Month: June 2023

While U.S. military officers here caution against too direct a comparison between the 1944 D-Day landings and Ukraine’s upcoming counteroffensive, the echoes of what Kyiv faces today are a dominant theme of this year’s commemorations of the young U.S. soldiers who died on the Normandy beaches nearly 80 years ago.  For days the villages and towns surrounding Omaha and Utah beaches have held parades, memorial events, flyovers and parachute demonstrations to build up to the annual celebration of D-Day, the launch of Operation Overlord. The June 6, 1944, invasion marked the beginning of the Allies’ massive ground invasion which would …

READ MORE

Chinese research on some key military technologies is so far ahead that the United States and its key allies may never be able to catch up, according to a new analysis by an Australian think tank. The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) issued its findings Tuesday based on a review of the top 10% of the most highly cited research papers, concluding China leads in 19 of 23 key categories, including some that are likely to play a major role in Beijing’s push for military prominence in the Indo-Pacific and beyond. China “has a commanding lead in hypersonics, electronic warfare …

READ MORE

Moscow announced that journalists from what it deems “unfriendly countries” would not be allowed to attend this year’s St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, marking the latest move by the Kremlin to hinder Western journalists from covering Russia.  Held annually since 1997, the economic forum is considered Russia’s version of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. President Vladimir Putin uses the forum, one of the country’s showpiece events, to advertise Russia’s economy to global investors. This year the forum will be held June 14-17. Western journalists have never been banned from covering the forum in such a sweeping way, according to Reuters. …

READ MORE

Latest developments: In a meeting with British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly in Kyiv on Monday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy discussed preparations for a NATO summit and Ukraine’s plan for ending Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. U.S. President Joe Biden is hosting talks Monday with Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen that are expected to include discussion of support for Ukraine and training of Ukrainian pilots on fourth-generation fighter jets.   Russian mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin said on Monday that Ukrainian forces had retaken part of a village near Bakhmut, Ukraine, after his Wagner paramilitary group handed its positions there to the regular Russian …

READ MORE

Prince Harry’s highly anticipated showdown against the publisher of the Daily Mirror kicked off Monday without him present in court — and the judge was not happy. Harry’s lawyer said the Duke of Sussex would be unavailable to testify following opening statements because he’d taken a flight from Los Angeles after the birthday of his 2-year-old daughter, Lilibet, on Sunday. “I’m a little surprised,” Justice Timothy Fancourt said, noting he had directed Harry to be in court for the first day of his case. Mirror Group Newspaper’s lawyer, Andrew Green, said he was “deeply troubled” by Harry’s absence on the …

READ MORE

 PARIS (AP) — France’s beloved abbey of Mont-Saint-Michel has reached a ripe old age. It’s been 1,000 years since the laying of its first stone.  The millennial of the UNESCO World Heritage site and key Normandy tourism magnet is being celebrated until November with exhibits, dance shows and concerts. French President Emmanuel Macron is heading there on Monday.  Macron plans to deliver a speech and to see a new exhibit tracing the Romanesque abbey’s history via 30 objects and pieces, including a restored statue of Saint Michael.   Legend has it that the archangel Michael appeared in 708, duly instructing the …

READ MORE

Among the thousands of fans in the stands at Europe’s biggest soccer games are a few people operating undercover. Trained volunteer observers listen for racist chants and watch for extremist symbols on banners. “You have to be aware of the environment and fit in without standing out. You have to be discreet,” one observer, who has worked at games involving some of soccer’s best-known clubs and national teams, told The Associated Press. “Obviously nothing gets published on social media. You have to be anonymous. You have to just sort of blend in. Don’t engage in conversations with anybody.” A way …

READ MORE

The life of a German Iranian detained in Iran is in danger and she is in such pain she can barely move, a fellow prisoner who is a prominent rights activist said Sunday. Nahid Taghavi, 68, was sentenced to 10 years and eight months in jail in August 2021 after being arrested at her Tehran apartment in October 2020, and is being held in solitary confinement at Tehran’s Evin prison. Even after recent releases, more than a dozen Western passport holders remain detained in Iran, held according to rights groups as part of a deliberate policy of hostage-taking by Tehran …

READ MORE