Once Again - When Performance Suddenly Stops Being Enough!
Anyone who wants to understand how institutions change often does not need to watch major speeches but personnel decisions. Inside the Pentagon, exactly that kind of development has been unfolding for months. This time it concerns the U.S. Navy and a question that is much bigger than individual names: Who will still be allowed to rise into the highest levels of the armed forces in the future? According to several current and former government officials, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had at least seven officers removed from an already prepared promotion list for the rank of one star admiral. The original list included candidates who had already passed through a selection process conducted by senior Navy officers. Of the officers removed, at least two were women and two were Black men. Three others were white men.
The outcome appears striking. The list that was ultimately published did not include a single woman. Women make up roughly one fifth of active Navy personnel. Members of ethnic minorities account for around 38 percent, yet according to the reports only a small number of nonwhite officers remained on the final list.
What appears especially questionable is not only the result but the path that led there. The promotion system inside the U.S. armed forces has traditionally been considered highly formalized. Anyone seeking the rank of brigadier general or rear admiral goes through one of the most demanding selection processes in the military. Hundreds of personnel files are reviewed over the course of weeks. Only a small fraction are selected at all. Political intervention is technically possible, but traditionally reserved for situations in which new information raises concerns about suitability, conduct, or ability to serve.
That is where criticism begins. Because once again, no public explanation was provided for the removals. Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell stated only that promotions are awarded to those who earned them and that race or gender should play no role. He did not explain why the names were removed.
It is not the first time.
Earlier this year, four colonels were reportedly removed from an Army promotion list. Two Black men and two women. According to reports, there was resistance even from inside the department itself. Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll reportedly argued internally that those affected had long military careers and no identifiable misconduct. At the same time, numerous senior officers have been dismissed or pushed aside in recent months. Among them were General Charles Q. Brown Jr., the second Black chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to lead the Navy. Hegseth himself has justified his approach for months by arguing that the military had become too focused on gender and demographic representation and had therefore lost combat effectiveness.
Senator Jack Reed has already warned publicly that the military is losing some of its most experienced leaders and that younger officers are increasingly beginning to ask whether performance alone will still be enough in the future. Additional questions emerged after reports that Hegseth had internally tried to place a Navy officer from his personal circle onto the promotion list. According to Navy sources, the officer did not meet the required qualifications and was ultimately not selected. What many observers find especially unsettling is that some of the removed officers appear not to have attracted attention because of recent decisions but because of activities from years or even decades ago. One female officer was reportedly singled out partly because she had long ago participated in programs aimed at recruiting and advancing women and minorities. For many inside the military, that has become the real message.
Not whether someone does good work. But which part of their past may later be used against them.
The Woman Nobody Can Get Rid Of
Mette Frederiksen has done it again. After an unusually long and difficult government formation process, Denmark’s prime minister remains in office and is now setting the course for something that only a few months ago looked far less certain. If she completes this term, she could become Denmark’s longest serving head of government since the Second World War. The path there was anything but dominant. In the March election, her Social Democrats recorded their worst result in roughly one hundred years and fell to just 22 percent. Her personal popularity has been declining for months. Many voters now describe her as distant or self confident to the point of arrogance. Yet in the end there was barely anyone left who could govern the country. More than a dozen parties entered parliament and for weeks nobody managed to build a workable majority. Only after long negotiations between left leaning parties and moderate forces did a new government emerge on Monday evening. Frederiksen then traveled to Odense and personally informed King Frederik X. The monarch and Queen Mary were aboard the royal yacht Dannebrog in the harbor when the new government was formally confirmed.
Frederiksen later stated that Denmark is the best country in the world and that this solution had to succeed. Internationally she has long become more visible than she is at home. Above all, her resistance to Donald Trump’s demands regarding Greenland has brought her attention across Europe. Denmark, with only six million inhabitants, is not one of Europe’s largest states, but through Greenland it controls one of the strategically most important regions of the Arctic. While other governments chose more cautious language, Frederiksen maintained her position and rejected any willingness to give up the island. At the same time she expanded Denmark’s role inside NATO and supported Ukraine militarily far more strongly than many expected from the country. Domestically, the new government is expected to focus more heavily on environmental policy, which could place substantial pressure on Denmark’s large pork industry. Observers also believe Frederiksen may use this term to position herself for an international role. In Copenhagen she remains controversial. In Europe she remains in demand.
The Colleagues With Long Ears
At a psychiatric hospital outside Paris, not only doctors, nurses, and therapy rooms are waiting. There are also Nono, Pitou, Oscar, Manolo, and Malraux. Five donkeys that have become part of an unusual treatment approach. On the grounds of the Ville-Evrard hospital, patients walk with the animals, clean their hooves, prepare food, and spend time with them. To outsiders, it may appear unremarkable at first. For many patients, however, it becomes a moment in which something changes. Nathalie, 60 years old, describes it simply. It brings relief. One stops thinking about everything else. Care workers describe patients who initially refused to leave a transport vehicle and who, after only a few sessions, stand beside their animal, walk, and allow closeness again. Others say that through these shared walks they begin having conversations again and doing things that no longer seemed possible in everyday life. Participation is free and part of France’s public health care system. The goal is not entertainment. The goal is to help people with depression, anxiety disorders, autism, schizophrenia, or other psychological burdens return to movement without reducing every encounter to symptoms and medication.
The project began in 2016 with Ermelinda Hadey, a psychiatric nurse, and her husband François Hadey. Some of the animals themselves came from poor living conditions. Since 2022, the unit has held official status inside the hospital and employs dedicated care staff. Guinea pigs, chickens, pigeons, goats, turtles, and rabbits have since been added to the program. Sessions are adapted to individual patients and smaller animals can even be brought directly into patient rooms. François Hadey describes donkeys as calm, attentive, and highly responsive to emotions. His wife explains the therapeutic idea more concretely. Someone feeding an animal often suddenly begins talking about their own eating habits. Someone caring for fur or hooves reconnects with their own personal care. Many patients receive strong medication and lose motivation and structure. That is often where access begins. Nobody claims a donkey replaces medicine or a physician. But according to those involved, it can help restore trust in one’s own abilities. What is still missing, they themselves say, is more scientific research. The feedback from patients already exists. The experience of the staff does as well. Only the data still has to follow.
Children’s Day With Shields and Rifles
Our reporting shows that in several Russian cities, Children’s Day was not marked by traditional family celebrations but by events organized together with security agencies. In Vladivostok, the National Guard invited visitors onto the grounds of the Vostok unit, which has taken part in the war against Ukraine. According to the organizers, personnel together with cadets demonstrated formations and methods used to disperse mass protests. The program also included military basic training exercises. Children and teenagers were able to inspect armored vehicles, handle weapons, and try military equipment. Images show sniper rifles, assault rifles, machine guns, pistols, grenades, and drones. During some parts of the program, young participants were expected to take weapons apart and put them back together again. Food and sweets were handed out between demonstrations. The images looked less like an ordinary children’s celebration and more like an open house for state security institutions.
Other cities followed a similar path. In Novosibirsk, employees of the prison service organized demonstrations involving simulated combat scenarios. Children were given protective equipment and held shields of the kind used for crowd control during protests. In Yakutsk, a military oriented training center offered exercises involving drones, weapons, and resuscitation training on practice mannequins as part of a children’s festival. Publicly, this was presented as recreational programming. At the same time, uniforms, equipment, and the routines of the security apparatus were visibly placed at the center. The events were explicitly aimed at schoolchildren and combined play, demonstration, and elements of training. Observers have for years viewed this as part of a broader development in which state institutions increasingly try to present security agencies as a familiar and normal part of everyday life from an early age.
These images are not new. Back in January, a school in Syktyvkar reported on a field trip by second grade students to a museum operated by the prison system. The visit was described as especially memorable. One of the highlights mentioned at the time was a prison cell that remained in the children’s memory. The report stated that visits like these could inspire children to one day become defenders of order and justice themselves. The current events connect directly to that development. What originally began as a day intended to emphasize protection, development, and freedom for children became in several places a day in which uniforms, operational equipment, and state authority set the tone.
When the Press Office Becomes a Security Zone
For decades, it was part of everyday life at the Pentagon that journalists moved through the press office, stopped at desks, asked quick questions, or held informal conversations with press staff. That part of political life is now disappearing. The U.S. Department of Defense has turned its press office into a restricted area and barred journalists from entering. The move is being justified as an organizational change inside the building. Speechwriters for the department now work there and require access to an internal communications network containing sensitive material. According to the department, that has made a new security classification necessary. In the future, conversations with the press office or with the office of the press secretary will only be possible by prior appointment. The room where reporters once waited, asked questions, and held background conversations is now being closed to them.
The move comes at a time when relations between the Pentagon and the press are already under strain. Since Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth took office, access rules have become significantly stricter. Journalists can no longer move freely through many areas of the building and several legal cases are now dealing with the new restrictions. For years, the Pentagon operated under the principle that unclassified areas should remain accessible to the media and that reporters should be able to do their work without constant supervision. That understanding is now under debate. Even if journalists are eventually granted broader access to the building again, they are losing one of the most important spaces for direct communication.
The conflict had already escalated last fall when hundreds of journalists returned their press credentials instead of accepting new rules. Those rules would have required them not to request or use information that had not been officially approved for publication. In March, a federal judge ruled central parts of those requirements unlawful. The government appealed the decision. Another case is already underway. Critics view the new rules less as an administrative adjustment and more as a growing distance between the military and the public. What remains noticeable is that other central areas of government continue to maintain a significantly more open relationship with reporters.
Read also our article: Every Credential a Vow of Silence - How the Pentagon Puts the Press in Shackles and Why Leaks of All Things Save the Public
The Silence in the Pentagon - The Departure of the Journalists
When Chemotherapy Has to Wait
In Russia, concern is growing over medications without which a large part of modern cancer treatment cannot function. Patient advocates have informed the Ministry of Health that shortages of platinum based cancer drugs are now affecting at least 16 regions. Among the affected substances are Carboplatin, Cisplatin, and Oxaliplatin. These belong to the most important medications in the Russian health care system and are included in more than forty treatment guidelines covering different types of cancer. If these drugs are unavailable, chemotherapy may be delayed, altered, or in some cases may not begin at all. According to available market data, roughly 65 percent of procurement tenders for these substances failed during the first four months of 2026. The situation was particularly severe for Carboplatin. Around 87 percent of tenders did not result in contracts during that period. Overall, procurement procedures worth approximately 3.1 billion rubles were announced, yet around 2 billion rubles never resulted in completed agreements.
The Ministry of Health argues that existing reserves should still last for several months. According to regulatory authorities, hundreds of thousands of packages of different medications remain available in storage. At the same time, patient organizations and physicians have for months reported growing problems in everyday treatment. As early as the end of January, reports from multiple regions stated that certain medications had become difficult to obtain in pharmacies. Representatives of patient groups point out that although many modern cancer therapies may still technically be available, their effectiveness often cannot be achieved without accompanying platinum based treatment. In some cases, patients have reportedly already been asked to obtain missing medications themselves in order to continue treatment.
According to these extensive investigations, the shortages also have economic causes. The price of platinum has risen significantly since the beginning of 2024. As a result, production of several substances has come under pressure. Manufacturers have already confirmed higher costs for raw materials and production inputs. One of the major suppliers reported substantially lower delivery volumes than in the previous year. At the same time, oncologists warn against simply substituting one drug for another. Although they belong to the same group, their applications, tolerability, and medical effects differ. For patients, this creates a situation in which the question is no longer simply whether treatment remains available, but whether the specific treatment on which their care depends will remain available.
