Author: Noel Baldwin

Berlin/Singapore (1/3 – 38.46). Russian propagandists have published a recording of a “conversation between four senior German officers”. In it, they discuss the possible supply of Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine. The recording is authentic, the Bundeswehr has since confirmed. “This is a very serious matter and that is why it is now the subject of a very meticulous, in-depth and rapid investigation,” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said. On Friday afternoon, a half-hour recording of the conversation, which reportedly dates to Monday, Feb. 19, circulated on Russian propaganda channels. Margarita Simonyan, the head of Russia’s state broadcaster RT, then published…

An 80-year-old American woman was killed during a wildlife safari in Zambia after an “aggressive” bull elephant “unexpectedly” charged at the vehicle, the tour operators said. The incident happened at around 9.30am local time on 30 March at the Kafue National Park in Zambia and the shocking video of the moment was captured and posted on social media. The video showed the adult male elephant chasing the car which came to a halt as the animal closed in. The elephant then knocked the vehicle over as the guide screamed, “Hey, hey, hey!” The woman has been identified as Gail Mattson by her family, according to ABC News. Safari…

The Czechs have never forgotten that allies handed over their Sudetenland Province to Hitler in 1938 after the German dictator promised it would be “last territorial demand I have to make in Europe.” The Czechs have never forgotten that allies handed over their Sudetenland Province to Hitler in 1938 after the German dictator promised it would be “the last territorial demand I have to make in Europe.” Months later, Nazis occupied their country and waged war in Europe and around the world for seven more years, killing tens of millions. To many today, Ukraine is the next Sudetenland as it…

PA President’s son Tareq Abbas also holds positions in other ventures incorporated by offshore company. Leaked documents from Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca reveal Tareq Abbas, son of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, holds shares worth nearly $1 million in an offshore company with ties to the Palestinian Authority. The documents, leaked as part of the massive ‘Panama Papers’ scandal, show that a company called the Arab Palestinian Investment Company (APIC) was registered in September 1994 in the British Virgin Islands. Since then, the company’s economic portfolio has grown substantially, and is active in virtually every Palestinian economic sphere, including…

A Pole, a German, a Frenchmen, and a Swiss meet in a bar, or was it a Swiss, a French, a German, and a Slovak, I forgot. However, what otherwise sounded like the beginning of a quirky joke was in fact an informal luncheon by some of the brightest analysts of the European Union in early December last year. Nationalities aside, the topic of the lunch was, of course, the Ukraine. The basic question was simple, Are We at War? Will Russia win? What’s the consequence for Europe if Russia wins? What is the European Union willingness to defend the…

Frankfurt (3/12 – 12) The relatively rapid cohesion of disparate nations, historically competitive or even at war with one another, into the European Union came about in part because of the ongoing threat from the Soviet Union. The specter of a tank invasion from Warsaw Pact nations, today forgotten, was such a reality that the German government kept a major portion of its gold bullion across the Atlantic. The USSR, an ally in World War II after being double-crossed by Hitler – remember the “Non-Aggression Pact signed in Moscow by von Ribbentrop and Molotov – was soon appraised as a…

Ed Currie eats, sleeps and breathes peppers. He calls it his “obsession”. He starts “every morning with what is essentially pepper oil” in his coffee. After taste-testing peppers and hot sauces all day for his South Carolina company, PuckerButt Pepper Company, he will add peppers or hot sauce to his dinner. His favourite pepper to cook with, though not his own creation, is a chocolate scotch bonnet. “I eat peppers all day long,” he says. “If there’s the right kind of dessert around, I tend to put something hot on my dessert.” Even as a pepper connoisseur, tasting his own…

Toronto, Atlanta (24/10 – 10) Not too long ago, “Halloween”, a contraction of the Christian holiday known as “All Hallows’ Eve,” was a time to honors dead saints. Take a look at the multi-billion-dollar enterprise, celebrated on October 31st every year, which it has evolved into, at least in North America, and you’ll find no sainted creatures – but a plethora of devils and the dead. Not to mention the Undead (imagine Yoko Ono) which have leaked out of the hundreds upon hundreds of horror movies, many of them truly horrible horrors, since brothers Auguste and Louis Lumière invented the…

The May 3 state visit of President of Tajikistan Emomali Rahmon to Kazakhstan showed that the strategic cooperation will grow in the coming years, Yersultan Zhanseitov from the Institute of World Economy and Politics said in an interview with Jibek Joly TV Channel. “I believe the main goal of the visit is purely economic. Trade is one of the biggest topics alongside other topics such as transport corridors as the way to develop our bilateral trade, also politics and geopolitics like matters of Afghanistan and Central Asian integration,” the expert said. According to him, regional integration will play a major…

In September 2021, the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia announced a new security partnership called AUKUS. In March 2023, Joint Leaders Statement on AUKUS mentioned that its first major initiative was to support Australia in acquiring conventionally-armed and nuclear-powered submarines, making Australia the seventh member of the exclusive club of nuclear propulsion states. Just as a spokesperson of the Chinese Foreign Ministry has said, nuclear submarine cooperation between the three countries involves the transfer of large amounts of weapons-grade highly enriched uranium from nuclear weapon states to a non-nuclear state, which poses a serious risk of nuclear proliferation…