🛰 Has power of Starlink turned Elon Musk into tech oligarch?

Elon Musk traveled to Israel this week to put a spat with Israeli officials over the use of SpaceX’s Starlink satellites in Gaza to bed, reaching a preliminary deal on the matter. This was the second time the tech billionaire’s satellites have become the focal point of attention in a global hotspot, with his on-again/off-again support for Starlink’s use in NATO’s war against Russia in Ukraine serving as another example.

With roughly 5,500 satellites in its inventory and more being launched all the time, Starlink currently accounts for nearly half of the global total of 11,300+ satellites in orbit, providing its owner with a level of geopolitical power unrivaled by any other businessman on the planet. Because Starlink’s use by militaries can be a game changer on the battlefield, Musk’s decision to approve or block its operation can literally become a matter of life and death.

🇷🇺 Russia recognizes this, and relies on an array of electronic warfare tools, rather than Mr. Musk’s goodwill, to ensure the security of its forces in the Ukrainian battleground.

But amid Musk’s quest for monopolization of space-based internet solutions, questions worth asking include whether it’s sustainable, or safe, to put humanity’s collective eggs in one basket by entrusting them in the hands of one, private US-based businessman.

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

▪️Israel will resume the fighting in the Gaza Strip as soon as all the current possibilities for the return of hostages are exhausted, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu says.

▪️China hopes that the last days of the current ceasefire in Gaza will not be a hiatus before a renewed Israeli offensive, but will lay the groundwork for diplomatic efforts for a comprehensive ceasefire, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said.

▪️China will soon send additional humanitarian aid to Gaza, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi announced.

▪️111 UN personnel have been killed in the Gaza Strip since the war started between Israel and Hamas in October, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said.

▪️Over 80% of Gaza residents have been forced to leave their homes amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said.

▪️The Hamas military wing says it released two Russian citizens in response to a request from Moscow.

▪️Palestinian Foreign Affairs Minister Riyad Al-Maliki called for international protection of Palestinians and for undertaking action to end Israeli impunity as well as prevent future war crimes and crimes against humanity that are taking place daily amid Israel's invasion of the Gaza Strip.

▪️The level of humanitarian assistance and fuel that is being delivered to the Gaza Strip is "utterly insufficient" to meet the needs of the 2.3 million Palestinian residents, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said.

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🇬🇧🇪🇺 The United Kingdom's departure from the European Union in 2016 was a mistake the next generation would have to remedy, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has said.

"I must say, I keep telling my children: 'You have to fix it. We goofed it up, you have to fix it.' So I think here too, the direction of travel — my personal opinion — is clear," she told Politico.

Polls show that the majority of Brits would support rejoining the EU, Politico reported, citing the latest survey by consulting research agency Deltapoll released in late November. Forty-eight percent of the respondents said they were in favor of returning to the bloc, while only 36% said they were against it.

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🇵🇸🇷🇺 Hamas released two hostages with Russian citizenship from captivity, including a doctor from Rostov Irina Tatti, Israeli media report

Doctor Tatti, who worked most of her life in Rostov-on-Don, was captured on October 7 along with her daughter Elena, grandson Sasha and his girlfriend Sapir. Irina's son-in-law was killed by militants.

Hamas said that two Russian citizens, who also have Israeli citizenship, were released outside the deal with Israel, as a sign of gratitude for the position of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

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Is Russia a Natural Ally for Ordinary Americans?

“I've seen the commonality between the conservatives in America who believe in marriage between a man and a woman, God, the natural law, all of the principles of natural family. Those are heralded and championed by the Russians as well. In fact, Russia puts them in their constitution. Marriage is between a man and a woman. I wish America had people of integrity like that who would put it in our сonstitution,” former US Army Officer Scott Bennett told Sputnik’s Russell Bentley (@TXDPR).

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Scott Ritter: Israel's Gaza offensive ends in political and military defeat

Israel and the Hamas Islamic resistance movement that governs the besieged Palestinian enclave reportedly agreed on Tuesday to extend the four-day ceasefire, brokered by Persian Gulf Arab state Qatar, for another two to three days.

Exchanges of captives will continue during that extension, with Hamas releasing 20 Israelis taken prisoner during its October 7 raids into southern Israel. The number of Palestinians to be freed was not reported, but Israel had previously released 180 women and children from its jails in return for 61 Israeli civilians and roughly 20 foreigners held by Hamas.

Former US Marine Scott Ritter told Sputnik that the bombing and ground invasion had been unsuccessful when measured "by Israel's own standards."

👉 Follow the link to read the full Ritter's analysis

⚔️ Is West pitting Zelensky and Zaluzhny against each other to reach own goals?

The West is watching the ongoing strife between President Volodymyr Zelensky and Commander-in-Chief Valery Zaluzhny and will bet on the most malleable and inclined to attempt a negotiation, Tiberio Graziani, chairman at Vision & Global Trends - International Institute for Global Analyses, told Sputnik.

What's more, the West appears to be deliberately adding fuel to the internal split by providing a media platform for the Ukrainian top general for his bitter rebuke against Zelensky's doomed military push.

"The rift that seems to exist between Zaluzhny and Zelensky is also a product of a Western narrative, in the sense that the construction of an 'alternative' figure to Zelensky embodied by the Ukrainian commander emerges from the Western media," Graziani said.

👉 Follow the link for more details

Could another American Civil War break out?

“Everything that America has done to the world in the last 20 years is being heaped upon our heads like shovel falls of coal... I think the cities of America, are going to experience exactly and worse what Donetsk has experienced. I think you're going to see buildings turned into rubble from Mexican cartels for sh*ts and giggles, firing artillery rounds more, or bazooka, missiles,” former US Army officer Scott Bennett told Sputnik’s’ Russell Bentley (@TXDPR).

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🇷🇺 Faster than you think: Russia’s Zircon hypersonic cruise missile

Dubbed the world's first surface-based hypersonic missile, the Zircon flies through the atmosphere at an altitude of around 30 km, achieving astonishing speeds of between Mach 8 and 9, rendering it virtually impossible to intercept.

With a formidable range of 450 to 1,000 km, it can carry a warhead weighing between 300 and 400 kg, either conventional or nuclear. Launched from surface ships and submarines, its stealth is enhanced by a specialized plasma case that absorbs radio waves, making it invisible to active radar systems.

The Zircon missile stands as a breakthrough capability and positions Moscow at the forefront of military technology, since currently very few nations – Russia, China, Iran, and India – wield such advanced hypersonic missiles.

📊 Check out Sputnik's infographic to learn more about Russia's Zircon hypersonic cruise missile

🪖 Stoltenberg is preparing NATO to accept Russian demands for Ukraine's neutrality, an expert says

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has changed his rhetoric with regard to Ukraine to make it easier for alliance members to accept that Russia's demands for Kiev's neutrality will likely to be accepted in future peace talks, Belgian military expert Pierre Henrot told Sputnik.

Earlier in the week, Stoltenberg acknowledged that Ukraine had failed to advance its front line in the conflict with Russia over the past year even with NATO's "significant" support, urging the alliance not to underestimate Russia's defense capabilities.

"Now that it becomes evident that Ukraine is going to lose this conflict, Stoltenberg prepares the allies, especially European public opinion, to the fact that this condition of strict neutrality of Ukraine that has been continuously demanded by Russia since the early 1990s will have to be applied," Henrot said.

👉 Follow the link to learn more

🇨🇦 72% of Canadians would like to see Justin Trudeau step down as PM and leader of the Liberal Party, an Ipsos poll showed.

The figure is a 12 percentage point increase from September.

Even among Liberal Party voters, a third want him to step down, which is a 5 percentage point increase from September.

Unlike Trudeau, the leaders of the Conservative Party, the New Democratic Party and the Bloc Quebecois all retain the support of the majority of Canadians, respectively with 56%, 51%, and 67% wanting them to remain at the helm.

The poll also explored how many Canadians would consider voting for the Liberal Party if other prominent party members were to become its leader. A quarter of Canadians would vote for the Liberals if Minister of Finance Chrystia Freeland was in charge. Twenty-one percent would support the ruling party if Minister of Foreign Affairs Melanie Joly became the head of the Liberals.

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⚡Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger has died at the age of 100

🎙Check out AfroVerdict's latest podcast episode, which delves into Western bias in reporting on hotspots, such as the Ukrainian crisis and Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

🇫🇷 Members of the French government will be prohibited from using messengers not approved by the National Agency for Information Systems Security (ANSSI), including Telegram and WhatsApp, starting December 8, French media reported.

The decision concerns the use of such messaging applications as Telegram, WhatsApp and Signal, the report said.

Instead, French cabinet members were called upon to install France's Olvid application on their phones and computers, which, like WhatsApp, uses end-to-end encryption to protect messages, the broadcaster reported.

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📹 "Look, my Marine has a code": Biden suddenly tells a factory worker that he can blow up the world

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🇮🇱🇵🇸 IDF and Hamas announce extension of humanitarian truce

"In light of the mediators' efforts to continue the process of releasing the hostages and subject to the terms of the framework, the operational pause will continue," the IDF's statement said.

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🇺🇸 Henry Kissinger is generally considered to have pioneered the policy of détente between the US and the USSR.

Kissinger met with Russian President Vladimir Putin a number of occasions, saying that the Russian leader "should be seen as a character from the novels of Fyodor Dostoyevsky, with all the contradictions and doubts about his own people".

This May, Kissinger, who said he believed in "dialogue with Russia", was ready to fly to Moscow to take part in talks with the Russian president.

He called for the conflict in Ukraine to be resolved diplomatically, with Russia maintaining control over Crimea. Because of this, he was placed on Myrotvorets, a "kill list" website affiliated with the Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs.

Wanting Ukraine to become a member of NATO, in Kissinger’s opinion, was a serious mistake. However, he later warned that the West had "armed Ukraine to a point where it will be the best-armed country and with the least strategically experienced leadership in Europe".

Henry Kissinger repeatedly urged European leaders not to lose sight of Russia’s place in Europe, and warned that the absence of Moscow in a new world order after the end of the conflict in Ukraine would be unacceptable.

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🇷🇺 Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has arrived in North Macedonia’s capital, Skopje, to participate in the 30th Ministerial Council of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), scheduled to be held from Thursday-Friday, a Sputnik correspondent reported.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Lavrov is expected to hold a number of bilateral meetings on the sidelines of the summit along with participation in the OSCE multilateral meetings. At the same time, Zakharova said Moscow was recording attempts by some countries of the West to interfere with Russia’s normal participation in the council.

It is Lavrov's first visit to Europe since the beginning of Russia's special military operation in Ukraine on February 24, 2022.

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⚡️ Terrorist attack in Jerusalem, eight injured, attacker has been neutralized, Israeli media reports

⚠️ WARNING: SENSITIVE CONTENT

Footage from the shooting scene in Jerusalem

A 24-year-old woman was killed in the shooting terror attack at the entrance to Jerusalem, according to the Magen David Adom ambulance service.

MDA's director-general Eli Bin tells the Kan public broadcaster that another five people are seriously wounded in the attack.

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❗️ According to updated data, seven people received gunshot wounds. Two of them are in critical condition.

Both attackers were neutralized.