🇧🇫🇫🇷 Burkina Faso wants a "win-win partnership" with mutual respect and equality, the country's Defense Minister Kassoum Coulibaly told Sputnik Africa, commenting on deteriorating relations with France.

💬 "But can you be in partnership with someone and want to blind them, blindfold their eyes, shut their mouth, close their ears?" he wondered, adding: "Be with someone who sees himself as the great master and you, you are the slave? No, it won't work [...]. We're not driving them [the French] out, it's the fact that's happening, it's their behavior that's doing it".

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🇨🇳China conducts military drills near Taiwan as a warning to 'separatist forces', Shi Yi, the spokesman for the Eastern Theater Command of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA), said.

The Chinese military practiced coordinating maneuvers of vessels and aircraft and intercepting control communications, as well as tested real combat capabilities during joint operations, the official stated.

The drills came after Taiwanese Vice President and presidential candidate Lai Ching-te wrapped up his trip to Paraguay, during which he made transit stops in New York and San Francisco. China has expressed strong dissatisfaction with the transit through the United States and condemned Lai's visit to the country.

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🇷🇺🇺🇸 Russia refutes speculations about the prisoner swap of Gershkovich and Whelan and urges US to continue talks

Media reports about the readiness of the United States to consider the exchange of US citizens Evan Gershkovich and Paul Whelan for Russians convicted in the US for hacking are speculations, and, in matters of a possible prisoner swap, Moscow urges Washington to focus on non-public professional dialogue via a special channel only, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told Sputnik.

She added that the exchange of Russians Konstantin Yaroshenko and Viktor Bout for US citizens Trevor Reed and Brittney Griner had taken place thanks to such "quiet diplomacy."

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🇯🇵⚛️ Japanese PM to visit Fukushima NPP before deciding on radioactive water release

"The issue of discharging water treated in the ALPS [Advanced Liquid Processing System] system cannot be postponed. We have reached the final stage, when the state must make a decision after a comprehensive review, including from the point of view of the maximum containment of the impact that this may have on fisheries," Japanese PM Fumio Kishida told reporters following the trilateral US-Japan-South Korea summit in Camp David, adding that he intends to visit the NPP on Sunday.

The prime minister also said he is planning to discuss the relevant issues with employees of the NPP operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO).

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🇺🇸 Unplugged: Biden suffers earpiece fail, snubs handshake with Japan, South Korea leaders

President Joe Biden may have touted the historic agreements with the leaders of South Korea and Japan at Camp David on Friday, but several mishaps peppered his press conference as the trilateral meeting wrapped up.

It is almost a given that any public speech offered up by Joe Biden comes with a generous dollop of blunders. The US president did not fail to deliver on the latest occasion, as he gave a press conference at Camp David in Maryland.

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🤖AI pushing boundaries on journey to mass 'mind reading'

Using AI-powered technology to peer into the mind's eye is no longer fiction, with increasingly more research across the globe venturing onto this path.

National University of Singapore (NUS) scientists, in conjunction with colleagues at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, have come up with a groundbreaking creation. Their "MinD-Vis" AI tool relies on the technique of associating brain scans with images.

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🇺🇸🐟 Biden's Climate Plan in action? Feds to poison Colorado River to kill invasive fish

The National Park Service plans to dump a toxic chemical known as rotenone into the Colorado River in northern Arizona in an attempt to kill off invasive smallmouth bass and green sunfish. According to local media, the "chemical treatment" will begin on August 26, with rotenone to be added to water below the Glen Canyon Dam.

Flowing through Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona and California, the mighty Colorado River is the fifth-longest and largest river in the United States by watershed area, and plays a critical role in the existence of local marine and mammalian wildlife, as well as other flora and fauna.

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🇺🇸🤹‍♂️Incognito mode: Joe Biden juggled aliases as he peddled power via Hunter - report

President Joe Biden armed himself with several fake identities during his time as Barack Obama’s vice president when communicating with son Hunter, as well as the latter’s foreign business partners, emails from the notorious "laptop from hell" reveal, reported US media. Hunter Biden had abandoned this device in a Delaware repair shop in 2019.

At least three pseudonyms: ‘Robert L. Peters’, ‘Robin Ware’ and ‘JRB Ware’, along with alternate email addresses were used by Joe Biden between 2014 and 2016, when sending messages to his son.

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🇺🇸☢️🇷🇺 US and NATO allies risk a direct clash of nuclear powers by escalating Ukraine tensions, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said, adding that Russia believes that such a development of events should and can be prevented.

Russia is forced to remind the West about military and political risks as it believes that a nuclear war will have no winners, the top diplomat said. Lavrov recalled that the Nuclear Five states confirmed that nuclear war should never be unleashed in their joint statement on January 3, 2022.

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Russia’s air defense forces stopped a Ukrainian drone flying to Moscow from the south on Sunday night, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said

Later in the day, the Russian Defense Ministry said that the drone was suppressed by electronic warfare and, having lost control, crashed in a deserted area. There were no casualties or damage from the drone crash, the ministry added.

Ukraine has been sending drones into Russian territory almost daily since Kiev launched its counteroffensive in early June.

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💬 "What's happening right now demands our attention and understanding"

Much of the military equipment supplied by the US to Ukraine could end up on the black market, former senior Pentagon adviser Col. Douglas Macgregor said

Western countries have been supplying Ukraine with military aid since the start of the Russian military operation in Ukraine in February 2022. The support evolved from artillery munitions and training in 2022 to heavier weapons, including tanks, later that year and in 2023. In recent months, Ukraine has been pushing to be supplied with fighter jets.

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The German government keeps pumping weapons into Ukraine despite public disapproval

A majority of Germans are opposed to sending Taurus KEPD 350 air-launched long-range cruise missiles to Ukraine, with a fresh poll finding that while 36 percent are in favor of their delivery, 52 percent are opposed, with support falling to just 21 percent among residents of eastern Germany.

Despite opposition, German Finance Minister Christian Lindner and other members of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government have expressed support for delivering the missiles this week, with Lindner saying a decision on the matter would be reached "faster and at shorter notice" than in the past.

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🚀🇷🇺 The Soyuz-2.1a rocket, which will send the Progress MS-24 space transport cargo ship to the International Space Station, was set to launch at Baikonur, Russia's state space corporation Roscosmos said.

It will deliver about 2.5 tons of cargo to the ISS.

The launch is scheduled for August 23 at 4:08 am Moscow time.

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🤔 Ukraine appears to be running out of options in a counteroffensive that officials originally framed as a crucial operation for Kiev, an American daily newspaper says

The failure of Ukraine to show success on the battlefield has raised fears that the conflict has "reached a stalemate" and international support may weaken, the newspaper believes.

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📹 The Russian Army continues to complete all the targets of the special military op using Grad multiple rocket launchers (0:14) (0:24) to hit Ukrainian positions

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The US reportedly faces the problem of restocking its arsenal of artillery munitions and building new production lines with more than two million 155mm shells already sent to Ukraine

The problem is complicated by the fact that the US no longer produces TNT, which is needed to make shells, according to unnamed sources quoted by an American newspaper.

The Pentagon is now collaborating with its allies and partners to increase TNT supplies, “potentially including from Japan.”

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