🇿🇦📹 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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◾️US President Joe Biden has signed a $740bn climate change, healthcare, and tax bill into law, handing the Democratic Party a much-needed win ahead of the November midterm elections.

In a signing ceremony at the White House on Tuesday, Biden heralded the Inflation Reduction Act for its record investment in cutting carbon emissions. The bill includes nearly $370bn meant to encourage a shift away from fossil fuels, although some allege that it does not go nearly far enough.

“The American people won, and the special interests lost,” Biden said during a ceremony at the White House on Tuesday. “This bill is the biggest step forward on climate, ever.”

His Democratic Party hopes the bill may help convince voters that it has been able to deliver on fundamental promises, even with a thin majority in Congress that has given leverage to more conservative Democrats allied with the fossil fuel industry.

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⚡️🚙Industrial production returned more than expected in July in the United States, thanks to a substantial boost from auto manufacturing, according to data published on Tuesday by the Federal Reserve (Fed, central bank).

The production of the industrial branch grew 0.6% in June, above the 0.3% expected by analysts. Over July 2021, the increase will be 3.9%. This advance is mainly due to the rise in the manufacture of cars and auto parts, which grew 6.6% after six months of continuous decline. This sector has been disturbed for a year by the shortage of semiconductors, which has been weighing down the production of vehicles.

The manufacturing sector, which accounts for 11.9% of the US economy, remains supported by strong demand for goods, even as spending gradually shifts toward services. But the risks are increasing as retailers carry excess inventory, especially clothing.

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😷💥Panic and chaos broke out in an Ikea in Shanghai, China, over the weekend. The store wanted to confine all customers after detecting a COVID contact. The fear of confinement due to a case of coronavirus contact caused panic was captured in viral images as another example of the ironclad strategies still employed by China two and a half years after the start of the pandemic.

China applies a very strict health policy against COVID, which includes systematic quarantines for people who test positive and widespread and mandatory PCR tests. Last spring, Shanghai was locked down for two months in response to the country's biggest outbreak in two years.

The 25 million residents of Shanghai, China's largest city, have had to contend with harsh COVID regulations since earlier this year when it was sealed off for two months to contain an outbreak.

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🎥🛒Walmart Inc. said Monday that it had signed a deal with Paramount Global to offer the entertainment company's streaming service as a perk to subscribers of the discounter's shipping subnoscription service.

The move is part of efforts by the nation's largest retailer to better compete with Amazon's Prime membership program, which offers an array of perks.

Starting in September, subscribers to Walmart+ will have access to the Paramount+ Essential Plan, which includes ads and offers original dramas such as "1883" and "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds," along with the preschool franchise "PAW Patrol," recent blockbuster films such as "Sonic the Hedgehog 2," and live sports.

Walmart, based in Bentonville, Arkansas, has never disclosed the number of members it has signed up but said on Monday that it had had monthly growth in membership since its launch in September 2020.

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🗣 Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., on Tuesday admitted that the Inflation Reduction Act won’t "immediately" temper inflation, telling reporters that the necessary investments needed to bring down prices would take some time.

📍 Manchin’s comments came after President Biden signed the landmark climate change and health care bill into law on Tuesday, delivering what he has called the "final piece" of his pared-down domestic agenda. Though Democrats have labeled the measure the Inflation Reduction Act, nonpartisan analysts have said it will have a barely perceptible impact on prices.

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📍 LIVE UPDATES: Ukrainian forces continue to shell Donetsk - DPR

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⚡️ North Korea reportedly fires two cruise missiles into Yellow Sea

👹 Elon Musk has denied that he is buying Manchester United.

▪️ Earlier, he wrote about his intention to buy the Red Devils on his Twitter account.

🗣 “This is an old joke. I don't buy any sports teams," the businessman wrote.

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⚡️ Annual inflation in UK in July accelerated to 10.1% - ONS

⚡️🇷🇺Moscow region’s Patriot Expo, Kubinka Air Base and the Alabino military training ground are brimming with activity at the ARMY-2022 International Military-Technical Forum – a weeklong expo organized by the Russian Defense Ministry showing off the latest domestic and foreign defense hardware.

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