German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius has warned against ending support for Ukraine in its fight against Russian aggression.
Source: Pistorius quoted by Zeit, as reported by European Pravda
Details: Pistorius said that Ukraine needs to be able to act from a position of strength and possibly "be able to negotiate at some point".
Another Monday Message Board. Post comments on any topic. Civil discussion and no coarse language please. Side discussions and idees fixes to the sandpits, please.
I’m now using Substack as a blogging platform, and for my monthly email newsletter. For the moment, I’ll post both at this blog and on Substack. You can also follow me on Mastodon here.
As usual, 26 January has been marked by protests, denunciations of those protests, and further iterations. Even apart from the fact that it marks an invasion, the foundation of a colony that later became one of Australia’s states isn’t much of a basis for a national day.
A logical choice would be the day our Federation came into force. Unfortunately for this idea, our Founders chose 1 Jan 1901. The first day of the 20th century[1] must have seemed like an auspicious choice for a new country, but it ruled out the anniversary as a national day.
The year 2025 had barely started when the outgoing Joe Biden administration presented a belated 'holiday gift' to Russian oil exporters. Washington announced a new sanctions package – the “most significant” yet, according to US officials.
Over the weekend, I was interviewed by Luke Grant from Radio 2GB/4BC, discussing the current debate over Australia’s housing crisis. The interview was in response to last week’s impassioned article in The SMH bemoaning that young Sydneysiders were leaving en masse, driven out by exorbitant housing costs. The article said nearly 40,000 prime-aged residents aged
Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko is set to cruise to victory after more than 30 years in power. Sunday's presidential election has been slammed as a sham, with his rivals broadly seen as government stooges.
Belarus: Lukashenko poised for 'farce' election victory
Top Trump ally Elon Musk has publicly thrown down the gauntlet to the world's leading liberal 'philanthropist' and his NGOs' color revolution-fueling soft power influence operations. Sputnik asked a leading independent political commentator what this could mean under Trump 2.0.
Will Thomas, assistant professor of business law at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, has been keenly and carefully following the legal twists and turns surrounding Donald Trump.
Thomas explores where things stand now that Trump is back in the White House:
I have been reading Stan Grant’s beautiful new book, Murriyang song of time (Bundyi: Sydney 2024). There is in it a sentence pertaining to the Uluru Statement of the Heart and the subsequent failed Referendum. Stan Grant says, poignantly, that ‘the Uluru Statement spoke from the afflicted to a nation that has never loved us.’
Republicans routed Democrats in the 2024 election. The coming year offers a chance for the defeated party to figure out if the last cycle was a realignment or an electoral anomaly.
There has been lots of soul-searching and finger-pointing in recent weeks; that will continue for months as Democrats sort through the results and test theories about how to win in this environment.
The US Senate has confirmed army veteran and Fox News contributor Pete Hegseth as the next secretary of defense on Friday.
Vice President J.D. Vance arrived in the chamber and cast the tie-breaking vote, sealing Hegseth’s appointment.
Republican Senators Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins, and Mitch McConnell broke ranks and joined the Democrats in voting no.
