Staffing crisis worsens in UK as strain on health services grows

In 2022, the number of weekly departures from NHS positions accelerated, with a total of 170,000 employees, including over 41,000 nurses, leaving their jobs in hospitals and community health services, its highest level in over a decade.

Currently, over 7.42 million individuals are on waiting lists for treatment, with more than 372,000 patients waiting for over a year.

In response to this urgent situation, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has unveiled an NHS workforce plan with £2.4 billion ($3 billion) in extra funding to address the staffing crisis in the NHS.

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Iran urges citizens to refrain from traveling to France due to riots

"The government of France is expected to stop coercive treatment of its people by respecting the principles based upon human dignity, freedom of speech, and the citizens’ right to peaceful protests," foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani was quoted as saying by the Tasnim news agency.

The foreign ministry's travel advisory also urged Iranians already in France to avoid unnecessary presence in the French cities and clash scenes for the duration of "insecure and unpredictable situation."

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Who are NATO's biggest spenders and how much bang do they get for their bucks?

The Western alliance's defense expenditures top those of all of their major adversaries, and the world, combined. Which members of the bloc spend the most? And does higher spending actually make NATO’s armies more efficient?

Sputnik breaks things down

Ukrainian Defense Ministry forced to admit deterioration on the frontline as Russian Army advances

The situation in the Svatovskoe direction has become more complicated for Ukrainian troops, Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Anna Malyar has admitted. The Russian Army is also advancing in the Avdeevka, Maryinka and Liman directions, she added.

The Ukrainian push in the South Donetsk, Zaporozhye, and Artemovsk directions began on June 4, and resulted in major losses for Kiev's forces.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said last week that Ukraine had lost 259 tanks and 780 armored vehicles since the so-called counteroffensive began, while Ukraine was not able to achieve any success across the frontline.

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🇩🇪 Germany not supplying long-range arms to Ukraine to prevent attacks against Russia - Scholz

"We carefully check all the requests we receive. But for us there is a principle that I share with the US president - we do not want the weapons we supply to be used to attack Russian territories," Scholz told German broadcaster ARD when asked why Germany refuses to supply Ukraine with the Taurus cruise missiles with a range of up to 500 kilometers (310 miles).

In May, German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung reported, citing sources, that Ukraine had requested the Taurus missiles from Germany.

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Conflict Resolution 'Business of Sudan,' But Russia May Contribute: Top Sudanese Official

The ongoing conflict in Sudan is first and foremost an internal issue of Sudan, but other nations, including neighboring countries, may contribute to its peaceful resolution by supporting initiatives on conflict settlement, said Malik Agar, the deputy chairman of Sudan's Transitional Sovereign Council, in an exclusive interview with Sputnik Africa.

"War is not a fete. War is a serious business," he stressed. "This is a business of the Sudanese. And the Sudanese are the ones killing and the ones shooting themselves. If the war has to stop, also the initiative has to come from the Sudanese"

👉 Read the full story!

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Is Australia jumping the gun in legalizing prenoscription of psychedelic medicine?

Australia’s controversial move to become the world’s first country to allow the clinical prenoscription of MDMA, better known as part of the drug ecstasy, and psilocybin - the main ingredient in 'magic' mushrooms - for a raft of psychiatric conditions has left many clinicians and researchers concerned.

Was the decision rushed, people have asked, and others have expressed the fear that even authorized psychiatrists lack the competence to issue such prenoscriptions for drugs which are otherwise illegal in Australia. What costs will this entail? These are some of the concerns uppermost among experts in the field.

Read Sputnik to learn more about Australia's controversial decision to allow psychedelic medicine

🛸 World UFO Day: Most Mysterious Sightings in Africa

On July 2, those who believe in the existence of aliens or study phenomena that have no logical explanation and objects that are attributed to extraterrestrial origin, celebrate World UFO Day.

On this occasion, Sputnik Africa presents a list of the most mysterious incidents and alleged sightings of unidentified flying objects in Africa

👉 READ THE FULL STORY

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Brazil bans Bolsonaro from elections until 2030

Brazil's highest electoral court has made a decision to bar former President Jair Bolsonaro from seeking re-election until 2030, accusing the politician of misuse of power and spreading misinformation during the country's last elections.
The ruling is primarily based on the allegation that Bolsonaro used government communication channels, state television, and the presidential palace to foster doubt in Brazil's electronic voting system.

Furthermore, the ruling also prohibits his participation in the 2024 and 2028 municipal elections and disqualifies him from running in the 2026 general elections.

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Austria to join European air defense system - Chancellor

"Austria will join the European SkyShield air defence initiative," Chancellor Karl Neuhammer said on Twitter.

Neuhammer noted that the Ukraine conflict and the increased "threat situation" were the main reasons for the country's joining the initiative. He also added that negotiations to enter the initiative are already underway, but participation in SkyShield will not affect the neutrality of Austria.

In October, Germany and 13 NATO member countries signed a declaration on the creation of a more advanced European air defense system.

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Fizz in a glass of bubbly can 'last decades'

The researchers, led by Gerard Liger-Belair, a physics professor at the University of Reims, France, measured the carbon dioxide levels in various vintages of bubbly aged for multiple decades.

The study learned that yeast-produced carbon dioxide inside decreased over the years. But, the bigger the bottle’s volume was, the more gas was retained inside it despite passage of time.

After accumulating impressive data, the research came up with information shedding light on the shelf life of aged champagne:
40 years for standard 750-milliliter bottles.
82 years for 1.5-liter bottles.
132 years for three-liter bottles.

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Macron urges ministers to do utmost to restore order in France amid raging violence

Macron also said that the French government must continue supporting law enforcement and members of the special services who have been mobilized over the past five days, a French TV channel reports.

The fatal police shooting of a teenager sparked riots countrywide. Violent protesters have clashed with police and set fire to public buildings and vehicles. Hundreds of protesters have been detained.

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Son of late Libyan leader Gaddafi hospitalized in critical condition due to prison hunger strike

Last month, Hannibal Gaddafi, one of the sons of the late Libyan leader, went on a hunger strike to protest his incarceration without trial in Lebanon since 2015, his lawyer said.

Hannibal Gaddafi was captured on the Syrian-Lebanese border after he and his family received political asylum in Syria following the assassination of Muammar Gaddafi in Libya in 2011.

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🇷🇺 🇮🇳 Russian oil imports in India reached a record high last month, as the South Asian country is nearing its maximum limit in purchasing from major #OPEC producers.

🛢 According to Victor Katona, a prominent analyst on crude oil at Kepler, daily flows rose to 2.2 million barrels per day in June, marking an uninterrupted increase for the 10th consecutive month.

🇮🇶 🇸🇦 Data from an analytics firm shows that Russian purchases have once again exceeded combined shipments from Saudi Arabia and Iraq.

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Nuclear apocalypse not only possible, but also quite likely, Deputy Chief of Security Council Dmitry Medvedev warns

💬 There are at least two reasons.

First off, the world is in a standoff far worse than that of the Caribbean Crisis (Cuban Missile Crisis), because our adversaries are bent on truly defeating the largest nuclear power - Russia. They are, undoubtedly, utter morons, but that's just the way it is.

And the second reason is quite matter-of-fact, nukes have already been used, and it’s well known who did it and when, which means that there aren't any taboos!

Medvedev said this in an op-ed he penned for a Russian newspaper.

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📹 Russian tank crews eliminated a stronghold and equipment belonging to Ukrainian forces in the special military operation zone using various types of ammo

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⚡️ FSB foils assassination plot organized by Ukrainian intel targeting head of Crimea Sergey Aksyonov

▪️ The authorities have arrested a Russian national recruited and trained in subversive acts by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) in a plot to assassinate Crimean Head Sergey Aksyonov

▪️ The Security Service of Ukraine sought to blow up Aksyonov's car, the perpetrator was apprehended as he was removing a concealed bomb.

🇷🇺🇨🇳 Chinese defense minister meets Russia’s top naval commander in Beijing

▪️ Both country’s top brass discussed military cooperation and their contribution to maintaining peace and stability in the region.

▪️ China hopes to expand cooperation with the Russian Navy to jointly contribute to maintaining peace and stability in the region and the world, the head of the Chinese Defense Ministry said.

▪️ The commander-in-chief of the Russian Navy told his Chinese counterpart that Moscow places great importance on strengthening cooperation between the militaries of the two countries.

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Sweden condemns recent Quran-burning that infuriated Muslim world

The Foreign Ministry called the desecration of the Quran, or any other holy noscripture, an "offensive and disrespectful act and a clear provocation," which "in no way reflects the views of the Swedish government."

The burning of the Quran outside Stockholm's main mosque last Wednesday further exacerbated tensions with Turkiye and cast a shadow of doubt over Sweden's NATO bid that hinges on Ankara's approval.

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The creation of a Russian Agricultural Bank subsidiary to reconnect to SWIFT is under discussion, but the EU has not put forward any specific mechanisms

Earlier, a report surfaced saying that the EU was weighing the possibility of reconnecting the Russian Agricultural Bank to SWIFT through the creation of a subsidiary to safeguard the Black Sea Grain Initiative.

Russia, Ukraine, Turkiye and the United Nations reached an agreement on July 22, 2022 to provide a humanitarian maritime corridor for ships carrying food and fertilizer exports from Ukrainian Black Sea ports. On May 18, 2023, Russia extended the grain deal for 60 days, until July 17.

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The Kiev regime's Western bosses may be looking to capitalize on the predicament at the Zaporozhye NPP in order to further their own goals 

The much-hyped Ukrainian "counteroffensive" has already run out of steam and "Ukraine’s Western masters" now realize that Kiev cannot prevail on the battlefield even with all the military assistance provided by NATO, Renat Karchaa, Rosenergoatom advisor, said.

This is why the West has recently been fixed on portraying Russia as a country capable of perpetrating an act of nuclear terrorism, with the international community ready to single out "the guilty party before the event takes place."

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