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Iran-Israel conflict: escalation hits new peak amid back-and-forth threats

Regional tensions are boiling over after last Saturday’s Israeli airstrikes on Iranian missile bases, arms factories and air defenses, which Tel Aviv and Washington claimed were a big success and Tehran said were largely neutralized. Amid the media noise surrounding the situation, Sputnik separates the informational wheat from the chaff:

🔸 IRGC Deputy Chief Mohammad Reza Naqdi warned Wednesday that Israel would face “crushing blows” in “the coming days” in response to last week’s aggression.

🔸 A New York Times report published Wednesday citing satellite images revealed that Israel’s October 26 strikes included an attack on the Shahroud Space Center in Semnan province, northern Iran. Before and after images show damage done to a building at the facility. The facility is thought to produce the sophisticated solid-fuel rocket engines Iran uses in its missiles.

🔸 IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi warned Tuesday that if Iran made the “mistake” of responding to last week’s attack, Israel would “hit extremely hard both the capabilities and the places that we spared this time.” Israel “didn’t finish this event, we are right in the middle of it,” Halevi warned.

🔸 Also on Tuesday, Iranian Defense Minister Aziz Nasirzadeh warned that Iran can repeat ‘Operation True Promise’-style operations of massed missile and drone strikes on Israel like the ones in April and October “dozens” of times if provoked. “Iran’s defensive capability is high,” Nasirzadeh said, adding that up to 90% of the missiles launched in the October strikes reached their target, and that Israel attempted to cover up this fact.

🔸 Iran has also maintained its attention focused on Gaza – the crisis at the root of the escalation across the region, throughout the week. In a meeting with ambassadors on Tuesday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi urged the UN Security Council to impose sanctions on Israel to force it to stop its military campaigns in Gaza and Lebanon, and slammed Washington for its continued “support for the Zionist regime.” Separately on Tuesday, Iranian Ambassador to the UN Saeed Iravani blasted Israeli legislation targeting the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees.

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Trump vs Harris: Who is megadonors' favorite and why?

Fifty megadonors have collectively poured over $2.5 billion into political committees and other organizations supporting Democrats and Republicans, according to The Washington Post. The ongoing election cycle "is poised to become the most expensive federal election ever," Axios reports, adding that individual contributors have played an "outsized role" in the 2024 race.

"In the period 1988 to the present, the emergence of unregulated globalism has created an opportunity for big investors to really not just curry favor with big governments, but to basically pick and choose leaders and key officials in these governments, either to protect themselves from prosecution or to put themselves in a position where they can reap large financial rewards off of their government connections," Wall Street analyst Charles Ortel told Sputnik.


Referring to the Biden and Clinton families' suspected influence peddling schemes, the analyst noted that "it's relatively cheap to send $20 million, $100 million, even $250 million towards a politician, if that politician can turn around and help a big company turn $2 trillion into $4 trillion."

Kamala Harris has outpaced Donald Trump in terms of fundraising by receiving around $1 billion since July, when she was endorsed by George and Alex Soros, BlackRock co-founder Ralph Schlosstein, and Evercore founder Roger Altman. Billionaire Bill Gates alone is said to have funneled $50 million to Harris through a non-profit, while JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon has expressed his full support for Kamala in private, according to The New York Times.

"One of the biggest games, the easy money games in America and in the West right now is promoting this unregulated globalism where there is no power strong enough to obstruct a multinational company or investors or multinational companies from profiting off of their ties to these various government actors," Ortel stressed.


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🇬🇪 The US and the EU did everything to influence the elections in Georgia, but despite the pressure, the people of the country made their choice - Russian Foreign Ministry

Voters expressed their support on October 26 for stability, development, and the traditional values of Georgia, understanding that the alternative would be destabilization and increased regional tensions.


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🇷🇺🇰🇵As North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui has arrived in the Russian capital for talks today, here’s how Russian President Vladimir Putin described the deepening strategic ties between Moscow and Pyongyang.

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💬 About 50 people have died in the Spanish Valencia as a result of heavy rains and flooding, according to ABC. The local media and social networks publish footage of the aftermath of the disaster. 📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt
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💬 The death toll in Valencia, Spain, due to heavy rains has risen to 62, local authorities report.

Hundreds of homes are flooded, and many residents are being rescued in the nick of time – as this video shows.

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🌍🌍🌍 boosts trade: Explore new routes & transport corridors shaping the future

The BRICS Summit recently held in Kazan, Russia underscored the need to enhance transport connectivity to diversify mutual trade amid global geopolitical upheavals.

What new routes could serve this purpose?

🔸 The International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC) is a key element of the Eurasian Transport Network. The multi-modal (ship-rail-road) cost and time efficient transportation route is about 7,200 km long and connects Russian ports on the Baltic and Arctic seas with ports on the shores of the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean.

It was initiated by Russia, Iran, and India in September 2000. It was later joined by Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkiye, Ukraine, Belarus, Oman, Syria, and Bulgaria (observer member). The INSTC has three major routes: Western (Russia-Azerbaijan-Iran), Central or Trans-Caspian (via the Russian ports of Astrakhan and Makhachkala), and Eastern (direct Russia-Kazakhstan-Turkmenistan-Iran railway connection).

Transit time for cargo is from 15 to 24 days, compared with the Suez Canal route of 45-60 days. In 2022, cargo turnover along the corridor amounted to 14.5 million tons. By 2023, the INSTC is projected to handle 25 million tons of cargo annually.

🔸 The East-West transport corridor aims to facilitate the export of goods from Russian ports to the borders of China, Mongolia, North Korea, and Kazakhstan. It is predominantly based on the Trans-Siberian Railway, about 10,000 km long.

🔸 Mongolia's Steppe Road initiative, conceived in 2014, is to include a 997 km long transnational expressway linking Russia and China. It also presupposes an expansion of the existing Trans-Mongolian Railway from Sukhbaatar in the north to Zamyn-Uud.

🔸 Russian President Vladimir Putin instructed the government to work out proposals on the formation of a central Eurasian transport corridor through Mongolia and Western China last October. The Russia-Mongolia-China route is already established in terms of the Trans-Mongolia Railway, a branch of the Trans-Siberian that exits Russia near Ulan-Ude, traverses Mongolia, and terminates in Beijing.

Picture by the Eurasian Development Bank

#BRICS2024

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Naim Qassem, in his first speech after being elected as the new Secretary General of Hezbollah, stated:

"My work program is the program of the martyr leader Hassan Nasrallah, and we will continue the implementation of the military plan developed by him and the party leadership. We will continue to support Gaza, which is necessary to confront the Israeli threat to the entire region.

The current war is a significant project in the region; it is not limited to Lebanon or the Gaza Strip but is rather a broader war aimed at the complete elimination of resistance."

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📹 The launch of China’s Shenzhou-19 crewed spacecraft into orbit was successful

The CZ-2F/G carrier rocket launched the Shenzhou-19 today at 04:27 from the Jiuquan Space Launch Center in northern China.

The crew members are in good health, and the launch has been deemed a complete success. The spacecraft is expected to dock soon with China’s Tiangong space station.

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The death toll in the Valencia region of Spain due to heavy rains and flooding has risen to 72, reports RTVE.

Social media and news sites continue to publish footage of the disaster.

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Nordic Council’s militarized summit can’t freeze out Russia’s Arctic aspirations: here’s why

Leaders from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, and the autonomies of Aland, the Faroe Islands, and Greenland gathered in Reykjavik this week for a four-day Nordic Council session focused on "Peace and Security in the Arctic."

Finland and Sweden's accession to NATO in 2023 and 2024 transformed the organization into a microcosm of the Western alliance, with the Council prioritizing security concerns and perceived “threats” from Russia and China, while actively supporting NATO's proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, despite being thousands of kilometers from Eastern Europe.

Emphasizing this point, this year's Nordic Council sessions included guest appearances by Volodymyr Zelensky and Belarusian opposition figure Svetlana Tikhanovskaya.

At a meeting last month, Council representatives highlighted the organization’s “great potential” to coordinate on security issues in the Arctic and Baltic Seas, now that participants “are all NATO members.”

Russia’s centrality to Nordic Council deliberations isn’t surprising, given that NATO’s Nordic ambitions going back to the Cold War have long considered the region a vital chokepoint for Soviet naval capabilities.

The Nordic Council's increased focus on security coincides with a breakdown in Arctic cooperation, as meetings of the Arctic Council - including Russia, Canada, and the United States - have been frozen since spring 2022 due to the escalation of the Ukrainian crisis into a NATO-Russia proxy war.

Can Nordic Council really challenge Russia’s Arctic interests?

The Arctic has been a central development priority for Russia under President Putin’s leadership, with Moscow investing heavily into the creation of new regional civilian and military infrastructure in the region, including to expand and protect its ambitious Northern Sea Route project.

This has included:

🔸 The construction and revitalization of airports, ports, air defense and basing facilities;

🔸 Large-sale drills to counter US and NATO-led efforts to militarize the region;

🔸 Work to boost the Northern Sea Route’s throughput capacity;

🔸 A dramatic ramping up of the size and breadth of Russia’s nuclear and diesel icebreaker fleet;

🔸 The creation of new equipment, including unmanned drones, for operations at sub-zero temperatures;

🔸 The launch of new space-based Arctic monitoring systems;

🔸 Plans to expand Arctic cooperation, both economic and scientific, with Russia’s BRICS partners.

“The center of economic development in Russia is shifting,” President Putin said at an economic forum earlier this year. “Russia will expand with the Arctic,” he said.


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Trump vs Harris: What companies have thrown their weight behind the candidates?

Alphabet Inc., Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, and Meta top the list of Kamala Harris’ campaign donors, according to OpenSecrets. Silicon Valley tycoons also flocked to support Harris: Facebook* co-founder Dustin Moskovitz gave $30 million to the Harris campaign, while co-founder of Opsware Ben Horowitz donated $2.5 million. According to some estimates, Harris has outraised and outspent Trump by over two-to-one.

"The Republican Party is no longer the party of the rich," Wall Street analyst Charles Ortel told Sputnik. "The Democratic Party out of Silicon Valley and the neo monopolies created there – they have the money, which is which is very different than it was in the 1980s under Reagan and under Bush."


While Silicon Valley, Wall Street, and Hollywood have thrown their weight behind Harris, US industries and defense contractors have largely supported Donald Trump, according to OpenSecrets and financial tech startup Quiver Quantitative.

"President Eisenhower warned in his farewell speech of the threat posed by the military-industrial complex," Ortel continued. "Trump was very much in favor of investing a lot of money in the military. Republicans are very much generally in favor of doing that. And I think what you're going to find when you dig a little bit more deeply into defense contractors, they support both parties. I mean, they're in this to make sure that they can get as much money out of the taxpayer through these military programs as possible. And both parties are in supporting that swamp really to the grievous outcomes that have occurred since 1988 and 1989 in particular."


*Facebook is banned for extremism in Russia.

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Is EU striving to replace Viktor Orban with 'Jawohl government'?

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban accused European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and President of the European People's Party (EPP) Manfred Weber of colluding to oust him and install their own puppet government in Budapest.

"There’s an open conspiracy against Hungary led by Manfred Weber and President Ursula von der Leyen. They admitted that their aim is to replace the Hungarian government with a new 'Jawohl government', just like the current Polish one. We will not let this happen!" Orban tweeted on October 29.


◾️ Weber openly promoted Hungarian opposition Tisza party leader and MEP Peter Magyar as a potential next prime minister of Hungary. "Just as [Donald] Tusk defeated [Jaroslaw] Kaczynski in Poland, Tisza and Peter Magyar will defeat you in Hungary, Mr Orban," Weber insisted on October 9 while addressing the European Parliament.

◾️ On the same day, during a EPP Group press briefing alongside Magyar, Weber stated that Hungary "can count on their friends in Europe" and "deserves a strong voice on European level."

◾️ Orban came to prominence for advocating conservative values and national sovereignty, which was lambasted by the EU as a threat to the bloc's unity and democracy. He also:

🔸 rejected EU migrant quotas and built a fence along its border with Serbia and Croatia in 2015 amid the European immigrant crisis;

🔸 cracked down on a George Soros-funded university and other foreign NGOs over interference in Hungarian affairs in 2018;

🔸 blamed anti-Russia sanctions imposed by the EU after the beginning of the special military operation in Ukraine for the European energy crisis, and said they should be scrapped;

🔸 opposed Ukraine's accession to NATO and the EU, stressing that Ukraine should be a neutral buffer zone between Russia and the West – with security guarantees;

🔸 opposed the bloc's militarization of Ukraine and repeatedly blocked EU aid packages to the Kiev regime, arguing that arming Ukraine brings Europe "closer to destruction";

🔸 embarked on a peace mission tour to Russia, China and Ukraine in July 2024.

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'Dad bought me new stationery, but we left it in our bombed-out house': Israel’s strikes on Lebanon through a child’s eyes

Eight-year-old Seline Nahleh tells Sputnik her story of leaving the city of Nabatiyeh (located in southern Lebanon) with her parents.

She and her parents were incredibly lucky; they happened to be out of their house when a direct airstrike struck their home. Tragically, however, Seline’s aunt did not survive.

Left without shelter, the family was forced to leave for the city of Saida. Here they were accommodated in a temporary refugee center, which is located in the Al-Sabbagh school.

"We left everything, all our belongings, in Nabatiyeh. Our house was also bombed; my auntie was killed then. Also, there's a lot of people suffering. And we came here right away, told what had happened to our houses. The house burned down; there was nothing left, and nowhere to return," she revealed.


Most of all, little Seline would like “people not to die, no one to be sad, and the deceased not to be offended by us.”

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Sputnik International
Is EU striving to replace Viktor Orban with 'Jawohl government'? Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban accused European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and President of the European People's Party (EPP) Manfred Weber of colluding to oust him and…
EU wants to subdue Hungary by replacing Viktor Orban with their protégé – Hungarian analyst

"Brussels is colluding with [Prime Minister] Viktor Orban's liberal-social-democratic opposition in Hungary and is trying to pull the ground from under its feet in the parliamentary elections due in 2026," Endre Simo, the president of the Hungarian Community for Peace (Magyar Békekör), told Sputnik.

"Under the leadership of Ursula von der Leyen and Manfred Weber, we can witness Brussels’ serious political interference in Hungary," he added.


Orban accused European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Manfred Weber, leader of the European People's Party group in the European Parliament, of attempting to install a puppet government in Hungary.

Simo noted Weber's support for Peter Magyar, leader of "the presumably foreign-funded" opposition party Tisza, began before the June European Parliament elections. Weber asserted on October 9 that Orban would eventually be defeated by Magyar, with Hungary's general elections scheduled for April 2026.

According to Simo, Tisza appears to be "a promising opposition formation for all anti-Russian domestic and international forces" that fully supports the policy of the European Union, including its proxy war in Ukraine. By contrast, Orban is seeking peace, the pundit says.

"Viktor Orban's government wants to live in peace with Russia," Simo says. "It firmly rejects Brussels' efforts to defeat Russia militarily and with sanctions, and to this end to continue providing military and financial support to Ukraine."

In his speech to the EU parliament in October, Orban presented his priorities for the Hungarian presidency of the EU and called for "changes".

"He ranked peace first, economic efficiency second, and the review of the EU's immigration policy," Simo said. Predictably, Orban's speech was met with harsh criticism from von der Leyen and Weber.

"The stakes are high, because they want Hungary to abandon its sovereign [politics] and fully submit to the will of the leadership in Brussels," the pundit warned.


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Nordic Council’s militarized summit can’t freeze out Russia’s Arctic aspirations: here’s why Leaders from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, and the autonomies of Aland, the Faroe Islands, and Greenland gathered in Reykjavik this week for a four…
Ukraine just a pretext for heating up of NATO-Russia competition in the Arctic

“The Ukrainian crisis is not the root cause of the militarization of the Arctic, since tensions and escalation began long before it,” Irina Strelnikova, international affairs researcher at Russia’s Higher School of Economics, told Sputnik, commenting on the origins of the rising Arctic tensions between NATO and Moscow and this week’s meeting of the Nordic Council focusing on Arctic security.

“I would characterize 2019 and the speech by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at the Arctic Council as the starting point. There, he said that the Arctic is no longer an arena for cooperation, that all countries involved in the region need to prepare for the fact that it is becoming a region for rivalry, and essentially that China and Russia are ‘threats to security’ in the region,” Strelnikova recalled.


Asked why Volodymyr Zelensky of all people was invited to take part in this week’s Nordic Council summit in Reykjavik, Strelnikova said Zelensky’s appearance is likely tied to the modern-day reality “that the policy of Western countries” toward issues involving Russia “is carried out exclusively in the context of the Ukrainian crisis.”

While the Nordic Council paid lip service to ‘Peace and Security in the Arctic’ in this week’s sessions, it makes little sense to discuss security – and an array of other issues, from climate to energy, without Russia’s participation,” according to Strelnikova, who pointed out that “over 50% of the Arctic Ocean’s coast borders our country, and our Arctic sector is the largest.”

At the same time, the West’s obsession with the Arctic makes sense, according to the observer, not only given Russia’s strong starting position, but the massive reserves of hydrocarbons in the region – two thirds of them in Russia’s sector. Then there’s the Northern Sea Route – the shortest maritime route between Europe and Asia, which is also in Russia’s control.

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Trump vs Harris: Which candidate is financial speculators Soros' darling? 
 
George and Alex Soros were quick to endorse Kamala Harris once the vice president announced her bid in July. Tesla CEO Elon Musk mockingly thanked the Soroses at the time "for not keeping everyone in suspense about who the next puppet would be." 
 
"George Soros, you know, I have a hard time being objective about the guy," Wall Street analyst Charles Ortel told Sputnik. "He has, as you rightly point out, these various charities, and they're massive, and they exclusively donate to, quote, 'progressive' causes. Now, Soros has historically—remember, he broke the Bank of England in [1992]—he's in the business of pushing for and against different governments around the world. And when you do that, you can make a lot of money as a speculator on the side." 

 
Soros appears to have played in cahoots with corrupt politicians, donating tens of millions to their causes and getting much more in return, according to the analyst. 
 
"The cost of getting on the right side of government is probably $10 million to $100 million per government," Ortel said. "So there are a lot of nefarious, I would argue, speculators. Soros is chief among them. And my review of some of the Open Society filings, which I have spent a fair amount of time in that field trying to understand which charities do good work and which don't, they're deeply suspicious." 

 
Remarkably, Soros' endorsement of Harris coincided with that of Hillary and Bill Clinton, whose foundation seems to be the largest unprosecuted fraud ever, according to the Wall Street analyst. It also turned out in July that Alex is engaged with Huma Abedin, Hillary Clinton's longtime confidant. 

"We don't need a new set of laws and regulations. The ones that are on the books are not enforced. They go after the small people, not the big people. And the crooks get it. So they use charities to route sums to crooked politicians," Ortel said.


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