Rusian Invasion Ukraine: Putin Says Russia Has Best Army After Losing 34k Troops in Just 4 Months

Vadimir Putin has said Russia has the world's best armed forces and issued a threat about his country's nuclear missile capabilities.

The claim by the Russian president comes amid a statement from Ukraine's armed forces that Russia's army had lost more than 34,000 troops since the start of his invasion on February 24.

The Russian government newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta reported that Putin had told a meeting of the State Council on Tuesday that there are "no more effective armed forces in the world today than in Russia."

Read more at: Putin Says Russia Has Best Army After Losing 34k Troops in Just 4 Months

Russian Invasion Ukraine: Ukraine prepares to send bodies of dead Russian soldiers back home

Ukrainian troops are preparing to send the bodies of dead Russian soldiers back across the border. The authorities say they are acting in accordance with international law.

Soldiers' remains have been moved to a facility outside Kyiv before being loaded onto refrigerated trains awaiting transfer.

The head of Ukraine’s civil-military cooperation department says even though these transfers are part of international protocol, the Kremlin has not appealed for the bodies to be returned.

Read more at: Ukraine prepares to send bodies of dead Russian soldiers back home | Euronews

European Super League: Project is dead, Agnelli admits

The European Super League project is dead, its founder Andrea Agnelli has admitted. Twelve teams had agreed to join a breakaway Super League but plans collapsed when all six English clubs withdrew. Here is the latest.

Read more at: European Super League: Project is dead, Agnelli admits | Sports| German football and major international sports news | DW | 21.04.2021

Britain: Prince Philip Dead, Queen Elizabeth's Husband Was 99 - by Simon Perry and Michelle Tauber

"It is with deep sorrow that Her Majesty The Queen announces the death of her beloved husband, His Royal Highness The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh," Buckingham Palace said in a statement Friday.

"His Royal Highness passed away peacefully this morning at Windsor Castle. "Further announcements will be made in due course.

Prince Philip Dead, Queen Elizabeth's Husband Was 99 | PEOPLE.com

Fashion Industry - France: French fashion designer Pierre Cardin dies at 98

The French fashion designer Pierre Cardin died at a hospital in Neuilly, west of Paris, on Tuesday at the age of 98, his family told news agency AFP. "It is a day of great sadness for all our family. Pierre Cardin is no more," the statement said

Read More at: French fashion designer Pierre Cardin dies at 98 | News | DW | 29.12.2020

Capitalism: Dare to declare capitalism dead – before it takes us all down - by George Monbiot

or most of my adult life I’ve railed against “corporate capitalism”, “consumer capitalism” and “crony capitalism”. It took me a long time to see that the problem is not the adjective but the noun. While some people have rejected capitalism gladly and swiftly, I’ve done so slowly and reluctantly. Part of the reason was that I could see no clear alternative: unlike some anti-capitalists, I have never been an enthusiast for state communism. I was also inhibited by its religious status. To say “capitalism is failing” in the 21st century is like saying “God is dead” in the 19th: it is secular blasphemy. It requires a degree of self-confidence I did not possess.

But as I’ve grown older, I’ve come to recognise two things. First, that it is the system, rather than any variant of the system, that drives us inexorably towards disaster. Second, that you do not have to produce a definitive alternative to say that capitalism is failing. The statement stands in its own right. But it also demands another, and different, effort to develop a new system.

Capitalism’s failures arise from two of its defining elements. The first is perpetual growth. Economic growth is the aggregate effect of the quest to accumulate capital and extract profit. Capitalism collapses without growth, yet perpetual growth on a finite planet leads inexorably to environmental calamity.

Those who defend capitalism argue that, as consumption switches from goods to services, economic growth can be decoupled from the use of material resources. Last week a paper in the journal New Political Economy, by Jason Hickel and Giorgos Kallis, examined this premise. They found that while some relative decoupling took place in the 20th century (material resource consumption grew, but not as quickly as economic growth), in the 21st century there has been a recoupling: rising resource consumption has so far matched or exceeded the rate of economic growth. The absolute decoupling needed to avert environmental catastrophe (a reduction in material resource use) has never been achieved, and appears impossible while economic growth continues. Green growth is an illusion.

Read more: Dare to declare capitalism dead – before it takes us all down with it | George Monbiot | Opinion | The Guardian

USA: John McCain, a Last Lion of the Senate - by Carl Hulse

 John McCain was an essential element of the nation’s political conversation for half a century, an ever-present figure eager to challenge friend and foe through his singular temperament — sometimes angry, often funny, always ardent.

Now he is gone, leaving behind a storied life and a tear in America’s political fabric at a time when national unity — always a McCain theme and ultimate goal — seems especially elusive.

“We are losing someone who really, no matter who was the president, believed in the Senate’s role in checks and balances,” said Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, who was a frequent traveling companion of Mr. McCain on official overseas trips. “He truly was a giant in the Senate, a towering figure and someone who really made a difference not just on policy, but in asserting the Senate’s constitutional role.”

Read  more: John McCain, a Last Lion of the Senate - The New York Times