📄To the case: Partnership Agreement between Russia and North Korea

Russian President Vladimir Putin submitted to the State Duma, the lower house of the parliament, a bill to ratify the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Agreement between Russia and North Korea the day before.

The details of the document were shared with Sputnik by the Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrey Rudenko:

💬 Russia-N.Korea strategic partnership treaty envisages provision of mutual military assistance in event of aggression.

"There is a fourth article there, which deals specifically with issues of mutual assistance in the event of aggression, that the parties, in the event of aggression against one of the parties, will provide each other with any necessary assistance, including military. If an act of aggression is committed against North Korea, then all necessary measures will be taken in accordance with the legislation of North Korea," Rudenko told reporters.

💬 The Russia-North Korea agreement is a warning for those countries planning to solve regional problems using military means, the treaty is not directed against South Korea or third countries.

💬 South Korea's actions undermine stability on peninsula, lead to escalation, it is time to stop.

"We believe that what South Korea has recently undertaken is provocative actions that seriously undermine stability on the peninsula and lead to an escalation of tension. What will happen later, among other things, is, of course, already a very dangerous development. We think it is time to stop with this," Rudenko told reporters.

Earlier in the day, Russian lawmaker Leonid Slutsky said that Russia's State Duma may consider the draft bill in the first half of November.

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The US is demanding that Ukraine begin mobilizing people from the age of 18, arguing that 19-year-olds were drafted for the Vietnam War, according to Volodymyr Zelensky's advisor Serhiy Leshchenko.

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Druzhba: Oil mega-pipeline that fed Eastern Europe’s economic boom despite US sanctions and sabotage

October 15 marks the 60th anniversary of the Druzhba (‘Friendship’) oil pipeline built to replace costly rail-based oil deliveries and to forge economic links between the USSR and the Eastern Europe.

Druzhba (including extensions to deliver oil to southern Germany and Austria) holds the record as the longest oil pipeline network in the world, consisting of a whopping 8,900 km of pipe, 84 pumping stations, and reservoirs up to 1.5 million cubic meters of oil.

One of the most technically-sophisticated engineering projects, Druzhba has an estimated capacity to pump up to 2 million barrels per day, or nearly a fifth of Russia’s total oil output. Until recently, it accounted for up to half of all Russian oil exports.

How did Druzhba help Europe?

🔸 Druzhba became a key source of fuel for Europe’s economic prosperity, helping Germany in its effort to build on its status as an industrial powerhouse.

🔸 Hungary’s material national income rose by 62%, East Germany’s by 59%, Poland’s by 73%, Czechoslovakia’s by 57%, and capital construction in these countries grew 1.9, 1.7, 2.2, and 1.8 times, respectively.

Hurdle to friendship

🔸 Members of the Soviet-led economic alliance including Hungary, Poland and Czechoslovakia helped build the project. From the very beginning, the US imposed sanctions after the Cuban Missile Crisis, restricting Western sales of large-diameter pipes to the Eastern Bloc.

🔸 In 2024, the EU banned Russian oil through the pipeline’s northern route, and Ukraine raised transit fees by over 75%, blocking supplies to Hungary and Slovakia.

🔸 While Russia shifted to new energy partners like India and China, Europe is stuck with costlier, less reliable US energy, threatening its economic growth and industrial competitiveness.

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Unique Russia-North Korea partnership pact will cool Pentagon hotheads, stabilize East Asia

“While this agreement is called a ‘Treaty on Comprehensive Strategic Partnership’, the clause providing for mutual military assistance between Russia and the DPRK in essence makes it a treaty of military-political alliance,” Artyom Lukin, professor of international politics at Russia’s Far Eastern Federal University, told Sputnik, commenting on President Putin’s submission of the new agreement to Russia’s parliament for ratification.

The strategic partnership pact is “unique,” according to Lukin, with North Korea becoming the first country outside the former Soviet space with which Russia has forged such an agreement (up till now, only Belarus and other members of the Collective Security Treaty Organization enjoyed similar guarantees).

Among the 23 articles in the pact, signed by Putin and Kim Jong Un, is a section stipulating that “if one of the parties finds itself at war due to an armed attack by one or more country, the other party will immediately provide it with military assistance by all means at its disposal.”

The pact will benefit both countries, and serve to reduce risks of a war in the Korean Peninsula, where increasingly provocative rhetoric and actions by Seoul, combined with efforts to strengthen South Korea’s defense ties with the US and Japan, threaten to unleash a new conflict, Lukin says.

“Of course, the members of this trio can say that they will unite their ranks even more closely against this new ‘Russian-North Korean threat’. But this is hypocrisy, since they would have strengthened their military capabilities and integrated in military-political terms even without this treaty,” Lukin summed up.

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📹Synchronized Bridging

Construction workers conducted a 90-degree turn of two spans weighing more than 14,000 tonnes to complete the Tongyun Bridge on the Liuzhi-Anlong Expressway in Guizhou Province, southern China.

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Russia’s liberation of Toretsk would mark final milestone in driving Ukraine’s forces from Donbass – expert

The potential liberation of the city of Toretsk (Dzerzhinsk) by Russian forces is crucial, as it is a strategic vantage point overlooking the entire Donetsk People's Republic, military analyst Viktor Litovkin told Sputnik.

Russian forces have liberated over two-thirds of Toretsk, regional head Denis Pushilin told Russian media on Tuesday. The full liberation of Toretsk will decline Ukrainian shelling attacks on Gorlovka, he added.

◻️ Toretsk, a major coal mining center, has spoil heaps up to 70 or 80 meters tall around its perimeter, noted the retired Russian Army colonel. The mounds are excellent vantage points for monitoring the area, both with drones and simple optical devices.

“These piles can be fitted with firing positions for artillery guns, snipers, machine gunners, and, in general, be used as strongholds for our assault troops,” Litovkin pointed out.

◻️ The city is an important hub for logistical and tactical support for the Kiev regime’s forces. Taking control of it would cut off the supply of ammunition and fuel, Litovkin stressed.

“If the supply is interrupted, then the front line will run out of ammunition, fuel for mechanized vehicles, tanks, armored personnel carriers,” he said.

“The army would be left without ammunition, immobilized, and begin to suffer one defeat after another,” Litovkin added. “Not to mention diminished morale among its ranks.”

The liberation of Toretsk would open the way to Snezhnoye and Kramatorsk, the pundit said. Kramatorsk is the last major city in Donetsk still being held by the Kiev regime’s forces. Its liberation would signal “the complete liberation of the Donetsk People's Republic,” Litovkin concluded.

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❗“Russian forces repelled a Ukrainian UAV attack on the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant's satellite town, Energodar, destroying two targets; no one was injured,” the plant's press service told Sputnik.

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Reports on Netanyahu’s plans for Iran meant to remind Americans they’re joined at the hip to Israel

Legacy media stories like the recent Washington Post report that Israel plans to strike Iranian military sites before the November election in the US are meant “to remind Americans that they cannot think and countenance thinking about separating American interests from those of Israel,” Dr. Isa Blumi, an associate professor at Stockholm University’s Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, told Sputnik.

“What this proposal of staging another confrontation with Iran just before the elections is designed to do is force the political parties, those who are running for president, those who are running for the Senate, for the Congress to all ‘stand in solidarity’ with Israel,” Dr. Blumi explained, pointing to the immense power the Israel lobby carries with the US political class.

A repledging of loyalty is especially important now, the professor said, given “the fact that the American population is largely conflicted” about the wars in Gaza and Lebanon, with “the images of civilians being murdered, people burnt alive, the bombing of Beirut all now very much complicating the storyline.”

In this light, fresh Israeli aggression against Iran and the inevitable Iranian response would “return American politics, the discourse around American politics into…a campaign to defend Israel from the easy ‘enemy of Western civilization’.” This will be especially true if US troops are put in harm’s way, with any potential escalation “retold” and branded “as ‘a war of self-defense’ for Israel vis-à-vis the Iranians and its allies,” the observer said.

Blumi expects Iran – whose political system is far more complex and nuanced than Western propaganda says, to do its best to avoid an escalation. “If, however, Israel and the Americans actually engage in economic warfare and try to destroy Iranian oil infrastructure, for instance, then we may see the war expand.”

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Iran could wipe out Israeli trade, Mediterranean gas projects if Tel Aviv proceeds with strikes – expert

“When we imagine a scenario where Israel hits oil fields and important institutions like parliamentary buildings, government buildings, sites where large industrial buildings are located, I think Iran’s target is going to be Haifa – a coastal area where Israel’s biggest trade routes are. Haifa’s coastal area is really close to the Leviathan natural gas reserve search area. I think that’s going to immensely impact the Israeli search for natural gas in the eastern Mediterranean Sea,” Furkan Halit Yolcu, security expert and researcher at Sakarya University’s Middle East Institute, told Sputnik.

“[Haifa] is really valuable for Israel because almost half of exports and imports are made through that coast. So paralyzing that part of Israel is going to hurt industry and production and the employment market – whatever you can imagine about Israel’s economy,” the observer stressed.

Yolcu’s comments follow reporting by the Washington Post citing anonymous officials indicating that PM Netanyahu has informed the White House that Israel plans to attack Iran before the November 5 elections in the US, and that the attack will target Iranian military, not oil or nuclear-related sites.

“Israeli strikes can have an immense impact on the US elections, depending on the locations that are hit,” Yolcu said, pointing out that an attack on Iranian oil fields may “create a shock in the oil supply,” affecting prices, markets and supply chains.

💬 “That’s increasing energy prices, which is going to help Russia, help China a bit, help Iran immensely. Hitting the oil fields and creating a supply [shortage] in the energy sector is going to help Iran in return. That’s one of the reasons why the United States is trying to avoid Israel hitting oil fields and energy industry institutions and sites,” the observer explained.

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◻️ Unique Russia-North Korea partnership pact will cool Pentagon hotheads, stabilize East Asia

◻️ Gazan boy appeals to Biden, White House to stop the war

◻️ Druzhba oil mega-pipeline marks 60th anniversary

◻️ How did child being treated for cancer survive in today's Lebanon?

◻️ Israeli army reportedly uses detained Palestinians as human shields

◻️ What's lie behind future Russia’s liberation of Toretsk

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America’s strike spike: what’s behind the spate of industrial action?

Beleaguered aerospace and defense giant Boeing is holding firm against workers’ demands for wage increases, better pensions and more input into product safety, with a strike by 33,000 unionized West Coast workers entering its second month, and the company hitting back with plans to slash 10% of its workforce as revenues plummet.

With living and housing costs rising, inflation continuing to eat away at savings, and the economy taking center stage in the run-up to the November 5 election, unionization drives and industrial action have returned to the American political scene in a big way, with major strikes threatening to paralyze entire sectors of the economy amid employers’ stubborn resistance to workers’ push for a bigger slice of the economic pie:

🔶 Earlier this month, a strike by 45,000 dockworkers up and down the US East and Gulf Coasts threatened to disrupt trade for the first time in nearly half a century over a contract covering about 25,000 workers seeking better salaries, pensions and health care.

The three-day strike was frozen shortly after starting as the International Longshoremen’s Association agreed to a January 15 deadline to reach a new contract.

🔶 On October 1, 200,000 workers with the American Postal Workers Union held a National Day of Action demanding safer working conditions, better pay, an end to a two-tier wage system, and an end to attempts by management to have fewer employees do more work.

The growing fortitude of the blue-collar workforce was likely inspired by examples from last year of what successful industrial action looks like, with workers in publishing, education, the United Auto Workers union and even Hollywood striking for better pay and conditions.

The UAW’s month-and-a-half long strike in particular proved that companies have the cash for wage and cost of living adjustments, overtime and retirement benefits, and even protections against plant closures.

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Harris refuses to get interviewed by Bloomberg about her economic policy - editor-in-chief

US Vice President Kamala Harris has so far refused to be interviewed by Bloomberg about her plans for the US economic policy should she be elected as president, Bloomberg editor-in-chief John Micklethwait said.

"The first is just for the record, and for those people watching on television, the Economic Club of Chicago and Bloomberg both invited Vice President Harris to a similar interview about her economic plans, she has declined so far," Micklethwait said ahead of his interview with US presidential candidate Donald Trump.

The Economic Club of Chicago is a nonpartisan organization aimed at encouraging dialogue among US political leaders, established in 1927.

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🥴 Scripted = discipline?

US Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris suggested her widely perceived inability to deliver impromptu speeches is in fact “called discipline” in an interview with radio host Charlamagne tha God.

“Now, you know, one thing they've been saying... a lot of your press hits get criticized, folks [say] that you come off as very noscripted. They say you like to stick to your talking points and some media says you have,” the host didn’t finish when Harris intervened asserting, “that would be called discipline.”

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Trump's victory in election could bring ‘biggest hope’ for peace in Ukraine – Szijjarto

A victory by former US President Donald Trump in the November election could bring the "biggest hope" for peace in Ukraine, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said in an interview with RIA Novosti.

"If President Trump wins, that can bring forward the biggest hope for peace ever," Szijjarto said.

Otherwise, there is no "person who could direct the whole international political arena towards a more peaceful position," the minister added.

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Harris cornered on Obama’s lecture to Black male voters

🗣 “President Obama was out there last week waving his finger at Black men. When are Liz Cheney and Hillary Clinton going to wave their finger at white women? When are Bill Clinton and Joe Biden going to wave their finger at white men?” asked radio host Charlamagne tha God in an interview with Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris.

🗣 “So the finger wagging should start today? Or tomorrow?” Charlamagne pressed, seemingly unimpressed with the vice president's response. Harris took the opportunity to boast about her endorsement by former Congresswoman Liz Cheney and other pro-war Republicans.

🗣 "I think what is happening is that we are all working on reminding people of what is at stake, and that is very important," the candidate intoned vaguely.

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