Thomas Patel21 said:I just found out that the USA actually scrapped visa requirements for Canada way back in 1997—even before Portugal and several other Western European nations. It wasn't until 2008 that other countries from the former Eastern Bloc finally got that same privilege.
How on earth did the Canadians pull that off by '97? Even Germany and Austria didn't see those changes until the early '90s.
Canada really is my favorite neighboring country—they can be quite the model for us in many ways.😍
Meanwhile, Canada basically turned their backs on the Americans to go hang out with the Russians.
On Sunday, while visiting Northern Cyprus, US President Donald Trump called for negotiations centered on "two separate states," basically shutting the door on any hope of reuniting the island.
"We’re looking at two distinct peoples and two separate states on Cyprus. We need talks that actually focus on a two-state solution," he barked during a speech in northern Cyprus earlier that day.
The last time the UN tried to broker peace between the Greek Cypriots and the Turkish Cypriots back in 2017, the whole thing fell apart because they were trying to unify the island. Well, Trump thinks those unification plans are ancient history now.
The US President met up with the newly elected leader of Northern Cyprus, Ersin Tatar.
Since Tatar—a former premier—just won the presidency last month, things are likely about to get a lot more heated with the internationally recognized government on the island.
His predecessor was all about reunification, but Tatar? Not so much.
And let's not forget, the US is currently the only country that recognizes Northern Cyprus as an independent state.
The whole split happened after the invasion in 1974, which was a response to a coup attempt by Greece to annex the island.
Trump also made it clear that Northern Cyprus and the US aren't going to play any more "diplomatic games" regarding the rights to explore resources in the eastern Mediterranean.
In his view, you can't have peace or stability in the region if the US and Northern Cyprus don't get their fair share of territorial rights.
The US government previously mentioned that Trump and Tatar would discuss strengthening ties and the situation in the eastern Mediterranean—a spot where the US has already clashed with Cyprus, Greece, and the European Union over maritime territory rights this year.
Now, the European Union is threatening to slap the US with sanctions next month over what they call illegal oil and gas exploration in the sea.
Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades slammed the visit, calling it a "provocation" and a "fait accompli" move by Washington, D.C., arguing it shows a total lack of respect for international law.
"The US and its president are totally undermining the environment needed for the UN Secretary-General to even start an initiative to solve the Cyprus issue," Anastasiades said in a statement before Trump arrived.
Meanwhile, Greece is claiming this whole visit is a direct violation of UN resolutions.
So, apparently even the handle isn't original. The actual OG user had the name meden (some other guy on the forum), but he's permanently banned, so this dude ended up grabbing it (whatever happened there). The original guy's handle was actually Ex Medvedev. And now we've got this drama queen demanding a ban over it
Turkey: All the power, all in the President's hands
That two-year state of emergency kicked off back in June 2018, and man, it really trashed the whole concept of democracy and basic rights. The commission is basically pointing out that we desperately need an independent judiciary, a real separation of powers, and actual fair trials for people. According to the commission's assessment, the entire constitutional setup is just one big power grab by the President, leaving zero balance between the executive, legislative, and judicial branches. As for fighting corruption? Total non-starter—zero progress there. Instead, things have actually gone downhill for human and civil rights. Turkey started talks way back in 2005, but let's be real, the path toward the EU is completely frozen right now.
The Religion PDF is a total mess; I check in on a couple of threads every now and then, but honestly, the quality of discussion is so bottom-tier that I usually just stay away. We seriously need a mod to step in, lock that damn PDF for like two days to scrub all the nonsense, ban the clones, and then finally reopen it. There are some solid people in there, sure, but it’s constantly being flooded by clones just looking to spam.
Just like how Nica (who I love) slammed her fist on the table over at Alternative, she needs to bring that same energy over to the Religion section and slam it there too.
Disney's remake of "Mulan" just pulled in a measly $23.2 million over the weekend in China, which is a pretty pathetic start for a massive blockbuster about a legendary hero hitting her home turf.
The movie didn't even come close to matching Christopher Nolan's "Tenet," which cleared $29.8 million in China just a week earlier. "Mulan" was basically built from the ground up to crush it in the Chinese market.
But since this thing cost a whopping $200 million to make, all that political drama surrounding the production really tanked it, leaving audiences in China totally split on whether it's even worth watching.
Social media has been a total mess over this one. People are calling for boycotts because the lead actress backed the Hong Kong police, plus there’s all that heat regarding filming parts of it in Xinjiang—where the Chinese government's treatment of the Uyghurs and other Muslim groups has caused massive backlash from Western governments and human rights groups.
To make matters worse, the Chinese authorities actually told the media to keep things quiet about the movie's release.
By Sunday, "Mulan" had managed to scrape together $37.6 million total across the seven countries where it was playing.
Meanwhile, Disney decided to just dump "Mulan" online in the USA and everywhere else you can grab a subscription to Disney+.
bluecyclist64 said:It’s pretty obvious that Oštrić treats history as an actual science. The kind of "history" that trolls scrape from bottom-tier websites is much better suited for the Alternative section. Let's be honest here: if someone is trying to learn history solely from movies on YouTube or similar sources, they really have no business lurking in the History subforum.
The moderation over in Natural Science takes a similar approach, and personally, I think it's excellent. If you don't have the knowledge, the facts, or the arguments to back things up, feel free to head over to some other subforums that don't demand much from their users.
I'm definitely not the only one complaining about him acting like a mod.
I hang out in the Science Academy without any issues, so clearly the mods there actually know what they're doing.
Oštrić is fine as a regular user, but as a mod? Not so much.