⚡️Al-Sadr supporters began to leave the "green zone" in the center of Baghdad after his order, a source in the security forces told Sputnik

🇮🇶 In an address to supporters, Iraqi Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr gave protesters one hour to leave the Republican Palace and Baghdad's Green Zone, threatening to leave the Sadrist Movement if they don't.

📹 According to videos from social media, the protesters are complying with the demand and leaving the Green Zone

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📌Russia's MoD issues its latest statements on the Ukraine crisis:

▪️Russian forces destroyed more than 1,200 Ukrainian troops in the Nikolaev-Krivoy Rog direction;

▪️The Russian Aerospace Forces destroyed production workshops at the Intervzryvprom plant that were used for the production of explosives in Krivoy Rog;

▪️Russian forces destroyed more than 200 Ukrainian soldiers and about 40 foreign mercenaries in the DPR;

▪️More than 100 troops of the Ukrainian Foreign Legion and Kraken formations were destroyed in strikes by Russian troops in the DPR;

▪️Russian aviation eliminated five Ukrainian headquarters, three warehouses of weapons and ammo, and 52 artillery pieces;

▪️On August 29, Ukrainian troops used four attack drones on the Zaporozhye NPP, all drones were intercepted by Russian air defenses;

▪️Russian air defenses shot down two Ukrainian Su-25 aircraft and five drones, intercepted three Tochka-U missiles, as well as 53 HIMARS, Alder, and Hurricane MLRS projectiles

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🇦🇫 The Taliban* have declared August 31, the day when US troops withdrew from Afghanistan last year, a public holiday, according to a document at Sputnik's disposal

*Organization is under UN sanctions over terrorist activities

😧 Marjolein from the Netherlands has achieved a sort of super-transition as he has gone from being a 31-year-old man to a 15-year-old girl, after realizing a couple of years ago that he wanted to be allowed to participate in official football competitions in the women's league.

Although the KNVB Cup does not allow Marjolein to play in a team that otherwise consists only of girls under the age of 20, he has managed to train with the girls, share their changing room and take showers with them.

🗣 "I was finally accepted by my teammates. For the first time, I did not have to change clothes in a separate room, but was welcomed in the ladies‘ dressing room - the most beautiful gift I could get"

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❗️🌐 Check out Sputnik's interview with Indonesian diplomat Hosea RB Manurung ahead of this year's G20 summit in Bali.

⚡️ A US delegation led by Arizona Governor Doug Ducey will arrive in Taiwan on Tuesday for a two-day visit, during which Ducey will meet with the head of the island's administration Tsai Ing-wen, Foreign Minister Joseph Wu, and representatives of Taiwan's semiconductor industry, the island's Central News Agency reported, citing a statement from Taiwan's Foreign Ministry

🇫🇷 More sports news! PSG star Kylian Mbappe is in a relationship with transgender model Ines Rau, Italian media Corriere dello Sport reports

▪The two have been dating for a few months, and were spotted for the first time in May during the Cannes Film Festival. Later, paparazzi caught the footballer with Ines on camera while they were on a yacht;

▪Ines Rau is known for being the first transgender model to get a cover on Playboy in 2017. At 16, Ines underwent surgery to change sex, and at 24 the model publicly revealed it

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❗Camilo Guevara March, Ernesto Che Guevara's son, has passed away

🪓 The Ukrainian military is building wooden copies of HIMARS multiple launch rocket systems in an attempt to "mislead Russian forces," The Washington Post says

😏 Beating the game: a video allegedly filmed in Turkey has emerged online showing a boy outplaying an ice cream trickster.

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⚡Taiwan fired warning shots as PLA drone approached Kinmen Islands - report

🇭🇺 Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto stated that he will ask Europe to stop any actions that escalate the crisis in Ukraine

"At the meeting of the EU foreign ministers today I will ask that we finally reject the proposals that entail the threat of further escalation... and that we focus on establishing peace in Europe," Szijjarto said ahead of the informal ministerial meeting in Prague.

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🇿🇦 Meghan Markle slammed by Nelson Mandela's grandson for saying South Africans celebrated her wedding the same way they rejoiced over his freedom

▪Meghan Markle said in an interview with The Cut that a South African actor had told her at the Lion King premiere in 2019: “We rejoiced in the streets the same we did when Mandela was freed from prison”;

▪Madiba's grandson Zwelivelile “Mandla” Mandela has reacted to the statement, claiming that the people of South Africa expressed their joy at his grandfather's release and danced in the streets for a far more important and serious reason than her marriage "to a white prince";

▪"Madiba's celebration was based on overcoming 350 years of colonialism with 60 years of a brutal apartheid regime in South Africa. So it cannot be equated to as the same," he said.

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🤔🇧🇷 A very narrow and long cloud was captured over Barra da Tijuca beach in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. The rare phenomenon is caused by strong winds in opposite directions and can reach 1,000 km in length, and up to two km in width.

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🇺🇸 Didn't get the job done? Timothy Thibault, a top FBI agent at the Washington field office, reportedly resigned from his post last week after facing intense scrutiny over allegations he helped shield Hunter Biden from criminal investigations into his laptop and business dealings

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🌻 Poland and Ukraine want to build an oil pipeline to pump Ukrainian vegetable oil to the Baltic port of Gdansk, the Office of the Prime Minister of Poland reports

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⚡️Joe Biden takes official step toward announcing run for re-election - Federal Election Commission

US President Joe Biden has filed some of the requisite documents paving the way toward announcing his run for re-election in the 2024 presidential race, according to a Federal Election Commission filing.

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