent years Venezuela has revived its claim to the territory and to offshore areas after major oil and gas discoveries. REUTERS
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Report: Reikon Games Lays Off 80% of Employees - News
by William D'Angelo , posted 2 hours ago / 511 ViewsPoland-based Reikon Games, the developer of Ruiner, has reportedly laid off about 80 percent of its employees, according to sources familiar with the matter who spoke with Kotaku.
The report says the studio has laid off "about 60 to 70 people" on January 23.
Multiple employees have posted on social media and LinkedIn about the layoffs with many saying the layoffs were sudden and shocking.
"My time at Reikon may have been short, but I’m thankful to have met and worked with the talented folks there, many of whom were also affected by layoffs, and who could use your support during this time," said former Reikon Games QA specialist.
The video game industry has seen over 5,600 layoffs in January 2024. This follows 2023, which saw over 10,000 laid off in the industry.
Microsoft today announced it was laying off 1,900 employees at its gaming division, which is about eight percent of the around 22,000 employees at Microsoft Gaming. The layoffs are primarily at Activision Blizzard, however, some at Xbox Game Studios and Bethesda/ZeniMax will also be impacted.
The second biggest layoff in the gaming industry in 2024 was 1,800 laid off at Unity on January 8, 2024, which is nearly 25 percent of its total workforce.
Twitch laid off over 500 employees or around 35 percent of its staff on January 10 and earlier this week Riot Games announced it was laying off about 530 employees or 11 percent of its total workforce.
Thanks, InsiderGaming.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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The Swiss military correspondents wanted action; the 93d brigade wanted to oblige. Vladyslav Ovcharenko, callsign “Tourist,” had an idea: attach a munition to a racing drone bought online.
Donning goggles, he sped the drone kilometers away to a Russian-controlled village. Picking up speed, it slammed inside the blue doors of a hut with soldiers inside. Plumes of smoke followed; back at base, the Ukrainians cheered: they had turned a munition into a flying remote attack weapon.
And just like that, in July 2022, the FPV military drone revolution was conceived. This technology now defines the battlefield in Ukraine, making old doctrines obsolete. It led to the failure of Ukraine’s 2023 counteroffensive: western demining machines now last only hours due to swarms of Russian drones. While Ukraine initially led in FPV technology, Russia is scaling up drone production. The outcome of the war depends on who innovates faster.
Euromaidan Press has talked with Ukrainian FPV drone producers to understand why these cheap flying bombs have become key, and what could come next.
What FPV drones can do
Well-known Mavic “wedding drones” show the battlefield from above on a monitor. FPV drones are different: used by professionals for racing, they stream video directly into the pilot’s goggles for immersive flight.
“That way, you control the situation better, reacting faster to changes. You get immersed in flying,” Vadym, a Ukrainian FPV drone operator of a frontline unit who asked his last name to be withheld, told Euromaidan Press.
Difference between a drone and an FPV quadrocopter
Small drones are indispensable to the battlefield now.
- They allow soldiers to go 1-3 km behind the contact line, performing fire support, reconnaissance, artillery correction, and identifying casualties on both sides. “For instance, a sniper shoots a Russian from 1.2 km, but doesn’t know if he’s KIA or WIA. We raise a drone and verify that,” Vadym explains. Drones also deliver urgently needed supplies to positions, such as radios, ammunition, or water. In one case, a drone led a woman to safety in a rescue mission.
- Drones provide cheap but highly effective weapons. At the start of the war, artillery, anti-tank launchers, and grenade-dropping drones caused the most damage to Russian equipment. By March 2023, kamikaze and grenade drones were the most cost-effective Ukrainian weapons; FPV drones now hold first place. For $500, an FPV drone can uncover a dugout so that mortars can blast it, take out a T-72, and set a Russian Tor air defense system ablaze. “These are expensive, irreplaceable losses for Russia, difficult to recreate because it requires sanctioned Western technology. One T-72 tank was taken as a trophy: a drone dropped an SPG round, and its crew fled,” Vadym explains. Escadrone’s first FPV hits of Russian armor were in September 2022.
Moreover, drones have now become a key factor for battlefield success. “If we had 300 drones when our battalion’s tank offensive was underway, it would’ve been total victory,” Vadym explains.
Drone pilots are now prime targets, but operating remotely is still relatively safe. This is why many Ukrainian soldiers are now lining up to become drone pilots, technicians, or engineers.
How FPV drones are produced in Ukraine
FPV drones in Ukraine use Chinese parts like flight controllers, motor regulators, and communication systems. Frames can be cast or machined locally, as per Vadym.
“It’s like the USSR in WWII: many little garage operations try to produce their own machines for different tasks. Ukraine has dozens of large groups, and smaller ones in each brigade,” he says. His unit is one of the smaller producers, assembling 10-30 drones a month, and more if parts suffice.
One of the largest producers is Escadrone, founded by a pair of investors with a background in finance who saw perspectives in the FPV technology. They donated $8,000 towards 10 drones but did not see results. So they started creating their own cheap and effective drones for the army.
At first, Escadrone’s founders self-funded producing drones for Ukraine’s units, investing $200,000. Now, the initiative is funded by many other donors who want to invest in Ukraine’s victory.
They cut costs from $800 to $340 per drone by finding the right developers. An expert developed a base model; then, the company scaled production. In August, they produced 2,743 drones; the goal for December was 4,000. The engineers are young, 21-22 years old on average; the oldest is 34. Just one has an engineering degree, but all have strong practical skills. Despite this, Escadrone claims advanced technologies.
“You don’t need a big plant and Ivy League engineers. Combining financing, enthusiasm, and knowledge works,” said founder Andriy.
Escadrone does not create new models but squeezes the most out of existing models. They produce 7, 8, and 10-inch propeller drones, cutting the 7” cost from $500 to $284 with an 8-km range. Larger batteries mean over $500. The 10” one, called “Mammoth,” carries 4 kg for 12 km.
The record distance for an Escadrone FPV drone so far is 23 km with a 1.2 kg payload. This record is likely to increase as batteries, ammunition, and motors evolve.
Escadrone now produces its own drone munitions, as Ukraine lacked the right types. They now produce a 4 kg thermobaric bomb in partnership with other companies, handling licensing.
Liubov Shypovych of NGO Dignitas, which facilitates technological development in the Ukrainian army and runs a drone school, believes Ukraine needs 200,000 FPV drones monthly, more if there are offensive operations. Currently, some 200 producers which supply 10-15% of this.
DroneSpace founder Maksym Sheremet gives a higher estimate: Ukrainian companies manage to produce about 50,000 drones a month; Russia makes sixfold more.
Ukraine faces a drone deficit, Escadrone’s Andriy says:
“FPV drones should be a method of mass terror. They are not Russian Lancets, costing $40,000 and going only after armor. A $500 drone should simply destroy everything that moves. Cars, light, heavy armored vehicles, infantry. We’re seeing effectiveness skyrocket. One brigade uses drones to support assaults: 50 drones fly and destroy everything in the trenches.”
China’s role
In September 2023, under US pressure, China restricted exports of military drones and drone components. This forced Ukrainian producers to rely on complex intermediary schemes to keep acquiring components — the basis of Ukraine’s homemade FPV drones.
“When we order anything labeled ‘DJI for FPV drones,’ China stops it at the border when they see it’s heading for Ukraine. Our procurement routes are now elaborate – China to Bangkok to UK to Ukraine. It’s lengthy, costly, and unpredictable,” Vadym explains.
Meanwhile, the Russians have a carte blanche: China not only allows them to buy these components, they also sell them ready-made solutions, says Vadym.
“If we see China as a partner of Russia, then how do [the USA] expect to hit Russia with these Chinese restrictions? They have a common border; 15 Russian cargo planes fly to China daily,” says Escadrone’s Andriy.
He does not believe that forcing China into sanctions and restrictions will work: “The Chinese are quick and clever. Today you restrict Ivanov, and tomorrow he rebrands himself into Petrov and will produce any brand at the same factory. The Chinese will make money off us, the Russians, and anybody else.”
Escadrone initially thought the Chinese restrictions would not impact FPVs. But in practice, Chinese companies now fear exporting any drones to Ukraine, whether ordered by the Communist Party orders or to avoid problems. Like Vadym’s unit, Escadrone now uses intermediaries in Poland, Vietnam, UAE, etc, raising costs. To Ukraine, it can appear corrupt via shell companies, undermining state deals.
Mass-production over 1,000 drones monthly poses challenges, including component shortages and defective or substandard parts sneaking into the supply chain. This is why a part of Escadrone’s drones come in semi-assembled from China, which Andriy says have better quality control than Ukraine’s fledgling industry. Chinese workers have more experience in specialized roles and better production systems.
However, ready drone flows are easy to restrict, as the September bans showed. China blocks FPV drone exports not just to Ukraine, but Poland and Kazakhstan too, per Andriy. This is why Ukraine must develop domestic production while procuring ready Chinese solutions if possible.
Russian electronic warfare and FPV drones in Ukraine
Evading Russia’s sophisticated electronic warfare is a game of cat and mouse, according to Escadrone’s founder. Jamming brought down 9 of 10 drones in some areas. Escadrone found a solution to the problem, but the Russians will soon get hold of the Ukrainian FPV drones that do not fall, find their secret, and tweak their EW. Then, Escadrone will need to search for new ways to evade.
“The only plus is that we can shift to new gears in a few nights, and their huge military production complex needs a lot of time to come up with countermeasures.
If Ukraine started from cheap drones and is moving to more expensive ones now, Russia went the opposite direction: they buy expensive drones in China and remake them into 10” long-rangers. This was Ukraine’s mistake, Andriy believes: precious time was lost.
Russia still trails Ukraine by 3 months in drone tech but is catching up in skills. “In the future, this will be a huge problem for us,” Andriy from Escadrone says. Russia’s money is the big problem – more multimillionaires funding advanced drones vs Ukraine’s bang-for-buck models, Andriy says. He won’t detail Russia’s deficiencies – no need to help them improve.
Frontline feedback crucial for fast developing FPV drone field
Vadym’s small unit is an R&D operation funded by wealthy battalion members.
“My boss fights with these drones, gives us frontline feedback to improve them. We constantly upgrade as developers, operators, and funders. It’s a full cycle,” he explains.
This agility keeps them ahead, per Vadym. New tech like block-10 protocols and multi-satellite GPS gets implemented fast. “So our drones now fly farther, are more stable, have better video, and carry more due to efficiency gains.”
This contrasts with Ukraine’s state military production giants like Ukroboronprom, recently transformed into a consortium. Requests to make a special bomb would take 1.5 years of checks, Vadym laments.
Agility and flexibility are also key for Escadrone. They have direct feedback from the units they supply, allowing rapidly identifying and solving problems. When Russian EW brought FPV drones in Ukraine down en masse, within one month, Escadrone studied the problem, experimented with the frequencies, and found a fix – something that would be unthinkable when cooperating with the state.
Most Ukrainian drone teams know and assist each other despite trade secrets. Escadrone’s founder believes diversity benefits progress: whoever believes in any given technology develops it. The state and the army could want a unified product, but it will never happen: “the more different approaches there will be, the larger the chances for progress. We can’t standardize drones – if one code’s cracked, all have problems.”
Small teams constantly improving custom solutions for specific units are an asset, even if they only make 10 drones monthly: the feedback from the front enables breakthroughs in technological progress.
Escadrone knows each pilot and gets feedback to improve drones. It supplies FPV drones to roughly 100 army units in Ukraine, but only after pilots undergo Escadrone’s training course on theory and repairs, which will help them handle irregular situations.
Then comes practice: “tie a kilogram to a drone and fly around with it from morning till evening,” until pilots are able to land the drone on their feet, take off from their lap.
“Ace” pilots have flown 600-700+ drones. On missions, aces deploy 40 drones simultaneously, shattering Russian armor. They can circle tanks to identify vulnerabilities – first motors, now more penetrable turrets. Any equipment hit is a win, even if not destroyed on the spot – it often retreats for repairs.
Most importantly, hits show Russians they’re watched and vulnerable. This erodes morale and motivation as they feel like prey instead of hunters. “They are like sitting ducks, everyone is watching them, they are picked off at ultra-long distances. People with a sense of prey have no motivation to fight.”
Meanwhile, drone pilots feel like hunters, sitting protected in a bunker with a control station. Intercepts convey Russian panic over the relentless accuracy of drones – desperate calls to deploy EW and guns to stop the “birds.”
Ukrainian FPV drone producers vs. the Ukrainian state
Small producers like Vadym struggle with state cooperation due to bureaucracy hindering defense contracts, including 50% domestic parts requirements — problematic given the lack of high-tech manufacturers.
Even small orders get stuck at customs for weeks, putting qualified pilots at risk: without drones to fly, they pick up rifles and become soldiers. Sometimes Security Service friends intervene to release shipments.
Escadrone, on the other hand, certified some drones for use with the Ministry of Defense but still faces hurdles. Any parameter change means redoing certification, which takes 3-4 months. By then, the model is outdated as the “rules of the game” change rapidly — munitions, ranges, EW, frequencies, etc. One 5km drone was useless when finally certified: the average range of FPV drones in Ukraine increased to 15km.
“The state hasn’t switched to a war mode,” Escadrone’s Andriy says. This is why agile and flexible private initiatives will always be ahead of the rigid state in drone production, he believes. The certification paperwork and delays make it hard to keep pace with the quickly evolving technology.
This is why Escadrone has only one small state contract; most drones are funded by private investors, charities, and parent companies like Everstake. “We show 400-500 times return on investment; they’re happy to see their funds show results, destroying equipment.”
However, Andriy acknowledges issues with Escadrone’s financial model. Money from charities and investors is dwindling as ordinary Ukrainians struggle financially from the war toll. State contracts would increase production, though Escadrone avoids them due to the bureaucracy involved. Working with local and municipal authorities, who increasingly spend tax money on drones, has gone better.
Everyone sees drones work; local communities and the state will buy more. But agile volunteer initiatives, not bureaucracy, enabled the breakthroughs in drone warfare.
“Volunteer groups like ours drove progress. We didn’t just say ‘this can fly and carry stuff,’ we showed results: burnt tanks and howitzers 22km away that artillery can’t reach – drones did it,” Andriy stresses. This constant video evidence contributed to a paradigm shift among older commanders.
The “Army of Drones” launched in July 2022 is a welcome shift in state-producer relations. For Escadrone, it has acted as an information hub, connecting them with investors, aiding production and use. Run by the Ministry of Digital Transformation, it avoids Defense Ministry bureaucracy. In 2023 it spent $1.07 million on drones for army units. While still insufficient, this is a significant sum, says Liubov Shypovych.
Working with the state is difficult, but Ukraine has no other choice, she says: “We’re in a great war. Private initiatives alone can’t win against Russia’s regular army, no matter how many private armies we build. As hard as it is, we must move in this direction.”
Some initial pilot projects can be private, but later all must scale to the armed forces level. Her Dignitas fund leads by example, establishing a state FPV pilot training program on a military base.
“If we disappear, it will continue. Training more pilots, some becoming instructors, roots this in the Armed Forces so it can’t be rolled back,” says Shypovych.
The changes are irreversible: even the most Soviet commanders now see drones as essential, Shypovych assures.
At the start of Russia’s invasion in March 2022, drone-users seemed exotic freaks: grenade launchers and machine guns were seen as the real weapons. Now artillery won’t fire without a Mavic “wedding drone” video feed. “Those Soviet colonels may not understand the tech, but they want real-time war vision,” she notes.
Overcoming limitations and the future
Innovation depends on the right parts, and that is becoming a problem. Apart from the FPV drones themselves, power cells, rare low-loss cables, high-quality connectors for them, components for remote antennas and repeaters are needed, as well as facilities for manufacturing drone components. Vadym’s unit makes carbon fiber frames based on modified Chinese models. His dream is a fully Ukrainian drone, but only motors are feasible soon – flight controllers, regulators and video systems lack domestic factories.
Some components are already rare with war-driven demand. But Vadym’s team improvises, like reverse-engineering flight controllers using Arduino microcomputers and custom software with sensors to mimic integrated functions of an accelerometer, gyroscopes, barometer, processor, payload switches, etc.
Further improvements include a ballistic calculator to calculate optimal bomb drop spots – currently relying on pilot skill. “The biggest problem is that compatible software for our systems doesn’t exist,” says Vadym.
A major factor limiting the garage-style development of FPV drones in Ukraine is the isolation of the small teams, which prevents building on the achievements of one another.
The isolation of small teams hinders building on each other’s achievements. “Some made jam-resistant GPS from Chinese parts and local software. Without involvement, you’d never know, only seeing their drones succeed where yours failed. Most keep developments secret due to competition,” Vadym notes.
Bridging isolation is a Dignitas goal via workshops and conferences. “It’s important manufacturers don’t stay locked in basements but communicate to understand each other’s capabilities,” says Shypovych. “Maybe one makes basic engines $2 more than Chinese ones – maybe it’s worthwhile for others to buy from this manufacturer, rather than import from China. They want to learn from each other, with one such meeting replacing months of work.”
However, holding such gatherings is dangerous in Ukraine, as they become targets for Russian attacks. Dignitas’ conference for drone producers in Chernihiv was struck this summer, killing seven and injuring 148 despite conspiracy precautions.
“It’s understandable why Russia targeted it – to intimidate, inhibit development by stopping communication,” explains Shypovych.
Escadrone is working on solutions for drones to lock onto targets and strike independently of pilot skill, like US Switchblades, allowing hits despite EW – but at a fraction of the cost. “Complicated systems doable in a garage, but lots of testing and time needed, especially from scratch by basic engineers,” they note.
Perhaps the biggest limitation in Ukraine’s drone innovation is the shortage of qualified engineers to drive progress. Before the invasion, little demand existed in the deindustrialized economy, and many experts trained after independence emigrated.
Most Ukrainian engineers were trained during Soviet times and worked on state behemoths; they are smart and qualified but lack the dynamism required for the FPV field, as drone producer Oleksandr Yakovenko told Forbes. He spent months hunting specialists like EW engineers, even abroad.
The engineering deficit is felt more acutely in the field of large, long-range reconnaissance and attack drones – a crucial part of Ukraine’s capacity to strike military objects in Russia amid a Western prohibition on using long-range missiles on Russian soil.
However, drone assembly alone is a relatively basic skill that many can readily learn. This is why FPV producers take on training complete novice engineers – anyone capable of handling a soldering iron can be quickly taught full drone construction and wiring, allowing companies to build talent from the ground up. Dignitas tries to accelerate this process: in the last months, they have released two online training courses for aspiring FPV engineers, which have been promoted by Ukraine’s Digital Transformation Minister Fedorov.
Related:
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https://euromaidanpress.com/2024/01/25/how-fpv-drones-became-ukraine-top-weapon/
| 2024-01-25T22:31:36Z
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The fate of a bipartisan border deal that Senate Republicans demanded to fund Ukraine aid appeared dimmer this week after Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell acknowledged to Republicans that Donald Trump’s opposition to the deal has complicated its future, The Washington Post has reported.
In December 2023, Czech President Petr Pavel said Russian President Vladimir Putin is counting on the victory of Donal Trump in the 2024 US elections to negotiate with him on the future of the Russia-Ukraine war without the involvement of any European state, as per EurActiv.com.
Trump himself said that as president, he would be able to resolve the Ukraine war in one day. These facts may suggest that the former US president plans to decide the fate of Ukraine with Putin without taking into account Ukraine’s views on how to end Russia’s war. Therefore, the possible lack of assistance to Ukraine may be a way to leave the country without options during the possible negotiations between the two leaders.
Earlier, Republicans demanded border policy changes to approve $60 billion aid for Ukraine, which had been requested by the White House. A small group of Senate negotiators were closing in on a deal last week when Trump slammed the negotiations, saying he would only accept a “PERFECT” deal.
In a recent closed-door meeting, McConnell acknowledged that there might not be a path to passage for a border deal, according to two people familiar with the matter.
McConnell’s doubts were aired after a significant number of Republican senators increasingly vocalized their opposition to a border security deal before details were released.
After Trump’s win in the New Hampshire primary, he publicly encouraged Republicans on social media not to accept any border deal with Democrats last week, pledging to get a better deal when he is president.
House Speaker Mike Johnson said recently that Trump was “extremely adamant” that the deal should be rejected. “He and I have been talking about this pretty frequently,” Johnson said.
Read also:
- The US-EU joint statement reaffirms long-term support for Ukraine
- Supporting Israel and Ukraine is vital to US security, Biden says
- Biden asks Congress for $105 billion to support Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan
- Washington Post: Kremlin-connected tycoon may be behind Forbes purchase
- No, Elon Musk. Ukraine aid is the ultimate investment
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https://euromaidanpress.com/2024/01/25/media-ukraine-aid-deal-on-rocks-after-trumps-comments%EF%BF%BC/
| 2024-01-25T22:32:16Z
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Asked if Hungarian PM Orbán would withdraw his veto on the EU’s four-year aid package for Ukraine, Valtonen said she is “very confident” that Hungary will give up its blockade:
“[Hungary’s] Foreign Minister Szijjártó has given us a positive signal and I very much hope that we will finally be able to approve the aid for Ukraine. If not, we will find another solution. At the same time, we must invest more in our own security,” the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Finland said.
Elina Valtonen also noted that Europe should develop “a credible strategy for its own defense and deterrence” both at the EU and NATO levels because “Russia only understands strength.”
- On 15 December, Hungary’s PM Orbán vetoed the €50 bn aid for Ukraine. European Council’s President Charles Michel intended to gather EU leaders for another vote next month to secure funding.
- In early January, in informal talks with Orban, Italian PM Giorgia Meloni attempted to persuade him not to obstruct European Union support for Ukraine, according to Bloomberg.
- Referring to unnamed European diplomats, Politico reported that Hungary floated an idea to lift its veto over the EU aid package for Ukraine if the aid is disbursed and reviewed each year, granting Orbán influence to block funding annually.
- On 18 January, the European Parliament supported a resolution calling to punish Hungarian PM Orbán for undermining democracy domestically. The vote, with 345 in favor and 104 against, condemned Hungary’s government for its “deliberate, continuous, and systematic efforts of the Hungarian government to undermine the founding values of the EU.”
- On 22 January, Bloomberg reported, referring to unnamed officials, that EU leaders are prepared to take a firm stance against Hungary at an upcoming summit if Orbán persists in obstructing a €50 billion ($54.5 billion) aid package for Ukraine.
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https://euromaidanpress.com/2024/01/26/finnish-fm-hungary-gave-us-positive-signal-that-it-will-stop-blocking-eus-e50-billion-ukraine-aid/
| 2024-01-25T22:32:57Z
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NEW YORK - The Dow and S&P 500 powered to fresh records on Jan 25, following solid US growth data, shrugging off big drops in Tesla and Boeing.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.6 per cent to 38,049.13, while the broad-based S&P 500 gained 0.5 per cent to 4,894.16, its fourth straight record close.
The tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index added 0.2 per cent at 15,510.50.
US economic growth came in at 3.3 per cent in the fourth quarter, topping estimates, fuelled by a resilient jobs market and consumer spending, the Commerce Department said.
The latest growth data strengthens optimism that America is achieving a “soft landing,” where inflation comes down on higher interest rates, without triggering a recession.
“Most economists would have thought by now, we would have felt the full effects of the rate increases that the Federal Reserve put in place,” said Mr Tom Cahill, of Ventura Wealth Management.
“So I think that the soft landing scenario is becoming more and more likely.”
IBM led the Dow, surging nearly 10 per cent after topping earnings estimates and projecting 2024 free cash flow that also exceeded expectations.
American Airlines also had a good day, rising more than 10 per cent as it reported better than expected earnings. The company had record annual revenues of around US$53 billion (S$70 billion).
But Tesla sank more than 12 per cent as Elon Musk’s electric car company missed earnings estimates in the fourth quarter and projected slower vehicle growth in 2024.
Boeing dropped 5.7 per cent after the Federal Aviation Administration said it would limit the production growth plan of the 737 Max until the company improves quality control, after the mid-flight blowout of a panel on a Max 9 Alaska Airlines jet earlier this month. AFP
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https://www.straitstimes.com/business/companies-markets/dow-sp-500-close-at-records-after-solid-us-growth-data
| 2024-01-25T22:35:06Z
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SINGAPORE - Mainboard-listed LHN’s Coliwoo serviced apartment franchise has been providing affordable rental accomodation in Singapore for several years.
Since LHN bought its first property in 2020, the Coliwoo brand has grown to 2,100 keys (keys denote rooms in the hospitality industry). When The Straits Times met LHN’s founder and chief executive officer Kevin Lim last week, he forecast adding 800 rooms every year going forward.
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https://www.straitstimes.com/business/lhn-s-cool-coliwoo-co-living-apartments-have-wind-in-their-sails
| 2024-01-25T22:35:16Z
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Family companies are the hidden engines of the global economy.
More than 90 per cent of all companies are family companies. These include many of the world’s biggest organisations, such as LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton in France and Samsung Electronics in South Korea.
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https://www.straitstimes.com/opinion/family-companies-are-experiencing-heir-loss
| 2024-01-25T22:35:47Z
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Study Taiwan’s EasyCard system
I refer to the report “LTA shelves plan to replace older public transport payment cards with SimplyGo by June” (Jan 22). Transport Minister Chee Hong Tat cited London and Hong Kong’s use of account-based transit cards that do not display fare deductions and card balances.
Taiwan’s EasyCard is also linked to an app where people can top up their cards online, check their travel history and de-link the card to protect their card balance in case of loss. Card deductions and balances are also displayed on fare readers. The EasyCard can last 20 years, as opposed to the ez-link card’s five years.
The authorities should study this account-based system and improve the lifespan of physical cards rolled out in the future. This would address commuters’ concerns over correct fare deductions and low card balances, and reduce plastic waste and administrative work that come with card replacement.
Elsa Wan
Hire part-time doctors to keep polyclinics open longer
Kudos to Mr Lim Chong Leong for his suggestion (Can polyclinics open 24 hours to take the load off A&E departments?, Jan 24). His idea should be further explored.
As it is not feasible to open all polyclinics around the clock, those selected to stay open longer could be where the population is dense.
Retired doctors or those who have left the profession could be employed on a part-time basis, and locum doctors, who are employed in private clinics to cover doctors on leave, could also be considered.
Heng Cho Choon
Daily checks for polyclinic slots not ideal
I visited Ang Mo Kio Polyclinic recently. The doctor directed me to make a follow-up appointment. At the counter, I and many patients were told that all appointment slots for the next few months were fully booked.
The only way for us to get an appointment in a few months was to use the HealthHub app or to call every day and hope there would be slots available on the day itself due to cancellations.
This is an unsatisfactory state of affairs as patients would not be able to plan and make the necessary work or other arrangements to visit the polyclinic.
Wen Khai Meng
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https://www.straitstimes.com/opinion/forum/forum-excerpts-from-readers-letters-63
| 2024-01-25T22:35:59Z
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We thank Mr Stephen Tan for his feedback (Plan needed to make older HDB flats more liveable amid rising temperatures, Jan 9).
As the master developer of public housing in Singapore, HDB plays a key role in supporting the nation’s commitment to sustainable development. Over the years, we have intensified our efforts to mitigate the effects of climate change and create a more comfortable environment, including in existing HDB towns, for our residents.
In 2020, we announced the HDB Green Towns Programme, a 10-year plan to bring sustainable living to all existing HDB towns through the large-scale implementation of green features, to improve residents’ quality of life.
One key focus area is cooling HDB towns. We are studying the application of cool coatings on the facades of about 130 HDB blocks in Tampines. The learning points from the pilot will help HDB formulate its plans for the wider application of cool coatings in HDB towns.
We are also introducing more greenery to the top decks of selected multi-storey carparks in HDB estates to provide visual relief and mitigate heat gain. Studies have shown that such features can reduce the overall ambient temperature by up to 2 deg C.
HDB developments, including older estates, are designed with our local climate in mind. We incorporate strategies such as orienting residential blocks to reduce heat gain from solar radiation, and maximising natural lighting and ventilation in flats and around the estate.
HDB also has various upgrading programmes to rejuvenate older estates, such as the Home Improvement Programme within flats, and the Lift Upgrading Programme and the Neighbourhood Renewal Programme at the block and precinct levels. These programmes aim to improve the comfort of our residents and enhance the liveability of HDB towns.
HDB is committed to building a sustainable and liveable environment for our residents. We constantly review the progress and effectiveness of our existing initiatives, and explore new ones that can make our estates more liveable for residents.
Tan Sze Tiong
Chief Sustainability Officer
Housing and Development Board
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https://www.straitstimes.com/opinion/forum/forum-hdb-studying-application-of-cool-coatings-on-block-facades
| 2024-01-25T22:36:09Z
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I write to thank Mr Shawn Hoo for a detailed and well-researched article about independent art spaces in Singapore (Indie arts clusters fight to lay down roots, Jan 25).
Independent art spaces indeed play an important role in the development of artists, and in challenging and educating audiences on art and cultural appreciation. They also serve as communities for the arts-inclined.
I have heard from younger people who are not full-time working artists, but who have a deep interest in the arts, that they often do not know where to go to find their “tribe”, or to talk to working artists about finding pathways to pursue their interests.
Museums and institutions can be intimidating, but ground-up initiatives like those identified by Mr Hoo in his article provide safe spaces not just for artists, but for our wider community as well, to explore their artistic interests.
Mr Hoo reported how the National Arts Council (NAC) brokered tie-ups between private operators such as shopping mall GR.iD and independent arts groups – an excellent example of how private partnerships can help to facilitate the work of independent art spaces, without being tethered to the terms and conditions of government funding (which are understandably necessary, to justify the use of taxpayer funds).
I urge private sector landlords and corporates to step forward to work with the NAC and independent arts spaces to help Singapore develop a vibrant and diverse creative economy.
Usha Chandradas
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https://www.straitstimes.com/opinion/forum/forum-more-help-needed-for-singapore-to-develop-vibrant-arts-economy
| 2024-01-25T22:36:19Z
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South Koreans tend not to think about North Korea very much. But for me, 2024 will be different. Just after the new year began, my 19-year-old son suspended his university studies to join a front-line unit for his compulsory military service.
Attending a ceremony for the new recruits in the freezing Seoul weather, many parents were visibly worried as to how their sons would adapt to military life. The general in charge of the frontline unit stressed the “sacred duty” of South Korean men to guard the nation against the threat of nuclear-armed North Korea.
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https://www.straitstimes.com/opinion/in-south-korea-a-quiet-debate-over-conscription-is-heating-up
| 2024-01-25T22:36:29Z
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When he handed over the presidency seven years ago, Mr Barack Obama warned his incoming successor Donald Trump that the most urgent problem he would face was North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile programmes.
He saw those programmes as a completely unacceptable threat to America’s security and world peace, but he had failed to stop them. Now it was Trump’s turn.
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https://www.straitstimes.com/opinion/kim-jong-un-s-threats-of-war-may-not-be-bluster-this-time
| 2024-01-25T22:36:40Z
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At the recent COP28 United Nations climate talks, two men were key to clinching the agreement for the world to transition away from fossil fuels. United States special climate envoy John Kerry, 80, and his Chinese counterpart Xie Zhenhua, 74, helped bridge deep disagreements over references to fossil fuels in the final decision of the Dubai conference. Their close cooperation also helped create the landmark 2015 Paris climate agreement. The friendship and strong rapport between both men have been fundamental in maintaining progress in the often fraught world of climate diplomacy. China and the US are the world’s largest greenhouse gas polluters and what they decide, and how they cooperate, can shape the course of global climate action.
The two men have now retired, and they leave behind a powerful legacy but also much unfinished work that their replacements need to urgently continue. China has announced Mr Xie’s replacement – career diplomat Liu Zhenmin, 68, who has considerable experience in climate negotiations. A replacement for Mr Kerry has yet to be announced. Ahead of COP28, Mr Kerry and Mr Xie met at Sunnylands, a Californian retreat, to craft an agreement on US-China climate cooperation. They issued the Sunnylands statement on enhancing collaboration, agreeing to back an ambitious global renewable energy target and work together on plastic pollution, forest loss and cutting emissions of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas. The new climate envoys, once fully in place, must focus on achieving these goals. Fortunately, Mr Kerry and Mr Xie also agreed at Sunnylands to operationalise a US-China working group on enhancing climate action. That group held its first meeting on Jan 12, and it aims to sustain progress during the shift to the new climate envoys and turbulent US presidential election.
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https://www.straitstimes.com/opinion/st-editorial/us-china-climate-leadership-must-endure
| 2024-01-25T22:36:50Z
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When is a gift not really a gift?
This question has come to the fore since last week when former transport minister S. Iswaran was handed 27 criminal charges related to his dealings between 2015 and 2022 with property billionaire and Singapore GP chairman Ong Beng Seng. Twenty-four charges come under Section 165 of the Penal Code for obtaining valuable items as a public servant, such as tickets to football matches, musicals and the Formula One races.
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https://www.straitstimes.com/opinion/why-the-public-sector-is-so-wary-of-gifts-and-hospitality
| 2024-01-25T22:37:21Z
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SINGAPORE – With cyber-threat hunting skills in high demand, Military Expert 4 (ME4) Tan Jia Le, 25, could easily have joined the private sector, like many of his fellow information security graduates from the National University of Singapore (NUS).
But ME4 Tan, who also studied information security at polytechnic, had long decided that he wanted to join the ranks of those who defend Singapore’s most critical systems and infrastructure.
This decision was cemented by his vocation as a cyber specialist during his national service, which trained him to deal with advanced cyber threats and carry out real-world cyber-security operations such as incident response and tests of network vulnerabilities.
Having found his calling, ME4 Tan converted to the SAF’s Command, Control, Communications, and Computers Expert (C4X) scheme.
On Jan 25, he was one of 122 servicemen and servicewomen appointed as senior military experts.
“Many of the people who are graduating from cyber-security courses are heading to the private sector, but I felt there was a need for people to stand up and join the public sector to boost its cyber expertise,” said ME4 Tan, who received the Sword of Honour, given to the best trainee in each batch.
In a speech at the appointment ceremony, Senior Minister of State for Defence Heng Chee How said the Military Domain Experts Scheme (MDES) strengthens the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) by ensuring that it has deep expertise in key military domains such as cyber security, intelligence, engineering and medical skills.
Introduced in 2010, the scheme has been pivotal in attracting well-qualified professionals, including mid-career workers, to join the SAF, he added.
This is key when the nature of warfare is becoming increasingly sophisticated and a hybrid, said Mr Heng.
He cited how Ukrainian forces modified thousands of inexpensive hobby drones for surveillance and strike capabilities, and used digital technology to level the battlefield against Russia’s advantage in conventional warfighting.
“The speed and agility to operationally adapt technologies, including commercial off-the-shelf and lower-cost options, have enabled the seizing of tactical advantage on the battlefield,” he said.
Having mid-career professionals in the SAF also adds richness and rigour to its work, and allows the uniformed services to better benchmark their capabilities against industry standards, he added.
Mr Heng noted that MDES has continued to advance since it was launched. In 2019, the C4X vocation was introduced to deepen the SAF’s cyber-defence capabilities.
The vocation was expanded recently with a new track to develop digital competencies within the SAF in software engineering, data science, artificial intelligence and cloud architecture.
The 122 who graduated on Jan 25 comprise 24 personnel from the Singapore Army, 18 from the Republic of Singapore Navy, 32 from the Republic of Singapore Air Force and 48 from the Digital and Intelligence Service.
Among them were ME4 Nabilah Atiqah, 25, who said she was inspired by her elder sister, a nurse, and the opportunity for an unconventional career in the SAF, when she decided to become a military medical expert. “We get training in things like deploying battalion casualty stations, tactical combat casualty care, and we get opportunities to develop leadership skills,” she told The Straits Times.
The ceremony marked the end of the Military Domain Experts Course for the latest group of graduates. They will now be moved to operational roles.
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https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/cyber-security-specialists-among-122-appointed-as-saf-senior-military-experts
| 2024-01-25T22:37:32Z
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SINGAPORE - A number of public transport systems worldwide have begun their shift to account-based ticketing platforms in recent years.
Some still concurrently run systems that offer card-centric modes of payment to cater to the needs of various groups.
With account-based ticketing, travel records are held in a back office and transactions are processed there. In contrast, a card-based ticketing scheme stores transaction data on the cards, and transactions are processed instantly when the cards come into contact with payment terminals.
In Singapore, a planned move to ditch older ez-link and Nets FlashPay cards for SimplyGo, an account-based system, by June sparked unease among some adult public transport users. Some wrung their hands over not being able to see the fares they are charged at transaction points.
SimplyGo transactions are handled on back-end systems.
Pulling the plug on the move on Jan 22, barely two weeks after it was announced, Transport Minister Chee Hong Tat acknowledged passengers’ concerns about the inability to display fares.
Mr Chee said there is no technical solution to this for the moment, and this is the case elsewhere too.
He said Hong Kong’s and London’s account-based ticketing cards, for instance, also do not show such information at the terminals. He was referring to contactless payments via bank cards.
The public transport systems of Hong Kong and London use account- and card-based systems simultaneously, checks by The Straits Times showed.
ST takes a closer look at transport payment systems in New York, Australia’s Victoria state, Hong Kong and London, and the roll-out challenges they faced.
New York, United States: Postponing new system indefinitely
Launched in May 2019, New York’s new account-based transport payment system, Omny, which allows commuters to pay via contactless bank cards, physical Omny cards and smart devices, was initially set to fully replace the card-based MetroCard system by 2023.
In April 2023, about four years after Omny’s launch, public transport operator Metropolitan Transportation Authority announced an indefinite postponement of the old system’s complete shutdown.
Omny is expected to cost US$772 million (S$1.03 billion) when it is rolled out completely.
More time was needed to install cash payment options on Omny vending machines at certain subway stations and unify the use of the Omny system across the city’s entire transport network, the New York Post reported in April 2023.
Passengers had also raised security concerns about their data being tracked, while some noted that Omny would limit the homeless community’s access to public transport since they may not have access to smartphones or bank cards.
Victoria, Australia: Transiting to new system
The Australian state of Victoria, whose capital is Melbourne, is upgrading its hardware for transit payments in phases from 2024, and moving from a card-based ticketing system to an account-based one in an A$1.7 billion (S$1.5 billion) move.
A new vendor was appointed in May 2023. The hardware overhaul was projected to take two years, yet no firm schedule has been given on when the account-based system will kick in.
With the new hardware installed, commuters can use credit and debit cards or their mobile devices and existing transit cards for fare payments. Digital payment under the existing system is limited to Android smartphones.
According to Public Transport Victoria’s website, physical cards will continue to be available for those who do not want to switch, but there was no mention of whether existing cards can be used without modifications in the future.
The agency responsible for Victoria’s public transport system stated that there will not be immediate changes to the existing ticketing system with the new contract.
Hong Kong: Boosting legacy card system with bank payments
Contactless bank card payments – a form of account-based ticketing – made an appearance in Hong Kong’s public transport system only in December 2023 for use on the city’s Mass Transit Railway (MTR) system.
Passengers can now use Visa cards, together with the legacy Octopus card, to enter and exit fare gates.
According to MTR’s website, more card options will be available in the next phase of the initiative to widen payment modes in the third quarter of 2024.
MTR stations have two types of fare gates – those in light blue are for passengers paying with contactless bank cards, while gates with yellow card readers are for commuters to tap their Octopus cards.
Since March 2023, new entry and exit gates have been installed as part of the MTR Corporation’s plans to upgrade the payment system.
Some HK$1.3 billion (S$223 million) will be invested to replace 2,400 fare gates, with the new gates featuring a slimmer body and supporting all available payment options – the Octopus card, single-use tickets, QR code tickets (via payment app Alipay, for example) and credit cards.
London, Britain: Coexisting to meet needs of passengers
In 2012, London became the first city worldwide to allow contactless payments via credit or debit cards on its public transport network.
In August 2022, 530,000 daily journeys on the London underground rail system were made using Oyster cards, which operate on a card-based scheme, while 1.39 million rides a day were paid for with contactless bank cards, according to figures released by transport operator Transport for London.
In 2021, Mr Mike Tuckett, then head of customer payments at Transport for London, told broadcaster BBC there were no plans to stop offering the Oyster card option.
This is because some people “can’t or won’t use contactless”, so the Oyster card is still the “best and most natural solution”, he said.
In November 2022, the operator said in a tender notice that it is looking to transform the Oyster card system into an account-based one, to support the interchangeable use of devices, among other things.
To be awarded in August 2024, the contract entails a phased transition to full service by August 2026.
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https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/transport/shelving-of-simplygo-plan-what-are-other-cities-doing-with-public-transport-payments
| 2024-01-25T22:37:42Z
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BOURNEMOUTH, England - Bournemouth scored five times in the first half to crush second-tier Swansea City 5-0 in the FA Cup fourth round on Thursday.
Defender Lloyd Kelly put Premier League Bournemouth in front after seven minutes, firing into the top corner following a free kick.
Alex Scott doubled the lead three minutes later from close range before he set up Luis Sinisterra for the third in the 14th minute.
Forwards David Brooks and Dominic Solanke added a goal each for the hosts to make it 5-0 at halftime.
Bournemouth also beat Championship side Swansea 3-2 in the League Cup second round in August.
Tottenham Hotspur host holders Manchester City and Aston Villa face Chelsea at Stamford Bridge among the other fourth-round clashes on Friday. REUTERS
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https://www.straitstimes.com/sport/football/bournemouth-strike-early-in-rout-of-swansea
| 2024-01-25T22:37:52Z
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THE HAGUE - The United Nations' top court will rule on Friday on whether it will grant emergency measures against Israel following accusations by South Africa that its military operation in Gaza is a state-led genocide against Palestinians.
The 15 judges at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), also known as the World Court, are joined for this case by a judge specially appointed by South Africa and one by Israel. Both are distinguished figures in their countries with extraordinary personal histories. The court's legally-binding decisions are made by a simple majority but it has no way to enforce them.
DIKGANG MOSENEKE
- Moseneke, 76, is one of South Africa's most senior retired judges who fought against apartheid and played a key role in the country's transition to democracy.
- He was imprisoned at the age of 15 for protesting apartheid and spent 10 years in South Africa's notorious Robben Island prison, where he befriended Nelson Mandela.
- Moseneke studied for his university degree while behind bars and worked as an attorney after his release. He was later asked by Mandela to help draft South Africa's interim constitution and oversee its first democratic elections. - He was appointed to South Africa's Constitutional Court in 2002. In 2005, he was appointed Deputy Chief Justice, a position he held until his retirement in 2016.
- In a 2021 interview with Oxford University about his autobiography he recalled he had a very deep sense of right and wrong as a child. "Apartheid was already a big teacher, like most states... it taught people inequality.".
- He has a reputation as "a fair-minded and thorough judge who follows the facts of the case", according to Frans Viljoen, a professor of international human rights law at the University of Pretoria.
AHARON BARAK
- Barak, 87, is a Holocaust survivor born in Lithuania in 1936 who became a chief justice of Israel's Supreme Court.
- He is one of few children to survive the Jewish ghetto in the central Lithuanian city of Kovno (Kaunas) during World War Two. He has called his survival a miracle. "Since that episode, I have never feared death," he said.
- Barak was smuggled out of the ghetto by his mother who hid him in a bag of uniforms that were manufactured there. He immigrated to then-British Mandate Palestine in 1947, a year before it became Israel
- Between 1975 and 1978 Barak served as Israel's Attorney General. In 1978 he was appointed to the Supreme Court and served as its president from 1995 to 2006 when he retired.
- Barak is known as a champion of Supreme Court activism and has been a vocal critic of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose judicial reform push last year bitterly polarized the public.
- In an interview last November with Canadian daily the Globe and Mail, Barak voiced support for Israel's military actions in Gaza. "I agree totally with what the government is doing," he said. Asked about accusations that Israel was conducting a genocidal war in Gaza, Barak said that term should be used to describe the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel by Hamas.
"What we are doing is to prevent them from doing it again," he said. REUTERS
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https://www.straitstimes.com/world/europe/factbox-who-are-the-veteran-south-african-and-israeli-judges-hearing-the-gaza-genocide-case
| 2024-01-25T22:38:04Z
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