“Qu’ils mangent de la brioche” “Let them eat cake” She married at the age of 14 and was 19 when she and her husband, Louis XVI, ascended to the French throne. She was worshipped and challenged, dragged through the mud, and elevated to the heavens, lived in a palace,... View Article
“I have not spent a day without loving you; I have not spent a night without clasping you in my arms; I have not drunk a cup of tea without cursing the glory and ambition which keep me from the heart of my very being. In the midst of my... View Article
The fate of Muammar Gaddafi, Libya’s former leader, is known; he died on October 20, 2011, but that is another story. The former first lady, Safia Farkas Gaddafi, has long been “under the radar” of the media. Her life story, on the other hand, is intriguing and may have a... View Article
With the rise of social media and an increasingly interconnected world, the internet has become a double-edged sword, offering countless opportunities for communication, commerce, and information sharing, but also providing fertile ground for scammers to exploit unsuspecting victims. Australia, like many other countries, is no stranger to the scourge of... View Article
Whether it is done in the name of patriotism or treason, it is wrong. The British aristocracy that spied for the Soviets The “Cambridge Five,” arguably the best Cold War espionage outfit, compromised top officials in Western agencies to collect the most sensitive data from them, which they then sent... View Article
Facts, in my opinion, don’t matter much these days and can be readily countered with a simple “what is it” query. There are distractions for practically every topic, including the need to fix the economy, combat climate change, alleviate refugee misery, and cope with war. The “simpler” past, in which... View Article
Since the entire world has been affected by weather events characterised by high temperatures on one side and heavy precipitation on the other, lunacy has reigned among conspiracy theorists, and many of them talk about “climate weapons” and “climate terrorism” that can harm the planet, people, or specific countries. Such... View Article
Gaddafi’s Amazons: Strict training, no sex Muammar Gaddafi’s female bodyguards were known as the Revolutionary nuns. In Europe, they were known as Amazons, and in North Africa, they were known as Haris al-Has. Their aim was to protect Libya’s leader at all costs. For years, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi of Libya... View Article
Is the world dividing into two antagonistic blocs, as it did during the Cold War? When Russia invaded Ukraine in February, Vladimir Putin declared that the world was witnessing a conflict between Moscow and Western civilisations. The split of Russia into two distinct entities brought back memories of the Cold... View Article
The Cold War lasted from the end of World War II until the early 1990s, and it was characterised by political tension and military competition. That era was more than just a geopolitical battle between the US and the Soviet Union. It was an intellectual battle, a clash between two... View Article