⚡️Georgian dream candidate Mikheil Kavelashvili received the required 200 votes to be elected President of Georgia, the Central Election Commission announced

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🇰🇷 Cheers and balloons: crowd hails South Korean parliament's decision to impeach President Yoon Suk Yeol

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❗️🇷🇺 Key statements by Russian President Vladimir Putin at the United Russia Party Congress:

▪️Putin thanked United Russia members for their great contribution to ensuring the security and sovereignty of the Russian Federation;

▪️The country's army, navy, defense industry and volunteers are working around the clock, bringing Russia's victory closer;

▪️Putin thanked everyone who contributes to protecting Russia's interests both at the front and in the rear;

▪️Russia will harshly suppress attempts to undermine the unity of the country, is ready to fight back "on the entire front";

▪️All the tasks facing Russia in the near and long term will be solved, Putin said. He noted that Russia is developing, the country's economy is growing against the backdrop of unprecedented sanctions, and blackmail and attempts to hinder Russia will never achieve anything;

▪️The confrontation with Russia's opponents now affects not only the fight at the front, but also all other areas, including culture;

▪️Russian authorities must check every step with the opinion of the people.

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💡Beast of a hydropower plant: All you need to know about China’s Three Gorges Dam

Construction of the Three Gorges Dam started on December 14, 1994, and culminated in 2012. Let’s take a look at what is considered the world’s largest hydropower plant (HPP).

Here are some key facts about it:

▪️It is located in central China’s Hubei province, spanning the Yangtze River and harnessing the flow of water from three nearby gorges: Qutangxia, Wuxia, and Xilingxia.

▪️The 65-ton gravity dam, with an installed capacity of 22,500 megawatts (MW) per hour, is about 594 feet (181 m) tall and 7,770 feet (2,335 m) long.

▪️The Three Gorges reservoir extends 370 miles (600 km) along the Yangtze River upstream from the dam. At full capacity, the reservoir covers over 417 square miles (1,080 square km).

▪️The risk of severe flooding has decreased from 10% to 1% per year since the dam began operating.

What makes it so powerful?

▪️The structure has become the heaviest on the planet: the dam weighs about 65.5 million tons.

▪️It is so massive that it is even capable of altering the Earth's spin, according to NASA.

▪️The HPP generates about 100 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity per year on average. For comparison, to produce such a huge amount of energy, a thermal power plant would need to burn 50 million tons of coal.

▪️Building the dam required 27.2 million cubic meters of concrete and more than 450,000 tons of steel. For comparison, the 828-meter Burj Khalifa used just one-eighth of the concrete and about seven and a half times less steel.

▪️The HPP currently provides energy to ten Chinese provinces and plays a crucial role in floodwater management.

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What is Somaliland, the region behind the Somalia-Ethiopia spat?

Somaliland is a breakaway region of Somalia that declared its independence in 1991, though it remains unrecognized by the international community. The recent conflict between Somalia and Ethiopia arose when the latter struck a deal with Somaliland in January to access its Red Sea coast, particularly the strategic port of Berbera in the Gulf of Aden.

▪️Ethiopia, a landlocked country, sought access to Somaliland's coast to boost its trade and economic growth.

▪️In exchange, Ethiopia allegedly offered to recognize Somaliland's independence, though Addis Ababa never publicly confirmed this.

▪️Somalia, which does not acknowledge Somaliland's independence, strongly opposed the deal, leading to a deterioration of relations.

▪️In April, Ethiopia's ambassador was expelled from Mogadishu, marking a significant diplomatic fallout.

▪️The historical context, including the bitter 1977 war over the Ogaden region and Somaliland's eventual breakaway following Somalia's civil war, further complicated the situation.

▪️The dispute was mediated by Turkiye, which has long cultivated ties with Somalia. Turkiye's strategic interests in the region, including its maritime security partnership with Somalia and its humanitarian aid efforts, made it a natural mediator.

▪️The Horn of Africa is rich in resources and strategically vital, making it important for Turkiye's broader geopolitical and economic ambitions.

The disagreement was reportedly resolved this week under Turkiye's mediation, with both nations agreeing to put aside differences and cooperate, with technical talks set for next year.

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Did Trump fulfill his 2016 campaign promises? A reality check

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov recently noted that while Donald Trump's statement on the Ukraine conflict aligns with Russia's position, it's too early to draw conclusions on how the US president-elect will approach the issue once in office. Why is there skepticism in Moscow about Trump’s statements? To understand this, let's look at some key promises he made during his previous election campaign and how - or if - they were fulfilled.

🔻Border wall

▪️Promise: To build a wall on the US-Mexico border to address migrant flows and force Mexico to reimburse the cost. / Outcome: Partly delivered. Under Trump’s administration, 453 miles of border barriers were built, but only 47 miles were in areas where no previous barriers existed.

🔻Economy

▪️Promise: To stimulate the US economy by 4% annually. / Outcome: Partly delivered. In 2018, GDP growth was 2.9%, below the target.

▪️Promise: To reduce national debt. / Outcome: Not delivered.

▪️Promise: To revitalize industry. / Outcome: Partly delivered. Congress allocated $21 billion for infrastructure spending, far below the $1.5 trillion Trump initially called for.

▪️Promise: To impose import tariffs. / Outcome: Delivered.

🔻Migration

▪️Promise: To deport all illegal migrants from the US. / Outcome: Partly delivered. Trump deported many, but didn't achieve the goal of removing all illegal migrants.

🔻Infrastructure

▪️Promise: To restore the US infrastructure. / Outcome: Not delivered.

🔻Hillary Clinton

▪️Promise: To imprison former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. / Outcome: Not delivered.

🔻Healthcare

▪️Promise: To reform the healthcare system and repeal Obamacare, the government health insurance program for low-income Americans. / Outcome: Not delivered.

🔻Foreign policy

▪️Promise: to degrade ISIS*, tighten sanctions on North Korea and recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. / Outcome: Delivered

*a terrorist group banned in Russia and many other countries

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How corruption and desire to hurt Russia crippled Ukraine’s energy infrastructure?

Ukraine’s energy infrastructure is in dire straits as Russia’s reprisals for Kiev’s attacks on its soil take their toll.

▪️Since the collapse of the USSR, Ukraine has not built a single power plant – all of its nuclear, hydro and thermal power plants were constructed during the Soviet era.

▪️Now, after months of fighting and a campaign of precision Russian strikes sparked by Kiev’s attacks on Russia’s territory, about 80 percent of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure lies in ruins.

▪️This dismal situation is further exacerbated by rampant corruption, which apparently hinders efforts to protect Ukrainian power facilities by, for example, moving them to reinforced underground shelters, The Times claims.

▪️Ukrainian officials have already lamented that, if Russian attacks against Ukraine’s power infrastructures continue, people in Ukraine may be looking at power outages lasting from 12 to 20 hours a day during this winter.

▪️The dreadful state of the Ukrainian power grid has also started taking its toll on the nuclear power plants the country still operates.

▪️Five of Ukraine’s nine operational nuclear reactors were forced to decrease their output on Friday at the behest of the Ukrainian power grid operator.

▪️These moves were performed as nuclear power plants require reliable connections to the power grid, not only to transmit energy they generate but also to receive electricity required for cooling.

▪️The lack of such connections would thus either prompt the necessity to shut down the plant or face the prospects of safety systems there failing with potentially catastrophic consequences.

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🇷🇸🇸🇰 Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said he had agreed with Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico to go to Moscow for the May 9 parade in honor of the 80th anniversary of victory in the 1941-1945 Great Patriotic War.

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📡 What is the new Russian Kalinka system that threatens to put Starlink in Ukraine out of commission?

Kalinka is a new Russian monitoring system developed by the Center for Unmanned Systems and Technologies (CBST), designed to detect and locate signals emitted by satellite communication stations such as Elon Musk’s famous Starlink.

The new system can help quickly detect and target Starlink terminals because the basic principles of radio signal transmission have not changed since the invention of radio, says Andrey Bezrukov, chairman of the CBST board.

According to Bezrukov, not even the use of Starshield, a militarized version of Starlink, by Ukrainian troops would hide their communication terminals from Kalinka’s gaze.

Kalinka’s detection range is primarily determined by the terrain in the search area and by the use of other electronic systems by the enemy.Regarding the time it would take to press Kalinka into mass production, Bezrukov says that it all depends on the demand from Russian forces operating in the conflict zone.

A large number of Starlink communication terminals has been provided to Ukraine’s military by the United States following the escalation of the conflict in February 2022.

Aside from coordinating their military operations, Ukrainian forces have been actively using Starlink to connect with aerial and naval drones that Kiev has been using for terrorist attacks on civilian infrastructure in Russia.

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