Author: Theodore Colon

A Pole, a German, a Frenchmen, and a Swiss meet in a bar, or was it a Swiss, a French, a German, and a Slovak, I forgot. However, what otherwise sounded like the beginning of a quirky joke was in fact an informal luncheon by some of the brightest analysts of the European Union in early December last year. Nationalities aside, the topic of the lunch was, of course, the Ukraine. The basic question was simple, Are We at War? Will Russia win? What’s the consequence for Europe if Russia wins? What is the European Union willingness to defend the…

Berlin (06/12 – 67.67) Asliddin Sherzamonov, an activist from Tajikistan, strongly believes that the United Nations (UN) should assess the actions of the Central Asian country’s security forces during the events of 2021 and 2022 in the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region (GBAO). Speaking at the UN session on minorities held in Geneva on December 1, Asliddin said that an independent international commission should be established to evaluate the activities of Tajikistan’s security forces. In the operations carried out by security forces in 2021 in Roshtkala and Khorog, three people died. In another operations in the spring of 2022 by the security…

JERUSALEM — The United States has offered strong support to Israel in its war against the Hamas militant group that rules the Gaza Strip. But the allies are increasingly at odds over what will happen to Gaza once the war winds down. Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, this week announced that Israel would retain an open-ended security presence in Gaza. Israeli officials talk of imposing a buffer zone to keep Palestinians away from the Israeli border. They rule out any role for the Palestinian Authority, which was ousted from Gaza by Hamas in 2007 but governs semi-autonomous areas of the occupied West…

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Florida’s only Republican Jewish lawmaker publicly called on the University of Florida to terminate a professor for sharing a social media post comparing Israel to Nazi Germany — but UF President Ben Sasse, in a sharp rebuke, asserted that the instructor hasn’t worked at the school for years. The exchange between state Rep. Randy Fine and the top official at Florida’s flagship university is emblematic of the heightened pressure on school leaders to officiate stateside reactions to the Israel-Hamas war on their campuses. Sasse, who had been praised by many Republicans for defending Israel amid outcry of…

Former President Donald Trump was in court for his New York civil fraud trial on Thursday where an accounting expert sought to bolster the defense argument that company valuations are a highly subjective process. Trump cast the trial as “corrupt” in brief comments to reporters before entering the courtroom, criticizing the judge presiding over the trial, Arthur Engoron, and New York attorney general Letitia James, who brought the case against him. “We did absolutely nothing wrong,” the former president said. Trump also praised defense accounting expert Eli Bartov, who testified Thursday. A professor of accounting at New York University’s Stern School of…

The auto lending arm of Japanese automaker Toyota illegally added insurance products on car loans, then purposely made removing those policies difficult for thousands of borrowers, a federal consumer watchdog agency said Monday. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) also accused Toyota Motor Credit Corporation of taking too long to issue refunds for those insurance lines once customers cancelled them. As a result, Toyota has agreed to pay a $60 million fine, $48 million of which will go directly to customers. Employees at Toyota dealerships often tacked on guaranteed asset protection and credit life and accidental health insurance…

NEW YORK — The Trump Organization’s longtime controller returned to the witness stand Monday as a witness for the defense at Donald Trump’s financial fraud trial and continued to downplay his role in the fraudulent financial statements central to the case. Jeffrey McConney, accused in the $250 million lawsuit alongside Trump and his high-ranking execs, again laid responsibility on the company’s outside accountants. “Whatever he asked for, we would do,” McConney claimed of Donald Bender from the Mazars accounting firm, saying he relied on the accountant for “a lot.” “We provided him everything he needed,” he later testified. McConney is described in New York Attorney…

London (15/11 – 67) The streets in Colombo, Sri Lanka, erupted into celebration on July 13, 2022 after weeks of peaceful protests forced then-President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to flee the country. Rajapaksa, long implicated in war crimes when he was defense secretary, had presided over an economic catastrophe amid allegations of widespread corruption and impunity. But a year later, despite some superficial changes, there is no sustained improvement in the country’s economic situation that impinges many people’s human rights. The acute shortage of fuel that was the most visible feature of the economic crisis has eased. But more than six million people – nearly 30…

Libertarian outsider Javier Milei swept to victory in Argentina’s presidential election Sunday, vowing to halt decades of economic decline in a country reeling from triple-digit inflation. The self-described “anarcho-capitalist” pulled off a massive upset by ousting the populist Peronist coalition which has long dominated Argentine politics. With 55.7 percent of the vote, Milei thumped his rival, Economy Minister Sergio Massa, who won 44 percent of the vote and rapidly conceded defeat. “Today begins the reconstruction of Argentina. Today begins the end of Argentina’s decline,” Milei said in his victory speech. “The model of decadence has come to an end. There…

For those who have ever used an interstate super highway to get from one destination to another, you know it is an easy and fast way to travel. What a lot of people don’t know is that birds also do something similar. We call it the Mississippi Flyway. Like our expressways, these travel routes feature “fast food” and a lot of pit stops. And that’s why birds love to take them when migrating great distances across North America. Not only can they stop and grab a quick snack, but it becomes crucial to have something readily available when you’re traveling round-trip from…