BANTENG MERAH 15

Ukraine is pressing its allies for faster weapons supplies as intense fighting continues in the eastern Donetsk region. Following a weekend of attacks on the cities of Kharkiv and Kherson and ongoing battles around Bakhmut in Donetsk, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Sunday that “Russia hopes to drag out the war, to exhaust our forces. So we have to make time our weapon. We must ... speed up the supply and opening of new necessary weaponry options for Ukraine.” Ukraine’s allies agreed last week to provide the country with heavy battle tanks, with Kyiv then pressing for fighter jets too. One Ukrainian governent advisor was reported stating Saturday that “negotiations” were taking place over the possibility of sending fighter aircraft. Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz insisted over the weekend that fighter jets would not be provided to Ukraine, however, telling a German newspaper that “the question of combat aircraft does not arise at all,” Scholz told the Tagesspiegel newspa...

Just over a decade ago, the Palestinian flag hung alongside Israeli and American flags at the Israeli prime minister’s residence, when Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas shared a historic handshake. Today, Netanyahu is back in power and Abbas never left, but many other things have changed, including Israel’s attitude toward the Palestinian flag. This month, new Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir ordered police to take down Palestinian flags in any public place in Israel, claiming they are a rallying symbol for terrorists. At least one artist felt forced to respond to Ben Gvir’s decree. As soon as he heard about the minister’s order, Tel Aviv-based visual artist Michael Rozanov drew himself in the colors of the Palestinian flag and made the artwork his Facebook profile picture. “It’s ridiculous, you want to take down flags? What if I am a flag, what would you do? Would you put me down because I’m wearing certain colors?” said Rozanov, kn...

Poland has formally asked for approval from Germany to transfer some of its German-made Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, its defense minister said Tuesday, raising the pressure on Berlin to respond to Kyiv’s pleas and send its own shipment of vehicles into the battlefield. “The Germans have already received our request for consent to the transfer of Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine,” Mariusz Blaszczak said on Twitter. “I also appeal to the German side to join the coalition of countries supporting Ukraine with Leopard 2 tanks. This is our common cause, because it is about the security of the whole of Europe!” The German government confirmed receipt of the request; it would not say how quickly it would come to a decision, but emphasized that the process would take place with “necessary urgency.” Germany has so far resisted calls from Poland, the US and a handful of other NATO countries to transfer the tanks into Ukraine, or authorize other countries to send some of their Leopards to Kyiv. That posi...

The British government wants to hand new powers to police that would allow officers to take stronger action against people engaging in peaceful, political protest.  Human rights activists have accused the government of trying to suppress freedom of speech, while opposition politicians claim that Downing Street is simply trying to distract from the myriad of things going wrong in the United Kingdom at the moment.  The government issued a statement on Sunday night, in which it said it would table amendments to legislation that is already passing through Parliament called the Public Order Bill. This has already been the subject of huge controversy due to the extent to which it curbs protest.  Specifically, the bill nakedly targets groups such as Black Lives Matter, Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil, all of which have used disruptive tactics in their protests against the government.  The bill would criminalize long-standing protest tactics such as locking on (where ...

There are more than 5,000 known worlds beyond our solar system. Since the 1990s, astronomers have used ground and space-based telescopes to search for signs of planets beyond our tiny corner of the universe. Exoplanets are notoriously difficult to directly image because they’re so far away from Earth. But scientists know the signs, looking for wobbles of stars as orbiting planets use their gravitational pull, or dips in starlight as planets pass in front of their stellar hosts. It’s highly likely that there are hundreds of billions more exoplanets just waiting to be discovered. Part of the excitement around the James Webb Space Telescope is its ability to peer inside the atmospheres of potentially habitable planets and discover new worlds. This week, the space observatory certainly delivered. Other worlds The Webb telescope confirmed the existence of an exoplanet for the first time since the space observatory launched in December 2021. The world, known as LHS 475 b, is almost exactly t...

Amnesty International said Wednesday that soccer superstar Cristiano Ronaldo should highlight human rights issues in Saudi Arabia during his time playing at Al Nassr. A press release from the human rights watchdog quotes Dana Ahmed, its Middle East researcher, saying, “Al-Nassr’s signing of Cristiano Ronaldo fits into a wider pattern of sportswashing in Saudi Arabia. “Sportswashing” is the phenomenon of burnishing one’s reputation through sport. “It is highly likely that the Saudi authorities will promote Ronaldo’s presence in the country as a means of distracting from the country’s appalling human rights record,” added Ahmed. “Cristiano Ronaldo should not allow his fame and celebrity status to become a tool of Saudi’s sportswashing. He should use his time at Al-Nassr to speak out about the myriad human rights issues in the country.” The release argues that the Saudi state executes people without fair trial and does not allow for freedom of expression or association. Ronaldo will earn ...

 President Joe Biden’s embarrassment over classified documents found in his former offices is spiraling into a major political crisis that threatens to undermine the case for Donald Trump to be charged for his own hoarding of secret material. The revelation that another set of secret documents dating from Biden’s time as vice president were found at a second location immediately fueled Republican claims that the ex-president is being treated unfairly as he is investigated by a special counsel over classified information found at Mar-a-Lago. While Trump’s retention of hundreds of documents and attempts to thwart their transfer to the National Archives as required by law appears more serious at this stage, Biden’s deepening troubles are offering a huge opening to the new pro-Trump House majority. The GOP is already moving to unleash an investigative machine designed to prove their long-held belief that Democrats have weaponized the federal government and intelligence agencies against...