US President Joe Biden has given permission for Ukrainian pilots to receive training on American F-16 combat jets. Western countries backing the Ukrainian government have insisted that their pilots are trained to operate equipment first before delivery, as part of an initiative that is already underway with some other NATO members. Biden gave the green light at the G7 summit in Hiroshima, Japan, though a decision on the delivery of the US-made aircraft is yet to come. The coalition will decide who would provide the F-16s, when and how many they will supply, with training due to start shortly and last several months.
The development of militarized artificial intelligence (AI) is the next international arms race, with politicians "in the loop" as a final decision, according to The New York Times. The paper suggests such militarization of AI will lead to potential conflicts based on flawed algorithms rather than human judgement. A possible international moratorium on AI militarization would solve the issue of unmanned machines controlling and directing military operations, but this outcome seems unlikely, even in the face of pressure from the international campaign to Stop Killer Robots.
Vyacheslav "Slava" Zaitsev has died aged 85. A Soviet-era fashion designer, he was known as the "Red Dior" due to his flamboyant designs, which first caught the eye of the Western press. He became the first Soviet fashion designer to have his own label in 1982 when he set up the Slava Zaitsev Moscow Fashion House. Zaitsev went on to design costumes for the Soviet team at the 1980 Moscow Olympics and dress the Gorbachev-era nomenklatura in well-cut suits. Despite showing his collections around the world, his nationalist designs meant that Russia remained his main market.
A new statue has been unveiled in Triangle Park in Tallangatta, Victoria, to commemorate Australian horse Sandy, who was the only horse out of 130,000 to make it back to Australia after serving during the First World War. Thousands of people came to pay tribute to Sandy, while local plumber and horseman Ross Smith, who raised $160,000 for the statue, said he was “overwhelmed and excited” to see his dream come true. Sandy, a bay gelding, was donated by brothers Frank “Bonner” O’Donnell and Jack O’Donnell to the Army in 1914 to contribute to the war effort. In 1915, the horse was attached to an army veterinary unit in northern France before being shipped home, aged 18. For several years after the war, Sandy lived in an army paddock in Maribyrnong in Melbourne’s inner west, before being euthanised in 1923.
There was no plan B for Russia in Ukraine and Putin cannot win, lose, or stop, according to New York Times columnist, Thomas Friedman. He reveals that Ukraine's 1991 independence was seen as an "unfortunate historical misunderstanding" by the Russian elite, who have sought to bring Ukraine back into the fold ever since. Ukraine, just like Russia, did not have a plan B; the fight against Russian aggression and its invasion of the eastern part of Ukraine has been long and tiring. Marich believes Ukraine's path to peace "is NATO."
Denmark is getting off fossil fuels. Are there lessons there for Canada?
CBC
23-05-20 08:00
Energy transition specialist Angela Carter has highlighted Denmark as a possible model for Canada to follow as it seeks to cut ties with fossil fuels by mid-century. Denmark said last year that it would stop awarding permits for oil and gas exploration in the North Sea and commit to renewable power for all energy demands by 2050. Carter said that it was the “massive public engagement” and accompanying government investment that paved the way for Denmark's energy transition.The development of wind technology overtook the fishing industry in Denmark, while government funding to build wind farms created a foundation upon which supply chains could be built. Denmark now hosts the successful Offshore Academy, which allows fossil fuel and offshore wind workers to learn new skills and switch industries.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) has celebrated its 150th anniversary with the traditional horsey ballet shows of its "Musical Ride". The routine sees police officers don iconic red serge outfits, hoist lances and pay tribute to the country’s heritage as they perform trademark routines with their black horses. Maxwell Newhouse reflected on his paintings centred on the RCMP ritual as he located how Canadian pride was embodied in the spectacle. Dozens of the performances are staged in Quebec and British Columbia annually.
Filmmaker Steve McQueen has premiered his new four-and-a-half-hour documentary, "Occupied City," at Cannes film festival. The film focuses on the Nazi occupation of Amsterdam by using contemporary shots of the city alongside a narrated account of what happened in specific locations under Nazi rule. McQueen said the film is about showing a connection between World War II and the present, and that he hopes the documentary will help viewers better understand the rise of the far-right and the war in Ukraine. The film has been compared to some of the great World War II films and has received Universal acclaim from critics. McQueen's upcoming feature film, "Blitz," is also set during this time period.
On Armed Forces Day in the US, it is appropriate that British-American collaboration in war should be celebrated. The relationship began in 1859 with the US and the UK fighting together in the second Opium War. The partnership was active across the battlefields of the two World Wars. During WWII, British and American commanders became so united that they ran their forces as if they were both fighting for the same country. The Falklands War saw the UK particularly relying on US naval support and intelligence assistance to help them recapture the islands from Argentina. During the first Gulf War in 1991, the British Army initially relied heavily on the US Marine Corps for life support, as they did in Bosnia and Iraq and continue to do so in Afghanistan and Syria.
Canada's dependence on Californian produce is contributing to the country's food inflation and there is a risk of disruption to supply chains because of the state's ongoing water crisis, according to this analysis in The Toronto Star. Changes in climate, along with the depletion of aquifers and the slow degradation of topsoil, has made California's produce vulnerable to disruption. What was once a stable relationship now represents almost all of Canada's import business. "If California can’t produce and export with the same level of stability and predictability and costs that it’s had over the last 20 years, the implication of that is going to be higher prices and periods of disruption," says Evan Fraser, director of the Arrell Food Institute and professor of geography at the University of Guelph.
An ice cream van has been criticised for setting up near the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial Site in Poland, where more than one million Jewish people were murdered during the Holocaust. The Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial Site Foundation has called on local authorities to stop the van trading outside the former concentration camp. The camp was set up by the Nazis and operated until 1945. It was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1979. Last month, the museum appealed to tourists to “respect” the memory of the site, after a photo of a visitor posing for an Instagram photo drew criticism.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of Russian mercenary group Wagner, has claimed that the group has successfully captured the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut. However, Ukraine has denied the claim. Bakhmut is a regional transport and logistics hub in Ukraine's Donetsk that Moscow aims to annex with its "special military operation". Its capture would put two larger cities in the region, Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, within easy range of Russian artillery. Despite this, US and NATO military officials have played down its significance. The largely ruined city has been at the centre of the war's longest and bloodiest battle.
Russia’s private army, Wagner, claims to have captured the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut after what leader Yevgeny Prigozhin has branded as “the longest and bloodiest battle of the war", however, the situation there still remains critical. The announcement comes just after Ukrainian forces made their most rapid gains of the last six months in Bakhmut’s surrounding area. Wagner will reportedly pull out of the ruins of Bakhmut in five days, handing the city over to the regular military. Prigozhin has repeatedly denounced Russia’s regular military for abandoning ground captured earlier by his men.
Teaching children that climate change poses an existential threat is deeply irresponsible given the lack of agreement between scientists and economists on the pace of temperature rises, their impact, and the most effective response. The fear instilled by this alarmist approach can have a damaging impact on mental health, with some teenagers even forgoing parenthood because of predicted overpopulation. Transport and heating policies have also been set with unrealistic targets, adding expense and practical difficulties. While society needs to address and protect the environment, it can ill-afford to ignore the psychological consequences of crisis-mongering among the young.
Killers of the Flower Moon, the latest film from Martin Scorsese, premiered yesterday at Cannes. The new movie is being compared favourably to Scorsese’s hit film The Irishman, another sweeping gangster movie that focused on the criminality that pervades the US. Killers of the Flower Moon is a larger-than-life western epic that retells the story of the Osage Indian murders of the 1920s, in which white colonists killed 60 Native Americans in order to secure rights to their oil. The film stars Robert De Niro, Leonardo DiCaprio and Lily Gladstone.
A letter to The Telegraph has expressed concern that Sir Keir Starmer's call to broaden the electorate might lead to Labour removing the vote from British citizens aged over 75, in an effort to reverse Brexit. The suggestions follow Sir Keir's support for granting the vote to both 16 and 17-year-olds and EU nationals resident in the UK. Terry Smith from north-west London argues that it would be absurd to remove the vote from elderly citizens on the grounds that they would not live to experience decisions about Brexit. Similarly, other letters were written arguing either for or against the increasing of the UK's population, the effect of LED lights on drivers and support for reparations to those impacted by slavery.
Translators have spoken of ethical dilemmas that can arise as they work on books by authors whose views and attitudes are at odds with their own. American translator Charlotte Mandell is set to translate Louis-Ferdinand Céline’s controversial novel Guerre, a book by the revered novelist which he wrote while living in Germany during the Second World War. Céline is widely regarded as a vicious anti-Semite. Another translator, Frank Wynne, who is currently in contention for this year’s International Booker Prize, voiced the view that any book of interest deserves translation. Translators have to deal with decisions such as the Russian translation of Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, which doesn’t include the character of Robert Cohn, who is Jewish, as it allows Russian publishers to elide concerns about possible antisemitism.
The UK is imposing the largest tax hike since the 1970s with the government's decision to freeze personal tax thresholds for the next five years, thereby dragging millions of middle-income earners into the 40% tax bracket. Sunak and Hunt have locked the starting and higher-rate thresholds at £12,570 and £50,270 respectively until 2028. As such, the share of adults paying tax at 40% will soar to 14% over the next five years, according to an Institute of Fiscal Studies report released last week. The extended threshold freeze will raise £26bn a year, equivalent to hiking the basic rate of income tax from 20p to 24p in the pound. However, this extended threshold freeze will severely hinder economic growth, and few policies are more likely to discourage investment than hiking corporation tax from 19% to 25%, which will cost the Treasury money, not raise revenue.
Ukraine has denied claims by Russia that it has captured Bakhmut, a key battle city in Ukraine’s east, despite Russian president Vladimir Putin congratulating his troops on the alleged capture. Kyiv has denied the city had been captured, and it was suggested that there was confusion on 22 May amid reports that Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky appeared to have confirmed the city had been captured by Russia while speaking at the G7 summit, but his spokesman later clarified that he had not said so. Speaking alongside US President Joe Biden in Hiroshima, Japan, Zelensky said the Russians had destroyed "everything" in Bakhmut. "You have to understand that there is nothing," he added. "For today, Bakhmut is only in our hearts. There is nothing in this place."
Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin had posed with fighters on Saturday after claiming to have captured the city. Ukraine denied the city had been taken but said the situation was “critical”. but warned that the situation was "critical". However, it has emerged that Ukrainian troops are partly encircling Bakhmut in the form of a semi-circle and still hold a part of the city, with its deputy defence minister Hanna Maliar saying that Ukrainian troops are continuing their advances along Bakhmut’s outskirts and are still defending industrial and infrastructure facilities in Bakhmut as well as a private sector of the city.
Russia and Ukraine have been in conflict since the 2014 annexation of Crimea by Russia, with fighting breaking out in the east of Ukraine between Ukrainian troops and separatists backed by Moscow. Russian troops have been regularly accused of supporting the rebels in the conflict and tensions have remained high since a ceasefire was agreed in July 2020, with several border skirmishes taking place, a build-up of Russian forces near the Ukraine border and Russia's annexation of Crimea.
The UK’s largest girls-only organisation, Girlguiding, dissolved its international operating arm, British Girlguides (BGO),of just under 2,600 members almost exclusively from English-speaking homes in 36 countries. Girlguiding has been hit by several noteworthy controversies in the past three years, including complaints from a guide leader over a policy allowing boys claiming to be girls to join the charity. Trans Girl Guide commissioner Monica Sulley was featured in photographs with a fake assault rifle and wearing inappropriate clothing and followers of the charity generally found it to be too focused on politics. In the UK, Girlguiding is now facing increasing competition from similar programmes that have taken on a “cachet of cool”. On the website, it states that Girlguiding offers adventures galore: “We do anything from abseiling to zooming around on a zipline. We explore new places and meet people from different cultures. We speak out on issues that matter to us and make a difference in our communities.”
