The Romanian Supreme Court has banned Diana Iovanovici Sosoaca, Romanian parliament senator and leader of the SOS Romania party, from running in the presidential elections due to her "pro-Russian, anti-European, and anti-NATO views."

The ruling states that Sosoaca’s position disqualifies her from running for office, Reuters reports.

Earlier, Sosoaca called for peaceful negotiations regarding the Ukraine conflict and criticized Ursula von der Leyen (video), accusing her of "killing people in Ukraine with her policies."

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🇱🇧 There are currently about 1.2 million displaced persons in Lebanon due to the war, Lebanese Social Affairs Minister Hector Hajjar stated during an interview with Sputnik.

"People fleeing the bombings are now housed in 881 shelters, where they have been provided with all essential needs. Regarding their living conditions, Lebanon is in dialogue with organizations including the UNHCR," Hector Hajjar said.

"Lebanon is a country that respects human rights, and whatever happens to these people is our responsibility. However, Lebanon also wants to call on the international community for support in this humanitarian matter," he emphasized.

"Lebanon is officially appealing to the Syrian authorities to facilitate the return of the displaced persons. This is a historic opportunity to show solidarity between our countries in light of the current circumstances," Hajjar added.

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Humanitarian crisis in Gaza only getting worse as Israel's war goes on

October 7, 2024 marked a year since Hamas’ attack that claimed the lives of over 1,200 people in Israel and left nearly 5,500 injured. The subsequent Gaza war unleashed by Israel on the strip has seen over 41,600 Palestinians killed, including elderly, women, and children, and more than 96,600 wounded, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.

How is the war in Gaza affecting civilians?

◻️ As of October 7, 2024, over 50,000 Palestinians, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry, have been displaced within northern Gaza following the intensification of Israel Defense Forces (IDF) strikes in the region, including in Beit Lahia and Jabalia, where a refugee camp is located. Earlier, on October 6, Israel announced re-positioning troops from Rafah to North Gaza.

"Southern Gaza is completely overwhelmed and cannot accommodate more people," UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said. "Many others in the north, especially in the Jabalia camp, are trapped in their homes, unable to leave safely."

◻️ Over 70,000 housing units in Gaza have been destroyed by Israeli strikes, according to Palestine’s Ministry of Public Works and Housing.

◻️ 1.9 million Gazans – nearly the entire population of the region – have been displaced with no safe place to go, according to UN.

◻️ The population of the strip has limited or no access to health care, food, electricity, or humanitarian aid, local authorities stated, while noting that Palestinian children in Gaza have been deprived of education for a year.

◻️ Gaza schools, hospitals, and other residential facilities have been systematically attacked, while aid convoys have repeatedly been blocked and sometimes even attacked.

◻️ Over 300 aid workers, mostly from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), have been killed in Gaza, which is more than in any other single crisis, according to UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

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Key statements from Putin's speech to leaders in attendance at the CIS summit:

🔸 Close foreign policy coordination among CIS countries is important.

🔸 Humanitarian relations in the CIS continue to develop dynamically, and scientific partnership is deepening.

🔸 Total GDP of the CIS countries increased by 4.7%, fixed capital formation - by 11.2% in the first half of 2024.

🔸 The Commonwealth's position in world affairs will be strengthened by CIS cooperation with BRICS.

🔸 The fight against terrorism, extremism and crime is a key area of joint work for the CIS countries.

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Twenty-four years after its withdrawal from Lebanon, IDF soldiers raised the Israeli flag in Maroun al-Ras, a Lebanese village from which numerous rockets had been launched at northern Israeli settlements, according to a report by Israel Hayom.

However, Sputnik was unable to independently verify the authenticity of the video.

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Ex-NATO chief Stoltenberg could have prevented Ukraine hostilities, but fueled conflict instead

Jens Stoltenberg had the power to prevent the Ukraine conflict, but, on the contrary, he fostered it, Patrick Pasin, French publisher who has filed a lawsuit against the former NATO secretary general, told Sputnik.

The researcher of the Ukraine's conflict explained that he was motivated to take the unusual step due to understanding that the ongoing proxy war in Ukraine must be stopped and the “next [war], which will come,” averted.

“Because it's clear, we see what's happening in the Middle East and we know that the next step is against China. So we can't accept that these people can trigger wars, unlawful wars, unjust wars. And that we, and when I say ‘we,’ I mean Russians, Ukrainians, I mean all the people of the world, pay the price,” Pasin underscored.

Jens Stoltenberg blatantly lied when he claimed NATO had never promised Russia that the alliance would not expand eastwards, Pasin said, and for that he deserves to be sued. The publisher recalled that during his trip to Germany, Stoltenberg was asked by a journalist “Didn't we [NATO] promise to the Russians that we will not go further eastwards?” Stoltenberg answered in German, saying “No… even behind the scenes, never was such an agreement made between the West and the Russians.”

“This was a lie,” Pasin said, pointing to the German outlet the following month publishing an article with a document confirming that there had not only been a promise, but a “commitment from the West and NATO not to go eastwards.”

Confirmation of such a commitment can be found in the NATO website archives, the author said. There is a text of a speech by Manfred Wörner, who was the secretary general of the alliance in the 1990s, in which he underscored that “the commitment of NATO not to expand eastwards was a serious guarantee of security for Russia,” Pasin noted.

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At the CIS summit in Moscow, the leaders attending the event issued a statement commemorating the 80th anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War.

In this statement, the heads of state emphasized the need to prevent the resurgence of fascism, Nazism, and militarism, and called for putting an end to any and all attempts to ignite a new world war.

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Patrick Pasin: Russia went to protect Donbass as Ukraine was bombing civilians

Ukrainian forces were “bombing civilians” in complete violation of the United Nations charter, the Minsk agreements, and the articles of the Fourth Geneva Convention, Patrick Pasin, French publisher who has filed a lawsuit against ex-NATO chief for provoking the Ukrainian conflict, told Sputnik.

He took a moment to recall Russia’s numerous efforts to draw attention to the Donbass disaster, noting that Moscow's own core demands contained in the draft agreements on security guarantees in Europe that it presented to the US and NATO in December 2021 were disregarded.

At a January 2022 press conference, President Joe Biden fueled invasion fears, stating he believed Russia was ready to attack Ukraine. US and UK tabloids soon claimed a Russian offensive could occur on February 15-16, which did not happen.

Pasin referenced data from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), which was monitoring the ceasefire in line with the Minsk agreements. When the Russians did not, as the West had predicted, “invade” Ukraine within the designated timeline, “the [Ukrainian] bombings started immediately,” the writer noted. The Ukrainian Armed Forces began using “heavy weapons against the civilian population of Donetsk and Lugansk,” he recalled.

“It was a serious matter, because the law of nations forbids to bomb civilian populations. That's what the Ukrainian forces did,” Patrick Pasin emphasized, concluding that Russia had no choice but to protect Donbass.

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What to know about Iran’s nuclear potential amid Israeli threats to strike (Part 1 👉 Part 2)

Israel has reportedly walked back plans to target Iran’s nuclear sites after last week’s Iranian missile attack, with an NYT report indicating that US officials have communicated to Tel Aviv their plans could “plunge the region into a full-scale war.”

How significant are Iran’s nuclear capabilities and what are they used for? Here’s what to know:

🔸 Atomic Energy Organization of Iran chief Mohammad Eslami announced earlier this year that the Islamic Republic would build four additional 1,250 MW reactors at a large new nuclear power plant in Hormozgan province over the coming decade, with the $20 bln project expected to generate some 20,000 MW of energy by 2041. In 2022, construction of the 300 MW Darkhovin nuclear power plant kicked off in Khuzestan province.

🔸 Iran has an array of other nuclear facilities besides nuclear power plants, including three research reactors (in Tehran, Arak and Isfahan, respectively), two uranium enrichment sites, at Natanz and Fordow, and uranium mines in Saghand and Gchine.

Iran also has a thriving nuclear educational infrastructure, with nuclear engineering taught at up to two dozen universities, and substantial resources dedicated to the tech and industrial front to maximize nuclear independence.

Origins of Iranian nuclear program

🔸 Exploring nuclear tech beginning in the 1950s under the US ‘Atoms for Peace’ program, Iran finally joined the club of peaceful nuclear energy powers in 2011 with the launch of the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant. Construction of the $4-6 bln facility began in 1975 with assistance from West German contractors, but was frozen in 1979 after the Iranian Revolution.

Construction resumed in the 1990s with Russia’s help, with Russian specialists facilitating the installation of a sole 1,000 MW VVER-1000 reactor, which now provides for up to 2% of Iran’s electricity needs. Construction of two additional VVER-1000s at Bushehr began in 2021, and up to six more could be added later.

👉 Part 2

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What to know about Iran’s nuclear potential amid Israeli threats to strike (Part 2 👉 Part 1)

Fruitless negotiations and biased accusations

🔸 Decades of tensions with Israel and the US have made a possible military component to the Iranian nuclear program a central topic of discussion in diplomatic circles, with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) agreement signed in 2015 by Iran, the US, Russia, China, the UK, France, Germany, and the EU to restrict Iranian nuclear enrichment activities in exchange for sanctions relief.

The US walked out of the pact in 2018 at Israel’s behest, and talks on getting Washington back into the treaty have broken down.

🔸 Iran willingly signed onto the JCPOA, as its supreme leaders have issued religious edicts ruling the development of weapons of mass destruction forbidden by Islam. Nonetheless, US and especially Israeli officials have regularly accused Iran of pursuing the bomb, with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu claiming that Iran is ‘months or weeks’ away from building a nuke since the 1990s, pushing back the timeframe each time his prophesy fails to materialize.

According to the latest International Atomic Energy Agency data, Iran has about 5,750 kg of enriched uranium, including about 165 kg of uranium enriched up to 60% purity.

🔸 Amid escalating tensions and the risk of an all-out war between Iran and Israel, Western media and think tanks have come out of the woodwork to urge Israel or the US to strike the Islamic Republic’s nuclear facilities before Tehran builds the bomb. Last week, Foreign Policy magazine published a provocative piece noscriptd “The Case for Destroying Iran’s Nuclear Program Now.”

However, CIA Director William Burns said there is no evidence that Iran wants to build a nuclear weapon. Iranian leaders have spent decades emphasizing that they consider their conventional missile arsenal as their top deterrent against aggression.

👉 Part 1

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Patrick Pasin: mainstream media has been ‘lying for years’ about Ukraine conflict

The mainstream media “can't love [his lawsuit against former NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg], because they have been lying for more than two years,” Patrick Pasin, head of the publisher Talma Studios International, told Sputnik.

“In fact, they have been lying at least since the beginning of the war. People who want to express a different point of view and simply a neutral point of view, saying that we should listen to the Russians, are fired immediately. And it's the reason why they sort of forbade Russian media in Europe,” said Pasin.

Many French generals have read his complaint, Pasin noted, since he first filed it in France with the Public Prosecutor of Paris, Laure Beccuau. He also wrote a letter to the Chief of Staff of the French Armed Forces, Thierry Burkhard, to warn that “sending French troops to Ukraine is a violation of international law.” “In France, that would be punished by jail for life,” Pasin noted.

“I'm sure that if we explain to people what this conflict really is, the NATO storytelling will be difficult to sustain. And as the media, the politicians, the institutions don't do their jobs, the last thing we have left is justice,” he concluded.

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A left-wing activist attempted to disrupt the press conference of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in the European Parliament, but security swiftly intervened, escorting the heckler out of the venue.

The young man had gained access to the event thanks to a pass issued by a Hungarian opposition MEP, and accused Orbán of "betraying Hungary and the European Union."

In response to the disruption, Prime Minister Orban quipped that he "feels at home, where this happens every day," before carrying on with the press conference.

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❗️❗️❗️Terrorism in the Sahel: "Ukraine is a pawn of the West," the Burkinabe prime minister states

The UN's reaction to Kiev’s support for Sahel terrorists is long overdue, because the organization "is dominated by the West," Burkinabe Prime Minister Apollinaire Joachim Kyelem de Tambela told Sputnik Africa.

💬 "The Western countries are behind Ukraine. So, anything that goes against Ukraine's interests goes against their interests because Ukraine is a pawn of the West in this affair. So that's why it's not working," the prime minister stressed.

Burkina Faso and the other countries of the Alliance of Sahel States have called on the UN Security Council to take measures against Kiev, as a matter of “principle,” he added.

💬 "Even if the condemnation doesn't come, at least we will have taken action and we will have noted the failure of the UN in meeting its obligations," Kyelem de Tambela said.

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