Mumbai: Popular Punjabi singer and actress Diljit Dosanjh has given a befitting reply to those who claimed that he disrespected the Tricolour at Coachella. He asked them to stop spreading “fake news”.
A clip featuring Diljit is doing the rounds on social media, where he is seen pointing at a woman waving Tricolour in the crowd and told audience: “Eh mere Punjabi bhain bhraawan layi, mere desh da jhanda laike khadi aa kudi, eh mere desh layi, negativity ton bacho, music saareyan da saanjha (All my Punjabi brothers and sisters, this girl is holding my country’s flag. Stay away from negativity. Music is for everyone).”
However, his comment was cut on social media and instead a hateful message was presented against India and the Indian flag. Now, Diljit has given a befitting reply .
He tweeted: “DON’T SPREAD FAKE NEWS and NEGATIVITY.”
“Mai Kiha Eh Mere Desh Da Jhanda Hai. Eh Mere Desh Lai.. Means MERI Eh Performance Mere desh Lai. Je Punjabi Nhi Aundi Tan Google Kar leya Karo Yaara Kion ke Coachella Ek Big Musical Festival Aa Othey Har desh to log aunde ne.. that’s why Music Sab Da Sanjha Hai. SAHI GAL NU PUTHI KIVE GHUMAUNA KOI TUADEY WARGEYA TON SIKHEY ENU V GOOGLE KAR LEYO.”
“I said that this is my country’s flag, this is for my country. Meaning – this performance is for my country. If you don’t know Punjabi, then Google it. Coachella is a big music festival, which is attended by people from across the world.. that’s why music is for everyone. Someone should learn how to twist a good thing to bad from you… Google this as well.”
Never Back Down, the super PAC supporting DeSantis, came out swinging with two new videos that take direct aim at Trump. One that came out the same day that Trump addressed the National Rifle Association said he sided with Democrats on some gun regulations.
“Trump the gun-grabber doesn’t deserve a second chance,” the video maintains.
Then came a second one on Sunday that, after mentioning the recent indictment against the former president, claims that DeSantis would not cut Social Security — an attempt to neutralize criticism pushed by Trump world that relies on positions DeSantis took while serving in Congress. “Trump should fight Democrats, not lie about Governor DeSantis. What happened to Donald Trump?” states the ad, which aired on Fox News and was first reported by Axios.
DeSantis hasn’t announced his 2024 presidential bid yet but is widely expected to jump into the race in May or June.
Never Back Down’s activity came while a Trump-aligned group launched its own withering broadside against DeSantis. Make America Great Again Inc. put out an ad on Friday labeled “Pudding Fingers” that linked together an alleged anecdote about DeSantis eating pudding with his fingers and an assertion that DeSantis will go after Social Security and Medicare if elected president.
Never Back Down also has started spending on television ad buys in early states for an introductory positive ad about DeSantis as well.
The bottom line is that at least one part of the DeSantis orbit has decided that the persistent attacks from Trump needed to be responded to before DeSantis officially jumps into the presidential race in the next few weeks. The question is whether the governor himself and those who worked on his reelection campaign, and remain on the payroll now, also begin to respond to Trump.
There will be those who question the value of taking on Trump directly or whether it’s already too late. But for now, it’s on.
This post originally appeared in Florida Playbook.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
“The same people who said Kyiv would fall in three days are now leaking harmful and equally ridiculous information ahead of an offensive critically important for the entire free world,” said a person in regular contact with senior officials in Kyiv.
“There are some people who continue to be hesitant” about Ukraine’s military chances in the counteroffensive, a Ukrainian defense official said, “but we’ve proved everybody wrong.” The projections of Ukraine’s chances are “not the truth,” this official continued. “It gives us grounds for suspicion” of just how seriously the U.S. backs Ukraine’s objectives of fully pushing Russia out of the country.
That sentiment is widespread within the Ukrainian government, per another person with similar high-level contacts in Kyiv. All three people were granted anonymity to detail sensitive internal deliberations in Ukraine.
The comments make clear that the United States and Ukraine aren’t as in sync as both countries claim 14 months into the war. It could also portend less trust between Washington and Kyiv ahead of a crucial few months of fighting that could dictate the course of the war with Russia. With Russia in control of 20 percent of Ukrainian territory, the hope is that the counteroffensive, even with dwindling supplies, will force Moscow’s troops and mercenaries out of the country they invaded.
The U.S. efforts at damage control do appear to be getting some traction.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba tweeted that Secretary of State Antony Blinken called him Tuesday to affirm America’s “ironclad U.S. support and vehemently rejected any attempts to cast doubt on Ukraine’s capacity to win on the battlefield.” And Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin also spoke to his counterpart, Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov, on Tuesday to convey Ukraine “will fight the enemy and not be driven by a specific plan.”
The coordination continued on Wednesday when Austin met Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal.
The Ukrainian defense official also asserted that Kyiv has received assurances of America’s continued commitment from Austin and other top Biden administration figures. “You can be forgiven for having doubts,” the official said about the Americans. “We understand it.”
The National Security Council didn’t respond to requests for comment.
The intelligence provides a disheartening evaluation of Ukraine’s anticipated spring counteroffensive, and it isn’t the first such indication of the Biden administration’s lack of confidence in Ukraine’s military chances this year.
Ukraine’s counteroffensive, per the intelligence, will target eastern and southern Ukraine, with an ultimate goal of cutting off Russia’s land access to Crimea, the peninsula Moscow illegally annexed in 2014. Few in the administration, though, believe Kyiv can recapture much of the territory Russia took since its invasion last year, citing manpower, resupply and logistics concerns.
Gen. Mark Milley, the Joint Chiefs chair, has repeatedly questioned Ukraine’s ability to win the war militarily in the near term. “The probability of a Ukrainian military victory, defined as kicking the Russians out of all of Ukraine, to include what they define or what the claim is Crimea, the probability of that happening anytime soon is not high,” he told reporters last November. Milley’s assessment hasn’t changed: he told Defense One last month that Ukraine couldn’t expel Russians “in the near term for this year.”
Ukrainian officials are also increasingly angry at continued leaks about their operations. Reports on sensitive intelligence connecting Ukraine to the assassination of a prominent Russian nationalist’s daughter and a pro-Kyiv group to the bombing of the Nord Stream pipelines frustrated Ukraine.
More cracks in the U.S.-Ukraine relationship have emerged in recent months. For example, Kyiv has poured troops and resources into holding Bakhmut, a city in the east of the country. But officials in the White House and Pentagon, among others, don’t see Bakhmut as strategically important. They’ve recommended that Ukraine focus its attention elsewhere.
U.S. officials are particularly concerned about Ukraine using up critical supplies of ammunition in the fight for Bakhmut, as the West races to prepare Kyiv for what’s expected to be brutal fighting this spring.
There are also disagreements about whether it’s worth it for Ukraine to recapture Crimea from Russia. The Biden administration fears Ukraine doesn’t have all it needs to take and hold the peninsula that Moscow has controlled for nearly a decade. Zelenskyy doesn’t agree: “Respect and order will only return to international relations when the Ukrainian flag returns to Crimea — when there is freedom there,” he said in a video message this week.
Pentagon officials are also alarmed by Ukraine’s dwindling supply of medium-range air defense missiles, according to a U.S. official and the leaked documents. Based on current consumption rates of these missiles, Kyiv’s ability to provide air defense to protect the front lines will be “completely reduced” by May 23, according to one slide produced by the Joint Staff, a deadline the U.S. official said is driving the timing of the counteroffensive.
The concern is that once Ukraine is out of medium-range air defense missiles, Russian fighter and bomber aircraft will be free to attack Ukrainian troop and artillery positions from the skies. Until now, neither side has been able to fly combat aircraft freely in the conflict. The West has sent short-range air defense missiles, such as Stingers, but these weapons have limited impact against aircraft, according to the leaked documents.
The U.S. and European countries are sending two Patriot missile defense systems, but a group of Ukrainian air defenders is still wrapping up the final stage of training to operate the equipment in Europe before they head to the battlefield.
Ukraine’s air force is also depleted, and Western countries have declined to send modern fighter aircraft such as F-16s, which could also intercept incoming missiles.
Lara Seligman contributed to this report.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Stop driving Europe away from the United States, dismayed central and eastern European officials fumed on Tuesday as French President Emmanuel Macron’s comments continued to ripple across the Continent.
Macron jolted allies in the EU’s eastern half after a visit to China last week when he cautioned the Continent against getting pulled into a U.S.-China dispute over Taiwan, the self-ruled island Beijing claims as its own, imploring his neighbors to avoid becoming Washington and Beijing’s “vassals.”
The comments rattled those near the EU’s eastern edge, who have historically favored closer ties with the Americans — especially on defense — and pushed for a hasher approach to Beijing.
“Instead of building strategic autonomy from the United States, I propose a strategic partnership with the United States,” Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said Tuesday before flying off to the U.S., of all places, for a three-day visit.
Privately, diplomats were even franker.
“We cannot understand [Macron’s] position on transatlantic relations during these very challenging times,” said one diplomat from an Eastern European country, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to freely express themselves. “We, as the EU, should be united. Unfortunately, this visit and French remarks following it are not helpful.”
The reactions reflect the long-simmering divisions within Europe over how to best defend itself. Macron has long argued for Europe to become more autonomous economically and militarily — a push many in Central and Eastern Europe fear could alienate a valuable U.S. helping keep Russia at bay, even if they support boosting the EU’s ability to act independently.
“In the current world of geopolitical shifts, and especially in the face of Russia’s war against Ukraine, it is obvious that democracies have to work closer together than ever before,” said another senior diplomat from Eastern Europe. “We should be all reminded of the wisdom of the first U.S ambassador to France Benjamin Franklin who rightly remarked that either we stick together or we will be hanged separately.”
Macron, a third senior diplomat from the same region huffed, was freelancing yet again: “It is not the first time that Macron has expressed views that are his own and do not represent the EU’s position.”
Walking into controversy
In his interview, Macron touched on a tense subject within Europe: how it should balance itself against the superpower fight between the U.S. and China.
The French president encouraged Europe to chart its own course, cautioning that Europe faces a “great risk” if it “gets caught up in crises that are not ours, which prevents it from building its strategic autonomy.”
Macron said he wants Europe to become a “third pole” to counterbalance China and the U.S. in the long term | Pool photo by Jacques Witt/AFP via Getty Images
It’s a stance that has many adherents within Europe — and has even worked its way into official EU policy as officials work to slowly ensure the Continent’s supply lines aren’t fully yoked to China and others on everything from weapons to electric vehicles.
Macron said he wants Europe to become a “third pole” to counterbalance China and the U.S. in the long term. An imminent conflict between Being and Washington, he argued, would put that goal at risk.
Yet out east, officials lamented that the French leader was simply treating the U.S. and China as if they were essentially the same in a global power play.
The comments, the second diplomat said, were “both ill-timed and inappropriate to put both the United States and China on a par and suggest that the EU should keep strategic distance to both of them.”
A Central European diplomat flatly dismissed Macron’s stance as “pretty outrageous,” while another official from the same region chalked it up to an attempt “to distract from other problems and show that France is bigger than what it is” — a reference to the protests roiling France amid Macron’s pension reforms.
The frustration in Central and Eastern Europe stems in part from a feeling that the French president has never made clear who would replace Washington in Europe — especially if Russia expands its war beyond Ukraine, said Kristi Raik, head of the foreign policy program at the International Centre for Defence and Security, a think tank in Estonia, a country of about 1.3 million people that borders Russia.
It’s an emotional point for Europe’s eastern half, where memories of the Soviet era linger.
“We hear Macron talking about European strategic autonomy, and somehow just being completely silent about the issue, which has become so clear in Ukraine, that actually European security and defense depends very strongly on the U.S.,” Raik said.
Raik noted, of course, that European countries, most notably Germany, are scrambling to update their militaries. France has also pledged large increases in its defense budgets.
But these changes, she cautioned, will take a “very long time.”
If Macron “wants to be serious in showing that he really aims at a Europe that is capable of defending itself,” Raik argued, “he also should be showing that France is willing to do much more to defend Europe vis-à-vis Russia.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
