🗣️”If you look at a map, you can see how the US has ringed both Russia and China with military installations. And a lot of these are in places where the local population don't want US military bases, even nations that are supposedly friendly with the US”: Brian Berletic, journalist and host of "The New Atlas" on Youtube, speaks about the encirclement of US ‘enemies’ with numerous American military bases

🎧Listen to more of Berletic’s analysis in our podcast The Critical Hour

🇲🇩 Moldovan authorities called head of the Russian republic of Tatarstan, Rustam Minnikhanov, an "undesirable person" and refused to grant him entry into the country to take part in the international Congress of people's diplomacy "Friendship of Peoples" held in Gagauzia, an autonomous territorial entity in the south of Moldova.

Earlier in the day, Kishinev declared an employee of the Russian Embassy persona non grata, alleging "inappropriate behavior" after Minnikhanov was denied entry to Moldova.

"A decision has been made to expel an employee of the Russian Embassy after the incident at the Kishinev airport. And two more embassy employees are being deprived of accreditation," Moldovan Foreign Ministry spokesman Filip Cojocaru said.

Earlier in the week, the spokesman of the Moldovan government, Daniel Voda, said that the country was considering declaring one of the employees of the Russian Embassy persona non grata.

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🇨🇦 A general nationwide strike comprising 155,000 workers has been announced by the Public Service Alliance of Canada after failing to reach an agreement with the Federal government on fairer contracts.
"We truly hoped we wouldn’t be forced to take strike action, but we’ve exhausted every other avenue to reach a fair contract for Canada’s Federal Public Service workers," Aylward said in a statement on Tuesday.

Accordingly, PSAC said strike actions would begin as of April 19, 12:01 am, noting that as part of the demonstrations, picket lines will go up in 250 locations, across Canada.With strikers representing nearly a third of the entire Canadian federal public workforce, these would be the largest strikes in the country’s history, PSAC said, noting this would not be without consequences for the availability of government services.

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US economy faces 'Stagflation' thanks to federal reserve interest rate hikes

Financial experts are warning that the collapse of Bed Bath & Beyond's shares is a sign of deeper problems in the US, including the possibility of 'stagflation' due to interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve.

Todd "Bubba" Horwitz, chief market strategist at BubbaTrading, criticized the Federal Reserve for being "out of control," while David Tawil, founder of ProChain Capital, noted the difficulties businesses are facing in borrowing. Both experts highlighted the challenges faced by small businesses and regional banks, with Horwitz warning that many may fail, and Tawil attributing Bed Bath & Beyond's collapse to competition from larger, better-capitalized retail giants like Amazon.

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Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov arrived in Brasilia, the capital of Brazil, on Monday for a meeting with the recently-elected President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva.

Brazil, as the largest nation and economy in South America, is considered to have significant potential in a multipolar world and is already part of the BRICS development partnership.

Journalist and correspondent Camila Escalante notes that Brazil's resurgence is viewed as a threat in Washington.

"Celso Amorim is just like the number one confidant, a confidant and advisor to President Lula. He's been with him for many years," Escalante noted. "It was Celso who went to meet with President Maduro in Venezuela on kind of a secret mission. Just recently, he was in Moscow himself and he met with President Putin and with Lavrov as well."

Escalante told Sputnik that what was more significant was Lavrov's "extended" meetings.

🇷🇺🇰🇷 South Korea not supplying Kiev with arms for stability in relation with Russia

💬 "There is no law in South Korean legislation that prohibits the delivery of weapons to another belligerent country. There is also no clause in the [South Korean] Foreign Ministry's regulations that does not allow to provide military assistance to a third country in distress. We do not do this because, while South Korea actively supports the international community for the sake of protecting the freedom of Ukrainian citizens, we must manage relations with Russia in a stable manner," an official with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol's office said.

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🇷🇺🇺🇸 Arms control cannot take place regardless of geopolitical realities and the general negativity in the US-Russian relations, Russian Ambassador to Washington Anatoly Antonov said.

He said the anti-Russian coalition has taken on a nuclear dimension, with NATO positioning itself as a nuclear alliance and actively pursuing nuclear sharing missions, adding that Russia cannot afford to ignore NATO's cumulative nuclear capabilities when considering the issue of the New START treaty's future.

💬 "The United States uses a twisted logic. On the one hand, they refuse to engage with us on a business-as-usual basis. At the same time, they insist on returning to the regular cooperation on the issue of the Treaty verification regime. The US military is clearly itching to get into Russian bases which store nuclear weapons," Antonov said.

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☄️ Mysterious flash lights up Kiev’s skies

Local authorities blamed the event on a defunct NASA satellite, however the American space agency denied the claims.

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📹 A Russian Moskit anti-ship cruise missile launch during the Pacific Fleet’s snap inspection

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🇨🇳🇩🇪 China's 'systemic rivals aspect' with Germany 'increasing', Baerbock says

China may be Germany’s largest trading partner, but its role as a "competitor" and "systemic rival" is now "increasing," Annalena Baerbock warned lawmakers in the Bundestag.

She touted “good and important" ties with Beijing, and conceded that China was important for Germany - after all, trade between the two countries amounted to around €300Bln ($320Bln) in 2022. About two-thirds of so-called rare earth metals, vital for batteries, semiconductors, and the magnets in electric cars, are imported by Germany from China.

As the German Foreign Minister weighed in on the new China strategy currently in the pipeline, she said, “We must safeguard freedom and the rule of law in the long term" and "stand up for the international order with a clear stance". According to her, "the freedom, prosperity and security of all of us" is at stake.

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❗️NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has arrived in Kiev, Ukrainian media reports

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🇷🇺🇪🇺 EU reportedly believes bloc 'done' with new sanctions against Russia

The EU believes that there will be more exceptions to them than restrictions, British daily newspaper reported, citing a senior EU official.

According to officials working on the preparation of the next package of sanctions, new EU measures against Moscow are likely to be limited to expanding the list of persons and measures to tighten existing sanctions, "by closing loopholes."

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🇨🇦🥴Canadian ministry of health urged to "end capitalism" and "white supremacy"

Public Health Canada has published a "highly scientific" report that links climate change with the country’s public health.

💬 “I think there’s a whole other layer we’re not talking enough about, which is really needing to decolonize ourselves from the western paradigm,” the paper reads, while admitting that the authors “did not explicitly ask the experts to elaborate on a practical level about how to undertake decolonizing work.”

In another passage, the report virtue signals about Canadians being “uninvited land occupiers,” while, once again not providing any solutions and leaving it at “becoming good guests here” on Indigenous territories.

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