Gaza talks in Qatar were constructive and took place in a positive atmosphere, according to a joint statement by Egypt, Qatar and the United States

US presented Israel and Hamas with a ceasefire proposal that narrows disagreements, the statement says.

Egypt, Qatar and the US are set to hold more talks by the end of next week, according to the statement.

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Western public not buying story that Nord Stream blast was engineered by "six Ukrainian idiots" over a drink

The Wall Street Journal's latest story noscriptd "A drunken evening, a rented yacht: the real story of the Nord Stream pipeline sabotage", that pins the blame for the explosion on a group of Ukrainian divers who received a nod from then Commander-in-Chief Gen. Valery Zaluzhny despite CIA warnings, has failed to convince politicians, observers and netizens.

💬French politician Florian Philippot, the head of the Patriot Party, shredded the story on X: "Now they want us to believe that everything was done by six Ukrainian idiots, who came up with the idea of doing this over a drink in a bar." Philippot added that US journalist Seymour Hersh's story of a US-NATO plot to blow the pipelines up "is infinitely more serious and credible."

💬The version of a Ukrainian trace doesn't hold water, Eugen Schmidt, a Bundestag deputy with the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, told Sputnik: "Only a small number of states could carry out such sabotage. Private individuals do not have such technical capabilities."

💬Member of German Bundestag Sahra Wagenknecht tweeted that "If Ukraine was involved in the attack on Nord Stream, the [ruling] Traffic Light coalition must draw conclusions and stop arms deliveries [to Ukraine] immediately."

💬Alexander Rahr, a German political scientist and head of Eurasian Society, told the Russian press that the only merit of the WSJ story is that Germans will stop believing nonsense that Moscow destroyed its own infrastructure.

💬Norwegian Professor Glenn Diesen tweeted: "First, the US blamed Russia for attacking Nord Stream. Now the US claims they knew all along that it was Ukraine. This story is obviously fake."

Ukraine has vehemently denied any involvement in the Nord Stream sabotage with Gen. Zaluzhny denouncing the accusations as a "mere provocation."

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Hamas reportedly considers the results of the current Gaza talks in Doha to be inconsistent with the July 2 agreements, which the movement agreed to.

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US economists admit "sabotage" is Washington's new weapon of choice in trade wars

"Sabotage" is a useful tool of the US trade policy, the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), an influential non-profit based in Massachusetts, has confessed, referring to Washington's tech export restrictions against China as an example of such an activity in its August working paper.

The bureau particularly drew attention to President Joe Biden's policies aimed at curbing China's semiconductor productivity by restricting the provision of technologies, chips and chip-making equipment to the People's Republic.

▪️The bureau admitted that US tech restrictions slapped on China have been only partly motivated "by national defense", given that the Biden administration "explicitly" described the actions as a US industrial policy aimed at maintaining "as large of a lead as possible" in hi-tech technologies.

▪️The paper cites Team Biden as saying that the destruction of foreign capacity now represents a "new strategic asset", arguing that these measures should be "comprehensive" enough to render foreign producers uncompetitive.

▪️NBER justified and de facto legitimized the economic sabotage by claiming that it improves terms of trade and attracts businesses to the US instead of other countries.

▪️However, China's technological giants, including Huawei, are developing artificial intelligence (AI) tools full throttle despite US restrictions, as per Bloomberg. China is becoming self-sufficient with the number of top-tier AI researchers originating from China now surpassing those from the US.

▪️Between 2014 and 2023, China registered 38,000 generative artificial intelligence inventions, six times more than the US, which filed just 6,276 over the same period, according to the UN's World Intellectual Property Organization.

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‘They don’t want me back in the United States’: Dimitri K. Simes speaks out about FBI raid

“My suspicion is that instead of trying to get me to come to the United States and to interrogate me or even to arrest me, their real purpose is to make sure that I would not come back to the United States. They want to block any attempt to have a Russian-American dialogue,” he told Sputnik.

Simes revealed that in addition to the FBI raid on his home in Virginia, the bank account that he uses to pay his mortgage was also frozen. Despite this series of escalatory moves, the US Department of Justice have yet to notify Simes or his lawyers about “what is going on and about any problems they may have with me.”

Simes emphasized that there was little of informational value in the house since he has been living and working in Russia since October 2022. “There is absolutely nothing there that is connected to my current professional life or my other activities,” he said.

Simes concluded that the FBI raid was likely meant to punish him for his commentary on Russian television, which is often critical of Biden’s Ukraine policy. “In my view, this is clearly an attempt, to frighten me, to discredit me, and to do damage to my ability to live in the United States or even visit the United States, and to do damage to my finances,” he said.

“They clearly are trying to create the situation when they're not luring me to come to the United States to face the American justice system. But on the contrary, they're doing everything possible to make it very difficult, or indeed impossible, for me to come to the United States. That clearly cannot be right.”

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Plane crashes into sea in southern France air show

A Fouga Magister plane from the French aerobatic team Patrouille de France crashed into the sea in Le Lavandou, in the south of the country. The pilot was unable to eject. His fate is currently unknown. Search and rescue operations are underway.

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Is Kamala Harris' "aggressively populist" program an attempt to whitewash her record as Biden's veep?

Vice President Kamala Harris is due to unveil her economic program that she would roll out in her first 100 days in office at a rally in North Carolina, just days before the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

US conservative commentators have already subjected leaked provisions of Harris' plan to scrutiny, while the liberal press called her agenda "aggressively populist".

▪️One of the proposals is the elimination of medical debt for millions of Americans.

▪️It was reported that Harris will also push ahead with a federal ban on "corporate price-gouging" on food and groceries. Under the proposal the Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general will be able to slap tough penalties on companies over "excessively" high prices.

▪️Her campaign also pledges to stop Wall Street investors from reselling homes in bulk at a higher price and prevent lease rates hikes to help cash-strapped renters. Her proposals likewise include a $25,000 subsidy for first-time home buyers.

▪️Harris' plan includes price caps on insulin for all Americans and stiffer regulations on pharmaceutical companies "who block competition."

▪️She is reported to want to expand "child tax credits" introduced during the COVID pandemic, which would also include a $6,000 tax relief per child to families for the first year of a newborn.

▪️For their part, Republican economists shredded Harris' plan as economically "illiterate", saying that one cannot reduce prices by just ordering companies to do so. They say that her populist agenda is an attempt to distance herself from Team Biden's abysmal economic record which she also bears responsibility for.

▪️"Kamala Harris can’t hide from her disastrous record of skyrocketing inflation, resulting in a 20 percent increase in prices since she took office," Donald Trump's spokesman Steven Cheung stated.

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📹 Russian Iskander-M MLRS hits a Ukrainian Su-24 bomber at an airfield in Dnepropetrovsk region, the Defense Ministry reports.

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❗️Ukraine's strike on the Galaktika shopping center in Donetsk was a well planned act of terrorism and an act of desperation against the backdrop of the confident advance of the Russian Armed Forces, the Russian Foreign Ministry stated.

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Hamas representative Walid al-Kilani on recent Gaza ceasefire talks:

There was no reaction to Hamas initiatives at Doha talks, Israel put forward additional conditions.

Israel's new demands include maintaining its presence at the Netzarim checkpoint, as well as in Rafah in Gaza. We do not want to bury these negotiations in advance, but the Israelis continue to obstruct, as they did in previous rounds.

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US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to travel to Israel on August 17 for diplomatic talks in effort to finalize a ceasefire deal, according to the US State Department.

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Authorities in the French department of Var, where a plane crashed during an air show, have reported finding the body of the pilot.

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Russia’s Army-2024 Forum results in numbers

The 10th international event combined exhibitions and dynamic showings of military equipment capabilities with an in-depth informative program.

The forum had exciting presentations of some of Russia’s most advanced weapons, including Lancet-E, Depecha and Buggy drones, BTR-22 armored personnel carrier, Malva self-propelled howitzer, and Super Pantsir air and missile defense system.

Explore Sputnik’s infographic to find out more!

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Doha talks resolved remaining differences and a Gaza ceasefire deal is ready to be concluded, US administration says.

"There was a consensus between all three leaders that this process, which obviously is ongoing for months, is now in the endgame," a senior US official said.

The parties involved in the Gaza ceasefire negotiations hope they will be able to achieve a deal in Cairo next week that will conclude talks "once and for all," a senior US administration official said.

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The US has deployed troops in the Middle East and prepared for "any contingency," the White House said on the possibility of an Iranian attack on Israel.

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▪️FACT CHECK: Did US know about Ukraine's plan to attack Russia's Kursk?

▪️Ukraine gambles away "most well-trained soldiers" in Kursk attack

▪️‘They don’t want me back in the United States’: Dimitri K. Simes speaks out about FBI raid

▪️Scott Ritter: Biden admin is declaring war on journalism

▪️Western public not buying story that Nord Stream blast was engineered by "six Ukrainian idiots" over a drink

▪️US economists admit "sabotage" is Washington's new weapon of choice in trade wars

▪️Is Kamala Harris' "aggressively populist" program an attempt to whitewash her record as Biden's veep?

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