Malazan Empire: Azath Vitr (D'ivers - Viewing Profile - Malazan Empire

Zelensky has said Ukraine's allies have urged him to scale back attacks on Russia's energy infrastructure amid the ongoing global fuel crisis - but that they would only end if Russia stopped targeting Ukraine's first.

[...] After relentless Russian attacks on Ukraine's oil refineries, the latter now heavily relies on fuel imports - largely via Poland, Greece, Lithuania and Turkey.

Almost half of Ukraine's gas imports used to come from Hungary, but they were seemingly suspended

Zelensky says allies asked him to scale back attacks on Russian energy - BBC

Three Ukrainian drones allegedly attacked a compressor station in southern Russia servicing the TurkStream export pipeline, Russian state-controlled natural gas giant Gazprom claimed [...] Since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, TurkStream has become the last functioning Russian pipeline still supplying Europe

Russia's Gazprom claims Ukrainian strikes on TurkStream pipeline - Kyiv Independent

What do we think Iranian stockpiles are like?

U.S. intelligence assessments suggest that roughly half of Iran's missile launchers remain intact and the country's arsenal still boasts thousands of one-way attack drones, directly contradicting the president's claims about the nation's firepower being significantly diminished.

The country also maintains a large number of missiles.

Three sources familiar with the intelligence confirmed its veracity to CNN, with one of the sources telling the outlet of Iran, "They are still very much poised to wreak absolute havoc throughout the entire region."

Donald Trump Humiliated by His Own Intel Experts' Verdict on Iran War

An airstrike destroyed the Pasteur Institute of Iran, a renowned public health institution that produces and distributes vaccines, the Iranian government said. A spokesman for the Iranian health ministry called the attack a "direct assault on international health security."

A highway bridge connecting Tehran and the city of Karaj was also attacked[...] Iranian news media reported. Iran's state broadcaster said that a second strike hit the bridge as emergency workers were trying to rescue the injured.

A U.S. military official said that American forces were responsible for the attack, which came on the last day of the Iranian new year holiday, when Iranians traditionally celebrate by spending time outdoors. The U.S. official said the bridge was a planned military supply route for Iran's missile and drone forces, though Iranian news media said the bridge was not yet operational and was not being used by the military. Mr. Trump celebrated the bridge's destruction, vowing there was "much more to follow."

Strikes Hit Infrastructure Sites in Iran After Trump's Threat - The New York Times

I can even branch out, rabid terf JK Rowling posted JUST the other day about the Olympics disallowing Trans athletes....an put an exclamation point on her agreement by posting a photo of Imane Khelif winning her boxing match a few years back....a woman from Algeria...whose birth certificate literally says she's a woman...pushing the narrative that she's really a trans man...a story that falls apart on the head of it because such a thing would suggest that in Algeria, a Muslim Arab country where rights are very conservative, and very strict, homosexuality is illegal, gender change of any kind out of the question and also illegal...suggesting then that all the people present at the birth of Imane and everyone else throughout her life have hidden her "true" gender so that 26 years later she could win a boxing match?...it's so nonsensical the MOMENT you scratch any lower than the surface, disregarding that she said she was a woman and should be believed without further proof....but this is the level of dishonesty and propaganda that such people operate in....entirely fictional spaces where JKR thinks that if she suggests often enough that Imane Khelif is really a man, people will believe it...and of course the idiot that is Pierre Pollievre in my country re-tweeted her post....

Does JKR know she's wrong? She does. She still posts it because she know her rabid anti-trans followers will lap it up becuase of how much she bangs on about it.

Khelif confirmed she has the SRY gene, located on the Y chromosome that indicates masculinity. "Yes, and it's natural," she said, adding that she is "surrounded by doctors, a professor is monitoring me... For the Paris Games qualifying tournament, which took place in Dakar, I lowered my testosterone levels to zero".

https://www.lemonde...._6750171_9.html

Once upon a time, the rationale ran like this: Israel has nukes to keep other, Arab, countries who have nukes, from using them. It's mutually assured destruction on a slightly smaller scale than the US/USSR Cold War.... one of them fires a nuke at Israel - a tiny country that would in effect cease to exist at the first impact - Israel nukes all of them at the same time. I can ack the innate insanity of this along w the practical reality for the time it came into being (exactly how Israel got nukes in the first place is a long running espionage mystery that runs through everyone from the US to UK to USSR, from quiet delivery to complete theft, to the idea they dont and never did but have done a spectacular job of faking it). That was then... now... i wouldn't quite say all bets are off because nukes are still nukes and it appears that Israel and opposing countries still have them, but the true wild card is Trump... he nukes Iran, anyone else is likely to nuke Israel in response, and welcome to armageddon. Netanyahu may be a madman desperate to hang on to power but he's (probably) not suicidal on a national or personal level, whereas Trump has no such risk.

Fuck.

Will Pakistan nuke Israel? Islamabad denies Iranian commander's claim

The statement, which appeared to draw Pakistan into a hypothetical nuclear escalation, was quickly rejected by Islamabad. Pakistan emphasised that no such assurance had been given and reaffirmed the country's longstanding policy of strategic restraint.

General Mohsen Rezaei, a senior commander of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and a member of Iran's National Security Council, made the claim during a broadcast on Iranian state television. "Pakistan has told us that if Israel uses a nuclear bomb on Iran, then Pakistan will also attack Israel with a nuclear bomb," said Rezaei.

[...] Reacting quickly, Pakistan's Defence Minister Khawaja Asif denied that Islamabad had ever issued such a threat or made any nuclear assurance to Iran.

While dismissing the claim of nuclear retaliation, Pakistan has reiterated its political support for Iran in its standoff with Israel.

https://www.business...61600487_1.html