Around 700,000 people living in Ukraine's southern Kherson region now urgently need access to drinking water after a major dam breach this week, the UN has said. Western intelligence officials said that record low water levels in the Kakhovka Reservoir after its dam burst on Tuesday have dried up a canal that supplies occupied Crimea with fresh water.

The warnings come as Ukraine's army pushes its counteroffensive, aimed at recapturing Crimea, which the Kremlin annexed in 2014.

Martin Griffiths, the UN Under-Secretary General for humanitarian affairs and its emergency relief coordinator, said the collapse of the dam had triggered an "extraordinary" humanitarian crisis that has forced thousands of people from their homes and destroyed vital infrastructure.

A majority of people globally are on Russia's side in relation to its conflict with Ukraine, while US influence in the international arena is declining, veteran journalist Seymour Hersh has said.

"The percentage, particularly of the African and Central Asian and South Asian countries, that have changed from being pro-America to being pro-Russia is really quite dramatic," he noted during an interview with George Galloway, which was published on YouTube on Sunday.

"Much more than half of the world's population supports Russia in the war and not the US. This was never the way it was. Washington has lost so much credibility around the world" amid the conflict in Ukraine."

The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist returned to the spotlight in February when he published a bombshell report, accusing the US of sabotaging the Nord Stream pipelines. Washington rejected the report as "utterly false and complete fiction."

The current mania for pulling down statues of so-called morally corrupt historical figures is a classic case of presentism: "reading modern notions of morality" onto the past. It seems that those driven to do so may be honestly trying to rectify the "sins" of the past — whether it be colonial conquest, slavery, genocide, or whatever else. How corrupt were these historical figures? Were they indeed much more reprehensible than anyone in the present day? What did these people actually think in the awful before times when our Western European ancestors discovered the "New World" and practiced conquest and slavery? We are not able to read their minds — only to speculate upon their intent by examining historical documents: the writings, recollections, and stories of those who experienced those days. Indeed, how many of these activists so intent on destroying these representations of the past are fully knowledgeable of these documents that underpin the respect once given to these historical figures resulting in their statuary honors?

David Wootton, in his book The Invention of Science, explores the development of modern thinking through the investigation of historical artefacts such as writings, literature, and recollections. He notes that in the 1600s, even the notion of history itself did not exist as we understand it today. Wootton describes the intellectual culture of a typical well educated European in the 1600s. Such a person believed that witches could turn people into pigs, for instance, and that magic could be used to retrieve stolen goods. Alchemists could turn base metal into gold, and murdered bodies would bleed in the presence of the murderer. Slavery was understood to be just one way of the world. Europeans at that time were familiar with the writings of the Romans and the Greeks and how they lived. They had no notion of progress as such — to be able to reflect on their own technologies and compare them to the capabilities of others — so the classical civilizations of Rome and Greece were seen as contemporaries rather than as ancients. We today can marvel at their ignorance, even as we take for granted the modern world that exists as a result of their imagination and curiosity.

The war-torn east European country is a mecca for some of the most odious people on earth. What sort of threat does this pose to their home countries?

At the end of April, two French neo-Nazis - Alan Vineron and Guillaume Andreoni - who had joined the Armed Forces of Ukraine as mercenaries, were arrested and convicted in their home country. Two months earlier, one of them had posted photos of three executed Russian prisoners on social media. However, Vineron and Andreoni were detained not because of any war crimes, but for attempting to smuggle weapons and munitions back home, including rifle scopes and magazines for machine guns. After a brief trial, they were sentenced to 15 months in prison each, nine of them to be served conditionally.

This incident is only the first sign of things to come. According to French media, about 400 French citizens are taking part in the armed conflict in Ukraine. Of these, about 100 are directly involved in the fighting, and about 30 are well-known far-right extremists.

It's not just Paris that will soon face the prospect of militant neo-Nazis returning home. Observers note that the number of volunteer foreign fighters in Ukraine has reached thousands.

The French and their 'adventures' in Ukraine

The Meta chief admitted that the social media platform removed millions of posts during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Facebook was asked by the scientific "establishment" to remove various posts related to Covid-19 which later proved to be "debatable or true," Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said during a podcast interview this week.

Speaking to the Russian-American interviewer Lex Fridman in a podcast released on Thursday, Zuckerberg said that policing Facebook's attempts to remove mistruths is "really tricky."

An 11-year-old British girl was shot dead as she played on swings in the garden of her family home in a village in western France on Saturday.

The girl's father and mother were also injured in the attack in the village of Saint-Herbot in Brittany while her eight-year-old sister escaped unhurt.

The Thornon family, who have lived in the village for about five years, were enjoying a barbecue in their garden and the girls were playing on swings at about 10pm on Saturday when a man appeared with a gun and fired several shots.

Solenne Thornon, 11, was killed immediately while her father, 52-year-old Adrien, was shot in the head. He was taken to hospital where his condition was described as critical.

It's been a bloodbath for the majority of companies that go overtly woke in the new era of American consumer rebellion, and the establishment is not happy. Corporations like Disney, Anheuser-Busch and Target are plunging in profits and losing billions in market cap after pledging fealty to the trans agenda. In particular, the public is setting out to make examples of institutions that support trans indoctrination of children. Simply put, a line in the sand has been crossed.

With conservative boycotts far more effective than leftist boycotts ever were, the movement makes evident that the political left is a paper tiger and that conservatives and independents have the real majority power in the US. In response, the media is claiming that this movement is a form of "economic terrorism." That is to say, if you refuse to support the woke hive mind with your wallet, you should be considered domestic enemy.

It took long enough, but average Americans are finally engaging in a culture war which was started years ago, not so much by the political left, but by globalist institutions using leftist activists as enforcers and saboteurs. The key issue that very few people talk about is that activist groups would have NO POWER whatsoever if it weren't for the unprecedented backing they receive from governments, non-profits, think-tanks and the corporate world. And, a lot of this support has been injected through ESG-style financing as well as DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) programs.

The BBC plans to make sure new recruits have 'diverse opinions' after claims of a 'liberal bias' among employees.

Senior figures hosted talks on changes which could be made to the recruitment process to make sure the BBC hires staff with a differing range of views.

The move is seen as unusual because it stretches beyond a previous focus on the views of on-screen presenters.

According to The Telegraph, the minutes of the meeting, attended by the BBC's director general Tim Davie and their chief operating officer Leigh Tavaziva, said: 'The Committee discussed analysis on ways in which the BBC was ensuring diversity of thought across the workforce.

French media have lauded a young "hero with a backpack" for his attempts to thwart a knife attack in Annecy which left four children seriously injured.

Henri, 24, was filmed chasing the suspect and swinging his bag at him.

The Catholic pilgrim - who has been touring France's cathedrals - said he had followed his instincts and did what he could to "protect the weak".


He was praised for his bravery by President Emmanuel Macron when the two met in the town on Friday afternoon.

Mr Macron told Henri that his actions were a "source of hope", but that the young man had "lived through... a trauma".

The French leader travelled to meet the victims of the stabbings and salute the work of first responders.

He said he had heard "positive" news about the condition of the four children wounded in the attack. Two adults were also hurt.

A martial artist is being hailed as a hero after he ran to the rescue of a 17-year-old girl who was being sexually attacked by a group of African migrants on a beach in Greece, according to reports.

The shocking incident unfolded at Freattyda Beach in Piraeus, a port city near Athens.

The teen girl and her 15-year-old boyfriend were enjoying a day by the sea they were ambushed by four male suspects.

"They hit a child who was on the rocks, tried to rape the girl, and threw the young man into the sea. We saw the bloody child running in that direction," a witness told Greek media.

The boy, who was also covered in blood, ran for help as the girl was being sexually assaulted.

"He tells me, 'My girlfriend is there, they hit me', and he says, 'There are some people there who are molesting her.' He was hit all over. He had been thrown off the cliff," another witness said.

Manolis Kafetziadis, a 22-year-old karate athlete, leapt into action, calling police and sprinting to help the girl.

The suspects used broken bottles, rocks, and jagged metal to attack Kafetziadis.

Armed with just a pen and with his hand wrapped in a t-shirt for protection, Kafetziadis fought off all four attackers, even subduing them for a time before they fled the scene.