🇫🇷 Demonstrations were held in several French regions near the Alps against holding the 2030 Winter Olympic Games in the country, French media reported on Saturday.

The France Bleu radio reported that protests occurred in Chambery, Grenoble and the Hautes-Alpes department.

The demonstrators claimed that the Olympic Games would cause serious harm to the environment, as well as entail large costs and rising property prices, the report added.

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“Today we are facing an all-out battle with the enemy,” said the head of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Hossein Salami Saturday.

The commander-in-chief made the remark during a televised ceremony where the country unveiled a new ship and several missile launchers.

“It will be harmful for the enemy to be found near and at a half distant,” the general added, sounding a note of defiance as the United States has announced attempts to counter Houthi attacks in the Red Sea.

But President Joe Biden has struggled to secure significant commitments for the operation with France and Spain recently denying any involvement.

The tensions come as South Africa brings charges of genocide against Israel in the International Court of Justice, with Israel expected to answer next week.

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Criticism over secrecy of Pentagon chief’s hospitalization mounts as Austin ‘takes responsibility’ for matter

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin released a statement on Saturday taking “full responsibility” for not disclosing his condition earlier.

But the statement did little to quell the censure, with Senator Roger Wicker, the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, saying such secrecy erodes trust in the Pentagon.

The Pentagon has been slammed for concealing Austin’s condition for days after he was admitted to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on January 1 over “complications following a recent elective medical procedure.”

The Pentagon revealed Austin’s hospitalization on January 4. The defense chief resumed his duties in full on Friday evening, but remained in the hospital, a spokesperson said on Saturday.

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Russian Grad MLRS crews hit Ukrainian stronghold on Dnepr River

The Russian Defense Ministry has shared a video showing the successful operation of artillery adjusters and rocket artillery of the Dnepr Group of Forces against Ukrainian manpower.

As a result of the attack, up to 20 Ukrainian servicemen were killed and wounded, and three motor vehicles were destroyed.

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On Christmas Eve, the Ukrainian Armed Forces hit city hospital No. 6 in Donetsk.

As a result of the attack, some of the patients received minor injuries. The hospital’s staff organized an evacuation of the patients to a shelter in the basement and provided all necessary care to them.

The glazing and facade of the building were damaged, while window frames and doors were blown out.

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The head of the Donetsk People’s Republic, Denis Pushilin, explains to Sputnik what sets Russia apart from the regime in Kiev, which blatantly targeted civilians in Belgorod and Donetsk during its recent attacks.

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🇨🇳 China has sanctioned five US defense industry companies in response for new US arms sales to Taiwan by freezing those entities' property in China and barring organizations and individuals in the Asian nation from transactions and cooperation with them, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said on Sunday.

The US weapons sales to Taiwan violate the one-China principle and the stipulations of the three China-US joint communiques, the statement read. Moreover, the "illegal unilateral sanctions" that the US has imposed on Chinese companies and individuals "under various false pretexts," harm China's sovereignty and security interests, the statement said.

"We urge the United States to abide by the one-China principle and the three China-US joint communiques, observe international law and the basic norms governing international relations, stop arming Taiwan, and stop targeting China with illegal unilateral sanctions. Otherwise there will be strong and resolute response from China," the statement added.

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🇰🇵🇰🇷 Any form of provocation towards North Korea will prompt an immediate military response, Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of leader Kim Jong Un, said.

"I make myself clear once again that the safety catch of the trigger of the Korean People's Army (KPA) had already been slipped," she said in a statement carried by state news agency KCNA.

"As already declared, the KPA will launch an immediate military strike if the enemy makes even a slight provocation," Kim said.

These statements were made following reports from South Korea's military indicating that North Korea had fired over 60 artillery rounds near the disputed maritime border on Saturday. It follows a similar barrage of more than 200 rounds the day before.

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What’s behind latest hair-trigger escalation of tensions between North and South Korea?

For the third day in a row, Seoul accused Pyongyang of firing artillery shells near the disputed sea boundary near South Korea’s Yeonpyeong Island in the Yellow Sea. “Residents are advised to be careful about outdoor activities,” authorities warned on Sunday. South Korean forces held drills in the same maritime area earlier in the week.

Kim Yo Jong, senior aide and sister to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, warned Seoul and its allies against any provocations, saying that “misjudgment, conjecture, perversity and miswriting will precipitate irretrievable calamity.”

South Korea and its US allies launched their own provocative live fire drills along the border earlier in the week. An ROK military spokesman said Saturday those drills were aimed at establishing a “joint war-fighting posture that can punish the enemy immediately.”

Relations between Pyongyang and Seoul have deteriorated significantly between 2021 and 2022 with the election of new governments in the US and South Korea which did away with the personalized diplomacy of their predecessors aimed at easing tensions along the highly militarized peninsula.

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🇭🇺🇪🇺 European Council President Charles Michel has decided to leave his post early. If the EU leaders do not have time to choose a successor, then Viktor Orban will become the interim head of the European Council.

Michel will stand in the European Parliament elections in June, he told three Belgian media outlets. If he is elected, EU leaders will have to quickly agree on a successor to fill his vacated council post. If they fail to do so, the meetings will be led by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, whose country will take over the rotating presidency of the EU Council in July, a mediating role usually performed by the European Council president.

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🇮🇱 Israel is ready to resolve the conflict with Hezbollah through political means, but if they do not help, “other” options will be used, Netanyahu said.

His statement comes after Hezbollah fired 62 missiles at northern Israel as a "response to the crime of assassinating the great leader Sheikh Saleh al-Arouri."

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How BRICS could create own grain exchange and abandon dollar

"Eventually there will be a redistribution of [grain] markets. There will be a complete removal of the outgoing players – the United States and the European Union," Vladimir Petrichenko, CEO of the analytical company ProZerno, told Sputnik.

BRICS countries represent a huge part, and in some cases more than half, of the market for grain crops, according to the expert. Having added Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in 2024, BRICS has almost equalized the production and consumption of key grain crops within the group creating the preconditions for forming its own huge grain market and, potentially, a dollar-free grain exchange.

"[Russia] has already considerably displaced the US and the EU in the wheat market. Brazil has greatly pushed the US in the corn market," the expert says, adding that the West will fight tooth and nail for its market share.

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🇷🇺🇮🇷 Russian and Iranian national wealth funds are planning to establish joint investment committees for realization of different oil, gas, petrochemical, pharmaceutical, high-tech and other projects, the Iranian National Development Fund’s Deputy Director of Foreign Investment, Hossein Eivazloo, has said.

"We decided … to establish joint investment committees between the two national wealth funds of Russia and Iran and review projects under proposal … Both Iran and the Russian side will invest 50% each," Eivazloo said, as quoted by the IRNA news agency.

Tehran and Moscow have been cooperating on the issue for a long time and have held a number of meetings and exchanged agreements, the official said, adding that both countries approved models of cooperation and that Iran was waiting for the approval of the Russian National Wealth Fund’s board of trustees, according to the report.

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🇷🇺 Over the past five years, the Russian Strategic Missile Forces carried out more than 20 intercontinental ballistic missile launches to test promising missile systems and training, the Russian Ministry of Defense has reported.

As the ministry noted, they plan to conduct seven more launches in 2024.

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

▪️ In the Kupyansk area, four Ukrainian attacks were repelled, over 50 military personnel were killed,

▪️ In the Krasny Liman region, enemy losses amounted to up to 55 people;

▪️ In the Donetsk area, the enemy’s total losses amounted to more than 300 military killed and wounded. Four armored combat vehicles, 20 vehicles, a Caezar self-propelled gun, an American M119 howitzer, as well as an ammunition depot were hit;

▪️ In southern Donetsk, Ukrainian forces and terrestrial defense brigades were attacked, Kiev lost up to 130 military personnel. A tank, three Polish Krab installations, two British FH-70 howitzers, and an ammunition depot were hit;

▪️ Ukraine's losses in the Zaporozhye area amounted to up to 40 military personnel, one tank and two armored combat vehicles.

▪️Russian air defenses shot down two Ukrainian air force aircraft. In addition, 14 rockets from the HIMARS and Uragan multiple launch rocket systems and six Neptune anti-ship missiles were intercepted during the day.

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Russia has an advantage in the electronic war with Ukraine

Moscow is increasingly using electronic warfare to throw Ukrainian-supplied precision-guided munitions such as HIMARS missiles and Excalibur artillery shells off course, the Financial Times has noted.

One Ukrainian soldier complained about the lack of electronic warfare equipment in his unit, which was almost completely destroyed.

“What electronic warfare? (...) We had nothing. I don’t even want to think about those days in the trenches. Our guys dropped like flies,” the serviceman added in an interview.

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