In the Middle East, perhaps. In Ukraine or Russia you simply don’t have laser weather most of the time.

I live in a country of 1 million next to a “global superpower” (also see “second army in the world”) (also see “the Russian Federation”).

And I swear by the name of Nestor Makhno that if they’re going to try invading here too, I will be bombing military objects around St. Petersburg.

This is the same thing that the rest of NATO swears, not all by the name of Makhno, some have different ideas about what might work. :)

Deterrence works. People have the right to self-determination. They realize this right with alliances and guns. If a neigbour has plans, is big, has problematic manners: then with lots of guns. We learnt that Ukraine did not have enough guns to deter, and as a result Russia tried an invasion. Taiwan has geopolitical leverage with its chip industry and a sea that somewhat protects, but may have learnt the same lesson from Ukraine and wants more guns.

Also noted: .ml

The people of Taiwan do not need more guns.

The people of Taiwan, as represented by the government and the Legislative Yuan, do think they need more guns.

Probably because of the swarms of Chinese aircraft which regularly practise attacking them, and the even greater swarms which sit and wait.

I wish there was a diplomatic solution, because any military action in the strait of Taiwan would cause a rapid and severe global crisis.

But the diplomatic action should not be abandoning Taiwan, because that won’t avert a crisis. If Taiwan is attacked, it will fight and land strikes on China too, resulting in exactly the kind of crisis everyone should avoid.

That is almost certainly another war crime. :(

The people targeted had high visibility vests. No camouflage, no weapons, not shooting at anyone. Waving for an ambulance to stop in the middle of a street.

Sad to hear.

This will result in political pressure on Israel. Maybe this was the last straw to get their association treaty with the EU re-examined, and maybe suspended or canceled.

There is one bit of good news too, which I noticed here:

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2026/may/22/suspected-ebola-cases-triple-in-a-week-as-who-warns-of-rapid-spread-in-drc

A WHO press briefing also heard that scientists had identified an antiviral drug, obeldesivir, which may be able to prevent contacts of Bundibugyo cases developing the disease, and were working to establish trials in the affected areas.

Obeldesivir is an ester of remdesivir (converted into the nucleoside prodrug “remdesivir” by esterases once taken orally). Remdesivir is an old drug which was first approved for Hepatitis C, then for COVID-19, so there might be supplies.

If given within 24 hours of infection through mucosal membranes (e.g. mouth, nose, eyes), it protects one species of macaques against Ebola well enough to have 100% survival during 21 days (but another species only gets 80% survival).

It is predicted to protect humans, since the mechanism does not depend on the host species, but jams the viral RNA polymerase. But it works only if infection has just started, and there is very little viral RNA polymerase around in the body.

I think it will mostly find use among medical personnel, who are likely to learn fast if they have been exposed. With the wider population, it probably won’t help as much - when detection comes late, the amount of virus in the body is too great to counter, so the drug can only disable a fraction of it. It likely can’t help if symptoms are already serious, and perhaps even if any symptoms are already present. Effective use is therefore likely to depend on effective testing and tracing.

Support is provided, but detection occurred somewhat late. Probably because there has been conflict in the region and people are living without proper health care.

Cures still don’t exist. Current vaccines likely don’t work or have very low efficacy. It’s not the Zaire strain, but the Bundibugyo strain.

If the published numbers represent an unbiased sample (unlikely), it seems like the current strain might have lower mortality or longer incubation time. That would be a bad thing. A disease that kills nearly everyone infected and kills them fast, is self-limiting. This current version of Ebola might not be as self-limiting as the previous ones. Fortunately it remains clumsy at spreading and there is no shortage of protective equipment in the world. Equipment will be sent.

Since it’s in everyone’s interest to get the epidemic contained, I think it will be contained.

Nope, they don’t pay anything to China, and China doesn’t pay anything to them. They have separate tax offices, separate governments (and very different models of governing), separate militaries… which sadly look at each other though targeting devices.

It took only a few hours after Trump warned Taiwan not to try declaring independence…

…for the Taiwanese foreign ministry to remind that Taiwan is already independent.

Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te has previously stated that Taiwan does not need to declare formal independence because it already sees itself as a sovereign nation.

On Saturday, presidential spokesperson Karen Kuo said it was “self-evident” that Taiwan was “a sovereign, independent democratic country”.

She added, however, that Taiwan was committed to maintaining the status quo with China - in which Taiwan neither declares independence from China nor unites with it.

Many Taiwanese consider themselves to be part of a separate nation, though most are in favour of maintaining their current status.

As for the actual consequences: in the best case, nothing changes and maybe the US will get a new president soon. Because explaining the depth of the US-Taiwan interdependence to the current president is clearly a too big job.

The US is a client state of Taiwan just as much as Taiwan is a client state of the US. If one gets in trouble, the other also gets in trouble. Actually, most of the world gets in trouble in case of Taiwan, so everyone who needs a device with some CPU or memory has a vested interest in nothing whatsovever happening with regard to Taiwan. And this probably even includes people in mainland China, although I think they can reasonably claim to be almost independent of Taiwan. :) I certainly cannot, I honestly declare considerable dependence on Taiwan. :)

Condolences. :(

And please, people, this is what drones are for.

Bravery is commendable, but darkness, floating sediment, high pressure (immediate ascent not possible - this got Mohamed Mahudhee) and working under a time limit imposed by oxygen reserves in an environment where one can get lost: these are not conditions suitable for a human being.

Please send a machine, it has no life, has a sonar, the operator on a ship won’t panic, if fiber stops working, acoustic communication is still possible, a drone can work for days without running out of anything, etc.

This is Ursa Major. It sank in 2024.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Ursa_Major

This was an interesting read.

Especially his speculation that lack of a clear constitution (Basic Law was adopted as late as 1994 and is not a full-fledged constitution) and lack of clear borders contributed to Israel’s fall into the current state.

Too generous US “security assistance” certainly helped. If you can solve a problem with bombing without worrying about getting bombed, you may start thinking of war as a normal thing.

Failure to contain the populist extreme right is another stumbling block. If there had been no Netanyahu (and his corruption scandals, and the court cases awaiting him domestically, filed a considerable time before the ones awaiting abroad), things might be different.

Ultimately, I would say: Israel failed to install brakes, and failed to contain its greed for power and land. It had too much cooperation and still has too much cooperation.

I don’t know if there’s a reasonable way out.