Author: Tamazi Donauri

Frankfurt, Paris (18/8 – 62.50) Ukraine has scored a series of victories in more than a week since launching a lightning offensive into Russian territory. Now the stakes are rising as its forces prepare to defend their gains and Russia begins to regain its footing. Last week, Ukraine deployed thousands of troops to the Kursk region in western Russia, removing Russian flags from captured towns and taking the initiative from Moscow for the first time in months. On Wednesday, officials in Kyiv said Ukraine would use seized Russian territory as a “buffer zone” to shield its north from Russian strikes.…

The three parties in Germany’s government are once again arguing about money. Finance Minister Christian Lindner warns that parts of the draft budget for 2025 may be unconstitutional. After weeks of wrangling and despite poor poll ratings and much disagreement on substantive issues, the top representatives of the three-way coalition — the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), the environmentalist Greens and the neoliberal Free Democrats (FDP) — managed to agree on a draft for the 2025 budget at the beginning of July. Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) then went on vacation, but back home in Germany, the budget quickly became a hotly disputed topic again. Last week, Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP)…

Country’s hard-right culture minister Martina Šimkovičová accused of ‘complete lies’ after removal of respected figures When Slovakia’s minister for culture fired the director of the country’s oldest and most important theatre last Tuesday, the numerous reasons she cited for her surprise move included “political activism”, an alleged preference for foreign over Slovak opera singers, and, bizarrely, an incident with a crystal chandelier. Matej Drlička, whose dismissal from the Slovak National Theatre was followed a day later by that of the director of the Slovak National Gallery, says the real reason is something else: a concerted crackdown on freedom of artistic…

Paris/Jakarta (24/7 – 28.57). “Coffee is the common man’s gold, and like gold, it brings to every person the feeling of luxury and nobility.” – Sheik-Abd-al-Kadir A friend recently opened a coffee shop is called after its owner, Muteeya. Though modest, it embodies the burgeoning coffee culture found in Paris, London, the US, and now Jakarta. The coffee is steaming hot, and soft tunes fill the air. Outside, rain pounds against the window, streaking down and forming small puddles on the street. As I gaze through the glass blurred by water, I take a sip of my warm coffee,…

Kyiv (8/07 – 62.5) Ohmatdyt Children’s Hospital in Kyiv was hit in renewed strikes by Russian terror attacks with rockets against Ukrainian targets. Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said at least 41 civilians dead, seven of them children, and many others were injured. Search parties combed the debris and continued to look for the killed and injured. Volunteers are searching for the destroyed children hospital on the ground. Nurses and doctors are working to save and evacuate patients and visitors. Cries of young patients are heard rising from the debris with emergency services not reaching them. The Russian terror attack comes…

New York. (11 June – 31) US federal agents have arrested eight Tajikistan nationals in the US on terrorism charges. The arrests, carried out by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, spanned across Los Angeles, New York, and Philadelphia. These actions coincide with recent alerts from US intelligence officials about a terrorist plot. ISIS, or the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, is designated as a terrorist organization by numerous countries and international organizations, including the United States, the United Nations, and the European Union. The ability to surveillance certain foreign targets has been a subject of intense debate in Congress,…

Moscow 22/5 (57.14) According to NATO’s top military official, Russia does not have enough troops to make a significant advance in the north-east of Ukraine. “The Russians don’t have the numbers necessary to do a strategic breakthrough,” NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe Christopher Cavoli told reporters last week. “They don’t have the skill and the capability to do it; to operate at the scale necessary to exploit any breakthrough to strategic advantage,” the general said. According to earlier statements by Putin, Russia’s intention is not to take the city of Kharkiv, but rather to create a security zone, a sanitary…

Jake Paul and Mike Tyson have been encouraged to cancel their ‘mismatch’ showdown. ‘Iron Mike’ is set to step back in the ring aged 58 to take on YouTube star Jake Paul in a blockbuster summer fight, a fight which has seen him given medical warnings given their 31-year age difference. Tyson has been documenting his training in footage posted to social media, with some fans surprisingly impressed by his punch power and suggesting he will beat Paul. And his new footage crushing the pads with trainer Rafael Cordeiro, has been met by new pleas from fans for Paul to abandon the fight…

Russia may respond to any U.S. confiscation of its currency reserves frozen in the West by seizing the assets, including property and cash, of U.S. citizens and investors in Russia, Dmitry Medvedev, a senior security official, said on Saturday. The U.S. House of Representatives has passed a bill allowing the Biden administration to confiscate Russian assets held in American banks and transfer them to Ukraine, something the Kremlin has said would be illegal and trigger retaliation. In response to Russia’s war in Ukraine, the United States and its allies prohibited transactions with Russia’s central bank and finance ministry and blocked about…

Moscow (28/2). Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said that non-governmental organizations in Central Asia have stepped up their anti-Russian activities amid the ongoing invasion of Ukraine by the Russian army. Shoigu said this at the board of the Russian Ministry of Defense on February 27. According to him, there are more than 100 “large pro-Western non-governmental organisations” operating in Central Asia, which have more than 16,000 representative offices and branches. “Against the backdrop of the special military operation, these NGOs have significantly increased their anti-Russian activities in order to reduce military-technical, economic and cultural cooperation between the Central Asian states and Russia.…