Her Majesty Queen Máxima was awarded her beret today after completing the first part of her reservist training. Following a night exercise and the traditional final march, she was greeted by the King and the Crown Princess. An inspiring achievement and a proud moment.🫡🇳🇱
Daniel Günther (@CDU) hat kein Verständnis für die Kritik seiner Parteifreunde an Robert #Habeck: „Manches, was an Bashing gegen ihn stattgefunden hat, war maßlos übertrieben.” Er habe mit Habeck „extrem gut zusammengearbeitet”.
📺 Heute bei #maischberger um 23:35 Uhr!
I just had the craziest experience at the airport.
We are about to board a flight to Atlanta when the pilot from the incoming plane walks out of the jetway. Guy is probably late 50s, salt and pepper hair, military look. The kind of pilot you instantly feel good about seeing on your flight.
Pilot walks over to the counter, gets on the PA system, and starts addressing everyone. “Folks, I’ve been doing this a long time. Flying one of these jets is easy. The hard part is looking at 130 people and telling them their flight is going to be delayed.”
Audible groans throughout the boarding gate. Most people here are flying to Atlanta as a layover before another flight. 130 people just had their day become a complete mess.
The pilot goes on. “I get it, trust me. But here’s the deal: During our landing, we had a small mechanical issue. I’m not your pilot for the next leg, but I don’t feel confident the jet’s safe to fly until we have a mechanical team look it over, and I don’t feel comfortable asking the next pilots to fly you guys until we get confirmation.”
He points at the agents next to him behind the counter: “Now, none of this is the agents’ fault. Please be kind to them. I’m the one who made this decision, not them, so any inconvenience you experience is my fault. Just please know that I don’t do this lightly, and I’m only doing it because I believe it’s in the best interests of everyone’s safety.”
Now this is where the story gets crazy. The pilot puts the microphone down, grabs his suitcase, and all the people in the gate…
Start clapping.
I’m not joking, everyone starts clapping for the guy. 130 people who just had their travel plans ruined give an ovation to the guy who made the decision and delivered the message.
All because he addressed them with decency and transparency, took ownership of the decision, made it clear that it was necessary, and explained why it was in everyone’s best interest.
It’s honestly one of the best examples of strong communication—of strong leadership, for that matter—that I’ve seen in a long time.
@Delta, whoever your Atlanta to Wichita pilot was this morning, he’s one of the good ones. Please tell him the delayed passengers of flight 1637 appreciate what he did.
🇮🇷🇩🇪German ship pays tribute to the IRGC Navy.
The German shipping giant Hapag-Lloyd successfully passed through the Strait of Hormuz by paying tolls and being escorted by the IRGC Navy, and after safe passage, thanked the IRGC forces.
sepahcybery
Let me explain something to the MAGA crowd, because clearly someone needs to.
They seem to think NATO is cosmic room service. You pick up the phone, say “hello, we’re having a bit of a war here,” and thirty-one countries march to your rescue. A continental Uber for military adventures.
That is not how it works.
Article 5 is a mutual defense clause. The clue is in the word mutual. And it has been triggered exactly once in NATO’s entire history. After September 11. When America was attacked. Not Europe. America.
Every NATO member showed up. They went to Afghanistan. They fought. They bled. They died. In America’s war. On America’s behalf.
Now imagine they hadn’t.
Over 1,100 allied soldiers died in Afghanistan. British, Canadian, German, Danish, Polish. And yes, even Ukrainian soldiers, who had no NATO obligation whatsoever. Gone. Without them, those are American names on those graves. Sons from Ohio. Fathers from Georgia. Kids from Nebraska who never came home.
Then there is the money. NATO allies spent over 100 billion dollars on a war that started on American soil. Without that, Washington pays every cent. On top of the 2 to 3 trillion the war already cost.
And without allied bases across Europe and Central Asia, American supply lines collapse entirely. Without British forces in Helmand and Canadians in Kandahar, the Taliban reconstitutes in three years instead of ten. The gaps get filled one way. More American deployments. More American coffins arriving at Dover.
Afghanistan was bloody. But NATO took the hit. Without them, every single one of those casualties would have had an American name.
Trump called allies like these losers. Suckers.
If you are a certain kind of broken person, that probably makes sense to you. But for the rest of us, what those soldiers did has a different name. Honor. The bond between men who have been in the same dirt, under the same fire. Between Brits and Americans, Frenchmen and Norwegians, Canadians and Danes. Not a diplomatic relationship. A blood bond. Brotherhood forged in places most people will never see and cannot imagine.
In that culture, you do not mock a fallen ally. You do not sneer at the dead. It is the lowest thing a human being can do. Trump did it to a standing ovation.
If you are a MAGA supporter travelling to NATO countries, understand this. There are no friendly pats on the back waiting for you. No one will buy you a beer. The governments who share your worldview sit in Minsk, Moscow and Pyongyang. Brutal dictatorships where journalists disappear, elections are theatre and dissent is a medical condition treated in basements. Not London. Not Paris. Not Rome, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Berlin or Ottawa.
You have abandoned the open societies, the free press, the rule of law, the places where people actually want to live. You traded the best of civilization for a very small, very dark room. Frankly, it serves you right.
Gandalv / @Microinteracti1
Wie gesagt: beste Zeit, den Koalitionsvertrag in die Tonne zu werfen und die Prioritäten auf fünf Punkte zu setzen: Wirtschaft, Verteidigung, Bürokratieentlastung ohne fein austarierte Folgeabschätzungen, Steuerreform, Lastenausgleich.
Anders wird es nicht gehen. Man gewinnt keinen globalen Krieg gegen drei hungrige Wölfe mit einem ausgeglichenen Budget, Diskussionen um Rente 2035 und der Frage, ob es wichtiger ist in Forschung und Skalierung oder in Kiezberuhigung durch mehr Poller in Kreuzberg zu investieren. Und man muss sich klarmachen, dass es ökonomisch und sicherheitspolitisch unerlässlich ist, Migration aus bestimmten Gegenden massiv herunterzufahren und selbige hart ökonomisch zu steuern.
Klingt brutal. Ist es auch. Warum? Weil wir heute und morgen machen müssen, was wir gestern hätte tun sollen. Jetzt ist es nur teurer, aber noch geht’s.
MESSAGE
I wholeheartedly endorse the powerful appeal for peace made by the Holy Father, Pope Leo, during his Palm Sunday Mass. His call for the laying down of arms and the renunciation of violence resonated profoundly with me, as it speaks to the very essence of what all major religions teach.
Indeed, whether we look to Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, Judaism or any of the world's great spiritual traditions, the message is fundamentally the same: love, compassion, tolerance, and self-discipline. Violence finds no true home in any of these teachings. History has shown us time and again that violence only begets more violence and is never a lasting foundation for peace.
An enduring resolution to conflict, including the ones we see in the Middle East or between Russia and Ukraine, must be rooted in dialogue, diplomacy and mutual respect — approached with the understanding that, at the deepest level, we are all brothers and sisters.
I urge for and pray that the violence and conflicts may soon come to an end.
DALAI LAMA
31 March 2026
Absolutely insane that Germany would offer support to the US on Iran without at the very least demanding the US unblock its aid to Ukraine first (and publicly apologise to Denmark)
Dass das @ZDF eine langjährige Kollegin, die immer solide Arbeit abgegeben hat, freistellt, ist unglaublich. Wer arbeitet macht Fehler. Der New Yorker Kollegin ist ein schlimmer Fehler passiert. Sie wird das nicht absichtlich gemacht haben. Dass sich die Chefredakteurinnen nicht
The Washington Post fired its Ukraine correspondent in the middle of a war zone and dismissed its Moscow correspondent — one of the most sensitive postings in journalism — by email. Beyond the recklessness of gutting the core of its political reporting, this is simply vile.
Alle, die Europas künftige Verteidigung planen, sollten die neue Sicherheitsstrategie der USA genau lesen. Europa braucht einen Plan B, um amerikanische Fähigkeiten schnell zu ersetzen. Und nein, das ist aktuell nicht der Plan. Aktuell planen wir für fortgesetzte Abhängigkeit.