Author: Gisbert Bouchard

“When I was abroad, I saw them on pretty much every city block. I would love to have the same thing here in the US.” Whenever you visit a new place, there are likely to be aspects of daily life there that feel totally new. And personally, I love discovering international habits or customs I wish I could adopt back home. So Redditor u/danielgmal asked, “What did you experience in another country that you wish you could make a part of your regular life?” Here’s what people said. 1. “The cafe culture that is so common in France. I loved just sitting at an outdoor cafe…

Paris/Jakarta (24/7 – 28.57). “Coffee is the common man’s gold, and like gold, it brings to every person the feeling of luxury and nobility.” – Sheik-Abd-al-Kadir A friend recently opened a coffee shop is called after its owner, Muteeya. Though modest, it embodies the burgeoning coffee culture found in Paris, London, the US, and now Jakarta. The coffee is steaming hot, and soft tunes fill the air. Outside, rain pounds against the window, streaking down and forming small puddles on the street. As I gaze through the glass blurred by water, I take a sip of my warm coffee,…

Brussels/London (16/6 – 33.33) The defeat of the Russian Federation is a foregone conclusion. It is a reality. It is a must. Victory for Ukraine is non-negotiable. It is an absolute necessity. As ironclad as Brussels, London, Berlin or Washington. As ironclad as the Normandy battlefield, Waterloo, Verdun, or many other spots on the planet. We, the ones living in this generation that saw the war erupted right in front of our eyes, owe it to the young men and women in the Ukraine who gave their lives for this conviction. An excessive number of sceptics advocate for surrender. We…

Caen (13/6 – 30). The past days saw a sway of D-Day celebration of June 6, 1944, bringing together the land, air, and sea forces of the allied armies in what became known as the largest amphibious invasion in military history. The operation, given the codename OVERLORD, delivered five naval assault divisions to the beaches of Normandy, France. The beaches were given the code names UTAH, OMAHA, GOLD, JUNO, and SWORD. The invasion force included 7,000 ships and landing craft manned by over 195,000 naval personnel from eight allied countries. Almost 133,000 troops from the United States, the British Commonwealth,…

Most dismissed retired IDF general Yitzhak Brick’s warning earlier this year of a Hamas invasion. Now Netanyahu wants his advice on how to win. Yitzhak Brick might be the only Israeli military official to see what was coming. And he’s been warning of it for some time. He also does not see a ground invasion of Gaza as the only option. And Israel must prepare for a multi-front war given the situation in the north. Brick cautioned, among other things, of problems with the competence of ground forces and made it clear that the ground invasion does not have to be…

Moscow (28/2). Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said that non-governmental organizations in Central Asia have stepped up their anti-Russian activities amid the ongoing invasion of Ukraine by the Russian army. Shoigu said this at the board of the Russian Ministry of Defense on February 27. According to him, there are more than 100 “large pro-Western non-governmental organisations” operating in Central Asia, which have more than 16,000 representative offices and branches. “Against the backdrop of the special military operation, these NGOs have significantly increased their anti-Russian activities in order to reduce military-technical, economic and cultural cooperation between the Central Asian states and Russia.…

All men in Russia are required to do a year-long military service, or equivalent training during higher education, from the age of 18. Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree setting out the routine spring conscription campaign, calling up 150,000 citizens for statutory military service, a document posted on the Kremlin’s website showed on Sunday (31 March). All men in Russia are required to do a year-long military service, or equivalent training during higher education, from the age of 18. In July Russia’s lower house of parliament voted to raise the maximum age at which men can be conscripted to 30…

Frankfurt (22/09 – 58.33) Since May 2022, the Tajikistani authorities have stepped up their ongoing crackdown on Pamiris, an ethnic, linguistic and religious minority originating from the Pamir mountains in Gorno Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast of Tajikistan. They have arbitrarily detained hundreds of Pamiris, including civil society activists and human rights defenders, and imprisoned over 200 of them after convictions in unfair trials, in a campaign aimed at stripping the local communities of their leadership and dismantling their civil society. The authorities must immediately and unconditionally release Pamiri civil society activists, journalists and human rights defenders who have been detained solely…

France has started evacuating its citizens and other Europeans from Niger, days after a junta toppled the president, Mohamed Bazoum, and seized power in the west African country. Tensions between Niger and former colonial power France have escalated after the coup on 26 July overthrew one of the last pro-western leaders in Africa’s Sahel region. France’s decision to swiftly evacuate its citizens goes further than its reaction to putsches in recent years in the other former French colonies of Mali and Burkina Faso, where French citizens were not evacuated after military coups. The first of three planned evacuation flights landed in Paris…

Frankfurt, London (12/08 – 80) It seems that the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) has become a hostage to its investments in Tajikistan. In mid-July, the Prosecutor’s Office of the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast (GBAO) appealed to the Supreme Economic Court of Tajikistan with a demand to annul the land certificate for the campus of the University of Central Asia in Khorog, which is owned by the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN). The university’s administration, local authorities, and the prosecutor’s office have not commented on this matter. However, it is evident that if the authorities manage to revoke the land certificate,…