A Yorkshire team of Under-10 girls have beaten boys' sides to clinch a cup win.
www.bbc.co.uk
Move over five-a-day, it’s all about 30 plants a week. But what counts as a plant point? And why aim for 30?
www.bbc.co.uk
Opal, 18 months, can now hear - even a whisper - after becoming the first person to try a new treatment.
www.bbc.co.uk
The Kremlin adviser explains how Russia views the war in Ukraine and the fate of liberalism.
www.newstatesman.com
Karaganov has promoted the concept of “Greater Eurasia” and has defended a closer partnership with China. He is known as a foreign-policy hawk, and has argued that the long reign of the West in world politics is now at an end.
Rubbish! He thinks there is something better? Perhaps Russia (or the Russian people more naturally) just has this inferiority complex - being so huge as a country but only doing as much as many much smaller European countries might have done over history.
For 25 years, people like myself have been saying that if Nato and Western alliances expand beyond certain red lines, especially into Ukraine, there will be a war. I envisioned that scenario as far back as 1997. In 2008 President Putin said that if Ukraine’s membership of the alliance became a possibility then there will be no Ukraine. He was not listened to. So the first objective is to end Nato’s expansion.
Except it isn't NATO expansion but more the expansion of democracy, and the right for each of these countries to
choose what they want to do. Tough if Russia doesn't like or agree with this. So it would help if these twits got the facts right first.
It is a war, and we’re in the fog of war, so opinions change, aims change. At the start, maybe some thought that the Ukrainian military would arrange some kind of a coup so we would have a real power in Kyiv with whom we could negotiate – recent presidents, and especially Zelensky, are considered puppets.
Special Military Operation, old chap. Some (Russian thugs) might have implanted enough Russian stooges into Ukraine to think such was possible, given that this
is the Russian way with so many bordering countries, and just shows the inadequacies and insecurities of these Russians.
This war is a kind of proxy war between the West and the rest – Russia being, as it has been in history, the pinnacle of “the rest” – for a future world order. The stakes of the Russian elite are very high – for them it is an existential war.
The rest? As ever seeing Russia as some kind of leader? You are joking of course. For the 'Russian elite' read, the oligarchs and/or all those who still believe might is right. Which perhaps is still the Russian way of life and death - but where so many countries have simply moved on from this.
And the 'existential war' nonsense is purely for home consumption, given that Russia has been the threatening nation - as to those countries bordering it - for so long. Plus the fact that the necessity for nuclear weapons originated over different political systems - communism over democracy - and since this has mostly evaporated, there is no existential threat any more, but Russia has found a new use for such weapons - in threatening others whilst still doing its usual land-grabbing. Perhaps if they stopped doing this then they might calm down as to feeling attacked.
Put it this way: if the US intervenes against a nuclear country, then the American president making that decision is mad, because it wouldn’t be 1914 or 1939; this is something bigger. So I don’t think America could possibly intervene, but we are already in a much more dangerous situation than several weeks ago.
As above, which country has been the one threatening to use nuclear weapons, and which is the most mad? Obviously Russia is.
If we could have solved the crisis peacefully there’s no question that parts of Europe would have orientated themselves not towards Russia itself but Greater Eurasia, of which Russia would be a key part. That scenario is now postponed, but Europe needs to develop a relationship with Greater Eurasia. We lived through world wars and cold wars, and then we rebuilt our relationship. I hope that we shall do that in ten years. I hope I shall see that before I pass.
But you never did rebuild relationships, as to being trusted, and this war has made it even less likely for Russia to be trusted in the future or to have many ties with other European countries, unless Russia became more democratic - and which would have halted this piece of stupidity before it began - if such had happened after the USSR broke up. But of course that was an expectation too far after decades of communism.
I would say yes, this is an existential war. If we do not win, somehow, then I think we will have all kinds of unforeseen political repercussions which are much worse than at the beginning of the 1990s. But I believe that we will avoid that, first, because Russia will win, whatever that victory means, and second, because we have a strong and tough regime, so in any event, or if the worst happens, it will not be the dissolution of the country or collapse. I think it will be closer to a harsh authoritarian regime than to the dissolution of the country. But still, defeat is unthinkable.
So, just retreating to what the USSR was and hardly progress.
The problem is that during the last 500 years the foundation of Western power was the military preponderance of Europeans. This foundation started eroding from the 1950s and 1960s. Then the collapse of the Soviet Union made it seem for a while that Western predominance was back, but now it is done away with, because Russia will continue to be a major military power and China is becoming a first-class military power. So the West will never recuperate, but it doesn’t matter if it dies: Western civilisation has brought all of us great benefits, but now people like myself and others are questioning the moral foundation of Western civilisation.
Fortunately your kind of morality is not going to win, and neither are the religions that such seems to be allied with. Whatever the West might be accused of, democracy and liberalism are the things that are benefiting so many and where they
would fight to defend such. Your major military notions are all wrong, given it is far better to spend any wealth on those things that actually enhances the lives of any population rather than just appearing big and threatening.
Increase in cases reflects changing mood across continent towards Chinese threats, say experts
www.theguardian.com
The discovery of these underwater hot springs in 1977 solved the mystery of how life first began on Earth, but it was locating the world’s most famous shipwreck that made me a celebrity
www.theguardian.com
As a survey reveals that a quarter of people aged between 18 and 34 would never dare answer the phone, Olivia Petter asks if we’re truly better off with text-based communication – or whether we’re missing out on real intimacy
www.independent.co.uk
Putin's controversial guest list included his leather-clad friend The Surgeon.
metro.co.uk
He is known for his homophobic views and admiration of ruthless Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, according to The Telegraph.
No doubt he will be wheelie good at demonstrating what a great ******* he is.
The biker leader is a known friend of Putin’s. After a bromance that is thought to have started in 2009, Putin awarded Zaldostanov the prestigious Order of Honour state medal which emboldened the biker and his gang as Putin’s unofficial henchmen.
Can't wait to see the photos.
Comedy star Lucy Beaumont has hit out at the high street jewellery shop Claires and called for a boycott of the chain for allowing parents to pierce the ears of their babies
www.mirror.co.uk
Tend to agree, given the basic notion of human rights and consent - just like circumcision and FGM.
Disgraced comedian Russell Brand, 48, took to X - formerly Twitter - to share the photo of himself, Bear and another man topless as they hugged it out in the Thames
www.mirror.co.uk
Often a case of perhaps choosing sides or just not doing so, but when so many accuse someone of bad behaviour this is more often true.
www.sciencealert.com
