❗️On December 25, Russian President Vladimir Putin will take part in a meeting of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council, which will be held in St. Petersburg.

During the meeting, the results of the work of the Eurasian Economic Community during the year of Russia’s presidency will be summed up, current issues of the union’s activities will be considered, and promising directions for deepening integration processes will be discussed. A number of important decisions and documents are planned to be adopted, including a declaration on the further development of the Eurasian Economic Union until 2030 and for the period until 2045.

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❗️Syrian Girl hit the Sydney's streets for Sputnik amidst a heavy police presence to talk to Pro-Palestine protestors. Here’s what one of them had to say.

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🇧🇭 The people of Bahrain held a demonstration to protest against the country joining the US coalition against Yemen

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📹 Mortar crews of Russian paratroopers suppressed Ukrainian firing positions and eliminated enemy infantry near the settlement of Verbovoye

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US-led Red Sea coalition: who is in and who is out?

The US has initiated Operation Prosperity Guardian, a multinational naval coalition to protect Red Sea commercial traffic from Houthi attacks. As of now, over 20 countries are on board, with notable participants including the UK, Canada, Greece, and Australia.

Who's in?

▪️ The US-led coalition comprises 20+ countries, including the UK, Bahrain, Canada, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Seychelles, Spain, Greece, and Australia

▪️ Notably, Britain's HMS Diamond is on board, operating as part of the US-led Combined Maritime Forces

▪️ Some participating countries, including at least eight, prefer not to be publicly named.

Who's out or uncertain?

▪️ France supports navigation security, but will keep its ships under French command.

▪️ Italy is sending the frigate Virginio Fasan, but insists it is part of existing operations, not Prosperity Guardian.

▪️ Spain is opting for NATO-led or EU-coordinated missions, declining unilateral participation in Red Sea operations.

In the wake of the Israel-Hamas conflict that erupted on October 7, the Houthis, an armed group representing Yemen's Shia Muslim minority, the Zaidis, have initiated a series of attacks in the Red Sea targeting ships heading towards Israel. Controlling a significant portion of Yemen, the Houthis declared solidarity with Hamas and announced their intention to target any ship heading towards Israel.

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🇷🇺 Russian Su-25 attack aircraft bombed strongholds of Ukrainian troops in the Krasny Liman direction

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🇬🇧 The Mayor of London has pledged his support to send 4x4s and other vehicles to Ukraine that would otherwise be scrapped under the Ulez scheme.

In an apparent U-turn, Sadiq Khan has asked the Transport Secretary, Mark Harper, to enable Londoners, and others across the country, to donate suitable vehicles to Ukraine through scrappage schemes.

The mayor had previously made it clear he did not believe altering the Ulez scheme for exporting vehicles would be possible under current laws.

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💸 'Nobody's money safe in the West' if Russia's assets used to fund Ukraine

If the Biden administration gets away with using illegally-seized Russian assets to fund Ukraine, that would "basically nuke the entire Western financial system," journalist Nebojsa Malic told Sputnik.

💬 "And any country outside of the G7 or NATO would be certifiably insane to hold any of its foreign currency, or reserves, or any assets in the West where it's accessible to the US and its allies. They could make up any pretext to confiscate it," said the Serbian-American journalist.

What the rest of the world could do in response is "withdraw their consent from the US financial market," he said.

"I don't think enough people in Washington and out of Washington truly appreciate how dire this is," Malic warned. "It will hurt Russia a little bit, but it would be absolutely disastrous for the US."

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🗣 War in Gaza is Far from Over

"It's going to be a long war. I think, maybe even a year. And this is going to be a war of attrition, and people need to be prepared for that. Because even the United States said that they won the war in Afghanistan within a few months, they got rid of the Taliban. And now look at where the Taliban is: 20 years later the Taliban won the war. In Iraq, [they claimed] "Mission accomplished". Was it accomplished? You know how many thousands of US soldiers were killed after "Mission accomplished"? So this war could result in the end of Palestine, but it could equally result in the end of Israel," - Maram Susli (AKA Syrian Girl), Journalist and Think tank Analyst based in Australia, told Sputnik.

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

▪️The death toll from Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip since October 7, when the Israel-Hamas conflict escalated, has increased to 20,258, the enclave's health ministry said, adding that 53,688 others had been injured.

▪️ Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps warned of the possible blockade of the Mediterranean Sea by "new resistance forces," if the United States and its allies kept committing "crimes" in the Gaza Strip.

▪️Abu Ubaida, a spokesman for the Hamas military wing, said that the movement had lost contact with a group responsible for five Israeli prisoners, adding that they had probably been killed as a result of Israeli shelling of the Gaza Strip.

▪️Dozens of people were killed in Israeli strikes on the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip overnight, the Al Jazeera broadcaster reported.

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There is a growing possibility that the US will be forced to give up the idea of deploying ground-based intercontinental range ballistic missiles entirely, Military Watch Magazine (MWM) reported.

While Russia’s ground-based intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) force is deemed the most capable in the world, the outlet wrote, by contrast, the US has to rely on “the oldest ICBM class in the world.” US' legacy Minuteman III – the land-based leg of the US' nuclear triad – is half a century old, and the US has struggled to develop a successor. The result is that the Minuteman III arsenal faces the prospect of decommissioning without replacement.

One of the reasons for the discrepancy in this case between Russia and the US is that Washington has over-relied on submarine-launched ballistic missiles and nuclear bombers, the authors of the report underscored. Russia, on the other hand, opted to stake on ICBMs when building up its strategic nuclear strike capability.

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🇮🇳🇷🇺 India-Russia Trade Turnover Exceeds USD 50 Bln for First Time

Trade between India and Russia doubled in the first 10 months of 2023 and exceeded a record $54.7 billion, as per Sputnik's calculations, based on Indian customs data.

📈 India’s import of goods from Russia during the period of January-October rose to $51.4 billion, while exports also increased by 1.4 times, to $3.3 billion. The trade figures between the two countries are double the amount for the same period last year.

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🇩🇪📈An increasing income tax across Germany to ensure greater military support for Ukraine due to the paucity of new commitments by the US was proposed by the chairwoman of the German Council of Economic Experts advising the country's government, Monika Schnitzer.

"Special events require special measures. A possible response to this challenge could be a Ukraine solidarity surcharge to the income tax for military aid," Schnitzer said in an interview with the Rheinische Post newspaper.

German Economy Minister and Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck said earlier this week that Berlin should be prepared to take on more responsibility and increase spending in light of weakening Western support for Ukraine.

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🎈US Air Force General has admitted holes in the superpowers air defences were exposed by this year's Chinese balloon incident

USAF jet fighters shot down a balloon over the Atlantic Ocean in February, only after it had drifted across Canada and much of the western US.

Brigadier General Pat Ryder, a spokesperson for the Pentagon, later admitted that the US was not aware of balloon's intelligence-gather capabilities of the balloon.

He emphasized that the US assessment indicated the balloon did not engage in intelligence gathering while transiting or flying over the territory of the US.

The head of the US Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command, General Glen D. VanHerck, said the incident with the Chinese balloon revealed gaps in US forces' ability to detect threats over long distances and in the operational exchange of information.

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The Supreme Court will likely decide if former US President Donald Trump is allowed on all or none of the ballots in the 2024 Presidential election, said Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon.

Simon’s comments come after the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that Trump should be removed from that state’s ballot in the Republican primary and the general election under the 14th Amendment, despite Trump never being charged or convicted of insurrection or rebellion.

🗣 “We’re never going to have a situation in this country where one or some cluster of states decides that Donald Trump is not on the ballot and everyone else decides he is,” Simon explained. “He will either be on the ballot everywhere or nowhere, and the US Supreme Court is going to make sure of that.”

Trump has denied that he engaged in or helped an insurrection on January 6, 2021, pointing to the fact that he told the crowd to march “peacefully and patriotically” to the Capitol building.

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A shooting at a mall in Ocala, Florida resulted in at least one death, local police say.

The shooting occurred around 3:40 p.m. Police originally reported that they were responding to an active shooting but found that the shooter had fled before they arrived.

They believe it may have been an active shooting and note that the shooter is still at-large. No denoscription of the shooter has been released and authorities are asking anyone with more information to call the local Crime Stoppers.

While sweeping the mall, police say they found one deceased male in the common area and a woman with non-life-threatening injuries. It is unclear if those are the only victims, the police previously reported that there were multiple injuries.

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