🇺🇸 The Pentagon failing its sixth audit in a row testifies to “how unruly and chaotic a bureaucratic department gets when it does nothing over the decades but grow,” Matthew Crosston, professor of national security and director of academic transformation at Bowie State University, told Sputnik.

He added that although the DoD repeatedly seeks to improve its financial system, “the size of the reform needed is beyond the scope and capability” of the Pentagon.

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🗣 The Image of The West is Destroyed

"The Americans have tried to delegitimize Iran, by creating misery and through media campaigns and propaganda. But what have they done in Gaza? They've destroyed their image in the eyes of that segment of the Iranian society that has been whether sympathetic to the West or pro-West or hoping to come to terms with the West," Seyed Mohammad Marandi, University of Tehran professor, told Sputnik.

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🎧 Listen to more of Marandi’s analysis in our podcast New Rules

📹 Russian fighters destroyed another Ukrainian armored vehicle near the settlement of Sporny in the DPR

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🇷🇺🪖 Key points of Russian MoD briefing on progress of special military op in Ukraine

▪️ In Krasny Liman, 23 attacks by Ukrainian assault groups were repelled. Ukrainian losses for a week amounted to more than 1,100 soldiers;

▪️In the Donetsk region, Russian troops occupied more advantageous lines and positions, and repelled two attacks from Ukrainian assault groups in the areas of Novomikhailovka and Nikolsky. Ukrainian losses amounted to more than 1,810 soldiers, two tanks, and 15 armored vehicles this week;

▪️ In the Kupyansk area, the Russian forces repelled 26 attacks by Ukrainian troops during the week. Ukrainian losses amounted to over 575;

▪️ In Zaporozhye, the weekly Ukrainian losses exceeded 425 soldiers, two tanks, nine armored vehicles, all attacks were repelled;

▪️In the Kherson region, the enemy on the right bank of the Dnepr River and during attempts to land on the islands lost more than 460 soldiers;

▪️In a week, three Ukrainian MiG-29s were shot down, 198 drones and 22 HIMARS projectiles were destroyed.

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🇷🇺🇨🇳 A "new level” of Moscow-Beijing dialogue was demonstrated during the Russian-Chinese scientific conference that wrapped up in Shanghai, Professor Timofei Bordachev, program director of the Valdai International Discussion Club, told Sputnik.

He also noted that the event became the first major scientific Chinese-Russian conference that has been held since the PRC reopened after the COVID-19 pandemic.

The two-day Shanghai gathering was noscriptd “Crisis and Global Transformation: China and Russia Facing the Challenges of a Changing."

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🇺🇸 The US is “confident” in its intelligence assessment that Hamas was allegedly using the Al-Shifa Hospital as a command post and possibly as a storage facility, White House spokesman John Kirby announced. Earlier the spokesman claimed that US intelligence believes that Hamas is using medical facilities in Gaza to facilitate their military activities and hold hostages.

The Israeli military stormed the Al-Shifa Hospital on Wednesday. While the IDF alleges that Hamas operates an extensive underground complex allegedly hidden beneath the medical facility, Hamas has rejected Israeli allegations and condemned the raid on the hospital.

Israel routinely claims that Hamas hides its facilities underneath elements of civilian infrastructure in Gaza in an alleged bid to use civilians as “human shields” against IDF strikes.

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🇷🇺 Seventy-eight percent of Russians trust President Vladimir Putin, and 80% approve of his work, a poll by Russia's Public Opinion Foundation (FOM) showed on Friday.

Asked whether Putin was doing a good or bad job as president, 80% of respondents said he was doing a good job, while 10% expressed the opposite view, with the rest refraining from responding.

Meanwhile, 78% of Russians polled said they trusted the Russian president, 14% said they did not, and 8% did not respond.

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🇺🇸🥴 The Biden PR team is considering registering Joe on TikTok to attract younger voters, media has said.

Is the 80-year-old president ready to use popular TikTok trends to win the upcoming elections? Imagine for a moment that he is.

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🗣 "This policy of ‘cancellation’ of Russia in itself, in essence, is anti-cultural, neocolonial and racist," President Vladimir Putin said at the United Cultures Forum in Saint Petersburg.

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🗣 "To win competitions in the West, you need to show something from the life of sexual minorities. They also have the right to win, but it’s bad if only they win, this is of no use," Russian President Vladimir Putin said.

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🇷🇺 Russian arms maker BespokeGun shifted to the development of state-of-the-art 338 caliber sniper rifles, called Raptor Tactical, which have already proven efficient in the zone of the special military operation in Ukraine.

🗣 "The reviews are very positive," Yaroslav Tabolsky, CEO of the private arms company, told Sputnik. "This is a really good Russian weapon and of a very high class. The guys are satisfied with the accuracy, reliability, and quality of the product - everyone is very happy."

Western sanctions have failed to asphyxiate BespokeGun's production even though the gunsmith used to import foreign components for its weapons. "Almost everything has already been replaced: the stock is domestic, the barrel is ours, the bolt group is our own, and it is better than the imported one," Tabolsky said, adding that restrictions boosted the industry instead of killing it.

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💥 The power of Russian tanks

📹 Russian T-80 tank crews destroy Ukrainian militant positions near Ugledar

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While inflation was still around five percent, the most important sectors of the US economy were in recession, economist Dr Jack Rasmus said, belying the Biden administration’s claims that the country was thriving.

🗣 "That number in retail sales really punctures a hole in that whole argument," Rasmus stressed. "The economy and retail sales is about one fourth of all consumer spending. And consumer spending is like two-thirds of the economy."

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IDF killing journalists reporting on Gaza war, Israeli media exec said

The fighting in Gaza has left tens of thousands of Palestinians dead or injured, media workers among them. Israeli journalist and political activist Haggai Matar, executive director of +972 Magazine, said his colleagues there had paid with their lives for "doing an incredible job."

Following a month-long bombing campaign against the besieged Palestinian enclave, home to 2.3 million people, the Israeli Defense Forces have surrounded Gaza City and are assaulting government buildings and hospitals.

More than 11,000 Palestinians have been killed so far and almost 30,000 wounded, according to the Palestinian Authority's health ministry based in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Among them are dozens of journalists.

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🇮🇱🇵🇸 Latest updates on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict:

▪️Palestinian authority not planning to discuss post-war governance of Gaza, prioritizes ceasefire, Mahmoud Abbas’ adviser told Sputnik;

▪️Shifa hospital raid, like operations in other hospitals in Gaza, carried out with US permission, Mahmoud Abbas’ adviser told Sputnik;

▪️Israel's war cabinet approves US-requested recommendation to allow two tanks of fuel per day into Gaza for UN needs, according to reports;

▪️Israel and Hamas may agree on three-day ceasefire, release of 50 people from both sides, according to reports;

▪️One of Hamas leaders, deputy speaker of Gaza's legislative assembly, succumbs to his injuries received after Israeli strike, according to reports.

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🇮🇱🇵🇸 Real Reason Behind Israeli Operation?

Some observers believe the Gaza Marine, a major natural gas field located 36 kilometers (22 mi) off the coast of the Gaza Strip at a depth of 610 meters, could be at the root of the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Is Tel Aviv's incessant desire to control Gaza prompted by the desire to lay hands on the Palestinian gas field?

Sputnik reached out to Dr. Mamdouh G. Salameh, an international oil economist, and Konstantin Simonov, general director of the National Energy Security Fund, to find out to what extent the apparent hydrocarbon dispute affects the unfolding crisis.

👉 Read more

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🇷🇺 What is Special about Igla-S MANPADS?

The Igla-S man-portable anti-aircraft missile system is designed to destroy all types of aircraft and helicopters and can be fired by an individual or a crew.

🪖 The hand-held defensive device is capable of taking down airplanes flying at a low altitude. Likewise, the Igla-S also consists of the 9M342 missile, 9P522 launching device, 9V866-2 mobile test station, and 9F719-2 test set.

Check out our infographics to learn more!

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With the new US stopgap funding bill not containing any provisions for aid to Ukraine and Israel, these countries would have to “suck it up” for now, says Michael Maloof, former senior security policy analyst in the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

According to him, the matter of US aid to Ukraine and Israel is going to become “another source of debate and confrontation between the two houses” of the US Congress, and it remains to be seen whether lawmakers in Washington DC “work it out.”

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🇨🇳 China is to host the Fifth Defense and Security Forum of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization on November 20-29, with the defense departments representatives, experts and academics from the SCO member states, states-observers and partner in dialogue states invited, the country's defense ministry announced.

The event is aimed at enhancing mutual understanding and mutual trust between the military of the participant states, at studying and discussing the ways to deepen SCO cooperation in the field of defense and security, as well as at actively building a closer SCO community with a shared future.

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