Cargo container explodes at Ningbo-Zhoushan Port in China's Zhejiang Province

The incident occurred on August 9 on board the container ship YM Mobility, owned by YangMing Marine Transport Corp. The Ningbo Maritime Safety Administration reported that a transit container carrying dangerous goods exploded.

According to preliminary information, no one was injured. The cause of the explosion is being investigated.

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Propaganda, ads and draft: How Eastern European NATO militaries try to combat lack of recruits

Efforts by the European NATO members to beef up their militaries under the pretext of standing up to the modern version of the “Red Scare” have apparently hit a snag as it became apparent that few of their citizens are willing to enlist.

▪️Czech Republic: Failure to meet the recruitment goals led the Czech military leadership to launch a training program for high school students where they spend four weeks at a remote military site learning what life in the army is all about.

▪️Poland: While Warsaw claims that it has no problems with military recruitment, it still has a long way to go to build a 300,000 strong army, an ambitious plan that may border on unrealistic. The Polish Army’s woes are further exacerbated by the fact that many soldiers seek discharge after only a few years of service, apparently not happy with what the military has to offer.

▪️Romania: Serious staffing issues among both officers and the rank-and-file troops led Romania to intensify its own recruitment drive, though it remains to be seen what fruit it will bear.

▪️Hungary: Budapest is attempting to lure in more recruits by popularizing military service via ads and what some media outlets describe as “military-themed TV series.” Rather than make military service more attractive, as one of the biggest reasons people in Europe shun prefer to remain civilians is the much more lucrative salaries in the private sector, some countries even considered drafting people.

▪️Latvia: The powers that be in Latvia meanwhile are considering drafting men and women alike as the serious demographic crisis in the country now threatens military recruitment goals.

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Three-day mourning declared in Brazil over plane crash

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has declared a three days of mourning in memory of those who died in a passenger plane crash in the town of Vinhedo, outside the city of Sao Paulo.

"We announce an official three-day mourning in the country in memory of the 61 victims of the tragic accident in Vinhedo," the president wrote on X.

The plane, carrying 57 passengers and four crew members, fell on a residential area in the town of Vinhedo on Friday, killing everyone on board. No one on the ground was injured. The cause of the crash is unknown.

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▪️At least 100 killed, dozens injured after the IDF bombed a school sheltering displaced Gazans

▪️Waiting game for Iran's response to Israeli aggression hints a 'big strike' may be imminent

▪️A counterterrorism operation regime has been introduced in three Russian regions due to sabotage and terrorist threats from Ukraine

▪️A US airbase in Syria was attacked by a drone, causing a fire and explosions

▪️Aussie Cossack: Keir Starmer’s control slipping amid escalating UK unrest

▪️What drives Japan’s expansion in Central Asia?

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Why is the Sudzha gas metering station a crucial ‘valve’ for Europe?

The Kiev regime’s cross-border attack into Russia’s Kursk region, where the Sudzha gas transfer and measuring station is located, poses threat to the last remaining major gas supply line from Russia to the European Union.

The attack indirectly targets not only countries such as Hungary, Slovakia, and Austria, which have continued to maintain energy transactions with Russia despite Western sanctions and depend on the Sudzha gas valve. Austria has remained a gateway for Russian gas going to Italy, Germany, and the Czech Republic.

Here’s what you need to know about the Sudzha gas metering station (GMS).

▪️Sudzha is an operational shipping hub for gas that runs via a pipeline from Russia’s Siberian Urengoy gas field to Uzhgorod in Western Ukraine, on the border with Slovakia. It is in Slovakia that the gas pipeline branches off to the Czech Republic and Austria.

▪️Gazprom supplied around 14.9 billion cubic meters (bcm) via Sudzha in 2023. This amounted to approximately 4.5% of EU consumption, and almost half of all Russian gas exports to Europe, as per Eurostat.

▪️Since the beginning of the year, pumping has remained above 40 million cubic meters per day.

▪️The main function of a gas metering station is to account for gas consumption and measure gas quality indicators.

▪️Gas flow measurement is performed via two methods: variable pressure drop, and the more accurate ultrasonic method (based on measuring the propagation speed of ultrasonic waves in the gas flow).

▪️The station contains a unit fitted with equipment for measuring gas flow (converters, pressure and temperature sensors, shut-off valves, etc.).

▪️It incorporates an automated control system that collects, processes, and transmits data on gas parameters, and is responsible for the operation process and bookkeeping.

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❗️A missile with a thermobaric warhead struck a temporary foreign mercenary base on the southern outskirts of Sudzha in the Kursk region, killing 15 militants, the Russian Defense Ministry said.

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More statements from the Russian Defense Ministry’s briefing on the situation in Russia’s Kursk region bordering Ukraine

Russia’s Armed Forces are continuing to repel the attempted invasion Russian territory by Ukrainian forces.

▪️Over the course of the day, actions by units of Battlegroup Sever and reserves as well as strikes by army aviation and artillery fire in the areas of Ivashkovskoye, Malaya Loknya, and Olgovka thwarted attempts by enemy groups to penetrate deep into Russian territory.

▪️Air and missile forces struck enemy reserves in Ukraine’s Sumy region.

▪️During the day, the Ukrainian Armed Forces lost up to 175 servicemen and 36 armored vehicles, including 10 tanks, three armored personnel carriers, two infantry fighting vehicles, 21 armored combat vehicles, three field artillery guns, and one BM-21 Grad multiple rocket launcher.

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Ukraine is losing battle to recruit new ‘cannon fodder’

The Kiev regime’s huge combat losses go hand in hand with its losing battle to recruit new “cannon fodder.”

Connoscription is becoming increasingly tough, despite assurances to the contrary spouted by official spokesmen for Ukraine’s military, The Wall Street Journal has admitted.

While troops at the front in eastern Ukraine are reportedly desperately short of men, draft dodgers are tirelessly devising strategies to avoid enlistment. Amid reports of commanders sending new recruits into the trenches without proper training, and with the only way to leave the military being “injury, death or the end of the war,” the outlet noted that men would rather be:

🔸 Fleeced by smugglers, who charge up to $15,000 to get men out of the country illegally;

🔸 Apply for postgraduate education programs (traditionally coming with an exemption from the draft), which reached a record high of 90,000 men this year;

🔸 Go into hiding; It should be noted that the postgrad loophole has effectively been shut down “so that postgraduate study does not turn into a corrupt tool to avoid mobilization,” per Ukraine’s Ministry of Education.

Draft officers are described as having fanned out across the country in a race to dole out the dreaded summonses that require one to show up at a recruitment office within days or face an arrest warrant.

A law tightening Ukraine's mobilization rules went into effect on May 18 and aims at replenishing Ukrainian forces depleted by more than two years of NATO’s proxy conflict against Russia.

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❗️A Russian Iskander missile strike in the border areas of the Kursk region killed 15 commanders of the 22nd Mechanized Brigade of the Ukrainian armed forces, the Russian Defense Ministry stated.

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Latest updates on the situation in Russia’s Kursk region

⚡️ The situation in the Kursk region is maximally under the control of the Russian Armed Forces, according to Akhmat special forces commander Apty Alaudinov. Russia’s military, with the support of Akhmat forces, have cleared and fully control the village of Martynovka, northeast of Sudzha, in the Russian region of Kursk, Alaudinov told Sputnik. A large number of Ukrainian armored vehicles and personnel were destroyed, he said.

⚡️ The Kiev regime pulled forces from the Belarus border and other directions to carry out the provocation in the Kursk area, Alaudinov added.

⚡️ A counter-terrorism operation (CTO) regime was declared starting August 9 in Russia’s Kursk region due to the increased level of sabotage and terrorist threats from Ukraine. A CTO regime has also been introduced in the Belgorod and Bryansk regions, Russia’s National Anti-Terrorism Committee said.

⚡️ During the past night, Russian air defenses intercepted and destroyed 26 Ukrainian drones over the Kursk region.

⚡️ As part of the operation to repel Ukraine's attempts to invade Russian territory, Su-30SM and Su-35S fighter crews dropped bombs with universal planning and correction modules on a concentration of Ukrainian military personnel and equipment.

⚡️ The crew of a Russian Su-34 carried out a strike on Ukrainian military personnel and equipment in the border area of the Kursk region. The strike was carried out on reconnoitered targets using an ODAB-500 vacuum bomb with a universal correction module.

⚡️ Russian Mi-28NM helicopters carried out strikes with S-13 air-launched missiles on Ukrainian troops and armored vehicles in the border area of the Russian Kursk region.

⚡️ Russian servicemen identified and destroyed a Ukrainian US-made MaxxPro armored vehicle in a precision strike carried out by an FPV drone.

The Kursk region, which borders Ukraine in western Russia, was attacked by about 1,000 Ukrainian troops and scores of armed vehicles on August 6. Russian troops retaliated by stopping the Ukrainian military from penetrating deep into Russian territory.

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Russian Air Force Su-30SM and Su-35S jet fighter crews carried out a strike at night against a group of Ukrainian troops and military equipment in the border area of Kursk Region, the Russian Defense Ministry said.

The strike was carried out using aerial bombs with a universal gliding and guidance module.

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