China' s top diplomat Wang Yi seems to be in an upbeat mood, waving at journalists at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization ministerial summit in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. China is one of the founding members of the transregional bloc, has a lot of influence on its decision-making, and "Shanghai spirit" is the phrase which is often used to describe the organization's cultural diversity.

❗China began a two-day military exercise in the South China Sea off the coast of southern Guangdong province as US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi prepares for her trip to Asia

⚡The West's military strategy to deal with Russian-Ukrainian conflict doesn't work - Hungary PM Orban

Lisichansk residents are asking why the Ukrainian Army shelled Orthodox churches:

"These non-Orthodox churches are still standing... all the Orthodox buildings were razed to the ground."

"We are one people - Slavs... Ukrainians, Russians, Belarusians... One Heavenly Father - and they did this."

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🇺🇸Joe Biden's granddaughter to be married at the White House

❗️San Francisco declares state of emergency over the spread of monkeypox

Numerous cases of flooding in the US: Here downtown Las Vegas, Nevada is seen inundated by tonnes of water

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⚡️Russian MoD: Ukrainian forces fired HIMARS missiles last night at the pre-trial detention center near Elenovka in Donbass, where Ukrainian prisoners are kept (including Azov neo-Nazis). As a result of the strike, 40 Ukrainian prisoners of war were killed and 75 wounded, eight employees of the detention center were also wounded.

"Currently, a lot of Ukrainian servicemen have voluntarily laid down their arms: they know how humanely prisoners of war are treated on the Russian side. This egregious act was committed to intimidate Ukrainian servicemen and prevent their surrender. The circumstances of this provocation are being investigated."

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📹Artillery units of the DPR People's Militia destroy fortifications and strongholds of the Ukrainian army with the aid of UAVs

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📹The Shanghai Cooperation Organization foreign ministers meeting is underway in Tashkent, Uzbekistan

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Russian Security Service says thwarted terrorist attack in Lipetsk plotted by Ukrainian Right Sector militants trained by foreign instructors

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WATCH LIVE 👉 Russian top diplomat Sergei Lavrov talks to media after SCO Foreign Ministers' Council meeting

Russian FM Sergey Lavrov: broad consensus within SCO on possibility of granting Belarus full-time membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

🇺🇸Prosecutors from the Department of Justice (DoJ) are making preparations to try to force former White House officials to testify about then-President Donald Trump's conversations and actions around 6 January, CNN says, citing people familiar with the matter.

▪Their endeavors are founded on the expectation that the former president will invoke executive privilege to hide some information from the federal grand jury as the criminal investigation digs deeper into the ranks of White House officials who directly interacted with Trump, to uncover whether Trump intended to prevent the transfer of power to Joe Biden

▪Commenting on the matter, Attorney-General Merrick Garland declared that Trump’s status as a former president doesn’t put him "beyond the reach of the investigation" and stressed that they are taking care to “get this right”

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