🔸Israeli army shelled Eastern and Southern Lebanon with heavy artillery

🔸Golan attack ‘inflection point’ threatens to trigger ‘large-scale war’, pull others into ‘quagmire’

🔸Israeli FM compared Erdogan to Hussein over mention of Turkish troop deployment to Israel

🔸Google might put a search ban on Donald Trump - Musk suspected election interference

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EU readies "carrot-and-stick" trade strategy to deal with Trump 

The European Union is hammering out a two-step trade plan to tackle Donald Trump if he wins a second term as US president, the FT has reported. 

"We have to show we are a partner for the US, not a problem. We will look for deals, but we are ready to defend ourselves if it comes to it. We won’t be guided by fear," an unnamed EU source told the newspaper.

If Trump prevails in the November election, EU negotiators are reportedly planning to immediately approach his team to discuss US products that the EU could buy in larger quantities. 

A possible collapse of the talks, and Trump slapping higher tariffs, could prompt the European Commission’s trade department to draw up lists of US imports for retaliatory duties of 50% or more, according to the source. 

The FT noted in this regard that EU officials “see the carrot-and-stick approach as the best response” to Trump’s previous pledge to impose a tariff of at least 10% on all $3 trillion worth of US imports, in the event of his victory on November 5. 

Former US President Trump initiated a tariff war with the EU in March 2018, when he announced a 25% duty on imported steel and 10% tariff on aluminum, which prodded the bloc to retaliate with tit-for-tat levies worth about $3 billion.

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The Wagner Group issued a statement on the situation in Mali:

The fighters of the 13th assault detachment of the group fought fierce battles with militants in the vicinity of the village of Tin Zautin, near the border with Algeria, from July 22 to 27.

The squad was led by Sergei Shevchenko, whose call sign is Prud (lit. - pond). On the first day, his group destroyed most of the Islamists and put the rest to flight, but the radicals were able to regroup and increase their numbers to a thousand people due to a sandstorm.

On July 25, the radicals attacked the Wagner fighters again. The attack attempt was repulsed, but the militants increased the number of massive attacks over the next two days, causeing losses in Wagner's ranks, the statement said.

On July 27, the last radio message was received from the Wagner fighters: "There are three of us left, we continue to fight." The commander of the detachment, Sergei Shevchenko, died in battle.

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Russian artillery obliterates another Abrams tank in the special operation zone   

Russian artillerymen of the Tsentr Battlegroup destroyed another US-made Abrams battle tank near Avdeyevka, the Russian defense ministry said. 

The vehicle was obliterated by a Krasnopol projectile, a laser-guided high-precision artillery shell fired from a Msta-S howitzer. A crew of drone operators launched an Orlan-30 UAV to help with targeting.  

“We've been hunting it for a while, and finally we found it. We found it because it was not fit for our roads, it got stuck in the mud - just sank,” the commander of an artillery unit under the call sign Vosmoy (lit. Eighth) said.  

He added that the Ukrainian crew was completely decimated.  

“They did not have time to react, they’ve been skidding left and right, [the Abrams tank] did not make it because these machines are not fit for these roads,” he concluded.

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Israeli FM's remarks on Erdogan resemble threats of Iraqi-like coup in Turkiye — Russian FM Spokeswoman 

"What happened in Iraq was an attack by the US, Britain, and other NATO countries," commented Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on Israel Katz's threats. The latter has threatened Turkish President Recep Erdogan with that which happened to Saddam Hussein, by comparing the two leaders.

Zakharova said that the American invasion of Iraq was preceded by US' propagandized lies over the alleged presence of weapons of mass destruction in the country.

"This was followed by the illegal occupation of Iraq by Westerners, the criminal murder of the legitimate head of a sovereign state, a chain of insane executions and reprisals against officials and civilians, and years of mockery of Iraqi statehood... The Iraqi military, expelled from their country, went underground and - not without Western involvement - turned into ISIS," she wrote on her Telegram channel.   

"Do these words of the Israeli minister mean approval of such international activities?" Zakharova concluded.

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🇷🇺🇻🇪Vladimir Putin congratulated Nicolas Maduro on his re-election as president of Venezuela, the Kremlin said.

The Russian President also confirmed his readiness to continue constructive work on topical issues on the bilateral and international agenda.

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11 Hermes bags were stolen from the daughter-in-law of the Qatari emir on a high-speed train from France's Nice to Paris, the French newspaper Le Parisien reports.

Accompanied by her domestic staff, the daughter-in-law of the emir of Qatar boarded the TGV train at Cannes Station. Noticing the loss, the train was stopped and held for about twenty minutes at Toulon station for a search. 

However, neither eleven bags nor the thieves have been found.

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📹The Russian military destroyed a multiple launch rocket system (MLRS) in the Novotroitsky area of the Kherson region with an Iskander strike, the Russian Defense Ministry said.

In addition to the MLRS, an escort vehicle and up to 15 Ukrainian militants were hit.

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🇭🇺European policy has failed — Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban predicted a shift from the "irrational" West towards Asia and Russia

"Europe has abandoned the protection of its own interests. Today, Europe does nothing but unconditionally follow the foreign policy of the US Democratic Party," Orban said in his speech. 

According to the Hungarian prime minister, Europe's subordination to the United States is confirmed by the fact that European countries have not fully investigated the bombing of the Nord Stream pipeline:

"The fact that Germany itself does not react to the obvious act of terrorism against its own property - carried out under American direction — and the fact that we do not speak about it, do not investigate it, do not want to clarify it, and do not raise it legally (...) has been nothing but an act of submission."

He also stressed that the West believes that "nation-states no longer exist." 

"They deny that there is a common culture and a shared public morality based on it. There is no public morality, as you could see, if you have watched yesterday's Olympic opening ceremony," Orban proclaimed.

In the end, the Hungarian prime minister stated that the West is neither capable of challenging China nor Asia.

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❗️The Russian troops liberated the settlement of Volchye in the Donetsk People's Republic, the Russian Defense Ministry announced.

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📹The Russian military destroyed the deployment point of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in Velikaya Novoselovka of the Donetsk People's Republic with a guided bomb UPAB-1500, the Russian Defense Ministry said.

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