beautifulthailand99

Nice one, but the rumour you are alluding to it's his daughter !

Well it is and the scandal of Boris Johnson disgracefully giving a peerage to his son still rages on. That said, the same claims are appearing across a wide range of Western MSM now - such as WAPO here. Tusk and Macrons call to arms are a reflection of the new reality. This is the author ; Robert Fox, Journalist and broadcaster, Defence Correspondent for The Evening Standard and Senior Associate Fellow, Centre for Defence Studies, King's College London. https://archive.is/gm41Z “We are trying to find some way not to retreat,” Zelensky continued. After the Russian capture of Avdiivka in February, he said, “we have stabilized the situation because of smart steps by our military.” If the front remains stable, he said, Ukraine can arm and train new brigades in the rear to conduct a new counteroffensive later this year. Zelensky summed up the zero-sum reality of this conflict: “If you are not taking steps forward to prepare another counteroffensive, Russia will take them. That’s what we learned in this war: If you don’t do it, Russia will do it.” https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/30/ukraine-war-briefing-us-aid-delays-could-force-ukrainian-troops-to-retreat-step-by-step-zelenskiy-warns

And those claims about the Vikings and the Romans are 1000 years later than Israeli biblical claims on the Holy Land. It doesn't work like that, historic grudges poison politics for generations, that just the way it is.

Precisely - the point is you belong there and why should interlopers kick you out of your houses and land. 700k Palestinian Arabs were kicked out at the birth of Israel from their historic lands. Some still have the title deeds for their lands now having Israeli settlers living on then. Just imagine that happened to you - how would you react ? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakba

If we kicked out the scousers from Liverpool and sent most of them back to Ireland from whence they came and gave their houses and land to Pakistani and Indian immigrants within a generation I confidently predict Liverpool would be humming with commerce and industry. Add the Hong Kong Chinese to the mix and we could have Singapore on Mersey. Can you see any problems with this policy ? Might not get the Beatles though, but on the plus side we would lose Ken Dodd.

2 shock takeaways from this current conflict is that the much vaunted Mossad turned out to have feet of clay, and Israeli propaganda is so crude in many instances it is laughable. Previously I had always bought into the Munich, Eichmann Mossad had superpowers ability and could reach anywhere, anytime. Maybe the post-war generation of leaders forged in WW2 in various ways had it, but later generations have lost it. Not just Israel, to be fair.

Very well said Hummin and outside the echo chamber of the World News thread very interesting to see the fulsome support for your post from the wider membership.

Thailand never takes sides and there is no bad money only money if you continue to live there then that is tacit acceptance of this doctrine.

Young Israeli tourists in Thailand have been some of the most obnoxius and entitled folk it's ever been my displeasure to observe. It seems to be a rite of passage rather like the IDF.

They are not the Wunderwaffe some think they are. Russian kit is much more robust and grunt proof, and they have the benefit of a unified, consolidated supply chain. The logistics nightmare of Western kit donated to Ukraine must be horrendously and fiendishly complicated. https://www.politico.eu/article/ukraine-f-16-fighter-jets-war-russia-base-runway/ Falcons indeed need some adaptation — this is the preparation of the runways because the landing gear is more delicate in the MiGs, the wheels are small, the air intakes are low to the strip, there may be a danger of swallowing objects. But all this can be solved. There are risks for all aviation,” Yuriy Ihnat, spokesperson of the Ukrainian air force, told POLITICO. That care will extend to deploying teams with sealant to cover cracks and crevices or uneven concrete on runways as close to the frontline as possible to avoid making an obvious target out of just a few well-maintained sites, said Justin Bronk with the Royal United Services Institute think tank. “For a start, runways and taxi routes at multiple sites will need to be smooth and constantly checked for debris given how susceptible the low-slung, single-engine F-16s are to ground debris compared to MiG-29s,” he said.

Vladimir Putin may be weeks away from a breakthrough in Ukraine but the West is asleep - Comment There is a growing understanding across the Western allies that Ukraine is losing the ground war against Russia, and by summer could face defeat. Russia is pounding front lines with artillery, rocket and drone fire — and at over five times the rate the Ukrainian army can reply. Volodymyr Zelensky’s troops are exhausted — after sustaining in some sectors a heavier concentration of incoming artillery than at the Somme in 1916, or the Normandy Bocage after D-Day in 1944. The Western alliance seems oddly at sixes and sevens. The American Ukraine policy is ensnared by congressional in-fighting. European partners like Germany, gas-strapped Italy and Spain covertly or overtly are looking for a soft deal with Russia. https://www.standard.co.uk/comment/ukraine-war-russia-vladimir-putin-volodymyr-zelensky-b1148294.html

Trump is a narcissistic, inward looking blowhard who is the answer to nothing. Who will spend most of his term in office if he wins, polishing his own dirty halo and working through revenge on his past grudges. The working class dispossessed that think he is the new Messiah will be just as worse off after he's gone and even more bitter. That said he's outside the magic circle of the beltway, and he gets building stuff not war and in that specific arena his opposition to ever more endless wars destroying people, influence and wealth are to be applauded. Whoever wins the US is f**cked anyway. It really is the devil and the deep blue sea. Basically, if you vote Biden/Harris you are getting the Obama White House.

Ukraine is losing and losing big and if it continues on this trajectory could collapse in the summer, Tusk and Macron get this and want to get all in. European electorates should realise that it's not our war and whilst many have emotional and human natural support for the plucky Ukrainians, we don't have a dog in this fight. We've been down this alleyway many times before, domino theory in Vietnam, weapons of mass destruction in Iraq which could hit us in 45 minutes and now Putin threatens us all. They were lies then and they are lies now. Putin is a nasty authoritarian dictator, popular in his own county, but his writ only applies to core countries of the old soviet empire, and he's a rational actor he knows NATO would spank his arse if he ever took any NATO country on. Time to crank down the warmongering we've had 2 world wars start in Europe, time to stop a third. You don't pour petrol on a raging fire.And you don't start a kinetic war with Russia - just ask Napoleon and Hitler. Their peer neighbours should construct huge defences and rearm if they want - it's their call as sovereign nations accountable to their own electorates, and rightly so. But here in the UK we have a ravaged economy, crumbling infrastructure and social welfare state on its knees. We want butter before guns. Oh, and finally, if Trump wins and pulls the plug, it's over for Ukraine. Most of Europe will fold and suddenly will find it's more important to rebuild their own defences and armed forces than Ukraine, but they will be full of weasel words and empty gesture sabre-rattling. That's what they do. https://www.standard.co.uk/comment/ukraine-war-russia-vladimir-putin-volodymyr-zelensky-b1148294.html There is a growing understanding across the Western allies that Ukraine is losing the ground war against Russia, and by summer could face defeat. Russia is pounding front lines with artillery, rocket and drone fire — and at over five times the rate the Ukrainian army can reply. Volodymyr Zelensky’s troops are exhausted — after sustaining in some sectors a heavier concentration of incoming artillery than at the Somme in 1916, or the Normandy Bocage after D-Day in 1944. https://www.thearticle.com/defeat-of-the-west-emmanuel-todd-and-the-russo-ukrainian-war Ukraine’s determination to reconquer the Donbas and reclaim Crimea is “a suicidal project”, Todd claims. It is trying “to maintain its sovereignty over the populations of another nation – a nation far more powerful than it is”. He continues: “The suicidal lack of realism in Kiev’s strategy suggests – paradoxically – a pathological Ukrainian attachment to Russia: a need for conflict which reveals an inability to separate from it.” As for the West, Todd presents it as narcissistic and hubristically out of touch with the “Rest of the World”. Its “ideological solitude and ignorance of its own isolation” are the result of two decades of American-led globalisation and aggressive foreign policy. Backed up by an analysis of typical family structures and cultural and religious allegiances, Todd is not surprised that much of the Rest of the World is rooting for Russia, in its defiance of unipolar America-dominated hegemony and the “liberal international order”.

Not personally but was in Phattalung the only farang in a larger party of Thais with some beautiful women and my wife and was dancing with the girls and supporting the band with a 500 baht tip. In our party was a big policeman from Bangkok at whose wedding we had gone to in the previous week. He came to our party and asked us to leave. Outside we asked why it turned out that a gangster pi yai in the audience had took umbrage to a farang having it large and 'showing off' and he had a gun and wanted to shoot me ! It's wild West down south for sure ! Otherwise nothing Thailand is a very safe place if you respect the rules. Trouble attracts trouble.

That's the second time you've flounced off after being called out for an untruth. To be fair, I did once after you had baited me. I'm a wiser man now - live and let live and all that.

That's not what you said, though you asserted that my sectional interests had dictated the comments that I had read and that was indicative of my vile state of mind. Noted. Probably best to stop digging now. I'm man enough of when I have made a mistake to apologise and move on - it seems that's a lesson in your dotage you have yet to learn.

They were 28 comments I read them all so you may wish to retract your hasty and uncalled-for comment.

Hamas is as much an idea as it is an organisation. In the ruins of Gaza Israel is incubating 50 further years of existential pain whilst attempting to destroy a people. This will not end well for either party. Surely now enough is enough ?

I would like to see a fairer world order in which all the so-called superpowers use those powers not for national aggrandisement and to culturally assume the role of the world's policeman but for the benefit of all. Eliminate poverty, inequality and end to endless wars which just seem to begat new ones ad infinitum. Many of the legacy issues in Africa are in some ways connected to the European colonisation of the continent, when millions died and where enslaved whilst we built the foundations of modern states. But that aside, I am born and raised in the UK, a democratic country that likes to trumpet its support for an international rules based order. One in which sovereign countries aren't invaded, the rule of democracy and law are respected and applied, and we build partnerships with our friends who also share those goals. Yemen isn't remotely on that page and has no resources that we are interested in, so it suffers in relative obscurity, and we sanction its overlords and wouldn't ever consider selling them arms. Which brings me to Israel which is supposed to share those same values that we do and so can be supported, arms can be sold, and we can support them in the defence of their sovereignty. But up to a point, Lord Copper - it's not a totally unconditional relationship if Israel doesn't subscribe to its part of the bargain, to uphold international law and common shared values. Starving, a bombed and cowed population in their millions whilst the world looks on in horror is crossing a red line. We have agency, we have elected representatives onto who we can exert our disapproval and that is what happening now. So we care about what we see and what we can have some power to influence. Turn back Israel whilst you still can, and before you disgust the whole civilised world with your inhumanity to your neighbours. It's that simple now.

Who is fooling who - Western governments talk big, but when it comes to the pocket book they are duplicitous as any. The truth is despite all the posturing and high blown rhetoric we can't afford to take on Putin nor he us. So poor Ukraine gets crushed like a butterfly on a wheel. https://archive.is/aXjjO Western consumers continue to fund Putin’s war because we continue to import huge quantities of Putin’s oil, much of it routed through Russian-owned refineries in India in order to make it appear as if sanctions are working. Shipbrokers and insurers in London continue to enable this trade, and they are well represented by lobbyists in the EU. When the results become glaringly obvious – for example, when Russia records a trade surplus sufficient to fund its military for three years, as it did in 2022 – the West can be stirred into responding with harder sanctions, such as the price cap on Russian crude oil of $60 a barrel that was introduced at the end of 2022.

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/27/opinions/gaza-israel-resigning-state-department-sheline/index.html I am haunted by the final social media post of Aaron Bushnell, the 25-year-old US Air Force serviceman who self-immolated in front of the Israeli Embassy in Washington on February 25: “Many of us like to ask ourselves, ‘What would I do if I was alive during slavery? Or the Jim Crow South? Or apartheid? What would I do if my country was committing genocide?’ The answer is, you’re doing it. Right now.” I can no longer continue what I was doing. I hope that my resignation can contribute to the many efforts to push the administration to withdraw support for Israel’s war, for the sake of the 2 million Palestinians whose lives are at risk and for the sake of America’s moral standing in the world.

You're cheerleading on a Trump win with increased fuel prices. But you know that and do it anyway. The latest U.S. consumer price reading from Tuesday showed inflation rose more than anticipated on the back of a surge in gasoline prices. Granted, gas prices in the U.S. are now slightly lower than they were at this time last year. But they are a massive 60% higher now than they were in early November 2020, just before President Biden won the election. https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Rising-Gasoline-Prices-Bring-Bad-News-for-Biden.html

Interesting you singled out that in my post but not the big elephant in the room from Haaretz.

Read nearly every single comment under that post. The world doesn't seem to care anymore.

If mass starvation happens as many internationally aid agencies mentioned in that Haaretz article suggest is already underway, expect a lot of whatboutery. What about Sudan, what about Yemen. etc ? And then the famine will be blamed on anti-Semitism, that's how far down the rabbit hole we have gone.