🌎⚽️ The 2022 World Cup has kicked off in Qatar with an impressive opening ceremony at the Al-Bayt Stadium:

▪️Qatar's Sheikh Tamim bin Hammad Al Thani welcomed the world in Arabic;

▪️Morgan Freeman, Robbie Williams, and BTS' Jung Kook headlined the World Cup opening ceremony.

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🇫🇷 French Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu said on Sunday that it was necessary to avoid false assessment and hasty judgments of the missile incident in Poland, which may lead to escalation of the Ukraine conflict.

💬 "Escalation may develop very quickly. It is necessary to remain calm and carefully analyze what is happening to avoid any false assessment. Our military intelligence has been looking into the matter since Tuesday together with the United States and the United Kingdom," Lecornu told French media.

▪️On November 15, two missiles fell on Polish territory on the border with Ukraine, killing two people. Initially, Warsaw said that the missiles were Russian-made but later added that there was a high probability that they were shot by Ukrainian air defense forces.

❗️The Russian defense ministry said no strikes had been carried out on targets near the Ukrainian-Polish border and the debris on photos released on the internet looked nothing like Russian weapons.

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🇨🇮🇬🇭 The Ivory Coast and Ghana, the two biggest cocoa producers in the world, demand multinational chocolate companies pay more to the growers

▪️Their case is based on the Living Income Differential (LID), a policy implemented by the countries in 2019 to lift cocoa farmers out of poverty. The Ivory Coast and Ghana promised to charge a premium of $400 per tonne on all cocoa sales, starting with the 2020/21 harvest.

▪️However, trade boards in the two countries claimed that the scheme was undermined as cocoa traders depress the price of another premium based on the quality of cocoa beans which operates in parallel.

▪️If the manufacturers do not follow through on their commitments by 20 November, the countries threaten to "prohibit access to plantations to carry out crop forecasts" and to "suspend sustainability programs"

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👴🏻📞 “Let’s shock ‘em all”: Joe Biden called the US men’s national soccer team ahead of their opening game at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.

💬 “You guys, I know you're the underdog. But I tell you what man, you got some of the best players in the world on your team and you're representing this country and I know you're gonna play your hearts out. So let’s go shock 'em all,” said Biden.

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❗️First 2022 World Cup match: Qatar 0-2 Ecuador

🇺🇸 Ex-US Vice President Mike Pence said on Sunday that the Americans would like a return of the former Trump-Pence administration policies before incumbent US President Joe Biden came into office.

💬 "Everywhere I've gone for the last two years, I've heard people tell me that they want to get back to the policies of that administration. The Trump-Pence administration delivered for the American people," Pence told American broadcaster.

▪️The politician went on to say that Biden's policies resulted into "the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan," the economy in recession, "a gusher of spending in Washington, D.C.," and "the worst inflation in 40 years."

💬 "Well, I just think there'll be better choices," Pence added, when asked about his support to a Republican Party nominee even if it is former US President Donald Trump.

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🤔 The UK Ministry of Defense will provide refillable lighters to the Ukrainian Army with the slogan "Glory to Ukraine" inscribed on them as part of the winter kit it is giving Ukrainian recruits training on British soil.

➡️ On Saturday, British PM Rishi Sunak announced a military aid package worth $60 million, including 125 anti-aircraft guns. This follows a previous announcement by British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace about the delivery of more than 1,000 new air-defense missiles to Ukraine.

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📹 US B-1B bombers deployed to Korean Peninsula for joint air drills in response to North Korean missile launch

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📌 NATO needs external enemies in order to justify its very existence and for the purpose of keeping its allies disciplined, Dmitry Suslov, deputy director of the Center for European and International Studies at Russia’s Higher School of Economics, told Sputnik.

💭 Russia and China have been singled out for the role of adversary, with NATO defining both nations as "challenges," "threats," and pulling out all the stops in a bid to stoke instability in the neighborhood of these countries. So, understanding mission of NATO’s mission, which is very different from classic collective defense, helps explain all of the alliance’s actions, Dmitry Suslov clarified.

👉 FULL STORY HERE

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📹 A Ukrainian militant who laid down his arms told how he killed a wounded Russian soldier in Mariupol

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🇨🇳🇺🇸Taiwan is a security "red line" for China which Washington must never cross, Foreign Minister Wang Yi indicated.

💬 “In response to recent erroneous words and deeds by the United States on the Taiwan issue and Washington’s attempt to draw a line in Sino-US relations, President Xi Jinping comprehensively and systematically expounded on the origin of the Taiwan issue and China’s principled position, clearly pointing out that Taiwan issue is at the center of China’s core interests, and the core of Sino-US relations,” Wang said in a Foreign Ministry statement Sunday, summarizing President Xi’s trips to the G20 and APEC summits this week.

🔻China-US ties have sunk to their lowest point since the normalization of relations in 1979, with problems stemming from the trade and tech wars launched by the Trump administration in 2018, complemented by the Biden White House’s repeated violations of the One China policy on Taiwan.

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📹 A soldier released from captivity spoke about the cruelty of the Ukrainian security forces

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🌎⚽️ The 2022 World Cup has kicked off in Qatar. It is the second Asian country and the first Arab country to be awarded the right to organize the largest international soccer event.

As has always been the case, the fans are the main "feature" of the competition. Soccer enthusiasts gather from all over the world to support their national team. But they may not even be aware of the peculiarities that await them during their stay in the tournament's host country.

👉 Check out the top 10 reasons for the competition to take place here.

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🌚 The Moon could be hosting humans for lengthy stays on its surface as early as in this decade, a NASA official has claimed.

💬 "We're going to be sending people down to the surface and they're going to be living on that surface and doing science," said Howard Hu, head of the American space agency's Orion lunar spacecraft program. Specifically-tailored habitats would be required to support such ambitious lunar scientific missions, he acknowledged in a media interview.

🚀 Howard hailed the the lift-off of the Artemis 1 uncrewed mission atop the Boeing-developed Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and bearing the Orion capsule from the Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral on November 16. This was but the first step of America's much-touted mission to put astronauts back on the Moon, Hu said.

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📹 Russia's MoD has published footage of a new multiple launch rocket system called Tornado-S. It is a highly modernized version of the Smerch MLRS. The improvement affected ammunition, communications and control equipment

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🇯🇵 As part of Japan's official development assistance program, the country will help 19 countries, including Laos, Vietnam, Iran and others, that didn't support the condemnation of Russia at the UN, the Japanese TV company reported.

According to the report, the Ministry of Finance of Japan believes that such aid should be reviewed; at the same time, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which provides assistance in the distribution of funds, did not see inconsistencies in the allocation of assistance to these countries, since it includes support for non-governmental organizations and the decision to provide support was made based on diplomatic significance and the development of humanitarian assistance

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Follow our LIVE UPDATES on the Ukrainian crisis

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🦭 A spotted ('larga') seal cub is staying at the Moscow Zoo

This completely blind baby seal, which has a damaged moustache, can't return to the wild quite yet and is under quarantine in a separate pool on the premises. The zoo has promised to provide convenient conditions for the seal.

🗣The European airspace protection system has a serious vulnerability, and the missile incident last week showed it, German Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht told German media.

The Bundestag offered Poland the opportunity to protect its airspace with a Patriot missile defense system. Berlin also plans to supply Eurofighter warplanes to Warsaw.

On November 15, a stray rocket landed in eastern Poland, killing two people. The explosion occurred outside the Przewodow village, about 6 km west of the border with Ukraine

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⚡️Four missiles were fired in the direction of the Turkish city of Karkamysh on the border with Syria, one of them hit a school, there are wounded people, media reported