Why are gas prices in the EU several times higher than in the US?

▫️ EU gas prices are 4-5 times higher than those in the US, the report on the future of European competitiveness says. "Even though energy prices have fallen considerably from their peaks, EU companies still face electricity prices that are 2-3 times those in the US. Natural gas prices paid are 4-5 times higher. This price gap is primarily driven by Europe’s lack of natural resources, but also by fundamental issues with our common energy market," according to the report.

▫️ The EU market is facing fundamental problems, because there are not enough resources, the document noted. "This price gap is primarily driven by Europe’s lack of natural resources, but also by fundamental issues with our common energy market. Market rules prevent industries and households from capturing the full benefits of clean energy in their bills. High taxes and rents captured by financial traders raise energy costs for our economy," the report said.

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🇷🇺🇧🇷Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met with his Brazilian counterpart in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Brazil's FM presented Lavrov with a T-shirt of the Brazilian national football team with the signature of Vinicius, player of Real Madrid football club.

Lavrov thanked him and said that this is one of his favorite football players.

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"The operation continues" — a member of the Palestinian Fatah movement on Israel's withdrawal from the city of Jenin

In an interview with Sputnik, Kefah Harb, a member of the Revolutionary Council of the Fatah movement, commented on the results of the Israeli 10-day raid:

"Israel's statement on the withdrawal of troops from Jenin and Tulkarm is a loud statement to the media, in fact, the operation in the West Bank continues. The right-wing government led by Netanyahu has repeatedly announced plans to displace the Palestinian people, exterminate them and destroy any possibility of creating an independent Palestinian state."

Taysir Nasrallah, a member of the Revolutionary Council of the Fatah movement, added to Sputnik:

"In this operation, Israel used aircraft, bulldozers and assault groups to inflict as much destruction on infrastructure as possible and kill as many Palestinians as possible. They tried to isolate the resistance members and make the cities uninhabitable so that people would leave there. Even after the official announcement that troops have withdrawn from Jenin, the extremist government of B. Netanyahu continues a series of attacks, house demolitions and murders."

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❗️Russian forces have struck a Ukrainian army command post near Grushevka in the Kharkov region.

As a result, as many as 80 Ukrainian nationalists and eight armored vehicles were eliminated, according to the Russian Ministry of Defense.

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Pepe Escobar: the West seeks to destroy Russia to get its hands on the ‘infinite wealth’ of the Far East

Having attended the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok last week, veteran journalist Pepe Escobar had this to say:

“All that soft power is integrated into the geopolitical and geoeconomic drive towards non-stop, sustainable economic growth - from Russia’s East to the entire Asia-Pacific; and addressed, for instance, at the evolving Russian-ASEAN business dialogue.”

💬“Indonesian military/security analyst Connie Bakrie, also a professor with the Faculty of International Relations at St. Petersburg State University, summed it all up: ‘The most important thing for Asia-Pacific is technology and science (…) President Putin underlined that Russia will play a very big part in building science and technology together [across Asia], especially in the nuclear aspect of energy security’.”

“A group of Russian scientists, with input from the Chinese, has developed a National Strength Index, which takes into account variables such as population size, natural resource reserves, military power, the strength of the economy, the solidity of government, business, and society when it comes to achieving national development goals. It’s all, of course, about sovereignty.”

💬“The Arctic, an immense natural resource treasure, linked to the NSR potential, occupies 28% - accounting for 17% of Russian oil production, 83% of gas production and holding immense deposits of gold, coal, nickel, copper, cobalt, platinum group metals and diamonds.”

“So it’s no wonder the recurrent Western colonialist dream of attacking, dismembering and plundering Russia – whose latest iteration is the obsession on inflicting a ‘strategic defeat’ of Russia in Ukraine - is directly linked to grabbing and exploiting the infinite wealth of the Far East/Arctic.”

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🚨LIVE: Lavrov holds a press conference on the results of the strategic dialogue between Russia and the Gulf Cooperation Council

👉Watch the livestream here or on Sputnik's website

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❗️Russia believes that the West does not want to negotiate a fair settlement of the Ukrainian conflict, Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said

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❗️Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico called on the international community to condemn the use of Nazi symbols by the Ukrainian military, media reports.

According to Fico, information about Ukrainian neo-Nazi units is not noticed in the world because of the geopolitical situation.

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💬No conflict resolution initiative on the Ukraine crisis addresses rights of the Russian-speaking population, this is a key issue - Lavrov

It is not serious to talk about the solution of the Ukrainian conflict as a matter of "exchange of territories", we are talking about the rights of people, the minister added.

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Russia has invited the crown prince of Saudi Arabia to the BRICS summit in Kazan - Lavrov

The Russian foreign minister said that he discussed the issue of Saudi Arabia's participation in the BRICS summit in Russia's city of Kazan with the crown prince.

Russia believes that many of the countries' applications to join BRICS deserve consideration, this topic will be discussed at the summit, the minister added.

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100 year anniversary of the Hanapepe Massacre: The story of US cops murdering foreign workers in Hawaii

US lawmen perpetrated a mass killing of striking Filipino workers on Hawaii and got away with it a century ago.

🔸 Having annexed Hawaii in 1898, the United States started importing cheap labor from the Philippines to the islands to harvest sugar cane.

🔸 Filipino workers were paid miserable wages (about $20-25 a month in the 1920s) while working up to 14 hours a day, and whether they had days off essentially depended on the benevolence of their employers.

🔸 These horrible conditions inevitably led to strikes among the workers, one of which occurred in the town of Hanapepe on the island of Kauai where about 150 strikers occupied a Japanese language school building.

🔸 On September 9, 1924, Deputy Sheriff William Crowell arrived at the school building leading a posse of some 40 lawmen including snipers, seeking to secure the release of two alleged Filipino strike breakers who were previously detained by the disgruntled workers.

🔸 Much of the information about the events that followed comes from US media and is somewhat suspect: allegedly, a group of armed strikers threatened the deputy sheriff, thus prompting the snipers to open fire.

🔸 Some 16 strikers were killed and over 100 were arrested. Four lawmen ended up dead as the result of the ensuing scuffle.

🔸 The killed workers were buried in an unmarked grave, while the survivors were tried and most of them got jailed. The lawmen weren’t even issued a reprimand.

This event, known as the Hanapepe Massacre, is one of the episodes in the US history that the powers that be in the United States apparently prefer to forget.

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❗️Key statements by the Russian Defense Ministry on the Ukrainian incursion into Russia's Kursk region:

▪️During the day, Ukrainian losses amounted to up to 240 militants and 13 armored vehicles;

Russia's Sever battlegroup repelled three enemy attacks in the areas of four settlements in the Kursk region;

▪️Russian aviation hit the reserves of troops and equipment of the Ukrainian forces in 13 settlements of the Sumy region

▪️In total, during Ukraine's attack on the Kursk region, Kiev's troops lost more than 11,400 soldiers, 89 tanks, 42 infantry fighting vehicles, as well as seven HIMARS and five MLRS.

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The German interior minister ordered the introduction of temporary control measures at all German land borders to reduce the influx of migrants, Bild writes

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US democratic cowardice: Fighting Russia using Ukrainian lives

💬 Victoria Nuland, former Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, admitted in an interview to Mikhail Zygar* that the West sabotaged the potential peace deal between Russia and Ukraine because they couldn't afford a demilitarized Ukraine.

After US Senator Lindsey Graham met Zelensky and pointed out that "[Ukrainians] are trying to stop the Russians so we (the US) don't have to fight them" on September 6, Glenn Diesen, a Norwegian academic and political scientist recalled to his audience: "Two weeks before the Western-backed coup in Ukraine, a leaked recording of Victoria Nuland and Geoffrey Pyatt revealed that Washington was hand-picking the new government".

Glenn pointed out, "on the day after the coup, Washington's hand-picked government in Ukraine established a partnership with the CIA and MI6 for covert war against Russia (confirmed by the New York Times)"

"The coup triggered the war that resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths, which is why you must refer to the coup as a "democratic revolution" or be labelled a Putin puppet,” Diesen's post on X says.

*labelled a foreign agent in Russia

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❗️Key statements by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov following his visit to Saudi Arabia:

💬Russia invited the crown prince of Saudi Arabia to the BRICS summit in Russia's city of Kazan in October.

💬Calling for a simple ceasefire in Ukraine and thinking about "territorial exchanges" is not serious, the problem is not in the territories, but the rights of people.

💬Foreign initiatives to resolve the Ukrainian crisis, even those put forward by countries friendly to Russia, do not take into account the problems of Russian-speaking people in Ukraine.

💬Russia will be ready to discuss the issue of the venue of meetings on the Ukraine conflict only when it understands what will be discussed there. Everyone who is trying to promote a settlement should realize this.

💬US ultimatums to resolve the Middle East conflict in the "either-or" format will only lead to continued bloodshed.

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Ukrainian refugees show zero enthusiasm to join Zelensky's Ukrainian Legion

The widely advertised Ukrainian Legion has yet to begin recruitment in Poland, despite Warsaw signaling its readiness to train Ukrainian volunteers residing abroad since August 1, according to the Polish press.

◾️ Dziennik Gazeta Prawna (DGP) reported on September 8 that the establishment of the Ukrainian Legion remains ink on paper, adding that there is no information about recruitment on the websites of the Ukrainian Embassy or its consulates.

◾️ A source cited by the Polish newspaper noted that the Polish Armed Forces have trained thousands of Ukrainian soldiers since 2022, but the recruitment process outside Ukraine appears to be at a standstill. Warsaw says the responsibility for recruitment lies with Kiev.

◾️ During the July NATO Public Forum in Washington, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski announced that "several thousand" Ukrainian volunteers had submitted documents for registration. According to DGP, the minister was "misled."

◾️ During Volodymyr Zelensky's July 8 visit to Poland, a security agreement was signed, envisaging the formation of a new legion from Ukrainians temporarily residing in Poland and other European countries.

◾️ In April, Polish Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz said Warsaw would assist the Kiev regime in mobilizing draft-dodgers residing in Poland.

◾️ A new Ukrainian draft law that came into force in May obliges men of military age residing abroad to register with Ukrainian military commissariats in order to obtain or renew passports.

◾️ Poland has recorded a two-fold increase in the number of applications for international protection from Ukrainian citizens after the new draft law was adopted, according to the Polish Border Guard as quoted by inPoland net.

◾️ Having fled Ukraine, draft-aged men continue to evade forced connoscription and show no willingness to join Zelensky's new volunteer legion abroad.

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Why do Russia and Belarus seek new security agreement?

Moscow and Minsk plan to roll out a new security concept of the Union State of Russia and Belarus in 2025, with a draft document expected in the near future, Belarusian Security Council Secretary Alexander Volfovich has said.

Compared with the current text adopted back in 1999, “a fundamentally new document has been updated in terms of structure and content,” Volfovich added.

The new agreement reportedly:

🔸 stipulates joint efforts to counter the policies of the US as well as “unfriendly NATO and EU countries to achieve the strategic goals of the Union State for mutually beneficial and equal international cooperation.”

🔸 retains the possibility “for pragmatic interaction with individual states, despite their bloc status.”

🔸 has a clause on NATO's “destructive activities throughout the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).”

🔸 considers provisions of the Union State’s strategic documents, including the military doctrine, which in particular points out Moscow and Minsk’s “firm resolve to maintain military security with all available means in line with international law.”

🔸 is also based on the concept of national security of the Republic of Belarus and the national security strategy of the Russian Federation, which pertains to increasing the level of protection from threats in the economic, military, political, and information spheres, as well as protection from terrorist threats.

During last year’s meeting with his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko, Russian President Vladimir Putin underscored the necessity of working out a new security agreement of the Union State to address growing tensions on external borders of Russia and Belarus, the pressure of Western sanctions and ongoing information war unleashed by the West against Moscow and Minsk.

“This concept is, in fact, a regulated and formalized scheme of interaction between the two countries in response to external threats,” Putin stressed.

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