📹 Drivers and pedestrians in the Chinese city of Nanning witnessed a sewer explosion

The contents of the sewage were spread around the area and fell on people nearby.

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📹 Local residents captured a powerful sandstorm in the US state of Idaho on camera

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Sputnik's social media ban exposes the West's illusion of free speech, says Iranian news director

"Freedom of speech in the West only seems to exist within the framework of Western hegemony. If someone promotes alternative views, even if supported by public opinion, they will be removed from the information space," Iranian news agency Mehr’s director Mohammad Mehdi Rahmati says, commenting on the blocking of Sputnik’s social media accounts.

"If freedom of expression is limited to Western cultural indicators, it becomes an empty image of freedom, not the real thing," he tells Sputnik.

Rahmati adds that Western nations have distanced themselves from their earlier principles of creating a pluralistic world.

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Has Zelensky become too toxic for Bill and Hillary Clinton?

The issues of Ukraine, its leadership and its crises were noticeably absent on this year's Clinton Global Initiative 2024 agenda: no Ukrainian political or social leaders took the stage during the Clintons' 2024 event.

This raised the eyebrows of those who remember how the Clintons wooed the Zelenskys in 2022 and 2023.

Speaking to Sputnik, Wall Street analyst Charles Ortel suggests that Volodymyr Zelensky has become "radioactive" for the Clintons.

Why is that?

▪️The pundit drew attention to the fact that Zelensky lost his legitimacy under Ukrainian law after his presidential term expired in May.

▪️The Kiev regime's corruption has become so notorious that even the US mainstream press that used to tout Zelensky as a "new Churchill" is now bashing its cabinet for not doing enough to stop the embezzlement of foreign funds.

▪️Ortel does not rule out that the funds from the widely advertised CGI Ukraine Action Network may have met the same fate as other Western funds which weren't sufficiently supervised by any government or independent watchdogs.

▪️The Pew Research Center's July survey found that confidence in Zelensky has dropped in the US and several European countries compared to last year.

▪️Washington has been allegedly working on options to replace Zelensky with "a more manageable and less corrupt figure," as the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) revealed in mid-August.

Apparently, under those circumstances the Clintons may have decided that any further bromance with the Zelensky family wouldn't correspond to their interests, according to the analyst.

One should bear in mind that the Clintons themselves appear "to specialize in monetizing their public service for illegal private gain," says Ortel, who has carried out a private investigation into the Clinton Foundation's alleged fraud for several years.

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Clintons and Harris likely to turn page on Ukraine and shift to "more lucrative war" – Wall Street analyst

"The Clinton Foundation in various guises has operated in Ukraine since 2004 and powerful citizens there have donated sizable sums, ostensibly, towards purported arms of this 'public charity'," Wall Street analyst Charles Ortel tells Sputnik, commenting on the noticeable absence of Ukraine issues on the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) agenda this year.

Last year Ortel suggested that the Clintons' reinvigorated interest in Ukraine stemmed from their apparent desire to cash in on "a mammoth rebuilding package" once the hostilities ended.

However, this year has seen Russia economically thrive and military advances in Ukraine. It has become clear that the conflict is unlikely to end on Washington's terms.

Furthermore, the damage is huge and the Ukraine project might not offer immediate financial gains for investors, according to the analyst.

"Too much of Ukraine’s population has fled and likely never will return. Damage, to date, has been devastating. From the Western perspective, an investment case for rebuilding necessary infrastructure is not possible to make, other than by lying about important assumptions," Ortel says.

Apparently, those circumstances prompted the Clintons to shift their focus to health, Africa and racial equity in order to solicit new funds.

Likewise, if presidential candidate Kamala Harris manages to win in 2024, she and her team are likely to eventually turn their back on Ukraine too, the pundit believes.

"Judging from what happened in Iraq and Afghanistan, I think a Harris Administration will just turn the page and shift focus to some other, more lucrative war and try to blame the mess in Ukraine on Trump," Ortel concludes.

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❗️ Ukrainian warehouses with Western military equipment along with several mercenaries were hit in an overnight strike on the Ukrainian city of Izmail

Port infrastructure facilities, including warehouses with Western military equipment, were damaged in an overnight strike on the Ukrainian city of Izmail, coordinator of Nikolayev’s pro-Russian underground Sergey Lebedev told Sputnik.

Between 12 and 15 casualties among Ukrainian servicemen and mercenaries were evacuated after the strike, he stated.

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China, Brazil, and other countries of the Global South intend to establish an open “Friends of Peace” platform for resolving the Ukraine crisis, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said at a meeting with Brazilian presidential advisor Celso Amorim on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session.

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'No arms supplies to Ukraine if it blew up Nord Stream' - German politician

The leader of the German party Reason and Justice (BSW), Sarah Wagenknecht, on her YouTube channel called for raising the question of reparations if the investigation confirms that Ukraine was behind the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines.

“If Ukraine is responsible for a terrorist attack against the German energy supply, then arms deliveries will have to stop immediately and the question of reparations must be raised,” she emphasized.

Germany "does not need enemies with such friends," the politician noted.

On Wednesday, German media reported that the operation to blow up the Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines cost about $300,000 and was funded by private sources. Moreover, several people, mostly civilians, took part in the operation organized by a former agent of the Ukrainian security services, Roman Chervynsky, according to the reports.

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Russian hacker group RaHDit doxxes Ukraine militants who attacked Russia’s Kursk border region

The Russia-based RaHDit hacker group has leaked data on over 800 Ukrainian Armed Forces militants who attacked the Kursk region. Among the identified individuals are members of the 82nd Airborne Assault Brigade, the 61st Mechanized Brigade, and UAV operators, as well as some 200 foreign mercenaries from Armenia, Israel, Georgia, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Turkiye, Moldova, Syria, and other countries.

The hacker group RaHDit, which specifically launched its NemeZida project to denounce 21st century Nazis and their crimes, issued an appeal to Ukrainian troops to surrender, adding a reminder to use the special "Volga" radio frequency established by Russian forces for Ukrainian soldiers wanting to surrender.

The Russia-based hackers have previously doxxed everything from Ukrainian intel agents and drone operators to thousands of foreign mercenaries fighting in the ranks of Ukraine’s military.

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❗️ Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) has opened criminal cases on illegal border crossing against correspondents from Australia’s ABC broadcaster Fletcher Young and Catherine Diss, as well as Romanian journalist Mirceu Parbu.

All three entered the Kursk region, which is under attack by Ukraine. A total of 12 foreign journalists have been prosecuted for similar crimes since August 17.

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Trump agrees to face-to-face meeting with Zelensky at Trump Tower

Donald Trump has agreed to meet with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday. "As you know, President Zelensky has asked to meet with me and I will be meeting with him tomorrow around 9:45 in Trump Tower," Trump told reporters in New York on September 26. “We'll see what happens, but I believe I can work that out," Trump added.

Ahead of the announcement, the Republican presidential candidate posted a letter on his Truth Social account purportedly from Zelensky in which he asked for a face-to-face meeting.

Zelensky, who arrived in the US to present his "victory plan" to President Joe Biden, has not done himself any favors with earlier statements regarding Trump and his running mate. The leader of the Western-sponsored Kiev regime told The New Yorker that his "feeling" is that Trump “doesn’t really know how to stop the [Ukraine] war, even if he might think he knows how," and that vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance is "too radical."

At a campaign event in North Carolina, Trump lambasted Zelensky for "making little nasty aspersions" toward him.

The presidential hopeful, critical of the US aid funneled to Ukraine, has also called Zelensky a “salesman” who “refuses to make a deal."

While haggling over more Western aid, Zelensky ruffled GOP feathers even more by dropping in at the Scranton Army Ammunition Plant in Pennsylvania, a key swing state, accompanied “exclusively by Democrats.”

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⚡️ Russian hacker group doxxes Ukraine militants who attacked Russia’s Kursk region

⚡️ ‘No more arms to Ukraine if it blew up the Nord Stream pipelines’, German politician says

⚡️ ‘Asked to meet with me’: Trump confirms he’ll meet Zelensky in Trump Tower

⚡️ What are white phosphorus munitions the US is reluctant to supply to Ukraine?

⚡️ IDF says it intercepted a surface-to-surface missile launched from Yemen

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