❗US receives Iran's response to EU proposal on nuclear deal, is studying it - State Dept

📹 Another robot dog at the Army-2022 expo: this prototype is used to teach young engineers how to program. It can also deliver goods and explore urban areas

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700 delegates from 70 countries took part in this year's MCIS security conference outside Moscow. This year’s event ran in parallel with the ARMY-2022 military and technical forum, so foreign delegations – most of them military top brass and security experts had a chance to see the latest defense technology as well as to hold debates on pressing geopolitical topics from all over the world.

Dr.Connie Rahakundini Bakrie is a well-known Indonesian military and defense analyst. She attended this year’s MCIS conference in the Patriot Park outside Moscow. She says she is concerned that her home region of Asia Pacific may very well turn into a “danger zone” because of some policies of western-backed alliances such as FPDA, the QUAD, the AUKUS

🇿🇦Thandi Modise, South Africa's defense minister, has given an exclusive interview to Sputnik at the 10th Moscow Conference on International Security

💬The minister hailed South Africa’s traditionally strong ties with Russia, specifying that Russia is able to make a vast contribution to military and economic stability in Africa. Modise also commented on the importance of BRICS and its potential expansion.

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🇵🇰 Pakistani Defense Secretary Mian Hilal Hussain has told Sputnik in an exclusive interview that his country wants the United Nations’ scope to be enhanced and its credibility restored. As for Russia-Pakistan ties, Hussain said "there’s always room for more military cooperation."

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❗UN chief to meet August 18 with Zelensky, Erdogan in Lvov - Guterres' office

🚢 Razoni, the first ship with grain to leave Ukraine after the grain deal in Istanbul was reached, has arrived in the Syrian port of Tartus, Reuters reports

🇿🇦📹 Watch a video of Sputnik's exclusive interview with Thandi Modise, South Africa's defense minister

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💬 Zaporozhye nuclear power plant reactor protected, it will remain intact even if plane falls there, but Ukrainian troops hit cooling system - regional authorities

❗Global population expected to reach 8 billion by end of 2022, UN says

▪According to the United Nations World Population Prospects 2022 report, the world’s population is expected to reach 8 billion people by November 15, 2022. Currently, there are more than 7.9 billion people living around the globe;

▪The report also points out that the world should reach 10.4 billion inhabitants by 2100. The planet will reach 8.5 billion by 2030 and 9.7 billion by 2050, the UN says;

▪However, the document also shows that the global population growth rate is at its slowest pace since 1950

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📹 Russian President Vladimir Putin's address to the 10th Moscow Conference on International Security

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"Western globalist elites are trying to divert the attention of their own citizens from acute social and economic problems, falling living standards, unemployment, poverty, and deindustrialization, to shift their own blunders to other countries, to Russia, to China, who defend their own point of view, and who are building a sovereign policy of development, not submitting to the dictates of supranational elites," Putin said.

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🇸🇪"I didn't read the contract and I didn't get paid": testimony of a Swedish mercenary facing the death penalty in the DPR

▪Mathias Gustavsson had no military experience, but "20 years ago he learned how to handle an AK-47 in Estonia";

▪He started traveling to Ukraine back in 2015, where he finally moved in the summer of 2021. He signed a contract with the Armed Forces of Ukraine on February 24;

▪According to the Swede, he allegedly did not read the document he signed and did not receive a salary for his service;

▪During the fighting, the Swede was surrounded in Mariupol together with the Croat Vekoslav Prebeg;

▪The mercenary claims he never fired a weapon and that he was not on the front line, but only guarded a military camp;

▪In May, the Swede surrendered in the industrial zone of the Azovstal plant

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🔎Amber Heard hired new legal counsel to represent her as she appealed the verdict in her defamation case against ex-Johnny Depp.

On June 1, a Virginia jury found Heard defamed Depp in a 2018 Washington Post op-ed when she wrote about surviving domestic abuse and sexual violence, although she never named the actor.

"We're confident the appellate court will apply the law properly without deference to popularity, reverse the judgment against Ms. Heard, and reaffirm the fundamental principles of Freedom of Speech."

Heard has brought on David Axelrod and Jay Ward Brown of national law firm Ballard Spahr. He successfully represented the New York Times against former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's libel lawsuit. They'll help Heard as she fights to overturn the largely unfavorable verdict against her handed down by a jury following the ex-couple's bombshell trial in Fairfax, Virginia.

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🔖The US Department of Defense has disclosed that the United States held a missile defense exercise with Japan and South Korea from August 8 to 14. In a release on Monday, the Pentagon said Japan's Maritime Self-Defense Force and the US and South Korean navies took part in the drill off a missile base in Hawaii.

The Pentagon said they "participated in a missile warning and ballistic missile search and tracking exercise" and "shared tactical data link information."

It also said the exercise demonstrated the commitment of the three countries to furthering trilateral cooperation to respond to North Korean challenges, protecting shared security and prosperity, and bolstering the rules-based international order.

The three countries' defense chiefs had agreed in June to resume joint exercises to respond to North Korea's ballistic missile launches. The drills are the first since December 2017.

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