Close to your neck of the woods @ZinedineBiscan
What the he’ll is going on with our police? Every few days there’s another story like this. 
How missing WA girl was found (msn.com)
for those remotely aware, little Cleo Smith was found alive today.
kidnapped, but well…man is in custody now.
Glad to hear that she has been found alive.
The headline item on BBC TV news is that 8 people died in a crush in Texas…
No mention at all in the the next 5 items of the scores of people burned to death in Sierra Leone when a tanker exploded.
I am watching the 12.00 bulletin on BBC news channel and it has just been mentioned in the 18th minute. Why is the crushing of 8 people (however tragic) in Texas ranked as the most important news item today?
Hmm…that’s pretty dire. Do the BBC ever explain/rationalise how they prioritise their reporting?
The reason is fairly obvious but will spark a furious internet debate of mammoth proportions.
This country has an unhealthy obsession with the US?
Well it is the country thats going to save the United part and I’m sure that many hope the Great part as well.
Ehem:
Also would advice you to read the article you posted. He promised no such thing, at least not clearly, and likely won’t during this presidential term. He said yes and yes, but did not elaborate for a reason. Later his admin walked it back as stated in the article you posted. So I hope Taiwan does not think they are a NATO state or member of a similar alliance, because if they make policy on such assumptions, it could well backfire terribly. Also, I China is rising, I do not see them back down from Chinese reunification in the coming decades at all. Particularly not now, when their main military objective is to build up capabilities to invade Taiwan should the Chinese leadership want such a course of action.
And then we have the fact that they have been increasing, as well as making it far more resilient, their nuclear arsenal over the last year, building more than a hundred new ICBM silos. Most experts I have read point to this new more resilient nuclear arsenal that they are building, is as to make nuclear blackmail by the US in a military conflict impossible or less potent. This again makes intervening for the US a lot more complex, since they can’t so easily browbeat them with the threat of nuclear force in the event of a conventional military conflict.
So I would advice a bit caution here, as projecting enough force into Taiwan would not be an easy feat even for the mighty US, even though US general Miley now says that they can technically do it. Exorbitant cost though, and we have seen the US pull back from an extremely low cost conflict, such as Afghanistan.
Digression, but here is some info on Chinese nuclear build up that is from a few days ago:
Also:
This is bad. That newspaper was far from perfect, but they had all kinds of stories and were not afraid to criticise oligarchs. Now their oligarch owner have killed them for being too critical of the incumbent regime. That is bad, particularly in a time where Ukraine needs foreigners to read news from them, given their precarious position. And if they don’t then have a trustworthy source in English, the Russian media apparatus will kill them by flooding the media sphere, which again will cause real problems in times of military escalation.
is there alternative media coming out of Ukraine, i.e, is this the first brick in the wall or the last one?
There are media in Ukrainian. But not in English.
i assumed thered be media, i meant is there media that will offer a counterpoint to the government, i assumed thats what you meant by the tone of your post that the last newspaper to offer any counterpoint had been shut down
Nah, but it’s the only foreign languae paper and it is used by many, including foreign journalists and diplomats, to read about and keep updated on events in Ukraine. There are papers in Ukrainian but mostly everything there is controlled by oligarchs with little room for critical journalism. Kyev Post was reporting critically and independently. It still exists and will exist, but after having sacked all the journalists, they will hire loyal ones and will then obviously no longer attempt to be objective or critical of power: https://www.kyivpost.com/
It is very negative, because it means information from Ukraine will become even less reliable (and it is already not very reliable). It also means that Russia will have an easier time dominating the media sphere in the event of escalation…
*George Woloshyn
The independent Kyiv Post has ceased to exist today, after 26 years.
On the morning of Nov. 8, the paper’s employees came to the office only to be notified that they were all being fired, effective immediately.
Three weeks ago, the Kyiv Post’s owner, Odesa construction tycoon Adnan Kivan, had other plans: To expand the Kyiv Post and launch a Ukrainian-language outlet under the paper’s brand. At the time, this news, as well as the appointment of a hand-picked chief editor to head this new section, were a total surprise to the newsroom.
We saw significant risks in the expansion format chosen by Mr. Kivan. We also saw it as an attempt to infringe on our editorial independence.
The newsroom’s attempt to save the editorial independence of the Kyiv Post elicited opposition from our owner.
We consider the cessation of publication and the dismissal of the paper’s staff to be an act of vengeance by Adnan Kivan. He has officially announced plans to “reorganize” the Kyiv Post and to restart operations in a month with a new team.
We see this as the owner getting rid of inconvenient, fair, and honest journalists.
The Kyiv Post has been the international community’s primary source of news about Ukraine for the last 26 years.
We have exemplified high professional and ethical standards. That is why every president and government in Ukraine’s history attempted to influence the Kyiv Post.
However, even under all this pressure, none of our owners went so far as to shut down the paper. Adnan Kivan himself promised to protect our editorial independence when he bought the Kyiv Post in 2018.
“I highly value the work of Kyiv Post journalists and intend to preserve editorial independence,” Kivan said at the time.
Today, we asked him to sell the paper or to hand over the Kyiv Post trademark to the newsroom. He did not agree.
We call upon our readers and advertisers, businessmen, diplomats, international organizations, and everyone else who believes in independent journalism to support us.
The Kyiv Post newsroom*
Rumours I’ve heard are the taxi driver locked the terrorist in when he realised what was going on.
He’s in hospital now with his injuries. Fingers crossed he makes a full recovery.