Wednesday, October 15, 2025

Polaris of Enlightenment

High acceptance of violence against women in Germany

Published 19 July 2023
– By Editorial Staff
Approximately 115 000 women in Germany suffer violence from their partners every year.
2 minute read

A new survey by the children’s rights organization Plan International Germany shows that one-third of young men in Germany think it is acceptable to use violence against their partners – figures that are enraging German feminists.

The survey, published in the newspaper Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, asked 1,000 men and an equal number of women between the ages of 18 and 35 about their thoughts on masculinity and violence. 34% of the men admitted to having been violent towards their partners in the past in order to “gain respect”. Almost as many – 33% – said it was acceptable for some violence to be used in arguments and fights with their partners.

The German group Federal Organization for Equality calls the responses “shocking” and says they can only be interpreted as meaning that one in three young men in Germany considers violence against women “acceptable”.

“This must change immediately”, they wrote on Twitter.

Karsten Kassner, of the feminist group Bundesforum Männer, also says the findings are deeply problematic and that a change in attitudes is needed very quickly.

According to the German Federal Police, 115,000 women were subjected to violence by their partners in 2021. Germany also has a very high rate of femicide by European standards.

Otherwise, 52% of men said they wanted to provide for the family. Women focused more on children and housework, but only a third of them were interested in this. It is also worth mentioning that 48% of respondents also said that they dislike or are “bothered” by displays of homosexuality in public spaces.

There is speculation on Reddit and social media as to whether Germany’s high proportion of young men from Muslim backgrounds influenced the unexpected results of the survey. Many argue that young men from non-Western backgrounds are far more likely to be homophobic and accept violence against their partners than secular ethnic German men.

Others suggest that the shocking figures may instead be due to the vague wording of the questions, a skewed sample of respondents, or too few people being asked.

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$70 billion needed to rebuild Gaza

The genocide in Gaza

Published today 11:28
– By Editorial Staff
Two years of Israeli bombings have left the Palestinian enclave in ruins.
2 minute read

The UN estimates that the reconstruction of Gaza will cost $70 billion. The amount of debris in the bombed enclave is equivalent to 13 pyramids of Giza.

The UN Development Programme describes that the amount of debris in Gaza could be stacked 12 meters high over the entire area of New York’s Central Park.

The estimate was presented on Tuesday and is a joint assessment by the UN, EU and the World Bank. The cost has risen sharply since the previous calculation of $53 billion in February.

Jaco Cilliers, special representative for the UNDP administrator in a program to assist Palestinians, described the extent of the devastation at a press conference in Geneva via video link from Jerusalem.

— The estimated damage and rubble, throughout the whole of Gaza, is in the region of 55 million tons, he said.

— Another way to put it, apart from the example from Central Park that I mentioned, is also equal to 13 pyramids in Giza. That is the amount and size of the challenge.

According to Cilliers, $20 billion is needed over the next three years. The remaining funds are needed over a longer period – possibly decades. He pointed to “good indications” from potential donors in the Arab world, Europe and the US, without providing further details.

Trump: “The easiest part”

US President Donald Trump, who on Monday participated in the signing of the peace agreement for Gaza in Egypt, claimed that the reconstruction will be easier than achieving the ceasefire.

— Rebuilding is maybe going to be the easiest part. We know how to build better than anybody in the world.

During the two years that Gaza was bombed by Israeli missiles and tanks, between 60 and 80 percent of all buildings were damaged or destroyed. The enclave was previously home to over 2.1 million people.

The total number of affected buildings is estimated at over 170,000, including homes, businesses, hospitals and religious sites.

After the end of the war, over 500,000 Palestinians have returned to Gaza in recent days – only to find their homes and neighborhoods in ruins.

Peace researcher: Nobel Peace Prize gives Trump carte blanche in Venezuela

Published yesterday 17:23
– By Editorial Staff
Peace researcher Frida Stranne describes Maria Corina Machado as a divisive force who has supported sanctions that have cost Venezuelans their lives.
2 minute read

The Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Venezuelan opposition politician Maria Corina Machado gives Donald Trump “something of a carte blanche” to overthrow Venezuela’s government, warns peace researcher Frida Stranne.

She is harsh in her criticism of the laureate, who has supported sanctions against her own people and advocated for foreign military interventions in violation of international law.

Frida Stranne, associate professor in Peace and Development Research at Halmstad University in Sweden, reacts strongly to this year’s peace prize and argues that the award to Machado is an example of how international institutions have fundamentally changed.

“The institutions we have built to protect freedom, democracy and human development have one by one become tools for forces whose purpose is to preserve an order where the strong can behave essentially however they want while others are expected to meekly fall in line. This year’s peace prize rewards exactly that”, she writes resignedly on Facebook.

She emphasizes that there are good reasons to wish for change in Venezuela but simultaneously stresses that the core of democracy is about different views on governance being able to coexist. Her main criticism is directed at how the prize risks legitimizing violent regime changes.

“If you are a true democrat and simultaneously support international legal principles, you can never accept an order where the US and its allies repeatedly take the right to violently replace regimes that somehow stand in the way of their system”.

She believes this year’s peace prize risks rewarding exactly that.

“No unifying force”

Stranne is also very critical of Machado herself and argues that the opposition politician has been more of a divisive force than a force for stability and peace in Venezuela.

She urges interested parties to research for themselves what the Nobel laureate stands for and what political contacts she has.

“The laureate is not some innocent dove or unifying political force”, she states.

The peace researcher points out that the politician has advocated strategies that violate international law and supported sanctions against her own people “which have cost both suffering and death”.

An American puppet?

Perhaps the strongest warning concerns what the prize could mean for the future. Stranne sees a direct connection to Donald Trump and American interests in the region.

“With the peace prize in one hand – she will not oppose an American ‘intervention’ for regime change – with the other hand”.

The peace researcher warns that the prize gives Trump “something of a carte blanche to replace (through direct military attacks or CIA-led covert operations) the sitting government” and that Machado will likely become his puppet going forward.

In her conclusion, Stranne is harshly critical of Western actions.

“The Western world seems to be doing everything to undermine itself and its principles. 2025 will be the year when we made ourselves completely irrelevant to the rest of the world”.

María Corina Machado, born in 1967, is an industrial engineer with a master's degree in economics and founder of the Venezuelan electoral monitoring organization Súmate. She led the opposition party Vente Venezuela and served as a member of Venezuela's National Assembly from 2011 to 2014 before being expelled by the government.

Politically, Machado is a liberal conservative who advocates for privatizing Venezuela's state-owned oil industry and free-market policies. She has maintained close ties with the United States since the Bush era and is supported by Republican politicians such as Marco Rubio. After receiving the Nobel Prize, she dedicated the award to Donald Trump.

Machado has openly called for foreign military intervention in Venezuela, supported US sanctions against the country, and participated in the 2002 coup attempt against democratically elected President Hugo Chávez. Critics describe her as an advocate for regime change through violent means.

Trump’s largest donor refused to answer the question: “Do you love the USA or Israel more?”

The Israel lobby

Published yesterday 9:58
– By Editorial Staff
President Donald Trump receives a menorah from Miriam and Sheldon Adelson at the Israeli American Council National Summit 2019.
2 minute read

During his speech in Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, on Monday, Donald Trump drew attention to his largest financial backer, Israeli-American casino magnate Miriam Adelson – and simultaneously revealed a sensitive question he had asked her.

— Look at her sitting there so innocently,” he said. “I’m going to get her in trouble with this — but I actually asked her once, ‘So Miriam: I know you love Israel. What do you love more, the United States or Israel?’ She refused to answer. That means that might be an issue, I must say, Trump said to muted laughter in the parliament.

Adelson, who was sitting in the gallery, received a standing ovation when Trump praised her support for Israel and noted that she had made “more trips to the White House than anybody else”.

The 80-year-old invested $106 million in her pro-Trump super PAC Preserve America ahead of the 2024 election. Together with her late husband Sheldon, the Adelson family has donated over $600 million to Trump’s three presidential campaigns and other Republican candidates since 2015.

After her husband’s death in 2021, Miriam took over majority control of Las Vegas Sands, which operates major casinos in Singapore and Macau. She also owns one of Israel’s most widely read newspapers, Israel Hayom, and the basketball team Dallas Mavericks. Her fortune is estimated at over $60 billion.

Committed Zionist

Born in Tel Aviv in 1945 to Jewish immigrants from Poland, Adelson trained as a physician before becoming one of the Republican Party’s most important financiers. As a committed Zionist, she has long used her economic influence to shape US policy toward Israel.

The Adelson family was instrumental in getting Trump to move the US embassy to Jerusalem and to recognize Israeli control over the Golan Heights, and Trump awarded Miriam the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2018.

Her rhetoric hardened further after the attack on October 7, 2023.

“Foreign fans of Hamas are our enemies, the ideological enablers in the West of those who would go to any length to eradicate us from the Middle East. And, as such, they should be dead to us”, she wrote in her own newspaper.

At a campaign event in September, she urged Jewish voters to support Trump “in gratitude for everything he has done and trust in everything he will yet do”.

Well-known Ukrainian crypto investor found shot in Kiev

Published 13 October 2025
– By Editorial Staff
Konstantin Galich was found shot dead in his Lamborghini on Saturday.
2 minute read

Ukrainian crypto investor and influencer Konstantin Galich was found dead in Kyiv over the weekend, and police are investigating the incident as a possible suicide. The death comes in the wake of a sharp downturn in the cryptocurrency market.

On October 11, the body of 32-year-old Konstantin Galich, known as crypto influencer Kostya Kudo, was found in his car in Kyiv’s Obolonskyi district. A gunshot wound to the head was confirmed, and a registered weapon was found beside him.

A police investigation is underway and the incident is being investigated as a possible suicide, reports The Economic Times.

According to reports, Konstantin Galich had suffered significant financial losses during one of the cryptocurrency market’s largest crashes.

Over $19 billion in leveraged positions were liquidated globally within 24 hours, creating widespread uncertainty among investors.

Farewell messages

Local Ukrainian news channels have reported that Galich showed signs of financial difficulties and that he published farewell messages shortly before his death.

Konstantin Galich was a well-known market analyst and educator in cryptocurrency trading. Through his Telegram and YouTube channels, he shared insights on blockchain technology and trading strategies, which made him popular among his followers.

His death has sparked widespread grief and reflections on mental health within the crypto community.

Ukrainian authorities are now investigating the circumstances surrounding the death and awaiting results from autopsy and technical examinations to determine the cause of death and circumstances.

Police are not currently ruling out foul play.

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